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| A painting depicting the Storming of the Tuileries Palace |
Last time on World History we looked at the start of the Age of Revolutions with
the American Revolution but today we're looking at arguably the more important revolution: the French Revolution. Seen as the birth of the modern world and a turning point in human history with Eric Hobsbawm characterising it as one of the two main revolutions of this period which shaped the world, the other being the Industrial Revolution. The French Revolution is seen as being more chaotic, violent, and radical than its earlier cousin in America so today we'll look at why we have this perception and if there is any truth to the matter.
Origins
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| Louis XVI |
Like many events in history the French Revolution doesn't have one singular origin. A key factor was economic issues. Since the reign of Louis XIV the French monarchy had undergone several major and expensive building projects, including the palace of Versailles, and even more expensive wars. Although France was an economic heavyweight in Europe these expenses really dented the French economy - especially after it lost most of its colonies during the Seven Years' War. Louis XVI came to the throne in 1774 inheriting a mountain of debt which he added to by intervening in the American War of Independence; he even dismissed his economic ministers to appoint Jacques Necker who supported it. Especially since the reign of Louis XV the French monarchy had trouble taxing the nobles due to court parties so Necker relied on loans adding to France's debt. This added another million livres to the debt and Necker's replacement in 1783 also failed to relieve France's debt issue. Furthermore, the taxation system was fairly inefficient. All the population had to pay a tenth of their wage to the Church called a tithe, there was a further tax based on the amount of people in your family, and the poor faced extra taxes. This included corvée which was a tax paid in your labour such as being conscripted to build canals or roads, (this was not limited to France), and taxes if you needed to use noble owned buildings including mills and bakeries. The nobles and clergy were normally exempt from these taxes, with the exception of tithes, leaving the rest of society to shoulder the burden; attempts by several monarchs like Louis XV to tax the nobility were generally unsuccessful. Tariffs between different regions prevented a united market, there was a 300% difference in food prices in different cities, and tax collection was handed out to individuals in a not too dissimilar way to what happened in the Ottoman and Mughal Empires. In something that can be retroactively described as privatisation individuals could collect tax and keep some of it so naturally to increase revenue they increased taxes. Taxes could prove devastating to the poor and just before 1789 harvest failures caused the price of bread to skyrocket. By 1789 debt was over 8 billion livres with many being unemployed, including 20,000 in Lyon and 12,000 in Abbeville.
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| A caricature of the Estate system |
We also have the social and intellectual origins of the Revolution. French society was split into three groups called estates: the First Estate was the clergy; the Second Estate was the nobility; and the Third Estate was everyone else. This ranged from everyone from wealthy merchants to poor rural peasants. Throughout the eighteenth century in particular a bourgeois middle class started emerging with some becoming wealthier than nobles. Members of the Third Estate were irate that despite comprising more of the population they had less privileges than the smaller nobility. In January 1789 a member of the clergy called Emmanuel Joseph-Sieyes in a pamphlet called
Qu'est-ce que le tiers-état? (
What is the Third Estate?) writing:
What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing. What does it desire to be? Something. This pamphlet would become the ideological backing of the French Revolution in the same sense that Thomas Paine's
Common Sense was to the American Revolution. A rise in commercial printing, although heavily censored at times, allowed new ideas to circulate among the coffee houses and clubs of cosmopolitan France spreading new ideas and criticisms of the nobility. Criticisms of the monarchy, but not the king, circulated especially when taxes were raised as despite rising food costs the nobility remained unaffected. Although most of the attacks on the queen Marie Antoinette was simply misogynistic rumours her lavish spending, such as her playing a milk maids, angered the populace - she never actually said 'Let them eat cake'. However, even if most accusations were false they were widely believed. Entry into the American War of Independence had also brought French soldiers into contact with American revolutionaries who then also brought ideas of liberty back with them.
