Main Points from Conclusion in Chapter 19 (click to see items)

1. Main Points from Conclusion in Chapter 19 (click to see items) • French Rev. exemplifies late 18th c. political transformations aimed at advancing equality and political liberty. • As stated in the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen: popular sovereignty = theoretical basis of liberty; equality meant equal rights and equal treatment under the law. • In practice, equality limited and political participation was expanded to the propertied but not consistently to working men; not at all to women. • Mass uprisings were important in forcing change. • French Revolution became the classical model for modern revolutions. • Liberal and national political ideals of the Revolution would spread through Europe in the 19th century.

2. Pre-Reading: Diagramming the Main Points and Structure of Chapter 19 in Speilvogel(Click to see the diagramming steps.) Forming New Nation 1783-1789 Forming New Nation 1783-1789 Impact on Europe Impact on Europe Ideas of Philosophes Ideas of Philosophes Causes Causes American Revolution 1776-1783 American Revolution 1776-1783 American Revolution 1776-1783 American Revolution 1776-1783 American Revolution 1776-1783 American Revolution 1776-1783 American Revolution 1776-1783 American Revolution 1776-1783 Failure of Reform Financial Crisis Financial Crisis • French Revolution: • Pol. Transformation end 18th c. • Pop. Sovereignty. • Liberty & equality: Theory & practice. • Mass uprisings & political change. • Model modern revolution. • FR liberty & nationalism. • spread in 19th c. Immediate causes Rise Background Background Background Background Background Social Structure Social Structure Napoleon 1799-1815 Napoleon 1799-1815 Domestic policies Long-term causes Long-term causes Empire & Resistance French Revolution French Revolution French Revolution French Revolution • Lawyers • Peasants • Women • Clergy • Jacobins • Sans Culottes • French Revolutionary Army • Committee of Public Safety • Lawyers • Peasants • Women • Clergy • Jacobins • Sans Culottes • French Revolutionary Army • Committee of Public Safety Group Participation Group Participation Main Events EG to Nat. Assembly 1789 Destruction Old Regime 1789-1792 Radical Revolution 1792-94 Reaction & Directory 1794-99 Click to hear La Marseillaise

3. Costs of war for hegemony & empire Causes of the Revolution: Geopolitical challenges: For France the cost of war for hegemony and empire outstripped the fiscal resources of the state, in contrast to Great Britain which had a more effective system of state finance, in which nobles and landowning gentry paid substantial taxes and government loans underwritten by the Bank of England The failure of fiscal and political reform: repeated attempts to increase tax revenues by raising taxes on the privileged classes (nobles and upper bourgeoisie) failed, generating increasing resistance to the crown's reforming efforts by the nobility, especially those in the parlements (sovereign courts). The Enlightenment and the growth of public opinion as an independent political force. Nobles in the Parlement of Paris advance the argument for aristocratic constitutionalism, drawing on Montequieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1748); they described themselves as the defenders of the people and the nation against the despotism of royal ministers. Rousseau's Social Contract (1762) advances the argument for democratic constitutionalism based on popular sovereignty and defining "freedom" as participation and the duty to obey laws one has a hand in making. The impulse for reform is widely shared but nobles generally had a different view of the future (more noble power) than the educated bourgeoisie (status and rights to be based on merit and talent, not birth). Criticism of the queen, the king, the aristocracy, the court erodes confidence in the governing classes and institutions. Embut with different visions of the future; of the privileged and the monarchy. The attack on the regime was openly hostile in the popular press of hack writers, the literary underground of the old regime. Social Tensions: Economic expansion from the 1730s expanded the ranks of the well-off middle classes: many sought to rise into the nobility by buying titles and offices; others began to criticize a social order built on privilege by birth and argued instead for rights and status based on merit and talent. Economic crisis and hardship in 1788-89 generated insecurity and popular disconent and disorders caused by severe food shortages.: impact on ordinary people Ineffective rule at the top: Louis XVI Class Notes(click to see all) Review notes after class (click to see) Failed reforms: taxes & representation Enlightenment > reforming impulse & conflict over kind of reform Tensions btw. nobility & bourgeoisie Economic Crisis & food shortages Louis XVI ineffective

4. The French Revolution: The Big Picture The French Revolution was both destructive and creative: • It represented an unprecedented effort to break with the past and to forge a new state and new national community based on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity.  • After the old government was replaced, differences over the meaning of those principles and the ways they were to be put into practice grew more salient and serious.  • Shaped and driven by passionate ideological differences, violence, and war, the revolution continued until a stable state organization was consolidated, in part through the use of military force.  • The revolution bequeathed to the French and to the World a new and enduring political vision: at the heart of progress lay liberation from the past, egalitarianism, and broadly based representative government.

