Estudios Interculturales II

Social Causes:
1- What was French society like before the Revolution?
Society was divided into layers. At the very top was the king, he had absolute power. He was
influenced by the wealthy nobility; they were the top layer of the society and held important official
positions they demanded taxes and services. The first state of the realm was the clergy they carried
out important functions of society, they had social and religious status which added stability to
absolute monarchy and they were enormously rich.
The bourgeoisie, they resented the constant demands on them for
taxes to support the king and his government. But those with money could always buy various
public offices and use the position to make wealth for themselves. At the bottom were the peasants
– the rural poor – and the city workers. The laws exploited
them. They had no vote, were presumed guilty if arrested for a crime, and had no right to
legal representation if they could not afford it. Also, could be tortured by the officials of the state.
Their property could be seized, and their personal rights had to give way before traditional
obligations, such as the obligation to work for their nobles for nothing.

2- Were there conflicts within each class?

Antagonism existed between curés and upper clergy (Socially superior) this was one of the reasons
for the hostility, another was the unpopular pluralism of the upper clergy. Curés wanted to participate
in the running of the church, they were exasperated by the abuse of tithe and the extreme demand
of obedience.
3- Were there conflicts between classes?
“There was no fundamental hostility between the bourgeoisie and the nobility before the revolution”
4- In what ways were social problems a cause for the Revolution?

Economical Causes:
1- What economic effect did the American Revolution have in France?
The American Revolution's financial support for the American Revolution resulted in political
instability and massive debt at the start of the French Revolution. The sense of liberty and personal
rights which the American colonists struggled for inspired the French to fight and establish
numerous events. In addition, by helping the French government to go bankrupt, it popularized
democratic ideas.
2- What were the economic effects of having the court in Versailles?
The Palace of Versailles found itself at the very heart of the revolution. Built to act as the official
residence of the French monarchy during the reign of Louis XIV, the Palace still held this status
under Louis XVI. The maintenance of the palace was becoming expensive and the public saw it as
a waste.
3- What were the economic effects of the class system?
The inequality between the estates became a driving force, middle class was particularly frustrated
by the social barriers of the Ancien Regime. It was difficult for a person born into the Third Estate to
ascend into the First or Second Estates, because they were the one sustaining the economy (taxes)
of France. The economic crisis destroyed the peasants' livelihood, and the cost of flour increased
dramatically. In urban areas, wage workers spent roughly 90% of their income on bread.
4- What other circumstances and events had a negative effect on the French economy?
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Political Causes

1. What influence did Enlightenment ideas have in the minds of the revolutionaries?

The Enlightenment raise doubt about the old order, new ideas burst upon the public, but the
published books were only acquired by the wealthy bourgeoise. Free criticism shaped the
confidence as the people recognized the alternatives to the established status quo.

2. In what way were the French monarchs responsible for the revolution?

Louis XVI gave the impression of being uninterested of his own regime, and lacked of self-belief as
well as the will to introduce reforms or support reforming ministers. On the other hand, his wife
Marie-Antoniete was impulsive and managed a gambling debt. The crown failed at one of its
primarily duties, the defense of privilege.

The French Revolution begins:

Why did the King call the Estates-General and what problems arose as soon as they met?

The Paris Parlement (the voice of the nobles) had the desire to control and organise the opposition, and
this was the main pusher for an Estates-General. However, there was a problem: how the Estates would
meet and vote. In the past, votes were counted based on Estates, so the Third Estate would always end up
disfavoured. On the other hand, if votes were counted based on heads, they would certainly outvote the
other First and Second Estates.

Eventually, the Paris Parlement decided to use the former voting system, and this decision had huge
consequences. The opposition began to see the Parlement as the defenders of privileges, rather than the
defenders of the interests of France and its citizens. The Third Estate suddenly became an active enemy
rather than a passive one.

What were the causes and consequences of the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789)

Causes:
 Large sectors of the nobility and clergy abandoning their financial privileges, as absolute rule was
universally condemned.
 When the Estates-General met, the majority of the clergy advocated for the curés and the Third
Estate, and a large part of members of the nobility aligned with “liberal” ideas.

