French Revolution: Difference between revisions

At the same time, France was experiencing such a severe economic depression that there was not enough food to sustain the population of 26 million, which was the largest in all of Europe. Poor harvests lasting several years and an inadequate transportation system both contributed to making food more expensive.^[22][23] As with most monarchies, the upper class was always ensured a stable living, so while the rich remained very wealthy, the majority of the French population was starving. Many were so destitute that they could not even feed their families and resorted to theft or prostitution to stay alive. Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was isolated from and indifferent to the escalating crisis. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much-needed reforms. The Enlightenment had produced many writers, pamphleteers, and publishers who could inform or inflame public opinion. The opposition used this resource to mobilise public opinion against the monarchy, which in turn tried to repress the underground literature.^[20]

Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal

Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger towards the King for dismissing ministers, including finance minister Jacques Necker, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.^[24]

Ancien Régime

Financial crisis

In 1774

Turgot was dismissed, after failing to enact reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Comptroller-General of Finance. He could not be made an official minister because he was a Protestant.^[27]

Necker realised that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden,^[27] while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy.^[28] He argued that the country could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed restricting the power of the parlements.^[27]

This was not received well by the King's ministers, and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister. The King refused, Necker was dismissed, and

tax code.^[29]

The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the parlements, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables. But the Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through its criticism. The Notables concluded that this kind of change must be approved by the people in the form of the Estates-General.

His failures resulted in Calonne's dismissal, and in May 1787 he was replaced with

Parlement in early June; the Parlement endorsed the principal of the reforms, but like the Notables, concluded that the changes could only be made by the Estates-General. They announced their decision in July, following the Day of the Tiles, a formal resistance by the people to Brienne and the King's efforts to push reforms. Louis attempted to compel the Parlement to approve the reforms via a lit de justice, which the Parlement declared invalid.^[30]

A Royal Session was called for 19 November 1787, between the Parlement and the King. The Parlement resisted royal mandate even in King's presence. In response, the King had no choice but to announce the calling of the

Estates-General for May 1789, the first time the body had been summoned since 1614. This was a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.^[31]

Estates-General of 1789

Main article:

Estates General of 1789 in France

The Estates-General was organised into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France. It had last met in 1614. Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males, aged 25 years or more, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes. Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including 303 clergy, 291 nobles and 610 members of the Third Estate. The First Estate represented 100,000 Catholic clergy; the Church owned about 10% of the land and collected its own taxes (the tithe) on peasants. The lands were controlled by bishops and abbots of monasteries, but two-thirds of the 303 delegates from the First Estate were ordinary parish priests; only 51 were bishops.[32] The Second Estate represented the nobility, about 400,000 men and women who owned about 25% of the land and collected seigneurial dues and rents from their peasant tenants. About a third of these deputies were nobles, mostly with minor holdings. The Third Estate representation was doubled to 610 men, representing 95% of the population. Half were well educated lawyers or local officials. Nearly a third were in trades or industry; 51 were wealthy land owners.^[33][34]

To assist delegates, "Books of grievances" (cahiers de doléances) were compiled to list problems.^[35] The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare.^[36][37]

Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship.

The Estates-General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three-hour speech by Necker. The Third Estate demanded that the credentials of deputies should be verified by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members, but negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this. The commoners appealed to the clergy, who asked for more time. Necker then stated that each estate should verify its own members' credentials and that the king should act as arbitrator.^[40]

National Assembly (1789)

On 10 June 1789 Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: "Commons") proceed with verifying its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June.^[41] Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People". They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.^[42]

In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, and fearing an attack ordered by Louis XVI, they met in a tennis court just outside Versailles, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789) under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.^[43]

Constitutional monarchy

National Constituent Assembly (Jul. 1789 – Sept. 1791)

Storming of the Bastille

By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his overt manipulation of public opinion.

Many Parisians presumed Louis' actions to be aimed against the Assembly and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the

By late July, the spirit of popular sovereignty had spread throughout France. In rural areas, many commoners began to form militias and arm themselves against a foreign invasion: some attacked the châteaux of the nobility as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande Peur" ("the Great Fear"). In addition, wild rumours and paranoia caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances that contributed to the collapse of law and order.^[49]

Abolition of feudalism

On 4 and 11 August 1789 the

Also the tithe (a 10% tax for the Church, gathered by the First Estate (clergy)), which had been the main source of income for many clergymen, was abolished.^[51] During the course of a few hours nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies and cities lost their special privileges.^[52]

Historian Georges Lefebvre summarises the night's work:

"Without debate the Assembly enthusiastically adopted equality of taxation and redemption of all manorial rights except for those involving personal servitude – which were to be abolished without indemnification. Other proposals followed with the same success: the equality of legal punishment, admission of all to public office, abolition of venality in office,^[53] conversion of the tithe into payments subject to redemption, freedom of worship, prohibition of plural holding of benefices ... Privileges of provinces and towns were offered as a last sacrifice."^[54]

Originally the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues; these dues affected more than a fourth of the farmland in France and provided most of the income of the large landowners.^[55] The majority refused to pay and in 1793 the obligation was cancelled. Thus the peasants got their land free, and also no longer paid the tithe to the church.^[56]

Furet emphasises that the decisions of August 1789 survived and became an integral part of

"the founding texts of modern France. They destroyed aristocratic society from top to bottom, along with its structure of dependencies and privileges. For this structure they substituted the modern, autonomous individual, free to do whatever was not prohibited by law ... The Revolution thus distinguished itself quite early by its radical individualism"^[57]

The old judicial system, based on the 13 regional parlements, was suspended in November 1789, and officially abolished in September 1790. The main institutional pillars of the old regime had vanished.^[58]

Declaration of the Rights of Man

On 26 August 1789 the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect.^[59]

The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.

Women's March on Versailles

Fuelled by rumours of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789, at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789, crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns.^[60] The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.

Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of Lafayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards.^[61] Lafayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.

On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimising the National Assembly.

Revolution and the Church

The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Roman Catholic Church to the state.

