Download Chapter 18 - The French Revolution

Chapter 18 - The French Revolution
We saw in the last chapter that Enlightenment thinkers generally favored neither Montesquieu’s idea of
a revived and reformed aristocracy nor Rousseau’s ideas of democracy; rather they looked to existing
monarchies – enlightened monarchies, of course. Like the North American colonists of the 1760s and
1770s, French revolutionaries drew inspiration from Enlightenment political thought and opposed
monarchy; BUT the French Revolution would be very different than the American Revolution or the
British Glorious Revolution.
The Americans had sought to win political freedom from a mother country across the ocean, and after
they had won their freedom, they still retained British law (i.e., The Glorious Revolution) and much of
their British social and cultural heritage. The French Revolution, on the other hand, repudiated (rejected)
the existing social order, called the ancien regime, and sought to replace it with new political, social
and cultural structures. And the price in human blood and suffering would make the Glorious and
American Revolutions seem like squabbles (minor fights or quarrels) among gentlemen.
In 1789, France was rich country, but the French government was heavily in debt, mostly from
previous monarchs, especially the wars of Louis XIV and pleasures of Louis XV. The wasteful
expenses incurred by these monarchs and the money spent to help the Americans caused years of
deficit spending (i.e., when a government spends more than it takes in) and brought France close to
bankruptcy. Ironically, the French debt was not overly large or disproportionate to the debts of other
European states. The problem lay in the inability of the French government to tap the nation’s wealth to
repay the debt and to convince the French aristocracy to take part of the burden on themselves.
In the twenty-five years following the Seven Year’s War, a standoff took place between the monarchy
and the aristocracy as one royal minister after another attempted to tax the nobility only to be met by
determined opposition from the French regional courts or Parlements which were determined to reject
any such royal measures before any new taxes could become law.
In 1770, Louis XV appointed as his finance minister René Maupeou (1714-1792) who abolished the
Parlements, exiled their members to different parts of France, taxed the aristocrats and made the
government more efficient. But these efforts collapsed when Louis XV suddenly died in 1774 and his
well-meaning but weak and vacillating (indecisive) grandson and successor, Louis XVI (r. 1774-1793),
dismissed Maupeou and attempted to regain the favor of the aristocrats by restoring to the Parlements
their old prerogatives (powers).
One reason that Louis took the action he did was that the Parlements (which represented the aristocrats)
were popular with the wealthy professional and business classes (the Bourgeoisie) because they had
similar goals for governmental reform; goals that would create economic growth – for them first of all.
Both the aristocrats and the Bourgeoisie saw monarchial absolutism as cumbersome and inefficient.
Both saw the monarch as despotic. Both drew these ideas from Enlightenment thinkers such as
Montesquieu (remember, his Spirit of the Laws praised the British Constitution) and the Phisiocrats who
objected to Mercantilism and felt that government’s chief aim should be to protect property.
Louis XVI was not only weak but also hampered by the fact that the monarchy had lost most of its
moral authority, especially from the debaucheries (extreme indulgence in sensuality) of Louis XV and the
losses suffered in the French and Indian War. Moreover his wife, Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), the
daughter of Maria Theresa, was accused of sexual immorality and personal extravagance. Louis and his
family complicated matters by living grandly at Versailles and rarely left to mix with the people. And
the sad fact was that Louis’ own upright morality could not overcome these barriers. Louis seemed like
a vague and vacillating shadow of a king in comparison to the vigorous, enlightened monarchs
Frederick the Great or Joseph II – or even the constitutional monarch, George III of Great Britain.
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Necker’s Report
Matters came to a head after the conclusion of the American War for Independence when Louis XVI
appointed a brilliant financial minister, Jacques Necker, a Swiss banker, to make reforms and increase
income. Necker produced a public report in 1781 which implied that the financial situation was not as
bad as was thought. He argued that if the monies spent on the American war effort were not factored in,
then the budget was actually in the black (i.e., had a surplus). Necker’s report also revealed that a large
portion of the government’s expenses were pensions given to aristocrats and favorites of the royal
court. Court aristocrats were infuriated and Necker soon left office but his misleading report still made
it difficult for government officials to fully understand that there was a “real” need to raise taxes.
Calonne’s Reform Plan and Assembly of Notables
The government stumbled along until 1786, when Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802) became
Minister of Finance and proposed a series of reforms: to encourage internal trade, to lower some taxes
(like the Gabelle or salt tax) and to change the Corvée (where peasants were required to work on
construction projects with no payment) into money (or cash) payments. He also wanted to reduce the
government regulation of the grain trade but most importantly, Calonne wanted a new land tax which
would make all landowners pay - whatever their social status. If this tax had been enacted, the
government could have abandoned indirect taxes (like the Corvée) and become less dependent on new
taxes that needed approval by the parlements, which were controlled by the aristocrats. Calonne also
wanted to create local assemblies made up of landowners represented not by their status but by how
much land they owned. Lastly, Calonne wanted more control over Church property. It must be
understood that all these policies were resented and resisted by the upper clergy and the aristocrats.
As France neared financial collapse, Calonne realized he needed public support. So in February 1787,
he met with an Assembly of Notables - selected by the king and dominated by upper clergy and
aristocrats. When they refused to agree - even a little bit, they called for Calonne’s ouster (expulsion)
and the reappointment of Necker. They claimed that only the Estates General (which was medieval in
origin and represented France’s three estates –clergy, aristocracy and commoners) could solve the problem.
It is important to understand that the conservative aristocracy and upper clergy did not want to
understand France’s economic realities and were mostly interested in expanding their own power
bases at the expense of the king and the good of the country.
