Section 1: On the Eve of Revolution

Part 1
French Society Divided
French Society Divided
 In 1789, France, like the rest of Europe,
still clung to an outdated social system
that had emerged in the Middle Ages
 Under this ancient régime, or old order,
everyone in France was divided into
one of three estates, or social classes
French Society Divided
 The estates determined a person’s legal rights and status
 The First Estate was made up of the clergy
 The Second Estate was made up of the nobility
 The Third Estate comprised the vast majority of the population
French Society Divided
The Clergy – 1st Estate
 The Church owned about 10 percent of the land, collected
tithes, and paid no direct taxes to the state
 Numbered 130,000 out of 27 million
 High Church leaders such as bishops and abbots were usually
nobles who lived very well
o Parish priests, however, often came from humble origins and
might be as poor as their peasant congregations
French Society Divided
Nobility – 2nd Estate
 The Second Estate was the titled nobility of
French society
 Numbered 350,000
 Owned 25% of the land
 Had certain rights as nobles
 Those rights included top jobs in
government, the army, the courts, and the
Church
French Society Divided
Middle Class and Peasants – 3rd Estate
 The Third Estate was the most diverse social
class
 Numbered 26.5 million
 Owned 65% of the land
 At the top sat the bourgeoisie (boor zhwah
ZEE), or middle class
 The bourgeoisie included prosperous
bankers, merchants, and manufacturers,
as well as lawyers, doctors, journalists,
and professors
French Society Divided
 Because of traditional
privileges, the First and
Second Estates paid almost
no taxes
 Peasants were burdened by
taxes on everything from
land to soap to salt
French Society Divided
 In towns and cities, Enlightenment ideas led people to question
the inequalities of the old regime
 Why, people demanded, should the first two estates have such
great privileges at the expense of the majority?
o Throughout France, the Third Estate called for the privileged
classes to pay their share
Financial Troubles
Main causes of France’s Financial Problems
1. National Debt
 Louis XIV had left France deeply in debt
o The Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution strained the
treasury even further
 Costs generally had risen in the 1700s, and the lavish court soaked up
millions
o To bridge the gap between income and expenses, the government
borrowed more and more money
• By 1789, half of the government’s income from taxes went to paying the
interest on this enormous debt
Financial Troubles
2. Soaring Food Prices
 Also, in the late 1780s, bad harvests sent food prices soaring and
brought hunger to poorer peasants and city dwellers
o To solve the financial crisis, the government would have to
increase taxes, reduce expenses, or both
o However, the nobles and clergy fiercely resisted any attempt
to end their exemption from taxes
Financial Troubles
 LouisXVI was well-meaning but weak
and indecisive
o The absolute monarch of France at the
start of the Revolution
• Married to Marie Antoinette
• Austrian born Queen
o Both lived at the Palace of Versailles
• One of the largest castles, and contains
more than 700 rooms, 2000 windows,
1250 fireplace, 67 staircases and 1800
acres of park
Financial Troubles
 As the crisis deepened, the pressure for reform mounted
 The wealthy and powerful classes demanded, however, that the
king summon the Estates-General, the legislative body consisting
of representatives of the three estates, before making any changes
 A French king had not called the Estates-General for 175 years,
fearing that nobles would use it to recover the feudal powers
they had lost under absolute rule
 Nobles hoped that they could bring the absolute monarch under
their control and guarantee their own privileges
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
 As 1788 came to a close, France tottered on the verge of
bankruptcy
 Bread riots were spreading, and nobles, fearful of taxes, were
denouncing royal tyranny
o A baffled Louis XVI finally summoned the Estates-General
to meet at Versailles the following year
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
Estates Prepare Grievance
Notebooks
 In preparation, Louis had all three
estates prepare cahiers (kah YAYZ), or
notebooks, listing their grievances
 Many cahiers called for reforms such
as fairer taxes, freedom of the press, or
regular meetings of the Estates-
General
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
 The cahiers testified to boiling class
resentments
 One called tax collectors
“bloodsuckers of the nation who
drink the tears of the unfortunate
from goblets of gold”
 Another one of the cahiers
condemned the courts of nobles as
“vampires pumping the last drop of
blood” from the people
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
