THE French Revolution it was a watershed in modern European history that began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French citizens razed and reshaped their country's political landscape, uprooting secular institutions such as absolute monarchy and the feudal system. The uprising was caused by widespread discontent with the French monarchy and poor policies King Louis XVI, who met his death by the guillotine, as well as his wife Maria Antoinette. Although it has not achieved all of its goals and has at times degenerated into a chaotic bloodbath, the Revolution French played a key role in shaping modern nations, showing the world the power inherent in the will of the people.
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As the eighteenth century drew to a close, France's costly involvement in the American Revolution and the extravagant spending of King Louis XVI and his predecessor left the country on the brink of bankruptcy.
Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but two decades of poor harvests, drought, livestock disease and sky-high bread prices aroused unrest among the peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their despair and resentment at a regime that imposed heavy taxes – but failed to provide any relief – for riots, looting and strikes.
In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI's Comptroller General, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, proposed a reform package. that included a universal land tax from which the privileged classes would no longer be exempt.
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France's population had changed considerably since 1614. Non-aristocratic members of the Third Estate now represented 98% of the people, but they could still be beaten by the other two bodies.
In the period leading up to the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate began to mobilize support for a representation egalitarianism and the abolition of the noble veto – in other words, they wanted to vote upside down and not to status.
While all orders shared a common desire for tax and judicial reform, as well as a more representative of government, the nobles, in particular, were reluctant to give up the privileges they enjoyed under the system. traditional.
As the States General met in Versailles, the highly public debate over their voting process erupted in hostility between the three orders, eclipsing the original purpose of the meeting and the authority of the man who summoned.
On June 17, with negotiations over the proceedings stalled, the Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met on an indoor tennis court and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disperse until constitutional reform was achieved.
On June 12, when the National Assembly (known as the National Constituent Assembly during its work on a constitution) continued to meet in Versailles, fear and violence consumed the capital.
Although excited by the recent collapse of royal power, Parisians panicked when rumors of an imminent military coup began to circulate. A popular insurgency culminated on July 14, when protesters stormed the Bastille fortress in an attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons; many consider this event, now celebrated in France as a national holiday, as the beginning of the French Revolution.
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On August 4, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen), a declaration of democratic principles based on the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques. Rousseau.
The document proclaimed the Assembly's commitment to replacing the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunities, freedom of expression, popular sovereignty and government representative.
The elaboration of a formal constitution proved to be much more of a challenge for the National Assembly Constituent, which had the added burden of functioning as a legislature in economic times difficult.
For months, its members struggled with fundamental questions about the shape and extent of France's new political landscape. For example, who would be responsible for electing delegates? Do clergy owe allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church or the French government? Perhaps more importantly, how much authority did the king, his public image weaken after a failed attempt to flee the country in June 1791, retain?
Adopted on September 3, 1791, France's first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices of the Assembly, establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the king enjoyed the royal power of veto and the ability to appoint ministers. This commitment did not sit well with influential radicals such as Maximilien de Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins and Georges Danton, who began to promote popular support for a more popular republic may form the government and for the trial of Louis XVI.
In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, where it believed that French emigres were building counterrevolutionary alliances; he also hoped to spread his revolutionary ideals across Europe through the war.
On the home front, meanwhile, the political crisis took a radical turn when a group of insurgents led by Jacobin extremists attacked the royal residence in Paris and arrested the king on 10 August 1792.
The following month, amid a wave of violence in which Parisian insurgents massacred hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries, the Legislative Assembly was replaced by the National Convention, which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the republic. French.
On January 21, 1793, he sent King Louis XVI, sentenced to death for high treason and crimes against the State, to the guillotine; his wife Marie-Antoinette suffered the same fate nine months later.
After the king's execution, war with various European powers and intense divisions within the National Convention led the French Revolution to its most violent and turbulent phase.
In June 1793, the Jacobins took control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and have instituted a series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new timetable and the eradication of the Christianity.
They also unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror (la Terreur), a 10-month period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were guillotined by the thousands. Many of the murders were carried out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Public Safety Committee until his own execution on July 28, 1794.
His death marked the beginning of the Thermidorian reaction, a moderate phase in which the French revolted against the excesses of the Reign of Terror.
Did you know? More than 17,000 people were officially tried and executed during the Reign of Terror, and an unknown number of others died in prison or without trial.
On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, passed a new constitution that created the first bicameral legislature from France.
Executive power would be in the hands of a five-member Directory (Directoire) appointed by parliament. Royalists and Jacobins protested against the new regime, but were quickly silenced by the army, now led by a successful young general named Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Directory's four years of power were fraught with financial crises, popular discontent, inefficiency and, above all, political corruption. By the late 1790s, directors depended almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority and had ceded much of their power to generals in the field.
On November 9, 1799, frustrated with his leadership, Bonaparte staged a coup d'état, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself the first consul of France. The event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the French Revolution. Napoleonic era, in which France would come to dominate much of continental Europe.
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