FRENCH REVOLUTION & NAPOLEON

Test Review

French Revolution: liberty, equality, and brotherhood

 Importance
• Complete transformation of French culture
o Destroyed monarchy and the Catholic Church
 People in charge, mob mentality
Society:
 1st estate- clergymen
 2nd estate- nobility and monarchy
 3rd estate- lower/middle class (majority)
• Carrying burdens of the higher estates
Causes of revolution:
 Political
• 3rd estate/inequality
• English Civil War, Glorious Revolution, American Revolution
o Inspiration
o Monarchs were reorganized, overthrown, limited by normal people
and parliament
• Ineffective leadership of Louis 14th and 15th
• Louis 16th: indecisive, bad leader, fat, starving people, doesn’t care, weak
o Marries Marie Antoinette for strategic ties to Austria
o Both spend and waste tons of money
 Social
• The Enlightenment- think for yourself, don’t trust authority
• Rise of the bourgeoisie class
 Economic
• France is bankrupt
• 3rd estate is subjected to huge taxes
• Poor harvest
o High bread prices- revolt, can’t afford to eat

Estates General
 Louis calls Estates General to power to hear the grievances of the 3rd estate
• Response: “the Cahiers: Discontent of the Third Estate”
o Estates General should meet regularly
o Need popular vote
 Currently each estate held one vote each, although the third
estate made up 97% of the population
o 1 and 2nd estates need to pay taxes too
st

o Offices should be occupied by competent

o No unjust imprisonment
o Freedom of the press
 • Louis denies them so the deputies all move to the tennis court (Tennis Court
Oath) and they Demand new constitution
Phases of French Revolution:
1.) Bourgeois Phase – revolt of the masses
a. Fall of Bastille
i. Cause: Louis fires Jack Necker
ii. Large crowd attacks the building with gunpowder, paraded the
heads of the guards around the streets on sticks
b. Declaration of the Rights of Man
i. Equal rights for all, punishment
ii. Freedom of press, religion
iii. Sovereignty belongs to the people
iv. Fair taxes
c. Jean Paul Marat- revolutionary who begins to stir up the crowds through
his newspaper
d. Jacobin club
i. Enlightened group
ii. Become the leaders of the National Assembly
iii. Robespierre
2.) The Radical Phase
a. After execution of the king and queen
b. Reign of Terror
i. Most violent and chaotic, corruption
ii. The Guillotine – new instrument for executions
c. National Assembly declares war on Austria
i. They were protecting Louis and Marie
d. The September Massacre
i. Not enough room in the prisons, so they slaughtered all the current
ones
ii. The Sanculot
iii. Danton takes over as leading revolutionary
e. Aristocracy and monarchy are abolished
f. Now attack Catholic Church, religion is the route of all problems
i. New saint = Marat (martyr) killed for his list of traitors in his
newspaper
3.) Thermidorian/Conservative Phase
a. Counter revolution, back lash- back to original ideals, taking out the
revolutionaries
i. The Dantoniests and the Deputees
ii. Execute Maximillion Robespierre in order to stop the terror
b. Attempts for stable government
c. Thermidorian Reaction
i. Threatened to undo the gains laid by former slaves and free people
of color
4.) Takeover of Napoleon
a. Right back to monarchy/dictatorship
 b. Resolution

Foreign Reaction to Revolution:

- England: mixed
o Liberal – excited (ordinary citizens against monarchy)
o Conservatives – horrified
 Demolishment of Catholic Church
 Edmund Burke: argues tradition and monarchy are best
 People cannot be trusted
o Women – learn ideas from revolution
 Mary Wollstonecraft – wants more rights too, equality
- United States
o France appealed for help
o Neutrality Acts
- Continental Europe
o Kings and Queens welcomed the Revolution
- Declaration of Phillnitz

Napoleon:
 Overthrew the Directory and defeats Austria
 First consul of the republic
 The Civil Code
• Equality for all male citizens before the law
• Absolute security of wealth and private property
 Domestic reforms
• Helped the peasants, gained both land and status
• Reassured the solid middle class
• Accepted and strengthened the French bureaucracy
 Concordat of 1801
• French Catholics could now practice their religion freely
• Napoleon gained political power
 The Third Coalition (against France)
• Austria, Russia, Sweden and Britain
 Napoleonic Wars
• Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Austerlitz
o Napoleon is victories and gains land
• Invasion of Russia/ Prussia, they surrendered and agreed to many peace
agreements and promises

