The
French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of
political and social upheaval and radical change in the
history of France, during which the French
governmental structure, previously an
absolute monarchy with
feudal privileges for the
aristocracy and
Catholic clergy,
underwent radical change to forms based on
Enlightenment principles of
citizenship and
inalienable rights.
These changes were accompanied by violent turmoil which included
the trial and execution of the king, vast bloodshed and repression
during the
Reign of Terror, and
warfare involving every other
major European power. Subsequent events that can be traced to
the Revolution include the
Napoleonic
Wars, two separate
restorations
of the monarchy, and two additional revolutions as
modern France took shape.
In the following century, France would be governed at one point or
another as a
republic,
constitutional monarchy, and two
different
empire.
Causes
Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same
features of the
Ancien
Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution.
Economic factors included widespread
famine
and
malnutrition, due to rising bread
prices (from a normal 8
sous for a
4-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789), which increased the
likelihood of
disease and death, and
intentional
starvation in the most
destitute segments of the population in the months immediately
before the Revolution. The famine extended even to other parts of
Europe, and was not helped by a poor
transportation infrastructure for bulk foods.
(Recent research has
also attributed the widespread famine to an El Niño effect following the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland
, or colder
climate of the Little Ice Age
combined with France's failure to adopt the potato as a staple
crop.)
Another cause was the fact that
Louis XV
fought many wars, bringing France to the verge of bankruptcy, and
Louis XVI supported the colonists during
the
American Revolution,
exacerbating the precarious financial condition of the government.
The national debt amounted to almost two billion
livres. The social burdens caused by war
included the huge war debt, made worse by the monarchy's military
failures and ineptitude, and the lack of social services for war
veterans. The inefficient and antiquated financial system was
unable to manage the
national debt,
something which was both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a
grossly inequitable system of taxation. Another cause was the
continued
conspicuous
consumption of the noble class, especially the court of
Louis XVI and
Marie-Antoinette at
Versailles, despite the financial burden on the
populace. High
unemployment and high
bread prices caused more money to be spent on food and less in
other areas of the economy. The
Roman Catholic Church, the largest
landowner in the country, levied a tax on crops known as the
dime or
tithe. While the
dîme lessened the severity of the monarchy's tax
increases, it worsened the plight of the poorest who faced a daily
struggle with malnutrition. There was too little internal trade and
too many customs barriers.
There were also social and political factors, many of which
involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of
Enlightenment ideals.
These
included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by the ambitious
professional and mercantile classes towards noble privileges and
dominance in public life, as many of these classes were familiar
with the lives of their peers in commercial cities in the Netherlands
and Great
Britain
; resentment by peasants, wage-earners, and the
bourgeoisie toward the traditional
seigneurial privileges possessed by
nobles; resentment of clerical advantage (anti-clericalism) and aspirations for
freedom of religion, resentment
of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy, continued
hatred for Catholic control, and influence on institutions of all
kinds by the large Protestant
minorities; aspirations for liberty and (especially as the
Revolution progressed) republicanism;
and anger toward the King for firing Jacques Necker and A.R.J.
Turgot
(among other financial advisors), who were popularly seen as
representatives of the people.
Finally, perhaps above all, was the almost total failure of
Louis XVI and his advisers to
deal effectively with any of these problems.
Pre-revolution
Financial crisis
Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a
financial crisis; the nation was
nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income. This was because of
France’s involvement in the
Seven Years
War and its participation in the
American Revolution. In May 1776,
finance minister
Turgot was dismissed, after
he lost favour. The next year,
Jacques
Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Director-General of Finance.
He was not made a minister because he was a Protestant, and could
not become a naturalized French citizen. Necker realized that the
country's tax system subjected some to an unfair burden; numerous
exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy. He argued that the
country could not be taxed higher, that the nobles and clergy
should not be exempt from taxes, and proposed that borrowing would
solve the country's fiscal problems. Necker published a report to
support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly
36,000 livres; and proposed restricting the spending power of the
parlements. This was not received
well by the King's ministers and Necker, hoping to solidify his
position, argued to be accepted as a minister. The King refused,
Necker was fired, and
Charles Alexandre de Calonne
was appointed to the Directorship.
Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the
critical financial situation and put forth a new
tax code. The proposal included a consistent
land tax, which would include
taxation of the nobility and clergy, and the meeting of the Estates
was planned for May 1789; a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was no
longer absolute.
Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General was organized into three estates, respectively:
the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France. On the last
occasion that the Estates-General had met, in 1614, each estate
held one vote, and any two could override the third. The
Parlement of Paris feared the government would attempt to
gerrymander an assembly to rig the
results. Thus, they required that the Estates be arranged as in
1614.The 1614 rules differed from practices of local assemblies,
wherein each member had one vote and
third estate membership was doubled.
For instance, in the province of
Dauphiné the provincial assembly agreed to
double the number of members of the third estate, hold membership
elections, and allow one vote per member, rather than one vote per
estate. The "Committee of Thirty", a body of liberal Parisians,
began to agitate against voting by estate. This group, largely
composed of the wealthy, argued for the Estates-General to assume
the voting mechanisms of Dauphiné. They argued that ancient
precedent was not sufficient, because "the people were sovereign".
Necker convened a Second Assembly of the Notables, which rejected
the notion of double representation by a vote of 111 to 333. The
King, however, agreed to the proposition on 27 December; but he
left discussion of the weight of each vote to the Estates-General
itself.
Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements
were: 25 years of age and over six
livres paid in taxes.
Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including: "291 nobles,
300 clergy, and 610 members of the Third Estate." To lead
delegates, "Books of grievances" (
cahiers de doléances)
were compiled to list problems. The books articulated ideas which
would have seemed radical only months before; however, most
supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the
Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment
ideals were relatively rare. Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy
became widespread after the lifting of press censorship. The
Abbé Sieyès, argued the
importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet
Qu'est-ce que le
tiers état? (
What is the Third Estate?), published in
January 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything.
What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What
does it want to be? Something."
The Estates-General convened in
Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three
hour speech by Necker. The basic strategy of the Third Estate was
to make sure that no decisions of the Estates-General should be
reached in separate chambers, but instead should be made by all
deputies from all three estates together (in other words, the
strategy was to merge all three estates into one assembly). Thus
they demanded that the verification of deputies' credentials should
be undertaken in common by all deputies, rather than each estate
verifying the credentials of its own members internally; but
negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this. The
commoners appealed to the clergy who replied they required more
time. Necker asserted that each estate verify credentials and "the
king was to act as arbitrator". Negotiations with the other two
estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful.
National Assembly (1789)
On 10 June 1789 Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now
meeting as the
Communes (English: "Commons"), proceed with
verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to
take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two
days later, completing the process on 17 June. Then they voted a
measure far more radical, declaring themselves the
National Assembly, an
assembly not of the Estates but of "the People." They invited the
other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to
conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.
In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the
Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle
des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the
carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two
days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly
moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor
real tennis court, where they proceeded to swear
the
Tennis Court Oath (20 June
1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given
France a
constitution. A majority of
the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47
members of the nobility.
By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given
in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around
Paris
and Versailles.
Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other
French cities.
National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)
Storming of the Bastille
By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the
French court for his support and guidance to the Third Estate.
Marie Antoinette, the
King's younger brother the
Comte
d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's
privy council urged him to dismiss Necker from
his role as King's financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker
suggested that the royal family live according to a budget to
conserve funds, the King fired him, and completely reconstructed
the finance ministry at the same time.
Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be the start of a royal
coup by the conservatives and began open rebellion when they heard
the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving
soldiers—mostly foreigners under French service rather than native
French troops—had been summoned to shut down the
National Constituent Assembly.
The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to
prevent eviction from their meeting place once again. Paris was
soon consumed with riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs
soon had the support of the
French Guard, including arms and
trained soldiers.
On 14
July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and
ammunition cache inside the Bastille
fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol
of monarchist tyranny. After several hours of combat, the
prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a cease fire, which
prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis
Bernard de Launay was beaten, stabbed and
decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the
city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four
forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behavior, and a murder
suspect), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything
hated under the
Ancien
Régime.
Returning to the Hôtel de
Ville
(city hall), the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor)
Jacques de Flesselles of
treachery and he was shot.
The King and his military supporters backed down, at least for the
time being.
La Fayette took up
command of the National Guard at Paris.
Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the
Assembly at the time of the
Tennis
Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental
structure known as the
commune. The King visited Paris,
where, on 17 July he accepted a
tricolore cockade, to
cries of
Vive la Nation [Long live the Nation] and
Vive le Roi [Long live the King].
Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An
astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed
his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much
of the people's favour. He also felt he could save France all by
himself, despite having few ideas.
Nobles were not assured by this apparent reconciliation of King and
people. They began to flee the country as
émigrés, some of whom began plotting
civil war within the kingdom and agitating for a European coalition
against France.
By late July, insurrection and the spirit of
popular sovereignty spread throughout
France. In rural areas, many went beyond this: some burned
title-deeds and no small number of
châteaux,
as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande
Peur" (the
Great Fear). In addition,
plotting at Versailles and the large numbers of men on the roads of
France as a result of unemployment led to wild rumours and paranoia
(particularly in the rural areas) that caused widespread unrest and
civil disturbances and contributed to the Great Fear.
Working toward a constitution
On 4 August 1789 the National Constituent Assembly abolished
feudalism (although at that point there
had been sufficient peasant revolts to almost end feudalism
already), in what is known as the
August
Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the
Second Estate and the
tithes gathered by the
First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns,
provinces, companies, and cities lost their special
privileges.
Looking to the
Declaration of
Independence of the United States for a model, on 26 August
1789, the Assembly published the
Declaration
of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Like the U.S.
Declaration, it comprised a statement of principles rather than a
constitution with legal effect. The
National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a
legislature, but also as a body to draft a new
constitution.
Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully
for a
senate, with members appointed by the
crown on the nomination of the people. The bulk of the nobles
argued for an aristocratic
upper house
elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France
would have a single, unicameral assembly. The King retained only a
"suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but
not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the
historic
provinces with 83
département,
uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and
population.
Originally summoned to deal with a financial crisis, by late 1789,
the Assembly had focused on other matters and only worsened the
deficit.
Honoré
Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the
Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.
Women's March on Versailles

Engraving of the Women's March on
Versailles, 5 October 1789
Fueled by rumors of a reception by the King's bodyguards 1 October
1789 in which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5
October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets.
The women
first marched to the Hôtel de Ville
, demanding that city officials address their
concerns. The women were responding to the harsh economic
situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also
demanded an end to Royalist efforts to block the National Assembly,
and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign
of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.
Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as
7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them
pieces of cannon and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand
National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to
keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing
several guards. La Fayette ultimately convinced the king to accede
to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to
Paris.
On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from
Versailles to Paris under the protection of the National Guards,
thus legitimizing the National Assembly.