Finally, we have the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was not a unified movement with it differing even in the same state never mind different ones. In France the Enlightenment was fairly radical - especially compared to the more moderate English and Scottish one which inspired the American Revolution. Part of this was that France had more limited freedom of expression compared to their British counterparts. One of the key thinkers of the French Enlightenment was Voltaire who spent large parts of his life in exile in Germany due to French censors. Despite attempts to ban or censor Enlightenment works they were widely read - book sellers were only reluctant to sell Voltaire's works as he had a habit of editing his work immediately after they had been published. The French Enlightenment offered scathing criticisms of the nobility and religion. Rousseau was the one who offered the most biting critiques of Marie Antoinette and Diderot in the Encyclopédie inserted sly jabs at religion including having the entry for 'Transubstantiation' say 'See Also: Cannibalism'. Enlightenment thinkers were well read in the cities and those who could not read, or get a hold of them, knew about what was said due to a vibrant public reading community; Marie Antoinette was also a big lover of Rousseau and Montesquieu.
Outbreak of Revolution
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| A depiction of the Tennis Court Oath |
1788 was a year of crisis for Louis XVI. In June a revolt broke out in Grenoble and in August the treasury was declared empty. However, the clergy and nobility did not want to give up their tax privileges and after failing to reach a solution Louis XVI brought back Jacques Necker (popular with members of the Third Estate) and decided to call a meeting of the Estates-General. This was a large parliament which had last been convened in 1614 with representatives from each three estates: 303 for the First; 291 for the Second; and 610 for the Third. In January 1789 Sieyes published his revolutionary pamphlet and was elected a representative of the Third Estate despite originally being a member of the clergy. The Estates-General met in May in Versailles but things quickly soured. Louis's brothers had wanted to limit Necker's influence; Marie Antoinette openly showed contempt; and Louis made it clear himself that the Estates-General was thanks to his own writ. The Third Estate was particularly irate; they wanted individual votes to count which they saw as reflecting the population instead of block voting where each Estate voted which allowed the First and Second Estates to out vote the Third. In June the Third Estate declared themselves separate from the Estates-General representing a new idea called 'the People' in a new National Assembly. To prevent the Assembly from meeting Louis forbade them from entering, although Colin Jones has argued that this was done to allow the King's Council to offer reforms feeling that no further debates were necessary. So on June 20 1789 the Third Estate convened at a nearby tennis court vowing not to separate until they had drafted a constitution in what became known as the Tennis Court Oath. Most of the clergy and even members of the nobility joined the National Assembly seeing the closing of the hall as an 'act of despotism' and the king's supporters started backing down. Necker declared that in the future taxes and loans had to be agreed to by the Estates-General, the creation of provincial assemblies, and the abolishing of serfdom, arbitrary imprisonment and corvée labour. However, at the same time the nobility and clergy could veto matters concerning them, and the king surrounded the meeting hall with troops declaring that nothing the Estates did was valid without his approval. When the meeting ended the Third Estate and their allies refused to leave and Necker resigned causing letters to pour in supporting the Assembly and even riots in Paris.
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| Storming of the Bastille |
In June and July we see more actions from the public including a crowd of 4,000 storming a prison to free four French Guards who had joined political clubs. As Necker was seen as manipulating public opinion he was dismissed on 11 July, just two days after the National Assembly turned itself into the National Constituent Assembly, prompting riots across France as grievances over bread and food prices mixed with anger over Necker's dismissal. Paris in particular became the forefront of rebellion and soon Parisian mobs turned their attention on a state prison called the Bastille. Not only was the Bastille a symbol of the monarchy's despotism but also they wanted what was inside: arms, ammunition and possibly even bread. On July 14 Parisian insurgents laid siege to the Bastille which surrendered that same day after 83 were killed (another 15 were to die from wounds); the governor Bernard-Rene de Launay was soon after killed by the mob. The Bastille was later torn down, part of it was actually sent to George Washington as a gift which he cherished, and today July 14 is celebrated in France. Following this Necker was brought back, riots continued across France, armed militias were made, and fearful aristocrats fled abroad calling themselves
émigrés. The king was brought to Paris wearing a newly created tricolour cockade to show that he was supportive of this revolution. In August the Assembly under Necker started a series of reforms including abolishing the privileges and feudal rights of the nobility, announcing freedom of speech and religion, and pushing France closer to a constitutional monarchy as seen in Britain. However, inspired by radical Enlightenment ideas several figures criticised the reforms as not going far enough. A new group movement described as the
sans-culottes (without breeches) comprising of militant, urban and poorer men emerged and newspapers calling for radicalism started being published setting the stage for the later Jacobins. One key thinker, Jean-Paul Marat, denounced the reforms calling it 'A plot uncovered to lull the people to sleep' as he saw it as appeasing the people with them not realising that they still were oppressed.
