French revolution

Cultural History

The French Revolution, 1789-1799

A) Causes

• Growth of "liberal" public opinion—the spread of Enlightenment ideas re. Rights, liberty, limited state power, need for rational administrative reforms, laissez-faire economic policies, etc., in contrast with existing state/legal system

• "Rigid" system of legal privileges based upon system of 3 "estates" (clergy,nobles, commoners), and King Louis Vim’s claims to absolutist power, both in conflict with demands of social groups that were demanding political representation

• Fundamental social and economic tensions  (noble fear of losing privilege, middle class lack of political power, artisans pressed by growth of   merchant-driven market economy, peasant resentments re. taxes, tithes, and land). • France as a "kingdom" lacked strong sense of "national" unity or identity (e.g., fragmented by language, culture, etc.)  

• State financial crisis—product of war, weak tax base, etc--need to increase revenues leads to discussion of taxing nobles (etc)

B) First Phase ("moderate revolution"), 1789-1792 

1) Revolt of the nobility --nobles refused to accept Louis XVI's proposedfiscal and tax reforms

2) The Estates General

• Louis XVI tried to do an "end run" around the nobility by gathering the E-G to approve his reforms. 

• Majority of the 1st and 2nd Estates intended to use the E-G to protect their privileges

• Majority of the 3rd Estate intended to use the E-G to force fundamental political change.  The (Abbe) Emmanuel Joseph Sieyesdocument, "What is the Third Estate," laid out this aim.  

3) 20 June 1789 Tennis Court Oath—the E-G (esp. 3rd estate) declared itself a "NATIONAL" assembly and said it would keep meeting until it drafted a constitution.  

4) The July 1789 Paris uprising

• Rumors that Louis XVI would use troops to crush the "Nat. Assembly" sparked a rebellion. 

• Leadership came from the "middleclass," but the crowds were made up mostly of the "lower-classes"

• Demonstrations turned into street fighting, and "the people" took control of Paris (defeated the army and police)

• The "rebel" leaders declared a "provisional" city government (again, under middle-class leadership), and recognized the authority of the National Assembly. 

• Similar rebellions then broke outall across France

5) The immediate social context for the July 1789 uprising

• 2 years of bad harvests had forced up food prices, which led to a general economic depression

• About 1/3 of workers in Paris were unemployed in summer 1789, and food (etc) prices has skyrocketed. 

• The lower classes saw the King as failing to help "the people," and viewed the National Assemblyas the voice of the People

• There was a wide-spread sense that the "tyrant" King was trying to silence the People and destroy their Liberty

5) Reverberations of the revolution in the provinces   

• Provincial urban uprisings

• The Great Fear

• Peasant attacks on noble and church property, effort to seize land and drive out the nobility

    6) 26 August 1789Declaration of Rights of Man

• National Assembly, in response to events (especially unrest in the countryside), drafted this "outline" of constitutional principles
• Declaration ends the "estate" system—all men born equal in rights
• The purpose of government is to protect rights
• The nation is source of sovereign power
• State power must be limited—the state can notdeprive men of liberty except under certain conditions
• Property rights among the fundamental rights of man   

    7) The "moderate" political settlement of 1789-1791

• Constitutional monarchy—decision to keep the King in place as the executive power in a "constitutional" monarchy, with legislative power exercised by the Assembly
• The National Assembly created a body of laws...