Revolution and the Church

In this caricature, monks and nuns
enjoy their new freedom after the decree of 16 February 1790
The Revolution brought about a massive shifting of powers from the
Roman Catholic Church to the
state. Under the
Ancien
Régime, the Church had been the largest single landowner
in the country, owning about 10 percent of the land in the kingdom.
The Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, however
it levied a
tithe - a tenth tax on income
often collected in the form of crops - on the general population.
The power and wealth of the Church was highly resented.
Non-Catholics and Protestants wanted an anti-Catholic regime and
revenge against the clergy in power.
Enlightenment thinkers such as
Voltaire helped fuel this resentment by denigrating
the Catholic Church and destabilizing the French monarchy. As
historian
John McManners argues, “In
eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of
as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse … would one day
provide the final proof of their interdependence.”
This resentment toward the Church weakened its power during the
opening of the
Estates General in
May of 1789. The Church composed the
First
Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the
National Assembly was later created in
June 1789 by the
Third Estate, the
clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the
Estates General as a governing body. The National Assembly began to
enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4
August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe.
In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly
declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was
“at the disposal of the nation.” They used this property to back a
new currency, the
assignats. However, the
nation had now taken on the responsibility of the Church, which
included paying the clergy and caring for the poor. In December the
Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder in order to
raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by
25 percent in two years. In autumn of 1789, legislation abolished
monastic vows and on 13 February 1790
all religious orders were dissolved. Monks and nuns were encouraged
to return to private life and 10 percent eventually married.
The
Civil Constitution
of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining
clergy into employees of the state. This established an election
system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the
clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because
non-Catholics could participate in the election of their priests
and bishops. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly
began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from
all the members of the clergy. This led to a schism between those
clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement
and those who refused to do so. Overall 54 percent of the clergy
nationwide took the oath. Widespread refusal led to legislation
against the clergy, “forcing them into exile, deporting them
forcibly, or executing them as traitors.” The
Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France.
During the
Reign of Terror, extreme
efforts of de-Christianization ensued, including the imprisonment
and massacre of
priests and destruction of
churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made
to replace altogether the Catholic Church with civic festivals. The
establishment of the cult of Reason was the final step of radical
de-Christianization. However, locals often resisted these efforts
and even
Robespierre and the
Committee of Public Safety
eventually denounced this campaign. The
Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the
Church ended the de-Christianization period and established the
rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French
State that lasted until it was abrogated by the
Third Republic via the
separation of church and
state on 11 December 1905.
Appearance of factions

Satirical cartoon lampooning the
excesses of the Revolution as seen from England
Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The
aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de
Cazalès and the
abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led what would become
known as the
right wing, the
opposition to revolution (this party sat on the right-hand side of
the Assembly). The "Royalist democrats" or
monarchiens,
allied with
Necker, inclined toward
organising France along lines similar to the
British constitution
model; they included
Jean Joseph
Mounier, the
Comte de
Lally-Tollendal, the
comte de
Clermont-Tonnerre, and
Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de
Virieu.
The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the
assembly, included
Honoré
Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly; while
Adrien Duport,
Barnave and
Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more
extreme views.
Almost alone in his radicalism on the left
was the Arras
lawyer
Maximilien
Robespierre. Abbé
Sieyès led in proposing
legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for
some time between the political centre and the
left. In Paris, various committees, the
mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual
districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The
increasingly
middle-class National Guard under La Fayette also
slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other
self-generated assemblies.
Intrigues and radicalism
The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the
Ancien
Régime—armorial bearings, liveries, etc.—which further
alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of
the
émigrés.
On 14 July 1790, and
for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars
celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the
Bastille with a Fête de la
Fédération; Talleyrand
performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the
nation, the law, and the king"; and the King and the royal family
actively participated.
The electors had originally chosen the members of the
Estates-General to serve for a single
year. However, by the terms of the
Tennis Court Oath, the
communes
had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a
constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election,
but Mirabeau carried the day, asserting that the status of the
assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should
take place before completing the constitution.
In late 1790, several small
counter-revolutionary uprisings broke
out and efforts took place to turn all or part of the army against
the Revolution. These uniformly failed. The royal court "encouraged
every anti-revolutionary enterprise and avowed none."
The army faced considerable internal turmoil: General
Bouillé
successfully put down a small rebellion, which added to his
(accurate) reputation for counter-revolutionary sympathies. The new
military code, under which promotion depended on seniority and
proven competence (rather than on nobility) alienated some of the
existing officer corps, who joined the ranks of the émigrés or
became counter-revolutionaries from within.
This period saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French
politics, foremost among these the
Jacobin
Club; 152 clubs had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August
1790. As the Jacobins became more of a broad popular organisation,
some of its founders abandoned it to form the
Club of '89. Royalists established first the
short-lived
Club des
Impartiaux and later the
Club Monarchique. The latter attempted
unsuccessfully to curry public favour by distributing bread.
Nonetheless, they became the frequent target of protests and even
riots, and the Paris municipal authorities finally closed down the
Club Monarchique in January 1791.
Amidst these intrigues, the Assembly continued to work on
developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all
magistracies temporary and independent of the throne. The
legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy
itself.
Jury trials started for criminal
cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with
the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly
abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds,
masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the
right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license;
strikes became illegal.
In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time,
legislation against the
émigrés. The debate pitted the
safety of the State against the liberty of individuals to leave.
Mirabeau carried the day against the measure, which he referred to
as "worthy of being placed in the code of
Draco". But Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791
and, before the end of the year, the new Legislative Assembly would
adopt this "draconian" measure.
