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French Revolution

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General history

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   The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a pivotal period in the history
   of French, European and Western civilization. During this time,
   republicanism replaced the absolute monarchy in France, and the
   country's Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo a radical
   restructuring. While France would oscillate among republic, empire, and
   monarchy for 75 years after the First Republic fell to a coup d'état,
   the Revolution is widely seen as a major turning point in the history
   of Western democracy—from the age of absolutism and aristocracy, to the
   age of the citizenry as the dominant political force.

   The slogan of the French Revolution was " Liberté, égalité, fraternité,
   ou la mort!" ("Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death!"). This slogan
   outlived the revolution, later becoming the rallying cry of activists,
   both militant and non-violent, who promote democracy or overthrow
   oppressive governments.

Causes

   Historians disagree about the the political and socioeconomic nature of
   the French Revolution. One interpretation is that the old aristocratic
   order of the Ancien Régime succumbed to the ambitions of a rising
   bourgeoisie, infected with the ideas of the Enlightenment, and allied
   with aggrieved peasants and wage-earners in the towns, particularly
   Paris and Lyons. Another interpretation sees various aristocratic and
   bourgeois attempts at political and economic reform spinning out of
   control and coinciding with popular movements of the new wage-earning
   classes and the provincial peasantry, but see any alliance between
   classes as contingent and incidental.

   However, adherents of both models identify many of the same features of
   the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the revolution. On the
   one hand there are the economic factors:
     * A poor economic situation and an unmanageable national debt, both
       caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable
       system of taxation, the massive spending of Louis XVI and the many
       wars of the 18th century
     * High unemployment and high bread prices resulting in the inability
       to purchase food
     * Food scarcity in the months immediately before the revolution

   On the other hand, there were social and political factors, many of
   them involving resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of
   Enlightenment ideals:
     * Resentment of royal absolutism
     * A resentment of noble privilege and dominance in public life by the
       ambitious professional classes
     * Resentment of manorialism (seigneurialism) by peasants,
       wage-earners, and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie
     * Resentment of clerical privilege ( anti-clericalism) and
       aspirations for freedom of religion
     * Aspirations for liberty and (especially as the revolution
       progressed) republicanism

   Finally, perhaps above all, was the almost total failure of Louis XVI
   to deal effectively with any of these problems.

Crisis in the royal finances

   The revolutionary crisis began when the French king Louis XVI (reigned
   1774-1792) faced a crisis in the royal finances. From a fiscal
   perspective, the solvency of the French crown was equivalent to the
   solvency of the French state. The French crown owed considerable debt,
   thus precipitating a fiscal crisis.

   During the régimes of Louis XV (ruled 1715-1774) and Louis XVI, several
   different ministers, including Turgot (Controller-General of Finances
   1774-1776), and Jacques Necker (Director-General of Finances
   1777-1781), unsuccessfully proposed to revise the French tax system to
   a more uniform system. Such measures encountered consistent resistance
   from the parlements (law courts), dominated by the "Robe Nobility",
   which saw themselves as the nation's guardians against despotism, as
   well as from court factions, and both ministers were ultimately
   dismissed. Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who became Controller-General
   of the Finances in 1783, pursued a strategy of conspicuous spending as
   a means of convincing potential creditors of the confidence and
   stability of France's finances.

   However, Calonne, having conducted a lengthy review of France's
   financial situation, determined that it was not sustainable, and
   proposed a uniform land tax as a means of setting France's finances in
   order in the long term. In the short-term, he hoped that a show of
   support from a hand-picked Assembly of Notables would restore
   confidence in French finances, and allow further borrowing until the
   land tax began to make up the difference and allow the beginning of
   repayment of the debt.

   Although Calonne convinced the king of the necessity of his reforms,
   the Assembly of Notables refused to endorse his measures, insisting
   that only a truly representative body, preferably the Estates-General
   of the Kingdom, could approve new taxes. The King, seeing that Calonne
   himself was now a liability, dismissed him and replaced him with
   Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse, who
   had been a leader of the opposition in the Assembly. Brienne now
   adopted a thorough-going reform position, granting various civil rights
   (including freedom of worship to Protestants), and promising the
   convocation of the Estates-General within five years, but also
   attempted in the meantime to go ahead with Calonne's plans. When the
   measures were opposed in the Parlement of Paris (due in part to the
   King's tactlessness), Brienne went on the attack, attempting to disband
   the parlements entirely and collect the new taxes in spite of them.
   This led to massive resistance across many parts of France, including
   the famous " Day of the Tiles" in Grenoble. Even more importantly, the
   chaos across France convinced the short-term creditors on whom the
   French treasury depended to maintain its day-to-day operations to
   withdraw their loans, leading to a near-default, which forced Louis and
   Brienne to surrender.

