The French Revolution
Overview
The Beginning of the French Revolution and the National Assembly
The French was one of the most significant events in early modern and modern European, and human, history. It reflected and grew out of developments and events of the early modern period, including the Scientific Revolution, the Protestant Revolution, the Enlightenment and the American Revolution. The Scientific Revolution introduced empiricism and experimentation into the Early Modern effort to understand the Universe, challenging the religious dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, or, as this revolution spread, any religious dogma. The Protestant Reformation built on this challenge by asserting that Christians in Europe could abandon a church authority that they considered morally and dogmatically corrupt. The Enlightenment championed the optimistic belief that humanity could improve through rational methods, including the articulation and implementation of economic and political principles toward at least the limited realization of the relatively newly accepted goal of equality of opportunity, at least for recognized members of the state. The American Revolution demonstrated that colonists could overthrow an established and powerful colonial government, and replace it with their own local government, in this case, at the expense of a royalist and imperial ally who shortsightedly and opportunistically played with ideological fire and burned in the aftermath. Thus, the French Revolution did not introduce new ideas. Rather, it modified established ideas growing out of these earlier revolutions to fit the circumstances of the middle and working classes in a late eighteenth-century France beset by national bankrupcy, inspiring future generations to craft their own revolutions in reaction to the particular forms of oppression. Evolving through four stages the French Revolution foreshadowed these future revolutions across the world into the twentieth century, based on the principles of liberty and equality, adjusted to fit each set of oppressive circumstances.
Learning Objective
- Analyze the causes, main events, and results of the French Revolution.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Louis XVI - French king at the time of the French Revolution
Estates-General: a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobles (Second Estate), and the common people (Third Estate)
Fall of the Bastille: capture of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, a seminal event of the French Revolution
National Constituent Assembly: name adopted by members of the Third Estate on 17 June 1789 in their determination to reform the French national government
Tennis Court Oath: 20 June 1789 oath taken by members of the Third Estate to write a new constitution
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: a fundamental document of the French Revolution and in the history of human and civil rights, passed by France’s National Constituent Assembly in August 1789; became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by law (It was influenced by the doctrine of natural right, stating that the rights of man are held to be universal.)
Constitution of 1791 - first written constitution of France, a relatively conservative instrument which restricted the degree of political democratization in France
Assembly of Notables of 1787
An Assembly of Notables was a group of high-ranking nobles, ecclesiastics, and state functionaries convened by the King of France on extraordinary occasions to consult on matters of state. Throughout the history of modern France, such an assembly was convened only a few times. Unlike the States-General, whose members were elected by the subjects of the realm, the assemblymen were selected by the king and were prominent men, usually of the aristocracy. King Louis XVI convened such an assembly in 1787 to address the French government's financial problems, including the need for government reform and a growing national debt, which stemmed in part from French aid to the U.S. during the Revolutionary War. The French government and the King were both in dire financial straits.
In 1787, repeated attempts to implement tax reform failed due to lack of the Parlement of Paris support, as parlement judges felt that any increase in tax would have a direct negative effect on their own income. In response to this opposition, the finance minister Charles Alexandre de Calonne suggested that Louis XVI call an Assembly of Notables. And pressured by France’s desperate financial situation, the King convened the assembly. While the Assembly had no legislative power in its own right, Calonne hoped that if it supported the proposed reforms, parlement would be forced to enact them. Most historians argue that the plan failed because the assemblymen, whose privileges the plan aimed to curb, refused to bear the burden of increased taxation; although, some have noted that the nobles were quite open to changes but rejected the specifics of Calonne’s proposal. In addition, the Assembly insisted that the proposed reforms should actually be presented to a representative body such as the Estates-General.
Calling the Estates-General
For the first time since 1614 the Estates-General (or States-General) met 5 May 1789. It was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobles (Second Estate), and the common people (Third Estate). King Louis XVI summoned it to propose solutions to his government’s financial problems after the 1787 Assembly of Noteables insisted such a measure be taken. Representatives of the Third Estate sought reforms in representation that reflected their new power, status, and aspirations in French society. Traditionally each estate had one vote, which put the more numerous Third Estate at an unfair disadvantage relative to the smaller First and Second Estates. The Third Estate wanted the estates to meet as one body and for each delegate to have one vote. The other two estates, while having their own grievances against royal absolutism, believed—correctly, as history would prove—that they would lose more power to the Third Estate than they stood to gain from the King. Initially the King opposed reforms in representation proposed by Third Estate representatives. The Estates General met through May and the first half of June 1789, struggling with these issues of taxation and representation. By the time the King yielded to the demand of the Third Estate, it seemed to be a concession wrung from the monarchy rather than a gift that would have convinced the populace of the King’s goodwill. Utlimately, it ended when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, leading to the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Establishment of the National Assembly
On June 17, with the failure of efforts to reconcile the three estates, the Communes—or the Commons, as members of the Third Estate now referred to themselves—declared themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the estates but of the people. They invited the other orders to join them but made it clear that they intended to conduct the nation’s affairs with or without them. The King resisted the National Assembly. On June 20, he ordered that the hall where the National Assembly was to meet be closed. This order prompted the National Assembly to move to a nearby tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath by which they agreed not to separate until they had settled the constitution of France.
The Tennis Court Oath was both a revolutionary act and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives, rather than from the monarch himself. Their solidarity forced Louis XVI to order the clergy and the nobility to join with the Third Estate in the National Assembly to give the illusion that he controlled the National Assembly. The Oath signified for the first time that French citizens formally stood in opposition to Louis XVI, and the National Assembly’s refusal to back down forced the king to make concessions.
Two days later, removed from the tennis court as well, the Assembly met in the Church of Saint Louis, where the majority of the representatives of the clergy joined them. After a failed attempt to keep the three estates separate, the nobles who had refrained from taking part finally joined the National Assembly at the request of the King. The Estates-General ceased to exist, becoming the National Assembly. On July 9 the National Assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly, and began to function as a governing body and a constitution committee with the task of drafting a constitution.
The Storming of the Bastille
Arguably the flashpoint of the French Revolution was the storming of the Bastille, medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris. The National Assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on July 9 and began to function as a governing body and a constitution committee intent on drafting a document. Paris, close to insurrection, showed wide support for the Assembly. The press published the Assembly’s debates while political discussions spread into the public squares and halls of the capital. The Palais-Royal and its grounds became the site of an ongoing meeting. The crowd, on the authority of the meeting at the Palais-Royal, broke open the prisons of the Abbaye to release some grenadiers of the French guards, reportedly imprisoned for refusing to fire on the people. The Assembly recommended that the king grant clemency to the the imprisoned guardsmen, and they received pardon. The rank and file of the regiment now leaned toward the popular cause.
Liberal Parisians were enraged by the fear that royal troops would attempt to shut down the National Constituent Assembly, which was meeting in Versailles. Among the troops under the royal authority were foreign mercenaries, most notably Swiss and German regiments, that were seen as less likely to be sympathetic to the popular cause than ordinary French soldiers. By early July, approximately half of the 25,000 regular troops in Paris and Versailles had been drawn from these foreign regiments.
On July 12, crowds gathered throughout Paris, including more than ten thousand at the Palais-Royal. The crowds clashed with royal troops and unrest grew. The people of Paris expressed their hostility toward state authorities by attacking customs posts blamed for causing increased food and wine prices, and they started to plunder any place where food, guns, and supplies could be found. That night, rumors spread about supplies were being hoarded at Saint-Lazare—a huge property of the clergy that functioned as convent, hospital, school, and even jail. An angry crowd broke in and plundered the property, seizing 52 wagons of wheat which were taken to the public market. That same day, multitudes of people plundered many other places, including weapon arsenals. The royal troops did nothing to stop the spreading of social chaos in Paris during those days.
On the morning of July 14, 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm. Partisans of the Third Estate in France, now under the control of the Bourgeois Militia of Paris (soon to become Revolutionary France’s National Guard), had earlier stormed the Hôtel des Invalides without significant opposition; they had intended to gather the weapons held there. The crowd gathered outside the Bastille around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of the cannon, and the release of the arms and gunpowder. At this point, the Bastille was nearly empty, housing only seven prisoners. Two representatives of the crowd outside were invited into the fortress and negotiations began. Another was admitted around noon with definite demands. The negotiations dragged on while the crowd grew and became impatient. Around 1:30 p.m., the crowd surged into the undefended outer courtyard. A small party climbed onto the roof of a building next to the gate to the inner courtyard and broke the chains on the drawbridge. Soldiers of the garrison called to the people to withdraw but in the noise and confusion these shouts were misinterpreted as encouragement to enter. Gunfire began, apparently spontaneously.
A substantial force of Royal Army troops encamped on the Champs de Mars did not intervene as the firing continued. With the possibility of mutual carnage suddenly apparent, Governor de Launay ordered a cease-fire at 5 p.m. A letter offering his terms was handed out to the besiegers through a gap in the inner gate. His demands were refused, but de Launay nonetheless capitulated as he realized that with limited food stocks and no water supply his troops could not hold out much longer. He accordingly opened the gates to the inner courtyard, and the conquerors swept in to liberate the fortress at 5:30 p.m. The king first learned of the storming only the next morning through the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. “Is it a revolt?” asked Louis XVI. The duke replied: “No sire, it’s not a revolt; it’s a revolution.”