On August 27 one of the most radical documents in history was made: the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Largely drafted by the new leader of the National Guard and hero of the American Revolution, Lafayette, (as well as Thomas Jefferson and Honore Mirabeau) it was directly inspired by Enlightenment thought and the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It granted legal equality, freedom of expression, and various 'natural rights' including that to security, liberty, property and resistance to oppression. However, like the American Constitution women and non-property owning men were declared 'passive citizens' so unable to vote and slavery remained untouched. The Assembly may have made the document but it also granted the king the ability to veto legislation and more radical voices opposed it - Camille Desmoulins even organised a failed uprising against the inclusion of the king's veto. On October 1 rumours spread that the king's guards had trampled on the tricolour cockade while wearing white ones (white was the symbol of the monarchy) at a banquet fuelling outrage. Crowds of women started marching in Paris over the rumours: both as it was seen as disrespecting the Assembly and that banquets were seen as unpatriotic when there was a bread shortage. On October 5 Marat called for a march on Versailles and initially women marched to the Hotel de Ville and then onto Versailles. 7,000 armed women, some even dragging cannons, marched to Versailles demanding that the king and his family go to Paris. They were soon joined by 20,000 National Guardsmen, Lafayette reluctantly came along, and by the time that the king moved to Paris 60,000 had joined the march. Soon after the Assembly moved as well. As the 1790s set in the Revolution would become more radical.
Reactions
The reactions to the French Revolution were mixed. Throughout this entire period assassinations and riots took place across France as political aspirations mixed with discontent over bread prices. Normally the French Revolution has been portrayed as being almost entirely Parisian, and there is validity in this, but in reality it reached both rural and urban areas of France. At the early stages of the Revolution the Third Estate was virtually all in favour of it and so were members of the other Estates, particularly the First. Most members of the First Estate were local clergy who disliked the inequality of France, and many nobles had read Enlightenment texts or even fought in the American Revolutionary War, such as Lafayette. Women and slaves were inspired by the Revolution. In 1790 and 1791 there was an explosion of women's clubs which campaigned for political independence, despite the fact that women led the March on Versailles. In 1791 Olympe de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen writing 'Man, are you capable of being fair? A woman is asking: at least you will allow her that right. Tell me? What gave you the sovereign right to oppress my sex?' Gouges was a playwright with a long history of political activity criticising not only the treatment of women but also monarchical despotism and slavery. The treatment of women would remain one of the great hypocrisies of the Revolution as revolutionary men refused to extend their rhetoric to women - Gouges in 1793 was even guillotined for her Declaration. The Assembly allowed communes to exist in their remaining colonies but refused to abolish slavery despite protest from Les Amis des Nois. As white and mixed race communities in the colonies started campaigning for rights free blacks and slaves also started causing clashes. The only reason why slavery was abolished in 1794 was because of slave uprisings.
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| Olympe de Gouges |
Abroad reaction to the Revolution was mixed. In Britain and the US it was largely welcomed with figures seeing it as France finally catching up to their liberal constitutions created by the Glorious Revolution of 1688/9 and the American Revolution. As mentioned earlier Washington gladly accepted, and boasted of, a piece of the Bastille and American revolutionaries complimented the Revolution. Jefferson and Thomas Paine welcomed it and Paine would move to France publishing further pamphlets encouraging revolution. However, not all welcomed the revolution. A conservative Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke in 1790 wrote
Reflections on the Revolution in France saying that unlike the Glorious Revolution the one in France was built on abstract ideas so was destined to fall into chaotic violence and lead to a new autocrat coming to power. Meanwhile, continental monarchs like Joseph II of Austria and his brother Leopold II (who were also brothers of Marie Antoinette) viewed the Revolution with distrust and after the fall of the Bastille
émigrés influenced negative perceptions of the Revolution. When the Revolution turned increasingly violent after 1792 only more radical people in Britain and the US would see the French Revolution warmly. Although the US would remain close to France, even declaring war on Britain in 1812, there were fears of war, restrictions of freedom of speech and immigration under John Adams, and even accusing Jefferson of being a French puppet. The spectre of the French Revolution would haunt Britain, and Europe as a whole, well into the nineteenth century. British cartoons began portraying the French being starved on their 'liberty' as Britain was fat on its 'autocracy' while supporters readily adopted tricolours and red hats.
