The French Revolution: Part II

• The Moderate Stage: 1789-1792

• The revolution begins but it isn’t violent…yet!

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• A meeting is called to order, attempting to solve the economic problems in France…

The meeting of the Estates General: May 5th, 1789

Voting took place by Order (One vote per Estate)

Each Estate Prepares The Cahiers

• Cahier = Notebook with a list of complaints

• Cahiers called for:– Fairer taxes– Freedom of press– Regular meetings of the Estates General

Problem with the Estates General

• Voting took place by order (each group got one vote)– Voting always ended up 2-1

• 3rd Estate wants voting by “head” = each person gets one vote.

• 3rd Estate gets upset with voting by order

• 3rd Estate declares themselves the “National Assembly”

The Third Estate gets fed up!

The Tennis Court Oath: June 20th, 1789

Members of the Third Estate meet after being locked out of Versailles.

Pledge never to disband (break apart) until a new Constitution is written.

The Tennis Court Oath

“We swear never to separate ourselves from the National Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations.”

The National Assembly(the 3rd Estate)

• Established a Constitutional Monarchy– Monarchy that is controlled by laws that are

outlined in a Constitution.

King Louis XVI accepted the new Constitution which took away some of his power.

But he planned to break apart the National Assembly as soon as he could…

Not all of King Louise XVI power is lost. He can still veto any law that is passed

by the assembly!

Meanwhile…in an attempt to solve France’s financial crisis, the newly elected government

seized the land of the Catholic Church and the land of any nobles who fled France.

The National Assembly wrote a Constitution, but…

The Revolution will soon turn violent & radical…

Money & Bread Problems

• 1788: 50%of a peasant or urban worker’s income went toward the purchase of bread.

• 1789: this figure had risen to 80%.

• To compound the situation, there was a growing fear of a plot by King Louis XVI against the National Assembly.

The Storming of the Bastille: July 14th 1789

1/4th of Paris is unemployed, bread prices went sky high and a rumor was spreading that the King’s troops were

coming back to Paris…

The Storming of the Bastille

• July 14th 1789: Hundreds (800) of people marched to the Bastille, a medieval fort and prison, to search for gunpowder.

• The Commanding officer of the Bastille refused to give over the supplies and fired on the crowd killing 98 people.

• The soldiers finally surrendered hours later, and the revolutionary crowds captured the Bastille

• This event symbolized the beginning of the French Revolution…(spontaneous revolts sprang up throughout France as the word spread)

• “Is it a revolt?”…”No, sire, it is a revolution.”

Why did the Revolution turn violent & radical?

• 1789: The peasants had become restless and violent.• As the price of bread continued to soar peasants began

to attack food convoys on their way to Paris. • The peasants also refused to pay taxes • By the end of July, the peasants began to burn down the

houses of their landlords and with them, the records of their obligations to their lords.

• A rumor began to spread that the upper class (1st estate) had organized an army to kill the peasants.

• This was only a rumor, but the Great Fear, as this episode is known, led the peasants to take arms against an imaginary enemy.

Declaration of the Rights of Man

• Written by the National Assembly• 1st Step towards writing a new Constitution

– Modeled after the Declaration of Independence.– All men are “born free and equal in rights”– “life, liberty, property, security, resistance to

oppression.”– All citizens are equal before the law.– Borrowed John Locke’s ideas.– The King was slow to accept these ideas…he

continued to send his royal troops to the city.

King Louis XVI reaction…

• At first, Louis did not accept the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

• But an angry mob would soon confront the King.

The March on Versailles: In the months following the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, unemployment and hunger increased.

On October 5th 1789 7,000 women marched the twelve miles from Paris to Versailles to demand bread…

The March on Versailles

• The 7,000 women invaded the Palace at Versailles.• Killed several guards• The King promised to give them bread immediately and

to accompany them back to Paris with his family• The heads of two nobles, stuck on pikes, led the way,

followed by the unarmed royal guards…the King and his family would never return to Versailles…

• August 4: Louis XVI approves The Declaration of the Rights of Man.

The Constitution of 1791 is finally written…remember the oath taken

back at the tennis court?• Limited the power of the Monarch

• The National Assembly (the old 3rd Estate) had power to make:– Laws– Collect taxes– Decide issues of war & peace– Required equality under the law for all male

citizens.

The King’s Secret Plan…

• Louis had made several concessions to the National Assembly, none of which he sincerely intended to keep.

• The people of Paris and the French countryside loved their king as a child loves his father.

• But on June 20, 1791, Louis XVI did something which earned him the general distrust of most French subjects. He planned to raise an army and crush the revolution.