Constitutional monarchy est. (7/1791) w/several reforms:

3. 13.2A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes Dispute over voting procedure: Clergy & nobles want 1 bloc vote/estate 3rd estate wants 1 vote for each delegate Louis gives in when 3rd estate withdraws & declares itself the National Assembly Paris Mob storms the Bastille (7/14/1789) when Louis posts troops around Paris Violence known as “The Great Fear” across France  several results: Many nobles leave France & stir foreign fears vs. the Revolution Nobles & clergy in Nat’l Assem. give up feudal rights (8/4/1789) Nervous MC create Nat’l Guard units 2 competing armies (royal & revol.) Paris mob drag Louis & Nat’l Assem. from Versailles back to ParisRev. at their mercy Constitutional monarchy est. (7/1791) w/several reforms: Jury trials & the abolition of torture King’s power ltd. to a weak veto Fr. reorg. into 83 non-feudal prov’s Standard metric system across Fr. Govt. still needs $ to pay off royal debt Govt. paid in assignats rather than gold or silver Take Church lands to back up bonds (assignats) Assignats seen as money & used to pay taxes Rampant inflation wrecks econ. Growing anger & turmoil over econ. & Nat’l Assembly’s Church policies

4. FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

5. Q: Conditions in Fr in 1789? FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

6. 1788 -Killing hail severe winter • floodsCrop failures • Q: Bread prices? FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

7. 1788 -Killing hail severe winter • floodsCrop failures • High bread prices • Q: Ability to buy other goods? FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

8. 1788 -Killing hail severe winter • floodsCrop failures • High bread prices • Can’t buy other goods • Q: Impact on gen’l enon? FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

9. 1788 -Killing hail severe winter • floodsCrop failures • High bread prices • Can’t buy other goods • Bankrupt businesses • Q: Jobs? FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

10. 1788 -Killing hail severe winter • floodsCrop failures • High bread prices • Can’t buy other goods • Bankrupt businesses • Unemployment • Q: ? FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

11. 1788 -Killing hail severe winter • floodsCrop failures • High bread prices • Can’t buy other goods • Bankrupt businesses • Unemployment • Urban riots FC.105A THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (JULY, 1789-JULY, 1790 Huge royal debt  Louis XVI calls Estates General in 1789 to get more taxes (FC.105)

12. Revolution (May to June, 1789) (24:00)

13. On top of the long-term problems afflicting French society, a series of famines and food shortages in the 1780s led to food riots across France. At this point, Louis XVI called the Estates General for the first time since 1614. What he wanted was more taxes. What he got was revolution. Below: Royal troops fire on rioters destroying a factory during a riot in 1789.

14. In addition, Louis had restored the popular finance minister, Jacques Necker (below left), who arranged for the number of Third Estate delegates to at least equal that of the clergy and nobles combined and also pushed for reforms, such as taxing the nobles and clergy. Below right: A cartoon mocking Louis and his deficit.

15. Sometimes it’s the little irritants in life, like dress codes, that lead to conflict. Among other things, Third estate deputies resented restrictions in the fanciness and color of their clothes, being allowed to only wear black compared to the clergy’s colorful vestments and the nobles’ silk fabrics, swords, cloth-of-gold waistcoats, and white plumed hats.

16. Another indignity was that the Third Estate had to wait for the clergy and nobles to enter and sit before they could enter and sit in the back. Everyone would stand and remove his hat when the king entered and had been seated. Then the nobles and clergy could sit and replace their hats while the Third Estate remained standing for some time. In a sense, the first act of the Revolution took place when the Estates General opened on May 4, 1789, & the Third Estate sat at the same time as the other two estates. It was probably a good thing they did, because the initial meeting of the Estates General was so long that Neckar needed help finishing his own three hour long speech.

17. The first big issue was how to count votes. The First and Second Estates (clergy and nobles) wanted bloc voting where each estate's votes collectively counted as one vote. This would give them two votes to one for the Third Estate (representing the middle and lower classes who comprised 98% of France's population). On the other hand, the Third Estate, whose delegates equaled the combined number of noble and clergy delegates, wanted one vote per delegate. Since a number of liberal clergy and nobles would probably vote with the Third Estate, this would give them an effective majority of votes. The final decision was up to Louis.

18. The King

19. Louis XVI was just the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. A devoted family man, he wasn’t evil. But he wasn’t much of a king either. Seen as being fat, dull, and stupid, he was the unwitting butt of jokes in his own court. He was so nearsighted that he couldn't recognize anyone more than three paces away. Instead of a kingly gait, he shambled along like a peasant behind a plow. Much more than ruling, he was interested in locks and probably would have been more content if he had been born a simple locksmith.