Delegates Take the Tennis Court Oath
 Delegates to the Estates-General from the Third Estate were
elected, though only propertied men could vote
 Thus, the delegates were mostly lawyers, middle-class
officials, and writers
 They were familiar with the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, and
other philosophes
o They went to Versailles not only to solve the financial crisis
but also to insist on reform
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
 The Estates-General convened in May 1789
 From the start, the delegates were deadlocked over
the issue of voting
 Traditionally, each estate had met and voted
separately
 Each group had one vote
o Under this system, the First and Second
Estates always outvoted the Third Estate two
to one
o This time, the Third Estate wanted all three
estates to meet in a single body, with votes
counted “by head”
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
 After weeks of stalemate, delegates of the
Third Estate took a daring step
 Claiming to represent the people of
France, they declared themselves to be
the National Assembly in June 1789
o A few days later, the National
Assembly found its meeting hall
locked and guarded
 Fearing that the king planned to
dismiss them, the delegates moved to a
nearby indoor tennis court
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
 As curious spectators looked on, the delegates took their
famous Tennis Court Oath
o They swore “never to separate and to meet wherever the
circumstances might require until we have established a
sound and just constitution”
 When reform-minded clergy and nobles joined the Assembly,
Louis XVI grudgingly accepted it
 But royal troops gathered around Paris, and rumors spread that
the king planned to dissolve the Assembly
Tennis Court Oath
Parisians Storm the Bastille
Parisians Storm the Bastille
 On July 14, 1789, the city of Paris seized the spotlight from the National
Assembly meeting in Versailles
 The streets buzzed with rumors that royal troops were going to occupy the
capital
 More than 800 Parisians assembled outside the Bastille, a grim medieval
fortress used as a prison for political and other prisoners
 To many French people, the Bastille represented the injustices of the
monarchy
 The crowd demanded weapons and gunpowder believed to be stored there
Parisians Storm the Bastille
 The commander of the Bastille refused to
open the gates and opened fire on the
crowd
 In the battle that followed, many people
were killed
 Finally, the enraged mob broke through
the defenses
 They killed the commander and five
guards and released the handful of
prisoners who were being held there, but
found no weapons
Parisians Storm the Bastille
 The Bastille was a symbol to the people of
France representing years of abuse by the
monarchy
 The storming of and subsequent fall of the
Bastille was a wake-up call to Louis XVI
 Unlike any other riot or short-lived
protest, this event posed a challenge to the
sheer existence of the regime
o Since 1880, the French have celebrated
Bastille Day annually as their national
independence day
Section 2: The French Revolution Unfolds
Political Crisis Leads to Revolt
 Historians divide this revolutionary era into different phases
 The moderate phase of the National Assembly (1789–1791)
turned France into a constitutional monarchy
 A radical phase (1792–1794) of escalating violence led to the
end of the monarchy and a Reign of Terror
 There followed a period of reaction against extremism, known
as the Directory (1795–1799)
 Finally, the Age of Napoleon (1799–1815) consolidated many
revolutionary changes
Political Crisis Leads to Revolt
Rumors Create the “Great
Fear”
 In such desperate times, rumors
ran wild and set off what was
later called the “Great Fear”
 Tales of attacks on villages
and towns spread panic
 Other rumors asserted that
government troops were
seizing peasant crops
Political Crisis Leads to Revolt
 Inflamed by famine and fear,
peasants unleashed their fury on
nobles who were trying to re-
impose medieval dues
 Defiant peasants set fire to old
manor records and stole grain
from storehouses
 The attacks died down after a
period of time, but they clearly
demonstrated peasant anger with
an unjust regime
Political Crisis Leads to Revolt
 Paris, too, was in turmoil
 As the capital and
chief city of France, it
was the revolutionary
center
 A variety of factions, or
dissenting groups of
people, competed to gain
power
Political Crisis Leads to Revolt
 Moderates looked to Marquis de Lafayette
 Lafayette headed the National Guard, a
largely middle-class militia organized in
response to the arrival of royal troops in
Paris
 The Guard was the first group to don the
tricolor— a red, white, and blue badge that
was eventually adopted as the national flag
of France
 A more radical group, the Paris Commune,
