When Louis XV died in 1774, crowds gathered in the streets and shouted "Tallyho" at his casket as it was in the procession to St. Denis for burial. Apparently, the king was quite fond of hunting and not so involved with the offices of the state. At the time of his death, France was drowning in debt that seemed to only grow in the last 10 years of his reign. When his grandson, Louis XVI took over, France faced serious economic hardships.
To say the least, the ferment brewing in France in the final decade of the eighteenth century was tumultuous and full of discontent. As noted above, the issues in France arose primarily out of economic hardship, but these gave rise to other deep seeded issues in the realm of politics and society. At the time of Louis XVI's rise to power, both Britain and the Netherlands had substantially larger debts per-captia, but both had an infinitely better system of taxation. The majority of the wealth in France (Nobility, Clergy, and Bourgeoise) had been tax exempt since the time of Louis XIV.
The first wave of the French Revolution really began as early as 1786. At this point, Louis XVI had gone through several ministers of finance, who all promised a way out of the economic gutter. While some of these minsters provided attractive concepts, none of the plans succeeded. In 1786, a desperate Louis XVI turned to Charles Calonne for help. Calonne's plan was simple, levy taxes from the privileged classes, who had the been living tax free for years. According to Calonne, if the nobility and clergy paid a land tax, then the debt would be greatly reduced. However, to promulgate this policy, Calonne recommended that Louis call an Assembly of Notables to pitch the idea. The meeting backfired and instead of reaching a solution, the top aristocrats in France demanded that Louis return and call an Estates General to solve the financial woes of the country.
An Estates General was a medieval system that monarchs used to raise taxes in France. Had this issue occurred two hundred years earlier, it would have probably worked, but France had seen considerable change in the Early Modern Period. Namely the development of the rising middle class, who had in some cases, ascended to position of nobility. It was these men, who forged the first wave of the French Revolution. The First Estate were members of the clergy, the nobility made up the Second Estate, and the Third Estate consisted of the majority of France. Although the Third Estate was literally everyone else in France, most of its members were from the bourgeoisie, and more importantly the majority of these men were lawyers.
It took Louis XVI to the fall of 1788 to finally agree to a formal meeting and double the membership of the third estate, so that there was an even 600 members in the Third Estate, as well as 600 members from the other two estates. At the opening assemblies, the King was inundated with a bevy of grievances called cahiers de doleances. This detailed list of complaints from the surrounding provinces in France illustrates the sense that these people wanted change, but paradoxically had no idea what direction this change should take. Due to the extent of these grievances, Louis XVI delayed opening the official Estates General until May 5, 1789.
Immediately, Louis XVI angered the members of the third estate by keeping them waiting for several hours as he formally received the credentials of members of the first two estates. Since it was clear that the king would not compromise on voting as individuals, the members of the Third Estate delayed formally submitting their credentials for several weeks. It was at this point that Third Estate refuse to be part of a medieval voting tradition, and vowed that they would only assembly before the king as a National Assembly. When the Third Estate went to meet and discuss this assembly on June 20, 1789, they found the meeting house locked, so they moved to a nearby Tennis Court and promised to meet until the constitution of the kingdom was established and consolidated upon solid foundations. This momentous decision became known as the Tennis Court Oath. After much reluctance, Louis XVI finally agreed to these reforms on June 27, 1789.
At this point the movement towards change began to speed up quite rapidly. Several years of poor harvests and poor crop production gave way to a price hike on bread. Moreover, there were very few jobs for peasants to work, so much of the populace grew volatile with only the promise of change. No where was this more present than during the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. On this fateful day, a Parisian crowd surrounded the old armory, clearly a symbol of the Old Regime, and by mid-day they had tour it down, hacked off the head of governor, and paraded around with his head on a pike. This day has since been celebrated as the formal start of the French Revolution.
One month later, the riots spread to countryside and several peasant revolts arose demanding an end to the feudal obligations. On August 4th, the Great Fear was so present that the aristocrats meet in Paris and one by one renounced their feudal and customary rights. By the end of August 1789, the new National Assembly had put out the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Using the language of the Enlightenment, the work declared that political sovereignty did not rest in the hands of a monarch but rather in the nation at large. From this extremely important document, the motto Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity would emerge as the banner of the Revolution.
To say the least, the ferment brewing in France in the final decade of the eighteenth century was tumultuous and full of discontent. As noted above, the issues in France arose primarily out of economic hardship, but these gave rise to other deep seeded issues in the realm of politics and society. At the time of Louis XVI's rise to power, both Britain and the Netherlands had substantially larger debts per-captia, but both had an infinitely better system of taxation. The majority of the wealth in France (Nobility, Clergy, and Bourgeoise) had been tax exempt since the time of Louis XIV.
