Category: French Revolution

We can agree that kings have ruled for centuries governments in Europe, France after centuries of being under the control of kings finally made the decision to start a revolt and fight the system that has oppressed them for centuries. Thomas Paine in his Rights of Man explains the problem of having a monarchy government. Paine had ideas on how to help France after the revolution, the revolution that occurred in France was a brave stand and challenge to fight a monarchy government and wanted to create a new form of government.

The French revolution went from 1789-1799 and would in the end have future effects all through Europe, the French Revolution would introduce a democratic government to the country of France however France did not become a democracy. The French Revolution made the kings, nobles and other political parties relive they took powers for granted and they could either go with the current government or they could accept liberty and equal rights for the people.

With the French people, their frustrations and the tensions were getting to a breaking point, this tension led to the people revolting against the government and their current leaders the kings. With the current way the government was there was more power with the king and the upper class, this system was biased and equal. It was made up of three estates the majority was the third estate. It was the first estate and the second estate that would hold a great majority of power and the clergy and nobility were what made them up. Within France, these two estates obtained and held on to most of the wealth. There was constant tension between these classes and the king, and a power struggle began despite these classes having most of the wealth and power.

During the face-off and fighting between the nobility and the royalty, it was the lower class the bourgeoise who were hurting and suffering from the struggle of being poor having to live in poverty, all through the struggle with poverty and living in poor conditions they had to live by the rules of society. During this time equality within society was not present and did not exist. The lower class when it came to voting were only allowed one vote which shows how the monarchy is a truly corrupt government and in France, the government only wanted what was good for them.

The court system which was made up of royals in Versailles maintained a monarchy and created a system that would allow the government to keep a hold on power and control over the people, within the middle class and the lower class who were hard-working people this form of government created tensions, frustration, and resentment leading the French people to call for equality. The French people grew angry and tensions kept mounting with France coming back from the American Revolution war being the breaking point after France was in financial pieces after providing money and military power to the Americans, King Louis the XVI assumed that if he helped the Americans with the war that France would gain more territory and France would benefit with both monetary and territory benefits.

The truth was that King Louis the XVI was a failure as a leader and had no say of what was going on in France, there was no leadership with his country as he led France down a road to constant debt. France was walking a tight rope and was in danger of going bankrupt. The nobility class had a tight hold on the wealth which only made things worse for the country and didn’t help their financial crisis, the nobility also did not have to pay any taxes which if they would pay taxes it would help the country in their financial mess, King Louis XVI saw only one option to stop the financial downfall and crisis and that was to enact orders for the lower class who were already fighting poverty to pay higher taxes on everything which led the lower class to fight for food since they could not afford to pay for the food which now cost even more.

With the rising taxes on the people tension grew, even more, this hardship was even worse during the winter of 1769-1783 when it was a harsh winter, there were dangerously cold temperatures and hail storms that wreak havoc, a lot of the crops that the lower class had grown were now dying and failure to grow more crops was major devastation for the corn and grain production. The French people were hoarding bread and scrapping for anything they could get; some bakers were lynched for hoarding bread when the people needed it.

It was not only the problem of taxes and food for the lower class there was a big social problem that would fuel the fire for the French Revolution. The 18th century for France presented tension between the social classes, there was a division between people. The nobles and the royalty thought that they had a God-given right to be who they were and that they were born to be noble or born to be royal. It was all about the precept that they are entitled to their social class. There were a lot of reasons that the French Revolution started and some of the goals of the French Revolution were that for the French people they wanted to change the way the political system worked, second, the French Revolution was a result of an economic system that did not work that was being run by King Louis the XVI.

The government of France was in constant discontent that ran through the Revolution. The French people lived their lives in a state of fear, the king was the one and only person who decided the fate of someone and the country of France. During the reign of King Louis the XVI the justice system was a one-way street, there really was no justice system except king Louis XVI’s justice where there would not be any fair trial for someone who criticized the king, they would be arrested and jailed. To create an alliance between France and Austria the king married an Austrian Duchess named Marie Antoinette. The king and his queen lived in a palace called Versailles.

King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette did not care much for the troubles of the people but with themselves and what was good for them, King Louis XVI loved to hunt and go on these hunting games while Marie Antoinette indulged in jewels, expensive art, and loved to have her hair done in these crazy ways that took hours to do, she had no care about what was going on outside with the French people. While the French people starved and scraped for food the king and queen lived life in luxury eating everything from fancy pastries to pheasants.

The people of France felt like king Louis betrayed them and saw how the political system was corrupt, the king supported a block count, not the headcount that is usually done, with all the hardship that the people of France were under king Louis decided to support the Americans with their war the American Revolution. The financial crisis was not getting better and France was deep in debt which was contributed to both France supporting the Americans and the seven-year war, with all the debt the parliament made a suggestion to king Louis XVI that he borrows money which could only be done with the states-general approval so the king proceeded to call a meeting.

It was in May of 1789 that the States-General opened at Versailles, it was the first two estates made up of the nobles and the royals that wanted to vote by each estate, there were a lot of French people that represented France since the third estate made up a good majority. The third estate gave their suggestions however the king and the first estates did not want to agree with the third estate. The king decided that a National assembly would be made up of all three estates. The king would go against the National Assembly and bring troops in to break it up, in 1789 a large group of the French people went into action and raided the prison at Bastille with the intention of gathering all the ammunition they could find and weapons they could find.

The French people used the weapons to fight against the king’s troops, French people after raiding the prison proceeded to tear it down brick by brick since the French people didn’t have any explosives, all along the countryside the French people were rioting. After all the revolts the king was put on trial mainly spearheaded by Robespierre who with the help of the newspaper convinced the French people that the king must be removed. King Louis XVI was eventually put on trial which he was already found guilty and it was just a matter of what the punishment would be, for the French people felt that king Louis XVI had betrayed the country by trying to flee to Austria where his brothers were and he had an alliance.

