Download National Assembly

Chapter 18
Day 1:
French Revolution
Causes of the French Revolution:
1. New Enlightenment Ideas
2. Financial Crisis
3. Inequality in Society
Cause #1: New Enlightenment Ideas
• Freedom & Equal Rights
• Public office jobs based on talent
• Rights to liberty, property, security, and
resistance to oppression.
Cause #2: Financial Crisis
• Bad harvests – bad market
• Food shortages – rising prices for food
• Rising unemployment
• Government spends on costly wars and luxuries
• Raised taxes to fix crisis – Made it WORSE!!
Cause #3: Inequality in Society
• Three Estates (social orders)
1st Estate: Clergy
2nd Estate: Nobility
3rd Estate: Commoners
Estates–General
(French Parliament)
• Third Estate wanted to abolish tax
exemptions
• Each Estate gets one vote. (easily out
voted)
• 3rd Estate – wanted to change the voting
rule
• King Louis XVI said no changes and locked
the Third Estate out of meeting.
National Assembly
• Third Estate formed National Assembly,
1789
• National Assembly moves to nearby tennis
court for meeting.
• Tennis Court Oath – swear to produce a new
French constitution.
• Louis XVI prepared to use force against
Third Estate until…
• July 14th – Storming of Bastille
National Assembly
• Abolished tax exemptions.
• Declaration of the Rights of Man & the
Citizen – Proclaimed freedom and equal
rights for all men, but none for women.
• Inspired by U.S. Declaration of
Independence
What about women?
• Ignored by National Assembly
• Louis XVI flees Paris – refuses to accept
National Assembly
• Parisian WOMEN bring the royal family
back to Paris – prisoners in Paris.
Down with the Old, In with the New
• Monarchy given “limited” power.
• Legislative Assembly – created to make
laws.
• Paris Commune (Radicals) – seize the king
and demand voting rights to all males.
• Sans-culottes – Paris Commune members
(patriots without fine clothing)
Day 2:
Reign of Terror
National Convention 1792
• First step – abolish monarchy, establish
France as the French Republic
• Split into factions (dissenting groups) over
the fate of King Louis
• Girondins vs. Mountains (both members of
the Jacobin club)
Girondins
• Feared radical mobs
• Wanted to keep the
king alive
The Mountain
• Represented the
Radicals (Sansculottes)
• Convinced the
National Convention
to condemn King
Louis XVI to death
• Beheaded on the
guillotine.
Guillotine was intended
to be a humane and
equal form of execution.
Foreign Crisis
• Monarchies of Austria, Prussia, Spain,
Portugal, Britain, & Holland are outraged at
King Louis’ death.
• National Convention creates the Committee
of Public Safety to handle the foreign threat.
• Maximilien Robespierre in control of
Committee.
Reign of Terror
• Committee of Public
Safety in control
• 40,000 enemies of
Revolution killed
(including Marie
Antoinette)
• Once crisis was over
the “Republic of
Virtue” would follow
Dechristianization
• Churches were pillaged
• Priests encouraged to marry, if not then
killed by guillotine
• Notre Dame designated a “Temple of
Reason”
• Christian Calendar changed: No Sundays
• BUT…majority of France was still Catholic
End of Terror
• France defeated foreign enemies
• National Convention afraid of Robespierre
and condemn him to death
• Robespierre beheaded
• Jacobins lose control and Middle Class
takes over
• Churches reopened
• New constitution created
The Directory
• Under the new Constitution of 1795:
Directory is the new executive committee
• Era of corruption and greed. (much like the
Committee of Public Safety)
• 1799 – coup d’etat (sudden overthrow) led
by General Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew
the Directory.
• Napoleon seizes power.
Day 3: The Age of
Napoleon
Napoleon
takes power
Seen as
national
hero
Napoleon was born in
Corsica
Napoleon’s
home
Coup d'état
(Military takeover)
• 1799 NB uses the army
to take over the
government
• 1804 NB crowns himself
Emperor
Napoleon
as Emperor
Napoleon's rule
The Napoleonic
Code
• Uniform laws inspired by the
Revolution
• Civil Code was most important
– preserved individual rights
• But…
Many laws restrict rights
(especially women) &
restores slavery in
Caribbean
A New
Bureaucracy
• NB creates a new, efficient
government
• Promotion based on ability
- not rank or birth
NB Sells
Louisiana
to US in
1803 for
$15 m.
Needs money for war
in Europe & too far
away to control
The Coalition
•Britain, Russia, Austria,
Prussia and Sweden
unite against NB
Napoleonic Warfare
1. Rapid Movement
2. Divide and Conquer
3. Object not to outmaneuver,
but to destroy enemy army
4. Massed formations firing at
short range
5. Mobile
artillery
French
Breastplate
from
Waterloo
By 1812, NB’s Empire
consists of three major
parts:
- French Empire
- dependent states
- allied states
The Invasion of
Russia
Alexander I
of Russia
refuses to
stop trade
with Britain
•1812 - 400,000 French
invade
http://members.tripod.com/~shadojak/march.jpg
Russians use scorchedearth policy
Russians burn Moscow
before retreating
Napoleon
Takes
Moscow
http://www.museum.ru/museum/1812/English/Painting/ver/index.html
Winter falls = NB must
retreat
Russians attack & only
10,000 French escape
Russia
Napoleon
in Defeat
Napoleon exiled to Elba off
the coast of Italy
The 100 Days
•Louis XVIII returned to
throne by Allies
•March 1, 1815 - NB
escapes to Europe,
welcomed by French
Waterloo (Belgium)
NB's final
defeat to
English
under the
Duke of
Wellington
Waterloo
http://members.tripod.com/~shadojak/square.jpg
Reasons for Defeat
• Britain’s survival and
strength
• Nationalism – unique cultural
identity of a nation.
(Patriotism against France)
Final exile
- NB sent
to St.
Helena
Napoleon’s House on St. Helena
Dies 6 years later of
cancer (???)
Napoleon’s Tomb