Unit #4 FRENCH REVOLUTION

Lesson #3 - The Revolutionary Governments 1790-1799

(633-644)

Several states (Five) - Each stage will have a new

Set of leaders

Set of ideals

Constitution (in most cases) – currently on their 17th constitution

(Constitution of the 5th Republic – 1958)

I. Foreign Reactions to the Revolution

  1. Different Reactions

Liberals

Conservatives

Rebuttal: Mary Wollstoncraft

Kings and nobles –

Flight to Varennes – June 1791

Declaration of Pillnitz – August 1791

  1. Legislative Assembly of 1781


FROM JACOBY:

Constitution of 1791 - Constitutional Monarchy

King reluctantly accepted King had suspension, not denial power

No nobility - Aristocrats threatened rebellion of new order

All laws from elected body of wealthy men

Property qualification to vote (50,000 qualified) (complicated system)

NO WOMEN COULD VOTE

Challenge by Olympe de Gouges

Declaration of the Rights of Woman

She claimed women to be regarded as citizens

She stressed equal education for all

Still elitist – privilege by birth replaced by privilege by wealth

Parlements replaced with elected judges & prosecutors

The Poor had hoped to be protected

Peasants hoped to outright own land taken from émigrés

City workers hoped to be able to unionize

NO TO BOTH

Meeting of first Legislative Assembly elected in fall, 1791

Political left – Political center – Political Right

Emergence of Political Parties

Constitutional Monarchists (sat on right of speaker)

Radicals sat to the left of the speaker

Moderates in the middle

Paris Commune – the real power in Paris during war

Representatives from different areas of Paris

King attacked by a crowd

Sought protection of Legislative Assembly

Battle ensued – ended with hundreds dead

King now a prisoner in his palace (Tuileries)

No long allowed political functions

ULTRA-RADICALS GAINING IN POPULARITY

Ex: Jean Paul Marat

(journalist – called for 200,000 to die for a real revolution)

killing would draw a focus for the cause of Revolution

murdered by Charlotte Corday in his bath tub in 1793

II. Outbreak of War

FIRST COALITION- formed, April 1793

THE END OF MONARCY

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION

THE CONSTITUION OF YEAR 1 - 1793

III. The Second Revolution

September Massacres July 1792 -

JACOBINS (sat to left of speaker)

THE MOUNTAIN

GIRONDISTS

The Plain

Girondists and Jacobins struggled for power

Convention formed COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Execution of Louis XVI

IV. Total War and the Terror

By 1793, Britain, Spain, Sardinia, Holland will join FIRST COALITION

France struggled internally

Total mobilization of society and economy – based on equality

Jacoby Notes

  • All people considered equal before law – CITIZEN ______
  • Metric System

Uniform weights and measures

Counter-revolutionary behavior was subject to death

A. Levee en Masse

AN OFFICIAL RECALL OF ALL ABLE-BODIED MEN 18-25 TO SERVICE

The reason:

  1. Volunteers were not appearing
  2. Conscription was tried (300,000 men from each department) – 650,000 showed up
  3. riots broke out as a result of conscription
  4. new law: ALL men had to join army (August, 1793)
  5. the number in the army swelled to 1,500,000 by Sep, 1794
  6. much of the population was to support army with arms production & food

•For all the rhetoric, the levée en masse was not popular; desertion and evasion were high.

B. Republic of Virtue – Terror Justified

“Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, inflexible justice…an emanation of virtue”

The sacrificing of one’s self for greater good

Manifestations: renaming streets, months, weeks

Calling each other “citizen”

Suppression of anything not fully “republican”

Upholding public > private

C. De-Christianization

New calendar

12 months of 30 days (names of seasons & climates)

weeks 10 days long

Cathedral of Notre Dame => “Temple of Reason”

established “Cult of Supreme Being” based on Deism

caused rift between Paris and Catholic Peasants

D. Revolutionary Tribunals

Purpose: try enemies of revolution (“enemy” definition evolved)