In 1793 the National Convention found king Louis XVI guilty, even though only a small group were in support of the death penalty and having guillotined the National Convention still sentenced him to be beheaded, 1793 the king was executed and his wife Marie Antionette followed not too far behind him under the same accusations as the king himself, after the king was executed the revolution which had good intentions for peace became more radical, the revolution accepted change which was violent and often extreme and the leaders who had become extreme became more active among the French people. Leaders of the convention who were radical included Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Danton, and Jean-Paul Marat who ran the newspaper that would daily spread rumors and any accusations throughout the country. Marat would eventually be assassinated by a woman named Charlotte Corday.

There would be a struggle for power and authority with both the radicals and the group known as the Jacobin club which was headed by Georges Danton, Danton would lead the Jacobin club and try to convince the people that the National Convention was becoming too violent, Danton was against all the violence and said that Maximilien Robespierre who was heading the radicals was out of control and needed to stop, the terror, as it was known, would use spies to find out who was talking bad about the convention and who was not supporting them.

This period of the revolution was the most violent and horrific with thousands of people being sent to the guillotine and executed, the terror had no compassion for anyone who they felt were traitors against the radical government. Georges Danton would be executed by being beheaded by the radicals who accused him and his supporters of betraying the convention. The policy of terror headed by Robespierre, Carnot, Barere would continue and wreak havoc through the country, they would call for the beheading of anyone who did not support them and was supporters of the king. The French people lived their lives scared and did not want to talk about anything since their spies everywhere the bakery, the store, anyone who disagreed with the radicals were in danger of being executed.

The prisons would eventually become filled with over a thousand suspects who didn’t support the radicals, over 18,000 people who were mainly innocent were beheaded during the reign of terror, every day carts would slowly move through the streets making the French people shiver and fear for their lives as these carts would take the accused to the guillotine. It was at this time of the terror that the radicals would start to fight among themselves, with Danton and his supporters dead after being executed the people of France wanted to see an end to the violence, it was only when Robespierre was accused of being a traitor when he presented a list of names of men who were against the radicals but refused to give the list to the convention, the men who supported him and his reign of terror turned against him fearing that now anyone could on that list.

In July of 1794, Robespierre was executed ending his reign of terror, after he was executed a democratic government was installed in 1793, in 1795 a new document was signed that replaced the old one. This new government and this new constitution were called the directory. In October of 1795, the directory would begin to meet. In October of 1799, there was a group of political leaders who did not support the directory started to try and overthrow the directory. The was these in order to overthrow the directory they were going to need the support of the military and have the power of the military, these political leaders decided to go to a famous general named Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon was a hero to the French people after commanding and leading military campaigns in Europe to include Italy, Austria, and Russia. Napoleon would take control of the government and in November of 1799 which would bring an end to the revolution.

The French Revolution is an iconic part of history, it is an event that is a turning point within Europe where the monarchy system started to disappear, however throughout time it was mostly described with a clear partisan of the white male. This blog post will explain the importance of both women and black people in the revolution.

When discussing female figures within the French Revolution, most people would point to Marie Antoinette and her infamous quote; ‘Let them eat cake’. The phase penetrated pop culture for multiple years such as Queen’s Killer Queen in 1974. While the statement from Marie Antoinette is dubious at best, it also affected society as a whole perception of the French Revolution. As the general population now regards the only famous female figure of that time and event being an opponent of social change it leads to numerous unsung heroes of the era. One of them is Olympe de Gouges, a French playwright and important figure in gender equality who in many ways revolutionized women.

To understand the impact of Olympe de Gouges, one should understand the social context of French politics of the period. Before the revolution, there were multiple debates about the Enlightenment. A belief system that values debate-intensive parties and the spread of opinion. People who were part of the Enlightenment movement believed that social democracy would be the most optimal way to run France over its current system – an Absolute Monarch chosen by God.

Critics of the absolute monarch system criticized the system for its dogmatic approach to leadership with little involvement of the population. This caused the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 – a series of points created to encourage democracy. Such as ‘all men are born and remain equal in rights’ (Point 1) or ‘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.’ (Point 10) These rights were set as what any country that stated to a democracy.

Despite the Rights of Man’s popularity, it also had critics, one being the use of male pronouns in various points which would cause male supremacy. Noticing the glaring flaw, Olympe de Gouges in 1791 wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen. It functioned as both a response and an extension of the Rights of Man and Citizens.

Comparing the points, both have their first point that people are born free and equal, with Olympe including women. The fifth point of both states of complete freedom if actions are harmless. Interestingly, point 7 of the Rights of Man and the Citizen states that all men cannot be arrested or detained unless they break a law. The seventh point of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen states that no woman is exempt from the law and must be served equally with men. This is enhanced by the ninth point which states that all guilty women need to have ‘all rigor’ by the law. Perhaps the wording of point 7 was to criticize the sexism within the Rights of Man and the Citizen by specifically stating women will be equal to men. Point 14 also states that women need to pay taxes. The statement that women were willing to pay taxes shows Olympe’s desire for true equality where women and men have to deal with the same tasks, even what is seen to be a boring part of life – paying taxes.

The overall legacy of Olympe de Gouges is one of being forgotten by everyone outside of France. In France, her legacy is one of being a hero especially towards feminists with a song titled Olympe de Gouges by Femmouzes T. in 1996 praising that her admirers will revive her ideas.

The revolution is a child of the Enlightenment, people dreamed of building a world based on reason, they dreamed of bringing universal happiness, but it all ended in blood, and civil war. What is terror? In Latin, “terror” means fear and horror, that is, any violence that causes horror is called terror. For many years, disputes have been going on about what the policy of terror was necessary for and what it led to. We look at this issue in the example of Russia with the Stalinist terror and France with the Jacobin terror.