   The king agreed on 8 August 1788 to convene the Estates-General in May
   1789, for the first time since 1614. Brienne resigned on 25 August
   1788, and his predecessor Necker again took charge of the nation's
   finances. He used his position not to propose new reforms, but only to
   prepare for the meeting of the nation's representatives.

The Estates-General of 1789

   The calling of the Estates-General led to growing concern on the part
   of the opposition that the government would attempt to gerrymander an
   assembly to its liking. In order to avoid this, the Parlement of Paris,
   having returned in triumph to the city, proclaimed that the
   Estates-General would have to meet according to the forms observed at
   its last meeting. Although it would appear that the magistrates were
   not specifically aware of the "forms of 1614" when they made this
   decision, this provoked an uproar. The 1614 Estates had consisted of
   equal numbers of representatives of each estate, and voting had been by
   order, with the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the
   nobility), and the Third Estate (middle class and peasants) each
   receiving one vote.

   Almost immediately the "Committee of Thirty", a body of liberal
   Parisians, began to agitate against this, arguing for a doubling of the
   Third Estate and voting by head (as had already been done in various
   provincial assemblies). Necker, speaking for the government, conceded
   further that the third estate should be doubled, but the question of
   voting by head was left for the meeting of the Estates themselves.
   However, the resentments brought forward by the dispute remained
   powerful. Pamphlets and works by nobles like comte d'Antraigues and
   clergy like Abbé Sieyès argued the importance of the Third Estate. As
   Antraigues wrote, it was "the People, and the People is the foundation
   of the State; it is in fact the State itself". Sieyes' famous pamphlet
   What is the Third Estate, published in January 1789, pointed out the
   next step: "What is the third Estate? Everything. What has it been up
   to now in the political order? Nothing. What does it demand? To become
   something herein."

   When the Estates-General convened in Versailles on 5 May 1789, lengthy
   speeches by Necker and Lamoignon, the keeper of the seals, did little
   to give guidance to the deputies, who were remanded to separate meeting
   places to credential their members. The question of whether voting was
   ultimately to be by head or by order was again put aside for the
   moment, but the Third Estate now demanded that credentialing itself
   should take place as a group. Negotiations with the other estates to
   achieve this, however, were unsuccessful, as a bare majority of the
   clergy and a large majority of the nobility continued to support voting
   by order.

Assembly

   Sketch by Jacques-Louis David of the National Assembly making the
   Tennis Court Oath
   Enlarge
   Sketch by Jacques-Louis David of the National Assembly making the
   Tennis Court Oath

   On 10 June 1789 the Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now
   meeting as the Communes (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification
   of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but
   not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later,
   completing the process on 17 June. Then they voted a measure far more
   radical, declaring 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 they intended to conduct the nation's affairs
   with or without them.

   Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly
   met. The weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly
   moved their deliberations to a nearby, indoor, tennis court, where they
   proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath ( 20 June 1789), under which
   they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution.
   A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as
   did forty-seven members of the nobility. By 27 June the royal party had
   overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large
   numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the
   Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities. On 9 July the
   Assembly reconstituted itself as the National Constituent Assembly,
   which was to last until its dissolution in 30 September 1791.

The storming of the Bastille

   The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789
   Enlarge
   The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789

   On 11 July 1789 King Louis, acting under the influence of the
   conservative nobles of his privy council, as well as his wife, Marie
   Antoinette, and brother, the Comte d'Artois, banished the reformist
   minister Necker and completely reconstructed the ministry. Much of
   Paris, presuming this to be the start of a royal coup, moved into open
   rebellion. Some of the military joined the mob; others remained
   neutral.

   On 14 July 1789, after hours of combat, the insurgents seized the
   Bastille prison, killing the governor, Marquis Bernard de Launay, and
   several of his guards. Although the Parisians released only seven
   prisoners (four forgers, two lunatics, and a sexual offender), the
   Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the ancien
   régime. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused
   the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of
   treachery; his assassination took place en route to an ostensible trial
   at the Palais Royal.

   The king and his military supporters backed down, at least for the time
   being. Lafayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris.
   Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the National Assembly at the time of
   the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental
   structure known as the commune. The king visited Paris, where, on 27
   July he accepted a tricolore cockade, as cries of vive la Nation "Long
   live the Nation" changed to vive le Roi "Long live the King".

   Nonetheless, after this violence, nobles, little assured by the
   apparent and, as it proved, temporary reconciliation of king and
   people, started to flee the country as émigrés, some of whom began
   plotting civil war within the kingdom and agitating for a European
   coalition against France.

