French_Revolution

Yunus Broughton French Revolution The Origins of the French Revolution 1) Introduction What are the various movements in the opening phase of the revolution' Georges Lefebvre saw in the years 1787-9 not one revolutionary movement but four. First came the revolution of the aristocracy, which sought to defend its privileges and even extend them. Through the Parlements and the Assembly of Notables, it resisted attempts by the Crown to reduce its taxation privileges. It was the aristocracy who demanded the calling of the Estates-General and it was this what led to the second revolution, that of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie had supported the aristocracy and its opposition to 'ministerial despotism' until September 1788, when the Parlement of Paris said that the Estates-General should be formed as it was when it last met in 1614. This would mean that the two privileged orders would be able to out-vote the Third Estate would not accept this and so began a struggle against the aristocracy. They sought equality and this involved destroying the privileges of the nobility and the Church and setting up a system where promotion to high office was according to merit, not birth, where all paid taxes on the same basis and where the law was the same for all. The Revolution of 1789 was, above all else, the struggle for equal rights. In its struggle against the King and the privileged orders - for the two had now combined to resist the bourgeois assault - the bourgeoisie needed the support of the Paris populace. In July the Crown attempted to use force to dissolve the National Assembly but was prevented from doing so by the raising of the 'menu peuple' the artisans and workers of Paris, which culminated in the fall of the Bastille. This saved the National Assembly and ensured the success of the Revolution. This third revolution, the popular revolution, arose from the economic crisis which had seen the price of bread rise to its highest point of the day the Bastille fell, 14 July 1789. Meanwhile, a fourth revolution, that of the peasants, was taking place. This had begun in the spring of 1789 and sought the abolition of seigneurial dues and labour services. Like the popular revolt, the peasant revolution resulted from the economic crisis and the bad harvest of 1788. 2) The Financial Crisis. What was the nature and extent of the financial crisis' The most important of the immediate causes of the French Revolution was the financial deficit that was being amassed by the state. On 20 August 1786, Calonne, the Controller-General, told Louis XVI that the government was on the verge of bankruptcy. Revenue for 1786 would be 475 million livres, while expenditure would be 587 million livres, making a deficit of 112 million, almost a quarter of the total income. A much more detailed and alarming picture of the situation is provided in the Treasury Account of 1788, which has been called the first and the last budget of the monarchy. The Account reveals that in 1788 Government expenditure totalled more than 629 livres, against an income of 503 million livres. The deficit had increased in two years to 126 million – 20 per cent of total expenditure. Out of total expenditure, the government allocated 12 million (under 2 per cent of the total) to public education and poor relief, 165 million (26 per cent of the total) to the military, but the debt obligation consumed a massive 318 million livres (over 50 per cent of the budget). It was anticipated that for 1789, receipts would amount to only 325 million livres and that interest payment on the deficit would amount to 62 per cent of the receipts. Why was there a deficit and a financial crisis in France' Two factors are significant in helping to explain this. Firstly, between 1740 and 1783, France was at war for 20 years, first in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48), then the Seven Years War (1756-63) and finally the American War of Independence (1778-83). It has been estimated that the cost of helping the American colonists defeat the British government was approximately 1066 million livres. This was mainly financed by loans, and in itself did not necessarily lead to revolution. Britain was also heavily in debt and her tax burden per head was three times heavier than in France. The difference was that in Britain Parliament guaranteed loans, whereas in France there was no such representative body to give confidence to lenders. Secondly, the Crown was not receiving much of the money collected in taxes, and until it recovered control of its finances, no basic reforms could be carried out. The privileged classes, whose incomes from property had increased, were an untapped source of revenue which the crown needed to access. There would be powerful resistance to any change in the taxation structure from those with a vested interest in retaining the status quo. 3) The Aristocratic Revolt. Why did the French aristocracy revolt' How serious was the