Creation of a Constitutional Monarchy
Following the storming of the Bastille on July 14, the National Assembly became the effective government and constitution drafter that ruled until passing the 1791 Constitution, which turned France into a constitutional monarchy.The number of delegates elected to the National Constituent Assembly or Constituent Assembly increased significantly during the voting period, but many deputies took their time arriving, some of them reaching Paris as late as 1791. There were several leading forces of the Assembly. One consisted of conservative foes of the revolution, later known as “The Right”. The Monarchiens, “Monarchists,” also called “Democratic Royalists”, allied with Jacques Necker and inclined toward arranging France along lines similar to the British constitution model. “The Left”, also called “National Party”, was a group still relatively united in support of revolution and democracy, representing mainly the interests of the middle classes but strongly sympathetic to the broader range of the common people.
On August 4, 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism (action triggered by numerous peasant revolts), sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes (a 10% tax for the Church) collected by the First Estate. During the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges. Originally the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues, but the majority refused to pay and later in 1793 the obligation was cancelled. Additionally, the old judicial system, based on the 13 regional parliaments, was suspended in November 1789 and officially abolished in September 1790.
On August 26, 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution. Influenced by the doctrine of natural right, it stated that the rights of man were held to be universal, becoming the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by law. Simultaneously, the Assembly continued to draft a new constitution. Amid the Assembly’s preoccupation with establishing a constitution and the various debates surrounding that, the financial crisis continued largely unaddressed and the deficit only increased. This led the Assembly to giving Necker complete financial dictatorship.
The Assembly also moved to reduce the power of the Roman Catholic Church in France. In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on November 2, 1789, that the property of the Church was “at the disposal of the nation.” Thus, the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick, and the orphaned. In December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue. Monastic vows were abolished, and in February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved. Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed in July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state.
In the turmoil of the revolution, the Assembly members gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution and submitted it to recently restored Louis XVI; upon his acceptance of it he wrote “I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal.” The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. With this capstone, the National Constituent Assembly adjourned in a final session on September 30, 1791. Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, passed by France’s National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, was a fundamental document of the French Revolution that granted civil rights to some commoners, although it excluded a significant segment of the French population.
Intellectual Context
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1791) is a fundamental document in the history of human and civil rights. The inspiration and content of the document emerged largely from the ideals of the American Revolution. The key drafts were prepared by General Lafayette, working at times with his close friend Thomas Jefferson, who drew heavily upon Jefferson’s own drafts for the American Declaration of Independence and The Virginia Declaration of Rights drafted in May 1776 by George Mason (which was based in part on the English Bill of Rights 1689). In August 1789, Honoré Mirabeau played a central role in conceptualizing and penning the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
The Declaration emerged from the tenets of the Enlightenment, including individualism, the social contract as theorized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the separation of powers espoused by Montesquieu. The spirit of secular natural law rests at the foundations of the Declaration. Unlike traditional natural law theory, secular natural law does not draw from religious doctrine or authority. The document defines a single set of individual and collective rights for all men. Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these rights are held to be universal and valid in all times and places. Correspondingly, the role of government, carried out by elected representatives, is to recognize and secure these rights. At the time of writing, the rights contained in the Declaration were only awarded to men. Furthermore, the Declaration was a statement of vision rather than reality as it was not deeply rooted in the practice of the West or even France at the time. It embodied ideals toward which France aspired to achieve in the future.
Thomas Jefferson—the primary author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence—was in France as a U.S. diplomat and worked closely with Lafayette on designing a bill of rights for France. In the ratification by the states of the U.S. Constitution in 1788, critics demanded a written Bill of Rights. In response, James Madison’s proposal for a U.S. Bill of Rights was introduced in New York in June 1789, eleven weeks before the French declaration. Considering the six to eight weeks it took news to cross the Atlantic, it is possible that the French knew of the American text, which emerged from the same shared intellectual heritage. The same people took part in shaping both documents: Lafayette and Jefferson. Jefferson knew of Lafayette’s key role in the American Revolution and found him to be an important political and intellectual partner, and Lafayette, in return, admired Jefferson.
Natural Rights
In the second article, “the natural and imprescriptible rights of man” are defined as “liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.” It demanded the destruction of aristocratic privileges by proclaiming an end to feudalism and exemptions from taxation. It also called for freedom and equal rights for all human beings (referred to as “Men”) and access to public office based on talent. The monarchy was restricted, and all citizens had the right to take part in the legislative process. Freedom of speech and press were declared, and arbitrary arrests outlawed. The Declaration also asserted the principles of popular sovereignty and social equality among citizens, eliminating the special rights of the nobility and clergy.
Limitations of the Declaration
While the French Revolution provided rights to a larger portion of the population, there remained a distinction between those who obtained the political rights in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and those who did not. Those who were deemed to hold these political rights were called active citizens, a designation granted to men who were French, at least 25 years old who paid taxes equal to three days of work, and who could not be defined as servants. This meant that at the time of the Declaration only male property owners held these rights. The category of passive citizens was created to encompass those populations that the Declaration excluded from political rights. In the end, the vote was granted to approximately 4.3 out of 29 million Frenchmen. Women, slaves, youth, and foreigners were excluded.
Tensions arose between active and passive citizens throughout the Revolution and the question of women’s rights emerged as particularly prominent. The Declaration did not recognize women as active citizens, despite the fact that after the March on Versailles (October 5, 1789) women presented the Women’s Petition to the National Assembly; in the Petition they proposed a decree giving women equal rights. In 1790, Nicolas de Condorcet and Etta Palm d’Aelders unsuccessfully called on the National Assembly to extend civil and political rights to women. The absence of women’s rights prompted Olympe de Gouges to publish the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in September 1791. Modeled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, it exposes the failure of the French Revolution, which had been devoted to equality.
The Declaration did not revoke the institution of slavery, as lobbied for by Jacques-Pierre Brissot’s Les Amis des Noirs and defended by the group of colonial planters called the Club Massiac. Beginning in August 1791, thousands of slaves in Saint-Domingue—the most profitable slave colony in the world—engaged in uprisings that would be known as the first successful slave revolt in the New World. Slavery in the French colonies was abolished in 1794 by the Convention for which Jacobins dominated. However, Napoleon reinstated slavery in 1802. This led in 1804 to the colony of Saint-Domingue becoming an independent state: the Republic of Haiti.
Legacy of the Declaration
The Declaration, together with the American Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, inspired in large part the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has also influenced and inspired rights-based liberal democracy throughout the world. It was translated as soon as 1793 – 1794 by Colombian Antonio Nariño, who published it despite the Inquisition and was sentenced to be imprisoned for ten years for doing so. In 2003, the document was listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.
The March on Versailles
Concerned over the high price and scarcity of bread, women from the marketplaces of Paris led the March on Versailles on October 5, 1789. This became one of the most significant events of the French Revolution, eventually forcing the royals to return to Paris.
The Women’s March on Versailles, also known as The October March, The October Days, or simply The March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. On the morning of October 5, 1789, women in the marketplaces of Paris were near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread. Their demonstrations quickly became intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France.
At the end of the Ancien Régime, the fear of famine became an ever-present dread for the lower strata of the Third Estate. Rampant rumors of a conspiracy theory held that foods, especially grain, were purposely withheld from the poor for the benefit of the privileged (the Pacte de Famine). Stories of a plot to destroy wheat crops in order to starve the population provoked the so-called Great Fear in the summer of 1789.
Despite its post-revolutionary mythology, the march was not a spontaneous event. Speakers at the Palais-Royal mentioned it regularly and the idea of a march on Versailles had been widespread. The final trigger came from a royal banquet held on October 1 at which the officers at Versailles welcomed the officers of new troops, a customary practice when a unit changed its garrison. The royal family briefly attended the affair. The lavish banquet was reported in newspapers as nothing short of a gluttonous orgy. Worst of all, the papers dwelt scornfully on the reputed desecration of the tricolor cockade; drunken officers were said to have stamped upon this symbol of the nation and professed their allegiance solely to the white cockade of the House of Bourbon. This embellished tale of the royal banquet became the source of intense public outrage.
On the morning of October 5, a young woman struck a marching drum at the edge of a group of market women who were infuriated by the chronic shortage and high price of bread. From their starting point in the markets of the eastern section of Paris, the angry women forced a nearby church to toll its bells. More women from other nearby marketplaces joined in, many bearing kitchen blades and other makeshift weapons. As more women and men arrived, the crowd outside the city hall reached between 6,000 and 7,000, but perhaps as high as 10,000. One of the men was Stanislas-Marie Maillard, a prominent conqueror of the Bastille, who by unofficial acclamation was given a leadership role.
When the crowd finally reached Versailles, members of the National Assembly greeted the marchers and invited Maillard into their hall. As he spoke, the restless Parisians came pouring into the Assembly and sank exhausted on the deputies’ benches. Hungry, fatigued, and bedraggled from the rain, they seemed to confirm that the siege was mostly a demand for food. With few other options available, the President of the Assembly, Jean Joseph Mounier, accompanied a deputation of market-women into the palace to see the king.
