The French Revolution:
On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm.
The king had commanded troops to move into the city.
Rumours spread that he would soon order the army to open fire upon the citizens.
Some 7,000 men and women gathered in front of the town hall and decided to form a peoples’ militia. They broke into a number of government buildings in search of arms.
Finally, a group of several hundred people marched towards the eastern part of the city and stormed the fortress-prison, the Bastille, where they hoped to find hoarded ammunition.
In the armed fight that followed, the commander of the Bastille was killed and the prisoners released thought there were only seven of them.
Yet the Bastille was hated by all, because it stood for the despotic power of the king.
The fortress was demolished and its stone fragments were sold in the markets to all those who wished to keep a souvenir of its destruction,
The days that followed saw more rioting both in Paris and the countryside.
Most people were protesting against the high price of bread.
Much later, when historians looked back upon this time, they saw it as the beginning of a chain of events that ultimately led to the execution of the king in France, though most people at the time did not anticipate this outcome. How and why did this happen?
French society during the late eighteenth century:
In 1774, Louis XVI of the Bourbon family ascended the throne of France.
He found an empty treasury.
Long years of war (under Louis XVI, France helped the thirteen American colonies to gain their independence from the common enemy, Britain) had drained the financial resources of France.
Added to this was the cost of maintaining an extravagant court at the immense palace of Versailles.
The war added more than a billion livres to a debt that had already risen to more than 2 billion livres.
To meet its regular expenses, the state was forced to increase taxes, and only members of the third estate paid taxes.
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) is a sculpture on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbor, in Manhattan, New York City. The statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was a gift to the United States from the people of France.
When Louis XVI succeeded to the throne in 1774, he was 19 years old. He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment to ‘despotic monarchy was on the rise. Louis also felt woefully unqualified for the job.
French society during the Old Regime (before 1789):
French society in the eighteenth century was divided into three estates.
Peasants made up about 90 per cent of the population, only a small number of them owned the land they cultivated.
About 60 per cent of the land was owned by nobles, the Church and other richer members of the third estate.
The members of the first two estates, that is, the clergy and the nobility enjoyed certain privileges by birth for e.g. exemption from paying taxes to the state, enjoyed feudal privileges.
These included feudal dues, which they extracted from the peasants.
Form of taxes:
The Church extracted its share of taxes called tithes from the peasants.
All members of the third estate had to pay taxes to the state.
These included a direct tax, called taille, and a number of indirect taxes, which were levied on articles of everyday consumption like salt or tobacco.
The burden of financing activities of the state through taxes was borne by the third estate alone.
The struggle to survive:
The population of France rose from about 23 million in 1715 to 28 million in 1789.
This led to a rapid increase in the demand for food grains.
Production of grains could not keep pace with the demand.
Workers wages did not keep pace with the rise in prices. So the gap between the poor and the rich widened.
Things became worse whenever drought or hail reduced the harvest.
This led to a subsistence crisis, something that occurred frequently in France during the Old Regime.
A growing middle class envisages an end to privileges:
In the past, peasants and workers had participated in revolts against increasing taxes and food scarcity.
But they lacked the means and programmes to carry out full-scale measures that would bring about a change in the social and economic order.
This was left to those groups within the third estate who had become prosperous and had access to education and new ideas.
The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of social groups, termed the middle class.
In addition to merchants and manufacturers, the third estate included professionals such as lawyers or administrative officials.
All of these were educated and believed that no group in society should be privileged by birth. Rather, a person’s social position must depend on his merit.
These ideas envisaging a society based on freedom and equal laws and opportunities for all, were put forward by philosophers such as John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
In his Two Treatises of Government’, Locke sought to refute the doctrine of the divine and absolute right of the monarch.
Rousseau carried the idea forward, proposing a form of government based on a social contract between people and their representatives.
In The Spirit of the Laws’, Montesquieu proposed a division of power within the government between the legislative, the executive and the judiciary.
This model of government was put into force in the USA, after the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Britain.
The American constitution and its guarantee of individual rights was an important example for political thinkers in France.
The ideas of these pilosophers were discussed intensively in salons and coffee-houses and spread among people through books and newspapers.
The outbreak of the revolution:
In France of the Old Regime the monarch did not have the power to impose taxes according to his will alone.
Rather he had to call a meeting of the Estates General which would then pass his proposals for new taxes, the monarch alone could decide when to call a meeting of this body.