opposition' The result of the King's high-handed actions was an aristocratic revolt, the most violent opposition that the government had yet met. There were riots in some of the provincial capitals where the parlements met, such as Rennes in Brittany and Grenoble in Dauphine. In all parts of the country nobles met in unauthorised assemblies to discuss action in favour of the parlements. An assembly of the Clergy also joined in on the side of the parlements, breaking its long tradition of loyalty to the Crown. In condemned the reforms and voted a 'don gratuit' (gift) of less than quarter the size requested by the Crown. How serious was all this opposition' It was restricted to a few places, which were far from Paris and from each others. The actions of those protesting were unco-ordinated. In Paris there was no popular support for the nobles revolt. Had they been given time, the new courts would probably have work efficiently. It was likely that the trouble would have passed away, as it had done in the early 1770s, when the Parlement of Paris had been exiled and new court set up. What prevented this from happening was the collapse of the government's finances. Financiers were no longer willing to lend money to the government, owing to the economic crisis and Lamoignon's(the counsel of defence of Louis XVI) edicts. At the beginning of August 1788 the royal treasury was empty. Brienne (the finance minister) agreed that the Estate-General should meet on 1 May 1789 and he suspended payments from the royal treasury – the Crown was bankrupt. He realised that only one man could restore government credit and so he persuaded the King, who was reluctant, to recall Jacques Necker(the ex Director-General of Finance). Brienne then resigned, as did Lamoignon. Necker returned to office and made it clear that, apart from raising loans to allow the government to function, he would do nothing until the Estate-General had met. He abandoned the reforms of Lamoignon and recalled the Parlement. The King had been compelled to abandon the reforms of his ministers and to accept the calling of a representative body, the Estate-General. In 1787 the then navy minister, Marquis de Castries, had perceptively told the King, 'As a Frenchman, I want the Estates-General, as a minister I am bound to tell you that they might destroy your authority'. 4) Social Problems. What was the Social causes towards the Revolution' Social problems were also a major factor that brought about the French Revolution. In the 18th century, France was a feudal country with class divisions. People were divided into three estates. The First Estate consisted of the clergy. The Second consisted of the nobility, and the Third included the bourgeoisie, the city workers and the peasants. The state you belonged to decided your power and rights. The first estate was made up of 1% of the people and owned 10% of the land in France. The second estate consisted of 2% of the people and owned 35% of the land. The third estate held 97% of the people who owned 55% of the land. The people-to-land proportion was unjust looking at the amount of people in each estate. The third estate held very little land compared to the amount of people it had. It was overcrowded. The first and the second estate were the privileged classes. They clergy and the nobility were exempt from many taxes. They had to pay about four-fifths of their income on tax. They also needed to pay the land tax: also the taxes on property, roads, and salt. The third estate was the most discontented class. The bourgeoisie were well educated. They were strongly influenced by the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau who attacked the injustices of the time. Rousseau believed that people are basically good but become corrupted by society. In an ideal society, people would make the laws and would obey them willingly. Probably the most famous of the philosophers was Francois-Marie Arouet who took the name Voltaire. He used biting wit as a weapon to expose the abuses of his day. He targeted corrupt officials and idle aristocrats. With his pen, he battled inequality, injustice, and superstition. He detested the slave trade and deplored religious prejudice. They resented the privileges of the nobility and wanted a larger role in state affairs. City workers were angry because their wages were not enough to buy goods when prices were going up rapidly. The peasants made up 80% of the population and had to pay heavy taxes. In his book The French Revolution, Albert Mathiez states that the Revolution was caused by the middle classes. The working classes weren't able to control or start the Revolution. They were just starting to learn how to read. French peasants were subject to certain feudal dues, called banalities. These included the required used-for-payment of the lord's mill to grind grain and his oven to bake bread. The lord could also require a certain number of days each year of the peasant's labour. Peasants were targeted by