Violence in the French Revolution began in its first days – the capture of the Bastille. In history, there is a fairly stable phrase “Jacobin terror”. But, it was not the Jacobins who began the terror, it began long before them. But it was the Jacobins who gave terror such a scope and made it mundane. This began to happen in the early fall of 1973 at the request of the Parisian lower classes, then the National Convention was formed. The people express this will by electing their representatives. They make certain decisions, and who opposes these decisions, opposes the people, he is the enemy of the people. And if he is an enemy of the people, if he by his actions puts himself outside the borders of the nation, beyond the borders of the French people, then, naturally, the nation has the right to respond to this and punish him. The brutal massacres began with the “Decree of Suspicious”, where it was ordered to arrest and keep in prison all suspicious people. This shows that they killed all people who could not prove their loyalty, such as former nobles, priests, and generally any people who did not support the revolution, and not those who committed a crime or who spoke out with counter-revolutionary slogans or killed revolutionaries. This is the first wave of terror and one of the first people who was killed was a former king. From that moment on, terror became mass, literally, every second was arrested, and then the question arises of how precisely these mass arrests coincide with the decrees of the Convention. Although this movement carries the image of the struggle against the counter-revolutionaries and those who want to return the monarchy. According to Donald Green’s calculations, “The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution” executed more than 25,000 people, and most of these victims were the third estate, that is, the very people who started the revolution.

Robespierre said: “Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is, therefore, an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs. ”And he states that terror is the highest justice, even if it circumvents the laws. He is a manifestation of virtue because all who are not with us are against us. He knew what he was doing and believed that he was doing everything right and for the good.

But why was a terror policy introduced? Terror is becoming an indispensable element of political struggle. He became a state and Jacobin politician, and in particular, robespierists began to use terror, based on their desires and benefits, to reduce personal scores and fight political opponents. On February 22, 2 years on the revolutionary calendar or in May 1794, one of Robespierre’s associates, Georges Couton, appears in the Convention. In his report, he proposes to simplify legal proceedings, to abolish a wealthy process, that is, no lawyers will be sentenced not based on law, not a criminal code, not some formal crimes, but a jury conscience. That is, terror was justified as a way of exercising popular sovereignty; terrorist laws were only a manifestation of this unlimited sovereignty, acting in the name of public salvation and revolutionary renewal. And from that moment, more than 14 months earlier, people were executed in a few weeks. But Robespierre is declining, as is terror. Terror was the price France paid for defeating external enemies, and this was what ensured stability to the regime. Members of the Convention put up with Robespierre, obediently voting for all his terrorist decrees. The external threat has disappeared – the need for Robespierre with its terror has disappeared.

Now we will consider how the terror took place in Russia. The history of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and all subsequent events, including Stalinist rule, is closely connected with the history of the French Revolution, which served as its model and ideological support. In May – June 1937, a top-level struggle took place, and mass purges of the country began, by shooting a group of dignitaries: military and civilian. Mass repressions for political, class, and ideological reasons began in the USSR in the late 1920s and continued with varying degrees of intensity. They affected all sectors of society and all social groups. Millions of citizens have been arrested, executed, imprisoned, exiled, and other penalties.

Why was terror needed and how did it arise? As a result of the October Revolution and the victory of the Bolsheviks in the civil war, a dictatorship of the Central Committee of the Communist Party arose in our country. The main task of Lenin, Stalin, and their comrades-in-arms was to keep the seized power at all costs – its loss threatened not only political but also personal risks to tens of thousands of Bolsheviks.

The bulk of the population of the USSR were peasants. It became clear to Stalin that as long as a free and independent peasant producer remained on earth, he would always be a danger to the Communist Party. In 1928, Stalin openly called the peasantry ‘a class that distinguishes from its midst, generates and nourishes the capitalists, kulaks and, in general, all kinds of exploiters.’

It was required to destroy the most hardworking part of the peasants, to expropriate their resources, and the rest to attach to the land as state-disenfranchised farm laborers – to work for a nominal fee. Only such a collective farm system, despite its low profitability, allowed the party to retain power.

Even though terror began only in mid-1937, preparatory work for it was carried out in previous years. In subsequent years, not only the number of arrests increase, but also “open trials” took place in Moscow over former party leaders, a massive update of personnel in the state security took place, and much was written in the press about the need to tighten repression. Preparations were underway for a new wave of state terror: camps were opened where future “enemies” were to go, and special commissions were formed to review their criminal cases. The absence of any civil and political freedoms, the absence of real elections to government bodies, and freedom of speech, the main way to carry out any social transformations was terror.

Initially, the policy of the Great Terror was aimed at repressing the highest party functionaries, the leadership of the army, and purging inside the NKVD, but in 1937 the terror became widespread. During the active period of the Great Terror – from August 1937 to November 1938 – over 1 million 700 thousand people were arrested on political charges. Of these, more than 700 thousand were shot. Yes, belonging to any of the “wrong” categories of citizens could carry a threat – however, they also arrested janitors, machinists, housewives, athletes, and artists; in a word, anyone. Only a very small percentage of those arrested were engaged in some undesirable activity. All the rest belonged to the usual law-abiding civil ‘majority’. Since the investigation of cases was often carried out with the active use of torture – physical violence, threats to the families of the accused, ‘torture by sleep’ – the proportion of ‘confessed’ was close to 100 percent. Confessional testimonies remained the most important argument in favor of human guilt – as did the testimonies of acquaintances and colleagues already arrested or executed.

Active writing of denunciations was part of general political hysteria – without a doubt, they played a role in mass arrests, but many more people were arrested simply by lists, by pre-compiled and certified “plans”, which featured all “unreliable” citizens of different levels. In addition, many denunciations were written under tremendous psychological pressure – already at the stage of the investigation, people stipulated their loved ones, and very often they faced a choice between the possibility of personal survival and the need to sign a paper against another person. Reasons for the Great Terror.

What did the Great Terror lead to? Stalin and his subordinates destroyed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Scientific, economic, military personnel, cultural, and art workers suffered heavy losses, and huge human capital was destroyed – all this weakened society and the country.

Devilry did not suppress protest moods in society, it made them only more acute and angry. The Stalinist government itself multiplied the number of its opponents.