replaced the royalist government of the city
The National Assembly Acts
The National Assembly Acts
 Peasant uprisings and the storming of the Bastille stampeded the
National Assembly into action
Special Privilege Ends (1st moderate reform)
 On August 4, in a combative all-night meeting, nobles in the
National Assembly voted to end their own privileges
 They agreed to give up their old manorial dues, exclusive
hunting rights, special legal status, and exemption from taxes
The National Assembly Acts
Equality of all men before
the law (2nd Moderate
reform)
 Declaration of the Rights of
Man
 In late August, as a first step
toward writing a
constitution, the Assembly
issued the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and the
Citizen
The National Assembly Acts
 The document was modeled in part on the American
Declaration of Independence, written 13 years earlier
 All men, the French declaration announced, were “born and
remain free and equal in rights”
o They enjoyed natural rights to “liberty, property, security,
and resistance to oppression”
o Slogan of the French Revolution
• “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”
The National Assembly Acts
 The Declaration of the Rights of
Man met resistance
 Uncertain and hesitant, Louis
XVI did not want to accept
the reforms of the National
Assembly
 Nobles continued to enjoy
gala banquets while people
were starving
o By autumn, anger again
turned to action
The National Assembly Acts
Women March on Versailles
 On October 5, about six thousand
women marched 13 miles in the
pouring rain from Paris to
Versailles
 “Bread!” they shouted
 They demanded to see the king
Much of the crowd’s anger
was directed at Marie
Antoinette
The National Assembly Acts
 The women refused to leave Versailles until the king met their
most important demand—to return to Paris
 Not too happily, the king agreed
 The next morning, the crowd, with the king and his family in
tow, set out for the city
 At the head of the procession rode women perched on the
barrels of seized cannons
o They told bewildered spectators that they were bringing
Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and their son back to Paris
The National Assembly Acts
 Crowds along the way cheered the king, who now wore the
tricolor
 In Paris, the royal family moved into the Tuileries (TWEE luh
reez) palace
o For the next three years, Louis was a virtual prisoner
The National Assembly Presses Onward
The Church Is Placed Under State
Control (3rd moderate reform)
 The National Assembly soon followed
the king to Paris
 Its largely bourgeois members worked
to draft a constitution and to solve the
continuing financial crisis
 To pay off the huge government debt—
much of it owed to the bourgeoisie— Confiscation of Church
the Assembly voted to take over and lands
sell Church lands
The National Assembly Presses Onward
 Under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, issued in 1790,
bishops and priests became elected, salaried officials
o The Civil Constitution ended papal authority over the
French Church and dissolved convents and monasteries
• Many bishops and priests refused to accept the Civil
Constitution
• The pope condemned it
The National Assembly Presses Onward
The Constitution of 1791
Establishes a New Government
 The National Assembly completed its
main task by producing a constitution
 The Constitution of 1791 set up a limited
monarchy in place of the absolute
monarchy that had ruled France for
centuries
 A new Legislative Assembly had the
power to make laws, collect taxes, and
decide on issues of war and peace
The National Assembly Presses Onward
 To moderate reformers, the Constitution of 1791 seemed to
complete the revolution
 Reflecting Enlightenment goals, it ensured equality before the
law for all male citizens and ended Church interference in
government
The National Assembly Presses Onward
Louis’s Escape Fails
 Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette and
others had been urging the king to
escape their humiliating situation
 Louis finally gave in
 One night in June 1791, a coach
rolled north from Paris toward the
border
 Inside sat the king disguised as a
servant, the queen dressed as a
governess, and the royal children
The National Assembly Presses Onward
 The attempted escape failed
 In a town along the way, Louis’s
disguise was uncovered by
someone who held up a piece of
currency with the king’s face on it
 A company of soldiers escorted
the royal family back to Paris, as
onlooking crowds hurled insults
at the king
 To many, Louis’s dash to the
The runaway royal family busted by French
border showed that he was a democrats Louis and extravagant Marie
traitor to the revolution Antoinette were apprehended in Varennes, just
miles from the Austrian border. Some say the
strong scent of the queen's perfume gave their
whereabouts away.