20. But Louis’ real passion was hunting and he considered a day without shooting a stag as a day lost. Yet he was rumored to be so lazy that he would sometimes have deer driven by his window where he could shoot them. He was also an obsessive list keeper who claimed to have killed 189,251 game and 1274 stags during his reign (1774-89). On July 14, 1789, the day the Bastille fell, he entered one word in his diary: “Nothing,” referring not to the revolution closing in on him, but to the number of animals he killed that day.

21. Louis had a huge appetite and was a sort of fat, gentle giant who, among other things, was reluctant to order the execution of his subjects. Even when the mob attacked his palace in Paris, he ordered the Swiss Guards to stop firing, leading to his capture and eventual execution. Worst of all, especially for him, Louis was very indecisive and let matters get out of control, so that a simple squabble over voting procedure would lead to revolution and his overthrow. Below: Cartoon where Henry IV meets his descendant, Louis XVI transformed into a pig in a wine barrel.

22. The Queen

23. Marie Antoinette, was the youngest daughter of the Austrian Empress, Maria Theresa. Although spoiled and somewhat flighty, she was hardly the monster that public opinion and later historians made her out to be. However, traditional prejudice against women in power (or perceived to be in power), her foreign birth, and Louis’ indecisiveness led people to believe she was a spendthrift leading the king and France to ruin. While hardly a saint, she also wasn’t the witch of popular imagination.

24. In fact, at that time the court was trying to tone down its image to keep in line with the late Enlightenment’s sensitivity to nature and the simple life. Therefore, the official public image we get of Marie Antoinette through the brush of her official court portrait artist, Elizabeth Vigee-Le Brun, is one of a devoted mother instead of a decadent queen

25. In fact, at that time the court was trying to tone down its image to keep in line with the late Enlightenment’s sensitivity to nature and the simple life. Therefore, the official public image we get of Marie Antoinette through the brush of her official court portrait artist, Elizabeth Vigee-Le Brun, is one of a devoted mother instead of a decadent queen Unfortunately for her, the seclusion of court life gave the French public little opportunity to see this side of her. Only recently have historians begun to reconstruct a more accurate portrayal of this woman.

26. Trianon fireworks, one of many expensive entertainments put on to occupy the time for bored nobles at court. In reality, the lavishness of court events and entertainments was considerably scaled down from the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV.

27. In place of high society parties, Versailles hosted events more geared to the public interest. Probably the most notable of these was one of the first hot air balloon flights. The king was so concerned about the safety of the balloon’s inventors, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, he wouldn’t let them fly with the balloon. Instead, the first passengers were a rooster, a sheep, and a duck.

28. In place of high society parties, Versailles hosted events more geared to the public interest. Probably the most notable of these was one of the first hot air balloon flights. The king was so concerned about the safety of the balloon’s inventors, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, he wouldn’t let them fly with the balloon. Instead, the first passengers were a rooster, a sheep, and a duck. The Montgolfiers did perform the first manned air balloon flight (left) and the first hydrogen balloon flight, also in 1783. These events drew huge crowds from Paris and the surrounding area. The first flight, on June 4, 1783, ascended an astounding 6,562 feet into the air.

29. Not that everyone was thrilled. Peasants, not aware of these balloon flights, attacked them when they landed in their midst, figuring it must be some sort of invasion by aliens who bore uncanny resemblances to roosters, sheep, and ducks.

30. The Tennis Court Oath (June 17, 1789)

31. On June 17, the Third Estate, seeing the king's indecision over the voting issue, put pressure on him by withdrawing along with many poor delegates from the clergy. In the spirit of Rousseau, they declared themselves the National Assembly with the exclusive right to grant taxes, since only they paid them. When Louis (an accomplished locksmith) locked them out of the Assembly Chamber, they withdrew to an indoor tennis court. After a day of trying to organize and get over 500 delegates to agree on one common statement (a much harder task than it seems), they took what became known as the Tennis Court Oath, vowing never to separate until they had formed a constitution. Below: The Tennis Court Oath (6/17/1789) by Jacques Louis David

32. Somehow, a meeting about taxes had turned into a movement to form a new government. On June 27, Louis gave in and ordered the First and Second Estates to merge with the National Assembly. The Revolution had begun.

33. Below: Some of the few remaining flying people join the National Assembly, hoping they would be protected from hunters like the king. While it worked for a few years, in the end it was the Jacobins who would exterminate the last of these remarkable people during the Reign of Terror, claiming their ability to fly separated them from the common people and undermined democracy.