The price control policy was coeval with the rise to power of the Committee of Public Safety and the Reign of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products, but by September 1793 it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods.^[115] Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The Committee reacted by sending a small revolutionary army into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris, and the days of the committee were numbered. When Robespierre was sent to the guillotine in July 1794, the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"^[116]

Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror, or more commonly The Terror (French: la Terreur), refers to a period of the French Revolution when numerous public

In July the Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–94). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities.^[117] As many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.^[117][118]

On 2 June 1793, Paris sections – encouraged by the

On 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the

universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.^[121]

On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat – a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric – by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.^[120]

The Reign of Terror ultimately weakened the revolutionary government, while temporarily ending internal opposition. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with soldiers who had demonstrated their patriotism, if not their ability. The Republican army repulsed the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy. However, this policy was never fully implemented.^[122]

Three approaches attempt to explain the

sacrificial function.^[125]

Internal and external wars

Further information: War in the Vendée

Introduction of a nationwide conscription for the army in February 1793 was the spark that in March made the Vendée, already rebellious since 1790 because of the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790),^[126] ignite into civil (guerrilla) war against the French Revolutionary government in Paris.^{[106][127][128][129]}

North of the

Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels).^[130]

In March 1793, France also declared war on Spain, the Vendée rebels won some victories against Paris, and the French army was defeated in Belgium by Austria with the French general Dumouriez defecting to the Austrians: the French Republic's survival was now in real danger.^[106] Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war.^[131] On 6 April 1793, to prevent the Convention from losing itself in abstract debate and to streamline government decisions, the Comité de salut public (Committee of Public Prosperity) was created, as executive government which was accountable to the convention.^[106]

Girondins expelled

In April 1793, the Girondins indicted Jean-Paul Marat before the Revolutionary Tribunal for 'attempting to destroy the sovereignty of the people' and 'preaching plunder and massacre', referring to his behaviour during the September massacres. Marat was quickly acquitted but the incident further exacerbated the 'Girondins' versus 'Montagnards' party strife in the convention.^[106]

la Commune (the Paris city council) protested against Hébert's arrest. The convention's President Isnard, a Girondin, answered them: "Members of la Commune [...] If by your incessant rebellions something befalls to the representatives of the nation, I declare, in the name of France, that Paris will be totally obliterated".^[106]

On 2 June 1793, the convention's session in Tuileries Palace degenerated into chaos and pandemonium. Crowds of people swarmed in and around the palace. Incessant screaming from the public galleries suggested that all of Paris was against the Girondins. Petitions circulated, indicting and condemning 22 Girondins. Barère, member of the Comité de salut public, suggested: to end this division which is harming the Republic, the Girondin leaders should lay down their offices voluntarily. Late that night after much more tumultuous debate, dozens of Girondins had resigned and left the convention.^[106]

Abounding civil war

By the summer of 1793, most French departments in one way or another opposed the central Paris government. Girondins who fled from Paris after 2 June led those revolts.^[132] In Brittany's countryside, the people rejecting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1790 had taken to a guerrilla warfare known as Chouannerie.^[126] But generally, the French opposition against 'Paris' had now evolved into a plain struggle for power over the country^[126] against the 'Montagnards' around Robespierre and Marat now dominating Paris.^[133]

In June–July 1793, Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulon, Marseilles, Caen, Brittany and the rest of Normandy gathered armies to march on Paris and against 'the revolution'.^[106][126] In July, the deposed 'Montagnard' head of the Lyon city council was guillotined.^[126] On 1 August Barère incited the convention to tougher measures against the Vendée, at war with Paris since March: "We'll have peace only when no Vendée remains [...] we'll have to exterminate that rebellious people".^[106] In August, Convention troops besieged Lyon.^[126] On 17 August 1793, the Convention voted for general conscription, a second levée en masse, which mobilised all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.^[131] By August, political disagreement seemed enough to be summoned before the Tribunal; appeal against a Tribunal verdict was impossible.^[126] In late August 1793,

Adam Philippe Custine, an army general, was guillotined on the accusation of choosing excessively timid strategies on the battlefield.^[126]

In early September 1793, militants urged the convention to do more to quell the counter-revolution. A delegation of the

Commune (Paris city council) suggested the formation of revolutionary armies in order to arrest hoarders and conspirators.^[126]

On September 5, Barère reacted favorably, saying: let's "make terror the order of the day!"[126] Criteria for bringing someone before the Revolutionary Tribunal had always been vast and vague.^[126] On 9 September The

Law of the Maximum, intended to prevent price gouging and supply food to the cities.^[137]

On 1 October Barère repeated his plea to subdue the Vendée: "refuge of fanaticism, where priests have raised their altars".

Montagnards, the Convention set it aside indefinitely until a future peace.^[140] Mid-October, the widowed former queen Marie Antoinette was on trial for a long list of charges such as "teaching [her husband] Louis Capet the art of dissimulation" and incest with her son, she too was guillotined.^[126]

At the end of October 1793, 21 former 'Girondins' Convention members who hadn't left Paris after June were convicted to death and executed, on the charge of federalism, verbally supporting the preparation of an insurrection in Caen by fellow-Girondins.^[126]

Suppressing and retaliating the revolts

17 October 1793, the 'blue' Republican army near Cholet defeated the 'white' Vendéan insubordinate army and all surviving Vendée residents, counting in tens of thousands, fled over the river Loire north into Brittany.^[106] A Convention's representative on mission in Nantes commissioned in October to pacify the region did so by simply drowning prisoners in the river Loire: until February 1794 he drowned at least 4,000.^[126]

Meanwhile, the instalment of the

Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November.^[141]

By November 1793, the revolts in Normandy, Bordeaux and Lyon were overcome, in December also that in Toulon.[126] Two representatives on mission sent to punish Lyon between November 1793 and April 1794 executed 2,000 people to death by guillotine or firing-squad.^[126] The Vendéan army since October roaming through Brittany on 12 December 1793 again ran up against Republican troops and saw 10,000 of its rebels perish, meaning the end of this once threatening army.^[126]

Some historians claim that after that Vendéan defeat Convention Republic armies in 1794 massacred 117,000 Vendéan civilians to obliterate the Vendéan people, but others contest that claim.^[142] Some historians consider the total civil war to have lasted until 1796 with a toll of 170,000^[143] or 450,000 lives.^[144][145]

Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide".^{[146][147][148]} Historian François Furet concluded that the repression in the Vendee "not only revealed massacre and destruction on an unprecedented scale but also a zeal so violent that it has bestowed as its legacy much of the region's identity."^[149]

Profuse executions

The guillotine became the tool for a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, Barnave, Bailly, Brissot and other leading Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.

At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process.^{[citation needed]} Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them.^{[citation needed]} Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). In the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the Noyades ("drownings") he organised in Nantes;^[150] his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.^[151]

Guillotining politicians

Maximilien Robespierre, since July 1793 member of the Committee of Public Prosperity,^[106] on 5 February 1794 in a speech in the Convention identified Jacques Hébert and his faction as "internal enemies" working toward the triumph of tyranny.^[126] After a dubious trial Hébert and some allies, charged with counter-revolutionary activities,^[152] were guillotined in March.^[126]

On 5 April, again at the instigation of Robespierre,

Constituent Assembly

.