Section 2.5: The French Revolution Unfolds
Radicals Take Over
Rulers Fear Spread of Revolution
 European rulers increased border patrols to stop the spread of the
“French plague”
 Fueling those fears were the horror stories that were told by
émigrés (EM ih grayz)— nobles, clergy, and others who had fled
France and its revolutionary forces
 Person who flees his or her country for political reasons
o Émigrés reported attacks on their privileges, their property,
their religion, and even their lives
Radicals Take Over
Threats Come From Abroad
 The failed escape of Louis XVI brought further hostile rumblings from
abroad
 In August 1791, the king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria—who
was Marie Antoinette’s brother—issued the Declaration of Pillnitz
 In this document, the two monarchs threatened to intervene to
protect the French monarchy
• The declaration may have been mostly a bluff, but revolutionaries in
France took the threat seriously and prepared for war
• The revolution was about to enter a new, more radical phase of change
and conflict
The French Plague European rulers,
nobles, and clergy (such as, from left,
Catherine the Great of Russia, the Pope,
Emperor Leopold II of Prussia, and
George III of England) feared the
revolution in France would spread to
their countries. Many émigrés fueled the
flames with their tales of attacks by the
revolutionary government.
Radicals Take Over
Radicals Fight for Power and Declare War
 In October 1791, the newly elected Legislative Assembly took
office
 Faced with crises at home and abroad, it survived for less than
a year
Radicals Take Over
 In Paris and other cities, working-class men and women,
called sans-culottes (sanz koo LAHTS), pushed the
revolution into more radical action
 They were called sans-culottes, which means
“without breeches,” because they wore long trousers
instead of the fancy knee breeches that upper-class
men wore
o Working class man or woman who made the
French Revolution possible
 By 1791, many sans-culottes demanded a republic, or
government ruled by elected representatives instead
of a monarch
Radicals Take Over
 Within the Legislative Assembly, several hostile factions
competed for power
 The sans-culottes found support among radicals in the
Legislative Assembly, especially the Jacobins
• A member of a radical political club during the French
Revolution
Radicals Take Over
o As a revolutionary political club, the Jacobins were mostly
middle-class lawyers or intellectuals
• Represented radicals in Paris and felt the king needed to be
executed
o Opposing the radicals were moderate reformers and political
officials who wanted no more reforms at all
• Girondins
Radicals Take Over
The National Assembly Declares War on Tyranny
 The radicals soon held the upper hand in the Legislative Assembly
 In April 1792, the war of words between French revolutionaries and
European monarchs moved onto the battlefield
 Eager to spread the revolution and destroy tyranny abroad, the
Legislative Assembly declared war first on Austria and then on
Prussia, Britain, and other states
 The great powers expected to win an easy victory against France, a
land divided by revolution
o In fact, however, the fighting that began in 1792 lasted on and off
until 1815
Section 3: Radical Days of the Revolution
The Monarchy is Abolished
In 1793, the revolution entered a radical phase
 For a year, France experienced one of the bloodiest regimes in its
long history as determined leaders sought to extend and preserve the
revolution
The Monarchy Is Abolished
 As the revolution continued, dismal news about the war abroad
heightened tensions
 Well-trained Prussian forces were cutting down raw French recruits
 In addition, royalist officers were deserting the French army, joining
émigrés and others hoping to restore the king’s power
The Monarchy is Abolished
Tensions Lead to Violence
 Battle disasters quickly inflamed revolutionaries who thought the
king was in league with the enemies
 On August 10, 1792, a crowd of Parisians stormed the royal
palace of the Tuileries and slaughtered the king’s guards
 The royal family fled to the Legislative Assembly, escaping
before the mob arrived
The Monarchy is Abolished
 A month later, citizens attacked prisons that held nobles and
priests accused of political offenses
 About 1,200 prisoners were killed; among them were many
ordinary criminals
The Monarchy is Abolished
Radicals Take Control and Execute the King
 Backed by Paris crowds, radicals then took control of the
Assembly
 Radicals called for the election of a new legislative body called
the National Convention
o Suffrage, the right to vote, was to be extended to all male
citizens, not just to property owners
The Monarchy is Abolished
 The Convention that met in September 1792 was a more radical
body than earlier assemblies
 It voted to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic—the
French Republic
 Deputies then drew up a new constitution for France
 The Jacobins, who controlled the Convention, set out to erase
