France in 1789
While the condition of the common people in France at this
time was deplorable compared to the much-improved lives of the English populace,
things had actually gotten better for the French as they recovered in the two
centuries since the religious wars of the late 1500s. Under Louis XIV, the
nation had shed the vestiges of medieval feudalism and become a more modern
nation with a centralized government.
Politically, things had improved as well. There was a
greater concern for human rights. The famous Bastille, a prison which had held
many poor souls incommunicado for years, was actually almost empty by the time it
was stormed.
Perhaps the general improvement in conditions had made
people more conscious of their suffering and their poverty. Perhaps close
contact and communication with England, as evidenced by the lives and letters
of great men like Voltaire, convinced people that things could and should be
much better.
The successful revolution in America had also probably given
people ideas but the relationship between the two movements should not be
exaggerated. The liberal ideals at play in French society were present, to some
degree, in the British colonies of North America but the revolution that
occurred there was driven much more by the desire for self-government and the
righteous anger of those who resented the actions of British soldiers during
the early stages of the war.
Nevertheless, there were genuine spurs to dissatisfaction at
this time. People had perceived the leaders of the nation as bunglers ever
since the Sun King had died. Furthermore, the nation was in the grip of an
economic crisis that was not the first in a long string of financial debacles
that had characterized the century. The major issue of the moment was national debt.
Louis XVI had lowered government spending but had not been able to get the
Parlement to agree with him.
The bloodshed that was to come, though, was not due simply
to financial disagreements. Many issues had been bubbling under the surface of
French society for a long time. The desire for religious freedom, freedom of
the presses and ongoing desire to oust an apparently useless and feeble
aristocracy motivated many people to action when the moment finally appeared
propitious. That moment came when King Louis XVI, frustrated by his inability
to get Parlement to act, called for a meeting of the Estates General in 1787.
The Calling of the Estates General
In those days, after the November election of a new
government, the United States scheduled a five-month hiatus to allow for the necessary
movements and adjustments needed for new representatives and executives to take
over. Therefore, though Louis XVI had called for the Estates General in in
1787, it was not able to meet until 1789.
The Estates General consisted of representatives of the
three recognized classes of people in France. The First Estate was the clergy
of the Roman Catholic Church. The Second Estate was the nobility. The Third
Estate was the remainder of the populace whose sentiments were largely voiced
by members of the growing middle class, which had money but lacked the pedigree
of the nobility.
Representatives of these three elements of society had not
met since 1614. According to the rules of their conference, each estate voted
as a whole on any issue and two estates could overrule a third. Not
surprisingly, this made it easy for the nobility and the clergy, which constituted
a small percentage of the whole society, to ignore the wishes of the majority.
The Declaration of a National Assembly
King Louis XVI had come to power during a financial crisis
and the economic pressure had never really let up during his reign. A previous assembly
of important personages in France had failed to reach agreement about the
matters at hand. The ongoing nature of the financial issues and the long wait
between the calling of the assembly and the time it actually convened allowed a
general populace, with access to printing presses, to motivate and agitate
others about these matters.
Elections determined the representatives in the early spring
of 1789 and they met on May 5th. Twelve hundred members convened in
Versailles. Just over 600 of them were of the Third Estate. As the month
passed, they failed to agree on the matter of verification of the members. They
never arrived at a discussion of the crises that drew them together.
In June, a Catholic clergyman known as Abbe Sieyes called
for the members of the Third Estate to meet and they did so under the name
Communes, or the Commons. They invited the other estates but did not wait for
them. Soon, a majority of the clergy had joined this ad hoc legislative body and
several dozen nobles as well. The gathering became known as the National
Assembly.
The Storming of the Bastille
In tense moments, actions intended for one end can be
misinterpreted as something else entirely. King Louis XVI dismissed one of his ministers
in early July and begun restructuring his finance ministry. That and the
arrival of soldiers near the assembly spurred many common people in Paris to
revolt. By July 14th, public stability had been undermined enough
that a mob was able to take the Bastille after several hours of siege. The
commander was decapitated and his head carried out for public view on a pike. All
seven prisoners were released.
The bloody riots grew more chaotic. The mayor of the city
was ripped to pieces later that same day. The King braved the rebellious crowd
on July 17th go try to restore order. Soon, the people were crying
out Vive la Nation and Vive le Roi to their monarch bearing one of their own
tri-colore hats.
This moment of concord did not stop the spread of disturbances
and the loss of civil authority in various locations around the country. Some
people were arming themselves in support of popular sovereignty. Others,
especially among the people of rural areas, feared foreign invasion as a result
of the discord and armed themselves to defend the country.