On 7 June 1794, Robespierre advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".^[152] A law enacted on 10 June 1794 (22 Prairial II) further streamlined criminal procedures: if the Revolutionary Tribunal saw sufficient proof of someone being an "enemy of the people" a counsel for defence would not be allowed. The frequency of guillotine executions in Paris now rose from on average three a day to an average of 29 a day.^[126]

Meanwhile, France's external wars were going well, with victories over Austrian and British troops in May and June 1794 opening up Belgium for French conquest.^[126] But cooperation within the Committee of Public Prosperity, since April 1793 the de facto executive government, started to break down. On 29 June 1794, three colleagues of Robespierre at 'the Committee' called him a dictator in his face – Robespierre baffled left the meeting. This encouraged other Convention members to also defy Robespierre. On 26 July, a long and vague speech of Robespierre wasn't met with thunderous applause as usual but with hostility; some deputies yelled that Robespierre should have the courage to say which deputies he deemed necessary to be killed next, what Robespierre refused to do.^[126]

In the Convention session of

27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor of Year II), Robespierre and his allies hardly managed to say a word as they were constantly interrupted by a row of critics such as Tallien, Billaud-Varenne, Vadier, Barère and acting president Thuriot. Finally, even Robespierre's own voice failed on him: it faltered at his last attempt to beg permission to speak.^[126]

A decree was adopted to arrest Robespierre, Saint-Just and Couthon. 28 July, they and 19 other leading Jacobins were beheaded. 29 July, again 70 members of the Parisian Commune were guillotined.^[126]

Subsequently, the

Jacobin Club was closed and banned.^[154][155]

Disregarding the lower classes

After July 1794, the French government was dominated by '

Jacobin'/'Montagnard' governments around Robespierre and Marat, in what was known as the White Terror.^[156]

After July 1794, most civilians henceforth ignored the

Republican calendar and returned to the traditional seven-day weeks

. The government in a law of 21 February 1795 set steps of return to freedom of religion and reconciliation with the since 1790 refractory Catholic priests, but any religious signs outside churches or private homes, such as crosses, clerical garb, bell ringing, remained prohibited. When the people's enthusiasm for attending church grew to unexpected levels the government backed out and in October 1795 again, like in 1790, required all priests to swear oaths on the Republic.^[126]

In the very cold winter of 1794–95,

Germinal III) a mostly female crowd marched on the Convention calling for bread. But no Convention member sympathized, and they told the women to return home. Again in May, a crowd of 20,000 men and 40,000 women invaded the convention and killed a deputy in the halls, but again they failed to make the Convention take notice of the needs of the lower classes. Instead, the Convention banned women from all political assemblies, and deputies who had stood with this insurrection were sentenced to death: such allegiance between parliament and street fighting was no longer tolerated.^[126]

Late 1794, France conquered present-day Belgium.^[157] In January 1795 they subdued the Dutch Republic with full consent and cooperation of the influential Dutch patriottenbeweging ('patriots movement'), resulting in the Batavian Republic, a satellite and puppet state of France.^[158][159] In April 1795, France concluded a peace agreement with Prussia,^[160] later that year peace was agreed with Spain.^[161]

The Directory (1795–1799)

Main article: French Directory

The convention on 22 August 1795 approved the new "

plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against.^[162] The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.^[162]

The new constitution created the

bicameral legislature

.

The first chamber was called the 'Council of 500' initiating the laws, the second the 'Council of Elders' reviewing and approving or not the passed laws. Each year, one-third of the chambers was to be renewed. The executive power was in the hands of the five members (directors) of the Directory with a five-year mandate.^[153]

The early directors did not much understand the nation they were governing; they especially had an innate inability to see Catholicism as anything else than counter-revolutionary and royalist. Local administrators had a better sense of people's priorities, and one of them wrote to the minister of the interior: "Give back the crosses, the church bells, the Sundays, and everyone will cry: 'vive la République!'"^[153]

The Directory denounced the arbitrary executions of the Reign of Terror, but itself engaged in large scale illegal repressions, as well as large-scale massacres of civilians in the Vendee uprising. The economy continued in bad condition, with the poor especially hurt by the high cost of food.

State finances were in total disarray; the government could only cover its expenses through the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace was made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside.

Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.^[163]

The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination towards the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the proto-anarchist/communist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value until each note was worth less than the paper it was printed on; debtors easily paid off their debts.^[164] A series of financial reforms started by the Directory finally took effect after it fell from power.^{[citation needed]}

Evaluation

Although committed to Republicanism, the Directory distrusted democracy.^{[citation needed]} Historians have seldom praised the Directory; it was a government of self-interest rather than virtue, thus losing any claim on idealism. It never had a strong base of popular support; when elections were held, most of its candidates were defeated. Its achievements were minor.^[165][166] Brown stresses the turn towards dictatorship and the failure of liberal democracy under the Directory, blaming it on, "chronic violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy-handed repression."^[167]

bridge of Arcole

in 1796

The election system was complex and designed to insulate the government from grass roots democracy. The parliament consisted of two houses: the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (Council of the Five Hundred) with 500 representatives, and the Conseil des Anciens (Council of Elders) with 250 senators. Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the Conseil des Anciens from a list submitted by the Conseil des Cinq-Cents. The

universal male suffrage of 1793 was replaced by male census suffrage based on property. The voters had only a limited choice because the electoral rules required two-thirds of the seats go to members of the old Convention, no matter how few popular votes they received.^[168]

Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Nevertheless, those on the right who wished to restore the monarchy by putting

Louis XVIII on the throne, and those on the left who would have renewed the Reign of Terror, tried but failed to overthrow the Directory. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible.^[169]

The Directory régime met opposition from Jacobins on the left and royalists on the right (the latter were secretly subsidised by the British government). The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and in particular Napoleon gained total power.[170]

Coups d'état

Parliamentary elections in the spring of 1797, for one-third of the seats in Parliament, resulted in considerable gains for the royalists,^[126] who seemed poised to take control of the Directory in the next elections. This frightened the republican directors and they reacted, in the Coup of 18 Fructidor V (4 September 1797), by purging all the winners banishing 57 leaders to certain death in Guiana, removing two supposedly pro-royalist directors, and closing 42 newspapers.

The new, 'corrected' government, still strongly convinced that Catholicism and royalism were equally dangerous to the Republic, started a fresh campaign to promote the

décadi, as substitute for the Christian Sunday. Not only citizens opposed and even mocked such decrees, also local government officials refused to enforce such laws.^[126]

coup d'état of 18 Brumaire VIII

(9 November 1799)

France was still waging wars, in 1798 in Egypt, Switzerland, Rome, Ireland, Belgium and against the US, in 1799 in Baden-Württemberg. When the elections of 1798 were again carried by the opposition, the Directory used the army to imprison and exile the opposition leaders and close their newspapers.^{[citation needed]} Increasingly it depended on the Army in foreign and domestic affairs, as well as finance.