On the 17th of June, the Third Estate named itself “National Assembly” and claimed to represent the
interests of the Nation. The clergy joined them, so the King decided to call a joint session. When the
meeting was supposed to take place, the building was closed and the Third Estate had not been informed.
A crowd of people then ran to an indoor tennis court to take an oath to never dissolve as an assembly until
a new constitution had been established. This was known as the Tennis Court Oath.

As a consequence:

 More clergy members and nobles joined the Third Estate.

 The King called for another meeting of the three Estates, where votes would be counted by head,
but as he proved himself as indecisive, daily demonstrations began, and rumours about plots to
starve Paris and destroy the National Assembly and the Estates-General appeared.
 A force of 30.000 soldiers was called up to protect the city of Paris, however, it was worthless, as
many of them began to question their trust in the King.
 A paramilitary force was formed, the Commune, to protect Paris.

Why did the Bastille fall and what were the consequences?

On the 14th of July, roughly 8.000 people distributed their stock of 30.000 muskets (a type of gun),
gunpowder and cartridges among themselves, but as that wasn’t enough, they moved on to the Bastille
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where there was more gunpowder. When the crowd reached the fortress, French guards arrived and firing
started. The crowd freed seven prisoners and managed to take the gunpowder, but 98 of them were killed.
De Launay (the governor of the Bastille), was arrested and shot. His head was then put on a pike for the
crowd’s amusement.

As a consequence:

 The King lost control over Paris and admitted defeat.

 The peasants rose against their landlords once they heard about the Bastille Fall.
 The Constituent Assembly considered establishing a representative government that would defend
liberty and law.

How important were the peasant risings in the provinces and what were the consequences?

Losing control over Paris also meant losing control over provincial towns. Peasants’ revolts started all over
France. By the summer of 1789, many peasants across the nation had stopped paying taxes and dues, as
the price of bread was unreasonably high. Estates rumoured to hoard grain were attacked in an orderly
fashion, with no indiscriminate violence. Rural France also feared they were going to be attacked and
terrorised by vagabonds paid by aristocrats. These vagabonds never appeared, and this was known as the
“Great Fear”. 

This had an effect on the National Assembly, which failed to address peasants' injustices and lacked any
direction or sense of purpose. They faced a dilemma now: peasant support was needed, but the threat to
property was too much for the bourgeois deputies.

Explain the August Decrees and the Declaration of Rights.

It was idle to talk of using troops to suppress the peasants. Liberal nobles, many of them extremely rich like
the Duc de Chatelet, spoke in favor of ending feudal dues and labor services. The Vicomte de Noailles
started an attack on the feudal system. All tithes and privileges were renounced.

In the August Decrees, the feudal system and the Ancien Régime were swept aside. Equality as a principle
was established - equality of taxation, status and entry into the professions. The peasants were freed of
feudal obligations and it bound them closely, for the time being, to the Assembly.

An administration had to be reconstructed because provincial estates and pays d’état had gone. Offices
could not be bought and were now open to anyone of merit. The bourgeoisie and nobles asserted the right
to receive compensation for offices or feudal dues lost. All debts were cancelled in 1793.

On the 26 August 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen brought the Ancien Régime to
an end. Article 17 spoke of the inviolable right to property. Other articles struck directly at abuse of taxation
and of the law, laying down citizens’ rights to equality of treatment. Arbitrary arrest and torture were over
and all had the right to representation in law-making.

What were the consequences of these changes for the Monarchy?

Louis XVI refused to accept both the August Decrees and the Declaration of Rights. He was still on the
stage and no one suggested expelling him from it.

Incidents at the beginning of October brought matters to a head. With the price of bread rising, the Flanders
regiment of the King’s Guard was recalled to Versailles.

On 5 October, 7.000 women marched to Versailles followed by 20.000 of the Paris National Guard under
Lafayette’s command. On arrival, the Assembly was invaded. Representations were made to the King who,
it was intended, should accompany the people back to Paris. Louis XVI did not argue. He accepted both
the August Decrees and the Declaration of Rights, and the next day the royal family and the Assembly
made the five-hour journey back to the city.