Louis XVI, who was well meaning but was utterly lacking in political resolution and skill, gave in to
the aristocrats. Louis drove Calonne into exile and replaced him with Étienne Loménie de Brienne
(1727-1794), the archbishop of Toulouse and a bitter foe of Calonne. But once in office, Brienne
discovered to his horror that the financial situation of France was as bad as Calonne had said and
immediately sought a similar passage of a tax on land. The Parlement of Paris claimed it could not
authorize any such land tax and like the Assembly of Notables called for the Estates General to
be assembled. Brienne then appealed to the clergy and asked the church to help pay the debt but the
upper clergy (the aristocratic ones) outright refused. So in July 1788, Louis was forced to summon the
Estates General. Brienne resigned and Necker was reappointed finance minister. The stage was now set
for the French Revolution of 1789.
The Creation of the National Assembly
The Estates General was an assembly that represented the entire French population through groups
known as estates. The First Estate consisted of about 100,000 Roman Catholic clergy; the Second
Estate consisted of about 400,000 aristocrats; and the Third Estate the rest of the population of about
24 million people.
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The First Estate was dominated by the upper clergy; the Third Estate was extremely diverse with its
most important members being the Bourgeoisie or upper middle class professionals such as bankers,
merchants, doctors and lawyers, while the vast majority consisted of peasants, who were impoverished,
bound to the land, and still owing the aristocracy medieval fees and services. The poorest members,
however, were not the peasants but were the city workers who worked in industries such as printing,
cloth-making and baking or even more menial jobs such as servants, construction workers or street
sellers. And most members of the Third Estate that came to the Estates General were the capitalist
oriented Bourgeoisie who were determined to make changes.
Every party had an agenda. The king wanted new taxes; many nobility wanted a type of Glorious
Revolution which would limit the king’s power; the Bourgeoisie wanted more representation in
government. A member of the Third Estate, Abbé Siéyès (Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748 –1836), a priest
and one of the chief political thinkers of the French Revolution, wrote a pamphlet: What is the Third
Estate? It quickly became the manifesto of the Revolution: What is the Third Estate? Everything!
What has it been in the political order up till the present? Nothing! What does it ask? To become
something! But before the Estates General even met, the Second Estate tried to limit the power of the
Third Estate. It was a blunder because they embarrassed themselves by calling into question the
sincerity of their previously declared concern over liberty and it caused members of the Third Estate to
come to the Estates General with deep distrust for both the nobility and the king.
What the Second Estate tried to do was control the make-up and the procedures for running the Estates
General. The popular uproar that followed forced the king’s council to back off and eventually decide
to strengthen the Third Estate by allowing it to elect twice as many representatives as the clergy or
nobility. This Doubling the Third meant that the Third Estate could easily dominate the assembly if
voting was done by majority rather than by order (i.e., majority meant the total votes cast; order meant
the total votes cast in each order or estate); thus, the First and Second Estates could still outvote the Third
Estate, if the voting was by order. The method of voting still had not been decided when the Estates
General gathered in May of 1789.
The king lost control almost immediately and never got it back. The Third Estate came to the royal
palace and demanded sweeping political and social reforms. Louis had asked all three estates to prepare
Cahiers de Doléances (or lists of grievances) and those of the Third Estate criticized government waste,
church taxation and the hunting rights of the aristocracy; calling for regular meetings of the Estates
General, fair taxation, more local authority in government and a free press. But nothing in the
grievances could be discussed until the questions of voting and procedure had been decided. To trump
(override) the first two estates, the Third Estate refused to sit as a separate body as the king wanted. For
several weeks, there was a standoff until June 1st, when the Third Estate invited the other two
estates to join them in organizing a new legislative body. A few priests of the lower clergy joined
them and on June 17th the body declared itself the National Assembly. Two days later, led by liberal
members of the nobility, the Second Estate narrowly voted to join the New National Assembly.
Then the king foolishly decided to reassert his royal authority. He announced his intention to call a
“Royal Session” of the Estates General for June 23rd and closed the room where the National Assembly
had been meeting. On June 20th, when the National Assembly discovered they were locked out, they
moved to a nearby indoor tennis court where its members took an oath not to disband until they had
given France a written constitution. Angered by this Tennis Court Oath, Louis XVI ordered the
National Assembly to desist (stop) but in response many of the previously undecided clergy and
nobility joined the National Assembly in defiance of the king. On June 27th, Louis, having totally lost
control and trying to save face, formally asked the First and Second Estates to meet with the National
Assembly where voting would be by head and not order.
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National Constituent Assembly
At this point, a revolution akin to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in Great Britain had become a
reality. Within three short months, the majority of the king's executive authority had been transferred
to the elected representatives of the National Assembly. The Third Estate, having twice as many
members as the other two estates, dominated the assembly. Moreover, they were joined by liberal
nobility and many of the lower clergy so that the monarchy could now only govern in cooperation with
the National Assembly. The Assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly because it
intended to draw up a new constitution. But unlike the revolutions in Great Britain and the United
States, the French Revolution would soon take a radical and horrible change in direction.
Two factors caused this change towards disaster. Louis – egged on (urged) by his wife, his brothers and
his most reactionary nobility - did not fully understand what had happened and tried to undermine the
National Assembly and regain his political authority. He mustered (assembled/called up) royal troops
near Versailles and Paris (about the distance from Glendale to Burbank); and on July 11th – without
consulting the National Assembly – he dismissed Necker. The second, more foreboding factor was the
reaction of the people of Paris, some 600,000 strong. The mustering of the royal soldiers caused
tensions in the city which (along with high bread prices) from three bad harvests had already brought
about protests and rioting. By June, the citizens of Paris – from professionals to shopkeepers to street
vendors to the poor - were organizing a citizen government and militia - and began collecting arms.
They saw the king’s alliance with the most conservative nobility as an attempt to halt the revolution
and the dismissal of Necker as the beginning of an offensive by the king to take away what had been
won; and they intended to protect the National Assembly. At the point, the revolution had begun.
On July 14th, a large crowd of Parisians – mostly small shopkeepers, tradesmen and laborers – marched
to the Bastille; a fortress first built during the Hundred Years’ War and by 1789 used as a prison and a
storehouse. The garrison commander foolishly ordered his soldiers to fire into the crowd, killing and
wounding many. The enraged crowd became a mob and, venting their fury; they stormed the fortress
and hacked the soldiers to death. One assailant used his pocketknife to sever the garrison commander’s
head, which was mounted on a pike (a sharp spike on a pole) and paraded around the streets of Paris.
