The French Revolution

In this unit we will attempt to answer two key questions.

Inquiry question 1: Why was there a revolution? Inquiry question 2: Why was the revolution radicalised?

Why was there a revolution?

Long term causes

Louis XVI: portrait of a king

In an absolute monarchy, the king is the ultimate source of all authority. In France there had only been three kings in the century before the revolution. In a dynamic age of ideas, government was static. So it was very important to have a charismatic and decisive leader. Unlike his grandfather, Louis lacked these qualities. Sometimes he seemed to lack confidence because he was very short sighted. He took only limited interest in court ceremony which was central to the system of government he inherited. Louis was studious, and spoke English well. Despite censorship, many unpleasant rumours were spread about Louis and his wife. His wife Marie Antoinette was thought to be frivolous and possibly unfaithful to her husband. Neither was able to alter this bad impression.

The splendour of Versailles

For a hundred years, French kings lived in the palace of Versailles. The palace had been made to be magnificent in order to impress people (particularly foreigners) with the power of France. But its luxury caused some resentment.

Versailles: the gardens

Versailles had 50 fountains like this one

The Queens Hamlet. This is the Queens farm hidden in the grounds at Versailles. For the queen it was like a playground where she could play at being a peasant. It offered her an escape from the luxury and magnificence of court life. The people did not know about this farm.

Marie Antoinette: the reality

This picture shows the Queen dressed as a peasant she would have dressed this way at The Queens Hamlet. This was how Marie Antoinette wanted to be. Q. Do you think people would have respected the Queen more or less if they had known this side of her?

Versailles: inside
This is the Queens bedroom. It was usual for powerful people to stay in bed while people came to ask favours. People would stand beyond the rail. In the corner is a hidden door where the Queen escaped when the mob

The power and character of the king

The Character of the king and queen

Read p100-101 SHP and p18-19 Citizens Minds. 1) Describe in detail the power of the king. 2) Complete this table (use half a page in your book.)

Strengths

Weaknesses

Louis XVI

Marie Antoinette

Lafayette the image and the man

Look at these two images of Lafayette: how did Lafayette see himself?

Money Troubles: war and tax farming.

France had fought a series of expensive wars. The government owed more and more money, and had to find a new way to pay its debt. Taxation did not work well because much of the money was taken by local officials who had paid the government for the right to do this. This was called tax farming. Extension: read p28-9 Citizens Minds

Poverty
While the king and his nobles lived at Versailles, many people were poor. Peasants made up about 85% of the population: when harvests failed, many people in the country and in the towns risked starvation.

Look at sources FR1,2 or 3. Look at p108-9 in Societies in Change. Make a list of reasons for poverty in C18th France.
Extension: p14-17 Citizens Minds

The Three Estates: a static society

Just as government was static, so society did not allow people to advance. Moreover, the poorest people had the greatest tax burden, while others had privileges over the peasantry. (1) Read p10-13 Citizens minds, and answer the Think questions on p13. (2) In the contemporary print (right) the king is seated at the front. Who are the other characters? Extension: The caption refers to the people what is interesting about this? (Clue: compare it to We the people the phrase which opens the U.S. Constitution.) The People Under The Ancien Regime

The Three Estates: points of view

Whoever has something, he will be given more; and whoever does not, he will lose even the little he has." (From the Christian Bible.) Q. Imagine you are a bishop. You are part of the First Estate. Your family are nobles part of the Second Estate. How could you use this religious text to justify the situation in this picture? Remember: the poor had much more limited expectations than poor people have today. People born poor generally expected to stay poor. They were used to a hierarchical society: the less they had, the more they might worry about losing it if they rebelled. The poor were told their reward would be in Heaven if they were obedient on Earth.

What was in peoples minds?

In C18th France, leading thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu and Diderot looked at society in a new way. They were independent minded, and instead of agreeing with earlier ideas, offered an original approach. They were called the philosophes. Their ideas influenced some of the nobility and better educated members of the Third Estate. We will look at each philosophe in turn.

Four Philosophes
Voltaire criticised the 1st Estate. He argued that the Church prevented free speech and was intolerant. He condemned persecution, using satire.

Rousseau argued that society could make people act badly. In order to be free, we must impose the general will.

