French Revolution Questions of the Day Part 2

1. French Revolution Questions of the Day Part 2 Daniel W. Blackmon AP European History Coral Gables Sr. High

2. Essay Question • “The essential cause of the French Revolution was the collision between a powerful, rising bourgeoisie and an entrenched aristocracy defending its privileges.”

3. Assess the validity of this statement as an explanation of the events leading up to the French Revolution of 1789. AP 1984

4. Albert Soboul and a Marxist Interpretation • “The Revolution marks the advent of bourgeois, capitalist society in French history. Its essential achievement was the creation of national unity through the destruction of the seigneurial system and the privileged orders of feudal society;

5. as de Tocqueville observed in The Old Regime and the Revolution (published in 1856), the Revolution*s “real purpose was to do away everywhere with what remained of the institutions of the Middle Ages.”

6. Its final outcome, the establishment of liberal democracy, provides a further clue to its historical meaning. From this double point of view, and considered within the perspective of world history, it may be regarded as the definitive model of all bourgeois revolutions.”

7. “By the eighteenth century the bourgeoisie had taken the lead in finance, commerce, and industry, while it also provided the monarchy with the administrative personnel and resources required by the developing machinery of the state.”

8. “This [political] consciousness was positive; a rising class, with a belief in progress, the bourgeoisie saw itself as representing the interests of all and carrying the burdens of the nation as a whole.”

9. “In France during the second half of the eighteenth century, the growth of capitalism, which formed the basis of bourgeois power, was held in check by the feudal structure of society and by traditional systems of regulation affecting property rights, production and exchange.”

10. “The bourgeoisie, however, wanted more than just equality with the aristocracy. It demanded liberty; not just political liberty, abut even more, the idea of economic liberty, of free enterprise and profit.

11. “Capitalism required liberty in all its forms as an essential condition for its development; personal liberty as the condition permitting the emergence of a work-force of wage-earners;

12. “liberty of property to guarantee its free mobility and disposal; intellectual liberty as the necessary condition for the pursuit of scientific and technological discovery.”

13. Evidence to Support Soboul • Evidence from the cahiers de doléances • Official complaints drawn up and presented to the Crown

14. “That no citizen lsoe his liberty except according to law, that consequently, no one be arrested by virtue of special orders. . . . “ • “That the property of all citizens be inviolable.”

15. “That every personal tax be abolished; that thus the capitation and the taille . . .be merged with the Vingtièmes in a tax on land and real or nominal property.”

16. “That such taxes be borne equally, without distinction, by all classes of citizens and by all kinds of property.” • “That the tax substituted for the Corvée be borne by all classes.”

17. “That the venality [sale of] offices by suppressed. . . .” • “That the deliberations of courts . . . Which tend to prevent entry of the third estate thereto be rescinded and annulled as injurious to that order. . . .”

18. “That the tax of the gabelle be eliminated. . . .” • “That the right to hunt may never affect the property of the citizen . . . . ‘

19. “That individuals as well as communities be permitted to free themselves from the rights of Banalité [peasants were required to use the lord’s mill, winepress and oven], and Corvée by paymets in money or in kind.”

20. Abbé Sieyès, What Is the Third Estate: “What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want? To become something.”

21. Struggle of the Third Estate over voting by head rather than voting by order. • Declaration of the Third Estate that it constitutes a National Assembly • The Tennis Court Oath.

22. Establishment of a Constituent Assembly

23. Issues Before the Constituent Assembly • 1) the Declaration of Rights • 2) the royal veto • 3) the suffrage • 4) new system of local government • 5) assignats • 6) Civil Constitution of the Clergy

24. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen • “The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly . . . have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, . . . shall remind them continually of their rights and duties;

25. “in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions . . . .”

26. “1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good. • 2. The aim 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.

27. “3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. • 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; . . . .

28. 5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.

29. 6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.

30. 7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.

31. “9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.

32. “10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.

33. “11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

34. “13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.

35. “14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.

36. “16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.

37. “17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.”

38. The Veto Issue • Assembly votes a Second Chamber of the Legislature, but accepts a suspensive veto rather than an absolute veto, for the king. He could veto a bill twice, but the third time a bill could be passed by simple majority.

39. Suffrage • Assembly votes to establish a constitutional distinction between “active” and “passive” citizens. All male Frenchmen over 25 were citizens.

40. Suffrage • However, unless one paid 3 days’ unskilled wages in taxes, one was a passive citizen and ineligible to vote. Active citizens could vote for the primary assembly.

41. Suffrage • To be eligible for the secondary assemblies, which actually elected deputies, one had to pay 10 days’ wages. To be eligible for the national assembly, one had to pay 50 days’ wages–one silver mark. This is obviously a bourgeois voting structure.

42. Reorganization of Government • 1789 Local government reform: • 83 departments established, each divided into districts and communes. France now has a uniform government. • The old governmental structures are swept aside.

43. Assignats • 1789: Creation of assignats, a paper currency, secured on national lands confiscated from the Church • Purpose was to solve the financial crisis • It failed; the assignats fluctuated in worth with French military successes.

44. Civil Constitution of the Clergy • Civil Constitution of Clergy voted by the Assembly. Parish priests and bishops were to be elected; old dioceses abolished, the pope would have no authority in France; bishops and priests become employees of the state; clergy must take an oath of fealty to the constitution.

45. Civil Constitution of the Clergy • Represents Enlightenment anti-clericalism • Non-juring clergy will form the nucleus of resistance to the Revolution, especially among peasants and in the Vendee.

46. Civil Constitution of the Clergy • The result of insistence upon the Civil Constitution of the Clergy is civil war. • This civil war tended to pit the countryside against the city.

47. Constitution of 1791 • Limited monarchy • Separation of powers between executive, legislative and judicial branches • One house parliament, the Legislative Assembly

48. Summary: Pro-Soboul • The causes of the French Revolution may be judged both by the measures taken in the earlier years of the Revolution and by the lasting changes made in French society. These changes favor the bourgeoisie

49. Summary: Pro-Soboul • Better essays will stress the word “essential” allowing room to discuss elements which do not fit into the Marxist mold. • “Yes, Mr. Reader, there are exceptions to this generalization, nevertheless it is basically correct!”

50. Laissez-faire Economics • D’Allarde law abolishing guilds. A bourgeois. • Le Chapelier law outlawing unions and strikes. Another bourgeois.