1. The Age of Revolutions
The French Revolution

2. Remember? Louis XV Corrupt morals
“The Beloved”
Corrupt morals
Overspending, bankrupting his country
Not reforming his government – allowing the bluebloods to do whatever they wanted.

3. Louis XV Died of smallpox in 1774.
Last words: “After me, comes the flood.”

4. Louis XVI: The last “real” king of France
The wrong king for the wrong time.
Became king when only 14.
Well educated
Indecisive
Wanted to keep the old absolutism
Ancien Regime
Honest, but not up to the tasks needed to be done.
Not willing to rule like an absolute king, but not willing to share the power.

5. Louis le Denier (the Last)
Had a very sheltered childhood with his grandmother.
Kept away from the “corrupting influences” of his grandfather at Versailles.
Parents neglected the younger son.
Raised until he was eleven years old to be a Catholic priest.
Preferred working on locks and had an interest in astronomy.

6. Louis the Last
Didn’t participate in the Las Vegas-like atmosphere of Versailles.
But didn’t try to stop or control any of the “activities” at Versailles.
No efforts to reform.

7. Louis XVI’s Wife: Marie-Antoinette
The last born of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (Hapsburg).
After 16 children, her parents were not that active in her life.

8. Marie Antoinette: Growing Up
Didn’t get that good of an education.
Didn’t have that much supervision.
Wasn’t really encouraged to “grow up.”
Watched over by her mother’s “vice police” and letters from her mother about how a princess should behave.
Gave Marie Antoinette a dislike for older and wiser women.

9. Marie Antoinette
Grew up knowing she’d be married to the King of France.

10. Louis and Marie Antoinette: Disaster in the Making
Imagine turning a 14 year old girl loose as a queen in a place like Versailles.
Imagine that girl without a lot of intelligence and sense.
Imagine that girl who had had a very restrictive upbringing now loose in Versailles.
Imagine a husband that doesn’t really know how to handle her.

11. Does this sound like someone we know?

12. Louis and Marie Antoinette
NOT a good marriage.
Married in 1770
No children until 1778.

13. Marie Antoinette NEVER!
She was failing in her primary duty of being a queen.
No children!
A Hapsburg who didn’t have children?
NEVER!

14. Marie Antoinette’s Reaction to her “failure”
More excessive living!
Three day gambling sprees.
More elaborate clothes
More costume parties
More opera performances
More $$$$$$$$$$ that France didn’t have.
Scenes from the 2006 movie Marie Antoinette

15. Louis was unable and unwilling to stop Marie Antoinette’s spending
He didn’t particularly like her.
He retreated more into doing things away from his wife’s party scene.
Studying languages
Making locks
Looking at the stars
Raising more taxes to pay for his wife’s “pleasures.”

16. Marie Antoinette’s worst “folly”
Petit Trianon
Her “farmhouse” away from Versailles.
She took this getaway and tried to make it mimic how she thought peasant people lived.

17. While people in France starved:
A grown up play house.
Marie Antoinette would have her ladies in waiting dressing up like milkmaids.
Brought peasants in to be a “village” for her.
Had it so servants weren’t seen in the house.
Trap doors would open and tables loaded with food would “appear.”

18. Intervention comes in 1777
Marie Antoinette’s second brother Maximilian comes to visit.
Offered marriage counseling to both Louis and his sister.
Letters between Maximilian and his oldest brother Joseph II of Austria tell us what the problems were between Marie Antoinette and Louis.

19. 1778: Motherhood
Marie Antoinette and Louis had four children – only one survived childhood and the coming Revolution.
Marie Antoinette became a model of motherhood.
But her reputation was too fixed with people.
While she tamed down some of her wild ways – the merry-go-round of Versailles continued.

20. Can you imagine what John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson thought about France when they arrived in 1777 to get France to support our Revolution? … or Abigail?

21. Financial Troubles for Louis XVI
DEFICIT SPENDING = government spending more than it takes in.
By Louis XVI – France was BROKE.
Too many wars
Too much spending on the good life
Bad harvests and not spending any money on the people had no improvements happening.

22. Any leader’s choices when debt is too much …
Raise Taxes
Reduce Spending
Or both.
But the nobles and Church don’t want to pay taxes!
Marie Antoinette doesn’t want to trim her spending either!

23. King Louis’ “lifeline”
Jacques Necker
Became finance minister.
Proposed reducing extravagant spending at Versailles.
Reforms of government to help people.
Make the First and Second Estate pay taxes.