society. They couldn't do anything on there own or try to fight back. 5) The Economic Crisis. What impact did the economic crisis have on the outbreak of the revolution' In the late 1770s a depression began which affected the whole economy, apart from the colonial trade. Wine prices collapsed because of overproduction. This was disastrous fro many peasants, for whom wine was an important cash crop. Poor harvests happened more frequently – in 1778-9, 1781-2 and 1785-6. In 1788 there was a major disaster. There was a very wet spring and freak hailstones in many areas in July resulting in a very poor harvest. A bad harvest in a pre-industrial society always led to massive unemployment, as the resulting rise in the price of food led to less demand for manufactured goods, at a time when both peasants and urban workers needed employment more than ever to cope with the higher prices. Textiles, which accounted for half of industrial production, were particularly badly hit. They were already affected by the Eden Treaty of 1786, which came into operation in May 1787 and allowed imports of English goods, including textile industries fell by 50 per cent in 1789. In normal times a worker spent up to 50 per cent of his income on bread. In August 1788 the price of a 1.8 kg loaf was 9 sous ( 1 Livre = 20 sous ) by March 1789 it had risen to over 14 sous per loaf. By the spring of 1789 a Parisian worker could spending 88 per cent of his wages on bread. On 28 April the house and factory of a prosperous wallpaper manufacturer, Reveillon, were set on fire, as it was rumoured that he was going to reduce wages. But this riot was more than a protest against wages. At least 50 people were killed or wounded by troops. The situation was therefore very volatile when the Estates-General met. Economic issues (the price of bread and employment) were, for the first time, pushing France towards revolution, and had created discontent which could be used by political groups to bring crowds on to the streets to save the National Assembly. The economic crisis contributed to the emergence of a 'popular movement', of discontented workers and small traders. 6) The Revolt in Paris – the storming of the Bastille. What was the significance of the storming of the Bastille' In late June, journalists and politicians established a permanent head quarters in the Palais Royal in Paris, home of the Duc d'Orleans. Here, thousands gathered each night to listen to revolutionary speakers. It was the Palais Royal that directed the popular movement. By 11 June, Louis XVI had about 30,000 troops round Paris and Versailles and felt strong enough to dismiss Necker, who was at the height of his popularity and regarded as the people's chief supporter in the government. The deputies, alarmed, thought that Louis would dissolve the Assembly and arrest its leading members. When news of Necker's dismissal reached Paris the next day, Parisians flocked to the Palais Royal, where speakers called on them to take up arms. A frantic search began for muskets and ammunition. On the same day crowds of poor Parisians attacked the hated customs posts, which surrounded Paris and imposed duties on goods, including food, entering the city. Out of 54 posts, 40 were destroyed. This action had not been planned but it frightened the respectable citizens of Paris, who feared that attacks on property and looting would follow. To gain control of the situation and prevent the indiscriminate arming of the population the Paris electors (representative of the 60 elector districts which had chosen the deputies to the Estates-General) set up a committee to act as a government of the city. They formed a National Guard or citizens militia, from which most workers would be excluded. It had the double purpose of protecting property against the attacks of the 'menu peuple' and of defending Paris against any possible attack by royal troops. It was these electors and the supporters of the Duc d'Orleans who were to turn what had begun as spontaneous riots into a general rising. A) The fall of the Bastille. Their search of weapons took Parisians to the Invalides, an old soldiers retirement home which also served as an arsenal, where they seized over 28,000 muskets and 20 cannon. They were still short of gunpowder and cartridges, so they marched on the fortress of the Bastille. This imposing royal prison was a permanent reminder of the power of the ancient regime. The government could have used its troops to crush the rising but they were proving unreliable. By late June many French Guards, who worked at various trades in Paris in their off-duty hours and mixed with the population, were being influenced by agitators at the Palais Royal. Discipline in this elite unit deteriorated rapidly. As early as 24 June two companies had refused to go on duty. By 14 July, 5 out of 6 battalions of French Guards had deserted and some joined the Parisians besieging the Bastille. There were 5,000 other troops nearby, but the officers told