French Revolution (1787-99)

The French Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1789, was a transformative event in European history, one of the first in a series of events that brought about the end of absolute monarchy and religious hegemony in Europe and paved the way for constitutional monarchies and representative government. Historians have identified numerous contributing factors behind the revolution, including deepening socioeconomic disparities and growing public resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the elite social and religious classes. In addition, the new wave of political and social thought known as the Enlightenment was spreading throughout the continent, fueling interest in revolutionary opposition to the inequities of the feudal system.

Following the historic storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, much of the French populace rejected the nation’s feudal system, created and passed a declaration on human rights, and began working toward a constitution to support citizen-led government. The struggle for power among France’s divided factions led to punctuated periods of violence, which included the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793 and, later, a militant government crackdown known as the Reign of Terror that saw the imprisonment and execution of thousands of French citizens. Meanwhile, the French Revolutionary Wars developed between France’s new republican government and European nations that supported the deposed monarchy and feared that the populist revolution would spread.

The revolution ended in a military coup that brought France’s most successful military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, to power. Bonaparte conquered vast territories, helping spread the seeds of revolutionary government across Europe, until a coalition of nations collaborated to defeat him in 1815, bringing the French monarchy back to power. Though the Bourbon monarchy was returned to the throne, the spirit of the revolution lived on and inspired later uprisings, such as the July Revolution of 1830 and the French Revolution of 1848, which eventually ended France’s monarchy and brought about the transition to a democratic republican government.

Background

Prior to 1789, the French government was an absolute monarchy under the control of the Bourbon monarchy. King Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France in 1774, inheriting a nation suffering from desperate economic and class disparities. The power of the throne had been dwindling due to the increasing power of the other leading classes of the "old regime," such as the clergy of the Catholic Church (called the first estate) and the French noble class (the second estate), which consisted of landed gentry and members of the extended royal family. The commoners, merchants, and peasants (the third estate) vastly outnumbered the other estates but had few political rights or powers under the feudal monarchy.

Before the revolution, France had invested heavily in the Seven Years’ War and supported the American Revolution. Both conflicts left the government in financial peril, leading to higher taxes and reduced benefits for citizens. In addition, the Enlightenment had swept through Europe, bringing about an increased focus on education and social mobility as well as political and social reform. In France, literacy rates rose, and a more powerful middle class began to emerge, formed from merchants and commoners who were increasingly educated and wealthy enough to exert influence.

In the years leading up to 1789, several years of poor harvests deepened poverty among the agricultural sector. Between 1787 and 1789, Louis XVI’s government attempted to address growing unrest and antigovernment sentiment through a series of reforms, among them easing censorship of the press. This resulted in a vast proliferation of pro-reform pamphlets and newssheets distributed among the populace.

The Revolution Begins

In May 1789, for the first time since the 1614, the monarchy convened the Estates-General, an advisory body consisting of members representing the three estates (clergy, nobility, and commoners). In an effort to appease the third estate (the common class), nearly six hundred people were elected to represent the commoners, as opposed to three hundred each for the clergy and nobility. During the meeting, the three estates clashed over control, and the third estate declared itself a National Assembly on June 17, 1789. The monarchy attempted to prevent the third estate from continuing to meet by shutting them out of their meeting room, but the National Assembly instead convened at a nearby tennis court and signed a pledge known as the Tennis Court Oath, in which they resolved not to disband until a new constitution was adopted. Louis XVI capitulated, directing the first two estates to cooperate with the National Assembly, but he also called troops to Versailles to disperse the assembly if necessary.

The king’s decision to dismiss his liberal finance minister, Jacques Necker, who had been considered an ally of the third estate, and the increasing threat of military intervention pushed tensions to the breaking point. Protests and riots broke out around Paris, and on July 14, 1789, a militant group stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress-turned-prison that was seen as a symbol of the monarchy and the oppression of the populace.

Within a short time, the citizenry had taken control of the government, and the National Constituent Assembly, the revolutionary body formed in its wake, began working on a new constitution. The assembly’s most significant achievement was the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, released in August, a historic document that expanded the rights of women, citizens, and slaves living in France. Following an increasing period of unrest, what is now known as the Women's March on Versailles occurred in October 1789 because of riots over food shortages in the marketplaces of Paris. The resulting protest swept the city, and the thousands involved gathered weapons and marched on Versailles. The Women's March on Versailles is noteworthy for serving as the catalyst for protests at Versailles that ended with the escort of the royal family to Paris, an event that historians consider to mark the moment the balance of power shifted away from the monarchy and toward the revolutionaries.

Initially, the revolutionaries of the assembly wanted to create a constitutional monarchy with power shared between the royalty and a citizen-elected legislature. While Louis XVI might have been willing to accept these demands, the first and second estates were not amenable, as the proposals vastly limited their power. Attempts to reform the church, through the development of a document known as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in July 1790, were supported by parish priests but rejected by the pope and clergy leaders. By 1792, France’s revolutionary government stood opposed to the monarchy and its supporters and to the Catholic Church; the assembly formally declared itself the legitimate government of France on September 21, 1792, rejecting the authority of the church and deposing the monarchy.