A group of six women were escorted into the king’s apartment, where they told him of the crowd’s privations. The king responded sympathetically and after this brief but pleasant meeting, arrangements were made to disburse some food from the royal stores with more promised. Some in the crowd felt that their goals had been satisfactorily met. However, at about 6 a.m., some of the protesters discovered a small gate to the palace was unguarded. Making their way inside, they searched for the queen’s bedchamber. The royal guards fired their guns at the intruders, killing a young member of the crowd. Infuriated, the rest surged towards the breach and streamed inside.
Although the fighting ceased quickly and the royal troops cleared the palace, the crowd was still everywhere outside. Lafayette (commander-in-chief of the National Guard), who had earned the court’s indebtedness, convinced the king to address the crowd. When the two men stepped out on a balcony an unexpected cry went up: “Vive le Roi!” The relieved king briefly conveyed his willingness to return to Paris. After the king withdrew, the exultant crowd would not be denied the same accord from the queen and her presence was demanded loudly. Lafayette brought her to the same balcony, accompanied by her young son and daughter. However, pleased it may have been by the royal displays, the crowd insisted that the king come back with them to Paris. At about 1 p.m. on October 6, the vast throng escorted the royal family and a complement of 100 deputies back to the capital, this time with the armed National Guards leading the way.
The rest of the National Constituent Assembly followed the king to new quarters in Paris within two weeks, with the exception of 56 pro-monarchy deputies. Thus, the march effectively deprived the monarchist faction of significant representation in the Assembly as most of these deputies retreated from the political scene. Conversely, Robespierre’s impassioned defense of the march raised his public profile considerably. Lafayette, though initially acclaimed, found he had tied himself too closely to the king. As the Revolution progressed, he was hounded into exile by the radical leadership. Maillard returned to Paris with his status as a local hero made permanent. The women of Paris were called “Mothers of the Nation” and were highly celebrated upon their return; they would be praised and solicited by successive Parisian governments for years to come.
Louis attempted to work within the framework of his limited powers after the women’s march but won little support. He and the royal family remained virtual prisoners in the Tuileries. Desperate, he tried to escape and join with royalist armies in June 1791. However, the king was once again captured by a mixture of citizens and national guardsmen who hauled him back to Paris.
The Flight to Varennes, or the royal family’s unsuccessful escape from Paris during the night of June 20 – 21, 1791, undermined the credibility of the king as a constitutional monarch and eventually led to the escalation of the crisis and the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Following the Women’s March on Versailles, the royal family had been forced to return to Paris. Louis XVI attempted to work within the framework of his limited powers but won little support. He and the royal family remained virtual prisoners in the Tuileries, a royal and imperial palace in Paris that served as the residence of most French monarchs. For the next two years, the palace remained the official residence of the king. The king’s flight was traumatic for France. The realization that the king had effectually repudiated the revolutionary reforms made to that point came as a shock to people who until then had seen him as a fundamentally decent king who governed as a manifestation of God’s will. They felt betrayed. Republicanism burst out of the coffeehouses and became the dominant ideal of revolutionary leaders.
The Constitution of 1781
On June 13, 1789, one of the stated goals of the National Assembly was to write a constitution. A 12-member Constitutional Committee was convened on July 14, 1789, which was also the day of the Storming of the Bastille; they intended to draft most of the articles of the constitution. The Committee originally included two members from the First Estate, two from the Second, and four from the Third.
Many proposals for redefining the French state were floated, particularly in the days after the remarkable sessions of August 4 and 5 when feudalism was abolished. The main early controversies surrounded the level of power that should be granted to the king of France and the form the legislature would take (i.e.: unicameral or bicameral). For instance, the Marquis de Lafayette proposed a combination of the American and British systems, a bicameral parliament with the king having the suspensive veto power over the legislature modeled on the authority then recently vested in the President of the United States. however, the motion was defeated in favor of one house. Also, the absolute veto was defeated in favor of a suspensive veto, which could be overridden by three consecutive legislatures.
A second Constitutional Committee quickly replaced the first one. It included three members from the original group, as well as five new members of the Third Estate. The greatest controversy faced by the new committee surrounded citizenship. The critical question was whether every subject of the French Crown would be given equal rights, or would there be some restrictions? The October 1789 March on Versailles, led by women from marketplaces around Paris, rendered the question even more complicated. In the end, a distinction was drawn between active citizens who held political rights (males over the age of 25 who paid direct taxes equal to three days’ labor) and passive citizens who had only civil rights. Some radical deputies, such as Maximilien Robespierre, could not accept the distinction.
A second body, the Committee of Revisions, was created in September 1790. Because the National Assembly was both a legislature and a constitutional convention, the Committee of Revisions was required to sort out whether its decrees were constitutional articles or mere statutes. The committee became very important in the days after the Champs de Mars Massacre (July 17, 1791), which was when a wave of opposition against popular movements swept France and resulted in a renewed effort to preserve powers of the Crown. The result was the rise of the Feuillants, a new political faction led by Antoine Barnave—one of the Committee’s members who used his position to preserve a number of powers of the Crown, including the nomination of ambassadors, military leaders, and ministers.
After very long negotiations, a new constitution was reluctantly accepted by Louis XVI in September 1791. Redefining the organization of the French government, citizenship, and the limits to the powers of government, the National Assembly set out to represent the interests of the public. It abolished many institutions defined as “injurious to liberty and equality of rights.” The National Assembly asserted its legal presence as part of the French government by establishing its permanence in the Constitution and forming a system of recurring elections. Furthermore, it made itself the legislative body, while making the king and royal ministers the executive branch and the judiciary branch independent of the other two branches. On a local level, previous feudal geographic divisions were formally abolished and the territory of the French state was divided into several administrative units (Départements), but with the principle of centralism. As framers of the constitution, the Assembly was concerned that if only representatives governed France, they were likely to be motivated by their own self-interests. Therefore, the king was allowed a suspensive veto to balance out the interests of the people. By the same token, representative democracy weakened the king’s executive authority. The Constitution of 1791, the first written constitution of France, turned the country into a constitutional monarchy following the collapse of the absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
The Radicalization of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror
Growing dissatisfication with the conservative course of the Revolution and the emergence of coalitions of other European powers determined to end the Revolution led to its radicalization. Conflicts among conservative, moderate, and radical factions contributed to this radicalization, and the Reign of Terror that followed.
Learning Objective
- Analyze the causes, main events, and results of the French Revolution.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Louis XVI: French king at the time of the French Revolution
French Revolutionary Wars: a series of sweeping military conflicts from 1792 until 1802, resulting from the French Revolution; pitted the French First Republic against Britain, Austria and several other monarchies; divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792 – 1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798 – 1802) (Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension as the political ambitions of the Revolution expanded.)
Constitution of 1791: first written constitution of France, a relatively conservative instrument which restricted the degree of political democratization in France
National Constituent Assembly: name adopted by members of the Third Estate on 17 June 1789 in their determination to reform the French national government
sans-culottes: This term refers to the common people of the lower classes in late 18th century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the Ancien Régime. The term is a reference to their clothing, roughly translating to "without knee-breeches", a clothing feature of the upper classes in France. The sans-culottes typically wore pantaloons, or trousers. This term reflected the class status associated with different articles of clothing.
Jacobins: members of a revolutionary political movement that was the most famous political club during the French Revolution, distinguished by its left-wing, revolutionary politics (They were closely allied to the sans-culottes, a popular force of working-class Parisians that played a pivotal role in the development of the revolution. They had a significant presence in the National Convention and were dubbed “the Mountain” for their seats in the uppermost part of the chamber.)
Reign of Terror: a period of violence during the French Revolution incited by conflict between two rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of “the enemies of the revolution” (The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.)
Maximilien Robespierre: leader in the democratization of the French Revolution
National Convention: national legislature organized in September 1792 under the new republican government, reflecting the democratization of the French Revolution
Committee of Public Safety: a committee created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793 to form the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror (1793 – 94), which was a stage of the French Revolution
Thermidorian Reaction: a 1794 coup d’état within the French Revolution against the leaders of the Jacobin Club that dominated the Committee of Public Safety (It was triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leading members of the revolutionary government. It ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution.)
The Directory: a five-member committee that governed France from November 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety, until it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (November 8 – 9, 1799) and replaced by the Consulate (It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution.)
Declaration of Pillnitz: This declaration stated that the Holy Roman Empire and Prussia would move to stop the French Revolution if the French revolutionary government harmed Louis XVI.
The Failure of the Constitution of 1791
With the onset of French Revolutionary Wars and the involvement of foreign powers in the conflict, radical Jacobin and ultimately republican conceptions grew enormously in popularity, increasing the influence of Robespierre, Danton, Marat, and the Paris Commune. When the King used his veto powers to protect non-juring priests and refused to raise militias in defense of the revolutionary government, the constitutional monarchy proved unacceptable to radical revolutionaries and was effectively ended by the August 10 Insurrection. A National Convention was called, electing Robespierre as its first deputy. It was the first assembly in France elected by universal male suffrage. The convention declared France a republic on September 22, 1792, which meant that France needed a new constitution.
