The Revolution and the Reorganization of France

Section 9.42

Moderate Phase

1789 1790 1791 1792 1793

Estates General Called

-National Assembly

formed-Tennis Court Oath

Bastille Stormed

Night of August 4th

Ends Feudalism

March on Versailles

Great Fear

Declaration of the Right of Man and

Citizen

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

Louis XVI executed

Flight to Varennes

Declaration of Pillnitz

September Massacres-Year 1 of Republic Begins

Constitution of 1791 creates

Constitutional Monarchy

Cause 3: Financial Crisis (1787-88)• 1788 Budget

– 25%- military– 50% for interest on debt (4 billion livres)– 6% Versailles– < 20% -Internal improvements/administration– American Independence

• British had almost the same distribution so what’s the big deal?

– Louis XIV had repudiated some of his debt (gov refused to pay)

• Destroyed government’s credit• Debt held by aristocrats and bourgeoisie

• No central bank– No means of creating credit– No paper currency

• Gold Specie• Problems with taxation

– 1st & 2nd exemption– Bourgeoisie evades taxes– Tax Farmer corrupt and inefficient

Battle of Yorktown

One of the cottages built in Marie

Antoinette's private village

Estates General (May 5, 1789)• Calonne

– director of finances in 1786– creates a program to replace the taille,

• Calls for – general tax on all landowners – abolition of internal tariffs– confiscation of some church properties– a provincial assembly that represented all

without regard to estate– Parlement of Paris rejected it

• convened “assembly of notables” in 1787 – deadlocked followed and Calonne was fired– Lomenie de Brienne, – successor tried same program but was told

that only Estates General could approve this– king resisted but gave in – Louis XVI calls for a meeting of the Estates

General (May 1789)

Charles Alexandre de Calonne

Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne

How should Estates meet? • One chamber – third estate wins• Separate chambers – first and second

estate wins• In September of 1788, Parlement of

Paris declares separate chambersAims of the nobility • Constitutional government• Guarantees of liberties (their liberties)• Freedom of speech and press• Due process of law• Wanted to govern France through the

Estates General– drew up a list of grievances

(cashiers des doleances) that they wanted addressed

National Assembly Formed (June 17, 1789)

• delegates of the 3rd Estate were:

– businessmen (13%)

– lawyers (25%)

– government officeholders (43%)

• Turned on the Nobility• Abbe

Sieyes: What is the Third Estate?– Wrote a pamphlet that said the

nobility is useless class– Third Estate is the necessary

one– Is the nation– Is sovereign (Rousseau’s ideas

enter Revolutionary thought)Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès

National Assembly Formed (June 17, 1789)

• Class conflict– Bourgeois reject

pretensions of the nobility– completely distrust the

nobles• threw bourgeois into a

radical and destructive mood

• Refuse to meet separately at Estates General– deadlock lasts for 6 weeks – Some of First and Second

Estate come over to the Third Estate

• Declare themselves the National Assembly (June 17, 1789)

National Assembly Formed (June 17, 1789)

Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789)• June 20 third estate finds

doors to Versailles meeting hall locked– National Assembly goes

to nearby ‘handball’ court• Tennis Court Oath (June 20,

1789)– Not to disband until they

have a Constitution • Revolutionary – assumed

sovereignty without a legal claim King orders 3 estates to separate chambers and tardily presents his own program of reform (too late), NA refuse to budge

Cause 4: Character of Louis XVI• King popular up to 1789• Supported most by

bourgeoisie • Wanted liberty (economic)• King indecisive

– Sides with Nobles (feudalism)

– Louis could• Suppress National

Assembly & Tennis Court Oath

• Support it• Louis does both

• King and Nobility join forces• Calls up the 18 thousand soldiers to

dissolve National Assembly• Paris overrun with unemployed

– 50% (1787-1789)• 1788 poor harvest• 1788

– 50% of family budget on bread – caused a marked reduction in

purchase and therefore manufacturing of goods

• many peasants used domestic industry to supplement their incomes

• National Assembly viewed as only hope

• Third Estate begins looking for weapons

Bastille (July 14, 1789)

Bastille (July 14, 1789)• Parisians alarmed at the concentration of

troops at Versailles

• Sought weapons and ammo

• Bastille

– Medieval Castle

– prison (for the rich)

• reputation of a torture chamber and symbolized tyranny

• JULY 14, 1789

• Crowd attacks and kills several officials

– Army holds back

• Saves the National Assembly at Versailles

• Louis XVI

– Recognizes NA

– Commands nobles and clergy to join

The Great Fear (July-Aug 1789)• Fear among peasants

that brigands & outlaws were coming

• peasants began to attack manors

• burning houses and destroying manorial archives

• Agrarian revolutionary efforts intended on destroying the manorial regime

Night of August 4, 1789• Problem – meeting demands of

peasants and not depriving landed aristocracy of income

• Solution – “night of august 4”• Liberal nobility surrender

vestiges of feudalism and serfdom

– declared flatly that feudalism is abolished

• Receive “compensation” for eminent property loss

– payments to buy off nobility• few are made• abolished by radical phase

of the revolution

medallion celebrating the Night of August 4

Declaration of the Rights of Man (8/27/1789)• Men are free and equal• Natural rights of liberty, property, and security and

resistance to oppression• Freedom of thought and religion• Due process of law• All citizens are eligible for office (if qualified)• Law