Bastille Day was the flashpoint of the French Revolution and is still a national holiday in France. On
July 15th, the Parisian militia which called itself the National Guard, offered command to a young
liberal aristocrat, the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the American Revolution, who gave the guard a
new badge (flag): the red and blue stripes from the colors of the Paris coat of arms, separated by the
white stripe of the royal flag. This would eventually become the tricolor flag of the French Revolution.
The fury unleashed by the mob spread throughout France and sent a clear signal to the National
Constituent Assembly that they alone would not decide the political future of France. As the news of
the storming of the Bastille spread across France, similar rioting took place in other cities. A few days
later, Louis XVI himself bowed to the events swirling around him and visited Paris, where he wore the
revolutionary cockade and recognized the organized citizens as the legitimate government of the city.
He was also forced to recognize the authority of the National Guard which meant that he implicitly
admitted that he had no military support to reverse the revolution. Moreover, the citizens of Paris were
somewhat satisfied because they had established themselves as an independent political force.
As the rioting spread to many French cities, a phenomenon called the Great Fear swept much of the
countryside. Peasants, afraid of royal troops being sent to suppress their uprisings and driven by rumors
of grain shortages, attacked churches, monasteries and many manor houses (châteaux) and destroyed
many legal records and documents. They were determined to hold on to the grain supplies which they
considered theirs – and to reclaim the property of the nobility which they also considered was rightfully
theirs. It was as if the great mass of peasants – so long oppressed by forced labor and brutal taxation –
suddenly woke up and struck out at their tormentors in the upper clergy and nobility.
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On the night of August 4th, 1789, the more liberal and enlightened aristocrats and clergy of the National
Constituent Assembly tried to calm the peasants by renouncing their feudal rights and privileges. In a
scene of great emotion, they surrendered their hunting and fishing rights, their judicial authority and
their legal exemptions. By so doing, they publically admitted what they had already lost and could
never hope to regain again except through civil war; and it was clear that all French citizens would now
be subject to the same rule of law.
Political offices and military positions were now opened to all citizens and based on merit. The major
social institutions of the Ancien Regime had been abolished, thus making the work of giving France a
written constitution much easier. Nevertheless, high bread prices (due to continued poor harvests),
falling wages, angry shopkeepers and peasants coupled with the inability of the king and the
reactionary aristocrats to understand what was actually happening foreshadowed a more violent turn of
events.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
The National Constituent Assembly decided that before publishing a written constitution it should
publish a statement of broad political principles. So on August 27th, drawing on Enlightenment
principles and the Virginia Declaration of Rights (drafted by George Mason and James Madison in1776),
the assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen which proclaimed that all men
were born and remain free and equal in rights. The declaration [the first draft of which was written by
the Marquis de Lafayette] went on to state that these natural rights were liberty, property, security and
resistance to oppression; that all citizens were equal under the law; and that all employment should
be according to merit. Moreover, the declaration endorsed due process of law and the presumption
of innocence until guilt is proven. Finally, the declaration affirmed freedom of religion, taxation be
fair (that is, proportionate to one’s ability to pay); and that right to property was an inviolable and
sacred right.
Like the cries of abuse unleashed by Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, the ideas of the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen spread across Europe and began to find followers outside France. Its two
most powerful ideas were civic equality and popular sovereignty. These two ideas would challenge
the Ancien Regime all across Europe into the twentieth century. It is also important to note that the
declaration was designed to apply specifically to men but not to women and came from Enlightenment
thinking (especially Rousseau) that separated men and women into separate spheres.
Thus most of the leaders of the National Assembly felt that only men were suited for citizenship. But it
must be noted that in the charged atmosphere of 1789, many women hoped that the guarantees of the
declaration would be extended to them, especially concerning property, inheritance, family and divorce.
Their hopes would be disappointed but women continued to play a role in the Revolution.
The Women’s March on Versailles
When Louis XVI hesitated in ratifying the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, he caused
many people to believe that he might try to regain his power. Driven by high bread prices and inflation,
around seven thousand Parisian women armed with pikes, guns, swords and knives marched on
Versailles demanding more bread, on October 5th. They milled and wandered about the palace and
some spent the night. The king was frightened and finally agreed to give his approval to the declaration.
The next day, Louis and his family appeared on a balcony (the king even wore the Revolutionary Tricolor
Cockade), above the crowd and listened as the crowd demanded that he and his family return to Paris
with them. Thoroughly intimidated, Louis had no choice and ordered his carriage to follow the crowd
into the city where he settled in the Tuilieries Palace in the heart of Paris.
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The Reconstruction of France
The National Constituent Assembly also moved to Paris and in the next two years worked to produce
the Constitution of 1791. The Assembly set about reorganizing France. The Constitution of 1791 made
France a constitutional monarchy and established a unicameral (consisting of a single legislative chamber)
Legislative Assembly, which would make all law. The king was allowed a suspensive veto [a weak type
of veto in which a law is merely suspended until reconsidered by the legislature and becomes a law if re-passed
by the same majority that passed it in the first place]. Moreover, the Legislative Assembly, not the king,
had the power to make war and peace.
The election system was designed to limit popular pressure on the government and divided citizens into
active and passive citizens. Only active citizens (those men paying actual taxes equal to three days of
local labor wages) could vote. They chose electors who, in turn, voted for the members of the Legislative
Assembly. Only wealthy men (about 50,000 out of twenty-five million) could be electors or members of
the Assembly. Although the poor were limited in their participation, the government was nevertheless
transformed from hereditary privilege to men of propertied wealth.