   Necker, recalled to power, experienced but a short-lived triumph. An
   astute financier but a less astute politician, he overplayed his hand
   by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the
   people's favour in his moment of apparent triumph.

   By late July insurrection and the spirit of popular sovereignty spread
   throughout France. In rural areas, many went beyond this: some burned
   title-deeds and no small number of châteaux, as part of a general
   agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande Peur" (the Great Fear). In
   addition, plotting and agitation by the émigrés led to wild rumours and
   paranoia (particularly in the rural areas) that caused widespread
   unrest and civil disturbances and contributed to the Great Fear
   (Hibbert at 93).

The National Constituent Assembly

The abolition of feudalism

   On 4 August 1789 the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism,
   in what is known as the August Decrees; sweeping away both the
   seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the
   First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns,
   provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges.

Dechristianisation

   The revolution brought about a massive shifting of powers from the
   Roman Catholic Church to the state. Under the ancien régime, the Church
   had been the largest landowner in the country. Legislation enacted in
   1790 abolished the Church's authority to levy a tax on crops known as
   the dîme, cancelled special privileges for the clergy, and confiscated
   Church property. Subsequent legislation attempted to subordinate the
   clergy to the state, making them state employees. The ensuing years saw
   violent repression of the clergy, including the imprisonment and
   massacre of priests throughout France. The Concordat of 1801 between
   Napoleon and the Church ended the dechristianisation period and
   established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church
   and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third
   Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905.

The appearance of factions

   Factions within the Assembly began to become clearer. The aristocrat
   Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès and the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led
   what would become known as the right wing, the opposition to
   revolution. The "Royalist democrats" or monarchiens, allied with
   Necker, inclined toward organising France along lines similar to the
   British constitutional model: they included Jean Joseph Mounier, the
   Comte de Lally-Tollendal, the Stanislas Marie Adelaide, comte de
   Clermont-Tonnerre, and Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de Virieu.

   The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the
   assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Bailly; while Adrien
   Duport, Barnave and Alexander Lameth represented somewhat more extreme
   views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer
   Maximilien Robespierre.

   The abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and
   successfully forged consensus for some time between the political
   centre and the left.

   In Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of
   representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority
   independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard
   under Lafayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did
   other self-generated assemblies.

   Looking to the United States Declaration of Independence for a model,
   on 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights
   of Man and of the Citizen. Like the U.S. Declaration, it comprised a
   statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect.

Toward a constitution

   The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature,
   but also as a body to draft a new constitution.

   Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a
   senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the
   people. The bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house
   elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would
   have a single, unicameral assembly. The king retained only a
   "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not
   block it absolutely.

   The people of Paris thwarted Royalist efforts to block this new order:
   they marched on Versailles on 5 October 1789. This event has been
   termed the 'march of the women' as it was mostly women who marched to
   Versailles. These were followed by 20,000 National Guards. After
   various scuffles and incidents, the king and the royal family allowed
   themselves to be brought back from Versailles to Paris.

   The Assembly replaced the historic provinces with eighty-three
   départements, uniformly administered and approximately equal to one
   another in extent and population.

   Originally summoned to deal with a financial crisis, by late 1789, the
   Assembly had focused on other matters and only worsened the deficit.
   Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, with the Assembly
   giving Necker complete financial dictatorship.

Toward the Civil Constitution of the Clergy

   To no small extent, the Assembly addressed the financial crisis by
   having the nation take over the property of the Church (while taking on
   the Church's expenses), through the law of 2 December 1789. In order to
   rapidly monetize such an enormous amount of property, the government
   introduced a new paper currency, assignats, backed by the confiscated
   church lands.

   Further legislation on 13 February 1790 abolished monastic vows. The
   Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790 (although not
   signed by the king until 26 December 1790), turned the remaining clergy
   into employees of the State and required that they take an oath of
   loyalty to the constitution. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy also
   made the Catholic church an arm of the secular state.

   In response to this legislation, the archbishop of Aix and the bishop
   of Clermont led a walkout of clergy from the National Constituent
   Assembly. The pope never accepted the new arrangement, and it led to a
   schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted
   the new arrangement ("jurors" or "constitutional clergy") and the
   "non-jurors" or "refractory priests" who refused to do so.

From the anniversary of the Bastille to the death of Mirabeau

          14 July 1790 – 30 September 1791

   The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the ancien régime,
   armorial bearings, liveries, etc., which further alienated the more
   conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the émigrés. On 14 July
   1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ-de-Mars
   celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille; Talleyrand
   performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the
   nation, the law, and the king"; and the king and the royal family
   actively participated.