Key terms:
- Assembly of Notables
o Louis XVI’s minister of finance, Jack Necker, suggested that he impose a
general tax on all people and create this assembly to gain support for the
idea (helps the people)
  Notables were mostly noblemen and clergy so they opposed the
new tax
• Notables suggested that the control of money and taxes
should go to the Estates General
- Estates General: representative body of all three estates
- National Assembly
o During the Estates General meeting, the third estate refused to behave
until the other estates sat with them
 The few people that did, now the group is called National
Assembly
- The Great Fear
o Peasants in the country side began to rise in revolt against their lords,
seized forests, taxes went unpaid
 Fear of vagabonds and outlaws
 Helped spur rebellion
• Doing their best to free themselves from manorial rights
and exploitation
- Constitutional monarchy
o National Assembly (middle class leadership) abolished the French nobility
as a legal order and created this new government which Louis XVI was
forced to accept
 King remained head of state
 All lawmaking power placed in hands of National Assembly,
elected by the economic upper half of French males
- Second revolution: the phase in which the fall of the monarchy marked a rapid
radicalization of the Revolution
- National Convention members were Jacobin, divided into 2 groups:
o The Girondists
o The Mountain- led by Robespierre and Georges Jacques Danton
- Sans-culottes: the laboring poor and the petty traders
- Planned economy:
o Established by Robespierre
o Government set maximum allowable prices for key products
 Fixed the price of bread in Paris at levels the poor could afford
- Reign of Terror: used revolutionary terror to solidify the home front
o Judged severely and executed an alarming amount of people
- Nationalism: patriotic dedication to a national state and a national mission,
common loyalty to France
- Abolition of slavery
o National Convention promised freedom to those who fought for France
o Eventually they ratified the abolition of slavery and extended it to all
French territories as well
- Thermidorian reaction
o Reaction to the despotism of the Reign of Terror
 Called the early days of the Revolution, the original respectable
 leaders
- General Napoleon Bonaparte
- Treaty of Luneville: Austria loses Italian possessions, France gets German
territories on the west bank
- Treaty of Amiens: France in control of Holland, Austrian, Netherlands, Rhine,
and Italian peninsula
- Grand Empire (built by Napoleon) all were expected to support him and stop
trade with Britain
o First part: the core, ever expanding France
o 2nd part: beyond French borders, dependent satellite kingdoms
 Placed members of his family on their thrones
o 3rd part: independent but allied Austria, Prussia, and Russia
- Toussaint L’Ouverture: independent ruler of western province of Saint-
Domingue
- Andre Rigaud: set up his own government in the southern peninsula

Textbook summary:
 Causes of Revolution
• Class struggle between entrenched nobility and the rising bourgeoisie
• Poor monarchical rule
• Rising torrent of political theory
• Financial crisis generated by France’s involvement in the 7 Years War and
American Revolution
 Louis forced to call meeting of the Estates General, first time in 200 years
• Proposal- the Third Estate in itself constituted the French nation
 By 1791 the National Assembly eliminated Old Regime privileges and established a
constitutional monarchy
 Colony of Saint-Domingue
• New movements for increased colonial autonomy, legal equality, rebellions
against their masters
 Popular fears of counter-revolutionary conspiracy
• Accusations and executions
• Jacobins eliminated all political opponents
 The Directory
• Took power after the fall of Robespierre
• Restored political equilibrium at the cost of social equality
 Group of conspirators gave Napoleon Bonaparte control of France
• Brilliant reputation, military leader- ideal to lead France
• Relentless ambitions led to his downfall
 Legacies of the Revolution
• Liberalism, assertive nationalism, radical democratic republicanism,
embryonic socialism, self conscious conservatism, abolitionism,
decolonization, movements for racial and sexual equality
• Whole range of political options and alternative views for the future
TIMELINE:
 Enlightenment emerges in France
 Jack Necker appointed head of French finances
 Estates General assembly held
 Tennis Court Oath
 3rd Estate emerges
 National Assembly
 1789
• Fall of Bastille/beginning of the French Revolution
• The Great Fear in the countryside
• Declaration of the Rights of Man
• Mob of women forced the king and queen to live in Paris
 1790 King forced to sign a document that limits his power
 Marat starts his newspaper, list of traitors
 Jacobin club forms
 1791 King and Queen flee to Austria, caught, arrested and brought back to Paris
 Guillotine designed
 1792
• National Assembly declares war on Austria
• National Convention replaces the National Assembly
o Want to eliminate Catholic influence
• September Massacre/ the Sahculot, Danton takes lead of revolution
 1793 execution of Louis and Marie, aristocracy and monarchy abolished
 Catholic Church comes under attack
 1794
• Robespierre turns it around and defeats the Austrians thanks to his planned
economy, Reign of Terror, and nationalism
• Ratification of the abolition of slavery and extended to all French territories
• Counter revolutionary groups Dantoniests and Deputees form
• Robespierre and Danton are guillotined for involvement in Reign of Terror
• Execution of Robespierre
 1795 The Directory replaces the National Convention
 1799 Napoleon takes control of France, ending the revolution
 1815- frantic period known as the Hundred Days, allies crushed Napoleon at waterloo
and imprisoned him off the coast of Africa