Women were excluded from the vote and from holding public office. One strong and vocal opponent
was Olympe de Gouges (1748 -1793) who was butcher’s daughter of the middle class but rose to be a
playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings would reach far beyond
France. In 1791 she published a Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in which
she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male–female inequality. She demanded
that women be regarded as citizens and given the right to own property. She declared, “Women, wake
up; the tocsin (toxin- i.e., warning signal) of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe;
discover your rights.”
In reconstructing France geographically, the National Constituent Assembly abolished the ancient
French provinces – such as Burgundy or Brittany – and established eighty three administrative units
called Departments of approximately equal size and named after rivers, mountains and other
geographical features. The Departments were further subdivided into districts, cantons and communes.
Elections for these new divisions were also indirect and these departments have never been changed
even into our current times. The ancient judicial courts and Parlements were also abolished and
replaced by uniform courts with elected judges and prosecutors. Procedures were simplified and the
most degrading punishments such as branding, torture and flogging were eliminated.
In economics, the National Constituent Assembly continued the policies advocated by Necker and
Calonne. It suppressed the medieval guilds, liberated the grain trade and established the Metric System.
These new policies disappointed both the peasants who had to prove what feudal dues had to be
removed and the urban workers whose efforts to protect their wages were crushed by Chapelier Law
(June 14th, 1791) which forbade the formation of workers associations. The Assembly saw the efforts of
the workers to organize as an attempt to reassert the old medieval guilds and thus to oppose the new
and revolutionary values of political and social individualism. The bottom line was that the peasants
and urban workers were left unprotected from the marketplace which was controlled by wealthy men of
property and liberal aristocrats.
The Assembly also had to deal the France’s national debt and did not repudiate (cancel) the debt
because it was owed to bankers, merchants and traders of the Third Estate, who dominated the National
Constituent Assembly. Although the Assembly had eliminated many of the old indirect taxes and
implemented new land taxes, they were not enough to pay the debt. So the Assembly decided on
November 2nd, 1789 to finance the debt by confiscating the property of the Roman Catholic Church and
then selling the land.
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The Civil Constitution of the Clergy
Supporters argued that church lands were of sufficient value to pay off the national debt and clergy
were not proprietors (owners), but simple holders of the wealth that the piety (holiness) of kings and of
the French people had devoted to religion. So along with the confiscations, the Assembly decreed that
the expenses of maintaining churches and paying clerical salaries would be assumed by the state.
The amount of property involved was enormous (estates, monasteries, etc.) and so before properties
could be sold, bonds called Assignats were issued as collateral (something that one promises to give if
one cannot pay back a loan) for confiscated church lands. These bonds were so popular that they came to
be used as money. Moreover, the government printed too many bonds and so the value of the bonds fell
and caused inflation which put terrible pressure on the working poor in the cities. Moreover, many
people believed that the sales were sacrilegious and Catholics were discouraged from accepting the
bonds or even purchasing former church lands.
It is important to understand that the Assembly had tried to solve a financial crisis but in fact
created misery for the poor and a schism which helped to feed the violence of the Revolution.
On July 12th 1790, the anger and frustration of the clergy was increased even more when the National
Constituent Assembly passed The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the goal of which was to
subordinate the Roman Catholic Church in France to the French government. The law (which the
king tried to stop) reduced the number of bishoprics from 135 to 83, creating a diocese for each of the
new Departments. It also provided for the election of parish priests and bishops who became salaried
employees of the state. All religious orders were dissolved except for those which cared for the sick or
ran schools. Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small percentage
eventually married.
This law was the great blunder of the Assembly because it created immense opposition within the
French church and a hostility that has lasted to the present day.
The Assembly blundered again when it ordered that all clergy must take an oath to support the new
constitution. Only seven bishops and slightly more than a quarter of the clergy eventually took the oath.
So in reprisal, the Assembly designated those who refused to take the oath Refractory Clergy and
removed them from their clerical functions (i.e., administering the sacraments or administering parishes or
dioceses).
The anger, condemnation and schism that followed howled across Europe! Refractory priests celebrated
the mass in defiance of the National Assembly. Religious peasants were infuriated and supported the
Refractory Clergy. Pope Pius VI (r. 1775-1799) condemned not only the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
but also the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen; Pius even condemned the French clergy who
had signed the oath, especially bishops who had ordained new, elected clergy. In May 1791, France
recalled its ambassador to the Vatican and the Papal Nuncio was recalled from Paris.
On June 9th, the Assembly forbade the publication of Papal Bulls (or Decrees), unless they had been
approved by the Assembly. The pope’s condemnation marked the opening of a Roman Catholic
offensive against the Revolution and liberalism in general that continued throughout the nineteenth
century. Moreover the actions of the Constituent National Assembly made loyalty to the Church and
loyalty to the Revolution mutually incompatible (impossible).
The End of the Monarchy
The Revolution also made political enemies and as it became clear that the Ancien Regime was being
done away, many aristocrats – around 16,000 – left France. These Émigrés settled in other countries
near the French border and become involved in counterrevolutionary activities.
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The most of the important of these Émigrés was the Count of Artois (1757-1836) who was the brother of
Louis XVI and who, in 1824, would himself become king of France as Charles X. In the summer of
1791, his agents and the queen persuaded Louis XVI to flee the country. On the night of June 20th,
Louis and his immediate family - disguised as servants - left Paris. They got as far as Varennes in
eastern France but the king was recognized and forced to return to Paris. The National Constituent
Assembly tried to save the constitutional monarchy and announced that the king had been abducted by
“enemies of the revolution” and had to be rescued. Nevertheless, nobody believed this trumped up story
just as everybody “knew” that the king was the center of the counterrevolution.
The situation continued to deteriorate (get worse) and on August 27th - under pressure from the Émigrés
– the Emperor Leopold II of Austria (who was Marie Antoinette’s son and Joseph II’s brother) and King
Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Declaration of Pilnitz which was intended to scare the
French revolutionaries and protect Louis. The two monarchs promised to intervene in French
affairs to protect the royal family and to preserve the monarchy if the other major European
powers agreed. The last provision made the declaration meaningless because Great Britain would
never have given its assent (approval). But the declaration was taken seriously in France where the
revolutionaries saw themselves surrounded by aristocratic and monarchical enemies that intended to
undo the Revolution by force.