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| James Gillray's French Liberty, British slavery shows the typical arguments of British opponents to the Revolution |
The Road to Radicalism
1790 and 1791 would see increasing radicalism of the French Revolution. In November 1789 the state had replaced the Church as the one to hand out charity and had moved to include Protestants into the Assemblies (Jews were unfortunately excluded at this stage) so the next year the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was created in July 1790 which confiscated Church lands to solve the debt issue, bishops and priests were to be elected by local departments instead of the pope, and the clergy had to swear an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution. However, this proved to be fairly unpopular, especially as the pope refused to acknowledge the Constitution, where just under a quarter of clergy agreed to the oath. The measures against the Church even caused anti-revolutionary riots to break out across France. Meanwhile, radical groups began to emerge including the Jacobins and the Cordeliers Club whose motto was 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity' - the later motto of the Revolution. There was also a proliferation of bread riots, sans-culotte agitation, and political clubs inviting men and women to take part. Marat was seen as a radical and soon a lawyer called Maximilian Robespierre emerged as a radical voice in the Assembly. As a side note in the Assembly those who supported the king sat on his right and those wanting reform sat on the left - this is how our modern terms Left-wing and Right-wing emerged. In July 14 1790 the Fête de la Fédération marked the anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille combining the old and the new; the king pledged his loyalty to the constitutional movement and the Assembly pledged their loyalty to the king. However, in secret the king was writing to fellow monarchs in Spain and Prussia asking for help as several powers (including Britain) started prepping for a potential war with France. A year later on June 20 the king planned to move himself and his family to land controlled by a loyalist general Francois Claude, the Marquis de Bouille. His long term aims are still unknown but we are aware that he wanted to repudiate all that had happened since October 1789. The royals were found at Varennes and brought back to Paris in what William Doyle described as 'the second great turning-point' (the first being the Civil Constitution). It forced the French, who were mostly in favour of a constitutional monarchy, to choose who it supported: the Assembly or the King. His flight was seen as an attempt to join the Austrians, which is one of his possible aims, and allowed republicans to more openly come out into the open. On June 24 a crowd of 30,000 escorted a petition by the Cordeliers Club to the National Assembly demanding a republic or to have a referendum on his fate as across Paris monarchical symbols were destroyed.
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| A depiction of the Fête de la Fédération |
This helped spurn a radicalism of the Revolution. Things got worse in July when Leopold called on Europe's monarchs to help restore Louis to his throne, after Varennes Louis's powers were suspended. Fears of invasion grew worse when on August 27 Prussia and Austria (and the Holy Roman Empire) at Pillnitz declared that they wanted to
'put the King of France in a state to strengthen the bases of monarchic government.' Louis was made to accept the new Constitution but he tried to veto a law requiring
émigrés to return or face death and seizure of property. Fearing invasion the new Legislative Assembly started organising volunteers preparing for invasion. This also caused a split in the radical centres - those favouring war were described as 'Girondins' as most came from Gironde while those opposing it under individuals like Robespierre would be called 'Montagnards' or 'Jacobins'. Robespierre at a Jacobin club in January 1792 explained his view:
No one loves armed missionaries.