– must be equitable – originates from the general will

• The nation is sovereign• Taxes are made by common consent• Powers of government should be separated• “man” refers to all human beings, even women

– revolutionaries gave right to vote only to men• consider politics, gov. war masculine business• saw “feminine” corruptions of the Old Regime

– ‘Women are disposed to an over-excition which would be deadly in public affairs.”

– So women had little or no role in the Revolution? FALSE

Marquis de Lafayette

March to Versailles (October 4, 1789)• Marat

– Radical writer– Spreads rumor of King’s disrepect for Tricolor

• Women– Customarily managed family resources– Parisian women worked as wage earners

within putting out system• Nobles fled country after Bastille• Demand for luxuries plummeted

• 7 thousand women and revolutionary militants with Paris national guard marched to Versailles– angered by the price of bread and

thought king was undermining the Assembly

– Interrupted National Assembly• Demanded bread

– demanded an audience with the king• broke into the palace • Slaughtered Royal Guardsmen• Royal Family forced to return to Paris

Constitution of 1791• National Assembly moves to Paris• France a Constitutional Monarchy• One house system called the Legislative assembly

– elected representatives– Has all lawmaking power – King has only a suspension veto– Abolish all privilege– Women

• May seek divorce• Inherit property• Seek child support• Not allowed to vote or hold political office

– Rousseauian attitude toward women» Raise children» Corrupting influence on Old Regime

– Replaced provinces with 83 departments based on old bishoprics

– Metric system adopted– Monopolies, guilds, unions prohibited– Religious toleration

Citizenship• Only Active Citizens could Vote• What is an Active Citizen?

– Males over 25 that could pay a tax– only 50% qualified as “active

citizens” – voted indirectly for electors who

were wealthy land owners– electors chose delegates to

National Assembly and departments

• Passive • – landless

– illiterate- worker– Had Civil rights But no right to vote

• King – lost power of army and couldn’t sit

in Assembly

This cartoon mocks the distinction

between active and passive citizens.

Many revolutionaries hated this difference, essentially dividing those with property

from those without. The propertied (active)

were the only ones who could participate

in the political process

Church Lands Seized (Nov. 1789)

• Huge Public debt owed to the bourgeois

• National Assembly paid debt by taking over Church lands

• Issued assignats– Paper currency backed

by sale of Church lands• Favored middle class• peasants did receive land

through middle men

• National Assembly Secularized and Nationalized Catholic Church

• Parish priests and bishops were elected (by 50 thousand electors)

• Protestant, Jews and agnostics could vote

– No papal letter was accepted to affirm the appointment

– could not carry out Pope order unless approved by gov

– Reduce number of dioceses from 130 to 83 (one for each dept.)

– Prohibited religious vows and dissolved the monasteries

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

• Bishops want a say in the Civil Constitution– Assembly refused and

stupidly went to the Pope for his blessing

• instead the Pope denounced the entire revolution

• National (Constituent) Assembly demands an oath of loyalty from all French clergy

• All except a few Bishops refuse (Talleyrand)

The Quarrel with the Church

• Created two churches in France• Constitutional clergy

• Official and taking directives from the National Assembly

• Refractory clergy– Covert and taking directives

from Rome– more serious Catholics

belonged to this• King sides with the refractory

church– example of the King makes

laity nervous• peasants prefer the

refractory church• working class prefer the

refractory church– desire proper marriages and

baptisms

cartoon representation of the confiscation of church lands

The Quarrel with the Church

Radicals Take Over• émigrés -Conservatives become disillusioned

by mob violence leave the country • Mobs and anarchists are taking over• San Culottes

– Radical and violent urban working class artisans

– Despised breeches (culottes) of nobility– Anti-rich

• Not anti-private property– Equality (favored direct democracy)– Favorite weapon (Pike)– Influenced the Jacobins

• Jacobins– Society of Friends of the Constitution –

Jacobins• Extremely revolutionary• Club that met in old Jacobin monastery• discuss policies• A middle class, bourgeois club• Many elected to new National Assembly

in Constitution of 1791

Sans Culottes

Flight to Varennes• In 1791 attempted “flight of

Varennes” (town in Lorraine) and tried to escape the country, join with émigré noblemen, seek help from foreign powers

• King left a written message in which he trashed the Revolution – Assembly increasingly under

control of Jacobins– Extreme revolutionaries– Bond between King and

people irreparably damaged