Complicating matters, the National Assembly – as it concluding its term in September 1791 because it
had completed its task of creating the Constitution of 1791 - passed a measure that forbade any of its
members to sit in the new Legislative Assembly. So when the new Legislative Assembly met on
October 1st, it was filled with new members who were not so conservative and who had to deal the
serious challenges stemming from resistance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the king’s
attempted escape and the Declaration of Pilnitz.
A Step back: Ever since the Estates General had first met, members of the Third Estate had
organized themselves into clubs of politically like-minded persons. The most infamous and best
organized of these were the Jacobins, so named because they met in a former Dominican priory (urban
monastery) in Paris dedicated to St. James (St. Jacques in French). The Jacobins were excellent
networkers and they established local Jacobin clubs throughout France. Moreover, the Jacobin
members in the National Assembly had earned a reputation for demanding a republic and eliminating
the monarchy - and as such were among the most radical members of the National Assembly. They
were fervent followers of Rousseau – and spread his ideas of popular sovereignty and republicanism.
During its short life (1791-1792), the Legislative Assembly was divided by constant bickering. A group
of Jacobins known as Girondists (because many of them came from the Department of Gironde in
Southwest France) assumed leadership in the Assembly. They were determined to deal harshly with the
counterrevolutionaries and ordered the Émigrés to return to France or have their property seized. They
also required the Refractory Clergy to swear to support the Civil Constitution of the Clergy or lose
their pensions. The king vetoed both acts – in vain.
Then on April 20th 1792, the Girondists got the Legislative Assembly to declare war [The War of the
First Coalition] on Austria (whose side Prussia soon joined) and so began a series of conflicts across
Western Europe that - with only brief intervals - lasted until Napoleon’s defeat in 1815. The Girondists
believed that war would firmly establish the Revolution and protect it from foreign and domestic
enemies. And paradoxically the king supported the war because he hoped that war would strengthen his
authority and/or, if the foreign nations were victorious, they would fulfill Declaration of Pilnitz and
restore both the monarchy and Ancien Regime. But the tragic consequence of the war was to radicalize
French politics in such a manner so as to lead to a second and more terrible Revolution, in which the
monarchy would be overthrown and a republic established.
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At first, the war went badly for the French and in July 1792, the commander of the invading Prussian
army, the Duke of Brunswick, threatened to destroy Paris if the royal family was harmed. This only
stiffened support for the war and the Government of Paris created the Paris Revolutionary Commune,
a committee which became its own unelected political entity and soon came to dominate the
Revolution. On the night of August 10th 1792, a large, angry crowd led by the members of the Paris
Revolutionary Commune, attacked the Tuileries Palace, where they overwhelmed and massacred the
Swiss Guards who were assigned to protect the king. The royal family became prisoners and a rump
(not properly called) session of the Assembly – almost all Jacobins - suspended the monarchy.
The National Convention
The fragments of the national government depended on the support of the Commune. Angered by the
counterrevolutionaries at home and foreign invaders, the Commune sent gangs of thugs into the prisons
to put on trial and arbitrarily murder over 1,400 victims - and invited the other French cities to follow
this example. The Assembly was unable to prevent these September Massacres which only increased
hostility towards France in other nations. The Commune then forced the Legislative Assembly to call
for the election of a National Convention which was charged with writing another new constitution.
Meanwhile on September 20th, the Duke of Brunswick and the invading Prussian army were soundly
defeated at the Battle of Valmy, forcing the Prussians to withdraw and giving the French Army its first
major victory over the invaders and – more importantly – giving the revolutionaries a great boost in
morale. Then the victorious French general, Charles François Dumouriez, went on the offensive in
Belgium (the Austrian Netherlands), routing the Austrian army and occupying the entire country by the
beginning of winter. So when the National Convention met the next day (September 21st), it abolished
the monarchy and founded the First French Republic.
But there followed in France “a revolution within the Revolution” which was social in nature and had
unforeseen and terrible consequences. This social revolution came about from an alliance between the
Jacobins and the common people of Paris who were called Sans-Culottes. [Sans-Culottes means without
breeches and referred to the long trousers of working men as opposed to aristocratic knee breeches]. The
Sans-Culottes were shopkeepers, artisans, and poor workers. The persistent food shortages and rising
inflation had made their difficult lives even worse. They felt that they had been ignored by the old
regime and taken for granted by the wealthy men of the National Assembly. They were angry and knew
what they wanted: an end to inflation, food shortages and every form of social inequality.
To put it another way, the Sans-Culottes wanted an equal share in political power, social equality and
economic security equal to the nobility, the wealthy landowners and the Bourgeoisie. They did not
reject ownership of property but believed that small property owners had an equal right to participate in
government. They were bitterly anti-monarchial, strongly republican and even suspicious of
representative government. They believed that the people should make the decisions of
government. In Paris, their influence was enormous and the Paris Revolutionary Commune was and
would be their chief vehicle of political action.
The Jacobins on the other hand, sought representative government even though – like the Sans-Culottes
- they hated the aristocracy and hereditary privilege. The Jacobins favored an unregulated economy and
were not opposed to the accumulation of wealth. Nevertheless, after Louis XVI tried to flee, more and
more Jacobins began to collaborate with the Sans-Culottes to overthrow the monarchy. Once the
Convention was called into session, these more radical Jacobins, called Mountain (as opposed to the
Girondists) because their seats were high up in the assembly hall, worked with the Sans-Culottes to win
the war and root out the enemies – real or imagined - of the Revolution. This alliance divided the
Mountain and the Girondists who were more moderate in implementing the Revolution.