The Assembly had seen the mob in action and was uncomfortable. They feared disorder, the threat to
property and the distinct possibility that the Assembly might become the victim of insurrection. Militias,
along the lines of the National Guard, were set up to protect the revolution.
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Explain the most important decrees of the Constitutional Assembly.

Local administration

 The August Decrees had swept away provincial estates and municipal corporations. France was
divided into 83 départements, which were divided into 547 districts, which were further divided into
43.360 communes.
 Officials were elected according to voting qualifications, partly based on wealth but also on their
merits.
 Results were patchy - some areas had educated bourgeoisie to fill the posts, but it soon became
apparent that merely establishing such institutions did not make skilful men out of often illiterate
farmers and previously inexperienced townsmen’. Nevertheless, the structure survived to be
developed later
 These changes reflected decentralisation. Control from the centre was loosened, which would be an
obstacle if the King or aristocracy tried to regain power.

Voting rights

 Tier 1 - for elections to the councils which ran local government: only makes over 25 could vote, as
long as they were ‘active’ citizens; an ‘active’ citizen was one who had resided in one place of a
year and paid taxes to the equivalent value of three days’ wages; around a quarter of adult males
were unable to vote at all - they were ‘passive’ citizens.
 Tier 3 - for election as a national deputy: wealth was clearly important in qualifying for voting.

The law

 A jumble of different laws (Roman law in the south, customary law in the north) and courts were to
be replaced by a single legal system.
 Parlements, seigneurial and church courts were abolished.
 New courts were introduced, run by elected and experienced magistrates and judges.
 Cases had to be brought to court within 24 hours.
 Appeal courts were introduced.
 Serious criminal cases were heard in front of a jury.
 Barbaric practices - torture, branding and hanging - were outlawed.

Finance and the economy

 Church property would be sold for the nation.

 Assignats (government bonds which were bought and exchanged for Church lands) were issued.
 Nobles who emigrated would have their property confiscated and sold.
 The more assignats that were printed, the more this currency lost value through inflation.
 New taxes on land and property were introduced.
 Free trade was introduced, particularly in grain.

Poverty was such a widespread problem that it was unlikely to be dealt with effectively.

Explain the effects of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.

Church reform: 

 Abuses and special privileges such as tithes, pluralism, don gratuit (the ‘free gift’ of taxation decided
by the clergy), annates (payments to the Pope) and contemplative, monastic orders (those which
did little ‘good’ work to help the poor) were abolished.
 Protestants were to receive equal civil rights and toleration.
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The Civil Constitution of the Clergy: church and local administration were brought together.

 Each département would have a bishop (83 in all, instead of 135).

 Clergy were to be elected in future.
 The Pope would no longer have any say in accepting or rejecting bishops.

The Clergy wanted a synod of the Church to discuss the Civil Constitution and agree on a way forward. The
Assembly refused - it saw no reason why the clergy should see itself as a special case. The clergy would
be forced to take an oath to the Constitution and the nation; the results of this tactic were catastrophic. 

France was divided into those who were for or against the oath. The Pope and most of the clergy rejected
the oath. Those who accepted it and a ‘Constitutional’ Church amounted to only a handful of bishops and
just over half the other clergy, and were associated with the nation and revolution. Those who rejected it
were called ‘non-jurors’ or refractory priests, and became associated with royalists, émigré nobles - counter
revolutionaries, particularly in the west and south. Many peasants in these areas were devoted to refractory
priests and they formed the raw material for revolts against the revolution.

The French Revolution and the Terror

1-What was the new system of government like with the new constitution?
With the 1791 constitution, an elected assembly called a legislative assembly, would pass laws and
determine foreign policy and war. The King had a veto (a right to reject a decision made by a law-making
body) although this excluded anything related to constitution and finance. The King could appoint his own
ministers. The legislative assembly was dominated by the bourgeoisie.