In 1799, when the French armies abroad

Napoleon Bonaparte who had just returned to France, Sieyes began preparing another coup d'état, which took place on 9–10 November 1799 (18–19 Brumaire VIII), replacing the five directors now with three "consuls": Napoleon, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos.^[126] That coup some historians consider the closing of the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.^[171]

Exporting the Revolution

The Army at first was quite successful. It conquered Belgium and turned it into a province of France; conquered the Netherlands and made it a puppet state; and conquered Switzerland and most of Italy, setting up a series of puppet states. The result was glory for France and an infusion of much needed money from the conquered lands, which also provided direct support to the French Army. However, the enemies of France, led by Britain and funded by the inexhaustible British Treasury, formed a Second Coalition in 1799 (with Britain joined by Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria). The allies scored a series of victories that rolled back French successes, retaking Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands and ending the flow of payments from the conquered areas to France. The treasury was empty. Despite his publicity claiming many glorious victories, Napoleon's army was trapped in Egypt after the British sank the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile. Napoleon escaped by himself, returned to Paris and overthrew the Directory in November 1799.^[172][173]

General Brune and General Daendels

against the Russians and British in 1799

Napoleon conquered most of Italy in the name of the French Revolution in 1797–99. He consolidated old units and split up Austria's holdings. He set up a series of new republics, complete with new codes of law and abolition of old feudal privileges. Napoleon's

Neapolitan Republic was formed around Naples, but it lasted only five months before the enemy forces of the Coalition recaptured it. In 1805 Napoleon formed the Kingdom of Italy, with himself as king and his stepson as viceroy. In addition, France turned the Netherlands into the Batavian Republic, and Switzerland into the Helvetic Republic. All these new countries were satellites of France and had to pay large subsidies to Paris, as well as provide military support for Napoleon's wars. Their political and administrative systems were modernised, the metric system introduced, and trade barriers reduced. Jewish ghettos were abolished. Belgium and Piedmont became integral parts of France.^[174]

Most of the new nations were abolished and returned to prewar owners in 1814. However, Artz emphasises the benefits the Italians gained from the French Revolution:

For nearly two decades the Italians had the excellent codes of law, a fair system of taxation, a better economic situation, and more religious and intellectual toleration than they had known for centuries... Everywhere old physical, economic, and intellectual barriers had been thrown down and the Italians had begun to be aware of a common nationality.[175]

Media and symbolism

Main article: Symbolism in the French Revolution

Newspapers

In the

Old regime there were a small number of heavily censored newspapers that needed a royal licence to operate. Newspapers and pamphlets played a central role in stimulating and defining the Revolution. The meetings of the Estates-General in 1789 created an enormous demand for news, and over 130 newspapers appeared by the end of the year. Among the most significant of these newspapers in 1789 were Marat's L'Ami du peuple and Elysée Loustallot's Revolutions de Paris. The next decade saw 2,000 newspapers founded, with 500 in Paris alone. Most lasted only a matter of weeks. Together they became the main communication medium, combined with the very large pamphlet literature.^[176] Newspapers were read aloud in taverns and clubs, and circulated hand to hand. The press saw its lofty role to be the advancement of civic republicanism based on public service, and downplayed the liberal, individualistic goal of making a profit.^{[177][178][179][180]} By 1793 the radicals were most active but at the start the royalists flooded the country with their press the "Ami du Roi" (Friends of the King) until they were suppressed.^[181]

Napoleon only allowed four newspapers, all under tight control.

Symbolism

Symbolism was a device to distinguish the main features of the Revolution and ensure public identification and support. In order to effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instil in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.[182]

La Marseillaise

Main article: La Marseillaise

La Marseillaise

The French national anthem La Marseillaise; text in French.

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"

French National Convention adopted it as the First Republic's anthem in 1795. It acquired its nickname after being sung in Paris by volunteers from Marseille

marching on the capital.

The song is the first example of the "European march" anthemic style. The anthem's evocative melody and lyrics have led to its widespread use as a song of revolution and its incorporation into many pieces of classical and popular music. Cerulo (1993) says:[183]

[T]he design of "La Marseillaise" is credited to General Strasburg of France, who is said to have directed de Lisle, the composer of the anthem, to 'produce one of those hymns which conveys to the soul of the people the enthusiasm which it (the music) suggests.'

Guillotine

Main article: Guillotine

Hanson notes, "The guillotine stands as the principal symbol of the Terror in the French Revolution."^[184] Invented by a physician during the Revolution as a quicker, more efficient and more distinctive form of execution, the guillotine became a part of popular culture and historic memory. It was celebrated on the left as the people's avenger and cursed as the symbol of the Reign of Terror by the right.^[185] Its operation became a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. Vendors sold programmes listing the names of those scheduled to die. Many people came day after day and vied for the best locations from which to observe the proceedings; knitting women (tricoteuses) formed a cadre of hardcore regulars, inciting the crowd. Parents often brought their children. By the end of the Terror, the crowds had thinned drastically. Repetition had staled even this most grisly of entertainments, and audiences grew bored.^[186]

What it is that horrifies people changes over time. Doyle comments:

Even the unique horror of the guillotine has been dwarfed by the gas chambers of the Holocaust, the organized brutality of the gulag, the mass intimidation of Mao's cultural revolution, or the killing fields of Cambodia.^[187]

Tricolore cockade

Main article: Cockade of France

See also: Symbolism in the French Revolution

Cockades were widely worn by revolutionaries beginning in 1789. They now pinned the blue-and-red cockade of Paris onto the white cockade of the Ancien Régime. Camille Desmoulins asked his followers to wear green cockades on 12 July 1789. The Paris militia, formed on 13 July, adopted a blue and red cockade. Blue and red are the traditional colours of Paris, and they are used on the city's coat of arms. Cockades with various colour schemes were used during the storming of the Bastille on 14 July.^[188]

Fasces

National Emblem of France

is backed by a fasces, representing justice.

