Mr. Haskell
World History
16 November 2004
Chapter 19 Outline
1. The Old Regime
A. The first estate provided social services with nuns, monks, and priests running schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Philosophes pointed out idleness of some clergy, church interference in politics, and its intolerance of dissent and in response the clergy condemned the enlightenment for undermining religion and moral order
B. The second estate was the titled nobility of French society, nobles were given rights after being crushed by Richelieu and Louis XIV, they were given jobs in government, the army, the courts and the Church under strict control. Many nobles hated absolutism and resented the royal bureaucracy that employed middle classmen because they feared losing their traditional privileges, especially their freedom from paying taxes.
C. The third estate accounted for about 98% of the population in 1789 and at top sat the bourgeoisie which included the prosperous bankers, merchants, and manufacturers who propped up the French economy and it also included doctors, journalists, professors, and skilled artisans. The poorest members of the third estate were city workers which included apprentices, journeymen, and others who worked in industries such as printing or cloth making
2. A Financial Crisis
A. Financial crisis was caused in part by years of deficit spending which meant the government was spending more money than it was taking in. King Louis XIV, the Seven Years� War, and the American Revolution were key factors in the financial crisis.
B. In the late 1780�s bad harvests sent food prices soaring and brought hunger to poorer peasants and city dwellers. In towns people rioted demanding bread while in the countryside peasants began to attack the manor houses of the nobles for food.
C. Wealthy and powerful classes demanded that the king call the estates General before making any decisions. The Estates General wanted to establish a constitution to bring the absolute monarch under the control of the nobles and guarantee their privileges.
3. The King Takes Action
A. Louis XVI had all three estates prepare cahiers or notebooks to list their grievances in which most cahiers called for fairer taxes, freedom of the press, or regular meetings of the Estates General. In one town shoemakers denounced regulations that made leather so expensive that they couldn�t make a shoe.
B. Delegates to the Estate General from the Third Estate were elected but only men with property could vote. The elected officials were mostly lawyers, middle class officials, and writers. They went to Versailles not only to solve the financial crisis but also to insist on reform.
C. The Third Estate transformed themselves into the National Assembly saying that they represented the people of France. They took the Tennis Court Oath vowing not to disband until they had drawn up a constitution for France. Louis XVI had to accept the national Assembly after reform-minded clergy and nobles joined the National Assembly. Food shortages were also getting worse because of a disastrous 1788 harvest.
4. Storming the Bastille
A. Paris met in Versailles on July 14 stealing the spotlight from the national Assembly. More than 800 Persians assembled outside the Bastille which was a grim medieval fortress used a prison for political and other prisoners. The crowds were demanding weapons and gunpowder believed to be stored there.
B. The commander of Bastille refused to open the gates and opened fire on the crowd and the battle that ensued many people were killed. The mob broke though the defense killing the commander and five guards and releasing a handful of prisoners but finding no weapons.
C. The storming of Bastille quickly became a symbol of the French Revolution in which supporters saw it as a blow to tyranny and a step toward freedom. The French today celebrate Bastille Day on July 14 which is the French National Holiday.
5. Revolts in Paris and the Provinces
A. The worst famine known to memory happened tin 1789 in which peasants were seen roaming to the country side or towns where they became one of the unemployed. The grain prices were soaring and people with jobs had to spend up to 80 percent of their income on bread.
B. Inflamed by famine and fear peasants unleashed their fury on nobles who were trying to reimpose medieval dues. Defiant peasants attacked the homes of nobles, burned old manor records and stole grain from the storehouse.
C. A radical group Paris Commune replaced the royalist government of the city. Newspapers and political clubs blossomed everywhere. Some demanded an end to monarchy and spread scandalous stories about royal family and members of the court.
6. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
A. On August 4 at a stormy all night meeting, nobles in the national Assembly voted to end their privileges. They gave up their old manor dues, their exclusive hunting rights, their special legal status and their exemption from taxation.
B. The Assembly issued the declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen which modeled after the Declaration of Independence. All men were �born and remain free and equal in rights� it said. They enjoyed natural rights to �liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression�.