2-Why did the Monarchy come to an end in 1792? What was the new Republic like?
Louis was increasingly unwilling to go along with the Constituent Assembly wishes and troubled by the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Some nobles and clergy thought that everything had gone too far and the
political radicals thought the opposite. Louis decided to abandon the Tuileries with his family “the Flight to
Varennes” had catastrophic consequences for him and his family, because it gave the impression that he
was a traitor and encouraging interventions from the border. The Assembly managed to “suspend” the
king until he had agreed to the constitutional proposals.

3-How did war affect the course of the revolution?

King Frederick William II of Prussia and the emperor Leopold II of Austria were concerned about the safety
of Louis XVI, but they had an agreement to not attack France without England´s call and it looked as if they
were planning to interfere in French politics, but Leopold welcomed the new constitution and England and
Russia decided not to interfere.
However, after Leopold II died the new Austrian emperor Francis II had a more aggressive view of foreign
policy. He signed an alliance with Prussia and French leaders had a desire for war, they agreed for different
reasons. The Girondins were keen to use war to unite France in the defence of the nation and to expose
priests and monarchists who betrayed the revolutionaries. The leader of the Girondins spoke of putting The
King on trial and people began to think that France´s foreign policy was being controlled by the Austrian
Committee led by Marie Antoinette and anti-revolutionaries.

4- Why did the terror develop?

Despite the general air of excitement several issues overshadow the Convention:
 The September Massacres: were a response to military defeat, the Commune raised thousands of
volunteers to defend the Revolution, they began to look for spies and royalists. The rumours were
that nobles, Parisians and royalists were going to escape the prisons and help the Prussians. In an
orgy of violence that lasted several days 2.000 men were killed by the common people.

 Rift in the Convention: Members of the convention met and a dispute between Girondins and
Jacobins was immediately apparent. Meanwhile they had to decide what to do with the king, he
was found guilty and went to the guillotine in 1793.
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Shedding blood became so commonplace, it was accepted as the norm. They were used to ease situations
of people who were found guilty by sending them to the guillotine. In February and March France declared
war on Britan, Holand and Spain.

5- Why did the Girondins lose power?

Power within the Convention was moving towards the Montagnards, the Girondins were blamed for all
France’s problems, moreover the Sans Culottes whose backing was essential in Paris were firmly
behind the Jacobines. Robespierre encouraged them to raise against the Girondins accusing them of
treachery and corruption. On June 2th National Guards surrounded the Convention and cannon the
building, the leaders were arrested and the remain expelled. The Girondins were finished.

6- Why did the Committee of Public Safety become a dictatorship and what was Robespierre´s role
in it?

The fall of the Girondins sparkled off risings all over France. The New Committee of Public Safety on
which Robespierre sat would need all forces to fight federalism. They became a dictatorship because
the revolutionary armies retook each area of revolt, accompanied by terror, these actions were followed
by grain shortage, starvation and unemployment.
The Convention was sufficiently intimidating claiming “Terror is the order of the day”. The Committee of
Public Safety and of General Security would commit the worst acts of savagery, arresting masses of
people condemning them to death as well as destroying farms.

Robespierre had a highly developed ethical and moral code that translated itself into a strict political
programme. His dream was based on the “Republic of virtue” in which French people would be free,
equal and devoted to la patrie. He believed terror would be the instrument to supress treachery, calling
this “Despotism of liberty”. He was very popular in Paris but his power was wielded through a committee.
For Robespierre the safeguarding of the revolution was everything.

7- What was the Thermidorian reaction and wat did it do?

Terror would consume Robespierre himself, on July 26 th he attacked other members of the CPS, not
surprisingly its members feared the worst and decided to arrest him and Saint-Just, unable to raise a large
army to defend himself, he hesitated, in the meantime the Convention outlaw him through a decree and
decided to execute him without a trial.
The Government of the Thermidorian took control reducing the number of executions, the Jacobine Club
and the Paris Commune were closed down and the Committee of Safety lost its say in domestic affairs.

