The French revolution

1. The French revolution Liberty Equality Fraternity

2. Introduction • The French Revolution began in 1789 and ended in the 1790s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte to the throne as emperor. During this period of time, citizens redesigned the country’s political landscape and uprooted centuries-old institutions like absolute monarchy. • Absolute monarchy: one ruler has supreme authority and that authority is not restricted by any laws. • The French Revolution was caused by widespread discontent with the French monarchy and the poor policies of King Louis XVI (16th).

3. The Three Estates Before the revolution, the French people were divided into three groups: • The first estate: the clergy • The second estate: the nobility • The third estate: the common people (bourgeoisie, urban workers, and peasants). Legally the first two estates enjoyed many privileges, particularly exemption from most taxation.

4. The First Estate • The first estate, the clergy, consisted of rich and poor. • There were very wealthy abbots, members of the aristocracy who lived in luxury off of wealthy church lands. • There were poor parish priests, who lived much like the peasants.

5. The Second Estate The second estate, the nobility, inherited their titles and received their wealth from the land. • Some members of the nobility had little money but had all the privileges of noble rank. • However, most enjoyed both privileges and wealth.

6. The Third Estate The third estate, the common people, was by far the largest group in France. Everyone who was not a member of the first or second estates was a member of the third. It included: • Wealthy merchants, whose wealth rivaled that of the nobility • Doctors and lawyers • Shopkeepers • The urban poor • The peasants who worked the land

7. Louis XVI • Louis XVI was an awkward man who had a good heart but was unable to relate to people on a personal level. • He was insecure and seems to have disliked being King of France. • When one of his ministers resigned, he was heard to remark, "Why can't I resign too?"

8. Marie Antoinette • Marie Antoinette, in her early years as queen, was flighty and irresponsible. • She spent huge amounts on clothes, buying a new dress nearly every other day. • Being Austrian, she was terribly unpopular in France.

9. Palace of Versailles • The King and Queen of France lived in luxury and splendor at the magnificent Palace of Versailles outside of Paris. • Was first built as a hunting lodge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X235vpOToVU

10. The Financial Crisis The government of France, however, was bankrupt and was facing a serious financial crisis. The crisis resulted from: • An inefficient and unfair tax structure • Outdated medieval bureaucratic institutions • Aiding the Americans during the American Revolution • Long wars with England • Overspending

11. The Nobility With the exception of a few liberals, the nobility wanted greater political influence for themselves but nothing for the third estate.

12. Calling the Estates General • The King attempted to solve the financial crisis by removing some of the nobles' tax exemptions. • However, the nobility saw themselves as special, with better blood, and entitled to all of their class privileges. • He was forced to call a meeting of the Estates General in 1788.

13. The meeting of the Estates General May 5, 1789

14. How should they vote? • The delegates of the third estate insisted that the three orders meet together and that the vote be taken by head, rather than by order. • Since there were far more delegates from the third estate, this plan would give them a majority. • The King refused to grant their request. • The third estate refused to budge. 

15. What is the Third Estate? • On June 17, with talks over procedure stalled, the Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met in a nearby indoor tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath (serment du jeu de paume), vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved. • Within a week, most of the clerical deputies and 47 liberal nobles had joined them, and on June 27 Louis XVI grudgingly absorbed all three orders into the new assembly.

16. The Tennis Court Oath by Jacques Louis David

17. Rise of the People • Mobs roamed in search of weapons. • Although some muskets were found when they broke into a public hospital for wounded soldiers, there was no ammunition. • The ammunition was stored in the Bastille prison. 

18. Storming of the Bastille • On July 14, 1789, the mob, joined by some of the King's soldiers, stormed the Bastille. • The commander of the Bastille, de Launay, attempted to surrender, but the mob would not accept it. • He was killed as they poured through the gates. • No guard was left alive. • The wave of revolutionary fervor and widespread hysteria quickly swept the countryside. Revolting against years of exploitation, peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlords and the elite. (The Great Fear)

19. The Bastille

20. Prisoners Liberated • Later in the day the prisoners were released. • There were only seven: • Two were convicted forgers. • One was a loose-living aristocrat put in prison by his own father. • Nevertheless it was a great symbolic event, one which is still celebrated in France every year.

21. Declaration of the Rights of Man • On August 4, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government. • Adopted on September 3, 1791, France’s first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices in the Assembly, establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the king enjoyed royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers. • This compromise did not sit well with influential radicals like Maximilien de Robespierre who began drumming up popular support for a more republican form of government.