   The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General
   to serve for a single year. However, by the time of the Tennis Court
   Oath, the communes had bound themselves to meet continuously until
   France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new
   election, but Mirabeau carried the day, asserting that the status of
   the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should
   take place before completing the constitution.

   In late 1790, several small counter-revolutionary uprisings broke out
   and efforts took place to turn all or part of the army against the
   revolution. These uniformly failed. The royal court "encouraged every
   anti-revolutionary enterprise and avowed none." ( François Mignet,
   History…, CHAPTER III)

   The army faced considerable internal turmoil: General Bouillé
   successfully put down a small rebellion, which added to his (accurate)
   reputation for counter-revolutionary sympathies. The new military code,
   under which promotion depended on seniority and proven competence
   (rather than on nobility) alienated some of the existing officer corps,
   who joined the ranks of the émigrés or became counter-revolutionaries
   from within.

   This period saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics,
   foremost among these the Jacobin Club: according to the 1911
   Encyclopædia Britannica, one hundred and fifty-two clubs had affiliated
   with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790. As the Jacobins became more of a
   broad popular organisation, some of its founders abandoned it to form
   the Club of '89. Royalists established first the short-lived Club des
   Impartiaux and later the Club Monarchique. The latter attempted
   unsuccessfully to curry public favour by distributing bread.
   Nonetheless, they became the frequent target of protests and even
   riots, and the Paris municipal authorities finally closed down the Club
   Monarchique in January 1791.

   Amidst these intrigues, the Assembly continued to work on developing a
   constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies
   temporary and independent of the throne. The legislators abolished
   hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started
   for criminal cases. The king would have the unique power to propose
   war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The
   Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds,
   masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the
   right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes
   became illegal.

   In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time,
   legislation against the émigrés. The debate pitted the safety of the
   State against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau carried the
   day against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being
   placed in the code of Draco." (Mignet, History…, CHAPTER III) However,
   Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791. In Mignet's words, "No one succeeded him
   in power and popularity" and, before the end of the year, the new
   Legislative Assembly would adopt this "draconian" measure.

The flight to Varennes

   Louis XVI, opposed to the course of the revolution, but rejecting the
   potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe, cast his
   lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the
   assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmedy.
   On the night of 20 June 1791 the royal family fled the Tuileries
   wearing the clothes of servants, while their servants dressed as
   nobles. However, the next day the king was recognised and arrested at
   Varennes (in the Meuse département) late on 21 June. He was paraded
   back to Paris under guard, and still wearing his rags. Pétion,
   Latour-Maubourg, and Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, representing
   the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them.
   From this time, Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal
   family. When they reached Paris, the crowd remained silent. The
   Assembly provisionally suspended the king. He and Queen Marie
   Antoinette remained held under guard.

The last days of the National Constituent Assembly

   With most of the Assembly still favouring a constitutional monarchy
   rather than a republic, the various groupings reached a compromise
   which left Louis XVI little more than a figurehead: he had perforce to
   swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that
   retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon
   the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to
   de facto abdication.

   Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes
   of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd
   gathered in the Champ-de-Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and
   Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the
   municipal authorities to "preserve public order". The National Guard
   under Lafayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers first
   responded to a barrage of stones by firing in the air; the crowd did
   not back down, and Lafayette ordered his men to fire into the crowd,
   resulting in the killing of as many as fifty people.

   In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the
   patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul
   Marat's L'Ami du Peuple. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat
   went into hiding.

   Meanwhile, a renewed threat from abroad arose: Leopold II, Holy Roman
   Emperor, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the king's brother
   Charles-Phillipe, comte d'Artois issued the Declaration of Pilnitz
   which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his
   total liberty and the dissolution of the Assembly, and promised an
   invasion of France on his behalf if the revolutionary authorities
   refused its conditions.

   If anything, the declaration further imperiled Louis. The French people
   expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the
   threat of force merely resulted in the militarisation of the frontiers.

   Even before his "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had
   determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed
   them, the Legislative Assembly. They now gathered the various
   constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, showed
   remarkable fortitude in choosing not to use this as an occasion for
   major revisions, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI,
   who accepted it, writing "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. The
   Assembly set the end of its term for 29 September 1791.