C. The Declaration further proclaimed that all male citizens were equal before the law and that each French man had a equal right to hold public office �with no distinction other than that of their virtues and talents� Its principles were captured in the enduring slogan of the French Revolution, �Liberty, Equality, Fraternity�
7. Women March on Versailles
A. A mob of thousands of women took people by surprise when they marched 12 miles to the palace of Versailles in search of bread and food in which they proved to be more determined than the men at Bastille three months earlier.
B. Most of the anger was directed toward Marie Antoinette who was the wife of Louis and was proclaimed frivolous, extravagant, and was accused of immortality by enemies. �Death to the Austrian! We�ll wring her neck!� was one of the cries from the mob which was eventually calmed down by Lafayette and the National Guard.
C. The women of Paris would continue to take action during the revolution. Elisabeth Guenard, who sympathized with the royal cause, also understood what drove the women to Versailles. � You have to be a mother and have heard your children ask for bread you cannot give them to know the level of despair to which this misfortune can bring you�
8. A Time to Reform
A. To pay off debts the Assembly voted to take over and sell Church lands and put the French Catholic Church under state control in which bishops and priests became elected, salaried officials. A huge gulf opened between revolutionaries in Paris and the peasantry in the provinces when the Civil Constitution wasn�t accepted by bishops, priests and the Pope.
B. The Assembly produced the Constitution of 1791 which set up a limited monarchy in place of the absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries. A new Legislative Assembly had the power to make laws, collect taxes, and decide on issues of war and peace. Lawmakers would be elected tax-paying male citizens. The Constitution ended Church interference in government and ensured equality before the law for all citizens.
C. �Long live the King!� chants were replaced with �Long live the Nation� when the king, Marie Antoinette and the royal children were unveiled by soldiers in a small town trying to escape form the humiliating situation that had been going on where they lived.
9. Reaction Outside France
A. �migr�s reported attacks on their privileges, property, religion, and even their lives. European rulers and nobles denounced the French revolution and increased border patrols fearing the spread of the �French Plague�.
B. Catherine the great of Russia burned Voltaire�s letters and locked up her critics while Edmund Burke of Britain bitterly condemned revolutionaries in Paris.
C. In August 1791 the King of Prussia and the emperor of Austria issued the Declaration of Pilnitz in which they threatened to intervene if necessary to protect the French monarchy. The French took the declaration seriously and prepared for war while historians believe all the declaration was a bluff.
10. War at home and Abroad
A. Sans- Culottes were working-class men and women who pushed the revolution into more radical actions and by 1791 the sans-culottes demanded a republic and wanted the government to guarantee then a living wage.
B. Members with similar views sat together in the meeting hall. On the right sat those who felt reform had gone far enough or even wanted to turn the clock back to 1788. In the center sat those who supported the moderate reform and on the left sat the Jacobins and other republicans who wanted to abolish the monarchy and pushed for other radical changes.
C. In April 1792 the war of words between French revolutionaries and European monarchs moved onto the battlefield. The Legislative Assembly waged war against Austria, Prussia, Britain, and other states and divided the land. The fighting that began in 1792 lasted on and off until 1815.
11. Downfall of the Monarchy
A. A crowd of Parisians invaded the Tuileries on August 10, 1792 and slaughtered the king�s guards. The royal family ended up moving to the legislative assembly, The people who invaded are called the September massacres but by others, patriots defending France.
B. Radicals called for the election of a new legislative body, the National Convention. Suffrage, the right to vote, was to be extended to all citizens not just to property owners. The radicals voted to abolish monarchy and declare France a republic. Jacobins seized lands from nobles and abolished titles of nobility.
C. The convention also put Louis XVI on trial and later convicted him for being a traitor to France and Louis XVI was later beheaded and later Marie Antoinette was executed.
12. The Convention under Siege
A. To deal with the threats to France the Convention created the Committee of Public Safety. The 12 member committee had almost absolute power as it battled to save the revolution. French armies overran the Netherlands and later invaded Italy and at ome they shredded peasant revolts.