24. 1788: Necker is dismissed!
The nobles and Church screamed against royal “tyranny” that wanted them to pay taxes.
Bad harvests, high prices, and high taxes meant the peasants didn’t have enough food.
Food riots start happening

25. On the Eve of Revolution 1789
France was divided into three social classes (estates) during the Middle Ages.
First Estate
Second Estate
Third Estate

26. First Estate: The Clergy
The Catholic Church enjoyed enormous wealth and privilege.
Owned 10% of France and collected taxes from the people.
Paid no taxes to the king.
Upper churchmen lived like princes.
Lower churchmen did offer some social services:
Schools, hospitals, orphanages.

27. The Second Estate The Nobility Paid no taxes
Some competed for royal appointments while others were idle aristocrats.
Were still collecting rents from the lands many hadn’t seen for three generations.

28. The Third Estate Everyone else in France.
Didn’t matter if you were a successful merchant, shopkeeper, sailor, farmer, peasant, doctor, beggar.
You paid the taxes for everyone else.
BOURGEOISIE: the upper class of the Third Estate.
Bankers, lawyers, doctors, etc.

29. The Three Estates used to advise kings
Kind of a “parliament” – where they would all talk.
Louis XIII had abolished the Estates General and they had not met for 175 years.
But now King Louis XVI needed to know how to get more money.

30. The Estates General: 1789
King Louis XVI was truly shocked and mystified by all the rage that people had when they came to the Assembly.
He just wanted more money.

31. The First Estate Wants Keep their tax-free status.
Some reform-minded clerics wanted the government to give them money to help their projects for the poor.

32. The Second Estate Wants:
Nobles who had been influenced by the Enlightenment and the American Revolution wanted to end absolute monarchy and put the monarch under their control.
The Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman who served with our American Revolution, who now wanted reforms in France

33. The Third Estates Wants:
Came with Cahiers (kah YAYZ) – notebooks with all their grievances.
Fairer taxes
Freedom of the press
Regular meetings of the Estates General

34. Third Estate Wants:
Take taxes off leather so shoemakers could afford leather.
Servants wanting the right to leave service of an unfair employer.
If the servants stayed – they wanted some sort of social security for their old age.
Get rid of the “vampires” and “Bloodsuckers”?
Who?
TAX COLLECTORS!

35. Delegates arrive
Armed with lessons from the PHILOSOPHES of the Enlightenment – they wanted more than the end of the financial crisis.
They wanted reform!

36. Louis XVI: Wrong Move
Decided that only propertied men could vote.

37. How to Vote?
Usually the Estates met separately and voted and then the three came together to share their votes.
2-1 splits usually. Those would probably favor the king’s wants.
But the Third Estate said that since they were the largest population – their votes should count for 95% of France.

38. June 1789: The Tennis Court Oath
Louis locked the doors of the meeting hall and posted guards.
The reform-minded nobles, clergy and Third Estate went to the nearest big place – a tennis court – to meet.

39. The Tennis Court Oath
They all agreed to never separate and meet whenever circumstances might require until they had established a sound and just constitution.

40. 1789: The Rights of Man
Modeled on the Declaration of Independence and the English Bill of Rights.
Called for freedom and equality of all males before the law.

41. Louis XVI’s reaction? Reluctantly accepted it.
Still didn’t get how mad people were.
Didn’t know what to do – and let others take the lead.
BIG MISTAKE!

42. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams in 1776:
My Dear Friend,
“Either you ride the horse of this revolution, or it will ride you.”

43. The Storming of the Bastille
July 14, 1789
Rumors that the king was going to take over Paris and turn the guns on the people.
800 Parisians went to the Bastille – a prison and where they thought weapons were kept.
Meant to take the weapons, so they couldn’t be used against them.

44. The Storming of the Bastille
The Captain of the fortress refused to let the crowd in and ordered his men to fire on them.
They broke through the defenses and killed the captain and five guards.
No weapons were found and only a few prisoners.
And they deserved to be in prison!

45. Bastille Day French Liberation Day, celebrated every July 14.
The Bastille was everything the French hated about royal abuse.
This is where the French Revolution starts.

46. The French Revolution Unfolds: THE GREAT FEAR
Rumors that French troops were attacking villages and towns.
Rumors of French troops taking food from the poor during the terrible famine in 1789.
Rumors that the nobles meant to reimpose old taxes on the poor peasants.
None were true!

47. Inflamed by famine and fear the peasants react!
Burned chateaus
Burned records so there were no tax records to go on.
Murders of unjust nobles started.
Murders of unjust clergy began as well.

48. The Rise of the Commune Paris was also in turmoil.
A Guard of troops loyal to the National Assembly are put together by the Marquis de Lafayette.
First to wear the “tricolor”
Became the symbol of France.