Royal flight to Varennes

The return of the royal family to
Paris on 25 June 1791, colored copperplate after a drawing of
Jean-Louis Prieur
Louis XVI,
opposed to the course of the Revolution, but rejecting the
potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe, cast
his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and
the assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at
Montmédy
. On
the night of 20 June 1791 the royal family fled the Tuileries
wearing the clothes of servants, while their servants dressed as
nobles.
However,
the next day the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes
(in the Meuse
département) late on 21
June. He and his family were paraded back to Paris under
guard, still dressed as servants.
Pétion, Latour-Maubourg,
and Antoine Pierre
Joseph Marie Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal
family at Épernay
and returned with them. From this time,
Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal family. When
they reached Paris, the crowd remained silent. The Assembly
provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen
Marie Antoinette remained held
under guard.
Completing the constitution
As most of the Assembly still favoured a
constitutional monarchy rather than
a
republic, the various groupings reached a
compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead:
he had perforce to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree
declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose
of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his
name would amount to
de facto abdication.
Jacques
Pierre Brissot
drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of
the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight.
An
immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars
to sign the petition. Georges Danton and
Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches.
The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve
public order". The National Guard under La Fayette's command
confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones
by firing into the crowd, thus killing between 13 and 50
people.
In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the
patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as
Jean-Paul Marat's
L'Ami du Peuple. Danton fled to
England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.
Meanwhile, a new threat arose from abroad:
Holy Roman Emperor Leopold
II,
Frederick
William II of Prussia, and the King's brother
Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois issued
the
Declaration of Pillnitz
which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his
absolute liberty and implied an invasion of France on his behalf if
the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions. The French
people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs,
and the threat of force merely caused the militarisation of the
frontiers.
Even before his "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had
determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would
succeed them, the
Legislative Assembly. They now
gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a
single constitution, showed remarkable strength in choosing not to
use this as an occasion for major revisions, and submitted it to
the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage
to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad,
and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my
disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received
enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. The Assembly set
the end of its term for 29 September 1791.
Mignet argued that the "constitution of 1791... was the work of the
middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the
predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this
constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it
exercised none."
Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)
Failure of the constitutional monarchy
Under the
Constitution of
1791, France would function as a
constitutional monarchy. The King
had to share power with the elected
Legislative Assembly, but he
still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers.
The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, and
degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the words of the
1911 Encyclopædia
Britannica: "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed
altogether. It left behind an empty
treasury, an undisciplined
army
and
navy, and a people debauched by safe and
successful riot." The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165
Feuillant
(constitutional monarchists) on the
right, about 330
Girondists (liberal republicans) and
Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the
left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated
with either faction. Early on, the King vetoed legislation that
threatened the
émigrés with death and that decreed that
every
non-juring clergyman must take
within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution
of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, such disagreements would
lead to a
constitutional
crisis.
Constitutional crisis

10 August 1792 Paris Commune - The
Storming of the Tuileries Palace
On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents, supported by a new
revolutionary
Paris
Commune, assailed the Tuileries. The King and queen ended up
prisoners and a
rump session of the
Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy; little more than a
third of the deputies were present, almost all of them
Jacobins.
What remained of a national government depended on the support of
the insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent gangs into the
prisons to try arbitrarily and butcher 1400 victims, and addressed
a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to
follow this example. The Assembly could offer only feeble
resistance. This situation persisted until the
Convention, charged with writing
a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new
de facto government of France. The next day it
abolished the
monarchy and declared a republic. This date was later
retroactively adopted as the beginning of
Year
One of the
French
Republican Calendar.
War and Counter-Revolution (1792–1797)
The
politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with
Austria
and its allies. The King, the Feuillants and
the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many
Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal
popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat:
either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to
export the Revolution
throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution
within France. Only some of the radical
Jacobins opposed war, preferring to consolidate and
expand the Revolution at home. The Austrian
emperor Leopold II, brother of
Marie Antoinette, may
have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792.
France declared war
on Austria
(20 April 1792) and Prussia
joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later. The invading Prussian
army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of
Valmy
(20 September 1792), and forced to withdraw.
However, by this time, France stood in turmoil and the monarchy had
effectively become a thing of the past.
National Convention (1792–1795)
Execution of Louis XVI
In the
Brunswick Manifesto, the
Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French
population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement
of the monarchy. This made Louis appear to be conspiring with the
enemies of France. 17 January 1793 saw Louis condemned to death for
"conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a
close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288
voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a
variety of delaying conditions.
The former Louis XVI, now simply named
Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet), was executed by
guillotine on 21 January 1793 in the area
now called the Place de la Concorde
. After he was executed, some of the citizens
who witnessed the beheading ran forth to have their clothes soaked
in the late King's blood, dripping from his head.
Others in the crowd
went mad, slit their throats or jumped into the river Seine
–
according to historian
Adam Zamoyski
this was not so much due to their love for the King but as he was
seen as a representative of God on earth. In his book
The Rebel,
Albert Camus wrote that the execution was the
turning point of French contemporary history, "an act that
secularized the French world and banished God from the subsequent
history of the French people".The 21 January execution led to more
wars with other European countries. Louis' Austrian-born queen,
Marie Antoinette, would follow him
to the
guillotine on 16 October.