Fasces are Roman in origin and suggest Roman Republicanism. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. The French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity.^[182]

Liberty cap

The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. It reflects Roman republicanism and liberty, alluding to the Roman ritual of manumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty.^[189]

Role of women

Historians since the late 20th century have debated how women shared in the French Revolution and what long-term impact it had on French women. Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them. That changed dramatically in theory as there seemingly were great advances in feminism. Feminism emerged in Paris as part of a broad demand for social and political reform. The women demanded equality for women and then moved on to a demand for the end of male domination. Their chief vehicle for agitation were pamphlets and women's clubs; for example, a small group called the Cercle Social (Social Circle) campaigned for women's rights, noting that "the laws favor men at the expense of women, because everywhere power is in your hands."^[190] However, in October 1793, the country's all-male legislative body voted to ban all women's clubs. The movement was crushed. Devance explains the decision in terms of the emphasis on masculinity in a wartime situation, Marie Antoinette's bad reputation for feminine interference in state affairs, and traditional male supremacy.^[191] A decade later the Napoleonic Code confirmed and perpetuated women's second-class status.^[192]

When the Revolution opened, groups of women acted forcefully, making use of the volatile political climate. Women forced their way into the political sphere. They swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship." De Corday d'Armont is a prime example of such a woman; engaged in the revolutionary political faction of the Girondins, she assassinated the Jacobin leader, Marat. Throughout the Revolution, other women such as Pauline Léon and her Society of Revolutionary Republican Women supported the radical Jacobins, staged demonstrations in the National Assembly and participated in the riots, often using armed force.^[193]

The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the

On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuileries Gardens, and then through the King's residence."[196] Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793. As part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered (by a counter-revolutionary woman) as well as a shirt stained with Marat's blood.^[197] On 20 May 1793 women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793." When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."^[198]

The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, a militant group on the far left, demanded a law in 1793 that would compel all women to wear the tricolour cockade to demonstrate their loyalty to the Republic. They also demanded vigorous price controls to keep bread – the major food of the poor people – from becoming too expensive. After the Convention passage law in September 1793, the Revolutionary Republican Women demanded vigorous enforcement, but were counted by market women, former servants, and religious women who adamantly opposed price controls (which would drive them out of business ) and resented attacks on the aristocracy and on religion. Fist fights broke out in the streets between the two factions of women.

Meanwhile, the men who controlled the Jacobins rejected the Revolutionary Republican Women as dangerous rabble-rousers. At this point the Jacobins controlled the government; they dissolved the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, and decreed that all women's clubs and associations were illegal. They sternly reminded women to stay home and tend to their families by leaving public affairs to the men. Organised women were permanently shut out of the French Revolution after 30 October 1793.^[199]

Prominent women

Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasised that women and men are different, but this shouldn't stop them from equality under the law. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children.^[200]

Madame Roland (a.k.a. Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!"^[201]

Most of these activists were punished for their actions. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".^[202]

Counter-revolutionary women

A major aspect of the French Revolution was the

When these revolutionary changes to the Church were implemented, it sparked a counter-revolutionary movement among women. Although some of these women embraced the political and social amendments of the Revolution, they opposed the dissolution of the Catholic Church and the formation of revolutionary cults like the Cult of the Supreme Being.^[204] As Olwen Hufton argues, these women began to see themselves as the "defenders of faith".^[205] They took it upon themselves to protect the Church from what they saw as a heretical change to their faith, enforced by revolutionaries.

Counter-revolutionary women resisted what they saw as the intrusion of the state into their lives.

The French Revolution abolished many of the constraints on the economy that had slowed growth during the ancien regime. It abolished tithes owed to local churches as well as feudal dues owed to local landlords. The result hurt the tenants, who paid both higher rents and higher taxes.

The economy did poorly in 1790–96 as industrial and agricultural output dropped, foreign trade plunged, and prices soared. The government decided not to repudiate the old debts. Instead it issued more and more paper money (called "assignat") that supposedly were grounded seized lands. The result was escalating inflation. The government imposed price controls and persecuted speculators and traders in the black market. People increasingly refused to pay taxes as the annual government deficit increased from 10% of gross national product in 1789 to 64% in 1793. By 1795, after the bad harvest of 1794 and the removal of price controls, inflation had reached a level of 3500%. The assignats were withdrawn in 1796 but the replacements also fuelled inflation. The inflation was finally ended by Napoleon in 1803 with the franc as the new currency.[211]

Napoleon after 1799 paid for his expensive wars by multiple means, starting with the modernisation of the rickety financial system.^[212] He conscripted soldiers at low wages, raised taxes, placed large-scale loans, sold lands formerly owned by the Catholic Church, sold Louisiana to the United States, plundered conquered areas and seized food supplies, and levied requisitions on countries he controlled, such as Italy.^[213]

Long-term impact

The French Revolution had a major impact on Europe and the New World, decisively changing the course of human history.^[214][215] It brought an end to feudalism and made a path for future advances in broadly defined individual freedoms.^[8][4][9]

Otto Dann and John Dinwiddy report, "It has long been almost a truism of European history that the French Revolution gave a great stimulus to the growth of modern nationalism."^[216] Nationalism was emphasised by historian Carlton J. H. Hayes as a major result of the French Revolution across Europe. The impact on French nationalism was profound. For example, Napoleon became such a heroic symbol of the nation that the glory was easily picked up by his nephew, who was overwhelmingly elected president (and later became Emperor Napoleon III).^[217] The influence was great in the hundreds of small German states and elsewhere, where it was either inspired by the French example or in reaction against it.^[218][219]

France

The changes in France were enormous; some were widely accepted and others were bitterly contested into the late 20th century.^[220] Before the Revolution, the people had little power or voice. The kings had so thoroughly centralised the system that most nobles spent their time at Versailles, and thus played only a small direct role in their home districts. Thompson says that the kings had "ruled by virtue of their personal wealth, their patronage of the nobility, their disposal of ecclesiastical offices, their provincial governors (intendants) their control over the judges and magistrates, and their command of the Army."^[221]

After the first year of revolution, the power of the king had been stripped away, he was left a mere figurehead, the nobility had lost all their titles and most of their land, the Church lost its monasteries and farmlands, bishops, judges and magistrates were elected by the people, and the army was almost helpless, with military power in the hands of the new revolutionary National Guard. The central elements of 1789 were the slogan "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" and "

The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarising politics for more than a century. Historian François Aulard writes:

"From the social point of view, the Revolution consisted in the suppression of what was called the feudal system, in the emancipation of the individual, in greater division of landed property, the abolition of the privileges of noble birth, the establishment of equality, the simplification of life.... The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity."^[223]

Religion and charity

The most heated controversy was over the status of the Catholic Church.^[224] From a dominant position in 1788, it was almost destroyed in less than a decade, its priests and nuns turned out, its leaders dead or in exile, its property controlled by its enemies, and a strong effort underway to remove all influence of Christian religiosity, such as Sundays, holy days, saints, prayers, rituals and ceremonies. The movement to dechristianise France not only failed but aroused a furious reaction among the pious.^[225][226] Napoleon's Concordat was a compromise that restored some of the Catholic Church's traditional roles but not its power, its lands or its monasteries. Priests and bishops were given salaries as part of a department of government controlled by Paris, not Rome. Protestants and Jews gained equal rights.^[227] Battles over the role of religion in the public sphere, and closely related issues such as church-controlled schools, that were opened by the Revolution have never seen closure. They raged into the 20th century. By the 21st century, angry debates exploded over the presence of any Muslim religious symbols in schools, such as the headscarves for which Muslim girls could be expelled. J. Christopher Soper and Joel S. Fetzer explicitly link the conflict over religious symbols in public to the French Revolution, when the target was Catholic rituals and symbols.^[228]