Over the course of the Revolution, the original revolutionary movement known as the Jacobins split into more and less radical factions, the most important of which were the Feuillants (moderate; pro-royal), the Montagnards (radical), and the Girondins (moderate; pro-republic).
Factions at the Legislative Assembly
The National Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on September 30, 1791. Upon Robespierre’s motion, it decreed that none of its members would be eligible to the next legislature. Its successor body, the Legislative Assembly operating under the Constitution of 1791, first met 1 October 1791, and lasted until September 20, 1792. It consisted of 745 members, mostly from the middle class. The members were generally young and tended to be people with successful careers in local politics, but, since none had sat in the previous Assembly, they largely lacked national political experience.
The rightists within the assembly consisted of about 260 Feuillants, whose chief leaders, Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette and Antoine Barnave, remained outside the House because of their ineligibility for re-election. They were staunch constitutional monarchists, firm in their defense of the King against the popular agitation. The Feuillants came into existence when the Jacobins split between moderates and radicals. The radicals took the name Jacobins and wished to press for a continuation of direct democratic action to overthrow Louis XVI. The ones who retained the name Feuillants sought to preserve the position of the king and supported the proposed plan of the National Assembly for a constitutional monarchy.
The leftists were made up of 136 Jacobins (still including the party later known as the Girondins or Girondists) and Cordeliers (a populist group, whose many members would later become the radical Montagnards). The left drew its inspiration from the more radical tendency of the Enlightenment, regarded the émigré nobles as traitors, and espoused anticlericalism. They were suspicious of Louis XVI, some favoring a general European war in order to spread the new ideals of liberty and equality as well as to put the king’s loyalty to the test.
The remainder of the House, 345 deputies, belonged to no definite party. They were called “the Marsh” (Le Marais) or “the Plain” (La Plaine). They were committed to the ideals of the Revolution, generally inclined to side with the left but would also occasionally back proposals from the right.
Some historians dispute these numbers and estimate that the Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (the right), about 330 Jacobins (including Girondins; the left), and about 350 deputies, who did not belong to any definite party but voted most often with the left. The differences emerge from how historians approach data in primary sources, where numbers reported by the clubs do not overlap with analyses of club membership conducted independently by name.
Labelled by their opponents as royalists, Feuillants were targeted after the fall of the monarchy. In August 1792, a list of 841 members was published and all were arrested and tried for treason. The name survived for a few months as an insulting label for moderates, royalists, and aristocrats.
Factions at the National Convention
Succeeding the Legislative Assembly was the National Convention, which was a single-chamber assembly in France from September 20, 1792 to October 26, 1795. It was fractured into factions even more extreme than those of the Legislative Assembly. The Jacobin Club, gathering members with republican beliefs and aspiring to establish a French democratic republic, experienced political tensions beginning in 1791.There were conflicting viewpoints in response to several revolutionary events and how to best achieve a democratic republic. A result of the increasing divide, the Jacobins were split between the more radical Montagnards and the Girondins.
The Jacobin Club was one of several organizations that grew out of the French Revolution, distinguished by its left-wing, revolutionary politics. Because of this, the Jacobins were closely allied to the sans-culottes, a popular force of working-class Parisians that played a pivotal role in the development of the revolution. The Jacobins had a significant presence in the National Convention and were dubbed “the Mountain” (French: la montagne) for their seats in the uppermost part of the chamber. In addition to siding with sans-culottes, the Montagnards aimed for a more repressive form of government that would institute a price maximum on essential consumer goods and punish all traitors and enemies of the Republic. The Montagnards also believed war and other political differences required emergency solutions. They had 302 members in 1793 and 1794, including committee members and deputies who voted with the faction. Most members of the club came from the middle class and tended to represent the Parisian population. Its leaders included Maximilien Robespierre, Jean-Paul Marat, and Georges Danton. This faction eventually gained overwhelming power in the Convention and governed France during the Reign of Terror.
Left v. Right
The terms “left” and “right” to refer to political parties is one of the lasting legacies of the French Revolution. Members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. Baron de Gauville explained this arrangement: “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp.” However, the right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms “left” and “right” to refer to the opposing sides.
When the National Assembly was replaced in 1791 by the Legislative Assembly comprising entirely new members, the divisions continued. “Innovators” sat on the left; “moderates” gathered in the center; and the “conscientious defenders of the constitution” found themselves sitting on the right, where the defenders of the Ancien Régime had previously gathered. When the succeeding National Convention met in 1792, the seating arrangement continued, but following the arrest of the Girondins, the right side of the assembly was deserted, and any remaining members who had sat there moved to the center.
The two most significant factors in the consequential split between the Montagnards and the Girondins occured in 1792: the September Massacres and the trial of Louis XVI. The September Massacres of 1792 occurred when radical Parisians and members of the National Guard were angry with the poor progress in the war against Austria and Prussia and the forced enlistment of 30,000 volunteers. On August 10, radicals went on a killing spree, slaughtering roughly 1,300 inmates in various Paris prisons, many of whom were simply common criminals, not the treasonous counterrevolutionaries condemned by the Montagnards. The Girondins did not tolerate the massacres, but neither the Montagnards of the Legislative Assembly nor the Paris Commune took any action to stop or condemn the killings. Members of the Girondins later accused Marat, Robespierre, and Danton of inciting the massacres to further their dictatorial power. The conflict between the Montagnards and the Girondins eventually led to the fall of the Girondins and their mass execution.
The Fear of Revolution Among European Monarchs
During the French Revolution, European monarchs watched the developments in France and considered whether they should intervene in support of Louis XVI or to take advantage of the chaos in France. The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, brother to the French Queen Marie Antoinette, initially looked on the Revolution calmly. He became disturbed as the Revolution became more radical, although he still hoped to avoid war. In August 1791, Leopold and King Frederick William II of Prussia, in consultation with emigrant French nobles, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe in the well-being of Louis and his family and threatened vague but severe consequences if anything should befall them. Although Leopold saw the Pillnitz Declaration as a way of taking action that would enable him to avoid actually doing anything about France for the moment, Paris saw the Declaration as a serious threat and the revolutionary leaders denounced it.
The King, many of the Feuillants, and the Girondins wanted to wage war. Louis XVI and many Feuillants expected war would increase his personal popularity. He also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat; either result would make him stronger. The Girondins, on the other hand, wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe so as to defend the Revolution within France by extension. The forces opposing war were much weaker. Some Feuillants believed France had little chance of winning and feared a loss might lead to greater radicalization of the revolution. On the other end of the political spectrum, Robespierre opposed a war on two grounds: he was concerned it would strengthen the monarchy and military at the expense of the revolution and that it would incur the anger of ordinary people in Austria and elsewhere. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, wished to avoid war but died in March 1792. In addition to the ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers of Europe, disputes continued over the status of imperial estates in Alsace and the French authorities became concerned about the agitation of emigré nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and the minor states of Germany. France preemptively declared war on Austria 20 April 1792, and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later.
French Revolutionary Wars
What followed was a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 that would become known as the French Revolutionary Wars. They pitted the French First Republic against several monarchies, most notably Austria, Britain, and Prussia, that sought to take advantage of the chaos in France and stop the spread of a revolutionay anti-monarchical spirt across Europe. This coalition fought revolutionary France in two wars, the War of the First Coalition (1792 – 1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798 – 1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension as the political ambitions of the Revolution expanded. These wars were followed by the Napoleonic Wars, ignited by Napoleon's seizure of the French government and pursuit of his own empire.
War of the First Coalition
France and Austria declared war on each in April 1792, and the Kingdom of Prussia joined the Austrian side a few weeks later. These powers made several invasions of France by land and sea, with Prussia and Austria attacking from the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhine; they also led to the Kingdom of Great Britain supporting revolts in provincial France and laying siege to Toulon. A number of smaller states were also part of the First Coalition over the course of the war; these included Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic. In July 1792 the Duke of Brunswick, one of the First Coalition military leaders issued the Brunswick Manifesto, which written by the French king’s cousin who was the leader of an émigré corps within the Allied army, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. This document declared the Allies’ intent to restore the king to his full powers and treat any person or town who opposed them as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law. This, however, strengthened the resolve of the French revolutionary army and government to oppose them by any means necessary.
The Brunswick Manifesto also bolstered the determination of radical revolutionaries to abolish the monarchy, in conjunction with Louis XVI's refusal to rescind his veto of the National Assembly’s constitution. On August 10, a crowd stormed the Tuileries Palace, seizing the king and his family, marking the official fall of the French monarchy. The Insurrection of August 10, 1792 was one of the defining events in the history of the French Revolution. The storming of the Tuileries Palace resulted in the fall of the French monarchy; the parties involved in this attack were the National Guard of the Insurrectional Paris Commune and revolutionary fédérés (federates) from Marseilles and Brittany. King Louis XVI and the royal family took shelter with the Legislative Assembly, which was suspended. Chaos persisted until the National Convention, which was elected by universal male suffrage, charged with writing a new constitution, and met on September 20, 1792 to became the new de facto government of France. The next day the Convention abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic.
The National Convention
The National Convention (1792 – 95) was the first French assembly elected by universal male suffrage; it transitioned from being paralyzed by factional conflicts to becoming the legislative body overseeing the Reign of Terror and eventually accepting the Constitution of 1795.