A beautiful silk slipper flying off the toes of a swinging lady, all lightweight petticoats and romance. What better setting could there be for Manolo Blahnik’s sensational shoes? Blahnik’s exhibition at the Wallace Collection has the ‘oval drawing room’ entirely dedicated to the candy-colored shoes designed for Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film, Marie Antoinette, which includes the iconic cotton-candy pink Antonietta’s and the burnt orange Dubarry’s seen alongside two famed romantic paintings, Fragonard’s The Swing and Boucher’s Mme Pompadour both of which evoke images of 18th century Paris. This is the only room where the shoes are shown in pairs, as curator Bray states that is because they are “couples” in keeping with the love and passion theme of 18th century Paris that is evoked through the art. This was partly due to a culmination of his love for Marie Antoinette. “When I was a little boy, my mother used to read to me and my sister pages of Marie Antoinette’s biography,” he said of why he was drawn to the project. “I for one, find her so inspiring. She died so badly, to pay for her sins. Yes, she spent money that she shouldn’t, but she was young and bored.”

But Blahnik isn’t the only one fascinated with the teen queen, Marie’s legacy lives on as the misunderstood queen of France and a pinnacle of fashion and beauty. Some examples include Fenty x Puma as Rihanna has continued to use the queen and her extravagant sense of style as a point of reference for other collections, like her baroque athleisure work for Spring/Summer 2017. Chanel’s 2013 cruise collection’s couture paid homage to her penchant for extravagance with beautifully embroidered gowns that were amplified with hip padding, Dior’s Couture Fall/Winter 2014 with the exaggerated shape of slim-fitting bodices, enormous skirts, and pastoral embroidery formed a striking and memorable collection for the season as well as since her first Marie Antoinette-inspired collection for.

France’s iconic but ill-fated queen Marie Antoinette was the 15th of 16 children born to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. ”Your beauty . . . frankly is not very great. Nor your talents nor your brilliance,” the empress wrote her daughter in a typically demeaning tone when she was the 25-year-old Queen of France. ”You know perfectly well that you have neither.”

On the young princess’s journey from Austria to France to be married at only 14, her entourage was stopped at the border between the two countries. There, Antoinette was stripped of all her Austrian clothes and dressed in French garb. This ritual signified her transformation from Austrian to French. Soon, a lavish wedding ceremony took place in the royal chapel at Versailles. More than 5,000 guests watched as the two teenagers were married. It was the start of Marie Antoinette’s life in the limelight. Life at court was not easy for Antoinette. Her marriage was troublesome and, as she had very few official duties, she spent most of her time socializing and pampering herself.

Marie, at the tender age of 18, became Queen of France when her husband inherited the throne as King Louis XVI. As the sovereign, Marie ran a grand, exorbitant, and luxurious court. Her situation as an outsider to France, her spending, her perceived haughty nature, and the lack of an heir led to extreme defamation of her character in the French public’s eyes. From claims of extramarital affairs to violent pornography, anything and everything was written about the Dauphine.

At Versailles, Marie Antoinette spent her time, and all her attention and expenses on her wardrobe and hairstyles and the parties at which to exhibit them as well as decorating and redecorating her countless apartments in the palace. It is in these areas – of fashion and design – where Marie Antoinette left a lasting effect. However, this legacy also contributed to her downfall and that of the French Monarchy. In a country that was sinking in debt, and with people starving on the streets, the Royals’ excesses would ultimately lead to the French Revolution, which would cost both King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette their heads.

It’s true that Marie used her privileges to the max and spent money excessively. However, she rejected the orthodox royal traditions and began to mold the monarchy in a new fashion, rejecting stark formality for a more personal touch. All the formalities were disregarded on all but key occasions. Marie Antoinette favored privacy, intimacy, and simplicity over the previous Versailles regimes, and Louis XVI agreed. t the Palace of Versailles she was a bird in a richly gilded cage. A queen at 19 – as the wife of Louis XVI of France – her dress, behavior and indeed her every move were the subject of minute and slavish scrutiny. Yet there was one place where Marie Antoinette could escape the formality of court life and shake off the burden of her responsibilities. This was the Petit Trianon, an exquisite mini-château in the grounds of Versailles. Marie Antoinette was also conscious of public suffering and donated to several charities. She was sensitive to the suffering of the poor, and often driven to tears when she heard of their situation. However, despite her position, she either did not have the drive to remedy the situation or probably lacked the political finesse to protect the monarchy.

The Queen of France had a personal court designer, Rose Bertin, who had her dress shop, Le Grand Mogol, and became responsible for the Queen’s look and styling. For the first time in history, Marie Antoinette, together with Bertin, elevated fashion and clothes from a trade to an art form. According to some sources, hundreds of dresses per year were made especially for the Queen to take part in social gatherings and balls. Marie Antoinette was a real trendsetter of her time. She represented the symbol of 18th-century extravagance. Her gorgeous dresses, sparkling jewelry, and fabulous hairdos that were truly works of art, made her the Queen of Fashion. Marie-Antoinette helped keep France the capital of European fashion throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries and her spending earned her the name Madame Deficit.

While Marie Antoinette’s life might have been cut prematurely short, her style lives on and is constantly recreated and enjoyed. The phenomenon of Marie Antoinette as the first true consumer of ‘haute couture’ clothing, together with her lavishness, and the sensation that her extravagance caused at the time, means that Marie Antoinette has a cult status in history, art history, and fashion history.

Marie Antoinette exhibited faults, such as spending frequently in an era when royal finances had been collapsing, but she remains one of the most incorrectly maligned figures in Europe’s history. She was let down deeply by the actions of her husband and the French state to which she had been sent and cast aside much of her criticized frivolity once her husband had been able to contribute to a family, allowing her to ably fulfill the role society wanted her to play. The days of the Revolution also confirmed her as an able parent, and throughout her life as a consort, she exhibited sympathy and charm.

Quite simply unique, and ever-imitated, Marie Antoinette and her famous styles will continue to inspire as long as her legacy survives.

So the condemned queen lost the battle, and eventually her head. But in the world of fashion, she most definitely won the war.