5. Major Events • 1788 Louis XVI calls for the meeting of the Estates General in 1789 • Sieyès publishes What is the Third Estate? • 1789 June 17-20 the Third Estate at Versailles declares itself to be the National • July 14, Seizure of the Bastille • August, the abolition of feudalism (August 4th) and the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen (August 26) • October, Women’s march to Versailles. King returned to Paris. • 1790 July 12 the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which makes the church subordinate to the state and calls upon the clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the new State. Many clergy refuse. • 1791 June 20-21, Louis XVI and the royal family attempt to flee the country but are captured at Varennes and returned to Paris: the faith in the King declines sharply. • 1792 April 20. France declares war on Austria, and subsequently on Prussia, Britain, and Russia. • August 10 The Second Revolution: the Tuillery palace is attacked by Parisians, the monarchy is overthrown in a 'second' revolution. • September 21, 1792. The monarchy is abolished and the Republic is declared. • 1793 January 21,Louis Capet, former Louis XVI, is executed • August Levee en masse, the mobilization of the country to secure the Repbulic and defeat invading armies. • September 1793-July 1794, War and Terror: the authoritarian rule of France by the Committee of Public Safety, in which Robespierre is one of 12 members but often thought to be the leader. • 1794 the 9th of Thermidor (July 28). Overthrow and execution of Robespierre and other members of the Jacobin Committee of Public Safety. • 1795 August 22. The reorganization of the Republic into a regime known as the Directory, a collective executive. A new constitution attempts to turn the clock back to 1789 by, among other things, limiting the franchise to men of property. The sans-culotte movement is subsequently repressed. • 1799 November 1799, Napoleon's coup d'etat. • Estates General to the National Assembly, 1788-1789 • Destruction of the Old Regime and the establishment of the Constitutional Monarchy 1789-1792 • War and The Radical Revolution 1792-1794: The first years of the First French Republic • The Thermidorian Reaction and the Directory 1794-1799

6. Declaration the Rights of Man and Citizen, August 26, 1789. Destroying and Creating The representatives of the French people, constituted as a National Assembly, and considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental corruption, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man: so that by being constantly present to all the members of the social body this declaration may always remind them of their rights and duties; so that by being liable at every moment to comparison with the aim of any and all political institutions the acts of the legislative and executive powers may be the more fully respected; and so that by being founded henceforward on simple and incontestable principles the demands of the citizens may always tend toward maintaining the constitution and the general welfare.In consequence, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and the citizen:1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility.2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation.4. Liberty consists in the ability to do whatever does not harm another; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other limits than those which assure to other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by the law.5. The law only has the right to prohibit those actions which are injurious to society. No hindrance should be put in the way of anything not prohibited by the law, nor may any one be forced to do what the law does not require.6. The law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, in person or by their representatives, in its formation. It must be the same for everyone whether it protects or penalizes. All citizens being equal in its eyes are equally admissible to all public dignities, offices, and employments, according to their ability, and with no other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.7. No man may be indicted, arrested, or detained except in cases determined by the law and according to the forms which it has prescribed. Those who seek, expedite, execute, or cause to be executed arbitrary orders should be punished; but citizens summoned or seized by virtue of the law should obey instantly, and render themselves guilty by resistance.8. Only strictly and obviously necessary punishments may be established by the law, and no one may be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated before the time of the offense, and legally applied.9. Every man being presumed innocent until judged guilty, if it is deemed indispensable to arrest him, all rigor unnecessary to securing his person should be severely repressed by the law.10. No one should be disturbed for his opinions, even in religion, provided that their manifestation does not trouble public order as established by law.11. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may therefore speak, write, and print freely, if he accepts his own responsibility for any abuse of this liberty in the cases set by the law.12. The safeguard of the rights of man and the citizen requires public powers. These powers are therefore instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the private benefit of those to whom they are entrusted.13. For maintenance of public authority and for expenses of administration, common taxation is indispensable. It should be apportioned equally among all the citizens according to their capacity to pay.14. All citizens have the right, by themselves or through their representatives, to have demonstrated to them the necessity of public taxes, to consent to them freely, to follow the use made of the proceeds, and to determine the means of apportionment, assessment, and collection, and the duration of them.15. Society has the right to hold accountable every public agent of the administration.16. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the separation of powers not settled has no constitution.17. Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one may be deprived of it except when public necessity, certified by law, obviously requires it, and on the condition of a just compensation in advance. Source: The materials listed below appeared originally in The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Lynn Hunt (Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1996), 77–79. • http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/