all traces of the old order
 They seized lands of nobles and abolished titles of nobility
The Monarchy is Abolished
 During the early months of the Republic,
the Convention also put Louis XVI on
trial as a traitor to France
 The king was convicted by a single vote
and sentenced to death
 On a foggy morning in January 1793,
Louis mounted a scaffold in a public
square in Paris
The Monarchy is Abolished
o Moments later, the king was
beheaded
• The executioner lifted the king’s
head by its hair and held it before the
crowd
 In October, Marie Antoinette was also
executed
 The popular press celebrated her death
 The queen, however, showed great
dignity as she went to her death
Execution of Louis XVI
Terror and Danger Grip France
The Convention Creates a New Committee
 To deal with the threats to France, the Convention
created the Committee of Public Safety
 The 12-member committee had almost
absolute power as it battled to save the
revolution
 The Committee prepared France for all-out war,
issuing a levée en masse, or mass levy (tax) that
required all citizens to contribute to the war effort
 In addition, the 12 members of the Committee
were in charge of trials and executions
Terror and Danger Grip France
 Spurred by revolutionary fervor, French recruits marched off to
defend the republic
 Young officers developed effective new tactics to win battles with
masses of ill-trained but patriotic forces
 Soon, French armies overran the Netherlands
 They later invaded Italy
 At home, they crushed peasant revolts
 European monarchs shuddered as the revolutionaries carried
“freedom fever” into conquered lands
Terror and Danger Grip France
Robespierre “the Incorruptible”
 At home, the government battled
counter revolutionaries under the
guiding hand of Maximilien Robespierre
(ROHBZ pyehr)
 Robespierre, a shrewd lawyer and
politician, quickly rose to the
leadership of the Committee of Public
Safety
o He promoted religious toleration
and wanted to abolish slavery
Terror and Danger Grip France
The Guillotine Defines the Reign of Terror
 Robespierre was one of the chief architects of
the Reign of Terror
 Which lasted from September 1793 to July
1794, and people in France were arrested for
not supporting the revolution and many were
executed
 Revolutionary courts conducted hasty trials
 Spectators greeted death sentences with cries
of “Hail the Republic!” or “Death to the
traitors!”
Terror and Danger Grip France
 Suspect were those who resisted the
revolution
 About 300,000 were arrested during
the Reign of Terror
 17,000 - 40,000 were executed
o Many were victims of mistaken
identity or were falsely accused
by their neighbors
o Many more were packed into
hideous prisons, where deaths
from disease were common
Terror and Danger Grip France
 The engine of the Terror was the guillotine (GIL
uh teen)
o Device used during the Reign of Terror to
execute thousands by beheading
 Its fast-falling blade extinguished life instantly
 A member of the legislature, Dr. Joseph
Guillotin (gee oh TAN), had introduced it as a
more humane method of beheading than the
uncertain ax
o But the guillotine quickly became a symbol
of horror
Terror and Danger Grip France
 Within a year, the Terror consumed those
who initiated it
 Weary of bloodshed and fearing for their
own lives, members of the Convention
turned on the Committee of Public Safety
o On the night of July 27, 1794,
Robespierre was arrested
• The next day he was executed
o After the heads of Robespierre and
other radicals fell, executions slowed
dramatically
Section 4: The Age of Napoleon
Part 1
The Revolution Enters Its Third Stage
The Revolution Enters Its Third Stage
 In reaction to the Terror, the revolution entered a third stage
 Moving away from the excesses of the Convention, moderates
produced another constitution, the third since 1789
 The Constitution of 1795 set up a five-man Directory and a
two-house legislature elected by male citizens of property
The Revolution Enters Its Third Stage
 As chaos threatened, politicians
turned to Napoleon Bonaparte, a
popular military hero
 The politicians planned to use him
to advance their own goals
o To their dismay, however,
before long Napoleon would
outwit them all to become ruler
of France
Revolution Brings Change
Revolution Brings Change
 By 1799, the 10-year-old French Revolution had dramatically changed
France
 It had dislodged the old social order, overthrown the monarchy, and
brought the Church under state control
 New symbols such as the red “liberty caps” and the tricolor confirmed
the liberty and equality of all male citizens
 The new title “citizen” applied to people of all social classes
o All other titles were eliminated
 Elaborate fashions and powdered wigs gave way to the practical clothes
and simple haircuts of the sans-culottes
Revolution Brings Change
Nationalism Spreads (1st affect by
change)
 Revolution and war gave the French people a
strong sense of national identity
 Nationalism, a strong feeling of pride in and