The last time it was done was in 1614.
Meeting of the Estates General:
On 5 May 1789, Louis XVI called together an assembly of the Estates General to pass proposals for new taxes.
The first and second estates sent 300 representatives each, while the third estate sent 600 members.
The third estate was represented by its more prosperous and educated members.
Peasants, artisans and women were denied entry to the assembly.
Voting in the Estates General in the past had been conducted according to the principal that each estate had one vote.
This times members of the third estate demanded that voting be now conducted by the assembly as a whole, where each member would have one vote.
This was one of the democratic principles put forward by philosophers like Rousseau in la book The Social Contract’.
When the king rejected these proposs members of the third estate walked out of the assembly in protest.
Formation of national assembly & the tennis court oath:
The representatives of the third estate viewed themselves as spokesmen for the whole French nation.
On 20 June 1789 they assembled in the hal of an indoor tennis court in the grounds of Versailles.
They declared themselves a National Assembly and swore not to disperse till they had drafted a constitution for France that would limit the powers of the monarch.
They were led by Mirabeau and Abbé Sieyès.
Mirabeau was bom in a noble family but was convinced of the need to do away with a society of feudal privilege.
He brought out a journal and delivered powerful speeches to the crowds assembled at Versailles.
Some important dates:
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1774
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Louis XVI becomes king of France, faces empty treasury and growing discontent within society of the Old Regime.
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1789
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Convocation of Estates General, Third Estate forms National Assembly, the Bastille is stormed, and peasant revolts in the countryside.
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1791
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A constitution is framed to limit the powers of the king and to guarantee basic rights to all human beings.
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1792-93
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France becomes a Republic, the king is beheaded. Overthrow of the Jacobin republic, a Directory rules France.
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1804
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Napoleon becomes emperor of France, annexes large parts of Europe.
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1815
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Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.
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Storming of the Bastille:
While the National Assembly was busy at Versailles drafting a constitution, the rest of France seethed with turmoil.
A severe winter had meant a bad harvest; the price of bread rose, often bakers exploited the situation and hoarded supplies.
After spending hours in long queues at the bakery, crowds of angry women stormed into the shops.
At the same time, the king ordered troops to move into Paris.
On 14th July,the agitated crowd stormed and destroyed the Bastille.
In the countryside rumours spread from village to village that the lords of the manor had hired bands of brigands to destroy the ripe crops.
Caught in a frenzy of fear, peasants in several districts seized hoes and pitchforks and attacked chateaux.
A large number of nobles fled from their homes, many of them migrating to neighboring countries.
Louis XVI finally accorded recognition to the National Assembly.
On the night of 4 August 1789, the Assembly passed a decree abolishing the feudal system of obligations and taxes.
Members of the clergy too were forced to give up their privileges.
Tithes were abolished and lands owned by the Church were confiscated.
As a result, the government acquired assets worth at least 2 billion livres.
France becomes a constitutional monarchy:
The National Assembly completed the draft of the constitution in 1791.
Its main object was to limit the powers of the monarch.
Powers were now separated and assigned to different institutions – the legislature, executive and judiciary.
This made France a constitutional monarchy.
The Constitution of 1791 vested the power to make laws in the National Assembly, which was indirectly elected.
Only men above 25 years of age who paid taxes equal to at least 3 days of a labourer’s wage were given the status of active citizens, that is, they were entitled to vote.
The remaining men and all women were classed as passive citizens.
To quality as an elector and then as a member of the Assembly, a man had to belong to the highest bracket of taxpayers.
The Constitution began with a Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
Rights such as the right to life, freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, equality before law, were established as ‘natural and inalienable” rights, that is, they belonged to each human being by birth and could not be taken away.
The declaration of rights of man and citizen:
Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.
The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and inalienable rights of man; these are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.
The source of all sovereignty resides in the nation; no group or individual may exercise authority that does not come from the people.
Liberty consists of the power to do whatever is not injurious to others.
The law has the right to forbid only actions that are injurious to society.
Law is the expression of the general will.
All citizens have the right to participate in its formation, personally or through their representatives. All citizens are equal before it.
No man may be accused, arrested or detained, except in cases determined by the law.
Every citizen may speak, write and print freely; he must take responsibility for the abuse of such liberty in cases determined by the law.
For the maintenance of the public force and for the expenses of administration a common tax is indispensable; it must be assessed equally on all citizens in proportion to their means.