The name of the Paris metro is a reflection of French history and how leaders (Kings, emperors), Scientists during the Enlightenment, writers, revolutionaries, heroes, and other events impacted France’s representation. This essay highlights certain heroes of France and analyses the question, how has gender and class inequality evolved from the period of the French Revolution until date?

Social inequalities in the 18th century before and after the French Revolution

Class inequalities before and after the French Revolution

In the 18th century, the country was divided into three estates, the clergy the nobility of the sword, and the nobility of the robe (third estates). The third estates constituted the lower-class population who were exploited, allowed trivial rights, and had less representation in the Estate in general. The constituents of this category paid higher taxes as compared to the clergy. The social inequalities that existed in the 18th century imparted the French Revolution. The gap of class inequalities narrowed in this period after the Declaration of Rights of Men and of the Citizens on the 26th of August 1789 (Chavaroche, 2020). The French Revolution, paved the way for great men to seek public recognition, and clay representation thus statutes, that were previously set aside for monarchs (Dwyer, 2004). According to (Dwyer, 2004) the artistic representation of public figures increased with the defeat of the monarchy amidst the French Revolution of 1792. On the path of the revolution, the lower class population advocated for their rights, and heroes of the revolution were recognized and honored with full-scale statues. In the middle of the 18th century, heroes of the French Revolution had replaced the positions of the monarchs, the French government honored heroes of the revolution through paintings and statues in public squares (Dwyer, 2004).

Gender Inequalities in the Napoleonic Era: evidence from Napoleonic Code(1804)

Also, during the Napoleonic era (1804), gender inequalities became apparent, men were given recognition whilst women were recognized as minors. Women did not exist before the law in France(Eichner, 2003). The rights of women were subject to definition by spouses. The Napoleonic code suppressed the rights of women, in terms of property, marriage, and divorce.

The Napoleonic Code denied women of political rights, economic rights in terms of owning a business. Women had more difficulty in obtaining divorce than their husbands, they were considered inferior to men. Mick, for example, addressed the unfairness of the Napoleonic Code (Eichner, 2003)The men, on the other hand, reserved political rights, the authority of the family, protection of the wife and own property. They were regarded as strong and intelligent. In Napoleon’s view women, the basic duty of a woman is to be a wife a mother, and work at home. Class inequality had been narrowed during Napoleon’s reign. In contrast to the period of the French Revolution, Napoleon’s tax system applied equally to all regardless of class (Horne,n.d). women were still sidelined, widening the gap of gender inequalities in the first part of the 19th century. The code lasted for a long period. Women had the right to own businesses and property in the 20th Century (Reese, n.d.).

Advocates for gender equality: women’s rights in the 18th century

Several Activists have made efforts to address the existence of Gender Inequality in the French system. The activists include both males and females. Some of these activists lost their lives as a result of advocating for women’s rights and addressing gender inequality.

• Olympe De Gorges(1791)

Olympe de Gorges was a French advocate for Women’s Rights and activist who made an effort to reveal the gender inequalities during the French Revolution. She wrote the “Declaration of Rights of Women and of a Citizen” in 1791 to assert the rights of women after the French Revolution(Lewis,2019). The right of women to divorce and also vote was as a result of her influence, the right was granted to women in 1972(heroes). Women were denied the right to vote because of their absence in Military service(Darrow, 1996). Olympe De Gorge was killed for voicing out the suppression of female rights. (Lewis,2019). The killing of Olympe de Gorges demonstrates how Leaders of the 18th century disregarded the rights of women.

• Louis Michel(Paris communard)

Louis Michel is one of the French women commemorated in the Paris metro. She was known as the ‘Red Virgin of Montmartre’, she advocated class war refuting the reforms of parliament. Louis was a supporter of the Paris Commune, she fought with a National Guard to defend the commune during in 1871 amidst the German Siege of Paris (‘Louise Michel’, 2020). To advocate for decentralization and socialism she established the Montmartre Vigilance Committee which other female activists joined(Eichner, 2003). The legacy of Louis Michel “serves as a reference to all revolutionary ideologies from the 19th century until date” (‘Louise Michel”,2020). She posited for social justice in the France system addressing class inequalities, the rights of women to divorce, and domestic labour. Louis was the famed iconoclast who laid the foundation for other feminists to follow up on her legacies(Eichner, 2003). Women supporters of the Paris commune were perceived to be barbaric (Chavaroche, 2020). Following how women supporters and communards of the commune were viewed as “barbaric and unnatural” reveals the dominance of gender inequalities

• Paule Mink and Andre Leo(19th Century)

Paule Mink and Andre Leo were feminists in the 19th century who sought to introduce socialist programs to address class and gender inequality. They inculcated feminist issues into socialism. The 19th-century feminist Activism began with women in the bourgeois class, Paule and Mink were female revolutionaries of this class. These female activists were supporters of the Paris commune, “a civil war against the national government”. Paule and Leo utilized the opportunity during the Paris commune to seek women’s rights and economic and social change. Leo urged for the rights and liberty of Women from the oppressiveness of the Church. To Mink, the church enforced inequality, in the sense that it denied women the right to divorce defending this as an act of protection. They proposed that the socialist revolution be an emancipation of women from the oppression of the church.

Moreover, gender inequalities still prevailed during the 19th century, and the marginalization and isolation of women from socialist programs is an indication of inequity.” The International” failed to acknowledge gender equality, they excluded females from participation. The group regarded the role of women as subject to domestic duties. In Minnie’s fight for justice for women, she renewed the International and incorporated women by proposing a claim that the success of the program is indirectly dependent on the inclusion of women. Subsequently, Leo resorted to pursuing feminist motives through intellectual writing whilst Mink solicited violence for social and economic change in the commune (Eichner, 2003). Evidence from Paule and Minks’s activism period proves that gender inequalities still existed in the period of the Paris Commune, the church was also a body that overlooked gender equity. These two female activists to an extent shaped the thoughts of individuals who perceived women as weak and imparted French history. By the third republic, teachers’ training colleges were established in all French departments concerning the “first great laic educational law”(Jansen & Roy, n.d.). In this period women were allowed the opportunity to attend training colleges, and the traditional mentality of women as the weak and should commit to working at home as a wife and mother began to diminish.

