french revolution: phase 1 1789-1792. 1789: financial state of monarchy seven years’ war: france...
TRANSCRIPT
French Revolution: Phase 1
1789-1792
1789: Financial State of Monarchy
• Seven Years’ War: France defeated and monarchy in debt
• Aristocracy refused to pay new taxes
• Necker declared possibility of a surplus if aristocrats’ pensions were cut and American war hadn’t been funded
Necker, explaining deficits 1774-1788 to Louis XVI
1789 Economic Downturn
• Necker’s successors, Calonne and Brienne, both suggested land tax, rejected by the nobles
• French peasantry could own land, and were by some definitions the freest in Europe
• Deep economic downturn from 1787: crop failures, food shortages and rising prices The Three Estates
The Estates General• Paris Parlement and nobles
demanded the king call the Estates General
• Three Estates: Clergy(1st), Nobility (2nd), Commoners (3rd: wealthy lawyers, businessmen, et al)
• Vote by head, or by Estate? Louis XVI doubled size of Third Estate to counter nobles
• Third Estate broke away to become the National Assembly, and invited clergy & nobles
• Tennis Court Oath: not to disband until France had a constitution
Awakening of the Third Estate
Bastille and Reaction• King asked nobles and
clergy to join newly named National Constituent Assembly
• Fall of the Bastille: urban uprising reacting to fear that Louis XVI might crush uprising
• “Great Fear:” rural uprising: burning chateaux, destruction of feudal records, refusal to pay dues, seizure of food supplies and land
• Nobility on Constituent Assembly surrendered their feudal rights
Fall of the Bastille
Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen
• 26 Aug 1789: Enlightenment declaration of principles
• 17 Articles, defining freedom and central political philosophy
• “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon common utility.”
• “The source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.”
• Did not end slavery or give rights to women
• 7,000 Parisian women force Louis to move to Tuileries palace in Paris so as to watch and control Louis’s movements
• 1791: Olympe de Gouges wrote “Declaration of Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen,” pointing out the inequality of the treatment of women
• “This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights they have lost in society”.
Initial Reconstruction of France
• Constitution of 1791: constitutional monarchy with unicameral legislature and monarchical veto
• “Active” and “passive” citizens defined by amount of taxes paid transferred political power from landed nobility to citizenry of moderate wealth
• France divided into departments
Allegory of the Constitution of 1791
Reconstruction Continued
• Liberalized economy: workers’ organizations prohibited
• Confiscation and sale of church lands
• “Civil Constitution of the Clergy:” clergy to be elected as branch of government
• Austria, Prussia issued Declaration of Pillnitz: would intervene to preserve monarchy
National Assembly