Since property is a sacred and inviolable right, no one may be deprived of it, unless a legally established public necessity requires it.
In that case a just compensation must be given in advance.
Reading political symbols:
The majority of men and women in the eighteenth century could not read or write.
So images and symbols were frequently used instead of printed words to communicate important ideas.
The painting by Le Barbier uses many such symbols to convey the content of the Declaration of Rights.
France abolishes monarchy and becomes a Republic:
To regain power, Louis XVI entered into secret negotiations with the King of Prussia.
The National Assembly voted in April 1792 to declare war against Prussia and Austria.
Thousands of volunteers joined the army.
They saw this as a war of the people against kings and aristocracies all over Europe.
Among the patriotic songs they sang was the Marseillaise, composed by the poet Roget de L’Isle. The Marseillaise is now the national anthem of France.
In the summer of 1792, on the morning of August 10 Jacobins stormed the Palace of the Tuileries, massacred the king’s guards and held the king himself as hostage for several hours.
Later the Assembly voted to imprison the royal family.
Elections were held. From now on all men of 21 years and above, regardless of wealth, got the right to vote. The newly elected assembly was called the Convention.
On 21 September 1792 it abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic.
Louis XVI was sentenced to death by a court on the charge of treason.
On 21 January 1793 he was executed publicly at the Place de la Concorde.
The queen Marie Antoinette met with the same fate shortly after.
Formation of Jacobin club:
The revolutionary wars brought losses and economic difficulties to the people.
While the men were away fighting at the front, women were left to cope with the tasks of earning a living and looking after their families.
Large sections of the population were convinced that the revolution had to be carried further, as the Constitution of 1791 gave political rights only to the richer sections of society.
Political clubs became an important rallying point for people who wished to discuss government policies and plan their own forms of action.
The most successful of these clubs was that of the Jacobins, which got its name from the former convent of St Jacob in Paris.
Women too, who had been active throughout this period, formed their own clubs.
The members of the Jacobin club belonged mainly to the less prosperous sections of society.
Their leader was Maximilian Robespierre.
A large group among the Jacobins decided to start wearing long striped trousers similar to those worn by dock workers.
This was to set themselves apart from the fashionable sections of society, especially nobles, who wore knee breeches.
These Jacobins came to be known as the sans-culottes, literally meaning ‘those without knee breeches’.
In addition they wore red cap that symbolised liberty.
It was a way of proclaiming the end of the power wielded by the wearers of knee breeches.
The Reign of Terror:
The period from 1793 to 1794 is referred to as the Reign of Terror.
Robespierre followed a policy of severe control and punishment.
All those whom he saw as being ‘enemies’ of the republic were arrested, imprisoned and then tried by a revolutionary tribunal.
If the court found of two poles and a blade with which a person is beheaded.
It was named them quilty’ they were guillotined.
The guillotine is a device consisting after Dr Guillotin who invented it.
Robespierre’s government issued laws placing a maximum ceiling on wages and prices.
Meat and bread were rationed.
Peasants were forced to sell it at prices fixed by the government.
The use of more expensive white flour was forbidden; all citizens were required to eat the pain d’égalité (equality bread), a loaf made of wholewheat.
Equality was also sought to be practised through forms of speech and address.
Instead of the traditional Monsieur (Sir) and Madame (Madam) all French men and women were henceforth Citoyen and Citoyenne (Citizen).
Churches were shut down and their buildings converted into barracks or offices.
Robespierre was convicted by a Court in July 1794, arrested and on the next day sent to the Guillotine.
Directory rules France:
After the fall of the Jacobin government, a new constitution was introduced which denied the vote to non-propertied sections of society?
It provided for two elected legislative councils.
These then appointed a Directory, an executive made up of five members.
However, the Directors often clashed with the legislative councils, who then sought to dismiss them.
The political instability of the Directory paved the way for the rise of a military dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Did women have a revolution?
During the Old Regime, most women of the third estate had to work for a living.
They worked as seamstresses or laundresses, sold flowers, fruits and vegetables at the market, or were employed as domestic servants in the houses of prosperous people.
Most women did not have access to education or job training.
Only daughters of nobles or wealthier members of the third estate could study at a convent, after which their families arranged a marriage for them.
Working women had also to care for their families, that is, cook, fetch water, queue up for bread and look after the children.
Their wages were lower than those of men.