7. Revolutionary Process in Stages (Click to see items) Four Phases, 1789-1799. • 1789-1792. A liberal phrase under a constitutional monarchy and national legislature (National Assembly, followed by Legislative Assembly). • 1792-1794: A radical, republican phase that led to authoritarian terror under the Committee of Public Safety, August 10 1792 to 9 Thermidor (July)1794. • 1794-99: Thermidor & the Directory: A reactionary phase in response to the excesses of radical republicanism (universal male franchise) and of Terror. • 1799: The Napoleonic coup d’etat, the ending of the Revolution by military coup and the restoration of “order” and domestic peace through an authoritarian regime.

8. Characteristics of the French Revolution • Reform vs. revolution. The first modern revolution focused on the creation of new rights, not the restoration of traditional or old rights. • From liberty = privilege to liberty = political participation. • The level of violence increased after the Revolution of 1789. • An unprecedented mobilization of ordinary people in the political process. The sans culottemovement in Paris. • Renewed War in the Competitive State System. The renewed war for hegemony and empire launched in April 1792 radicalized the Revolution and led to greater violence not only abroad but within France, creating a civil war internally and both the risk and reality of foreign invasion. This led to the Terror of 1793-94. • From reliance to domination by the army. The continuation of war after 1795 made way for the coup d'etat of Napoleon in 1799 and the conquest of the Republic by the army.

9. A Short list of Consequences of the Revolution • The creation of modern democratic republicanism (overthrow and de-sacralization of monarchy; establishment of representative government on a more or less broad franchise ). • The establishment of the concept and model of modern revolution. • The strengthening of the central state. • The emergence of the nation-state. • The strengthening of the propertied middle class or bourgeoisie as a part of the social and political elite. • Preservation of noble as well as peasant property; accumulation of much new property by the bourgeoisie through the purchase of national lands—lands confiscated from the Church and emigrees who left France during the Revolution. • The creation of a revolutionary tradition centered on the belief that revolution was a means for bringing progressive change and further extension of popular participation and popular sovereignty.

10. Historical and prospective reading vs. literary, ahistorical, or presentist reading.  Environmentalism: The novel shows that Graffigny had absorbed the sensationalist psychology of John Locke (mind at birth is blank slate; human nature was malleable and shaped by the environment, by education, socialization), for her characters are presented as shaped by their cultural environments. Materialism. Zelia’s observations form in part a critique of European/French materialistic life; ostentation and luxury seemed ubiquitous among the upper classes she encountered; a person’s identify and reputation were based on property and wealth, not on moral virtue, character, etc. “Noble Savage” and European Corruption: European civilization was a source of corruption: Aza symbolized the process whereby a noble man of virtue was corrupted by contact with Europeans. Frivolous training: child rearing practices instilled little sense of virtue and habits of frivolity: connection with Locke’s theories was evident. Superficiality vs. Sincerity and Virtue: Zelia was struck by the concern for appearances and the superficial expressions of civility and affection as compared to candor, honesty, inner character, and virtue. (Sentiment of empathy continued in Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality 1753.) Zelia’s identity: room for ambiguity Zelia’s initial identity was wholly defined by her relation to Aza, an extreme version of the notion that women were defined in relation to fathers, husbands, and men. Zelia’s development to the end of the novel: a) she adapted herself to her new culture but retained via her idealized picture of Aza a connection to the higher morality of homeland and origins; b) at the end shows herself to be an Enlightened woman, one who chooses to live alone as a means of protecting her new found independence from social corruption and the subordination entailed in European marriage. Early Enlightenment criticism 1690-1750. Graffigny’s epistolary novel illustrates a pattern of early Enlightenment criticism because the critique of European society is partly between the lines and presented in the guise of a foreign observer.  Later Enlightenment critiques were much more direct and open, despite censorship that continued. (Similar earlier work was Montesquieu’s Persian Letters 1721) Later Enlightenment criticism 1750-1800. Denis Diderot’s Voyage of Bougainville (1772, published posthumously in 1796) Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) Key Points in Letters of a Peruvian Woman (Click to see items) Prospective reading of historical document Environmentalism Materialism & Corruption vs. “Noble Savage.” Importance of Education Sentiments: heart andmind. Reason & Virtue: foreshadows Rousseau Gender: A Woman’s identity and imagination Early Enlightenment Later Enlightenment