Dr. Vess's World Civilization Virtual Library

The French Revolution

objectives:



1.  Be able to discuss the economic, social and political causes

of the French Revolution.  



2.  Be able to trace the events which brought about the French

Revolution.



3.  Be able to trace the progress of the Revolution beginning

with the Revolt Noblesse in 1788 and continuing through the reign

of Napoleon.



4.  Be able to discuss the major reforms of the National Assembly

(1789-1791).  Be able to explain what segment of the French

society these reforms benefitted the most.



5.  Be able to discuss the major events during the Reign of

Terror.  Be able to compare and contrast Robespierre's policies

with those of the Third Estate and with the mottos of the French

Revolution.



6.  Be able to discuss the major achievements and policies of

Napoleon's reign from his reign as first consul to his defeat at

Waterloo.



7.  Be able to discuss the major agreements reached at the

Congress of Vienna.  Be able to explain the impact of these

policies on Europe in the post-Napoleonic Era.





Food for Thought:





Did the French revolution live up to its mottos?



WAS Napoleon the enlightened hero of the masses, or simply

another despot?





     The French Revolution was one of the first events in which

the masses played a decisive role.  Despite this fact, it was led

by members of the bourgeoisie and never quite lived up to its

revolutionary motto of "libertä, egalitä, and fraternitä."  The

National Assembly distinguished between active and passive

citizens, and Napoleon's Berlin Decrees favored men in the

families and the employer over the employee.  Robespierre argued

for the Republic of Virtue, one of the most truly democratic

ideas of the time, yet his Committee of Public Safety guillotined

thousands on the mere suspicion of treason.  In times of

emergency, virtue must be upheld by violence and

authoritarianism, he reasoned.  The failure of the French

Revolution to live up to its enlightened ideals is best

exemplified by Napoleon, who in 1804, took the crown from the

pope and put it upon his own head, crowing himself emperor.  Even

his early admirer Beethoven was dismayed, and tore up the

dedication sheet to the Eroica symphony, which had been dedicated

to the crusading "hero of the revolution."  Although the French

failed to live up to their ideas, they succeeded in toppling the

Old Regime, and the abolitionist and women's rights movements of

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are the direct heirs of

teh French Revolution. Western societies are still struggling to

implement them and develop nations where all races, genders and

creeds are truly liberated. 

     Bastille day, July 14, is still celebrated in France as the

birthday of the Revolution which toppled a system in place since

the ninth century, yet it is a day which molded the entire

western world.





Famous Quotations:





     I used to say of him that his presence on the field made the

     difference of forty thousand men.

          Duke of Wellington commenting on Napoleon



     My maxim was, la carriere est ouverte aux talents, without

     distinction of birth or fortune.

          1817



     Soldiers, from the summit of yonder pyramids forty centuries

     look down on you.

          In Egypt, July 21, 1798



     From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

     on the retreat from Moscow, 1812



     You write to me that it's impossible; the word is not  

     French.

     July 9, 1813



     The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.

          1814



     What is the throne? -- a bit of wood gilded and covered with

     velvet.  I am the state -- I alone am here the

     representative of the people.  Even if I had done wrong you

     should not have reproached me in public -- people wash their

     dirty linen at home.  France has more need of me than I of

     France.

          To the Senate, 18184



     Whatever shall we do in that remote spot?  Well, we will

     write our memoirs.  Work is the scythe of time.        

          1815



                             OUTLINE



I.  The financial crisis after the Seven Years' War



     A.  interest payments

     B.  nobility was not taxed

     C.  the attempt to reform the tax system



II.  The Revolt Noblesse (revolt of the Parlements)



     A.  their refusal to register the new edicts

     B.  the demand to summon the Estates General

          the problem with such a demand



III.  The Summoning of the Estates General -- 1789



     A.  Voting by Estate:

          the Three estates:

               clergy

               nobility

               everyone else



     B.  The Abbe Siäyes:     "What is the Third Estate?"



          EVERYTHING and NOTHING!!!!