Montesquieu claimed that the powers of government should be shared.

Diderot wanted to see a more tolerant, better educated society. He worked with other philosophes to produce the worlds first encyclopaedia.

Lafayette and the Duke of Orleans

Two men who read and admired the Philosophes were Lafayette and the Duke of Orleans. Both were very wealthy nobles, but were part of a younger generation reflecting the ideas of their time. They were restless and keen to put their talents to use. Lafayette had been a leading commander in the American War of Independence. He did not want to go back to the life of a courtier. The Duke of Orleans hosted revolutionary speakers speaking to assembled crowds at his palace in the centre of Paris.

Lafayette was a marquis, but we do not remember him using his title. Why do you think this is?

Philip the Duke of Orleans adopted a new name during the revolution: Philip equal citizen. Why do you think he did this?

Short term causes

1789 Meeting of the Estates General

To solve the governments money shortage, the king called a meeting of the Estates General. There were representatives of all three Estates (see the picture below.) The Estates General had not met for over 150 years.

Read p23 Citizens Minds Q Why was the Third Estate worried about voting? Now look at the second half of p36 and p37, and answer the two questions on p37.

The Tennis Court Oath

When the representatives of the Third Estate were locked out of their meeting room, they met on a nearby tennis court. Here they made a solemn promise to stay together until they had a new constitution. This was a direct challenge to the authority of the king.

The representatives were locked out because their room was being prepared for a meeting of all three estates. At this meeting Louis was going to agree to many of their demands. Over the next few weeks, members of the First and then the Second Estates came to join the Third Estate. Now the Third Estate were setting the agenda.

The Storming of the Bastille

News spread that the king was preparing to restore his authority in Paris using large numbers of soldiers. The king also dismissed a popular finance minister Necker. The people had hoped Necker could solve the financial crisis. Now they grew afraid. They decided to arm themselves.

Read p57-9 Citizens Minds, and answer the question on p59. Extension: read the extracts from Carlyle on p53 and 54, following the instruction on p53. Then

Eyewitness account: the king comes to Paris to accept the changes to the government. The American leader Thomas Jefferson was visiting Paris at this time. He kept a diary, and it has survived. We can read about what he saw with his own eyes.

Read SOURCE FR4 Q1. Find a quote which shows the attitudes of the people to the king. Q2. Find a quote which shows the king lacked confidence.

Look carefully at this modern sign in Paris. Q. Although it is written in French, see what Jefferson was doing in Paris in 1789 (and what he later became.)

Extension: This modern statue of Jefferson is also in Paris. Why do you think a statue of Jefferson is here?

Why was the revolution radicalised?

Picture source: The Awakening of the Third Estate.

This contemporary print is called The Awakening of the Third Estate. 1) 2) 3) Describe what is happening. Who might have made this image? Look at the background: when do you think this print was made?

The Declaration of the Rights of Man

Here you can see how the Declaration is made to look like the Ten Commandments. An angel points towards an eye in a triangle with rays of light coming from it. This symbol (which was also used at the time of the American Revolution on government seals) represents Gd. G-d is not represented as a person but by this abstract design. This is not to avoid idolatry. It is a presentation of G-d as a supreme being (not necessarily Christian.)

Providing for the Poor

When the National Assembly sold off Church lands, the Church could no longer provide any help to the poor. Half the Church land was bought by peasants many owning land for the first time. But poorer peasants were excluded. Two years later the National Assembly set up a committee to examine the problem, but there was no money available. This may have had a destabilizing effect on society.

The Womens March on Versailles

There had been some plans for a march on Versailles, but the direct cause was a banquet given by the king for his guards. It was feared that these guards would be used against the people. And while the guards had their banquet, the people were starving. The women began to march simply to get bread, but as their numbers grew, they decided to force the king to live closer to his people to appreciate their suffering. When she heard the people had no bread, the Queen is supposed to have said: let them eat cake! Q If this is true, what does it suggest about the Queen? (It is probably not true.)

The mob surrounds Versailles

Lafayette presents the king and queen to the mob below. The situation was very tense: the queen had almost been killed and several guards had been torn to pieces. Lafayette tried to calm things down. The king and queen agreed to be escorted to Paris: the base of the revolution. Q. Imagine you were Lafayette. How would you have handled this tricky situation?