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In December 1792, the Mountain and the Sans-Culottes managed to put Louis XVI on trial for treason
as Citizen Capet; the Girondists tried to spare his life but were outmaneuvered. By an overwhelming
majority, Louis XVI was convicted of conspiring against the liberty of the people. He was condemned
and guillotined on January 31st, 1793. In February, the National Convention declared war on Great
Britain and the Netherlands and later on Spain. The war went badly. The Prussians retook Belgium (the
Austrian Netherlands); Dumouriez defected to the enemy and a revolt of royalist officers and priests in
the Vendee (in western France) broke out. Thus the young French Republic found itself at war with
most of Europe and much of France.
Europe Reacts to the French Revolution
Great Britain
At first, most of Europe was neutral towards the events that unfolded in France but as the Revolution
became more radical and violent their ambivalence became hostility. In 1790, Edmund Burke, (whom
we met as the father of Conservatism), published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in which
he argued that the French Revolution would end disastrously because it was not rational and ignored
the complexities of human nature. Although he did not believe in divinely appointed monarchs or that
the people had no right to replace an oppressive government (he supported the American Revolution); he
did believe in hereditary government, private property, and argued for gradual, constitutional reform,
not radical revolution. He predicted further violence, the possible deaths of Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette and that the Revolution would end in military despotism. Some scholars think he was
referring to Marquis de Lafayette but it would be Napoleon who would fulfill his prophecy.
On the other hand, Thomas Paine (author of Common Sense) wrote a 1791 book, The Rights of Man, as
a criticism of Burke (who was his friend) and a defense of revolutionary principles. Paine argued that
the good of the monarch and the good of the people are the same; and that the French Revolution
should be understood as an attack on despotism, not the monarchy itself. Paine’s book sold more
copies in England than Burke’s but Burke’s had more influence in the long run and was more read on
the continent where it became a handbook for European conservatives. By the time war broke out in
1792, most European monarchies recognized the danger inherent in the French Revolution.
The violence of the French Revolution made Great Britain nervous and William Pitt the Younger
(who had failed to pass moderate reform legislation in the 1780s) began to take measures to suppress reform
and all popular movements. In 1791, government inspired mobs forced Joseph Priestly (1733-1804), a
chemist (often credited with the discovery of oxygen), out of the country for this radical political attitudes.
Later, Pitt’s government suppressed the London Corresponding Society (a moderate but radical-leaning
working class group concentrating on reform of Parliament). Pitt was able to have Parliament suspend writs
of Habeas Corpus and making the writing of certain ideas treasonable. Pitt was less successful in
curbing freedom of the press but he did create an atmosphere in which all political groups that opposed
the government were liable to being charged with treason.
The Partitions of Poland
The fate of Poland is linked to two phenomena. The first was Ivan III (Ivan the Great; r.1462-1505) and
his Gathering in of the Russian Land during which he tried to unite all Eastern Slavs under the rule
of the Moscow state. The second occurred during Russia’s terrible civil war (or Time of Troubles) that
lasted from 1598 to 1613, during which Poland and Sweden invaded Russia and occupied much
territory until they were expelled. The Russians never forgave the Polish incursions. Frederick the
Great (as we saw) engineered the First Partition of Poland in 1772 to maintain a balance of power
between Russia, Austria and Prussia. Russia’s share was the largest but least economically important
BUT Russia did gain the area of modern Belarus (White Russians) and parts of Poland proper.
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After this first partition of 1772, forward thinking Polish leaders sought to make Poland more able to
resist foreign aggression. So these patriotic leaders supported a proposed constitution, passed in 1771
which provided for a heredity (not an) elected monarch, real power for the king and his council, the
establishment of a bi-cameral diet and elimination of the Librum Veto. Frederick William II
promised to protect Poland and its reformers but Russia under Catherine the Great worried about a
loss of Russian influence.
In April 1792, reactionary, self-serving Polish nobles, who opposed reform because any reform
threatened their power bases, invited Russia to restore the old order. The Russian army quickly
defeated the Polish forces under Tadeusz Kosciuszko (a veteran and hero of the American Revolution).
Then, Frederick William II – worried about possible Russian aggression – moved most of his army
from Belgium to East Prussia causing: First, the French to win victories in Belgium and Second,
causing Frederick William II to break his promise to protect Poland as he conspired with Catherine to
carry out the Second Partition of Poland in early 1793.
Then in the spring of 1794, Polish officers, who had been ordered to merge their troops into Russian
military units, mutinied. Kosciuszko returned from exile to lead the revolt and was initially successful.
But as the rebellion spread, the language and the symbolism of the French Revolution began to
appear in Polish cities terrifying the Russians, Prussians and Austrians.
But by November, Russian, Austrian and Prussian armies had crushed the revolt and imprisoned
Kosciuszko. The next year (1795), the three victors agreed to wipe Poland off the map by partitioning
the remainder of Poland among them in the Third Partition of Poland. Many Polish officers and
soldiers somehow managed to escape Poland made their way to France and joined the French army.
Poland would cease to exist as an independent state for a hundred and twenty three years.
The Reign of Terror
Back in France, 1793 brought to the French people a new sense of what kind of war had erupted and
that France not only had to protect her borders but also defend the new republican political and social
order. And to protect both the Revolution and the country, the Convention took extraordinary measures
that touched almost all aspects of life. Thousands of people – from the nobility to the clergy to
Bourgeoisie to shop keepers and peasants – were arbitrarily arrested and – in many cases – executed by
the guillotine. This ferocity was justified because the revolutionaries believed that the preservation of
the Revolution was more important than personal security or property or even people’s lives; and came
to be known as the Reign of Terror.
In April 1793, the National Convention – seeking to put France on a wartime footing and to promote
revolutionary ideals - established a Committee of Public Safety to carry out the executive duties of the
government. The Committee of Public Safety was formed as an administrative body - with executive
and judicial authority - to supervise (oversee) and expedite (carry out) the work of the National
Convention and of the government ministers appointed by the Convention. The Committee held almost
total dictatorial power and wanted to move beyond what they saw as timid Girondist policies.
