French revolution

M6L1- The French Revolution The Revolution in Politics (1775-1815) Part I- Background to Revolution

Essential Question • What social, political, and economic factors formed the background to the French Revolution?

Background to Revolution • The origin of the French Revolution has been one of the most debated topics in history.

• In order to understand the path to revolution, numerous interrelated factors must be taken into account, which include: deep social changes in France, a long-term political crisis that eroded monarchical legitimacy, the practical and ideological effects of the American Revolution, the impact of new political ideas derived from the Enlightenment, and a financial crisis created

by France’s participation in expensive overseas wars.

Caricature of the Third Estate carrying the other two estates on its back (1789).

Legal Orders and Social Reality • In 1775 France’s 25 million inhabitants were still legally divided into three orders, or estates—the clergy, the nobility, and everyone else.

• The clergy numbered about one hundred thousand, owned about 10 percent of the land, and paid only a “voluntary gift” to the government in lieu of regular taxes; moreover, the church levied a property tax (tithe) on landowners.

• The four hundred thousand nobles of the second estate were descendants of “those who fought” in the Middle Ages; they owned about 25 percent of the land and also were lightly taxed.

• Nobles continued to enjoy certain manorial rights, such as exclusive fishing and hunting rights, fees for justice, and other entitlements.

• The third estate—nearly 98 percent of the population—consisted mostly of peasants, rural agricultural workers, urban artisans, and unskilled day laborers.

“The Awakening of the Third Estate”

Legal Orders and Social Reality -Continued• A few commoners—prosperous merchants, lawyers, and officials—were well educated and rich, but they were the minority in what was a conglomeration of very different social groups united only by their shared legal status.

• Historians long focused on growing tensions between the nobility and the comfortable members of the third estate, the bourgeoisie or upper middle class, who eventually rose up to lead the entire third estate in a social revolution that destroyed feudal privileges.

• A flood of research uncovered in the late twentieth century challenged that long-accepted view and led to revised theories about the French Revolution’s origins.

• Revisionist historians see both bourgeoisie and nobility as highly fragmented and riddled with internal rivalries, rather than being strictly pitted against each other.

2nd Estate- The French Nobility

Legal Orders and Social Reality -Continued• Nor were they at odds economically: Investment in land and government service were the preferred activities of both groups.

• Until the Revolution actually began, key nobles were liberal and generally joined the bourgeoisie in opposition to the government.

• Revisionist historians also offer evidence that the Old Regime and its rigid orders had ceased to correspond with social reality by the 1780s.

• Society’s upper crust was frustrated by a bureaucratic monarchy that continued to claim the right to absolute power.

• Meanwhile, for France’s laboring poor, traditions remained strong, and life itself remained a struggle.

Louis XVI -Continued-

The Crisis of Political Legitimacy • Overlaying these social changes was a political and fiscal struggle between the monarchy and its opponents sparked by the expenses of a series of foreign wars.

• Under the duke of Orléans (1674–1723), the regent to young Louis XV (r. 1715–1774), a number of institutions retrieved powers they had lost under Louis XIV. • Perhaps the most fateful step happened when the high courts— the parlements—regained their ancient right to evaluate royal decrees publicly before they were given force of law.

• By allowing a well-entrenched and highly articulate branch of the nobility to evaluate the king’s decrees before they became law, the duke of Orléans sanctioned a counterweight to absolute power.

The Crisis of Political Legitimacy -Continued• The War of the Austrian Succession plunged France into financial crisis and pushed the state to attempt a reform of the tax system.

• In 1748 Louis XV’s finance minister decreed a 5 percent income tax on every individual regardless of social status.

• After a vigorous protest from those previously exempt from taxation, the monarchy dropped the new tax.

• The conflict reemerged after the disastrously expensive Seven Years’ War when the government tried to maintain emergency war taxes; once again the government caved in to pressure from opponents and withdrew the taxes.

• After years of attempted compromise, Louis XV appointed René de Maupeou as chancellor and ordered him to crush the judicial opposition.

Louis XV’s Finance Minister Renee Maupeou

The Crisis of Political Legitimacy -Continued• Maupeou abolished the existing parlements, exiled the vociferous members of the Parlement of Paris, created new and docile parlements, and began once again to tax the privileged groups.

• The king found his people turning against him for moral as well as political reasons.

• Madame de Pompadour, the king’s favorite mistress from 1745 to 1750, exercised tremendous influence over the king, which generated a great deal of resentment.

• Louis XV’s worsening behavior following the end of his love affair with Pompadour ate away at the foundations of royal authority.

• In the midst of this progressive desacralization of the monarchy, Louis XVI (r.

1774–1792) came to the throne and dismissed Maupeou, a move that strengthened the voice of the judicial opposition while further weakening the monarchy.