B. Counterrevolutionaries were headed by Maximilien Rbespeierre who was a shrewd lawyer and politician and quickly rose to the leadership of the Committee of Public Safety/ Enemies called him a tyrant while his fellow Jacobins called him� the inccourptible�.
C. Robespierre was a chief architect of the Reign of Terror which lasted from July 1793 to July 1794 in which about 40,000 people died. 15% were nobles and clergy while another 15% were middle class citizens and the rest were peasants and sans culottes involved in the riots or revolts against the republic.
13. Reaction and the Directory
A. The revolution moved to the third stage in reaction to the terror. Moving away from the excesses of the Convention, the moderates produced another constitution, the third since 1789 the Constitution of 1795 set up a five-man directory and a two-house legislature elected by male citizens of property.
B. The directory held power from 1795 to 1799 it was weak but dictatorial. Leaders liend their own pockets but failed to solve pressing problems and the Directory quickly suppressed the sans-culottes after bread prices rose and riots were happening.
C. Politicians turned to a military hero, Napoleon Bonaparte and planned to use him to advance their own goals which was a bad miscalculation because he would soon outwit them all and become leader of France.
14. Women in the Revolution
A. Working-class women demonstrated and fought in street battles and also formed their own political clubs. Jeanne Roland was a noted leader who supported the revolution through her writings, her salon, and her influence on her husband a government minister.
B. Many women were disappointed when the declaration of the right of man did not grant equal citizenship to women. But women did gain some rights such as the government made divorce easier and allowing women to inherit property but these reforms did not last when Napoleon came to leadership.
C. In 1793 a committee of the national Convention declared that women did not have � the moral and physical strength necessary to practice political rights� and women revolutionary clubs were banned.
15. Changes in Daily Life
A. The 10- year old revolution had dramatically changed France, dislodging the old social order, overthrowing monarchy, and bringing the Church under state control. New symbols such as the red �liberty caps� and the tricolor confirmed the liberty and equality of all male citizens. To show their revolutionary spirit parents gave their children names like Constitution, republic and August Tenth.
B. The government rallied sons and daughters of the revolution to defend the nation itself. Nationalism an aggressive feeling of pride in and devotion to one�s country, spread throughout France.
C. The Convention set up state schools to replace religious ones and organized systems to help the poor or care soldiers and war widows. The Government also abolished slavery in French West Indian colonies and extended religious toleration. French arts moved toward a grand classical style that echoed the grandeur of ancient Rome. Jacques Louis David was the leading artist who�s paintings helped shape the way for the future generations pictured the French Revolution.
16. The Man from Corisca
A. When the revolution broke out Napoleon was an eager 20- year old lieutenant who favored the Jacobins and republican rule. He was born on the French-ruled island of Corisca in the Mediterranean to minor noble parents with little money.
B. By 1799, he moved from victorious general to political leader and that year he helped overthrow the weak Directory and set up a three-man governing board, the Consulate. He had himself named consul for life by 1802 after taking the title of First Consul.
C. After two years, Napoleon had enough power to take over as emperor of France and he had the Pope preside over his coronation at Notre dame cathedral in Paris and during the ceremony he took the crown from the pope�s hands and put it on his own head in which eh was saying that he owed his throne to one but himself.
17. France under Napoleon
A. Napoleon regulated the economy to control prices, encourage new industry, and build roads and canals. He promoted a system of public schools under strict government control to ensure well-trained officials and military officers. He replaced liberty, equality and fraternity with order, security, and efficiency.
B. Napoleon�s chief opposition came from royalists on the right and republicans on the left which was all the opposition he had because he had the middle class, peasants and the Church liking the reforms he was putting in place.
C. Napoleon made a new law code called the Napoleonic Code which embodied Enlightenment principles such as equality of citizens before law, religious toleration and advancement based on merit. Women lost most of their newly gained rights and male heads of households regained complete authority over their wives and children.
18. Subduing an Empire
A. Napoleon valued rapid movements and made effective use of his large armies in which he developed a new plan for each battle so opposing generals could never anticipate what eh would do next. His enemies would pay tribute to his leadership and he was said to equal 40,000 troops in value because of his intelligence.
