French Revolution: Causes, Events, and Aftermath

Posted on Dec 14, 2024 in History

France and the Revolution

In 1789, France was a great power, but it lived preferentially under the old rules of the Ancien Régime. There were many problems that plagued the country:

  • The nobility and clergy enjoyed privileges at the expense of the rest of the population.
  • An economic crisis affected the country, with basic prices rising since the 1780s.
  • The privileged classes did not pay taxes, only the peasants and the bourgeoisie did.
  • King Louis XVI was losing support among the people, who saw that the reforms were not advancing.
  • The privileged classes did not want to lose their power due to the ideas of the Enlightenment.

The Estates-General

Between 1783 and 1788, Louis XVI’s finance ministers tried to solve the crisis, proposing that the privileged classes pay taxes. To convince them, assemblies of notables were held. In 1788, the state declared bankruptcy and the Estates-General were called, which were the French courts that had not met since 1614. His minister, Necker, doubled the number of representatives of the Third Estate to try to gain power from the privileged. Before the meeting, each estate wrote down their proposals in the “Cahiers de doléances”, which reflected the problems of the Third Estate and showed discontent with the former regime. The bourgeoisie organized into political clubs where they discussed politics and ideals. They also founded newspapers to spread their ideas. In 1789, the Estates-General met in Versailles.

Start of the French Revolution

In the Estates-General, the nobility and clergy intended to vote by estate, which gave the majority to the privileged. The members of the Third Estate defended the vote per person, which gave them the majority. The Third Estate was aware that it represented most of France, which gave it greater legitimacy. The representatives of the Third Estate began to call themselves the National Assembly. The king and the privileged tried to expel them from the room they occupied, so the deputies met at the Jeu de Paume, where they swore to stay together until they drafted the first constitution. The National Assembly became the Constituent Assembly. On July 14, 1789, amid rising prices and rumors that the king was concentrating troops in Paris, the citizens demonstrated and stormed the Bastille, the old political prison and a symbol of Louis XVI’s absolutism.

Girondin Convention (1792-1793)

The beginning of the Republic meant a radical phase of the revolution. In September, the sans-culottes of Paris stormed the prisons and killed religious and aristocratic prisoners. The French victory at the Battle of Valmy seemed to ease tensions. Elections were called, and the National Convention was controlled by the Girondins and the more radical Republicans, the Montagnards. The Convention judged Louis XVI for treason and executed him at the guillotine. This caused the immediate declaration of war by other European powers, forming the First Coalition. There was also a royalist and ultra-Catholic uprising in the Vendée region. To win the war, the army was enlarged by a mass levy, and a Revolutionary Tribunal and the Committee of Public Safety were created.

The Montagnard Convention and Terror (1793-1794)

The fear of the defeat of the revolution caused a coup by the sans-culottes against the Girondins in July 1793. The Montagnards, led by Robespierre, seized power. They developed a new democratic constitution that recognized popular sovereignty and universal male suffrage. Robespierre established a dictatorship. The assassination of Marat caused the beginning of the Reign of Terror. The constitution was suspended, and the Law of Suspects was passed. Robespierre tried to curb the economic crisis by limiting the maximum prices of staple commodities, but he also limited wages, which turned the sans-culottes against him. Robespierre was losing support. After a new series of arrests, the coup of 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) occurred, after which he was tried and executed.

The Directory and the End of the Revolution (1795-1799)

To avoid a new dictatorship, the Constitution of Year III was established. It created a liberal regime based on national sovereignty and the separation of powers. It introduced a system of census suffrage, and the legislative branch was divided into two chambers. The executive branch rested on a five-member Directory. The weakness of the executive branch led royalists to believe it was the right moment to attempt to restore the Bourbons. This led to the revolt of Vendémiaire in 1795, which was stopped by Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1796, Napoleon’s campaign in Italy managed to end the First Coalition. European powers formed the Second Coalition, and in 1799, the war began again. Napoleon, supported by the bourgeoisie, staged the coup of 18 Brumaire, ending the Directory.

Work of the Constituent Assembly (1789-1791)

The Constituent Assembly had two objectives: to dismantle the Ancien Régime in France and to draft the first constitution. To end the Ancien Régime, on August 4, 1789, the Decree of Abolition of Feudal Rights was adopted, which suppressed the tithe, the jurisdiction of the privileged, and allowed everyone access to any position. On August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was drafted, which recognized personal liberties, equality before the law, and property. These two decrees marked the end of absolutism and the victory of the revolution.

Constitution of 1791

This was the culmination of the revolutionary process. Its characteristics were:

  • The political regime was a parliamentary monarchy.
  • It recognized the fundamental rights of citizens.
  • It established the division of powers: the legislative power was held by the National Assembly, the executive power by the king, and the judicial power by the courts.
  • The king had the right to veto laws passed by the Assembly.
  • The Assembly was elected by census suffrage: voters had to be 25 years old and possess certain property or income.
  • It decentralized the administration, dividing France into 83 departments and increasing the importance of municipalities.

The Legislative Assembly (1791-1792)

The Constitution of 1791 represented the triumph of the high bourgeoisie’s proposals, which wanted to end the revolution at that point. However, it caused dissatisfaction among the popular classes, such as the sans-culottes, who sought more profound changes in society and property. Neither the king nor the privileged accepted these changes. Many privileged emigrated and conspired from abroad. After the approval of the constitution, a new assembly was formed with a predominance of moderates. A decree was approved against the assets of the emigrants and another for the expulsion of the clergy who refused to swear allegiance to the constitution. The king vetoed these decrees, making his position more difficult.

The War and the End of the Monarchy

The émigrés pressured and threatened Austria and Prussia, who declared war on France in 1792. The advance of European troops was unstoppable for the French army. The royal family attempted to flee France in June 1791 but was detained in Varennes and taken to Paris. On August 10, 1792, there was a response to the threat: the assault on the Tuileries Palace, which marked the end of the monarchy and the establishment of the Republic.

Liberalism

In the first half of the 19th century, there was a rejection of absolutism, and people sought to recover the rights and freedoms recognized by the French Revolution.

Nationalism

Its origin was in the Napoleonic expansion, which had exacerbated the feelings of belonging to a nation. The reorganization of the Congress of Vienna ignored the cultural identity of peoples such as the Poles, Belgians, Norwegians, Italians, and Germans. In the French revolutions, the main engine was liberalism, but outside of France, national claims had great weight.

The Revolutions of 1848

The revolutionary movement of 1848 was characterized by its extension to many countries and because, in addition to liberalism and nationalism, it had a component of social and labor revolution. It began in France, where the regime underwent a revolution in February, and the Second Republic was proclaimed. When the workers’ demands were not met, they rose again in June. The bourgeoisie won, creating the Constitution of 1848. Bonaparte’s triumph in the elections led to a more authoritarian government, ending the Republic and proclaiming the Second Empire in 1852. Outside of France, there were revolutions, but they were not successful. Despite the failure, a new political era had opened for three reasons:

  1. It was the starting point for the unifications of Italy and Germany.
  2. It advanced democracy.
  3. Although the workers did not win, it was the starting point for the organization of the labor movement.