The Revolutionary Wars

In many nations around the world, members of the populace, especially the common classes, sympathized with the goals of the revolution. However, imperial governments and monarchies feared the spread of France’s revolutionary upheaval. In the Declaration of Pillnitz, issued on August 27, 1791, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia declared their support for the French monarchy. France issued a formal declaration of war against Austria and Prussia on April 20, 1792.

Initially disorganized, France suffered defeats against Prussian and Austrian forces. A French victory at the Battle of Valmy in September 1792 and the formation of a new assembly called the National Convention gave confidence to the revolutionaries and inspired volunteers to join the war. Shortly thereafter, France occupied Belgium and the Rhineland region of Germany.

As the revolution grew, factions began developing within the National Convention. On one side were the Montagnards, led by Maximilien de Robespierre, an intellectual and lawyer who was a member of an influential club for political debate known as the Jacobin Club. The Montagnards’ primary opponents were the Girondists, a moderate faction of the National Convention who resisted radical policy and economic policy changes. One of the deepest divisions between the groups was their stances on the fate of the royal family. Over objections from the Girondists, the National Convention tried and condemned King Louis XVI and his family, executing the king on January 21, 1793, and his wife, Marie Antoinette, in October.

A new coalition between Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Spain resulted in French defeats and the loss of newly acquired territories. In the National Convention, these failures were blamed on the Girondists, who were expelled violently from the assembly. The Montagnards instituted radical economic policies that included seizing land and levying extensive taxes on the middle and upper classes. Essentially, the Montagnards wanted to eliminate inequality between the economic classes. This alienated wealthy merchants and nobles who had supported the more moderate aims of the revolution. Mass conscription further angered many French citizens, and by early 1793, uprisings were taking place across France, most notably the War in the Vendée. The Montagnards recruited a large army from among the vast lower class and were able to counter internal opposition.

In September 1793, the Reign of Terror began. It was a Montagnard crackdown on internal opposition that resulted in the arrest of tens of thousands French citizens, including Girondists and nobles. More than thirty thousand were executed, many without trial. The public ultimately turned against Robespierre and the Jacobins. Robespierre was captured and executed on July 28, 1794, and the more radical measures of the National Convention were discontinued.

The Rise of Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte, the French general who left one of the most controversial and violent legacies in the nation’s history, first came to prominence as a general of the National Convention’s revolutionary army. Bonaparte successfully defeated a resurgence of royalists known as the First White Terror in 1795. This was essentially the last stand of the royalists, and the National Convention successfully voted in a new constitution the same year. The new constitution placed executive power with five elected individuals known as the Directory and created a bicameral (two-house) legislative system to share power with the executive branch.

The Directory tried to separate itself from the violence and persecution of the Jacobins, but it continued to enforce repressive measures to maintain social control. Though the Directory initiated financial reforms, the extensive war had left the nation with deep poverty and rising food costs. The reforms failed to alleviate public dissatisfaction in time to prevent the formation of anti-Directory factions.

Meanwhile, the French armies swept across Europe with a surprising series of victories that resulted in France controlling large parts of Italy, Belgium, Holland, Austria, and Switzerland. An influx of money from captured territories strengthened the French army and increased solidarity and support of the Directory-led government. Bonaparte, who was then one of the most celebrated generals in France, was nearly captured in Egypt after heavy losses to the British navy in the Battle of the Nile in August 1798. Returning to Paris in November 1799, Bonaparte led a military coup that overthrew the Directory and installed the French Consulate, which ruled France until the establishment of the First French Empire under Napoleon in 1804.

Impact

Historians usually regard Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1799 coup as the end of the French Revolution of 1789. However, the coup led to the extensive Napoleonic Wars, which continued the transformative revolutionary development of France. Bonaparte’s initial government was vulnerable due to its military losses, but infighting within the Second Coalition, an alliance formed in 1798 that included Russia, Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples, and Austria, prevented the allies from capitalizing on France’s weakness. As a result, Bonaparte was able to regroup and form a stronger army.

Bonaparte’s forces defeated the Austrian army in 1800, forcing Austria and the Holy Roman Empire to cede victory to France, relinquish territories, and agree to engage in no further aggression. In the wake of the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), France was the dominant power in Europe, with only the United Kingdom remaining opposed to French domination. Despite France’s superiority over Britain in terrestrial strength, Britain’s powerful navy prevented a French invasion.

Bonaparte’s legendary skill as a strategist enabled the French army to win the vast majority of battles during his career. However, his disastrous attempt to invade Russia in 1812 was the beginning of his decline, resulting in devastating losses for the French. Forming a series of new coalitions, the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and their allies finally defeated France in 1814 and exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba. Napoleon briefly returned to power in 1815 in a period known as the Hundred Days, before he was ultimately defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The Bourbon monarchy was returned to power in France, with Louis XVIII taking the throne.

Though the Bourbons returned to power 1815, the citizenry did not accept a return to feudalism, and the government was forced to accept a constitutional monarchy in place of an absolute monarchy. France’s transformation from monarchy to republic was marked by back-and-forth swings between citizen power and royal or dictatorial regimes that inexorably led to France’s emergence as a representative republic in the twentieth century.

The reverberations of the French Revolution of 1789 echoed around the world. The return of royalist power did not extinguish the greater freedoms that had been won by the populist struggle. Across Europe, popular sovereignty and leadership by representation began to take hold in the wake of the revolution.

Bibliography

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