Economy
When war went badly, prices rose and the
sans-culottes — poor labourers and
radical Jacobins — rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began
in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power
through a parliamentary
coup, backed up by force effected
by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by
utilising the mob power of the Parisian
sans-culottes. An
alliance of Jacobin and
sans-culottes elements thus became
the effective centre of the new government. Policy became
considerably more radical, as
"The Law
of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of
offenders. This policy of price control was coeval with the
Committee of Public
Safety's rise to power and the
Reign
of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for
only a limited number of grain products, but by September of 1793
it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list
of other goods. Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The
Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to
arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem
in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of
1794 forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even
Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre
went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered,
"There goes the dirty maximum!"
Reign of Terror
The
Committee of Public
Safety came under the control of
Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and
the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793-1794). According
to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the
guillotine or otherwise after accusations of
counter-revolutionary activities. A number of historians note that
as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily
executed without trial or died awaiting trial.
On 2 June 1793, Paris sections — encouraged by the
enragés ("enraged ones")
Jacques Roux and
Jacques Hébert — took over the
Convention, calling for administrative and
political purges, a low fixed price for
bread,
and a limitation of the electoral
franchise
to "
sans-culottes" alone.
With the backing of
the National Guard, they
managed to convince the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders,
including Jacques
Pierre Brissot
. Following these arrests, the Jacobins
gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June,
installing the
revolutionary dictatorship. On 13 July, the
assassination of
Jean-Paul Marat — a
Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric —
by
Charlotte Corday, a Girondin,
resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence.
Georges Danton, the leader of the
August 1792
uprising against the
King,
undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the
Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most
influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the
Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.
Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican
constitution of France, variously referred to as the
French Constitution of 1793 or
Constitution of the Year I. It was progressive and radical in
several respects, in particular by establishing
universal male suffrage. It was ratified
by public
referendum, but never applied,
because normal legal processes were suspended before it could take
effect.
In
Vendée
, peasants
revolted against the French Revolutionary government in
1793. They resented the changes imposed on the
Roman Catholic Church by the
Civil Constitution of the
Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the
Revolutionary government's military
conscription. This became a
guerrilla war, known as the
War in the Vendée.
North of the Loire
, similar revolts were started by the so-called
Chouans (royalist rebels).
After the defeat at
Savenay, when regular
warfare in the Vendée was at an end, the French general
Francois Joseph Westermann penned
a letter to the Committee of Public Safety stating
“There is no more Vendée.
It died with its wives and its children by our free
sabres.
I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of
Savenay.
According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the
children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at
least for these, will not give birth to any more
brigands.
I do not have a prisoner to reproach me.
I have exterminated all.
The roads are sown with corpses.
At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming
to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop...
Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."
However, some historians doubt the existence of this document and
others point out that the claims in it were patently false - there
were in fact thousands of (living) Vendean prisoners, the revolt
had been far from crushed, and the Convention had explicitly
decreed that women, children and unarmed men were to be treated
humanely. It has been hypothesized that if the letter is authentic,
that may have been Westermann's attempt to exaggerate the intensity
of his actions and his success, because he was eager to avoid being
purged for his incompetent military leadership and for his
opposition to
sans-culotte generals (he
failed to avoid that, since he was guillotined together with
Danton's group).
The revolt and its suppression (including both combat casualties
and massacres and executions on both sides) are thought to have
taken between 117 000 and 250 000 lives (170 000 according to the
latest estimates). Because of the extremely brutal forms that the
Republican repression took in many places, certain historians such
as
Reynald Secher have called the
event a "
genocide". This description has
become popular in the
mass media, but it
has attracted much criticism in academia as being unrealistic and
biased.
Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and
West of the country, the most urgent government business was the
war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general
conscription, the
levée en masse, which mobilized all
citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.
The result was a policy through which the state used violent
repression to crush resistance to the government. Under control of
the effectively dictatorial Committee, the Convention quickly
enacted more legislation. On 9 September, the Convention
established
sans-culottes paramilitary forces, the
revolutionary armies, to force farmers to surrender
grain demanded by the government. On 17
September, the
Law of
Suspects was passed, which authorized the charging of
counter-revolutionaries with vaguely defined crimes against
liberty. On 29 September, the Convention extended price-fixing from
grain and bread to other household goods and declared the right to
set a limit on wages.
The
guillotine became the symbol of a
string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before
the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, the Girondins,
Philippe
Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King),
Madame Roland and many others were executed by
guillotine. The
Revolutionary
Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by
the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.
At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of
counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of
Jacques Hébert, revolutionary
zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under
suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to
contemporary standards of
due process.
Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but
many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some
others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims
received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden
cart (the
tumbrel). In the rebellious
provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority
and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses.
For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious
for the Noyades ["drownings"] - he
organized in Nantes
; his conduct
was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was
recalled.
Another
anti-clerical uprising was
made possible by the installment of the
Republican Calendar on 24 October
1793. Against Robespierre's concepts of
Deism
and
Virtue, Hébert's (and Chaumette's)
atheist movement initiated a religious
campaign to
dechristianize society.
The
climax was reached with the celebration of the flame of Reason in
Notre
Dame
Cathedral on 10 November.
The Reign of Terror enabled the revolutionary government to avoid
military defeat. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and
Carnot replaced many aristocratic
officers with younger soldiers who had demonstrated their ability
and patriotism.
The Republican army was able to throw back
the Austrians
, Prussians, British
, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army
began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The
Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794)
proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of
the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy.
In the spring of 1794, both extremist
enragés such as
Hébert and moderate
Montagnard
indulgents such as Danton were charged with
counter-revolutionary activities, tried and guillotined. On 7 June
Robespierre, who had previously condemned the
Cult of Reason, advocated a new state
religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence
of the "Supreme Being".