49. Estates General is now called the National Assembly
Vote out the nobility on August 4, 1789
The Church is placed under State Control
Abolished papal control.
Priests served the state, not the church.
Constitution in 1791 establishes a new government.

50. Where are Louis and Marie Antoinette in all this?
October 5, 1789: Angry and hungry women in Paris marched 13 miles in the pouring rain to Versailles demanding to see the king.
They wanted bread.

51. Did Marie Antoinette say “Let them eat cake!”
Much debate if she did say that in response to a courtier telling her the women were angry because they had no bread.
Did she say it at all?
Did she mean it as eating cake?
Did she mean it as “cake” an oatmeal mixture often given to pigs?

52. The Women Take the King and Queen Prisoner
Particular hatred for Marie Antoinette.
Foreign
Stories about her extravagant lifestyle while people starved.
Her charities seemed too little too late.

53. The Women Bring Louis and Marie Antoinette back to Paris
“Now we don’t have to go far when we want to see our king.”
Forced the king to wear the tricolor.
For three years the king, queen and their two children would be prisoners in the Tuileries Palace.
The women found the king, queen and their children hiding in the king’s bedroom.

55. 1791: Louis tries to escape
Encouraged by Marie Antoinette they tried to get away.
Riding in a coach, Louis disguised as a servant and Marie Antoinette as a governess and the royal children.
They got caught when in a small town, someone recognized Louis from his coins.

56. 1791: Louis XVI
Because Louis had tried to escape – he was looked at as a traitor to the Revolution.

57. 1791: Radicals take over
Rulers in other countries feared the revolution would spread.
Catherine the Great burned Voltaire’s letters and locked up her “enemies.”
Marie Antoinette’s brother Joseph II threatened war, if France hurt his sister and brother-in-law.

58. The Radicals Don’t Care!
Radicals “sans-coullotes” take over.
Demand a republic.
Turn on moderate reformers like Lafayette as not moving fast enough.
Outlaw the Monarchy.
Declare war on other European countries.

59. Radicals execute the king
They thought that Louis XVI was working with his brother-in-law to defeat France.
Executed him with the “new” device the guillotine.
January 1793.

60. Marie Antoinette followed
October 1793, she was guillotined.

61. The Terror Comes to France
Guillotine “Etiquette”
Imprisonment
Maybe a trial

62. Execution Day Cutting hair and binding people to the tumbrils.
Two hour ride through Paris so people could see who was being executed and hurl some last insults at the condemned.

63. The Guillotine
Heads would be shown to the crowd and then dropped in baskets and bodies rolled off into other baskets.
In between crowds would come and dip handkerchiefs in blood as souvenirs and get the execution squads to sweep the blood off the platform onto them.

64. An invention by a doctor!
15,000 – 40,000 died over three years by the guillotine or dying in prisons.

65. Interesting Trivia
It became popular to make “death masks” of famous people who died.
Wax was a quick way to do this.

66. A woman got the idea to create a wax museum for the dead!
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museums are all over the world today!
Wax copies of live people as well!

67. Also: New styles from the Guillotine!
Men and women began to wear their hair short.
Women and men took to wearing red ribbons around their throats and lacing over their clothes.
Kept their necks exposed.
Had “Victims Balls” to celebrate executions or their survival.

68. Also a custom still with us:
Instead of bowing and curtseying in greeting – a quick jerk of the head became a way to say “Hello.”
Imitating the moment of decapitation.

69. Fashions Changed Too

70. Phase II of the Revolution
The Reign of Terror
1793 – 1794
France is under attack from European countries.
The people are attacking anything and anyone that appear at all pro-noble.
Food shortages and inflation.
The National Assembly is bitterly divided between Jacobins and Girondins.

71. The Rise of Robespierre in the Reign of Terror
“The Incorruptible”
Put in charge of a new “Committee of Public Safety”
Duty to create a taxing system that was fair and oversee trials and executions.
But he took his committee and made it the power of France.

72. Robespierre Cold and humorless personality.
Believed “Liberty cannot be secured, unless criminals lose their heads.”
Wanted to create a “Republic of Virtue” by using terror to get people to do what he wanted.

73. The Reign of Terror Over 300,000 were arrested and accused of crimes.
The guillotine was very busy.
Robespierre thought that this was necessary to purify the people of France.

74. The End of Robespierre
In the end Robespierre was accused of crimes and arrested.
One day trial and executed the next day in July 1794.

75. So whatever happened to Louis and Marie-Antoinette’s children?

76. Louis-Charles
(?)
After his parents tried and failed to escape he was taken away from them for “reeducation.”

77. Louis-Charles
His jailor would “sell” the boy to people that wanted to say they had hit a blueblood.
And worse happened to the eight year old boy too.
He was taught to curse his parents and that his mother had sexually molested him.
He testified about this “abuse” at her trial.