The first wave of the French Revolution really began as early as 1786. At this point, Louis XVI had gone through several ministers of finance, who all promised a way out of the economic gutter. While some of these minsters provided attractive concepts, none of the plans succeeded. In 1786, a desperate Louis XVI turned to Charles Calonne for help. Calonne's plan was simple, levy taxes from the privileged classes, who had the been living tax free for years. According to Calonne, if the nobility and clergy paid a land tax, then the debt would be greatly reduced. However, to promulgate this policy, Calonne recommended that Louis call an Assembly of Notables to pitch the idea. The meeting backfired and instead of reaching a solution, the top aristocrats in France demanded that Louis return and call an Estates General to solve the financial woes of the country.
An Estates General was a medieval system that monarchs used to raise taxes in France. Had this issue occurred two hundred years earlier, it would have probably worked, but France had seen considerable change in the Early Modern Period. Namely the development of the rising middle class, who had in some cases, ascended to position of nobility. It was these men, who forged the first wave of the French Revolution. The First Estate were members of the clergy, the nobility made up the Second Estate, and the Third Estate consisted of the majority of France. Although the Third Estate was literally everyone else in France, most of its members were from the bourgeoisie, and more importantly the majority of these men were lawyers.
It took Louis XVI to the fall of 1788 to finally agree to a formal meeting and double the membership of the third estate, so that there was an even 600 members in the Third Estate, as well as 600 members from the other two estates. At the opening assemblies, the King was inundated with a bevy of grievances called cahiers de doleances. This detailed list of complaints from the surrounding provinces in France illustrates the sense that these people wanted change, but paradoxically had no idea what direction this change should take. Due to the extent of these grievances, Louis XVI delayed opening the official Estates General until May 5, 1789.
Immediately, Louis XVI angered the members of the third estate by keeping them waiting for several hours as he formally received the credentials of members of the first two estates. Since it was clear that the king would not compromise on voting as individuals, the members of the Third Estate delayed formally submitting their credentials for several weeks. It was at this point that Third Estate refuse to be part of a medieval voting tradition, and vowed that they would only assembly before the king as a National Assembly. When the Third Estate went to meet and discuss this assembly on June 20, 1789, they found the meeting house locked, so they moved to a nearby Tennis Court and promised to meet until the constitution of the kingdom was established and consolidated upon solid foundations. This momentous decision became known as the Tennis Court Oath. After much reluctance, Louis XVI finally agreed to these reforms on June 27, 1789.
At this point the movement towards change began to speed up quite rapidly. Several years of poor harvests and poor crop production gave way to a price hike on bread. Moreover, there were very few jobs for peasants to work, so much of the populace grew volatile with only the promise of change. No where was this more present than during the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. On this fateful day, a Parisian crowd surrounded the old armory, clearly a symbol of the Old Regime, and by mid-day they had tour it down, hacked off the head of governor, and paraded around with his head on a pike. This day has since been celebrated as the formal start of the French Revolution.
One month later, the riots spread to countryside and several peasant revolts arose demanding an end to the feudal obligations. On August 4th, the Great Fear was so present that the aristocrats meet in Paris and one by one renounced their feudal and customary rights. By the end of August 1789, the new National Assembly had put out the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Using the language of the Enlightenment, the work declared that political sovereignty did not rest in the hands of a monarch but rather in the nation at large. From this extremely important document, the motto Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity would emerge as the banner of the Revolution.
Although the change in France during 1789 felt promising, the fathers of this new Constitutional Monarchy failed for a variety of reasons. The number one issue regarding the passing and acceptance of the new constitution resided in the reluctance of the king, who dragged his feet through the whole process. At one point, in 1791 Louis and his family attempted to flee, like many of the top aristocrats did in 1789, but he was captured in Varennes and forced to live under house arrest in Paris. Another issue rested in the acceptance of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy which made all clerics (Catholic or Protestant) civil servants and employees of the state. Finally, many of the surrounding kingdoms, such as Austria and Prussia put down the revolution and threatened to get involved. All of these issues brought the local war abroad and made it difficult to solidify the constitution.
By 1792, political factionalism had spread to Paris. The popular group in the Assembly were called the Jacobins, because they met in an old Jacobin monastery in France. The other group were known as the Girondins because they hailed from the department of the Gironde. The Jacobins were more radical and sought to end the monarchy and establish a republic, while the Girondins wished to fight against they enemies afar to secure nationalism locally. Nonetheless, the Jacobins gained the upper hand because they found support in the majority of the people known as the sans-culottes because they didn't wear the fancy breeches that the aristocrats wore. The Jacobins then had Louis XVI arrested for treason, and subsequently the declared a the First Republic in France. In January 1793, they executed Louis XVI and his family and thus began the Reign of Terror.
The leader of this second wave of the French Revolution was Maximilian Robespierre, a lawyer, who immediately instituted the Committee of Public Safety to secure the populace and protect the new republic. During the next year 1794-95, Robespierre had a score of people arrested and over 25,000 executed using the newly invented guillotine to swiftly chop off traitors heads. Not surprisingly this Reign of Terror didn't last long. There was too much pressure amassing from the outside, as well as the growing suspicion on the inside, which ultimately led to the Robespierre's men turning against him and sentencing him to death.
world-civilization-week-10.ppt |