Thermidorian Reaction

Engraving: "Closing of the Jacobin
Club, during the night of 27-28 July 1794, or 9-10 Thermidor, year
2 of the Republic"
On 27 July 1794, the
Thermidorian
Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre and
Louis de Saint-Just. The new
government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived
the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by
persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow
Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its
former members in what was known as the
White Terror.
In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved the
new "Constitution of the Year III" on 22 August 1795. A French
plebiscite ratified the document, with
about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against. The
results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the
new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.
The Directory (1795–1799)
The new constitution created the
Directoire ( ) and the
first
bicameral legislature in
French history. The parliament consisted of 500 representatives —
the
Conseil des Cinq-Cents (Council of the Five Hundred) —
and 250 senators — the
Conseil des Anciens (Council of
Elders). Executive power went to five "directors," named annually
by the
Conseil des Anciens from a list submitted by the
Conseil des Cinq-Cents. Furthermore, the
universal suffrage of 1793 was replaced
by limited suffrage based on property.
With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers
might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of
the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to
conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Those who wished to
restore the monarchy and the
Ancien Régime by putting
Louis XVIII on the throne, and those
who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant in
number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with
the failure of the
First Coalition.
The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between
parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which
had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in
the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to
keep their predominance.
As many French citizens distrusted the Directory, the directors
could achieve their purposes only by extraordinary means. They
habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, even
when the elections that they rigged went against them, the
directors routinely used draconian police measures to quell
dissent. Moreover, the Directory used
war as the
best expedient for prolonging their power, and the directors were
thus driven to rely on the armies, which also desired war and grew
less and less civic-minded.
Other reasons influenced them in this direction. State finances
during the earlier phases of the Revolution had been so thoroughly
ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without
the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were
made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to
face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their
livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a
moment, brush them aside.
Barras
and
Rewbell were
notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others.
The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general
maladministration heightened their unpopularity.

Napoléon Bonaparte in the
coup
d'état of 18 Brumaire
(detail of an oleo by François
Bouchot)
The constitutional party in the legislature desired
toleration of the
nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws
against the relatives of the
émigrés, and some merciful discrimination
toward the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such
endeavours. On the other hand, the
socialist conspiracy of
Babeuf was easily quelled.
Little was done to improve the finances, and the
assignats continued to fall in value.
The new
régime met opposition from remaining
Jacobins and the royalists. The army suppressed riots and
counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and its
successful general,
Napoleon
Bonaparte eventually gained much power.
On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII)
Napoleon Bonaparte staged the
coup of 18 Brumaire which
installed the
Consulate. This
effectively led to Bonaparte's dictatorship and eventually (in
1804) to his proclamation as
Empereur (emperor), which
brought to a close the specifically
republican phase of the French Revolution.
Women in the Revolution
Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they
couldn’t vote or hold any political office. They were considered
“passive” citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was
best for them in the government. It was the men who defined these
categories, and women were forced to accept male domination in the
political sphere. The Encyclopédie, published by a group of
philosophes over the years 1751-1777, summarized French male
beliefs of women. A woman was a “failed man,” the fetus not fully
developed in the womb. “Women’s testimony is in general light and
subject to variation; this is why it is taken more seriously than
that of men” as opposed to men, upon whom “Nature seems to have
conferred… the right to govern.” In general, “men are more capable
than women of ably governing particular matters” . Instead, women
were taught to be committed to their husbands and “all his
interests… [to show] attention and care… [and] sincere and discreet
zeal for his salvation.” A woman’s education often consisted of
learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not
supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of
their influence was the raising of future citizens.
When the Revolution opened, some women struck forcefully, using the
volatile political climate to assert their active natures. In the
time of the Revolution, women could not be kept out of the
political sphere; they swore oaths of loyalty, “solemn declarations
of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political
responsibilities of citizenship.” Throughout the Revolution, women
such as Pauline Léon and her Society for Revolutionary Republican
Women fought for the right to bear arms, used armed force and
rioted .
Militant Feminism in the Revolution
The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant
activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of
the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was
left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man ,
activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated
for full citizenship for women. Women were, nonetheless, “denied
political rights of ‘active citizenship’ (1791) and democratic
citizenship (1793).”
Pauline Léon, on March 6, 1792, submitted a petition signed by 319
women to the National Assembly requesting permission to form a
garde national in order to defend Paris in case of military
invasion. Léon requested permission be granted to women to arm
themselves with pikes, pistols, sabers and rifles, as well as the
priveledge of drilling under the French Guards. Her request was
denied. Later in 1792, Théroigne de Méricourt made a call for the
creation of “legions of amazons” in order to protect the
revolution. As part of her call, she claimed that the right to bear
arm would transform women into citizens.
On June 20 of 1792, a number of armed women took part in a
procession that “passed through the halls of the Legislative
Assembly, into the Tuilleries Gardens, and then through the King’s
residence.” Militant women also assumed a special role in the
funeral of Marat, following his murder on July 13, 1793. As part of
the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had
been murdered as well as a shirt stained with Marat’s blood.
The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the
Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, which was founded by
Léon and her colleague, Claire Lacombe on May 10, 1793. The goal of
the club was “to deliberate on the means of frustrating the
projects of the enemies of the Republic.” Up to 180 women attended
the meetings of the Society. Of special interest to the Society was
“combating hoarding [of grain and other staples] and
inflation.”
Later, on May 20, 1793, women were at the fore of a crowd that
demanded “bread and the Constitution of 1793.” When their cries
went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, “sacking shops,
seizing grain and kidnapping officials.”
Most of these outwardly activist women were punished for their
actions. The kind of punishment received during the Revolution
included public denouncement, arrest, execution, or exile.