78. Louis XVII
With his father’s execution, royal sympathizers called him Louis XVII.
The Revolutionary Guards did not want another king.

79. Louis XVII – dead?
A doctor was summoned to a prison and told to do an autopsy on a young boy’s corpse.
Starvation
Multiple scars on his back, front and feet from abuse
Suffered from venereal disease
Was an alcoholic, from the damage to his liver

80. The doctor suspected who the dead boy was
He secretly removed the heart before the body was taken and thrown into a common grave with other people that had died in the prison.
He took that heart home and embalmed it and kept it hidden.

81. 1975: The doctor’s descendents offered the heart to the descendents of Louis XVI
But was it real?
There were many stories over the centuries about boys who had escaped the prison and went on to live normal lives.
Where was the “Lost Dauphin” at?

82. 2004: Technology catches up
Using Marie Antoinette’s hair that had been cut and saved as a young girl, technology let scientists compare the embalmed heart to Marie Antoinette.

83. No Doubt The heart belonged to a son of Marie Antoinette.
The heart is now buried near his parents’ grave.

84. What about the daughter?
Marie-Therese
She was 12 years old when her parents were guillotined.
When she was 13, her aunt that had stayed with her was guillotined.
A former princess, alone, in a terrible prison.

85. What happened to Marie-Therese in prison?
The records are very, very quiet.
But based on what was happening in the prison to other prisoners – abuses probably happened to her.

86. Robespierre comes to visit
There is no record of what they talked about for over an hour.
He never authorized her death warrant.

87. Uncle Joseph II comes to her rescue
Her uncle, the King of Austria, paid a ransom for her return.
At 15 she was brought to Vienna and raised by her uncle.
Could not bear to be around any Frenchman that had been involved with the Revolution or Napoleon.
Was quite uncomfortable at being touched at all.

88. Marie-Therese Married a cousin. No children
Was always wanting to be part of a family.
Spent most of her life in the shadow of her parents.
Died in 1851 and is buried in what is today Slovenia.

89. Phase III: The Rise of the Directory
Mostly bourgeoisie land owners.
Corrupt, making deals that made themselves rich, at the expense of the people.
Had many people wanting a return to royalism, Catholicism.
The Directory turned to a general to help them.

90. NAPOLEON The greatest French General. OH! WAIT!
Napoleon wasn’t FRENCH!
He was Corsican, an island in the Mediterranean that the French had taken over when Napoleon was a boy!
He spoke French with an accent and never could spell the French way.

91. Napoleon Bonaparte
In a time of revolution, smart and ambitious men (and women) can find opportunities to get ahead.
Napoleon Bonaparte was smart and ambitious.

92. Napoleon the General
In one day went from being a captain of artillery to a brigadier general.
Good at creating diversions on the battlefield to hide his real actions.
Good at using cannons to support infantry.

93. Napoleon the General
Good at using spies to discover weaknesses in the enemy.
Good at getting publicity about his successes out to the public.
Good at hiding his losses.

94. Napoleon the Politician
Made the jump to politics by becoming part of the Directory.
1799, made a deal that made the Directory just three men.
1802. Made himself First Consul and knocked out the other two Directors.

95. 1804: Crowns himself Emperor
Did away with many of the French Revolution ideas of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity”
Replaced those ideas with “Order, Security, and Efficiency”

96. Napoleon wasn’t alone in his rise to fame and power
His “Lucky Star”
Josephine
A widow who had survived the Reign of Terror.
Mixed politics with love.
Napoleon did the unthinkable – married his mistress!
And had been a number of other men’s mistresses as well!

97. Josephine and Napoleon had a “different” kind of relationship

98. Napoleon Reforms France
Restored SOME of the rights of the Catholic Church.
Won support across class lines.
Controlled prices
Encouraged new businesses
Built roads and canals.

99. Napoleon Reforms France
System of public schools – that had strict government control about what was taught.
Opened up jobs to all, based on talent.

100. Napoleonic Code: His lasting accomplishment
Created a law code that embodied the Enlightenment.
Equality before the law
Religious toleration
Abolition of feudalism
But women lost rights they had during the Revolution.
Regarded as property of their fathers or husbands.

101. 1804-1812: Napoleon Builds and Empire
Napoleon was good at always coming up with new strategy for each battlefield.
Enemies never knew what to anticipate.
“Napoleon’s presence on the battlefield was worth 40,000 troops.”