The revolutionary government seized the charitable foundations that had been set up (starting in the 13th century) to provide an annual stream of revenue for hospitals, poor relief, and education. The state sold the lands but typically local authorities did not replace the funding and so most of the nation's charitable and school systems were massively disrupted.^[210]

In the ancien regime, new opportunities for nuns as charitable practitioners were created by devout nobles on their own estates. The nuns provided comprehensive care for the sick poor on their patrons' estates, not only acting as nurses, but taking on expanded roles as physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries. During the Revolution, most of the orders of nuns were shut down and there was no organised nursing care to replace them.^[229] However, the demand for their nursing services remained strong, and after 1800 the sisters reappeared and resumed their work in hospitals and on rural estates. They were tolerated by officials because they had widespread support and were the link between elite male physicians and distrustful peasants who needed help.^[230]

Economics

Two thirds of France was employed in agriculture, which was transformed by the Revolution. With the breakup of large estates controlled by the Church and the nobility and worked by hired hands, rural France became more a land of small independent farms. Harvest taxes were ended, such as the tithe and seigneurial dues, much to the relief of the peasants. Primogeniture was ended both for nobles and peasants, thereby weakening the family patriarch. Because all the children had a share in the family's property, there was a declining birth rate.^[231][232] Cobban says the revolution bequeathed to the nation "a ruling class of landowners."^[233]

In the cities, entrepreneurship on a small scale flourished, as restrictive monopolies, privileges, barriers, rules, taxes and guilds gave way. However, the British blockade virtually ended overseas and colonial trade, hurting the port cities and their supply chains. Overall, the Revolution did not greatly change the French business system, and probably helped freeze in place the horizons of the small business owner. The typical businessman owned a small store, mill or shop, with family help and a few paid employees; large-scale industry was less common than in other industrialising nations.^[234]

A 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that the emigration of more than 100,000 individuals (predominantly supporters of the Old Regime) during the Revolution had a significant negative impact on income per capita in the 19th century (due to the fragmentation of agricultural holdings) but became positive in the second half of the 20th century onward (because it facilitated the rise in human capital investments).^[235] Another 2017 paper found that the redistribution of land had a positive impact on agricultural productivity, but that these gains gradually declined over the course of the 19th century.^[236][237]

Constitutionalism

The Revolution meant an end to arbitrary royal rule and held out the promise of rule by law under a constitutional order, but it did not rule out a monarch. Napoleon as emperor set up a constitutional system (although he remained in full control), and the restored Bourbons were forced to go along with one. After the abdication of Napoleon III in 1871, the monarchists probably had a voting majority, but they were so factionalised they could not agree on who should be king, and instead the French Third Republic was launched with a deep commitment to upholding the ideals of the Revolution.^[238][239] The conservative Catholic enemies of the Revolution came to power in Vichy France (1940–44), and tried with little success to undo its heritage, but they kept it a republic. Vichy denied the principle of equality and tried to replace the Revolutionary watchwords "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" with "Work, Family, and Fatherland." However, there were no efforts by the Bourbons, Vichy or anyone else to restore the privileges that had been stripped away from the nobility in 1789. France permanently became a society of equals under the law.^[240]

Communism

The

Economic historians Dan Bogart, Mauricio Drelichman, Oscar Gelderblom, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal described codified law as the French Revolution's "most significant export." They wrote, "While restoration returned most of their power to the absolute monarchs who had been deposed by Napoleon, only the most recalcitrant ones, such as Ferdinand VII of Spain, went to the trouble of completely reversing the legal innovations brought on by the French."^[242] They also note that the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars caused England, Spain, Prussia and the Dutch Republic to centralize their fiscal systems to an unprecedented extent in order to finance the military campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars.^[242]

According to

A 2016 study in the European Economic Review found that the areas of Germany that were occupied by France in the 19th century and in which the Code Napoleon was applied have higher levels of trust and cooperation today.^[244]

Britain

On 16 July 1789, two days after the

Conversely, two seminal political pieces of political history were written in Price's favor, supporting the general right of the French people to replace their State. One of the first of these "pamphlets" into print was A Vindication of the Rights of Men by Mary Wollstonecraft (better known for her later treatise, sometimes described as the first feminist text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman); Wollstonecraft's title was echoed by Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, published a few months later. In 1792 Christopher Wyvill published Defence of Dr. Price and the Reformers of England, a plea for reform and moderation.^[249]

This exchange of ideas has been described as "one of the great political debates in British history".^[250] Even in France, there was a varying degree of agreement during this debate, English participants generally opposing the violent means that the Revolution bent itself to for its ends.^[251]

In Ireland, the effect was to transform what had been an attempt by Protestant settlers to gain some autonomy into a mass movement led by the Society of United Irishmen involving Catholics and Protestants. It stimulated the demand for further reform throughout Ireland, especially in Ulster. The upshot was a revolt in 1798, led by Wolfe Tone, that was crushed by Britain.^[252]

Germany

German reaction to the Revolution swung from favourable to antagonistic. At first it brought liberal and democratic ideas, the end of guilds, serfdom and the Jewish ghetto. It brought economic freedoms and agrarian and legal reform. Above all the antagonism helped stimulate and shape German nationalism.^[253]

Switzerland

The French invaded Switzerland and turned it into an ally known as the "Helvetic Republic" (1798–1803). The interference with localism and traditional liberties was deeply resented, although some modernising reforms took place.^[254][255]

Belgium

The region of modern-day Belgium was divided between two polities: the

During the Revolutionary Wars, the French invaded and occupied the region between 1794 and 1814, a time known as the French period. The new government enforced new reforms, incorporating the region into France itself. New rulers were sent in by Paris. Belgian men were drafted into the French wars and heavily taxed. Nearly everyone was Catholic, but the Church was repressed. Resistance was strong in every sector, as Belgian nationalism emerged to oppose French rule. The French legal system, however, was adopted, with its equal legal rights, and abolition of class distinctions. Belgium now had a government bureaucracy selected by merit.^[256]

Antwerp regained access to the sea and grew quickly as a major port and business centre. France promoted commerce and capitalism, paving the way for the ascent of the bourgeoisie and the rapid growth of manufacturing and mining. In economics, therefore, the nobility declined while the middle class Belgian entrepreneurs flourished because of their inclusion in a large market, paving the way for Belgium's leadership role after 1815 in the Industrial Revolution on the Continent.^[257][258]

Scandinavia

The Kingdom of Denmark adopted liberalising reforms in line with those of the French Revolution, with no direct contact. Reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders. Much of the initiative came from well-organised liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century.^[259]

