1. The French Revolution

2. Standard: WHII.6 The student will demonstrate knowledge of scientific, political, economic, and religious changes during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries by describing the French Revolution.
Objective: SWBAT demonstrate knowledge of the scientific, political, economic, and religious changes during the French Revolution by viewing History Channel/PBS videos, completing Section Summaries from the textbook, and exploring the timeline of events through the Age of Napoleon.
Essential Question: How did the ideas of the Enlightenment contribute to causing the French Revolution?

3. Special Thanks to Ms. Stewart
The French Revolution
The French Revolution and the beginning of a new United States of America both happened in 1789

4. Liberty Leading the People

5. The French Monarchy:
King Louis XVI Queen Marie Antoinette

6. Words to Describe Them Louis XVI Weak Impressionable
_____________________________________________
Marie-Antoinette
Dominant
Manipulative
Extravagant
“He is an honest man and wishes to do good, but he has not either genius or education.”
“Louis has a queen who controls his weak mind. Her extravagance has been a major cause of exhausting the government’s finances.”

7. Europe on the Eve of Revolution

8. Key Terms
Revolution – great change over a short period of time; usually pertains to establishing a new, better form of government
Estates – the class system in pre-revolutionary France
Clergy – the Church
Nobility – the upper class
Bourgeoisie – the middle class
Peasants – the lower class; 90% of the population
Nationalism - proud loyalty and devotion to a nation or excessive/ fanatical devotion to a nation and its interests, often associated with a belief that one country is superior to all others
Estates-General – France’s legislative body
Coup d’etat – When a military government takes over a country illegally

9. Class Division: Three Estates
Clergy
1st Estate
France was divided into three classes, or estates
The First Estate: The clergy (church), were exempt from paying taxes
The Second Estate: The nobility (wealthy), held many of the leading positions in the state and did not pay any taxes
The Third Estate included everyone else from rich and educated bourgeois to poor illiterate peasants and totaled about 97 percent of the population
Nobility
2nd Estate
Everyone Else
3rd Estate

10. Causes of the French Revolution Cartoon Analysis

12. People Under the Old Regime
This image shows "the people" as a chained and blindfolded man being crushed under the weight of the rich, including both clergy and nobility. Such a perspective on the period before 1789 purposely exaggerates social divisions and would have found few proponents before the Revolution, but the image does reveal the social clash felt so intensely by the revolutionaries.

13. Causes of the French Revolution
Enlightenment Ideas
Religious Intolerance
Economic Distress
Social Injustice
Unpopular Method of Rule
Nationalism

14. Ideas of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution
Ideas for a new and better form of government:
Enlightenment Ideas
Government gets power from people
Government separated into several branches that share and check power
American Revolution
Successful revolution
Colonies broke away from England and formed a new government – democracy – based on a Constitution and Bill of Rights (no king, people are equal, people have rights and freedoms that the government must protect)
The Salon

15. Religious Intolerance
The Government of France was officially Catholic
Protestants in France (known as Huguenots) were persecuted, so they left France to find religious freedom
Huguenot refugees leaving France for Holland

16. Economic Distress The French monarchy SPENT TOO MUCH MONEY!!
Luxuries: Queen, Marie Antoinette, was especially known for her extravagance
Wars: financial support of the American Revolution led to near collapse of the French government

17. Economic Distress Continued…
BREAD!
The French ate an average of two pounds of bread/day
Poor harvests lead to high grain prices
The people were hurting economically from a rise in prices higher than any increase in wages

18. Social Injustice Who owned the land? Who paid the taxes?
The Third Estate carried the tax burden, which led to class resentment
Who owned the land? Who paid the taxes?

19. Unpopular Method of Rule
King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette clung to Absolutism, allowing a little bit of input from the First and Second Estates
The Third Estate wanted a government that would better represent their interests

20. Nationalism
The French loved their country and wanted it to become the best it could be
Many of them thought that democracy was the best way for this to happen

22. Estates General: June 1789
Louis XVI needed money so he was finally forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General, the French parliament, which had not met since 1614, 175 years!
Louis wanted to raise taxes to fund his extravagant lifestyle
The First and Second Estates wanted things to remain the same (they didn’t want to pay taxes)
The Third Estate wanted a constitutional government that would abolish the tax exemptions of the Clergy and Nobility

23. Results of the Meeting
The King upheld the traditional voting method of one vote per state
The Third Estate reacted by calling itself a National Assembly and decided to draft a constitution
Tennis Court Oath: The Third Estate took an oath (promised) that they would continue to meet until they had finished drafting a constitution

24. Storming the Bastille: July 14, 1789
The Bastille, an armory and prison in Paris, was a symbol of years of abuse by the French monarchy
The commoners stormed and dismantled the Bastille looking for gunpowder and to free political prisoners – they killed the commander and freed the prisoners
The soldiers in and around Paris refused to stop the attach, showing that King Louis had lost control of the army
This demonstration of empowerment was a wake-up call to Louis XVI and posed a challenge to the existence of the monarchy
This action became the “SPARK” of the French Revolution

25. Awakening of the Third Estate
With the Bastille being destroyed in the background, a member of the Third Estate breaks his shackles. Here, the clergy and nobility recoil in fear, thereby emphasizing the conflict between the estates.