102.
Napoleon ANNEXED Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Italy and Germany, halved Prussia, and took over Poland.
Austria and Spain also became part of his new empire.

103. Securing these new parts of his empire ..
Napoleon made his brothers and sisters into kings and queens.
His family’s fortunes depended on Napoleon staying emperor.
Made his brothers and sisters loyal to him.
Viewed by many as no-class upstarts.

104. Who stood in Napoleon’s way of complete European domination?
Only England!
England’s safety depended on keeping Napoleon from getting a navy.

105. Horatio Nelson: Naval Hero that stopped Napoleon from invading England
Burned the Danish fleet rather than let Napoleon steal it
Battle of the Nile
Battle of Trafalgar
Nelson died in that battle.
Brought back to England in the “unusual way.”
Barrel of Brandy

106. Where was America at this time?
President John Adams had not wanted our country involved with Napoleon.
President Jefferson wanted our country involved with Napoleon.

107. The Louisiana Purchase
President Jefferson saw the chance to get money to Napoleon and make our country bigger.
Win-Win situation!

108. Blockade Running
American ships tried to slip by English ships blockading France to get supplies and trade with the French.
The British launched the War of 1812 to get us to stop helping Napoleon.
It worked.

109. Napoleon has troubles at home
Josephine has failed to have a child.
They have a love-hate relationship.
But she is his good luck charm.

110. Napoleon Divorces Josephine
Marries the niece of Marie Antoinette.
A Hapsburg.
Divorced Josephine in 1809
Married Marie Louise in 1810.
Had a son in 1811.

111. Napoleon by 1812
He has an heir
But he has lost his good luck charm.

112. Napoleon’s Challenges
Nationalism in conquered countries.
Not everyone wanted to become “French”
Rome, Netherlands, German states, all revolted.

113. Spain Napoleon had easily defeated the King of Spain.
But Spanish “guerillas” (little war) attacked him and kept his troops bogged down in Spain and unable to wage the war they were good at.
Both sides committed atrocities.

114. Russia Catherine the Great’s grandson had taken over.
He thought Napoleon was his “friend” and they could divide up Europe between them.
SURPRISE, ALEXANDER!!!

115. Napoleon invades Russia
600,000 men and 50,000 horses.
Russians responded with their SCORCHED EARTH policy.
Destroyed their own crops, roads, bridges so the French couldn’t use them.

116. Napoleon makes it to Moscow
But he has no food for his troops.
He begins a 1,000 mile trek back home in a Russian winter.

117. Napoleon returns to Paris
Only 20,000 men survived.
Napoleon’s reputation for success is shattered.

118. Napoleon is weak
England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia create an ALLIANCE to defeat Napoleon.
Napoleon ABDICATES and agrees to go into exile.
He only stays in exile for 15 months.

119. A new king is chosen for France
Louis XVI’s brother.
Takes name Louis XVIII.
TERRIBLE king.
Always terrified of being beheaded.
Economic collapse
Problems with who gets the land when exiles return.

120. Napoleon sees a chance to come back!
March 1815 – Paris cheers Napoleon’s return.
Soldiers return to fight again for their general.
Louis XVIII runs away.

121. Napoleon’s End: Waterloo
Napoleon only ruled for 100 days.
June 18, 1815
The English general The Duke of Wellington scrambled to put together an army to stand against Napoleon.

122. Waterloo DESPERATE one day battle between the French and the English.
The Prussians showed up at the end of the day.
Napoleon was completely defeated.
47,000 men died in one day.

123. What to do with Napoleon?
Sent him to an exile in the middle of nowhere.
South Atlantic island of St. Helena.
He never escaped.
Died of stomach cancer in 1821.

124. Napoleon’s wife and son
Napoleon wanted his son with him.
Marie Louise instead took their son and returned to her family in Austria.
Napoleon’s son died when he was 21 of tuberculosis.
Suspicions of poison.

125. Josephine? She wanted to join Napoleon in exile.
Met with Czar Alexander I to persuade him to let her go.
Wore a special outfit.
Caught pneumonia and died.

126. Napoleon and Josephine
Both of their last words were to each other.

127. Napoleon’s Legacy Was he “the Revolution on Horseback”?
Was he the traitor of the Revolution?

128. Napoleon’s Legacy Created a centralized state with a constitution.
More people had elections
More people had wealth and access to education.
The Napoleonic Code had written laws for all.
BUT:
He failed to make Europe French
He created more revolutions in the world.

129. Trying to Turn Back Time: The Congress of Vienna
1815:
European countries meet to:
Reestablish monarchies in Europe as they were in 1792.
But did put some limits on them.
Work to suppress nationalist movements of small countries.
Worked for almost 100 years.