In order to discuss and voice their interests women started their own political clubs and newspapers.
The Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women was the most famous of them.
One of their main demands was that women enjoy the same political rights as men.
Women were disappointed that the Constitution of 1791 reduced them to passive citizens.
They demanded the right to vote, to be elected to the Assembly and to hold political office.
In the early days, the revolutionary government did introduce laws that helped improve the lives of women.
Creation of state schools, schooling was made compulsory for all girls, no forced marriage against their will,
Marriage was made into a contract entered into freely and registered under civil law.
Divorce was made legal, and could be applied for by both women and men.
Women could now train for jobs, could become artists or run small businesses.
During the Reign of Terror, the new government issued laws ordering closure of women’s clubs and banning their political activities.
Many prominent women were arrested and a number of them executed.
Women’s movements for voting rights and equal wages continued through the next two hundred years.
It was finally in 1946 that women in France won the right to vote.
The abolition of slavery:
The colonies in the Caribbean-Martinique, Guadeloupe and San Domingo were important suppliers of commodities such as tobacco, indigo, suga and coffee.
Shortage of labour was met by a triangular slave trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas.
The slave trade began in the seventeenth century.
French merchants sailed from the ports of Bordeaux or Nantes to the African coast, where they bought slaves from local chieftains.
Branded and shackled, the slaves were packed tightly into ships for the three-month long voyage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
There they were sold to plantation owners.
The exploitation of slave labour made it possible to meet the growing demand in European markets for sugar, coffee, and indigo.
Port cities like Bordeaux and Nantes owed their economic prosperity to the flourishing slave trade.
Throughout the eighteenth century there was little criticism of slavery in France.
The National Assembly did not pass any laws, fearing opposition from businessmen whose incomes depended on the slave trade.
It was finally the Convention which in 1794 legislated to free all slaves in the French overseas possessions.
Ten years later, Napoleon reintroduced slavery.
Plantation owners understood their freedom as including the right to enslave African Negroes in pursuit of their economic interests.
Slavery was finally abolished in French colonies in 1848.
The revolution and everyday life:
The years following 1789 in France saw many such changes in the lives of men, women and children.
One important law that came into effect soon after the storming of the Bastille in the summer of 1789 was the abolition of censorship.
In the Old Regime all written material and cultural activities – books, newspapers, plays could be published or performed only after they had been approved by the censors of the king.
Now the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen proclaimed freedom of speech and expression to be a natural right.
Newspapers, pamphlets, books and printed pictures flooded the towns of France from where they travelled rapidly into the countryside.
They all described and discussed the events and changes taking place in France.
Freedom of the press also meant that opposing views of events could be expressed.
Each side sought to convince the others of its position through the medium of print.
Plays, songs and festive processions attracted large numbers of people.
This was one way they could grasp and identify with ideas such as liberty or justice that political philosophers wrote about length in texts which only a handful of educated people could read.
Conclusion:
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of France.
He set out to conquer neighboring European countries, dispossessing dynasties and creating kingdoms where he placed members of his family.
Napoleon saw his role as a mode miser of Europe.
He introduced many laws such as the protection of private property and a uniform system of weights and measures provided by the decimal system.
Initially, many saw Napoleon as a liberator who would bring freedom for the people.
But soon the Napoleonic armies came to be viewed everywhere as an invading force.
He was finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815.
Many of his measures that carried the revolutionary ideas of liberty and modern laws to other parts of Europe had an impact on people long after Napoleon had left.
Legacy of the French Revolution:
The ideas of liberty and democratic rights were the most important legacy of the French Revolution.
These spread from France to the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century, where feudal systems were abolished.
The powerful ideas of freedom and equality circulated in Europe after the French Revolution.
The French Revolution opened up the possibility of creating a dramatic change in the way in which society was structured.
Before the eighteenth century society was broadly divided into estates and orders and it was the aristocracy and church which controlled economic and social power.
Suddenly, after the revolution, it seemed possible to change this.
In many parts of the world including Europe and Asia, new ideas about individual rights and who controlled social power began to be discussed.
In India, Raja Rammohan Roy and Tipu Sultan talked of the significance of the French Revolution, and many others debated the ideas of post-revolutionary Europe.
The developments in the colonies, in tum, reshaped these ideas of societal change.
Colonised peoples reworked the idea of freedom from bondage into their movements to create a sovereign nation state.