Théroigne de Méricourt was arrested, publically flogged and then
spent the rest of her life sentenced to an insane asylum. Pauline
Léon and Claire Lacombe were arrested, later released, and
continued to receive ridicule and abuse for their activism. Many of
the women of the Revolution were even publically executed for
“conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the
Republic”.
These are but a few examples of the militant feminism that was
prevalent during the French Revolution. While little progress was
made toward gender equality during the Revolution, the activism of
French feminists was bold and particularly significant in
Paris.
Women Writers of the Revolution
While some women chose a militant, and often violent, path, others
chose to influence events through writing, publications, and
meetings.
Olympe de Gouges wrote a
number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications
emphasized that women and men are different, but this shouldn’t
stop them from equality under the law. In her “Declaration on the
Rights of Woman” she insisted that women deserved rights,
especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and
recognition of illegitimate children. De Gouges also expressed
non-gender political views; even before the start of the terror,
Olympe de Gouges addressed Robespierre using the pseudonym “Polyme”
calling him the Revolution’s “infamy and shame.” She warned of the
Revolution’s building extremism saying that leaders were “preparing
new shackles if [the French people’s liberty were to] waver.”
Stating that she was willing to sacrifice herself by jumping into
the Seine if Robespierre were to join her, de Gouges desperately
attempted to grab the attention of the French citizenry and alert
them to the dangers that Robespierre embodied . In addition to
these bold writings, her defense of the king was one of the factors
leading to her execution. An influential figure, one of her
suggestions early in the Revolution, to have a voluntary, patriotic
tax, was adopted by the National Convention in 1789 .
Madame Roland (aka Manon or Marie
Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus
was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on
other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of
the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her
personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in
addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins,
a political group which allowed women to join. While limited by her
gender, Madame Roland took it upon herself to spread Revolutionary
ideology and spread word of events, as well as to assist in
formulating the policies of her political allies. Though unable to
directly write policies or carry them through to the government,
Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote
her political agenda. Roland attributed women’s lack of education
to the public view that women were too weak or vain to be involved
in the serious business of politics. She believed that it was this
inferior education that turned them into foolish people, but women
“could easily be concentrated and solidified upon objects of great
significance” if given the chance . As she was led to the scaffold,
Madame Roland shouted “O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy
name!” Witnesses of her life and death, editors, and readers helped
to finish her writings and several editions were published
posthumously. While she did not focus on gender politics in her
writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the
Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved
they could take an intelligent active role in politics .
Though women did not gain the right to vote as a result of the
Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political
participation and involvement in governing. They set precedents for
generations of feminists to come.
Historical analysis
The constitutional assembly failed for many reasons: there were too
many monarchists to have a republic and too many republicans to
have a monarch; too many people opposed the King (especially after
the flight to Varennes), which meant that the people who supported
the King had their reputation slashed; the
Civil Constitution of the
Clergy; and many more.
Historians disagree about the political and
socioeconomic nature of the Revolution.
Traditional Marxist interpretations, such as that presented by
Georges Lefebvre, described the
revolution as the result of the clash between a
feudalistic noble class and the
capitalist bourgeois
class. Some historians argue that the old aristocratic order of the
Ancien Régime succumbed
to an alliance of the rising
bourgeoisie, aggrieved peasants, and urban
wage-earners.
Yet another interpretation asserts that the revolution resulted
when various
aristocratic and
bourgeois reform movements spun out of
control. According to this model, these movements coincided with
popular movements of the new wage-earning classes and the
provincial peasantry, but any alliance between classes was
contingent and incidental.
A contributing factor to the Revolution was the considerable
increases in poverty in the preceding years.
Some scholars trace
this to several years of recurrent weather aberrations, caused by
the Laki
eruption of
1783 and the severe El Niño effects
that were to follow.
See also
Related pages
Other revolutions or rebellions in French history
References
- Hibbert. Pg 96.
- A recent study of El Niño patterns suggests that the poor crop
yields of 1788–1789 in Europe resulted from an unusually strong El
Niño effect between 1789 and 1793. Richard H. Grove, “Global Impact
of the 1789–93 El Niño,” Nature 393 (1998), 318–319.
- Little Ice age: Big Chill. History Channel.
- Doyle 1989, pp.73-74
- Frey, p. 3
- Hibbert, p. 35, 36
- Frey, p. 2
- Doyle 2001, p. 34
- Doyle 2001, p. 36
- Doyle 2001, p. 38
- Doyle 1989, p.89
- Neely, p. 56
- Hibbert, pp.42-45
- Frey, pp. 4, 5
- Neely, pp. 63, 65
- Furet, p. 45
- Hibbert, p. 54
- Schama 2004, p.300-301
- John Hall Stewart. A Documentary Survey of the French
Revolution. New York: Macmillan, 1951, p. 86.
- Schama 2004, p.303
- Schama 2004, p.312
- Schama 2004, p.317
- Schama 2004, p.331
- Schama 2004, p.344
- Schama 2004, p.357
- Hibbert, 93
- Doyle 1989, p.121
- Doyle 1989, p.122
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 4.
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 4.
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 16.
- John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 5.
- John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 50,
4.
- National Assembly legislation cited in John McManners, The
French Revolution and the Church, 27.
- John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 27.
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 61.
- Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution,
148.
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 92.
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 92.
- Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution,
151.
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 61.
- Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution, 92-94.