Return of the Royal Family after the flight to Varennes

In 1791 the king and queen tried to escape the country. At the last moment they were recognised and brought back to Paris. The consequence of this was to make the king look weak and untrustworthy.

Q Look at the two pictures of the king being brought back. Do you think they were made for different groups of people?

Celebration of the Constitutional Monarchy (Bastille Day): a mass rally

Here you can see the grand celebration involving many spectators in a building like a stadium. Unlike the grandeur of Versailles, this magnificence is created by the huge gathering of people. This idea would be copied by future leaders. Q. Describe how you think the spectators would have felt on this day.

Jacobins v Girondins
This is where the Jacobin club met. The Jacobins found their support among the sans culottes. Robespierre and other Jacobins were good at manipulating the feelings of urban tradesmen, encouraging them to be politically active. The Jacobins believed what they were doing was very important for the good of the ordinary people. In 1792 the Jacobins were able to take over the National Assembly and begin a reign of terror. Girondins who opposed their measures were executed.

A sans culottes with a tricolour.

Marat: doctor, scientist, Jacobin leader

Marat had been a doctor and a scientist before the Revolution. He was one of many men excited by the chance to support the poor. He supported the Jacobins. In this picture he is being carried in a triumph. The text reads: Immortal defender of the people and their rights, Marat brings down powerful people and the throne, and builds our rights on the throne of kings Q. How does this text show Marat was a Jacobin?

Marats death and legacy

Marat was stabbed in his bath by a woman who sympathised with the Girondin. Here his death in a bathtub has been made to seem heroic. Marat used the expressions friend of the people and enemy of the people. In The Terror people would defend themselves as friends of the people and be condemned because they were enemies of the people.

The Ancient Greek Historian Thucydides writes about twisting language

Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of selfdefence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. Book III, 3.82-[4]

The 10th August The Massacre of the Swiss Guard

"Could [Louis XVI] imagine...that the mob, not content with venting their fury on the Chateau, would massacre not only the Swiss Guard, men of the people who had remained at their posts, but even the luckless servants in the kitchens of the Palace? The horrors committed on this 10th of August were such as no human mind could possibly have conceived."

900 Swiss guards were brutally killed, many tortured, some roasted, mutilated, decapitated, with their limbs distributed throughout Paris. Children played ball in the streets with the heads of the brave Swiss, and the steps of the Tuileries ran with blood, like some gruesome altar of human sacrifice. People dipped bread into the blood of the victims.

Read these two modern accounts of what happened on the 10th August. Imagine you are one of the moderate revolutionaries (the Girondin.) Write a speech to the mob persuading them to avoid further bloodshed.

Execution of Louis XVI: visual source

Look carefully at this contemporary cartoon (and its caption) of Louis saying farewell to his family before being executed. Q Is this a sympathetic or hostile view of the royal family? Give as much evidence as possible for your answer.
Contemporary English cartoon by James Gilray

Execution of Louis XVI: written source

On January 20, 1793, the National Convention condemned Louis XVI to death, his execution scheduled for the next day. Louis spent that evening saying goodbye to his wife and children. The following day dawned cold and wet. Louis arose at five. At eight o'clock a guard of 1,200 horsemen arrived to escort the former king on a two-hour carriage ride to his place of execution. Accompanying Louis, at his invitation, was a priest, Henry Essex Edgeworth, an Englishman living in France. Edgeworth recorded the event and we join his narrative as he and the fated King enter the carriage to begin their journey Q1. Read Edgeworths eyewitness account of the execution of the king. Is Edgeworth sympathetic to the king? Find as much evidence as possible for your answer.

Q2. Source comparison. Now compare these two sources. Which do you think is more reliable, and why?

Execution of Louis XVI: visual source

Louis was executed in the centre of Paris. Opposite the guillotine (left) you can see a massive pedestal. Here a statue of Louis grandfather Louis X1V once stood. It had been pulled down by the revolutionaries. Q. Why do you think this place was chosen for the execution?

Marie Antoinette before and after

Q Compare these two images of the queen. How are they different?

The Queen in the 1780s

The Queen on her way to execution

Robespierre: architect of The Terror

Although Robespierre was in charge of the country when so many were condemned to death, he had earlier voted to abolish the death penalty. Extension: see section 5 Citizens Minds
To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is barbarity.