The National Convention was a single-chamber assembly in France from September 20, 1792, to October 26, 1795, during the French Revolution. It succeeded the Legislative Assembly and founded the First Republic after the Insurrection of August 10, 1792. The Legislative Assembly had decreed the provisional suspension of King Louis XVI and the convocation of a National Convention, which was to draw up a constitution. At the same time, it was decided that deputies to that convention should be elected by all Frenchmen ages 25 and older domiciled for a year and living by the product of their labor. The National Convention was, therefore, the first French assembly elected by universal male suffrage, without distinctions of class.
The Convention’s unanimous declaration of a French Republic on 21 September 1792 sealed the fate of the King. A commission was established to examine evidence against him while the Convention’s Legislation Committee considered legal aspects of any future trial. Most Montagnards (radical republicans) favored judgement and execution, while the Girondins (moderate republicans) were divided concerning Louis’s fate, with some arguing for royal inviolability, others for clemency, and still others for either lesser punishment or death. Eventually the deposed king was put on trial. On November 20, opinion turned sharply against Louis following the discovery of a secret cache of 726 documents of his personal communications. Most of the pieces of correspondence in the cabinet involved ministers of Louis XVI, but others involved most of the big players of the Revolution. These documents, despite the likely gaps and pre-selection, showed the duplicity of advisers and ministers—at least those that Louis XVI trusted—who had set up parallel policies. Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. Nearly nine months later, on 16 October 1792, Marie Antoinette, having been convicted of treason, was beheaded. Louis XVI's execution exacerbated the hostility and division between France and the coalition of European monarchies arrayed against it by accelerating the radicalization of the French Revolution and solidifying the unity among these monarchies.
Across Europe, conservatives were horrified, and monarchies called for war against revolutionary France. The execution of Louis XVI united most European governments against the Revolution, including Spain, Naples, and the Netherlands. France declared war against Britain and the Netherlands on February 1, 1793, and soon afterwards against Spain. In the course of 1793, the Holy Roman Empire, the kings of Portugal and Naples, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany declared war against France. Thus, the First Coalition was formed.
While the War of the First Coalition began with French victories, which rejuvenated the nation and emboldened the National Convention to abolish the monarchy, the new French armies experienced numerous defeats in 1793. These Coalition victories allowed the radical Jacobins, otherwise known as the Mountain or the Montagnards, to rise to power. To deal with opposing movements, food shortages, riots, uprisings, and recent military defeats the Jacobins created the Committee of Public Safety in April 1793, eventually to be headed by Maximilien Robespierre. Initially seen as an "emergency" government. On June 24, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, the French Constitution of 1793. It was ratified by public referendum but never put into force. Like other laws, it was indefinitely suspended and in October, it was announced that the government of France, run by the Committee, would be “revolutionary until the peace.”Ultimately, the Committee resorted to intimidation, persecution, and terror as methods of unifying the nation, by eliminating the moderate opposition, or the Girondins.
The period of the Committee’s dominance during the Revolution is known today as the Reign of Terror, September 5, 1793 – July 28, 1794, one of the bloodiest and most controversial phases of the French Revolution. The time between 1792 and 1794 was dominated by the radical ideology until the execution of Robespierre in July 1794. The Committee suspended the rights guaranteed by the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, as well as the new constitution of 1793. The Committee carried out thousands of executions of members of various factions, such as the Hebertists and the Dantonists, depicting them as enemies of the Revolution. Its laws and policies took the Revolution in a variety of radical new directions, such as the introduction of a revolutionary calendar in 1793, the closure of churches in and around Paris as a part of a movement of dechristianization, the trial and execution of Marie Antoinette as a symbol of counterrevolution, and the institution of the Law of Suspects, among others.
In 1794, the situation improved dramatically for the French. Shortly after a decisive military victory over Austria at the Battle of Fleurus, Robespierre was overthrown in July 1794 and the reign of the standing Committee of Public Safety was ended. After the arrest and execution of Robespierre, the Jacobin club was closed, and the surviving Girondins were reinstated (an act known asThermidorian Reaction). A year later, the National Convention adopted the Constitution of 1795. They reestablished freedom of worship, began releasing large numbers of prisoners, and most importantly, initiated elections for a new legislative body. On November 3, 1795, the Directory—a bicameral parliament—was established and the National Convention ceased to exist.
By 1795, in the war against the First Coalition, French forces had captured the Austrian Netherlands and knocked Spain and Prussia out of the war with the Peace of Basel. A new and hitherto unknown young general, Napoleon Bonaparte, began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796. In less than a year, French armies under Napoleon decimated the Habsburg forces and evicted them from the Italian peninsula, winning almost every battle and capturing 150,000 prisoners. With French forces marching towards Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace and agreed to the Treaty of Campo Formio, ending the First Coalition War against the new Republic of France.
Conservative Retrenchment and the Directory
The end of the Reign of Terror concluded the radical second phase of the French Revolution and was followed by the conservative third phase of the Revolution. Stagnation and inertia marked this third phase. Its relative stability left many in France dissatisfied and opened the door for Napoleon Bonaparte, whose rise to power ushered in the fourth and final phase of the French Revolution.
Learning Objective
- Analyze the causes, main events, and results of the French Revolution.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Thermidorian Reaction: a 1794 coup d’état within the French Revolution against the leaders of the Jacobin Club that dominated the Committee of Public Safety (It was triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leading members of the revolutionary government. It ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution.)
Committee of Public Safety: a committee created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793 to form the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror (1793 – 94), which was a stage of the French Revolution
National Convention: national legislature organized in September 1792 under the new republican government, reflecting the democratization of the French Revolution
Maximilien Robespierre: leader in the democratization of the French Revolution
sans-culottes: This term refers to the common people of the lower classes in late 18th century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the Ancien Régime. The term is a reference to their clothing, roughly translating to "without knee-breeches", a clothing feature of the upper classes in France. The sans-culottes typically wore pantaloons, or trousers. This term reflected the class status associated with different articles of clothing.
Reign of Terror: a period of violence during the French Revolution incited by conflict between two rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of “the enemies of the revolution” (The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.)
the Directory: a five-member committee that governed France from November 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety, until it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (November 8 – 9, 1799) and replaced by the Consulate (It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution.)
Louis XVI - French king at the time of the French Revolution
Jacobins: members of a revolutionary political movement that was the most famous political club during the French Revolution, distinguished by its left-wing, revolutionary politics (They were closely allied to the sans-culottes, a popular force of working-class Parisians that played a pivotal role in the development of the revolution. They had a significant presence in the National Convention and were dubbed “the Mountain” for their seats in the uppermost part of the chamber.)
The Thermidorian Reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction was a coup d’état within the French Revolution against the leaders of the Jacobin Club who dominated the Committee of Public Safety. It was triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leaders of the revolutionary government. The name Thermidorian refers to Thermidor 9, Year II (July 27, 1794), the date according to the French Republican Calendar when Robespierre and other radical revolutionaries came under concerted attack in the National Convention. Thermidorian Reaction also refers to the period that occurred until the National Convention was superseded by the Directory (also called the era of the Thermidorian Convention).
For historians of revolutionary movements, the term Thermidor has come to mean the phase in some revolutions when power slips from the hands of the original revolutionary leadership and a radical regime is replaced by a more conservative regime, sometimes to the point at which the political pendulum swings back towards something resembling a pre-revolutionary state.
The Thermidorian regime that followed proved unpopular, facing many rebellions after the execution of Robespierre and his allies, along with 70 members of the Paris Commune. This was the largest mass execution that ever took place in Paris and led to a fragile situation. The hostility towards Robespierre did not just vanish with his execution. Instead, the people involved with Robespierre became the target, including many members of the Jacobin club, their supporters, and individuals suspected of being past revolutionaries. The Thermidorian regime excluded the remaining Montagnards from power, even those who had joined in conspiring against Robespierre and Saint-Just. In addition, the sans-cullotes faced violent suppression by the Muscadin, a group of street fighters organized by the new government. The massacre of these groups became known as the White Terror. Often members of targeted groups were the victims of prison massacres or put on trial without due process, similar conditions to those provided to the counter-revolutionaries during the Reign of Terror. The White Terror of 1795 resulted in numerous imprisonments and several hundred executions, almost exclusively of people on the political left.
Meanwhile, French armies overran the Netherlands and established the Batavian Republic, occupied the left bank of the Rhine, and forced Spain, Prussia and several German states to sue for peace, enhancing the prestige of the National Convention. A new constitution called the Constitution of the Year III (1795) was drawn up, which eased back some of the democratic elements of the Constitution of 1793. On October 25, the Convention declared itself dissolved and was replaced by the French Directory on November 2.
The French Directory
The Directory, a five-member committee that governed France from November 1795 to November 1799, failed to reform the disastrous economy, relied heavily on violence, and represented another turn towards dictatorship during the French Revolution.