Enemy = 1. those who’d provide aid to Europeans

2. those who endangered Republic of Virtue

3. those who opposed policies of government

Enemies executed by guillotine in Paris

83 in different cities

public executions

first victims: Queen & Royals & some aristocrats

Girondists who’d tried to save king

Moved on to Peasants opposing revolution

Moved on to enranges – radical sans-culottes

Moved on to Danton – not sufficiently into war

Law of 22 Prairial – executions without real evidence

E. The End of Terror

finally – Convention turned on Robespierre

pre-arranged shouting dissent in Convention

arrested that night

executed next morning

he had no one left to defend him

40,000 killed in 9 months of Terror

V. The Thermodorian Reaction and the Directory

White Terror – execution of people involved with Terror

Jacobins executed just for being Jacobins

Sometimes sanctioned by Convention

Sometimes just gangs

Life returned to pre-1789

Prostitutes roamed the streets

Clothing returned to fashion

Women lost any gained rights (only divorce rights)

the Directory –

The Convention wrote a new Constitution–Const. of Year III (1793)

two house legislature

Council of 500 (Parliament)

Senate (250 Elders)

Executive of 5 men (the Directory) – corrupt & inefficient

Voting by propertied men & soldiers only

Privilege now by property ownership (not birth)

Peasantry now property owners (got to keep land)

Goal: protect the propertied rich

Rebellions

The Directory lacked broad base support

Needed army to suppress rebellion

  1. Royalists Coup, 1795

returning from exile – chief opponent of Directory

supported by devout Catholics

Seemed to promise stability

Staged a coup in 1795

Government turned army against coup

Napoleon (loyal Jacobin) shot artillery into crowd

  1. Gracchus Babeuf led Conspiracy of Equals, 1796

Wanted greater democracy & equality

Babeuf arrested & executed

Removal of Sans-culottes from public life

War favored French – no more need of sans-culottes

Price ceilings removed

Bread riots – suppressed by Convention

Government made peace with Spain & Prussia

Still at war with Austria & Britain

Issues leading to end of Directory

1. 1797 elections

Majority of seats won by Constitutional monarchists

Incumbents staged coup to avoid Bourbon Restoration

1797 Coup also supported by Napoleon

2. Brumaire Coup, 1799

Abbe Sieyes suggested a permanent executive

replace Directory w/ Triumvirate of Consuls

needed a coup; Napoleon escaped Egypt to assist

Sieyes seemed to have wanted just use Napoleon

Napoleon instead used Sieyes and new system

Constitution of Year VIII: Napoleon declared first Consul

Universal male suffrage with a powerful government

Appeared to be republican, but was pure dictatorship

Napoleon was first modern political dictator

Tools: evolution, nationalism, military

Result: imperial expansion and self service

Plebiscite of 1799 showed overwhelming support

  1. Napoleon made peace with enemies in 1799

THE 17 CONSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE

(This list is just for amusement, not for memorization)

The current Constitution of France was adopted on October 4, 1958, and has been amended 17 times, most recently on March 28, 2003.

It is typically called the Constitution of the Fifth Republic.
The Revolutionary Era saw a number of constitutions:

  1. A liberal monarchical constitution was adopted October 6, 1789 and accepted by the king on July 14, 1790.
  1. The Constitution of 1791 or Constitution of September 3, 1791 established a limited monarchy and the Legislative Assembly.
  2. The Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of June 24, 1793 (Fr. Acte constitutionnel du 24 juin 1793), or Montagnard Constitution (Fr. Constitution montagnarde) was ratified, but never applied, due to the suspension of all ordinary legality October 10, 1793 (French First Republic)
  3. The Constitution of 1795, Constitution of August 22, 1795, Constitution of the Year III, or Constitution of 5 Fructidor established the Directory.

Napoleonic Era

  1. The Constitution of the Year VIII, adopted December 24, 1799, established the Consulate.
  2. The Constitution of the Year X established a revised Consulate, with Napoleon as First Consul for Life.
  3. The Constitution of the Year XII established the First French Empire.

Monarchial Restoration

  1. Following the restoration of the Monarchy
    The Charter of 1814 adopted on June 4, 1814 reestablished the Monarchy
  2. The additional act to the Constitutions of the Empire during the Hundred Days, April 23, 1815 (brief return of Napoleon to power)
  3. The Charter of 1830 adopted on August 14, 1830 ("July Monarchy")

19th century

  1. The French Constitution of 1848 of the Second French Republic, November 4, 1848
  2. The French Constitution of 1852 of the French Second Empire, January 14, 1852
  3. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 of the French Third Republic, February 24 and 25, and July 16, 1875

20th century

  1. (The French Constitutional Law of 1940 establishing Vichy France, Pétain's WWII government that collaborated with Nazi Germany.)
  2. The constitutional law of November 2, 1945 – post-WWII provisional government
  3. The French Constitution of 1946 of the French Fourth Republic, October 27, 1946 "
  4. Constitution of the Fifth Republic (1958) – gave the President enormous power

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