And so they took drastic measures against enemies at home and invaders from other countries;
and at first their greatest allies were the Sans-Culottes. In early June, the Sans-Culottes of Paris
invaded the hall where the National Convention met and successfully managed to oust the Girondist
members and that set the stage for further radicalization and violence.
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On June 22nd 1793, the National Convention approved The Constitution of 1793, a new, fully
democratic constitution, but delayed its implementation until after the war – which meant it never went
into effect. On August 23rd, Lazare Carnot (the member of the Committee of Public Safety in charge
of the military) began a mobilization by issuing a levee en masse which drafted the entire population
into the war effort and directing all economic production for military purposes. Young men became
soldiers; the middle aged manufactured arms and weapons or provided logistical support for the army;
women made tents and bandages or worked in hospitals – even children and the elderly had roles to
play. Never before had Europe seen a nation organized so efficiently and the revolutionaries raised an
army of more than a million men - larger than any army in European history.
On September 29th, the National Convention set a ceiling on prices to please the Sans-Culottes and
during the late summer and early fall the armies of the revolution crushed many counterrevolutionaries
in the provinces. The Reign of Terror then began in earnest with semi-judicial executions lasting
from the fall of 1793 to the summer of 1794. Among the first victims were Marie Antoinette and a
large number of the Girondists. The death toll was in the tens of thousands, with over 16,000 executed
by guillotine and another 25,000 by other means such as mass shootings and drownings. However only
about 8% were aristocrats and 6% clergy; the larger groups were 14% middle class, and 72% workers
or peasants accused of hoarding, evading the draft or desertion. European nations were shocked and
astounded at this most infamous period of the Revolution.
The members of the National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety did not see their actions
as merely a defense of France from internal or external enemies; rather they saw their actions as
creating something new in world history, a Republic of Virtue (loosely modeled on Rousseau’s Social
Contract, especially the part where he emphasized that a person ought to sacrifice himself for the better good,
in this case the Revolution). So in that spirit, streets were renamed to reflect egalitarian principles; the
population was required to dress like the Sans-Culottes; powdered wigs were forbidden; and plays and
literature not in the spirit of the Revolution were forbidden. Even prostitution was attacked because it
was thought to be a by-product of an aristocratic society.
And it was in this idea of putting the public good above the individual good that caused the
Committee of Public Safety to carry out its policies of terror.
The person who most idealized the Republic of Virtue was Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) who
by late 1793 was the de-facto dictator of the Committee of Public Safety. He was a shrewd politician
and his own man. He opposed the war in 1792 fearing it would help the monarchy; he defied the SansCulottes by continuing to wear breeches and powdered wigs; in short he saw in the Republic of Virtue
the support of republican government, the renunciation (denial) of selfish personal ambition and the
destruction of enemies of the Revolution. Nevertheless, in spite of such lofty ideals, his name became
synonymous with the Reign of Terror.
Women dedicated to the Revolution also emerged. In May 1793, Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe
founded the Society of Republican Women whose purpose was to fight the internal enemies of the
Revolution. They saw themselves militant citizens and the filled the galleries of the Convention to hear
the debates and cheer their favorite speakers. But as they became more radical – seeking stronger
control over food prices, ferreting out food hoarders, punishing street-fighting between working market
women and demanding everyone wear the revolutionary cockade – the Jacobins began to fear them and
on October 10th, women’s societies and clubs were banned; and many women became victims of the
Reign of Terror. Their “sin” was to violate Rousseau’s vision of separate spheres for men and
women. Although Léon and Lacombe escaped the guillotine, Olympe de Gouges who openly dared to
oppose the Jacobins was executed on November 2nd 1793.
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Perhaps the most dramatic step taken by the Republic of Virtue was its attempt to De-Christianize
France. In November 1793, the National Convention proclaimed the French Republican Calendar,
dating from the first day of the French Republic in 1793 until it was replaced by Napoleon in 1805.
There were twelve months of thirty days each, with names associated with the seasons and climate.
Every tenth day, rather than every seventh, was a holiday. Many of the most important events of the
succeeding years became known by their dates on the revolutionary calendar.
On November 10th, the Convention decreed a Cult of Reason which was devised to make churches
across France into Temples of Reason. The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris saw the largest of these
ceremonies when its Christian altar was turned into an altar to Liberty and an inscription To Philosophy
was carved in stone over the its doors. Across France churches were desecrated by the removal of
statues along with the destruction of crosses, bells and other external signs of worship. Clergy were
persecuted; sometimes forced to marry; sometimes murdered. Some churches were torn down or used
as barns. The only major voice to oppose De-Christianization was Robespierre who believed that DeChristianization would be a political blunder that would erode loyalty to the Revolution.
The Thermidorian Reaction
Robespierre soon began to use terror tactics on his political enemies. On March 24th, 1794, he managed
to execute certain radical Sans-Culottes who wanted further price regulation, deeper social reforms and
De-Christianization. He then turned on other republicans in the Convention. Most prominent among
them was Jacques Danton, who had been an invaluable leader during the dark days of 1792 and had
been a member of the Committee before Robespierre joined the group. Danton was accused of being
insufficiently supportive of the war, profiting from the Revolution and lacking in moral virtue. Danton
was executed in April. On June 10th, Robespierre got a law passed that permitted the revolutionary
tribunal to convict suspects without substantial evidence. The number of executions began to increase
and Robespierre had reached the pinnacle of his power and prestige.
In May 1794, Robespierre replaced the Cult of Reason with the Cult of the Supreme Being. This was
a deistic cult that reflected Rousseau’s vision of a civic religion that would create greater public
morality. But Robespierre did not enjoy his accomplishments for long. On July 26th, he made an illtempered (angry) speech in the Convention declaring that other leaders of the government were
conspiring against him. No one felt safe. So on July 27th, he was shouted down when he tried to speak
and arrested that night. He had NO political friends left; he had killed the leaders of the Sans-Culottes
and offended those members who had supported Danton. The next day he and about eighty of his
supporters were condemned and led to the guillotine.