• Jules Ferry (The Third Republic)

Jules Ferry Minister of Education of France during the third republic made changes in the France Education System. He contended that the church preserved power through women,

claiming “that women must belong to science and not to the church”(Jansen & Roy, n.d.). The church exerted maintained influence in schools, which was demolished by Julius Ferry. He established free education for both girls and boys and secular education, an advocate for laicite. Laicite is“the French version of secularism, which posits on the strict separation of church and the state”(Jansen & Roy, n.d.). Jules Ferry made education mandatory for all people, through the introduction of a free “non-clerical” education system. Within the period of the Third Republic, gender equity became more apparent in contrast to the period of the French Revolution.

Following the activists and the great works of these individuals who strove to narrow the gap of gender inequalities in the French System, women have had the opportunity to participate in science. Previously women were denied the right to education, Jules ferry advocated for the participation of women in science. (Jansen & Roy, n.d.) Marie Curie is one of the female scientists who imparted France’s History.

Women in Science and World War 19th Century (Marie Curie)

Marie Curie was an intelligent female scientist in the 19th century. Due to the discrimination against females in education in the 18th century, she was denied the right to pursue higher education. Marie Curie is a depiction of an ambitious woman, despite the discrimination against women she strove to achieve her goals. She introduced the term “Radioactivity”. Inequalities still prevailed during this age; male scientists were nominated for science prizes with the exclusion of women. Marie Curie, for example, was excluded from the nominations in 1903 for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Pierre Curie, husband of Marie revealed the discrimination against his wife and opted for her nomination. Marie Curie became the first lady to win two Nobel Prizes and the first woman to teach at Paris University. (Ghose,2020). Curie has laid the foundation for the involvement of women in Science. According to (Chris,2011), Marie sets an example to encourage women to pursue goals regardless of discrimination. Marie Curie not only left a legacy in science but also contributed to saving the lives of soldiers during the First World War in 1914, her efforts are not recognized. ( Chavaroche,2020).

Women in the period of the First World War played important roles that have not been recognized. Marie Currie, for example, saved the lives of soldiers on the battlefield during World War 1 but her legacy in French history highlights her contribution to science.

Several French women contributed to the world war. Women petitioned to support soldiers during the War by volunteering to be nurses. The French Red Cross posited for the women’s service during wartime. They were present on the battlefield with soldiers rather in the ‘Home Front’. Their duty was to take of wounded soldiers on the battlefield since they could not fight. Nursing was the only way women could serve France. The statute of 1913 restricted women to serve hospitals in the home front and not the War front. Nursing was perceived to be the sole means by which one could participate in wars. However, the charity, volunteer nursing, and other efforts made by the home front women have been excluded from the wartime historical experience. The contributions patriotic women made amidst World War 1 were forgotten (Eichner, 2003). Examining the contribution made by women, although women were allowed to indirectly participate during the War, the efforts of the soldiers and heroes overshadow the contributions women nurses made to save lives in World War 1. Gender inequality still prevailed in this period in the sense that, French history failed to acknowledge the service of women during World War 1. According to (Eichner, 2003) “the confirmed essence of the war is masculinity”.

In conclusion, the problem of inequalities has evolved from the period of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Era, The Third Republic, and the First World War. Some heroes are committed to addressing class and gender inequalities. The class and gender inequality gap narrowed with the influence of heroes such as Louise Michel who strove for social change and Olympe de Gouges respectively. Paul Mink and Andre Leo feminist activists continued the legacies of Louise. These heroes, although some have been forgotten, have impacted the representation of France in terms of inequalities.

References

1. Chavaroche, O. (2020). A ticket to Paris. Presentation, Sciences Po.
2. Darrow, M. H. (1996). French Volunteer Nursing and the Myth of War Experience in World War I. The American Historical Review, 101(1), 80. https://doi.org/10.2307/2169224
3. Dwyer, P. G. (2004). Napoleon Bonaparte as hero and savior: Image, rhetoric, and behavior in the construction of a legend. French History, 18(4), 379–403. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/18.4.379
4. Eichner, C. J. (2003). “Vive la Commune!” Feminism, socialism, and revolutionary revival in the aftermath of the 1871 Paris Commune. Journal of Women’s History, 15(2), 68–98. https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2003.0049
5. Ghose, S. (2020). Le génie de Marie Curie [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6JFRi0Qm_s&feature=youtu.be
6. Horne, A. The age of Napoleon. Retrieved 30 April 2020, from https://www.historywiz.com/reforms.htm
7. Jansen, Y., & Roy, O. (n.d.). ´, or the Politics of Republican Secularism ¨ cite Laı.
8. Jorgensen, T. (2017). How Marie Curie Brought X-Ray Machines To the Battlefield. Retrieved 30 April 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-marie-curie-brought-x-ray-machines-to-battlefield-180965240/
9. Lewis, J. (2019). Biography of Olympe de Gouges, French Women’s Rights Activist. Retrieved 30 April 2020, from https://www.thoughtco.com/olympe-de-gouges-rights-of-woman-3529894
10. Louise Michel. (2020). Retrieved 30 April 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/LouisMichel
11. Manière, F. (2019). Olympe de Gouges (1748 – 1793) – La cause des femmes – Herodote.net. Retrieved 30 April 2020, from https://www.herodote.net/La_cause_des_femmes-synthese-1861.php
12. Reese, L. Lesson – The French Civil Code (Napoleonic Code) – Teaching Women’s Rights From Past to Present. Retrieved 30 April 2020, from http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/TWR-07.html

The First Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution began in England and took place between 1750 and 1850. It was an unprecedented expansion of human productivity that enabled society to self-sustain its growth (Lindemann 2013, p. 45). It started with a rapid increase in population in Europe. From 1800 to 1850, the population in Britain had doubled (Merriman 2010, p. 516).