devotion to one’s country, spread throughout
France
Revolution Brings Change
Revolutionaries Push For Social Reform (2nd affect by
change)
 Revolutionaries pushed for social reform and religious toleration
 They set up state schools to replace religious ones and organized
systems to help the poor, old soldiers, and war widows
 With a major slave revolt raging in the colony of St. Domingue
(Haiti), the government also abolished slavery in France’s
Caribbean colonies
Napoleon Rises to Power
A young napoleon
 Born in Corsica, a French-ruled island in the Mediterranean
 At age 9, sent to France to be trained for a military career
 When the Revolution broke out, he was an ambitious 20-year-old
lieutenant, eager to make a name for himself
Napoleon Rises to Power
Napoleon favored the
Jacobins and republican
rule
During the turmoil of the
revolution, Napoleon rose
quickly in the army
Napoleon Rises to Power
Success fueled Napoleon’s ambition
 By 1799, he moved from victorious general
to political leader
 That year, he helped overthrow the weak
Directory in a coup d'état
o Sudden overthrow of the government
 Set up a three-man governing board
known s the Consulate
 Another constitution was drawn up, but
Napoleon soon took the title First Consul
Napoleon Rises to Power
 In 1802, he had named himself consul for life
 In 1804, he crowned himself Emperor of France
 At each step on his rise to power, Napoleon had held a
plebiscite, or popular vote by ballot
o Each time, the French strongly supported him
Napoleon Reforms France
During the Consulate and empire, Napoleon replaced liberty, equality,
and fraternity, with order, security, and efficiency
 To restore economic prosperity, Napoleon:
 Controlled prices
 Encouraged new industry
 Built roads and canals
He set up a system of public schools under strict government control to
ensure well-trained officials and military officers
He made peace with the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1801
 Kept the Church under state control
 Recognized religious freedom for Catholics
Napoleon Reforms France
Napoleon won support across class lines
 He encouraged émigrés to return, provided they take an oath of
loyalty
 Peasants were relieved when he recognized their right to lands
they had bought from the Church and nobles during the
revolution
 The middle class, who had benefited most from the revolution,
approved of Napoleon’s economic reforms and the restoration of
order after years of chaos
 Napoleon also opened jobs to all, based on talent, a popular
policy among those who remembered the old aristocratic
monopoly of power
Napoleon Reforms France
Among Napoleon’s lasting reforms was a new code of laws called
the Napoleonic Code
 In embodied Enlightenment principles such as the equality of all citizens
before the law, religious toleration, and the abolition of feudalism
 Women lost most of their newly gained rights and could not exercise the
rights of citizenship
 Male heads of households
 re-gained complete authority
 over their wives and children
o Napoleon valued order and
o authority over individual rights
Napoleon Builds an Empire
As a military leader, Napoleon
valued rapid movements and made
effective use of his large armies
 He developed a new plan for each battle
so opposing generals could never
anticipate what he would do next
 His enemies paid tribute to his leadership
 One such enemy said Napoleon’s
presence on the battlefield was “worth
40,000 troops”
Napoleon Builds an Empire
The Map of Europe is Redrawn
 He annexed into his empire, the
Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Italy
and Germany
 He abolished the crumbling Holy
Roman Empire
 Created a 38 member confederation
of the Rhine under French protection
 He cut Prussian territory in half
 Turned the part of old Poland into
the Grand Duchy of Warsaw
Napoleon Builds an Empire
His empire composed of
three parts
 The French Empire
 Dependent states – ruled by
relatives of Napoleon
 Allied states – defeated by
Napoleon then forced to
join his army
Napoleon Builds an Empire
Napoleon strikes Britain
Of all the major European powers, Britain alone
remained outside Napoleon’s empire
 With only a small army, Britain relied on its sea power to stop
Napoleon’s rive to rule the continent
 In 1805, Napoleon prepared to invade England
 But at the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the southwest coast of
Spain, British Admiral Horatio Nelson smashed the French
fleet
 This ruled out any invasion hopes Napoleon might of had
Napoleon Builds an Empire
 Napoleon struck at Britain’s lifeblood, its
commerce
 He waged war through the Continental
System
o Closed European ports to British
goods
 Britain responded with its own blockade
of European ports
 Helped cause the War of 1812
o In the end, napoleon’s Continental
System failed to bring Britain to her
knees
Section 4.5: The Age of Napoleon
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
Nationalism Works Against Napoleon
Napoleon’s successes contained seeds of defeat