The New Legislature and the Government
The Constitution of 1795 created the Directory with a bicameral legislature consisting of the Council of Five Hundred (lower house) and the Council of Ancients (upper house). Besides functioning as legislative bodies, the Council of Five Hundred proposed the list from which the Council of Ancients chose five Directors who jointly held executive power. The new Constitution sought to create a separation of powers: the Directors had no voice in legislation or taxation, nor could Directors or Ministers sit in either house. In essence, however, power was in the hands of the five members of the Directory.
In October 1795, immediately after the suppression of a royalist uprising in Paris, the elections for the new Councils took place. The universal male suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property. 379 members of the National Convention, for the most part moderate republicans, were elected to the new legislature. To assure that the Directory did not abandon the Revolution entirely, the Council required all the members of the Directory to be former members of the Convention and regicides, those who had voted for the execution of Louis XVI. Due to the rules established by the National Convention, a majority of members of the new legislature had served in the Convention and were ardent republicans, but many new deputies were royalists: 118 versus 11 from the left. The members of the upper house, the Council of Ancients, were chosen by lot from among all of the deputies.
On October 31, 1795, the members of the Council of Five Hundred submitted a list of candidates to the Council of Ancients, which would choose the first Directory. It consisted of Paul François Jean Nicolas (commonly known as Paul Barras; the dominant figure in the Directory known for his skills in political intrigue), Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux (a fierce republican and anti-Catholic), Jean-François Rewbell (expert in foreign relations and a firm moderate republican), Étienne-François Le Tourneur (a specialist in military and naval affairs), and Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot (an energetic and efficient manager who restructured the French military). Out of the five members, only Barras served during the entire time the Directory existed.
Administration of the Directory
State finances were in total disarray. The government could only cover its expenses through the plunder and tribute of foreign countries. The Directory was continually at war with foreign coalitions, which at different times included Britain, Austria, Prussia, the Kingdom of Naples, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. It annexed Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, while Napoleon Bonaparte conquered a large part of Italy. The Directory established six short-lived sister republics modeled after France in Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The conquered cities and states were required to send to France huge amounts of money as well as art treasures, which were used to fill the new Louvre Museum in Paris. An army led by Bonaparte conquered Egypt and marched as far as Saint-Jean-d’Acre in Syria. The Directory defeated a resurgence of the War in the Vendée, the royalist-led civil war in the Vendée region, but it failed in its venture to support the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The wars exhausted the state budget but if peace was made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihoods and the ambition of generals who could at any moment brush them aside.
The Directory denounced the arbitrary executions of the Reign of Terror, but also engaged in large-scale illegal repressions and even massacres of civilians (War in the Vendée). The failing economy and high cost of food especially hurt the poor. Although committed to republicanism, the Directory distrusted the existing, albeit limited, democracy. When the elections of 1798 and 1799 were carried by the opposition, it used the Army to imprison and exile opposition leaders and close opposition newspapers. It also increasingly depended on the Army in foreign and domestic affairs, including finance. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.
Public Discord
With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Some tried to overthrow the Directory but failed.
The new régime met opposition from Jacobins on the left and Royalists (secretly subsidized by the British government) on the right. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities, but the rebellion and Napoleon gained massive power. In the elections of 1797 for one-third of the seats, the Royalists won the great majority and were poised to take control of the Directory in the next election. The Directory reacted by purging all the winners in the Coup of 18 Fructidor.
On September 4, 1797, with the army in place, the Coup d’état of 18 Fructidor, Year V was set in motion. General Augereau’s soldiers arrested Pichegru, Barthélemy, and the leading royalist deputies of the Councils. The next day, the Directory annulled the elections of about two hundred deputies in 53 departments. 65 deputies were deported to Guiana, 42 royalist newspapers were closed, and 65 journalists and editors were deported.
War of the Second Coalition
The War of the Second Coalition (1798 – 1802) was fought by a larger alliance of Britain, Austria, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, and Naples. Their goal was to contain the spread of chaos from France. However, the Second Coalition failed to overthrow the revolutionary regime, and as a result French territorial gains since 1793 were confirmed. The Coalition did very well in 1799, but Russia pulled out. Napoleon took charge in France in late 1799, when he and his generals defeated the Coalition. In the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801, France retained all of its previous gains and obtained new lands in Tuscany, Italy; on the other hand, Austria was granted Venetia and the Dalmatian coast. Britain and France signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing an interval of peace in Europe that lasted for 14 months. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France conquered, temporarily, a wide array of territories, from the Italian Peninsula and the Low Countries in Europe to the Louisiana Territory in North America. French success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.
On November 9, 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon Bonaparte staged the Coup of 18 Brumaire, which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to Bonaparte’s dictatorship and in 1804 to his proclamation as emperor, which ended the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.
Historians have assessed the Directory as a government of self-interest that lost any claim on idealism. It never had a strong base of popular support. When elections were held, most of its candidates were defeated. Its achievements were minor, and the approach taken reflected another turn towards dictatorship and the failure of liberal democracy. Violence, arbitrary and dubious forms of justice, and heavy-handed repression were methods commonly employed by the Directory.
Napoleon and the End of the French Revolution
With Napoleon Bonaparte's overthrow of the Directory the French Revolution entered its last phase. Ironically, Napoleon Bonaparte much like the absolutist French King Louis XIV, oversaw the implementation of additional reforms in government, trade, and the place of Roman Catholic Church that furthered the modernization of France. During his reign sought to take control of Europe, dominate Russia, and expand France's global empire. These imperial efforts confronted Europe and the world with new challenges in international relations. Over the next two centuries states and their citizens around the world would address these new challenges and consider and respond to the other actions taken by Napoleon, among the other changes during the first three phases of the French Revolution.
Learning Objective
- Analyze the causes, main events, and results of the French Revolution.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
French Revolutionary Wars: a series of sweeping military conflicts from 1792 until 1802, resulting from the French Revolution; pitted the French First Republic against Britain, Austria and several other monarchies; divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792 – 1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798 – 1802) (Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension as the political ambitions of the Revolution expanded.)
the Directory: a five-member committee that governed France from November 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety, until it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (November 8 – 9, 1799) and replaced by the Consulate (It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution.)
Napoleonic Code: French civil code established under Napoleon I in 1804 (It was drafted by a commission of four eminent jurists. With its stress on clearly written and accessible law, it was a major step in replacing the previous patchwork of feudal laws. Historian Robert Holtman regards it as one of the few documents that have influenced the whole world.)
The Consulate: the government of France from the fall of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (1799) until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804; the period of French history from 1799 – 1804 (During this period, Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul, established himself as the head of a more liberal, authoritarian, autocratic, and centralized republican government in France while not declaring himself head of state.)
Haitian Revolution: a successful anti-slavery and anti-colonial insurrection that took place in the former French colony of Saint Domingue from 1791 until 1804, in which self-liberated slaves destroyed slavery at home, fought to preserve their freedom, and collaborated with mulattoes to found the sovereign state of Haiti (It impacted the institution of slavery throughout the Americas.)
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolutionary Wars, leading several successful French campaigns. He led a coup against the Directory government, and ultimately rose to reign as French emperor from 1804 until 1814, and again, briefly, in 1815. He dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France in his pursuit of empire.
Napoleon was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy to the east and France to the northwest. The year before Corsica had come under French control. The Corsican origins and Corsica’s history would play a very important role in Napoleon’s upbringing and shape his first political fascinations and activism. His first language was Corsican and he always spoke French with a marked Corsican accent. He always saw himself, at least in part, as a Corsican in French society.
Early Military Career: The Revolution
Napoleon’s noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than available to a typical Corsican of the time. Upon graduating from the prestigious École Militaire (military academy) in Paris in 1785, , the first Corsican to do so, Bonaparte was commissioned as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment. He served in Valence and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 and took nearly two years’ leave in Corsica (where he was born and spent his early years) and Paris during this period. At this time, he was a fervent Corsican nationalist. He spent the early years of the Revolution in Corsica, fighting in a complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He was a supporter of the republican Jacobin movement, organizing clubs in Corsica, and was given command over a battalion of volunteers. He was promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and leading a riot against a French army in Corsica.
Having proven himself as a combat leader Napoleon was promoted to general in 1795. He was then sent to fight the Austro-Piedmontese armies in Northern Italy the following year. After defeating both armies, he became France’s most distinguished field commander. Hitherto unknown General Bonaparte began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796. In less than a year, French armies under Napoleon decimated the Habsburg forces and evicted them from the Italian peninsula, winning almost every battle and capturing 150,000 prisoners. With French forces marching towards Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace and agreed to the Treaty of Campo Formio, ending the First Coalition against the Republic.
In 1898 the War of the Second Coalition began with the same goal for the Coalition partners of stopping the spread of the French Revolution and take back French territorial gains in the War of the First Coalition. Napoleon began this second war by leading the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. The Allies took the opportunity presented by the French strategic effort in the Middle East to regain territories lost from the First Coalition. Napoleon’s forces annihilated a series of Egyptian and Ottoman armies at the battles of the Pyramids, Mount Tabor, and Abukir. These victories and the conquest of Egypt further enhanced Napoleon’s popularity back in France. He returned in the fall of 1799 to cheering throngs in the streets despite the Royal Navy’s critical triumph at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. This humiliating defeat further strengthened British control of the Mediterranean.