To accommodate the population, accumulated capital was reinvested in farming and manufacturing. England was politically stable; it had an extensive trade network; and it could supply coal and iron. These provided a conducive environment to invent the mechanization of production in the cotton industry (Merriman 2010, p. 516-523). Capital-intensive farming and the enclosure movement (effort of privatizing common lands) enabled the development of scientific agriculture and the expansion of the agricultural base (Mason 2011, p. 38). Adam Smith then published a book, The Wealth of Nations. In his book, he argued that in a liberal economy, an individual’s self-interest would regulate the economy in the best possible way if it is not hindered by government regulation (Mason 2011, p. 40). This underpinned the concept of liberalism in Britain.

However, industrialization also damaged the socioeconomic aspect of Britain. During the industrial revolution, the middle class emerged. When new industrial factories were set up in cities, more people moved from rural areas to cities as they were looking for wage labor (Merriman 2010, p. 549). Urbanization has made the poorer city districts more crowded. It became an unpleasant place to live as the England government did not provide basic urban services like police protection, water supply, or garbage disposal until 1835 (Mason 2011, p. 42). The working conditions in the factory were brutal too. The factories were often covered in black dust; the wages were so low that even children had to work in the factories to support their families; workers performed the same task multiple times a day, with few short breaks (Mason 2011, p. 43). In the rural area, the landless peasants were employed on a disadvantageous short-term basis; peasants who owned lands may not gain profit because the lands were small or low in quality (Merriman 2010, p. 547).

As workers became more vulnerable to unrestricted capitalism, the workers began to consider themselves as working-class members who had different interests from their employers. This gave birth to socialism. Socialism claims that individuals do not work alone but cooperate. Thus, the public should own or at least control property for all its members’ benefit (Encyclopedia Britannica 2019).

Different types of socialism flourished in that era. Utopian socialists such as Saint-Simon suggested a status order based on productivity (Merriman 2010, p. 564). Charles Fourier believed that society, which was based on cooperation and harmony, would free the proletariat from the bourgeoisie’s oppression (Merriman 2010, p. 563). Roben Owen, as an industrialist, provided adequate housing for his workers and opened schools for their children. He supported women’s equality and believed that education and the environment could form a cooperative spirit (Merriman 2010, p. 563).

In 1844, Fredrich Engel provided a link between socialism and industrialization in his published book, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Mason 2011, p. 43). When his friend, Karl Marx first read about utopian socialism, he found them naïve. He observed the industrializing society when he was in England and considered the class struggle would certainly exist in a liberal economy (Merriman 2010, p. 568). Thus, he founded scientific socialism and formed the Communist League. In 1848, Marx and Engel produced The Communist Manifesto (Merriman 2010, p. 568).

The rise of socialism prompted rural poor to protest; and workers to form labour unions (Merriman 2010, p. 561). From 1815 to 1850, workers began to challenge the existing order through petitions and demonstrations. In 1831, they demanded equality by pressing the Commons and the House of Lords to pass the Reform Bill of 1832, which enlarged the electorate (Merriman 2010, p. 562). At the same time, workers demanded factory reform. This led to the Parliament’s acts that limited the working hours of women and children (Merriman 2010, p. 562).

The Industrial Revolution spread quickly to the rest of Europe. It could be said as the major contributor to political revolutions in Europe, for example, the French Revolution of 1789. It started the emergence of the bourgeoisie and proletariat and intensified the class struggle between the two parties.

French Revolution of 1789

Before the revolution in 1789, France was the most influential country in terms of French literature, art, and language (Mason 2011, p. 23). France was also the first to challenge the ruling of absolute monarchy, where all sovereign power in the state resided with the king (Merriman 2010, p. 435), thus showing a revolutionary example to other European countries.

The French Revolution of 1789 occurred at about the same time as the Industrial Revolution. The latter was part of the cause of the French Revolution. It fostered the growth of the bourgeoisie, causing a rapid increase in the literacy rate (Mason 2011, p. 24). This allowed people to understand Enlightenment ideas, such as representative institutions. Besides, the absolute monarchy under Louis XVI was incompetent in solving people’s needs as it placed a huge tax burden on commoners while the nobles and clergy were exempted from taxes (Mason 2011, p. 24). The revolution ended in 1791 with the creation of a constitutional monarchy.

During the summer of 1789, to solve the financial crisis, Louis XVI convened the Estates-General, a representative assembly of the three estates: the clergy, nobility, and the Third Estate (Mason 2011, p. 440). Commoners believed that the Third Estate was capable of representing their interests and grievances on royal absolutism (Merriman 2010, p. 442). This helped unify public opinion against the king. On June 17, the Third Estate declared itself as the National Assembly (Merriman 2010, p. 443). When they tried to assemble again, they realized the monarch intended to take action against them. They swore not to adjourn until a new constitution was formed (Mason 2011, p. 26).

As the king intended to disband the National Assembly, royal troops began to form in the city (Mason 2011, p. 26). On July 14, the Great Fear (a period of peasant rioting) started when thousands of people stormed the Bastille, a royal prison that was renowned as a despotism symbol. The crowd cut off the head of the fortress commander and carried it on a pike (Mason 2011, p. 26). Peasants in the province also started to rise against their lords and destroy the feudal documents. The crowd uprising not only exposed the monarchy’s vulnerability but also saved the National Assembly from being dismissed (Merriman 2010, p. 445).

On August 4, to end the Great Fear, the National Assembly ended the Old Regime by formally abolishing the remnants of feudalism, including seigneurial rights (Merriman 2010, p. 447). Other reforms like freedom of worship were also enacted. This destroyed monarchy absolutism as the king could not rule by divine right anymore (Merriman 2010, p. 447). To create a constitutional monarchy, on August 26, 1789, they announced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (Mason 2011, p. 26). The declaration stripped away hereditary legal privileges and placed sovereignty in the French Nation.