     C.  The Tennis Court Oath



          The National Assembly



IV.  The Masses



     A.  The Great Famine of 1788 and the bread riots of 1789



     B.  The Agrarian Fear of 1789



     C.  the storming of the 
     

Bastille on July 14, 1789



               the creation of the national guard -- Lafayette

               the king wears the revolutionary emblem



V.  The abolition of feudalism:  August 4, 1789



     A.  no more banalities



     B.  no tithes to church



     C.  jobs open to all



     D.  BUT -- peasants still had to purchase their land!



VI.  The Declaration of the Rights of Man:



     A.  everyone born free and equal in rights:



          life, liberty, property, security, and the right of

               resistance to oppression



     B.  MAN did not equal WOMEN

           i) a brief look at 
           
           Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women

     C.  Active vs.  Passive Citizens



VII.  The Civil Constitution of the Clergy -- 1790



     A.  Confiscated church lands and monastic lands --

      secularity!



     B.  used lands to assign bonds



     C.  clergy paid buy the state



     D.  elected clergy by the parish



     E.  no allegiance to pope., but to republic.



     F.  the refractory clergy and the king



     G.  the pope repudiates -- 1791



VIII.  The Legislative Assembly



     A.  The Girondists

          origin of their name



     B.  the reaction of the European monarchies to the

      revolution



     C.  the peasant revolts in Europe





     D.  Edmund Burke and Reflections on the Revolution in France



     E.  War for unity!!!!!!!!



     F.  The Declaration of Pillnitz



          HRE and Prussia declare war on France

          threaten to punish Parisian citizens



     G.  The Second revolution -- 1792



          i.  war went unfavorably

          ii.  storming of the Tuileries Palace

               imprisonment of the King

          iii.  the Paris commune

          iv.  the abolition of the constitution

          v.  the sans-culottes (without breeches)

                    the Jacobins -- the Mountain

               radical revolution!!!

          vi.  the September Massacres

          vii.  the Emergency Republic  (1792-1795)

                    Year One of the French Republic

                    renamed the months of the year

                    execution of citizen Capet (Louis XVI) Jan.

                         21, 1793

                         and Marie Antoinette 9 months later

          viii.  uprisings in the Vendee (countryside)

          ix.  Marat and the radical revolution

                    preserve revolution by punishing counter-

                         revolutionaries

                    his assassination



IX.  The Reign of Terror



     A.  the policies of Robespierre



          i.  the Republic of Virtue

          ii.  the committee of public safety

               the arrest of 300,000

               the execution of 40,000

               Robespierre vs.  Danton:

                    the old guard falls!

          iii.  Deism and the Supreme Being

               the outlawing of Christmas and Easter



     B.  the downfall of Robespierre



     C.  the conservative reaction to Robespierre:



          The Thermidorian reaction



X.  The Directory



XI.  Napoleon



     A.  His early career:



          His victories in 1796: the revolution spreads



               the Cisapline Republic (Milan)

               Ligurian Republic (Genoa)

               The Roman Republic (Papal States)

               The Partenopean Republic (Naples)

               

          The Treaty of Campo Formio 1797 and the temporary

         defeat of Austria



          portrayals in art and music:

               Jacques Louis David's paintings of Napoleon

               Beethoven's Eroica Symphony #3

               film excerpt: Abel Gance's Napoleon     



     B.  His rise to power: 



          The coup of November (Brumaire) 1799

          Napolean as first consul

          the Abbe Siäyes's support of Napoleon:  the Third

          Estate as conservative faction against radical

          change



     C.  His pact with the Pope: the Concordat of 1801



     D.  The Emperor Napoleon -- 1804

          

     E.  The Napoleonic Code (1804)



     F.  The Conquest of Europe (Napoleonic Wars)



          i.  The Sea Battle:

               The defeat at Trafalgar in 1805 by Admiral Horatio

                    Nelson

     

          ii.  The land campaign:

               Napoleon's defeat of the Austrian and Russian

               forces at Austerlitz 1805

     

          iii.  The Confederation of the Rhine in 1806

     

          iv.  The Berlin Decrees:

               The Napoleanic Code and The Continental System



          v. The Treaty of Tilsit in 1807:

               Prussia and Russia were subdued              



          vi.  revolt in Spain:

               the art of Goya

          vii. portrayals of Napoleon as wolf in sheep's clothing

                    in Russian art

          viii. nationalism in Germany:

                    Herder and the Volksgeist

                    Hitler in the twentieth century    



     G.  The Beginning of the End:



          The March to Russia in 1812

          Tschaikovsky's 1812 Overture



     H.  Defeat in 1814



          exile to Elba



     I.  The Hundred Days



          Defeat at Waterloo in 1815 by forces led by Duke of

                    Wellington

          exiled to St.  Helena

          his death in 1821



XII.  The Congress of Vienna



     the triumph of conservatism

     the balance of power