The Egyptian campaign ended in what some in France believed was a failure, with 15,000 French troops killed in action and 15,000 by disease. However, Napoleon’s reputation as a brilliant military commander remained intact and even rose higher despite his failures during the campaign. This was due to his expert propaganda designed to bolster the expeditionary force and improve its morale. That propaganda even spread back to France, where news of defeats such as at sea in Aboukir Bay and on land in Syria were suppressed.
Napoleon’s arrival from Egypt led to the fall of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, with Napoleon installing himself as Consul. Napoleon then reorganized the French army and launched a new assault against the Austrians in Italy during the spring of 1800. This latest effort culminated in a decisive French victory at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800, after which the Austrians withdrew from the peninsula once again. Another crushing French triumph at Hohenlinden in Bavaria forced the Austrians to seek peace for a second time, leading to the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. With Austria and Russia out of the war, the United Kingdom found itself increasingly isolated and agreed to the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleon’s government in 1802, concluding the Revolutionary Wars. The lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, however, and the Napoleonic Wars began a few years later with the formation of the Third Coalition, continuing the Coalition Wars and beginning the Napoleonic Wars.
Napoleon’s Military Record
The military career of Napoleon Bonaparte lasted more than 20 years. He is widely regarded as a military genius and one of the finest commanders in world history. He fought 60 battles and lost only seven, most of these at the end of his career.
In the field of military organization, Napoleon borrowed from previous theorists and reforms of preceding French governments, developing much of what was already in place. He continued the policy that emerged from the Revolution of promotion based primarily on merit. Corps replaced divisions as the largest army units, mobile artillery was integrated into reserve batteries, the staff system became more fluid, and cavalry returned as an important formation in French military doctrine. These methods are now referred to as essential features of Napoleonic warfare. Under Napoleon, a new emphasis towards the destruction, not just outmaneuvering, of enemy armies emerged. Invasions of enemy territory occurred over broader fronts, which made wars costlier and more decisive. The political effect of war increased. Defeat for a European power meant more than the loss of isolated enclaves, intensifying the Revolutionary phenomenon of total war.
The coronation ceremony, officiated by Pope Pius VII, took place at Notre Dame de Paris in December 1804. Following prearranged protocol, Napoleon first crowned himself, then proclaimed his wife Josephine empress. They had married in 1796, but would divorce in 1810, largely because they had not had a son who could be Napoleon's heir. Later that year he married Marie-Louise of Austria. Napoleon once remarked after marrying Marie-Louise that despite her quick infatuation with him “he had married a womb.”
Consolidation of Power: The Consulate and Rise to First Consul
The Constitution of the Year VIII (1799) preserved the appearance of a republic but established a dictatorship instead. Napoleon had taken power through a coup, and then consolidated it in a series of political maneuvers, but his rise as the sole ruler of France was linked with the power and popularity he gained as the foremost military leader.
Bonaparte thus completed his coup within a coup by the adoption of a constitution under which the First Consul, a position he was sure to hold, had greater power than the other two. In particular, he appointed the Senate that would interpret the constitution. The Sénat conservateur (Conservative Senate) verified the draft bills and directly advised the First Consul on the implications of such bills; this allowed Napoleon to rule by decree. This plan also ensured that the more independent Conseil d’État (Council of State) and Tribunat were relegated to unimportant roles, as they could draft bills and debate them but not vote on them. The legislature known as Corps législatif also partly replaced the Council of Five Hundred under the new constitution, but its role consisted solely of voting on laws deliberated before the Tribunat. Napoleon, at least in theory, still shared the executive power with the two other Consuls.
After the First Consul was assured power, Napoleon aspired to solidify his control of France. Military victories in the ongoing war increased his popularity, which allowed him to neutralize his political opponents. The 1801 Treaty of Lunéville with Austria restored peace in Europe, gave nearly the whole of Italy to France, and permitted Bonaparte to eliminate from French legislative assemblies all the leaders of the opposition. The 1802 Peace of Amiens with the United Kingdom—through which Spain and the Batavian Republic paid all of France’s costs—gave the peacemaker a pretext for endowing himself with a Consulate for life as a recompense from the nation. The same year, a second national referendum was held; this time to confirm Napoleon as “First Consul for Life.”
Early Wars with Austria and Britain
Napoleon’s early wars with Austria and Britain confirmed the French dominance over Austria, failed to stop British dominance in the Mediterranean, and ended with a precarious peace broken only a year after signing the final treaty of the French Revolutionary Wars.
Napoleon vs. the Second Coalition
The War of the Second Coalition (1798 – 1802) was the second war on revolutionary France by the European monarchies. The Second Coalition included Britain, Austria, Portugal, Naples, and Russia, including the Ottoman Empire. Their goal was to stop French territorial expansion and contain the spread of ideas generated by the French Revolution. This alliance failed in its goals, signing treaties with Napoleon's government in 1801 and 1802 which recognized French territorial acquisitions since 1793, along with the continued existence of the French Republic. The 1802 Treaty of Amiens, between France and Britain, marks the end of the French Revolutionary Wars and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, in which shifting alliances of European nations sought to stop Napoleon's conquests and end his reign as ruler of France. Britain was one of the leaders of these alliances against Napoleonic France.
The peace, however, did not last long. Great Britain had broken the Treaty of Amiens by declaring war on France in May 1803. In December 1804, an Anglo-Swedish agreement became the first step towards the creation of the Third Coalition. By April 1805, Britain had also signed an alliance with Russia. Austria joined the coalition a few months later, seeking revenge after being defeated by France twice in recent memory.
In the Third through the Seventh Coalition Wars, from 1803 through 1815 shifting alliances of European powers focused on defeating Napoleon, ending his reign, and retaking French conquests of their territories. These allies, led alternately by Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, finally succeeded in defeating French forces in 1814 and deposing Napoleon, who was exiled to Elba, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, off the west coast of Italy. The Coalition triumphed in part because Napoleon had overextended his forces, first in the 1808-14 Peninsular War and then with the 1812 French invasion of Russia. In the Peninsular War Napoleon expended a great deal of French resources in his failed effort to impose his brother Joseph on the Spanish as their king. In his 1812 invasion of Russia, designed to bring Russia under his control, Napoleon lost over half a million men out of an invasion force of about 600,000 men.
Throughout his reign Napoleon not only sought to control Europe, but also expand his empire into the Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East. These imperial efforts overseas cost him resources and distracted him from his efforts in Europe. His first colonial failure was his 1798-1801 effort to conquer Egypt and increase the French imperial presence in the Mediterranean Sea.
Near the end of the War of the Second Coalition, with Europe approaching peace and the French economy recovering, Napoleon’s popularity was soaring to its highest levels under the Consulate, both domestically and abroad. During this brief peace in Europe Napoleon tried to restore the French colonial presence in the Caribbean Sea by invading Saint-Domingue and, in the effort, reinstating slavery, which had been abolished by the National Convention in 1794. Through this invasion Napoleon also sought to halt the progress of national independence for Haiti, the second nation in the Americas to establish its national independence from a European colonial power, under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture. Although the French expedition captured Toussaint Louverture, it ultimately failed to take Saint-Dominque when high rates of disease decimated the French force. In May 1803, the last French troops left the island, and the slaves proclaimed an independent republic that they called Haiti by 1804. As a consequence of this failure, Napoleon decided in 1803 to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States, nearly doubling the size of the U.S. The selling price in the Louisiana Purchase was less than three cents per acre, a total of $15 million.
In the spring and summer of 1815 Napoleon made a last effort to retake control of France and restore his empire. This conflict is known alternately as the War of the Seventh Coalition and the Hundred Days. This war ended with the 18 June 1815 Battle of Waterloo, the name of which has become part of the popular lexicon. In the aftermath of this defeat Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean, about twelve hundred miles from the southwestern coast of Africa. The distant location of Saint Helena was supposed to be an extra measure of security against the possibility of another escape by Napoleon.
Napoleon’s Constitutions
Napoleon had become the First Consul for ten years. The Constitution of the Year VIII, adopted in 1799 and accepted by the popular vote in 1800, established the form of government known as the Consulate that confirmed his powre as First Consul, and presumed virtually dictatorial powers for him in that position the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. At this time Napoleon was popular among many in France. After a period of strife, many in France were reassured by his accomplishments in the War of the Second Coalition and his talk of stability of government, order, justice, and moderation. He created the impression that France was governed once more by a real statesman and that a competent government was finally in charge.
The Constitution of the Year VIII, along with future constitutions promulgated during Napoleon's reign over France, enhanced further his power as ruler. The Constitution was amended twice; in each case, the amendments strengthened Napoleon’s already concentrated power. The Constitution of the Year X (1802) made Napoleon First Consul for Life. In 1804, the Constitution of the Year XII established the First French Empire with Napoleon as Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. The Constitution established the House of Bonaparte as France’s imperial dynasty, making the throne hereditary in Napoleon’s family. The Constitution of the Year XII was later extensively amended by the Additional Act (1815) after Napoleon returned from exile on Elba. The document virtually replaced the previous Napoleonic Constitutions and reframed the Napoleonic constitution into something more along the lines of the Bourbon Restoration Charter of 1814 of Louis XVIII, while otherwise ignoring the Bourbon charter’s existence. It was very liberal in spirit and gave the French people rights which were previously unknown to them, such as the right to elect the mayor in communes with populations fewer than 5,000. Napoleon treated it as a mere continuation of the previous constitutions, and it thus took the form of an ordinary legislative act “additional to the constitutions of the Empire.”