On April 20 1792 France declared war on Austria seeking to preserve the Revolution and to redraw France's borders on 'rational' and 'natural' lines - their plan was for natural borders to be France's borders. Although the French managed to overtake the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium and Luxembourg) by the end of the month major parts of their forces defected to the Austrian-Prussian coalition. Setbacks were blamed on domestic insurrectionists who wanted an end to the Revolution causing a climate of radicalism and fear. A secret insurrectionary committee was set up by the Paris Commune led by Georges Danton and Louis Pierre Manuel to look into possible opponents to the Revolution. When Lafayette criticised the rise of the radicals an order for his arrest was announced and he defected to the Austrians causing a crisis: if Lafayette deserted who else would? In July when an Austrian commander said there would be reprisals if the royal family was harmed it immediately was circulated in Paris causing outrage, especially against the king. The National Guard of the more radical Paris Commune under Danton on August 10 1792 attacked the Tuileries Palace, where the royals were living, as the king fled to the Assembly. The royal family was imprisoned and the Assembly replaced with the Convention, elected by universal manhood suffrage. Foreshadowing later revolutionary violence in September after the Prussians took Verdun. Danton declared that 'If we are bold, bolder still, and forever bold, then France is saved!'. However, Parisian sans-culottes panicked fearing that if Royalists invaded they would open the prisons to attack the Revolution. Immediately seventeen prisoners were killed on their way to Abbaye prison but the attacks on prisoners increased. Soon other prisons, overwhelmingly in Paris, were invaded, kangaroo courts set up, and prisoners executed in what became known as the September Massacres. Over the next few days between 1,100 and 1,400 were killed although surprisingly a few were returned to their cells and others were actually freed as they were seen as 'patriots'. In public the revolutionary elite never supported the Massacres but in private several did, and in the Convention both the Girondins and Montagnards blamed one another for the Massacres. The French Revolution was now seen as violent. At the Battle of Valmy on September 20 the French army unexpectedly defeated the Prussians which brings us to the next stage of the Revolution as on 22 September 1792 the First French Republic was declared.
Republic and Terror
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| An image synonymous with the Revolution and the Terror; crowds eagerly watching someone getting guillotined |
On December 10 Louis XVI would be put on trial and eventually sent to the guillotine on January 21 1793. A common perception of the French Revolution is a period called the 'Reign of Terror' where thousands upon thousands were sent to the guillotine until those who were chopping the heads themselves were guillotined. There are many debates surrounding the Terror trying the filter through misconceptions such as was it like in Francois Furet's view that the Terror was an aberration? Was it inevitable? The traditional date for the start of the Terror, September 5 1793, is problematic as the institutes of the Terror had been created long before then in March and April: the Convention created a revolutionary tribunal on March 10 and the Committee of Public Safety (CPS) was made on April 10. Louis had been guillotined in January and there had been violence since really 1789. The Terror is often used to show that the American Revolution was 'ordered' while the French was 'chaotic' but this view has been contested: Dan Edelstein has argued that the American Revolution was in fact the outlying revolution based on other ones as its violence, for the most part, was largely limited to the Revolutionary War. If you were smart you could switch sides during the Terror. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord served in government under every regime change until his death; a political cartoon portrayed him with six heads saying
'Vive le Roi',
'Vive le revolution' and
'Vive Napoleon'. Victor Hugo has also characterised the Terror well saying
'Out of the eleven thousand two hundred and ten decrees that the Convention issued, one third had a political purpose, and two thirds had a humane purpose.' The executions were just one part of the Terror and its build-up; the Louvre, Natural History Museum and metric system were all created between 1792 and 1794. As armed uprisings took place across France, war abroad continued (France was now on the offensive), and the economy was in tatters the Terror happened in France. Strangely, by the traditional end of the Terror in 1794 the revolts had virtually ended, the economy had slightly improved, and France had managed to push against foreign coalitions. Danton justified the Terror saying
'let us be terrifying in the place of the people' - in his view the Terror was to avoid situations like the earlier September Massacres. However, the reason for the Terror is still debated.