North America

Canada

The press in the

French migration to the Canadas was decelerated significantly during, and after the French Revolution; with only a small number of artisans, professionals, and religious emigres from France permitted to settle in the Canadas during that period.[263] Most of these migrants moved to Montreal or Quebec City, although French nobleman Joseph-Geneviève de Puisaye also led a small group of French royalists to settle lands north of York (present day Toronto).^[263] The influx of religious migrants from France reinvigorated the Roman Catholic Church in the Canadas, with the refectory priests who moved to the colonies being responsible for the establishment of a number of parishes throughout the Canadas.^[263]

United States

The French Revolution deeply polarised American politics, and this polarisation led to the creation of the

The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have been characterised as falling along ideological lines, with disagreement over the significance and the major developments of the Revolution.^[265] Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance.^[266]

Other thinkers, like the conservative

Historians until the late 20th century emphasised class conflicts from a largely Marxist perspective as the fundamental driving cause of the Revolution.[270] The central theme of this argument was that the Revolution emerged from the rising bourgeoisie, with support from the sans-culottes, who fought to destroy the aristocracy.^[271] However, Western scholars largely abandoned Marxist interpretations in the 1990s. By the year 2000 many historians were saying that the field of the French Revolution was in intellectual disarray. The old model or paradigm focusing on class conflict has been discredited, and no new explanatory model had gained widespread support.^[272][273] Nevertheless, as Spang has shown, there persists a very widespread agreement to the effect that the French Revolution was the watershed between the premodern and modern eras of Western history.^[272]

Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in history. It marks the end of the

Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution.^[276] The Revolution represented the most significant and dramatic challenge to political absolutism up to that point in history and spread democratic ideals throughout Europe and ultimately the world.^[277] Throughout the 19th century, the revolution was heavily analysed by economists and political scientists, who saw the class nature of the revolution as a fundamental aspect in understanding human social evolution itself. This, combined with the egalitarian values introduced by the revolution, gave rise to a classless and co-operative model for society called "socialism" which profoundly influenced future revolutions in France and around the world.

See also

• Age of Revolution
• Cordeliers
• Glossary of the French Revolution
• History of France
• List of people associated with the French Revolution
• List of political groups in the French Revolution
• Musée de la Révolution française
• Paris in the 18th Century
• Society of the Friends of Truth
• Timeline of the French Revolution

References

Citations

Sources

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  )

Further reading

See also: Historiography of the French Revolution

Surveys and reference

• Andress, David, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2015). excerpt, 714 pp; 37 articles by experts
• Aulard, François-Alphonse. The French Revolution, a Political History, 1789–1804 (4 vol. 1910); famous classic; volume 1 1789–1792 online; Volume 2 1792–95 online
• ISBN 84-7917-744-6
  ).
• Ballard, Richard. A New Dictionary of the French Revolution (2011) excerpt and text search
• Bosher, J.F. The French Revolution (1989) 365 pp
• Davies, Peter. The French Revolution: A Beginner's Guide (2009), 192 pp
• Frey, Linda and Frey, Marsha. The French Revolution. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004.
  ISBN 0-313-32193-0
• Furet, François. The French Revolution, 1770–1814 (1996) excerpt and text search
• Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), 1120 pp; long essays by scholars; conservative perspective; stress on history of ideas excerpt and text search
• Gershoy, Leo. The French Revolution and Napoleon (1945) 585 pp
• Gershoy, Leo. The Era of the French Revolution, 1789–1799 (1957), brief summary with some primary sources
• Gottschalk, Louis R. The Era of the French Revolution (1929), cover 1780s to 1815
• Hanson, Paul R. The A to Z of the French Revolution (2013)
  • Hanson, Paul R. Historical dictionary of the French Revolution (2015) online
• ISBN 978-0-7453-3500-1
• Jones, Colin. The Longman Companion to the French Revolution (1989)
• Jones, Colin. The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon (2002) excerpt and text search
• Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution: From its Origins to 1793 (1962), famous French classic excerpt and text search v 1
  • Lefebvre, Georges. French Revolution from 1793–1799 (1964)
• McPhee, Peter, ed. (2012). A Companion to the French Revolution. Wiley.
  ISBN 978-1-118-31641-2. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
  )
• Madelin, Louis. The French Revolution (1916); textbook by leading French scholar. online
• Paxton, John. Companion to the French Revolution (1987), 234 pp; hundreds of short entries.
• Popkin, Jeremy D. A Short History of the French Revolution (5th ed. 2009) 176 pp
• Scott, Samuel F. and Barry Rothaus, eds. Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789–1799 (2 vol 1984), short essays by scholars vol. 1 online; vol 2 online
• Shusterman, Noah (2014). The French Revolution. Faith, Desire, and Politics. Routledge, London and New York.
• Soboul, Albert. The French Revolution, 1787–1799: From the storming of the Bastille to Napoleon (1975)
• Sutherland, D.M.G. France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution (2nd ed. 2003, 430 pp excerpts and online search from Amazon.com
• Thompson, J.M. The French Revolution (1943), British viewpoint

European and Atlantic History

• Amann, Peter H., ed. The eighteenth-century revolution: French or Western? (Heath, 1963) readings from historians
• Brinton, Crane. A Decade of Revolution 1789–1799 (1934) the Revolution in European context
• Desan, Suzanne, et al. eds. The French Revolution in Global Perspective (2013)
• Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. ed. The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO: 3 vol 2006)
• Goodwin, A., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 8: The American and French Revolutions, 1763–93 (1965), 764 pp
• Palmer, R.R. "The World Revolution of the West: 1763–1801," Political Science Quarterly (1954) 69#1 pp. 1–14
  JSTOR 2145054
• Palmer, Robert R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800. (2 vol 1959), highly influential comparative history; vol 1 online
• Rude, George F. and Harvey J. Kaye. Revolutionary Europe, 1783–1815 (2000), scholarly survey excerpt and text search

Politics and wars

• Andress, David. The terror: Civil war in the French revolution (2006).
• ed.
  Baker, Keith M. The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture (Oxford, 1987–94) vol 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime, ed. K.M. Baker (1987); vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution, ed. C. Lucas (1988); vol. 3: The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848, eds. F. Furet & M. Ozouf (1989); vol. 4: The Terror, ed. K.M. Baker (1994). excerpt and text search vol 4
• Blanning, T.C.W.
  The French Revolutionary Wars 1787–1802 (1996).
• Desan, Suzanne. "Internationalizing the French Revolution," French Politics, Culture & Society
  (2011) 29#2 pp. 137–60.
• Doyle, William. Origins of the French Revolution (3rd ed. 1999) online edition
• Englund, Steven. Napoleon: A Political Life. (2004). 575 pp; emphasis on politics excerpt and text search
• Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The French Revolutionary Wars (2013), 96 pp; excerpt and text search
• Griffith, Paddy. The Art of War of Revolutionary France 1789–1802, (1998); 304 pp; excerpt and text search
• JSTOR 204824
  .
• Hardman, John. Louis XVI: The Silent King (2nd ed. 2016) 500 pp; much expanded new edition; now the standard scholarly biography; (1st ed. 1994) 224; older scholarly biography
• Schroeder, Paul. The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848. 1996; Thorough coverage of diplomatic history; hostile to Napoleon; online edition
• Wahnich, Sophie (2016). In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in the French Revolution (Reprint ed.). Verso.
  ISBN 978-1-78478-202-3
  .