The American Revolution and Its Impact • The American Revolution had enormous practical and ideological impact on France.

• French expenses to support the colonists bankrupted the Crown, while the ideals of liberty and equality provided heady inspiration for political reform.

• The American Revolution had its immediate origins in struggles over increased taxes levied by the British in their attempt to finance the costs of the expensive Seven Years’ War. • The actual political issue came down to the British view that Americans were represented in Parliament—albeit indirectly (like most British people themselves)—and that Parliament’s supremacy could not be questioned; many colonists felt otherwise.

• A government-awarded monopoly on Chinese tea that left out colonial merchants caused a flare-up in the form of the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

The Surrender of General Cornwallis

The American Revolution and Its Impact -Continued• Britain responded with the so-called Coercive Acts, which closed the port of Boston and greatly expanded the royal governor’s power; those measures triggered vehement American protests and calls to reject the acts.

• Other colonial assemblies joined Massachusetts in denouncing concessions to the Crown and sent representatives to the First Continental Congress that met in Philadelphia in September 1774.

• The uncompromising attitude of the British government and its use of German mercenaries dissolved long-standing loyalties to the home country and rivalries among the separate colonies.

• On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, which proclaimed the natural rights of mankind and in effect universalized the traditional rights of English people.

• The French, who wanted revenge for the humiliating defeats of the Seven Years’ War, sympathized with the rebels and supplied guns and gunpowder.

The Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)

The American Revolution and Its Impact -Continued• In 1778, the French government offered a formal alliance to the American ambassador in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, and in 1779 and 1780 the Spanish and Dutch declared war on Britain, their rival in transatlantic trade.

• Catherine the Great of Russia helped organize the League of Armed Neutrality in order to protect neutral shipping rights, which Britain refused to recognize.

• Thus by 1780 Great Britain was engaged in an imperial war against most of Europe as well as against the thirteen colonies.

• A new British government decided to cut its losses, and with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain recognized the independence of the thirteen colonies and ceded its North American territory to the Americans.

• Out of the bitter rivalries of the Old World, the Americans snatched dominion over a vast territory.

The Declaration of Independence (1776)

The American Revolution and Its Impact -Continued• Europeans who dreamed of a new era were fascinated by the political lessons of the American Revolution.

• The Americans had begun with a revolutionary defense against tyrannical oppression and then had shown that rational beings could assemble together to exercise sovereignty and form a new social contract.

• More than any other country, France felt how the American Revolution had reinforced a primary idea of the Enlightenment: that a better world was possible.

• French intellectuals and publicists engaged in passionate analysis of the new U.S. Constitution—ratified in 1789—at the same time that the expense of supporting America’s revolutionary forces provided the

Financial Crisis • Thwarted by the Parlement of Paris in its efforts to raise revenues by reforming the tax system, the royal government was forced to borrow money, and the national debt soared.

• By the 1780s fully 50 percent of France’s annual budget went for interest payments on the debt, while less than 20 percent was available for productive functions of the state.

• The king was too weak to take the drastic measure of declaring partial bankruptcy.

• Unlike England and Holland, France had no central bank, no paper currency, and no means of creating credit.

Financial Crisis -Continued• Faced with imminent financial disaster in 1786, the royal government had no alternative but to try to increase taxes within a system that was unfair and out of date.

• In 1787 Louis XVI’s minister of finance proposed a general tax on all landed property, but powerful voices insisted that such sweeping tax changes required the approval of the Estates General, the representative body of all three estates, which had not met since 1614.

• In an attempt to reassert his authority, the king established new taxes by decree.

• The judges of the Parlement of Paris promptly declared the royal initiative null and void, setting off a wave of popular protest that forced Louis XVI in July 1788 to call for a spring session of the Estates General.

The Estates General

Sources Cited

• 1) – • 2) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Couder_Stati _generali.jpg • 3) – • 4) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Troisor dres.jpg/620px-Troisordres.jpg • 5)• 6) http://c3e308.medialib.glogster.com/media/97/974d731c5b0bd99f0 428238f45f7e8d5f082a79e69c9a67f64d4ddbf31f5560a/thirdestates.j pg • 7) –

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Sources Cited

9) – 10) http://biografieonline.it/img/bio/Luigi_XVI_di_Francia_1.jpg 11) – 12) – 13) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Terray,_Abb%C 3%A9_Joseph_Marie.jpg 14) – 15) – 16) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Surrender_of_Lo rd_Cornwallis.jpg 17) – 18)

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• 19) – • 20) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ 1/15/Declaration_independence.jpg • 21) – • 22) – • 23) – • 24) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ thumb/9/91/Estatesgeneral.jpg/1280px-Estatesge