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| The execution of Louis XVI |
We won't go into all the people and groups who faced the guillotine as that will take a very long time. Instead we'll do an overview. On May 31 armed
sans-culottes took control of the Convention allowing the Jacobins (Montagnards) to take control of the CPS causing the downfall of the Girondins. What sealed their fate was the death of Marat. Charlotte Corday despite her young age, she was 24 in 1793, had been active in politics for years and had become a devout Girodin so she was outraged by the Jacobin coup and arrests of Girodins. Showing the sexism of her time the reason why she was spared arrest was possibly because she was a woman. While in the bath Marat allowed Corday to come in - she claimed that she had important information on locations of Girondins. Instead she stabbed him saying that
'I killed one man to save a hundred thousand' and she was guillotined on July 17. Although Marat had been sidelined by the Montagnards his death made him a martyr allowing the Jacobins to have public support for executing the Girondins. At the start of September a law was passed allowing the CPS to put on trial and execute those deemed a threat to the Revolution. Two leading radicals, Danton and Jacques Herbert, with their respective followers were also guillotined with the Girodins and monarchists. Danton had allowed corruption to flourish and had benefited himself giving the CPS the reason to execute him but quite likely it was due to a power issue, and the Herbertists tried to lead an insurrection seeing the Montagnards as not being radical enough. Marie Antoinette was executed and so was Olympe de Gouges for her earlier criticisms of the exclusion of women. In all almost 17,000 were guillotined of which around 2,600 were in Paris. The Terror ended with the fall of Robespierre and his faction. The deaths of his friends, including Danton, had put mental and physical strain on him and opponents started growing in power as his health forced him out of the public light. As he did not explicitly denounce the Terror members of the Convention feared another purge. On 28 July 1794 Robespierre and his allies were guillotined ending the Terror.
The Terror also tried to replace Christianity with a new religion based on religion and nature. It is important to note that atheism was rare in Enlightenment thought - deism was far more common. Of the major figures only a few, including Herbert, were atheist. Instead of God there was the Supreme Being and places of worship, like Notre Dame, were converted into Temples of the Supreme Being, Notre Dame itself was made into the Temple of Reason. On June 8 1794 there was even the Festival of the Supreme Being. The metric system was created as a more rational way to take measurements and the Republican Calendar was created. The inauguration of the Republic, 22 September 1792, was declared the start of the new calendar; there would be twelve thirty-day months named after the seasons (which British politicians made fun of calling it 'month sneezy' as an example); and there would be three ten-day weeks in a month ending in a rest day. This remained in place for a while, so much so that Robespierre's downfall was called the Thermidorian Reaction. Finally, instead of titles men would be referred to as 'Citizen' instead of 'sir' and women would be 'Citizeness'. These reforms would remain until Napoleon's reign and even then we use the metric system today. The current departments of France were also made during this period.
Counterrevolution and Uprisings
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| The Sacred Heart: symbol of the royalist rebels in Vendée |
There were many opponents to the Revolution and most sprang up during the Terror. Some viewed the Revolution as not going far enough, most notably the Herbertists. The most famous opponent, and one which people normally focus on, is the War in the Vendée. Vendée was slightly different than other areas of France as the nobility lived in a closer proximity to the populace so republican ideas were less prominent. The 1790 Clergy Constitution caused aggravation but it took until 1793 for grievances to turn violent. There were two reasons for this: the implementation of the levee en masse (conscription) and the closing of churches. When churches closed wealthy bourgeois, not peasants, bought the land angering locals. This mixed with longstanding loyalty to the nobility resulting in an uprising in March that was anti-Republic, pro-nobility, and pro-Catholic. Their symbol reflected the nobility and religion with their army being named the 'Catholic and Royal Army' and its insignia being a cross in a heart. The War was particularly brutal with royalists massacring republicans and the republican army brutally crushing royalist opposition. Between 170,000 and 200,000 were killed in the war from both sides although the vast majority of deaths were royalists. There were other uprisings not related to Vendée. These were the Federalist Revolts which served as the majority of the uprisings, discounting the continued revolts over economic issues. Mostly occurring in provincial cities like Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulon and Marseilles. The revolts were over two issues: the growing centralised power in Paris and the radicalisation of the Jacobins. These were compounded as many of the cities were at greater risk of invasion. As they were generally disorganised and limited to their own cities they were soon defeated, and at times brutally. Lyon has been signalled out for it being brutally crushed - in 1793 it had a population of 120,000 but by 1800 it had just 88,000.