Transition from Monarchy to Constitution
As the months passed, the government of the French nation
slowly transitioned from what had previously been recognized as an absolute
monarchy to a constitutional state. The transition was anything but peaceful
for two key reasons. First, the National Assembly spent all this time making
declarations about human rights and preparing a constitution. In the meantime,
the nation starved. Second, the Church and the nobility were not about to let
go so easily of their control over this society.
The Church had actually participated more or less willingly
in this transition. Many country priests were wholeheartedly in favor of it.
However, when the Assembly began to address economic matters in late 1789, one
of its first moves was to eliminate the right of the Church to its tithes. This
was just the first of many moves to redistribute Church assets in order to
revitalize and modernize the French economy. Resistance began to build up among
the clergy.
By July of 1790, the incremental changes in governance had
become wholesale transformations of the state. The Assembly, increasingly fractured
but still dominated by reformers, had voted to put the property of the Church
in France at the disposal of the nation. Monastic vows were abolished and monks
and nuns were encouraged to leave their orders. A new paper currency known as
assignats was circulating.
Priests were now to be paid by the state, which also took
over the former responsibilities of the Church in teaching the young and
healing the sick. Priests and bishops were to be elected by local groups and
take oaths to the new state.
This legislation was not realized throughout the nation.
Many Catholics protested this handling of the Church. In the end, only 24% of
the clergy was even willing to take the oath. The others risked banishment and
worse punishment instead.
The Execution of King Louis XVI
After 1790 became 1791, the King was not the only person in
France who feared for his position as well as his life amid the tumult of
radical change. Dressed as common servants, the King and his family fled the
Palace and attempted to reach the Austrian border on June 20th. They
were caught at Varennes and returned to the Palace, where they remained under
guard.
This disturbed surrounding monarchs and governments even
more than the prior unrest. An émigré collection of nobles was already voicing
disregard for the Assembly, which had officially transformed itself into a
constitutional monarchy by late 1791. As nations made threats both open and
covert, the French populace reacted with militarization.
All this time, Paris had been locally under the governance of
a revolutionary assemblage known as the Paris Commune. In the summer of 1792,
popular militias supported by the radical ideas of this body attacked the palace,
killed the Swiss guards and captured the King and his family. The most radical
members of the National Convention then governing the country met to support
the Paris Commune’s actions.
Threatened, the Convention declared war against Austria in
April, 1792. Prussia soon came to Austria’s aid. On September 20th,
French forces finally won a victory over the Prussians who had invaded
effortlessly that summer.
That same day, the Convention began writing a new
constitution, abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. Later, September
22nd of that year would be remembered as the first day of Year One
in the new calendar of revolutionary France.
There remained the question of what to do with the King. As
the new republic won victories in the field throughout the fall, it gained
confidence politically as well. The imprisoned monarch was perceived to be in
cahoots with these foreign powers against the French people. In January 1793,
the Convention voted by a slim majority to execute him. On January 21st,
he was guillotined.
The National Convention at War
Most European states at least expressed hostility toward the
new regime in France after the execution of Louis XVI. The year 1793 brought
many defeats and invasions of French territory. However, the allied powers were
not organized enough to take swift advantage of French disunity. In 1794, major
reversals saw revolutionary French forces regain lost territory and even conquer
Holland. By mid-1795, most of the allies had declared peace with France. Only
Britain and Austria remained technically at war with France.
The Reign of Terror
Since July 1793, the National Convention had passed wartime control
into the hands of a smaller group of men known as the Committee of Public
Safety. Led for much of this time by men such as Maximilian Robespierre, this
group was determined to root out all domestic enemies of the new regime. They
called for the beheading of tens of thousands of men and women, sometimes for
the merest suspicion of betrayal or disloyalty.
By July 1794, the leaders of the Committee had turned on one
another. Robespierre, among others, was executed by guillotine on July 28. The committee
lost influence over the next year
The Directory
A new constitution created an executive body of five men known
as the Directory. They headed a government primarily composed of 500 representatives
and 250 senators. To elect these bodies, the universal male suffrage of prior
revolutionary elections had been revised to a more limited suffrage that was
based on property.
The Revolution, though, had not come to an end. There were
few willing to vocalize desires to put Louis XVIII on the throne. The Directory
led the nation through a stormy four years that required them to use the army
to quell both royalist and more revolutionary attempts to regain control.
Eventually, this reliance on the army led to the heightened appreciation of one
of the most successful generals: Napoleon Bonaparte.
In late 1799, Napoleon led a coup which installed a ruling Consulate.
Thus began another brief but significant era in French history, which would
lead to a renewed monarchy under this Corsican soldier.
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