26. Declaration of the Rights of Man & the Citizen
August 26, 1789: The National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
Modeled in part by the American Declaration of Independence
Declared that men are born free and remain free and equal in rights
Emphasized rights to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression
Called for an end to exemptions from taxation

27. Women’s March on Versailles October 5, 1789
Thousands of Parisian women armed with pitchforks, swords and muskets marched to the palace
The target of their anger was the Queen and the lack of Bread: “We want the baker and the baker’s wife!”
The Women’s March was one of the turning points of the French Revolution:
Showed that the peasants of the Third Estate were a force to be reckoned with
Showed that women could be a driving force in history

28. The Constitution of 1791
Adopted by the Legislative Assembly, the Constitution established a new government
Set up a limited monarchy in place of the absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries
The Legislative Assembly had the power to make laws, collect taxes, and decide on issues of war and peace
Lawmakers would be elected by tax-paying male citizens over age 25

29. Under duress, Louis XVI “Accepts” the Constitution and the National Assembly
Signaled the end of the power of the monarchy in France

30. Imprisonment of the King
At first, the King seemed inclined to work with the Revolution and try to solve the problems; however, the influence of the Queen and courtiers was too strong
King Louis was encouraged to disregard all promises he had made and flee from France in order to gain aid from Austria to end the Revolution
August 10, 1792: Learning of Louis’ intentions to betray his people, the people of France stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris where the King and his family were staying
The royal family was arrested and imprisoned at the Tour du Temple

31. End of the Monarchy
This event signified the end of the monarchy in France and started the official trial of the king
The next day, the monarchy was abolished and France was declared a republic
The French Revolution was about to enter a more radical phase

32. The Guillotine Decapitation machines had been used throughout history
Beheading had been reserved for the nobility as a humane way to die
Traditional methods like the sword or axe could prove messy and difficult, especially if the executioner missed or the prisoner struggled; a machine would not only be fast and reliable, it would never tire

33. Guillotine Video

34. Fate of the King
King Louis XVI was put on trial as a traitor of France and found guilty
On January 21, 1793, he died by guillotine

35. Marie Antoinette Executed October 16, 1793
Marie Antoinette was tried, convicted of treason and executed by guillotine nine months after her husband; she was only 37
Marie Antoinette on the way to the guillotine. Pen and ink by Jacques-Louis David

36. The Move to Radicalism
After a National Convention in 1792, power went to the sans-culottes (French for ‘without knee-breeches’)
Led by the minister of justice, Georges Danton, the sans-culottes sought revenge on those who had aided the king and resisted the popular will
Thousands of people were arrested and massacred
The sans-culottes were made up of working people and the poor, as well as merchants and artisans who were the elite of their neighborhoods

37. A Foreign Crisis
The execution of the king outraged European monarchies
Spain, Portugal, Britain, and other monarchies formed a loose coalition to invade France
To respond, the National Convention formed the 12-member Committee of Public Safety, led first by Danton and then by Maximilien Robespierre, to defend France against foreign enemies
Under the Committee of Public Safety, France defeated its foreign foes by the summer of 1794

38. Committee of Public Safety
In addition to defending against foreign threats, the Committee of Public Safety also worked to defend France from domestic threats
The Committee took steps to control France and bring order
Enemies of the Revolution would be quickly tried and guillotined
A man and his family might go to the guillotine for saying something critical of the revolutionary government; even neighbors would turn each other in

39. Maximilien Robespierre
Robespierre was a lawyer and activist, so known for his honesty that he was called “The Incorruptible”
He followed Rousseau’s ideas in The Social Contract, and he believed that anyone who would not submit to the general will as he interpreted it should be executed
Robespierre was obsessed with ridding France of its domestic enemies
He was not able to remain “Incorruptible” given his persecution of his “enemies”: it appears that absolute power did finally corrupt him

40. The Reign of Terror:
Robespierre’s attempt at ridding France of it’s domestic and foreign enemies
Lasted from September July 1794
Some estimates say that 40,000 or more people were killed during The Terror (more than 12,000 by guillotine and many others were shot, drowned, or put to death by other means)