Nationalism spurred French armies to success, it worked
against them too
 Saw Napoleon and his armies as foreign oppressors
 Resented the Continental System and the effort to impose French
culture on them
From Rome to Madrid to the Netherlands, nationalism
unleashed revolts against France
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
Spain and Austria Battle the French
 Resistance to foreign rule bled French-occupying forces dry in
Spain
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
 Small bands of rebels ambushed French supply trains or troops
before retreating into the countryside
 These attacks kept large numbers of French soldiers tied down
in Spain when Napoleon needed them elsewhere
Spanish resistance encouraged Austria to resume
hostilities against the French
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
The Russian Winter Presents a Problem
 Tsar Alexander I of Russia was once an ally of Napoleon
 They planned to divide Europe if Alexander helped
Napoleon in his Continental System
o Many countries objected to this system and Russia
became unhappy with the economic effects of the
system as well
o Napoleon also had enlarged the Grand Duchy of
Warsaw that bordered Russia on the west
 These issues led the tsar to withdraw his support from
the Continental System
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
Napoleon responded to the tsar’s action by assembling
an army with soldiers from 20 nations
 Known as the Grand Army
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
In June of 1812, with about 600,000 soldiers and 50,000
horses, Napoleon invaded Russia
 To avoid battles with Napoleon, the Russians retreated eastward,
burning crops and villages as they went
 Known as a scorched-earth policy
o Left the French hungry and cold as winter came
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
 Napoleon entered Moscow in
September
 They found the city ablaze
 He realized that he would not
be able to feed and supply his
army through the long
Russian winter
 In October, he turned
homeward
o Known as the “Great
Retreat”
Napoleon’s Empire Faces Challenges
The 1,000 mile retreat from Moscow turned into a
desperate battle for survival
 Russian attacks and the brutal Russian winter took a terrible toll
 Fewer than 20,000 soldiers of the once-proud Grand Army
survived
 Many died and others deserted
 Napoleon rushed to Paris to raise a new force to defend France
The Great Retreat
Napoleon Falls From Power
The disaster in Russia brought a new alliance of Russia,
Britain, Austria, and Prussia against a weakened France
 In 1813, they defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Nations at
Leipzig
Napoleon Falls From Power
Napoleon Abdicated
Briefly
 In 1814, Napoleon
abdicated, or stepped down
from power
 He was exiled to Elba
 An island in the
Mediterranean
 The victors recognized Louis
XVIII, brother of Louis XVI,
as king of France
Napoleon Falls From Power
The restoration of Louis XVIII did not go well
 An economic depression and the fear of a return to the old regime
helped rekindle loyalty to Napoleon
As the allies gathered in Vienna for a general peace
conference, Napoleon escaped his island exile and
returned to France
 Soldiers flocked to his banner
 As citizens cheered Napoleon’s advance, Louis XVIII fled
 In March 1815, Napoleon entered Paris in triumph
Napoleon Falls From Power
Napoleon’s triumph was
short-lived
 He was in power for only
100 days
 Known as the Hundred
Days Period
 The allies reassembled their
forces
Napoleon Falls From Power
On June 18, 1815, the opposing armies
met near the town of Waterloo in Belgium
 British forces under the Duke of Wellington
and a Prussian army commanded by General
Blucher crushed the French in a day long battle
 Once again, napoleon was forced to abdicate
and to go into exile on St. Helena
 A lonely island in the South Atlantic
 This time he would not return
 He would die there in 1821
Napoleon Falls From Power
3 Ways in Which Napoleon Changes the World (See
assignment for details)
Napoleonic Code
Invasion of Spain
Louisiana Purchase
Leaders Meet at the Congress of Vienna
After Waterloo, diplomats and heads of state again sat
down at the Congress of Vienna
 They faced the monumental task of restoring stability and order in
Europe after years of war
 The Congress met for 10 months, from September 1814 to
June 1815
 It was a brilliant gathering of European leaders
Leaders Meet at the Congress of Vienna
Congress Strives For Peace
 The chief goal of the Vienna decision
makers was to create a lasting peace by
establishing a balance of power and
protecting the system of monarchy
Leaders Meet at the Congress of Vienna
Congress Fails to See Traps Ahead
 To protect the new order, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great
Britain extended their wartime alliance into the postwar era
 In the Quadruple Alliance, the four nations pledged to act
together to maintain the balance of power and to suppress
revolutionary uprisings, especially in France