Economy and society

• Anderson, James Maxwell. Daily life during the French Revolution (2007)
• Andress, David. French Society in Revolution, 1789–1799 (1999)
• Kennedy, Emmet. A Cultural History of the French Revolution (1989)
• McPhee, Peter. "The French Revolution, Peasants, and Capitalism," American Historical Review (1989) 94#5 pp. 1265–80
  JSTOR 906350
• Tackett, Timothy, "The French Revolution and religion to 1794," and Suzanne Desan, "The French Revolution and religion, 1795–1815," in Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett, eds. The Cambridge History of Christianity vol. 7 (Cambridge UP, 2006).

Women

• Dalton, Susan. "Gender and the Shifting Ground of Revolutionary Politics: The Case of Madame Roland." Canadian journal of history (2001) 36#2
• Godineau, Dominique. The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution (1998) 440 pp 1998
• Hufton, Olwen. "Women in Revolution 1789–1796" Past & Present (1971) No. 53 pp. 90–108
  JSTOR 650282
• Hufton, Olwen. "In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women." The French Revolution: Recent debates and New Controversies Ed. Gary Kates. (1998) pp. 302–36
• Kelly, Linda. Women of the French Revolution (1987) 192 pp. biographical portraits or prominent writers and activists
• Landes, Joan B. Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Cornell University Press, 1988) excerpt and text search
• Melzer, Sara E., and Leslie W. Rabine, eds. Rebel daughters: women and the French Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1992)
• Proctor, Candice E. Women, Equality, and the French Revolution (Greenwood Press, 1990) online
• Roessler, Shirley Elson. Out of the Shadows: Women and Politics in the French Revolution, 1789–95 (Peter Lang, 1998) online

Historiography and memory

Main article: Historiography of the French Revolution

• Andress, David. "Interpreting the French Revolution," Teaching History (2013), Issue 150, pp. 28–29, very short summary
• Censer, Jack R. "Amalgamating the Social in the French Revolution." Journal of Social History 2003 37(1): 145–50. online
• Cox, Marvin R. The Place of the French Revolution in History (1997) 288 pp
• Desan, Suzanne. "What's after Political Culture? Recent French Revolutionary Historiography," French Historical Studies (2000) 23#1 pp. 163–96.
• Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), 1120 pp; long essays by scholars; strong on history of ideas and historiography (esp pp. 881–1034 excerpt and text search
• Furet, François. Interpreting the French revolution (1981).
• Germani, Ian, and Robin Swayles. Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution. University of Regina Publications. 1998.
  ISBN 978-0-88977-108-6
• Geyl, Pieter. Napoleon for and Against (1949), 477 pp; summarizes views of major historians on controversial issues
• Hanson, Paul R. Contesting the French Revolution (2009). 248 pp.
• Kafker, Frank A. and James M. Laux, eds. The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations (5th ed. 2002), articles by scholars
• Kaplan, Steven Laurence. Farewell, Revolution: The Historians' Feud, France, 1789/1989 (1996), focus on historians excerpt and text search
• Kaplan, Steven Laurence. Farewell, Revolution: Disputed Legacies, France, 1789/1989 (1995); focus on bitter debates re 200th anniversary excerpt and text search
• Kates, Gary, ed. The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies (2nd ed. 2005) excerpt and text search
• Lewis, Gwynne. The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate (1993) online; 142 pp.
• McPhee, Peter, ed. (2012). A Companion to the French Revolution. Wiley.
  ISBN 978-1-118-31641-2. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
  ); 540 pp; 30 essays by experts; emphasis on historiography and memory
• Reichardt, Rolf: The French Revolution as a European Media Event,
  Institute of European History
  , 2010, retrieved: 17 December 2012.
• Ross, Steven T., ed. The French Revolution: conflict or continuity? (1971) 131 pp; excerpt from historians table of contents

Primary sources

Wikisource has original works on the topic: French Revolution

• Anderson, F.M. (1904). The constitutions and other select documents illustrative of the history of France, 1789–1901. The H. W. Wilson company 1904., complete text online
• Burke, Edmund (1790).
  doi:10.1119/1.2342155
  .
• Dwyer, Philip G. and Peter McPhee, eds. The French Revolution and Napoleon: A Sourcebook (2002) 235 pp; online
• Legg, L.G. Wickham, ed. Select Documents Illustrative of the History of the French Revolution (2 Volumes, 1905) 630 pp vol 1 online free; in French (not translated)
• Levy, Darline Gay, et al. eds. Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795 (1981) 244 pp excerpt and text search
• Mason, Laura, and Tracey Rizzo, eds. The French Revolution: A Document Collection (1998) 334 pp excerpt and text search
• Stewart, John Hall, ed. A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (1951), 818 pp
• Thompson, J.M., ed. The French revolution: Documents, 1789–94 (1948), 287 pp
• This article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet (1824), as made available by Project Gutenberg.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to French Revolution.

Wikiquote has quotations related to French Revolution.

Library resources about
the French Revolution

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• Online books
• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

• Museum of the French Revolution (French)
• Primary source documents from The Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
• Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History Project (City University of New York).
• Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History Journal, 2008.
• French Revolution Digital Archive a collaboration of the Stanford University Libraries and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, containing 12000 digitised images
• The guillotined of the French Revolution factsheets of all the sentenced to death of the French Revolution
• Jean-Baptiste Lingaud papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania. Includes a vast number of name lists and secret surveillance records as well as arrest warrants for aristocrats and their sympathisers. Most notable in this part of the collection are letters and documents from the Revolutionary Committee and the Surveillance Committee.
• French Revolution Pamphlets, Division of Special Collections, University of Alabama Libraries. Over 300 digitised pamphlets, from writers including Robespierre, St. Juste, Desmoulins, and Danton.
• "The French Revolution's Legacy" BBC Radio 4 discussion with Stefan Collini, Anne Janowitz and Andrew Roberts (In Our Time, 14 June 2001)

Preceded by Ancien Régime (Old Regime)

French Revolution 1789–1792

Succeeded by French First Republic