Napoleon Bonaparte

1. Explain Napoleon´s origins and how they affected his future career.

Napoleon was born on Corsica shortly after the island’s cession to France by the Genoese. He
was the fourth, and second surviving, child of Carlo Buonaparte, a lawyer, and his wife, Letizia
Ramolino. His father’s family, of ancient Tuscan nobility, had emigrated to Corsica in the 16th
century. He continued for some time after his arrival in Continental France to regard himself a
foreigner; yet from age nine he was educated in France as other Frenchmen were. While the
tendency to see in Napoleon a reincarnation of some 14th-century Italian condottiere is an
overemphasis on one aspect of his character, he did, in fact, share neither the traditions nor
the prejudices of his new country.
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2. Explain Napoleon´s first military achievements and how they helped him gain power.

After graduating from military school in France, Napoleon was made second lieutenant of
artillery in the regiment of La Fère when he was only 16 years old. He achieved his first
military successes during the French Revolution. Napoleon supported the National
Convention, the new governmental body of France that had abolished the monarchy. His
distinguished military service helped him rise through the ranks. In 1795 he put down an
insurrection against the National Convention in Paris. He was regarded as a hero for saving
the National Convention and the republic. In 1796 a new governing body, the Directory,
made Napoleon the commander of the French army in Italy. In November 1799 he joined a
plot that overthrew the Directory. In its place was set up a government called the Consulate,
with Napoleon as the first of the three consuls. Within three years he was made first consul
for life. His most significant achievement was the Napoleonic Code, which streamlined the
French legal system

3. Describe the way in which Napoleon became the Emperor of France and what parts of
Europe he conquered.

Napoleon first seized political power in a coup d’état in 1799. The coup resulted in the
replacement of the extant governing body—a five-member Directory—by a three-person
Consulate. The first consul, Napoleon, had all the real power; the other two consuls were
figureheads. Napoleon eventually abolished the Consulate and declared himself Emperor
Napoleon I of France. He was consecrated emperor of France by Pope Pius VII in Notre-
Dame Cathedral.

France under Napoleon I conquered:

1. Spain
2. The Netherlands and Belgium
3. What we call now Germany. Back then were a lot of states, kingdoms and
principates.
4. Egypt and Syria
5. Austria - Hungary
6. What we call now Italy, same as number 3.
7. Poland
8. Malta
9. Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Serbia
10. Denmark

4. What measures did Napoleon take that drastically changed the way the French government
worked?

He centralized the administration of the départements and created a higher education

system, a tax collection system, a central bank, codes of law, and road and sewer systems.
He created a set of civil laws, the Napoleonic Code or French Civil Code, that combined
several legal principles (supported during the revolution) into one document. For example,
his legal code formalized equality under the law, the right of property, and abolished the
feudal system. Several countries, including Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, have adopted
these legal standards into their legal traditions .
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5. What factors led to Napoleon’s defeat.

Continental System: This decree, enacted by Napoleon, was meant to weaken England.
In it, he encouraged any countries who were either neutral (meaning they didn’t take sides)
or who were allies with France to stop doing business with England. It was his hope that
England would suffer economically. The Continental System, however, failed, due in part to
the fact that England had natural resources to sustain itself.

Peninsular War: against Spain and Portugal, who were aided in the conflict by Great
Britain. The Peninsular War turned out to be quite costly, and although the French won
against Spain, this was a turning point in Napoleon’s reign: it was a moment in which his
previous allies realized how land-greedy he was becoming.

In 1812, the French under Napoleon embarked on an invasion of Russia. He had hoped to
gain political advantage with both Russia and Poland as a result of this invasion, and to
defeat Russian troops. Not only was it freezing cold, but the Russians were certainly not
open to any engagements with the French. They retreated, but not before enacted a
“scorched earth” policy, one in which they burned all of the crops as they moved further
away from the French. This left Napoleon’s troops with little to eat. The French army would
lose hundreds of thousands of men during the six-month invasion.

1815, Napoleon’s list of enemy countries had grown to include Britain, Austria, Prussia, and
Russia due to his actions. He subsequently invaded Belgium, but was defeated . This was
the end of his regime.

6. Evaluate Napoleon and his period, what were his major achievements and mistakes?