CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY

Final draft for fulfilment of project of Legal

History
On

“IMPACT OF FRENCH REVOLUTION ON WOMEN AND

CHILDREN ”

Submitted to: Dr. Priya Darshini Submitted By:Kinjal Keya

(Faculty of Legal History) Roll no. 2121

1st year, B.A.L.L.B (Hons)

 CONTENT
• Introduction
• Cause of French revolution
• Women and the French revolution
• Children in French revolution
• Consequences of French revolution
• Conclusion
 INTRODUCTION
• The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in
France and its colonies beginning in 1789.
• The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, and finally culminated
in a dictatorship under Napoleon who brought many of its principles to areas he
conquered in Western Europe and beyond

• The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day. The
Revolution resulted in the suppression of the feudal system, emancipation of the
individual, a greater division of landed property, abolition of the privileges of noble
birth, and nominal establishment of equality among men.
• The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not only national, for it
intended to benefit all humanity.
• Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies. It became
the focal point for the development of most modern political ideologies, leading to the
spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, and secularism, among many others.
FLAG OF FRENCH REVOLUTION
(1789- 1799)
CAUSE OF FRENCH REVOLUTION
THRERE WAS 3 MAIN CAUSE FOR FRENCH REVOLUTION

• Political Cause
• Social Cause
• Economic Cause
 POLITICAL CAUSE
• Incompetence of Louis XV (Week foreign and economic Policy)

• Despotic administration of Louis XVI ( He was Simple but was influenced

by her queen Mary Antoinette)
• Evil Influence of Mary Antoinette
• Defective administrative system

• Lack of Constitutional Organization

• Corruption in administration
LOUIS VI and MARY ANTOINETTE
 SOCIAL CAUSE
• Social Classification
In France, People were divided into three estates
 First Estate
High Ranking members of Church, privileged class
 Second Estate
Nobilities
 Third Estate
Everyone else, from peasants to wealthy merchants
• This class differentiation led to ill treatment of lower classes. The first two classes
did not have to pay any tax to the king but third classes were made to pay taxes.
Because of these inequalities, common people became rebellious
 ECONOMIC CAUSE
• Backwardness of Agriculture
• Decline of Trade & Commerce
• Position of Industries
• Lack of Money and Expensive Wars
• Problem of Poverty and Unemployment
• Severe Famine of 1788
 WOMEN IN FRENCH REVOLUTION
• Women participated in virtually every aspect of the French Revolution
• In the eighteenth century, those who favored improving the status of
women insisted primarily on women's right to an education (rather than
on the right to vote, for instance, which few men enjoyed).
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, In his book Emile, he described his vision of an
ideal education for women. Women should take an active role in the
family, Rousseau insisted, by breast-feeding and educating their children,
but they should not venture to take active positions outside the home.
• Many women objected to his insistence that women did not need serious
intellectual preparation for life.
• Before 1789 , ideas of women education and her rights as an indivdual
was turned deaf ears like the rights of Black People, Jew etc.
• When questions of rights arose, Louis XVI agreed to convoke a meeting of
the Estates-General for May 1789 to discuss the financial problems of the
country.
• However, the King did not invited women to meet as women to draft their
grievances or name delegates, a few took matters into their own hands
and sent him petitions outlining their concerns i.e. their educational,
political and civil rights.
• After this, women were seen to have an active participation in protests,
riots and demonstration. They advocated for their rights as individuals in
these protests.
 PROMINENT WOMEN
• Marie Gouze

• Her pen name was Olympe de Gouges.

