The Old Regime – France

Notion of Privilege in govt.

27 million

3 Estates

1st Estate – Clergy

• 130,000 /27 mil.

• 10% land

• Exempt from taxes

2nd Estate – Nobility

• 400,000 / 27 mil.• 25-30% land• Control industry• Highest govt. positions (military / law /

church)• Exempt from taille and most other taxes• Nobility of Robe• Nobility of Sword

3rd Estate - Commoners

• Peasants alone =75-80% of pop• 35-40% of land• Over ½ own no land and still owe feudal dues• Skilled artisans and craftspeople• Bourgeoisie – 2.3 million• 20-25% of land• Merchants / bankers / industrialists /doctors /

public office/ lawyers etc.• Excluded from social and political privileges

enjoyed by nobles

Salons

• Bourgeois and nobles mix and discuss Enlightenment ideas

• Bourgeois and Aristocracy compete for power in govt.

18th Century Problems

1. Prices and Unemployment

• Prices rise faster than wages (65% - 22%)• Rents rise 140%• Bread prices rise – ½ salary (3/4 of diet)

– Bad harvests

• Manufacturing depression– Unemployment in cities– 1/3 of population is below poverty level

• Lords try to revive long forgotten taxes on peasants

2. Ideas of noble privileged and absolutism

face harsh criticism

(philosophes) and American War veterans

3. French Governments Debts

• Wars – Louis XIV’s American Revolution aid

• Extravagance (parties/ luxuries)

• Loans huge interest payments (1/2 govt. spending)

• 25% pays army

• Calonne – director of finances – urges Louis XVI to reform tax system

• -dismissed

• Jacques Necker – urged paring down spending on extravagances - dismissed

• Parlements (Provincial Bodies) and Assembly of Notables (Nobles / Magistrates) refuse to cooperate with govt.s attempts at tax reform

1789 - The Estates General

• Last meeting 1614• Each Estate has one collective vote

– 1st – 300 delegates– 2nd – 300 delegates– 3rd – 600 delegates

May 5th 1789

• 3rd Estate demands a vote by head not by order – Lovers of Liberty– Society of 30 – Lower clergy

• 1st and 2nd Estates declare voting by estate

• A few members from each join the 3rd estate

• Abbe Sieyes – “What is the 3rd Estate?”

Step 1 of Revolution

• June 17th 1789 – 3rd Estate declares a “National Assembly”

• June 20th – locked out by king

• Move to a nearby Tennis Court

• Tennis Court Oath to create a Constitution

Kings Response

• Fears a 3rd estate constitution

• Sends delegates from 1st and 2nd estates to National Assembly

• Orders 18,000 soldiers into Paris to keep order

People’s Response

“First Wave” of Revolution– Bastille– Great Fear

1. The Storming of the Bastille

• July 14th – mobs of Paris attack the Bastille 9prison, armory, symbol of tyranny)

• Raid weapons

• Kill local officials

2. The Great Fear

• July 20th – Aug. 6th• Rumors spread that

noble will kill peasants and seize lands

• Citizen militias• Refuse feudal dues• Break into manors• Drive nobles/

landlords from land• Destroy feudal

records

Cahiers

• Grievances written by the 3rd Estate that they wanted reformed

Examples:

Art. 11. Personal liberty, proprietary rights and the security of citizens shall be established in a clear, precise and irrevocable manner. All lettres de cachet shall be abolished forever, subject to certain modifications which the States General may see fit to impose.

lettre de cachet

• (l´tr d käsh´) (KEY) , formerly in French law, private, sealed document, issued as a communication from the king. Such a letter could order imprisonment or exile for an individual without recourse to courts of law. Of very early origin, the lettre de cachet came into common use in the 17th cent. as an instrument of the new monarchy. Although its actual use was restrained, the issuance to local officials of lettres de cachet with the space for the name left blank inspired great fear. The occasional invocation of them against leaders of opinion, including Voltaire, became a symbol of arbitrary royal power and tyranny.

• The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.  2001-05.

• Art. 12. And to remove forever the possibility of injury to the personal and proprietary rights of Frenchmen, the jury system shall be introduced in all criminal cases, and in civil cases for the determination of fact, in all the courts of the realm.

• Art. 15. A wider liberty of the press shall be accorded, with this provision alone: that all manuscripts sent to the printer shall be signed by the author, who shall be obliged to disclose his identity and bear the responsibility of his work;

• Art. 21. No tax shall be legal unless accepted by the representatives of the people and sanctioned by the king.

• Art. 22. Since all Frenchmen receive the same advantage from the government, and are equally interested in its maintenance, they ought to be placed upon the same footing in the matter of taxation.

• Art. 23. All taxes now in operation are contrary to these principles and for the most part vexatious, oppressive and humiliating to the people. They ought to be abolished as soon as possible, and replaced by others common to the three orders and to all classes of citizens, without exception.

National Assembly 1789-1791

• Meets at VersaillesVotes to end:• seigniorial dues• noble and clerical

privilege

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen – August 26th 1789

• Access to govt. office based on talent• Equality for men under law• Restriction of king’s powers• Freedom of speech• Citizen participation in govt.• Leaves out the ladies• Olympe de Gouge write DoRoW &FC – ignored

by NA

King ignores all changes by NA

The Bread Riot• October 5th 1789• Women lead• Becomes armed gathering• 12 mile march to Versailles• King promises bread from Paris – forced to go with the

demonstrators to Paris• In Paris king is guarded by revolutionaries

Civil Constitution of the Clergy- July 1790

• Bishops elected & paid by govt.