The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.

Q. Do you agree with Robespierre?

Victim of the Terror: Condorcet

Condorcet was one of many brilliant men who lost their lives at this time. He spent much of his time in hiding but was eventually thrown into prison. He was suspected of sympathising with the Girondins. Even during this time he was able to write a book full of hope for the future of humanity.

He died in mysterious circumstances in prison. A friend may have given him poison to avoid execution.

The Guillotine

The Guillotine was used in the French Revolution to execute people whom the government condemned. It became a symbol of the Terror. The guillotine was a quick and easy way to kill people and looked frightening. Because of its size it could be seen by a large crowd. Executions took place in front of huge crowds. Debate: should people be allowed to watch executions? (Should they be public?)

Victims of the guillotine 1: Madame Roland

These two pictures of Madame Roland show clearly how people could express their political ideas through their clothing. Describe the differences between the two pictures, and explain which you think was painted first. Madame Roland was an influential Girondin. She was one of many whom the government put on trial and condemned to death. Just before she died she said a line which has been remembered: O Liberty, what crimes are committed in your name! Q Can you explain what Madame Roland meant?

Victims of the guillotine 2: Olympe de Gouges

Another victim of the guillotine was Olympe de Gouges. On p105 Citizens Minds you can read about this remarkable woman, and see her ideas in English. Try to answer the question there.

Women in the French Revolution

Extension: see section 6 of Citizens Minds

Excesses of the French Revolution - Satirical Print

This satirical print is designed like a coat of arms. A coat of arms is like a logo for a noble family: ordinary people would not have one. This print shows a coat of arms for the Jacobins. Look at the image and find examples of: 1. The red cap of the Jacobins. 2. The bishops mitre (hat) and Bible being trampled on. 3. The world burning. 4. Images of death. Q1. What impression does this give of the Terror? Q2. Is this print sympathetic or hostile to the Jacobins? Explain your answer.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy

In 1790 the government had made the French clergy (priests, monks, nuns, bishops) accept that the government should be obeyed even if the Pope disagree. This was one cause of the counter revolution in the Vendee (see next slide.) The French government was becoming more and more powerful because it controlled its people more directly. This helped to make France the most powerful country in Europe in the years to come.

This commemorative plate shows a member of the clergy swearing to obey the government.

Counter Revolution in the Vendee(1793-6)

A counter-revolution is when many people try to stop a revolution by force. They revolt against a revolution. There was a counter revolution in France during the terror. The counter revolution took place in the Vendee region. Many killings took place when the counter-revolutionaries were punished. Women and children were slaughtered in some cases. Historians debate whether this was genocide. The word matters because it shows how serious these events were.

This was a counterrevolutionary symbol. It reads God [and] the king. Q. Why would the counter revolutionaries need to defend the Church?

The First Estate enjoy new freedoms satirical print

The National Assembly abolished religious orders, just as they had sold off church land to pay the countrys debts. On this print it says How happy this day is which gives you [monks and nuns] the same rights of Nature that we [the people] have. Q. What does satirical mean?

Strasbourg Cathedral becomes a Temple of Reason

Churches were sometimes converted as part of the attack on Christianity during the Terror. Here a church has been changed into a temple for worshipping Reason. Slide 24 of this power point shows the place of G-d taken by an eye from which light shines out. This was a time when people were rethinking their beliefs about G-d.

In the front left of this picture you can see a man wearing a revolutionary hat. Imagine you were giving a speech in this temple: what would you say about using our reason?
On the next two slides you can see images of a festival of the supreme being. Although the revolution was hostile to Christianity, there was still a type of worship. These festivals were closely controlled by the government.

The Festival of the Supreme Being

The Festival of the Supreme Being II

Did the Revolution make France a Fairer Country?

See p120-121 Societies in Change.

The French Revolutionary Army and the levee en masse

Moreau: when he had to retreat, he was able to protect his men and take many prisoners

Massena: the greatest name of my military empire (Napoleon.) Massena helped conquer Italy. Napoleon: the most famous military commander ever?

An infantryman all men between 18 and 25 were required to Debate: should we fight. This was the have conscription? levee en masse.

The Execution of Robespierre