their commander that they could not rely on their man. Troops were removed from the streets of Paris to the Champ de Mars, where they did nothing. The crowd outside the Bastille were denied entry. The governor de Launay refused to hand over any gunpowder. There was no intention to storm the fortress, although a group managed to enter the inner courtyard. De Launay ordered his troops to open fire on them, Parisians were killed. French Guards supporting the crowd, using cannon taken from the Invalides that morning, overcame the defenders. De Launay was forced to surrender. He was murdered and decapitated by an enraged crowd. Those who had taken part in the attack on the Bastille were not wealthy middle class but sans-culottes. At the height of the rebellion about a quarter of a million Parisians were under arms. This was the first and most famous of the 'journess', which occurred at decisive moments during the course of the revolution. The event in Paris on 14 July had far-reaching results. The King had lost control of Paris, where the electors set up a Commune to run the city and made Lafayette commander of the National Guard. The Assembly (which on 7 July had taken the name of the National Constituent Assembly) began to draw up a constitution safe from the threat of being dissolved by the King. Real power had passed from the King to the elected representative of the people. Louis was no longer in a position to dictate to the Assembly, because he could not rely upon the army. 14 July is a strong candidate for the day on which the French Revolution began. It was a great psychological and symbolic turning point, for it made apparent something that had been true since May, the old absolute monarchy of France was dead. Unless imposed by foreign arms, there could now be no reversal of the fact that the National Assembly shared power with the King. When news of the Fall of Bastille spread through France, the peasant revolution, which had already begun, was extended and intensified. The revolt of Paris also led to the emigration of some nobles, led by the King's brother the Comtre d'Artois, 20 000 fled abroad in two month. On 17 July the King journeyed to Paris, where the people gave him a hostile reception. Louis recognised the new revolutionary council – the commune – and the National Guard, and wore in his hat the red, white and blue cockade of the Revolution (red and blue – the colours of Paris, were added to the white of the Bourbons). The significance of the King's humiliation was not lost on foreign diplomats. The British ambassador, the Duke of Dorset, wrote: '' The greatest Revolution that we know anything of has been effected with the loss of very few lives. From this moment we may consider France as a free country, the King a limited monarch and the nobility as reduced to a level with the rest of the nation''. Governor Morris, later the US ambassador to France, told George Washington: '' You may consider the revolution to be over, since the authority of the king and the nobles has been utterly destroyed''. B) The Municipal Revolution. As a consequence of the revolt of Paris the authority of the King collapsed in most French towns. His orders would now be obeyed only if they had been approved by the Constituent Assembly. Citizens militias were set up in several towns, such as Marseille, before the National Guard was formed in Paris, and in some other towns revolutionaries seized power before they did so in the capital. However, most provincial towns waited to hear what had happened in Paris before they acted and this could take up to a fortnight. 'The Parisian spirit of commotion', wrote Arthur Young from Strasbourg on 21 July, 'spreads quickly'. Nearly everywhere there was a municipal revolution in which the bourgeoisie played a leading part. This took various forms. In some towns the old council merely broadened its membership and carried on as before. In Bordeaux the electors of the Third Estate seized control, closely following the example of Paris. In most towns, including Lilie, Rouen and Lyon, the old municipal corporations were overthrown by force. In nearly every town a National Guard was formed which, as in Paris, was designed both to control popular violence and prevent counter-revolution. Nearly all intendants abandoned their posts. The King had lost control of Paris and of the provincial towns. He was to lose control of the countryside through the peasant revolution. 