Directory and Napoleon
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| Napoleon's Brumaire coup |
The CPS and Convention were replaced by the Directory which was a government of two chambers headed by five directors who would rule for five years. Although they accused the Jacobins of brutality they could be very violent themselves; the crushing of the War in the Vendée and several federalist revolts were under the Directory. The Directors distrusted democracy and very few historians view the Directory positively. While this was happening the Revolutionary army had continued fighting and had made gains in Italy, Germany, and had incorporated Belgium into France. With the army came French newspapers spreading revolutionary ideas to the rest of Europe. The army best reflected revolutionary ideas; with most former leaders being nobles the new leaders were chosen based on merit and ability. One who had made a name for himself in in Italy was a Corsican called Napoleon Bonaparte. His victories abroad were soon noted back at home thanks to the press. Defeating the Austrians in Italy between 1797 and 1799 he established republics in Italy to export the revolution. Napoleon became so popular that he quickly gained support in his plan to invade Egypt to disrupt Britain's connection to India. Initially he was welcomed as a saviour and middle-class, secular, and female Egyptians to name three groups enjoyed his policies. However, conservative elements did not and eventually Egyptian society turned on the French after the British destroyed the French navy. Napoleon returned to Paris but still remained popular. He eventually on 18-19 Brumaire VIII (9 November 1799) led a coup replacing the Directory with three consuls of which he was First Consul. Historians become divided after - was this the end of the Revolution or did it just end the Republican phase?
Napoleon - Revolution's saviour or betrayer?
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| Napoleon has been just as divisive as the Revolution: in this painting his is portrayed boldly crossing the Alps |
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| Here he is far more humble |
Historians, and even contemporaries, are intensely divided over Napoleon. Originally Beethoven devoted a symphony to Napoleon but scrubbed it out when he declared himself emperor. In Napoleon's career we see both the preservation of the Revolution and its ideals as well as its subversion. The most prominent example is Napoleon declaring himself emperor although it has been argued that he made himself emperor, not king, to respect the anti-king aspect of the Revolution. He tried to reverse the abolition of slavery but failed because of resistance in the former slave colonies; reaffirmed Catholicism in France with his Concordat with the Pope; imposed his siblings as monarchs in conquered regions; and ensured that women would remain second class citizens in his Napoleonic Code. However, at the same time he promoted meritocracy; emancipated Jews; spread the Revolution's ideas across Europe; promoted the metric system; and created a standardised secular secondary education system. As a result, Napoleon's legacy remains mixed.
Conclusion
Alongside the Industrial Revolution the French Revolution is the most influential Revolution in at least modern history. It set the stage for the modern world and laid to rest the Medieval one once and for all. It happens to be highly contested as well. Everyone agrees its legacy is profound but how we look at the Revolution is highly politicised between the Left and Right - likely as this is where the origins of Left-wing and Right-wing comes from. A general rule tends to be that the Left is more sympathetic to the Revolution whereas the Right is more critical. This is true as well for contemporaries. The two most famous paintings of Marat's death exemplify this; Jacques Louis-David was sympathetic and portrayed him as a martyr whereas the more critical Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry makes him look as a monster slain by the heroic Charlotte Corday.
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| Louis-David's The Death of Marat |
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| Baudry's Charlotte Corday |
The legacy of the Revolution cannot be understated. In his account of the Russian Revolution Leon Trotsky said that Russian workers sang La Marseilles, the song of the French Revolution. It either directly inspired others ranging from the 1848 Revolutions to colonial protests after the Second World War, or it laid the stage for the modern world including secularism, liberalism, and the idea of equality. Today France still has the tricolour and the words 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity'. Even to this day the French Revolution offers a new way how it shaped our world. In 1968 very educated Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was asked what he thought the legacy of the French Revolution was. He responded:
'It's too early to say'. That is the best way to describe it.
Thank you for reading. Next time we will look at something referenced throughout this post. In Haiti slaves fought for their own freedom in the Haitian Revolution which we'll focus on next. The sources I have used are as follows:
-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848, (London: Abacus, 1962)
-Norman Hampson, A Social History of the French Revolution, (London: University of Toronto Press, 1963)
-David Andress (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)
-Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon, (London: Penguin, 2002)
-Slavoj Zizek, Slavoj Zizek presents: Robespierre, Virtue and Terror, (London: Verso, 2007)
-William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)
-Francois Furet, Revolutionary France, 1770-1880, Trans. Antonia Nevill, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1988)
-Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, (London: The Folio Society, 2004)
-Martin Lyons, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution, (London: Macmillan Press, 1994)
-The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen
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