• She attacked slavery
• In September 1791 published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman
• Politics came to her at a high price as she suffered persecution from the
hands of government.
• Charlotte Corday

• She assassinated deputy Jean-Paul Marat who published a newspaper, The

Friend of the People, that violently denounced anyone who opposed the
direction of the Revolution; he called for the heads of aristocrats, hoarders,
unsuccessful generals, and even moderate republicans, such as Condorcet, who
supported the Revolution but resisted its tendency toward violence and
intimidation.
• This was an act of resistance towards Revolution which further inspired many
women.
• A small but vocal minority of women activists set up their own political
clubs. The best known of these was the Society of Revolutionary
Republican Women established in Paris in May 1793.
• The members hoped to gain political education for themselves and a
platform for expressing their views to the political authorities. The society
did not endorse full political rights for women; it devoted its energies to
advocating more stringent measures against hoarders and
counterrevolutionaries and to proposing ways for women to participate in
the war effort.
• Male revolutionaries promptly rejected every call for equal rights for
women. But their reactions in print and in speech show that these
demands troubled their conception of the proper role for women. Now
they had to explain themselves; rejection of women's rights was no longer
automatic, in part because the revolutionary governments established
divorce, with equal rights for women in suing for divorce, and granted girls
equal rights to the inheritance of family property.
• The government grew suspicious of the club and stopped its functioning.
Various activists were put to death while others were warned about their
fate.
• Even as the fortunes of women's political activism were rising and falling,
women began playing another kind of role, as symbols of revolutionary
values. Most of the major revolutionary values—liberty, equality, fraternity,
reason, the Republic, regeneration—were represented by female figures.
• Though the male revolutionaries refused to grant women equal political
rights, they put pictures of women on everything, from coins and bills and
letterheads to even swords and playing cards.
• Although women had not gained the right to vote or hold office, they had
certainly made their presence known during the Revolution
• Women participated in the French Revolution in many ways: they
demonstrated at crucial political moments, stood in interminable bread
lines, made bandages for the war effort, visited their relatives in jail,
supported their government-approved clergyman, and wrote all manner of
letters and petitions about government policies.
CHILDREN IN FRENCH REVOLUTION
• All over the countries there were lots of Important and well-paid colleges.
Universities and elementary schools. All financed by the Catholic Church.
There were over 50,000 students from which 3,000 were scholarship
students.
• As the Catholic Church lost most of Its power, the colleges did not receive
that much money so 9 of 10 were sold or closed. The education was not
one of the main problems during the revolution so for a small amount of
time people did not receive proper education. Most of the teachers and
the students (most of them being nobles) went to war, education was no
longer important.
• The Jacobin, as many others, had the Idea of “unity and uniformity’ but
they were also the first ones who thought that education was Important
and that the school should be public and free.
The Jacobin Club
• After the French revolution, during Napoleon’s empire, the educational
system changed into a way that we are still using these days. He gave
enough money to all the schools so that the ones that had been closed
during the revolution could reopen.
• A student had to go through Elementary School, Secondary School,
College and then University. They studied mathematics, physics and
chemistry, natural history, scientific method and psychology, political
economy and legislation, the philosophic history of peoples, hygiene, arts
and crafts, general grammar, belles letters, ancient languages, painting
and drawing. All the subject are going to be studied in French instead of
Latin as a result of the”unity and uniformity.
• Napoleon was the first one who agreed with the rights of woman and eve
them the right to education. He thought that In order to raise great
children, women have to be educated. There were different schools for
women, which they learnt fewer things than the boys. Women did not go
to university. All the teachers had to be qualified.
 CONSEQUENCES
• EFFECTS IN FRANCE
 Equality among citizens
 End of despotic rule
 Established a constitutional form of government and republic in France
 Written Constitution
 The main result of the French Revolution was that the French people
acquired many human rights. They were given the right of equality,
freedom of expression
 Abolition of Feudalism
 The principle of election was adopted in the administration
 The economic infrastructure was improved to promote the trade
• EFFECT ON ENGLAND
 Effect on Social and Political Reform Movements
 They suffered economic crisis as they supported anti- revolutionary parties
monetarily.

• EFFECT ON EUROPE
 Responses and Reactions: Russia, Spain, Austria and Turkey remained
untouched by the French Revolution. In Poland and Ireland, the French
Revolution encouraged the revolutionary activities. The Revolution also
influenced the middle class of Germany and Italy.
 PERMANENT EFFECT
 Spirit of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity
THANK YOU