34. On June 22, 1789 Louis called everyone together & announced reforms (maybe even taxing the nobles). He ended by “asserting” his royal authority & then left, followed by clergy & nobles, However, the Third Estate refused to leave.

35. When informed of this, the king sent troops to clear out the protestors. However, joining the Third Estate were 47 nobles sympathetic to their demands. Since custom demanded that nobles at Versailles wear swords, their presence and the threat of violence convinced Louis to let the Third Estate stay. The scene now shifted to Paris.

36. Paris Before the Revolution

37. If one city epitomized the 18th century, it was Paris. With a population of600,000 crammed into an area of six or seven square miles, it presentedsharp contrasts between the luxury of the rich and the abject poverty of most people.Being so big by the standards of the day, itstruck visitors as almost another planet.

38. One prominent feature of the city was its fourteen bridges. The busiest and most populous, the Pont Neufhad 178 stalls and shops where you could get anything money could buy. That also attracted a lot of crime at night, so the stalls and shops were destroyed in 1756. Similarly, the Pont Notre Dame’s 68 three-story buildings were torn down for safety in 1786.

39. Population was especially dense in the center of the city on the Ile de le Cite, and in surrounding areas. Living conditions for workers here were particularly bad, with families sharing one room for both living and working. There was also the Cour des Miracles behind a cemetery, where, after a hard day of begging, fraudulent beggars would remove their disguises and emerge transformed as if by miracle.

40. The city was also crowded with churches and monasteries. Despite a series of royal edicts prohibiting construction beyond certain points so the population didn't outgrow the food supply, Paris continued to grow without any central planning, creating numerous problems and occasional riots.

41. Paris’ central geographical feature was theSeine River, which allowed the transport of vital supplies of food and building materials. To expedite distribution, different ports were reserved for different goods: stone, wood, fresh fish, grain, wine, etc. Of course, all this was jeopardized in times of intense cold, drought, or flood, putting such a huge city at the mercy of the forces of nature, and making it especially prone to civil turmoil.

42. The city’s water supply also came from the Seine, which in 1760 supplied sixty fountains, although it needed ten times that number. In response, the rich either dug their own wells or bought from water carriers. Running water was unknown except to a few very rich and was not even halfway common until after 1800.

43. Paris’ streets were a maze of narrow, winding, dark, and filthy alleys and cul-de-sacs unable to handle traffic, commonly leading to fights between two parties each claiming it had rank over the other. There were only two major east-west boulevards and a few more running north-south. Buildings were asymmetrical and poorly built, causing them to sag, bulge, and sometimes collapse. Because lateral space was so limited, people built upward, so that sunlight rarely reached windows facing the street. A law in 1783 mandated streets to be at least 10 meters wide and buildings no taller than the width of the street, but no one listened.

44. Most people walked since coaches and sedan chairs were too expensive. Still, there were too many carriages for the crowded streets, and they often ran down people, especially children. Many people felt that life on the streets was depriving children of much needed exercise, leading to bodily deterioration and early deaths.

45. Besides being crowded and dangerous, Paris’ streets had filth everywhere. Proprietors were supposed to sweep in front of their houses, and garbage, which was supposed to be collected daily, instead steadily piled up, attracting vermin of every kind and producing astounding odors. Adding to the smell were open burial pits with an estimated 2,000 decomposing bodies a year. Blood ran out the doors of butcher shops and horse skinning establishment into gutters, which were just open trenches in the middle of the streets. Another sanitary problem and hazard was ordinary household waste thrown from chamber pots with alarming frequency. Passing police patrols were popular targets. In response, wide brimmed hats, thick boots, and walking to the outside to protect a lady against filth splashing up from the street became customary.

46. One visitor described Paris’ streets as “full of refuse and covered with thick glutinous mud.” As a result hustlers would throw wooden planks over a muddy street & demand fees for their use.

47. Some streets did have certain social and professional distinctions, but neighborhoods and houses typically had various classes mixed in, social distinction determining the story one lived on: the higher the story, the lower the status & likelihood of escaping a fire. Left: Women beckon to male customers below, the price of their services also determined by how high up they lived.

48. Since getting lost on Paris’ streets was such a problem, ten-foot metal signposts were set up in 1728… and quickly knocked down or stolen by cranky Parisians. So street signs were engraved into buildings’ cornerstones and remain there to this day. In 1775 buildings were also numbered and reflecting oil street lamps replaced the older and more cumbersome candlelit lanterns. By 1789, the city had 3528 lampposts, which also proved convenient for lynching. Paris’ first sidewalks were installed in 1789, but that didn’t stop the revolution either.

49. How the British viewed the Sans Culottes (top) and how the San Culottes viewed themselves

50. The Bastille (July 14,1789)