7) The Peasant Revolution. To what extent did the peasantry make gains during 1789' A) The Rural Revolt and the Great Fear The peasants played no part in the events which led up to revolution until the spring of 1789. It was the bad harvest of 1788 which gave them a role, because of the great misery and hardship in the countryside. Most peasant had to buy their own bread and were, therefore, badly affected by the rise in the price of bread in the spring and summer of 1789. Many also suffered from the unemployment in the textile industry, as they wove cloth in order to survive. From January 1789 grain convoys and the premises of suspected hoarders were attacked. This was normal in times of dearth and would probably have died out when the new crops was harvested in the summer. What made this food riots more important than usual were the political events which were taking place. The calling of the Estates-General aroused general excitement amongst the peasants. They believed that the King would not have asked them to state their grievances in the cahiers if he did not intend to do something about them. The lieutenant-general of the Saumur district commented: '' What is really tiresome is that these(electoral) assemblies have generally believed themselves invested with some sovereign authority and that when they came to an end, the peasants went home with the idea that henceforward they were free from tithes, hunting prohibitions and the payment of seigneurial dues''. The fall of Bastille also had a tremendous effect in the countryside. Risings immediately in Normandy and Franche Comte. Demonstrations and riots against taxes, the tithe and feudal dues spread throughout the country, so that it appeared that law and order had collapsed everywhere. On the great estates of the Church and other landowners were storehouses of grain, which had been collected as rents, feudal dues and tithes. In the spring and summer of 1789 they were the only places where grain was held in bulk. Landlords were regarded as hoarders and their chateaux were attacked. They were also attacked because that is where the terriers listing peasant obligations were kept. On 28 June the President of Grenoble parlement wrote: ''There is daily talk of attacking the nobility, of setting fire to their chateaux in order to burn all their title-deeds. In cantons where unrest has been less sensational, the inhabitants meet daily to pass resolutions that they will pay no more rent or other seigneurial dues but fix a moderate price for their redemption and lower the rate of the lods; endless hostile projects spring from that spirit of equality and independence which prevails on men's minds today''. Hundreds of chateaux were ransacked and many were set on fire but there was remarkably little bloodshed – landowners or their agents were killed only when they resisted. The attack on the chateaux was caught up in what became known as the Great Fear, which lasted from 20 July to 6 August 1789. It began in local rumours that bands of brigands, in the pay of the aristocracy, were going to destroy the harvest. The peasants took up arms to await the brigands and when they did not appear, turned their anger against the landlords. The Great Fear spread the peasant rising throughout most of France. Some areas on the periphery, such as Britanny, Alsace and the Basque region, were unaffected. B) The August Decrees. The Assembly was in a dilemma. It could not ask the King's troops to crush the peasants, because afterwards they might be turned against the Assembly itself. Yet they could not allow the anarchy in the countryside to continue. This could be ended and the support of the peasants gained for the Assembly and for the Revolution, by giving them at least part of what they wanted. On 3 August leaders of the 'patriot' party drew up a plan for liberal nobles to propose the dismantling of the feudal system. On the night of 4 August the Vicomte de Noailles, followed by the Duc d'Auguillon, one of the richest landowners in France, proposed that obligations concerned with personal servitude should be abolished without compensation, these included serfdom and the corvee. Other rights such as 'champart' and 'lods et ventes' were regarded as a form of property and were to be redeemed (paid for by the peasant). But these were the dues which affected the peasant most severely, so there was little satisfaction in the countryside with the limited nature of the reforms. These proposals were given legal form in the decrees of 5-11 August, which began: The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely. It decrees that, as regards feudal rights and dues. Those relating to personal serfdom are abolished without compensation, all the others are declared to be redeemable and the rate and mode of redemption will be determined by the National Assembly. Those of the aforementioned rights which are not abolished by this decree will continue to be collected until their owners have been compensated. All seigneurial courts are abolished without any compensation. Amid great excitement, the example of Noailles and Auguillon was followed by other noble deputies, who queued up to renounce their privileges in a spirit of patriotic fervour. The changes proposed went far beyond what had been proposed in the cahiers. All forms of tithe are abolished, subject to making alternative provision for the expenses of divine worship, payment of priest, poor relief etc, to which they are at present allocated. Venality of judicial and municipal officers