   Mignet has written, "The constitution of 1791... was the work of the
   middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the
   predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this
   constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised
   none." (Mignet, History…, CHAPTER IV)

The Legislative Assembly and the fall of the Monarchy

          1 October 1791 – 19 September 1792

The Legislative Assembly

   Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a
   constitutional monarchy. The king had to share power with the elected
   Legislative Assembly, but he still retained his royal veto and the
   ability to select ministers. The Legislative Assembly first met on 1
   October 1791, and degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the
   words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the attempt to govern,
   the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an
   undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and
   successful riot." The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165
   Feuillants (constitutional monarchists) on the right, about 330
   Girondists (liberal republicans) and Jacobins (radical revolutionaries)
   on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with either faction.
   Early on, the king vetoed legislation that threatened the émigrés with
   death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within
   eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the
   Clergy. Over the course of a year, disagreements like this would lead
   to a constitutional crisis, leading the Revolution to higher levels.

War

   The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with
   Austria and its allies. The King, the Feuillants and the Girondins
   specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with
   him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also
   foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make
   him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout
   Europe. Only some of the radical Jacobins opposed war, preferring to
   consolidate and expand the revolution at home. The Austrian emperor
   Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war,
   but he died on 1 March 1792.

   France declared war on Austria ( 20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on
   the Austrian side a few weeks later. The French Revolutionary Wars had
   begun.

   After early skirmishes went badly for France, the first significant
   military engagement of the war occurred with the Franco-Prussian Battle
   of Valmy ( 20 September 1792). Although heavy rain prevented a
   conclusive resolution, the French artillery proved its superiority.
   However, by this time, France stood in turmoil and the monarchy had
   effectively become a thing of the past.

Constitutional crisis

   10 August 1792 Paris Commune
   Enlarge
   10 August 1792 Paris Commune

   On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents, supported by a new
   revolutionary Paris Commune, assailed the Tuileries. The king and queen
   ended up prisoners and a rump session of the Legislative Assembly
   suspended the monarchy: little more than a third of the deputies were
   present, almost all of them Jacobins.

   What remained of a national government depended on the support of the
   insurrectionary Commune. When the Commune sent gangs of assassins into
   the prisons to butcher 1400 victims, and addressed a circular letter to
   the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example, the
   Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted
   until the Convention, charged with writing a new constitution, met on
   20 September 1792 and became the new de facto government of France. The
   next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. This date
   was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the
   French Revolutionary Calendar.

The Convention

          20 September 1792 – 26 September 1795

   Execution of Louis XVI
   Enlarge
   Execution of Louis XVI

   In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened
   retaliation on the French population should it resist their advance or
   the reinstatement of the monarchy. As a consequence, King Louis was
   seen as conspiring with the enemies of France. 17 January 1793 saw King
   Louis condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and
   the general safety" by a weak majority in Convention. The 21 January
   execution led to more wars with other European countries. Louis'
   Austrian-born queen, Marie Antoinette, would follow him to the
   guillotine on 16 October.

   When war went badly, prices rose and the sans-culottes (poor labourers
   and radical Jacobins) rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in
   some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a
   parliamentary coup, backed up by force effected by mobilising public
   support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power
   of the Parisian sans-culottes. An alliance of Jacobin and sans-culottes
   elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy
   became considerably more radical.
   Guillotine: between 18,000 and 40,000 people were executed during the
   Reign of Terror
   Enlarge
   Guillotine: between 18,000 and 40,000 people were executed during the
   Reign of Terror

   The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien
   Robespierre, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror
   (1793-1794). At least 1200 people met their deaths under the guillotine
   or otherwise; after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities.
   The slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or,
   as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of
   those in power) could place one under suspicion, and the trials did not
   proceed scrupulously.

   In 1794, Robespierre had ultra-radicals and moderate Jacobins executed;
   in consequence, however, his own popular support eroded markedly. On 27
   July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of
   Robespierre and Saint-Just. The new government was predominantly made
   up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power,
   they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had
   helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and
   executing many of its former members in what was known as the White
   Terror.

   The Convention approved the new "Constitution of the Year III" on 17
   August 1795; a plebiscite ratified it in September; and it took effect
   on 26 September 1795.

The Directory

          26 September 1795 – 9 November 1799

   The new constitution installed the Directoire (English: Directory) and
   created the first bicameral legislature in French history. The
   parliament consisted of 500 representatives - le Conseil des Cinq-Cents
   (the Council of the Five Hundred) - and 250 senators - le Conseil des
   Anciens (the Council of Elders). Executive power went to five
   "directors", named annually by the Conseil des Anciens from a list
   submitted by the le Conseil des Cinq-Cents.

   The new régime met with opposition from remaining Jacobins and the
   royalists. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary
   activities. In this way the army and its successful general, Napoleon
   Bonaparte gained much power.

   On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon staged the
   coup of 18 Brumaire which installed the Consulate; this effectively led
   to his dictatorship and eventually (in 1804) to his proclamation as
   Empereur (emperor), which brought to a close the specifically
   republican phase of the French Revolution.

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