Napoleon’s Reforms
Of greater importance than these constitutions was the Napoleonic Code created by eminent jurists under Napoleon’s supervision. Praised for its Gallic clarity, it spread rapidly throughout Europe and the world, marking the end of feudalism where it took effect. The Code recognized the principles of civil liberty, equality before the law, and the secular character of the state. It discarded the old right of primogeniture (where only the eldest son inherited) and required that inheritances be divided equally among all the children.
Napoleon also resolved most of the outstanding problems resulting from the complex history of religious tensions and conflicts in France, particularly between French revolutionaries who had sought to reduce the power of the Roman Catholic Church in France, if not Europe, and the Church. The centerpiece of Napoleon's religious policies was te Concordat of 1801. The Concordat of 1801 sought national reconciliation between revolutionaries and Catholics. It also recognized the Roman Catholic Church as the dominant church in France. But while it restored France’s ties to the papacy, it was largely in favor of the state. Signed by Pope Pius VII, the Concordat allowed the Church to return to normal operations. In exchange Catholics agreed to support Napoleon as ruler of France. Napoleon also implemented the policy of tolerance toward Protestants, Jews, and atheists. In the aftermath of signing the Concordat of 1801, the Catholic clergy returned from exile or hiding and resumed their traditional positions in their traditional churches. Napoleon and the pope both found the Concordat useful. Similar arrangements were made with the Church in territories controlled by Napoleon, especially Italy and Germany.
Napoleon's Attempt at Global Empire
Napoleon’s decisions to reinstate slavery in French colonies and sell the Louisiana territory to the United States, together with the triumph of the Haitian Revolution, made his colonial policies some of the greatest failures of his rule.
Napoleon and the Colonies
At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, most of France’s colonies were restored to it by Britain, notably Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies, French Guiana on the coast of South America, various trading posts in Senegal, the Île Bourbon (Réunion) in the Indian Ocean, and France’s tiny Indian possessions. However, Britain finally annexed Saint Lucia, Tobago, the Seychelles, and the Isle de France (now Mauritius).
The Catholic Church in Revolutionary France
During the French Revolution, the National Constituent Assembly took Church properties and issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which made the Church a department of the state and effectively removed it from papal authority. At the time, the nationalized Gallican Church was the official church of France. Gallicanism was the theory that the power of monarchs is independent of the power of popes and that the church of each country should be under the joint control of the pope and the monarch; the doctrine of the Gallican Church was essentially Catholicism. The Civil Constitution caused hostility among the Vendée resurgents, who resented the harsh conditions imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the provisions of the Civil Constitution and broke into open revolt after the Revolutionary government’s imposition of military conscription. A guerrilla war known as the Revolt in the Vendée was led at the outset by peasants who were chosen in each locale. It cost more than 240,000 lives before it ended in 1796. Subsequent laws abolished the traditional Gregorian calendar and Christian holidays.
Development of the Concordat
The Concordat was drawn up by a commission with three representatives from each party. Napoleon Bonaparte, who was First Consul of the French Republic at the time, appointed Joseph Bonaparte, his brother; Emmanuel Crétet, a counselor of state; and Étienne-Alexandre Bernier, a doctor in theology. Pope Pius VII appointed Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, Cardinal Giuseppe Spina, archbishop of Corinth, and his theological adviser Father Carlo Francesco Maria Caselli. The French bishops, whether abroad or back to their own countries, had no part in the negotiations.
Organic Articles
As part of the Concordat, Napoleon presented another set of laws called the Organic Articles. These consisted of 77 Articles relating to Catholicism and 44 Articles relating to Protestantism and were published as a unilateral addition to the Concordat in 1802. Napoleon presented the set of laws to the Tribunate and the legislative body at the same time that he had them vote on the Concordat itself. It met with opposition from the Catholic Church, with Pope Pius VII claiming that the articles had been promulgated without his knowledge. Presenting the Organic Articles was Napoleon’s method of granting the Tribunate and the legislative body partial control of the Concordat to help the state monitor any politically harmful Catholic or Protestant movements or activities.
Significance of the Concordat
The hostility of devout Catholics against the state was now largely resolved. However, the Concordat did not restore the vast church lands and endowments that were seized and sold during the revolution. But Catholic clergy returned from exile or hiding, and resumed their former positions in their traditional churches. While the Concordat restored much power to the papacy, the balance of church-state relations tilted firmly in Napoleon’s favor. He selected the bishops and supervised church finances. Similar arrangements were made with the Church in territories controlled by Napoleon, especially Italy and Germany. The Concordat was abrogated by the law of 1905 on the separation of Church and state. However, some provisions of the Concordat are still in effect in the Alsace-Lorraine region, under the local law of Alsace-Moselle, because the region was controlled by the German Empire at the time of the 1905 law’s passage.
The Napoleonic Code
The 1804 Napoleonic Code, which influenced civil law codes across the world, replaced the fragmented laws of pre-revolutionary France, recognizing the principles of civil liberty, equality before the law (although not for women in the same sense as for men), and the secular character of the state. The development of the code was a fundamental change in the nature of the civil law legal system, as it stressed clearly written and accessible law. Other codes were commissioned by Napoleon to codify criminal and commerce law.
The Napoleonic Code was not the first legal code to be established in a European country with a civil legal system. It was preceded by the Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis (Bavaria, 1756), the Allgemeines Landrecht (Prussia, 1794), and the West Galician Code (Galicia, then part of Austria, 1797). It was, however, the first modern legal code to be adopted with a pan-European scope and strongly influenced the law of many of the countries formed during and after the Napoleonic Wars. The Napoleonic Code was very influential in developing countries outside Europe, especially in the Middle East, that were attempting to modernize through legal reforms.
Legal System in France Before the Code
Napoleon set out to reform the French legal system in accordance with the ideas of the French Revolution. Before the Napoleonic Code, France did not have a single set of laws. Law consisted mainly of local customs, which had sometimes been officially compiled in “customals” (coutumes). There were also exemptions, privileges, and special charters granted by the kings or other feudal lords. During the Revolution, the last vestiges of feudalism were abolished; this meant a new legal code was required to address changes in the social, economic, and political structure of French society.
Praised for its clarity, the Code spread rapidly throughout Europe and the world in and marked the end of feudalism and the liberation of serfs where it took effect. The Code recognized the principles of civil liberty, equality before the law (although not for women in the same sense as for men), and the secular character of the state. It discarded the old right of primogeniture (where only the eldest son inherited) and required that inheritances be divided equally among all children. All judges were appointed by the national government in Paris. And the court system was standardized.
Napoleonic Code Influence
The development of the Napoleonic Code was a fundamental change in the nature of the civil law system, making laws clearer and more accessible. Although the Napoleonic Code was not the first civil code and did not represent the whole of Napoleon’s empire, it was one of the most influential. It was adopted in many countries occupied by the French during the Napoleonic Wars and thus formed the basis of the law systems of Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal (and their former colonies), and Poland (1808 – 1946). Thus, the civil law systems of the countries of modern continental Europe have, to different degrees, been influenced by the Napoleonic Code, with the exception of Russia and the Scandinavian countries. The Napoleonic Code also has influenced portions of several Middle Eastern legal codes. In the Persian Gulf Arab states of the Middle East, the influence of the Napoleonic Code mixed with hints of Islamic law is clear even in Saudi Arabia (which abides more towards Islamic law). In Kuwait, for example, property rights, women’s rights, and the education system were seen as Islamic reenactments of the French civil code. Even in the United States, most of the legal systems of which are largely based on English common law, the state of Louisiana is unique in having a strong influence on its civil code from the Napoleonic Code and Spanish legal traditions.
In his efforts to take control of Europe and increase the size of his global Napoleon did leave a number of legacies, including the Napoleonic Code and Napoleon's dream of a unified Europe, if not one under the control of a single autocrat. These legacies were related to the legacies left by the French Revolution, particularly in the areas of political and economic democratization. The French Revolution was the crucible for the emergence of nineteenth-century liberalism and the subsequent revolutions from 1820 through 1848. Although these revolutions were not successful, they did lead to significant gains in personal and national sovereignty up to the present. Ultimately the French Revolution and Napoleon's reign were milestones in the continuing struggle by humanity for basic rights, if not always in ways apparent and/or expected.
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Title Image - Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789. Attribution: Unidentified painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Provided by: Wikipedia. Location: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_-_Prise_de_la_Bastille.jpg. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
Boundless World History
"France under Louis XV"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/france-under-louis-xv/
"Louis XVI's Early Years"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/louis-xvis-early-years/
"Constitutional Monarchy"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/constitutional-monarchy/
"The Reign of Terror"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-reign-of-terror/
"The Beginning of Revolution"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-beginning-of-revolution/
"The French Empire
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-french-empire/
"Napoleon's Defeat"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/napoleon's defeat/
"The 100 Days"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-100-days/
"The Transition to Dictatorship"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-transition-to-dictatorship/