is abolished with immediate effect. Justice will be administered without charge. Financial privileges, whether relating to persons or to land, in matters of taxation are abolished for all time. Payment will fall on all citizens and all lands, in the same manner. Since a national constituent and public liberty are more advantageous to the provinces than the privileges which some of them enjoy and which must be scarified for the sake of the intimate union of all the parts of the empire, it is declared that all the special privileges of the provinces, principalities, pays, cantons, towns and village communes, are abolished forever and assimilated into the common rights of all Frenchmen. All citizens, without distinction of birth, are eligible for all offices and dignities, whether ecclesiastical, civil or military. When the Assembly adjourned at 2 am on 5 August the deputies were weeping for joy. One of the deputies Duquesnoy exclaimed 'What a nation! What glory. What honour to the French!'. Bailly, the Mayor Paris, in his account of the session, stressed the revolutionary nature of the decrees: ''Never before have so many bodies and individuals voted such sacrifices at one time, in such generous terms and with such unanimity. This has been a night for destruction and for public happiness. We may view this moment as the dawn of a new revolution, when all the burdens weighting on the people were abolished and France was truly reborn. The feudal regime which had oppressed the people for centuries was demolished at a stroke and in an instant. The National Assembly achieved more for the people in a few hours than the wisest and most enlightened nations had done for many centuries''. Some writers did not share Bailly's views regarding the reforms. The journalist Marat was less than enthusiastic. In this paper L'Ami du people (21 September 1789) Marat told his readers that: ''The National Assembly has passed a number of decrees which have been praised to the skies. If these sacrifices were dictated by benevolence, then we must agree that they waited a long while before it raised its voice. It is by the light of the flames of their burning chateaux that they have found the greatness of spirit to renounce the Privilege of keeping in fetters (chains) men who have already recovered their liberty by force''. How important were the August Decrees' They marked the end of noble power and the privilege of birth by establishing a society based on civil equality. All Frenchmen had the same rights and duties, could enter any profession according to their ability and would pay the same taxes. Of course, equality in theory was different from equality in practice. The career open to talent benefited the bourgeoisie rather than the peasant or worker, as they lacked the education to take advantage of it. Nevertheless, French society would never be the same again – the old society of orders had gone. The peasants – the vast mass of the population- were committed to the new regime, at least in so far as it removed their feudal obligation. They did not like having to compensate landowners for the loss of their feudal dues. Many stopped paying them, until they were finally abolished without compensation in 1793. Some, in areas such as Britanny and the Vendee, were to become active opponents of the Revolution, but for most of them the Revolution marked the end of the feudal system and they feared that if they did not support it, aristocratic privilege and the tithe would return and they would lose all they had gained. The August Decrees had swept away institutions like the provincial estates and cleared the way for a national, uniform system of administration. As most institutions had been based on privilege, the Assembly now began the laborious task, which would take two years to complete, of changing those concerned with local government, law, finance, the Church (whose income was halved by the loss of the tithe, so that it could no longer carry the burden of funding education, hospitals and poor relief ), and the armed force. Yet many thought that whose who had lost power would try to recover it. There was a widespread fear of an aristocratic plot and a feeling that, without constant vigilance, the victory of July and August could be quickly reversed. As Chateaubriand noted, 'The patricians (nobles) began the revolution, the plebeians (ordinary citizen) finished it. References Georges Lefebvre, The coming of the French Revolution. Albert Soboul, The French Revolution 1787-1799 William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution Florin Aftalion, The French Revolution. An economic Interpretation. Alexis de Tocqueville, The Ancient Regime and the French Revolution, (1856, English Language edition Collins, 1966) Colin Jones, The Longman Companion to the French Revolution. J.M Roberts, The French Revolution, Dylan Rees and Duncan Townson, France in Revolution, Second Edition. http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap1a.html