41. Arrests During the Terror

43. The National Razor
The last guillotine execution in France was in 1939!

44. Comments about Robespierre
“The bastard isn’t satisfied with being the boss; he’s got to be God as well.” – A sans-culottes
“…dictatorship…he believed, was the only way to stop the spread of evil.” – Bertrand Barere 1832 (he sat on the Committee with Robespierre)
“…a depraved monster of small talent.”
– A government official

45. Thermidor Reaction:
A revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror
It was triggered by a vote of the Committee of Public Safety to execute Robespierre and several other leading members of the Terror
This ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution

46. Death of Robespierre
Many deputies of the National Convention feared Robespierre and believed that the Terror had gone too far
Robespierre was arrested and tried
He was guillotined on July 28, at age 36
After Robespierre’s death, the Terror ended, and the more radical members lost power

47. Execution of Robespierre

48. The government of France 1795 to 1799
The Directory
The government of France
1795 to 1799

49. The Directory: 1795 to 1799
The National Convention created a new Constitution reflecting the desire for stability
It aimed at preventing one government group from gaining too much control through a separation of powers
The constitution called for a two-chamber legislature and gave one chamber the power to propose laws and the other the power to accept or reject them
Characteristics:
Five elected directors acted as the executive committee, or Directory, of France
The period of the Directory was one of government corruption
The Directory faced political enemies from both royalists and radicals
It could not solve the country’s economic problems (lack of money, food shortages)
The Directory relied more and more on military might to stay in power
On Nov. 11, 1799, a coup d’état – a sudden overthrow of the government–led by the popular general Napoleon Bonaparte, toppled the Directory
Napoleon took power

50. The Impact of the French Revolution
The French Revolution became the model for revolution in the modern world and left a powerful legacy for world history: secular society, nationalism, and democratic ideas
The power of nationalism was first experienced during the French Revolution and it is still powerful in existing nations and emerging nations today
The French Revolution spread the principles of liberty and equality, which are held dear by many nations and individuals today

51. American, French, and Haitian Revolutions
Similarities The American, French, and Haitian revolutions drew inspiration from Enlightenment ideas. The French and American determination for independence was due to financial struggles in the government. In America the Tea Act, Sugar Act, etc. raised the taxes on certain necessities, and the French government raised taxes on the nobility class when they could no longer raise enough from the peasantry. The Americans and the French both organized assemblies of the people. The French having the National Assembly and the Americans having the Continental Congress. The American and French revolutions both helped to establish some sort of constitution or declaration The French policy supported North American colonists against British rule and they both prepared the way for a violent political and social revolution against the Haitians. Differences The Americans wanted independence from British rule, but still wanted to keep British law, while the French wanted to completely redesign political, social, and cultural structures. Although the Haitians based their goals of sovereignty off of the Enlightenment concepts, the people striving for independence themselves were different: instead of free white men/women, they were slaves. In the Haiti the revolution was led by a single man: Toussaint L’Ouverture. In America and France the revolutions were led by groups of people; The Continental Congress and The National Assembly respectively. The Haitians' revolutionary success was more prominent than that of France because they destroyed slavery in Haiti and became the second independent republic in the western hemisphere. Unlike America and Haiti, France was incapable of maintaining a government institution, allowing Napoleon Bonaparte to seize control. The Haitian and American revolutions were successful in achieving their goals while France's completely new society failed. 51

52. Timeline of Events
1774- Louis XV died leaving an even bigger debt from all of the wars France was in during his reign.
1789- French peasants were mad because of an unfair tax system and a poor harvest in 1788.
May 5, Louis XVI called Estates-General to a meeting in Versailles to approve a tax plan.
June 17, The Third Estate declared themselves the National Assembly and made the Tennis Court Oath.
July 14, The people of Paris stormed Bastille. August 4, The National Assembly announced the end of feudalism and serfdom in France.
August 27, The National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
October 5, Paris women invaded Versailles.
1790- The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was passed.
1791-The Constitution of 1791 was adopted.
June 20, 1791-Louis XVI and his family tried to flee France but were arrested.
April 20, France declared war on Austria.
September 1792-The National Convention held their first meeting.
January 21, Louis XVI sentenced to the guillotine.
August A national draft called for all able-bodied men to join the army.
September 1793 to July The Reign of Terror court sentenced 20,000 to 40,000 people to death.
July 27, The National Convention arrested Robespierre.
July 28, Robespierre was beheaded.
1795- A new Constitution was adopted.
1799- The Directory fell and ended the French Revolution.