- Schama 2004, p.433-434
- Schama 2004, p.449
- Schama 2004, p.442
- Schama 2004, p.496
- Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
- Lindqvist, Herman (1991). Axel von Fersen. Stockholm: Fischer
& Co
- Loomis, Stanley (1972). The Fatal Friendship. Avon Books - ISBN
0931933331
- Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2003)
-
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/France/_Texts/CROROY/Fuite_de_Varennes*.html
- Schama 2004, p.481
- Schama 2004, p.500
- Schama 2004, p.505
- Doyle 2002, p. 196
- White, E. "The French Revolution and the Politics of Government
Finance, 1770-1815." The Journal of Economic History 1995,
p 244
- Schuettinger, Robert. "Forty Centuries of Wage and Price
Controls." Heritage Foundation, 2009. p. 45
- Bourne, Henry. "Maximum Prices in France." American Historical
Review, October 1917, p. 112.
- Doyle 1989, p. 258
- Schama 2004, p.616
- Schama 2004, p.641
- Schama 2004, p.637
- In a Corner of France, Long Live the Old
Regime, New York Times
- McPhee, Peter Review of Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The
Vendée H-France Review Vol. 4 (March 2004), No. 26
- Davies, Norman. Europe: A history Pimlico, (1997). p.
705
- Schama 2004, p.666
- Frédéric Augris, Henri Forestier, général à 18 ans,
Éditions du Choletais, 1996
- Jean-Clément Martin, Contre-Révolution, Révolution et
Nation en France, 1789-1799, Éditions du
Seuil, Points collection, 1998, p. 219
- Jean-Clément Martin, Guerre de Vendée, dans l'Encyclopédie
Bordas, Histoire de la France et des Français, Paris, Éditions
Bordas, 1999, p 2084, et Contre-Révolution, Révolution et Nation en
France, 1789-1799, p.218.
- Jean-Clément Martin, Violence et Révolution. Essai sur la
naissance d'un mythe national, éditions du Seuil, 2006, p.
181
- 117 000 according to Reynald Secher, La Vendée-Vengé, le
Génocide franco-français (1986); 200 000 - 250 000 according
to Jean-Clément Martin, La Vendée et la France, Éditions
du Seuil, collection Points, 1987; 200 000 according to Louis-Marie
Clénet, La Contre-révolution, Paris, PUF, collection Que
sais-je?, 1992; 170 000 according to Jacques Hussenet (dir.), «
Détruisez la Vendée ! » Regards croisés sur les victimes et
destructions de la guerre de Vendée, La Roche-sur-Yon, Centre
vendéen de recherches historiques, 2007, p.148.
- In a Corner of France, Long Live the Old
Regime. The New York Times. June 17, 1989
- Michel Vovelle, « L'historiographie de la Révolution Française
à la veille du bicentenaire », Estudos avançados,
octobre-décembre 1987, volume 1, n° 1, p. 61-72. [1] ou [2]
- Schama 2004, p.646
- Jean-Baptiste Carrier, Encyclopaedia
Britannica
- Schama 2004, p.658
- Schama 2004, p.689
- Schama 2004, p.706
- Doyle 1989, p.320
- Cole et al 1989, p.39
- Doyle 1989, p.331
- Doyle 1989, p.332
- Scott “Only Paradoxes to Offer” 34-35
- Encyclopedia “Woman”
- Marquise de Maintenon,“Writings” 321
- Dalton “Madame Roland” 262
- Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution Edited by Sara
E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 79
- Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution by
Olwen W. Hufton pg. 23-24
- Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution Edited by Sara
E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 79
- Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution by
Olwen W. Hufton pg. 23-24
- Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg.
89
- Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg.
23-24
- Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg.
91
- Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg.
31
- Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg.
92
- Deviant Women of the French Revolution and the Rise of Feminism
by Lisa Beckstrand pg. 17
- Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg.
25
- Gender, Society and Politics: France and Women 1789-1914 by
James H. McMillan pg. 24
- Gender, Society and Politics by McMillan pg. 24
- Deviant Women by Beckstrand pg. 20
- De Gouges “Writings” 564-568
- Mousset “Women’s Rights” 49
- Dalton “Madame Roland” 262-267
- Walker “Virtue” 413-416
- Wood, C.A., 1992. "The climatic effects of the 1783 Laki
eruption" in C. R. Harrington (Ed.), The Year Without a Summer?
Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, pp. 58– 77
- Richard H. Grove, “Global Impact of the 1789–93 El Niño,”
Nature 393 (1998), 318-319
Works cited
- Levy, Darline Gay and Harriet B. Applewhite. “Women and
Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris,” in Rebel Daughters,
ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford
University Press 1992).
- Marquise de Maintenon “Instruction to the Nuns of St. Louis,”
in Writings by Pre-Revolutionary French Women. ed. Anne R. Larsen
and Colette H Winn. (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000),
321.
- Scott, Joan Wallach. “A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer,”
in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New
York: Oxford University Press 1992).
- Walker, Leslie H. "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of
Madame Roland." Eighteenth-Century Studies, French Revolutionary
Culture (2001): 403-419.
http://0-www.jstor.org.bianca.penlib.du.edu/.
- “Women.” The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. University
of Michigan Library, n.d. Web. 10/29/09.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/>.
External links
- Open University course
- Entry on Encyclopedia.com from the Columbia
Encyclopedia
- Primary source documents from The Internet
Modern History Sourcebook
- Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French
Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and
New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History
Project (City University of New York)
- The Origins of the French Revolution, The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789-1792,
and The French Revolution: The Radical Stage,
1792-1794, three essays from The History Guide: Lectures on
Modern European Intellectual History
- Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History
Journal, 2008.
- republique.us A large collection of links