• 46% of clergy refuse oath to Constitution (Pope’s orders)

• Good Catholics vs. Good Revolutionaries

• King Louis tries to flee France

• Arrested June 1791

1791- France declared a Constitutional Monarchy

• 1st election of Legislative Assembly October 1791

• Voting Men vote for– Electors who vote for

• Deputies who make up the new legislature

• Not all men can vote (based on taxes)

• Most of those who gained office were bourgeoisie

Foreign Relations

• Declaration of Pillnitz – Aug 1791– Count of Artois (later Charles X)– Emperor Leopold of Aus.– King Frederick II of Prus.– Called for monarchies of Europe to help the

king of France strengthen the monarchy

• Legislative Assembly declares war on Austria 1792

• Other nations follow

La Marseillaise

• Listen!

Let us go, children of the fatherlandOur day of Glory has arrived.Against us stands tyranny,The bloody flag is raised,The bloody flag is raised.Do you hear in the countrysideThe roar of these savage soldiers They come right into our armsTo cut the throats of your sons,your country.

To arms, citizens!Form up your battalions Let us march, Let us march!That their impure bloodShould water our fields

Sacred love of the fatherlandGuide and support our vengeful arms.Liberty, beloved liberty,Fight with your defenders;Fight with your defenders.Under our flags, so that victoryWill rush to your manly strains;That your dying enemiesShould see your triumph and glory

To arms, citizens!Form up your battalions Let us march, Let us march!That their impure bloodShould water our fields

Interested Factions

Jacobins

• Political club led by Maximillian Robespierre and followed by Jean-Paul Marat (Moniteur patriote )

• Want radical change to the government

• Republic• Want to abolish

monarchy• Want war to spread

Revolution to Europe

Girondins

• Moderates

• Favor compromise / parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy

• Tend to come from country sides

Émigrés

• Nobles who have fled France

• Hope the war will bring back old regime

Paris Commune• Represented workers, trades

people, and radical bourgeois• Sans-culottes (without knee

breeches)• Radical Paris mobs• August 1792 Attack palace and

Assembly – call for a National Convention based on universal male suffrage to create a govt.

• Called for execution of “traitors and Prisoners”

• Georges Danton, Jacques Hebert

• Became a temporary local government of Paris during parts of the Revolution

National Convention September 1792

• Mostly bourgeoisie, some lower middle class

• Abolished monarchy September 21st 1792

• Declare France a Republic

• Problem: What to do with the king?

The Mountain and the Plain

• Groupings of the deputies • benches in front of the convention president,

were known as the Plain and occupied by moderates

• Benches on his left were ranked more steeply The Jacobins took these seats - resembling a mountain.

• Mountain acknowledged Robespierre as its leader.

Louis’ trial and execution

• http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/louis_trial.html

• January 21st 1793

June 1793

• Paris Commune invades convention and arrests / executes leading Girondins

• Many in countryside revolt (Vendee in packet)

• Countries in arms against France: Aus. Prus. Sp. Port. Brit. Neth.

The Committee of Public Safety(Danton / Robespierre)

• 1793-94• Goal1 : fight enemies without and within

– Conscription, anonymous spies largest army in Europe

• Goal 2: Create a “republic of virtue”– Virtuous citizens, universal education, slavery

abolished• Goal 3: Wipe out old French traditions based on

Church and Monarchy– Republican Calendar– Temples of Reason

DeChristianization

Revolutionary Calendar• Vendémiaire, the month of

vintage• Brumaire, the month of fog

Frimaire, the month of frostNivôse, the month of snowPluviôse, the month of rainVentôse, the month of wind

• Germinal, the month of budding

• Floréal, the month of flowers• Prairial, the month of

meadows• Messidor, the month of

harvest• Thermidor, the month of heat• Fructidor, the month of fruit

Reign of Terror• CoPS runs revolutionary

courts to try those suspected of treason:– Royalists– Girondists– Anyone at odds with Paris

Commune• Secret informers,

anonymous tips• 16,000 in 9 months executed• 50,000 total• Olympe de Gouge• Robespierre “on terror”

Victims

• 8% nobles

• 25% middle class

• 6 % clergy

• 60% peasants

• http://www.unitedstreaming.com/search/assetDetail.cfm?guidAssetID=645800A0-0B13-4161-91D4-D316C1AB628C

End of Terror

• Danton calls for end to the Terror execution by CoPS

• Robespierre ties to purge NC of all but most radical

• National Convention sentences Robespierre to death July 1794

Thermidorean Reaction - 1795• Jacobin clubs closed• CoPS disbanded• Churches reopened• Freedom of worship• Laissez –faire• New Constitution &

government – The Directory

• White Terror• Gracchus Babeuff –

leader of the “Conspiracy of Equals” executed 1797

Constitution of 1795

• 2 Houses

• Council of 500 - initiate legislation

• Elders (250) accept or reject and elect the 5 Directors

• These reps are chosen by Electors (30,000) who are chosen by male taxpayers over 21

Problems

• Perceived as decadent by radicals• Not reactionary enough by royalists• Rebellion against it put down by Napoleon

Bonaparte 1795• Continues war• Unable to solve economic problems in France

• Napoleon overthrows Directory 1799 • “I am the revolution!” “The revolution is over!”

The Consulate!