B. He annexed Netherlands, Belgium and some aprts of Italy and germany while abolishing the tottering Holy Roman Empire and creating a 38- member Confederation of the Rhine under French protection. He cut half of the Prussian territory in half, turning part of Poland into the grand Duchy of Warsaw. He put friends and family members on the thrones of Europe such as putting Joseph Bonaparte, his brother, on the throne of Spain.
C. Napoleon�s successes boosted French nationalism and great victory parades would fill the streets of Paris with crowds cheering everywhere. Glory and grandeur of the age of Napoleon are still a source of pride to many French citizens.
19. Challenges to Napoleon�s Empire
A. In some places Napoleon�s men were help install revolutionary governments that abolished titles of nobility, they ended Church privileges, opened careers to men of talent and ended serfdom and memorial dues. Many Europeans saw napoleon�s armies as foreign oppresors and resented the Continental System and Napoleon�s efforts to impose French culture.
B. Spanish nationalism became stronger when Napoleon put hi brother at the throne of Spain and when French forces put brutal repressions on the Spaniards. Spanish patriots conducted guerrilla warfare against the French which kept large numbers of French soldiers tied down in Spain and eventually the British sent an army under Arthur Wellesley to help Spain fight off the French.
C. Napoleon sent his Grand Army of about 600,000 soldiers to Russia but what Napoleon found when he got to Moscow was no Russians and not enough supplies to feed his people during the harsh up and coming Russian winter. So he and his men retreated back to France on a 1,000 mile desperate battle for survival retreat. Only about 100,000 of the 600,000 people survived and Napoleon�s reputation for success was shattered.
20. Downfall of Napoleon
A. In 1813 Russia, Britain, Austria and Prussia defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Nations at Leipzig and the following year Napoleon abdicated the throne and was exiled to an island in the Mediterranean called Elba. Louis XVIII was recognized as king of France after Napoleon was exiled.
B. An economic depression and the fear of a return to old regime helped gain loyalty to Napoleon and after Napoleon escaped his island exile and returned to France Louis XVIII fled. In March 1815 the emperor of the French entered Paris triumph even though napoleon�s triumph was short lived.
C. On June 18, 1815 opposing armies met near the town of Waterloo in Belgium where British forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army commander general Blucher crushed the French in an amazing day-long battle. Napoleon was forced to abdicate the throne and go into exile on the lonely island in the South Atlantic named St. Helena where he would not return and die in 1821.
21. The Congress of Vienna
A. The Congress met for 10 months in a brilliant gathering of European leaders, Diplomats, courtiers and royalty dined and danced, attended concerts and ballets and enjoyed hunting parties and picnics arranged by their host Emperor Francis I of Austria. Paid spies would slip in and out anxious to know what was going on in the Congress and what decisions were to be made.
B. The real work fell to Prince Clemens von Metternich of Austria, Czar Alexander I of Russia, and Lord Roberts Castereagh of Britain. Defeated France was also invited to send a representative to Vienna and it was Prince Maurice Talleyrand who they sent.
C. The chief goal of the Vienna decision makers was to create a lasting peace by establishing a balance of power and protecting the system of monarchy. Each leader mixed in their own goals with the other leaders goals in which would create the perfect system.
22. The Vienna Settlements
A. The peacemakers redrew the map of Europe. In the north they added Belgium and Luxembourg to Holland to create the kingdom of the Netherlands. They gave Prussia lands along the Rhine River and allowed Austria to reassert control over northern Italy.
B. Architects of peace promoted the principle of legitimacy which was the restoring hereditary monarchies that the French revolution or Napoleon had unseated. They restored legitimate monarchs in Portugal, Spain, and the Italian states. They created the Concert of Europe which was a peacekeeping organization that included all of the major European states.
C. The Vienna statesmen failed to foresee how powerful new forces such as nationalism would shake the foundations of Europe and they redrew new boundaries for national cultures. The story of German unification began during this period but was not achieved till 50 years.