The fall of Robespierre might have been just another violent turn of events but it actually had a
sobering effect on France. The members of the Convention used the event to reassert their power over
the Committee of Public Safety and within a short time the Reign of Terror came to a close. Moreover
the foreign invaders had been stopped and provincial uprisings had been crushed. This tempering of the
Revolution has come to be called the Thermidorian Reaction because many of its events happened in
the month of Thermidor (July 19 to August 17). The result was a widespread feeling that the Revolution
had gone too far and a return to center in politics was necessary. The Sans-Culottes diminished and the
Middle class again grew in influence.
In the weeks and months that followed Robespierre’s execution, the Convention allowed the Girondists
who had been in prison or in hiding to return to their seats. Then a general amnesty was proclaimed for
all political prisoners and the Committee of Public Safety had its powers eclipsed. Some but not all of
the people responsible for the Reign of Terror were removed from public life. The Paris Revolutionary
Commune was outlawed and most of its leaders were executed. The Paris Jacobin Club was closed and
the remaining Jacobin Clubs across France were forbidden to correspond with each other.
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But the move towards political center did not end all the killing. Throughout the country, Jacobins and
others responsible for the Reign of Terror were attacked and often murdered in the White Terror with
little more due process of law than the Reign of Terror had observed. Sometimes the Convention gave
its approval; other times gangs of aristocratic or draft dodging youths roamed the streets assaulting
Jacobins. In cities like Lyons, Toulon and Marseilles, youths from the Bands of Jesus dragged alleged
terrorists from prisons and murdered them much like the September Massacres of 1792.
Overall, the Thermidorian reaction slowly dissolved the Republic of Virtue. Public pressure to dress
like the Sans-Culottes disappeared. New plays appeared in theatres and prostitutes again worked the
streets of Paris. Families of victims of the Reign of Terror gave parties in which they appeared with
shaved necks (like their loved ones who had their necks shaved before the guillotine) with red ribbons
tied about them. Although the Convention continued to favor the Cult of the Supreme Being, it allowed
Catholic services to resume and priests to come out of hiding or jail. One of the unanticipated results of
the Thermidorian Reaction was a genuine revival of Catholic worship.
The Thermidorian Reaction also saw the repeal of laws passed in 1792 that made divorce more
equitable for women. The idea was to return the status of women to where it had been in 1789 under
the Ancien Regime and that included women’s rights and education. The Thermidorians sought to
return family life to where it had been before the Revolution. Church and State again worked
together to reestablish separate spheres for men and women to reinforce traditional gender roles and
some historians believe that women had less freedom in 1795 than in 1789.
The Directory
The Thermidorian Reaction also led to the writing of the Constitution of the Year III which replaced
the Constitution of 1793 which had never gone into effect. The Constitution of the Year III which
was a reflection of the Thermidorian determination to reject both constitutional monarchy and
radical democracy went into effect on August 22, 1795. The new constitution created a legislature of
two houses.
The upper house or Council of Elders was to consist of men over forty years of age who were either
husbands or widowers. The lower house or Council of Five Hundred was to consist of men who were
at least thirty but could be married or single. The executive body was a five person Directory chosen
by the Council of Elders from a list submitted by the Council of Five Hundred. Voting was limited
by property qualification except for soldiers who were allowed to vote whether or not they owned
property.
In history, the term Thermidorian Reaction has come to mean a political moving back to center
from an extreme. In France, that meant far right norms of the Ancien Regime which had been swept
away by the Revolution had moved back to center creating a political system based on civic equality
and social status based on property ownership. A far greater number of people were now a part of the
political process and representation became an established foundation of French politics. But the
bottom line of the Constitution of the Year III was that power was no longer concentrated in an
aristocracy but in men of property.
And it was not just the bourgeoisie or upper middle class that gained power but also the peasants who
became the largest new propertied class to emerge from the Revolution because they now owned their
land. Nevertheless the entrance into political life of the middle class and peasants would create
problems in the future but it is significant to note that as other peasants throughout Europe had
their land returned to them, they – unlike the French Peasants – had to pay an indemnity or
compensation for their own land.
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The last area of change brought by the Thermidorian Reaction was the removal of the Sans-Culottes
from political influence. With the war going well, the Convention cut its ties with the Sans-Culottes and
repealed the ceiling of the price of bread and other foodstuffs. As a result, the winter of 1794-1795
brought the worst food shortages in many years. The Sans-Culottes rioted and to prove their point that
they were in charge the Directory put down the riots with force. Then on October 5th 1795, Royalist
agents stirred up riots against the new government with hopes of restoring the monarchy. The
government used artillery – commanded by a young general, Napoleon Bonaparte – to disperse the
crowd.
Much of the fighting of the French Revolutionary Wars came to an end with the Treaties of Basel
signed in March, June and August of 1795 in which the Convention concluded peace with Prussia,
Spain and Hesse. The new government was afraid of a resurgence of radical democrats and royalists in
upcoming elections, so the Convention passed the Two-Thirds Law which decreed that at least twothirds of the new legislature had to have served in the Convention itself. Although the Two-Thirds Law
was intended to give a sense of security, it had the opposite effect and undermined public faith in the
new government. And it meant more social unrest.
During the spring of 1796, Gracchus Babeuf (1760-1797) led the Conspiracy of Equals which called
for more radical democracy and more equality of property. His followers believed that the Revolution
was not complete because the rich were still in control and the poor had no real relief and were not
represented in the new government. Even though they were correct to some extent, the Directory was
determined to crush any more social changes that might endanger property or political stability. Babeuf
was arrested, tried and executed. Babeuf’s execution brought an end to the French Revolution but not
its accomplishments as reflected in the Constitution of the Year III. The French republic still faced
challenges from royalists and remained at war with Great Britain and Austria. But as we shall see in the
next chapter, the Directory would be eclipsed by the remarkable Napoleon Bonaparte.
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