22. The King Returns to Paris • Under pressure from the National Guard, the King agreed to return to Paris with his wife and children. • It was the last time they were to see Versailles.

23. Flight to Varennes • Although the King reluctantly accepted the new constitution, he could not accept all the reforms (e.g., the Civil Constitution of the Clergy) and decided to leave the country. • On June 20, 1791, the King and his family set out for the border in a carriage. • The King was disguised as a steward and his son was wearing a dress. • At the border village of Varennes, he was recognized and eventually apprehended.

24. Attack on the Tuileries The royal family was living under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace.

25. End to the Monarchy • A group of insurgents led by the extremist Jacobins attacked the royal residence in Paris and arrested the king on August 10, 1792. This time the royal family barely escaped with their lives. The king's guards were killed and the King and his family fled to the protection of the Assembly. • The constitutional monarchy was over. The National Convention proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the French republic.

26. The Marseillaise Arise you children of our motherland, Oh now is here our glorious day ! Over us the bloodstained banner Of tyranny holds sway ! Of tyranny holds sway ! Oh, do you hear there in our fields The roar of those fierce fighting men ? Who came right here into our midst To slaughter sons, wives and kin. CHORUS To arms, oh citizens ! Form up in serried ranks ! March on, march on ! And drench our fields With their tainted blood!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHOkECIg1AA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPdrgZbJOFA

27. The Execution • The National Convention decided to put Louis on trial for his crimes. • Although his guilt was never an issue, there was a real debate in the Convention on whether the king should be killed. • They voted for his execution. The Convention then voted 387 to 334 in favor of executing the former king. • On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the state, was sent to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette suffered the same fate nine months later.

28. Louix XVI’s Last Words When he arrived at the place of his execution, Louis XVI spoke to the gathered crowd. They were the people he had once called his subjects. Realizing that no matter what he said or did would change the minds of those who were there to end his life, he apparently said (in English translation): I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me. I pardon the authors of my death, and pray God that the blood you are about to shed will never fall upon France.

29. Louix XVI’s Last Words • The King walked, alone, up the steps of the scaffold. The guillotine - the instrument which would end his life - was positioned nearby. He would be publicly humiliated, before he died: • Far from opposing those who came to cut off his hair, and bind his hands, "Do with me," said he, "what you will, it is the last sacrifice.“ • Interrupting the King, who apparently intended to say more to the individuals gathered around the scaffold, Santerre - in charge of the execution - ordered a drum roll which would drown-out Louis' words.

30. Marie’s Last Words As Marie Antoinette ascended the stairs to the guillotine, she accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot, saying to him: “Pardon me sir, I meant not to do it.”

31. The Execution of Louis XVI

32. Reign of Terror • Following the king’s execution, war with various European powers and intense divisions within the National Convention ushered the French Revolution into its most violent and turbulent phase. • In June 1793, the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and instituted a series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new calendar and the eradication of Christianity. • They also unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror (la Terreur), a 10-month period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were guillotined by the thousands. Many of the killings were carried out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Committee of Public Safety until his own execution on July 28, 1794. • Over 17,000 people were officially tried and executed during the Reign of Terror, and an unknown number of others died in prison or without trial.

33. The Rise of Napoleon • On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, approved a new constitution that created France’s first bicameral legislature. • Executive power would lie in the hands of a five-member Directory (Directoire) appointed by parliament. Royalists and Jacobins protested the new regime but were swiftly silenced by the army, now led by a young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte. • The Directory’s four years in power were riddled with financial crises, popular discontent, inefficiency and, above all, political corruption. By the late 1790s, the directors relied almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority and had ceded much of their power to the generals in the field. • On November 9, 1799, as frustration with their leadership reached a fever pitch, Bonaparte staged a coup d’état, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself France’s “first consul.” The event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic era, in which France would come to dominate much of continental Europe.

34. Life & Death of Napoleon • He, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of the French government and save his nation from collapse. • After becoming first consul in February 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoleonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 was crowned emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral.

35. Life & Death of Napoleon • Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. • Exiled to the island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815 and raised a new Grand Army that enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo against an allied force on June 18, 1815. Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa. Six years later, he died, most likely of stomach cancer, and in 1840 his body was returned to Paris, where it was interred in the Hotel des Invalides.

36. Napoleon’s Tomb The eternal flame was first lit in 1923 marking the tomb of the unknown soldier, and has been burning steadily ever since. It signifies that the sacrifice of this heroic individual who gave his life for his country shall never be forgotten Les Invalides, Paris, France