After creating the constitution, the National Assembly focused on solving the financial crisis by reforming the Church. To raise funds, they confiscated all the Church’s properties, issued paper money, and sold the Church lands to the public (Merriman 2010, p. 451). This had three advantages: weakening clericalism, giving peasants a return for their revolutionary activity, and strengthening the peasant entrepreneur (Hobsbawm 1996, p. 64). On July 12, 1790, the assembly enacted the Civil Constitution of the French Clergy, and the religious order was redefined (Mason 2011, p. 26).

The next year June, the constitution of 1791 was passed and the French constitution was created. It substituted the absolute monarchy with constitutional monarchy. In the constitution, the sovereignty resided in the Legislative Assembly and the king was granted a suspensive veto only (Mason 2011, p. 27).

The legacy of the French Revolution of 1789 was significant because it provided a great example of a political institution that put Enlightenment ideas in force. The revolution also set a precedent for the French First Republic in 1792.

The French Revolution used to be a watershed well with existing day European archives that started in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French citizens razed and redesigned their country’s political landscape, uprooting centuries-old organizations such as absolute monarchy and the feudal system. The upheaval was precipitated by precisely sized discontent with the French monarchy and the horrible monetary insurance insurance insurance insurance policies of King Louis XVI, who met his loss of existence via capability of the guillotine, as did his companion Marie Antoinette. Although it failed to reap all of its desires and in some instances degenerated into a chaotic bloodbath, the French Revolution carried out an essential function in shaping current-day international areas through the way of showing the world the strength inherent in the will of the people.

Causes of the French Revolution

As the 18th century drew to a close, France’s excessively priced involvement in the American Revolution, and extravagant spending with the aid of the potential of the way of King Louis XVI and his predecessor, had left the u. s. On the brink of bankruptcy.Not utterly have the royal coffers depleted, on the other hand, two many years of horrible harvests, drought, cattle disease, and skyrocketing bread costs had kindled unrest amongst peasants and the town poor. Many expressed their desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy taxes yet failed to furnish any relief by rioting, looting, and striking.

In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI’s controller general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, proposed a monetary reform bundle that blanketed an acquainted land tax from which the privileged pointers would no longer be exempt. To garner beneficial resources for these measures and forestall a developing aristocratic revolt, the king summoned the Estates-General (les Atats gAnAraux) – an assembly representing France’s clergy, blue blood, and core kind – for the first time due to the fact 1614. The meeting used to be scheduled for May 5, 1789; in the meantime, delegates of the three estates from every locality would accumulate lists of grievances (cashiers de dolAances) to existing to the king.

Rise of the Third Estate

France’s populace had modified extensively on account of 1614. The non-aristocratic contributors of the Third Estate now represented ninety-eight share of the human beings alternatively ought to nevertheless be outvoted with the useful resource of the distinctive two bodies. In the lead-up to the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate commenced to mobilize beneficial aid for equal illustration and the abolishment of the noble veto. In other words, they preferred vote casting with the resource of the head and no longer by way of status. While all of the orders shared a frequent preference for fiscal and judicial reform as a right as an increased advertising consultant shape of government, the nobles in special have been loath to furnish up the privileges they loved below the daily system.

Tennis Court Oath

By the time the Estates-General convened at Versailles, the fairly public debate over its vote-casting gadget had erupted into hostility between the three orders, eclipsing the extraordinary rationale of the assembly and the authority of the man who had convened it. On June 17, with talks over manners stalled, the Third Estate met on my personal and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met in a close through using an indoor tennis court docket docket and took the so-called Tennis Court Oath (serment du jeu de paume), vowing no longer to disperse until constitutional reform had been achieved. Within a week, most of the clerical deputies and forty-seven liberal nobles had joined them, and on June 27 Louis XVI grudgingly absorbed all three orders into the new assembly.

The Bastille and the Great Fear

On June 12, as the National Assembly (known as the National Constituent Assembly for the size of its work on a constitution) persisted in meeting at Versailles, mission and violence bumped off the capital. Though enthusiastic about the existing day breakdown of royal power, Parisians grew panicked as rumors of an impending army coup commenced to circulate. A conventional insurgency culminated on July 14 when rioters stormed the Bastille fortress in an strive to tightly close gunpowder and weapons; many anticipate this event, now honored in France as a national holiday, as the start of the French Revolution.

The wave of revolutionary fervor and widespread hysteria unexpectedly swept the countryside. Revolting in opposition to years of exploitation, peasants looted and burned the residences of tax collectors, landlords, and the seigniorial elite. Known as the Great Fear (la Grande peur), the agrarian upward jab up hastened the creating exodus of nobles from the United States and caused the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4, 1789, signing what the historian Georges Lefebvre later acknowledged as the ‘death certificate of the ancient order.’

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

In late August, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (DAclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen), an announcement of democratic thoughts grounded in the philosophical and political thoughts of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The record proclaimed the Assembly’s dedication to alternate the ancient regime with a device in particular based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, time-honored sovereignty, and advertising and advertising consultant government. Drafting a formal constitution proved a lot larger mission for the National Constituent Assembly, which had the delivered burden of functioning as a legislature all via harsh economic times.

For months, its contributors wrestled with quintessential questions about the shape and expanse of France’s new political landscape. For instance, who would be to blame for electing delegates? Would the clergy owe allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church or the French government? Perhaps most importantly, how a correct deal authority would the king, his public image in addition weakened after a failed attempt to flee the United States in June 1791, retain? Adopted on September 3, 1791, France’s first written charter echoed the extra existence of voices in the Assembly, organizing a constitutional monarchy in which the king cherished royal veto electrical energy and the manageable to appoint ministers. This compromise did no longer take a seat down top with influential radicals like Maximilien de Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, and Georges Danton, who commenced drumming up well-known useful resources for an extra republican shape of authorities and for the trial of Louis XVI.

French Revolution Turns Radical

In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared combat on Austria and Prussia, the location it believed that French AmigrAs had been putting up counterrevolutionary alliances; it in addition hoped to spread its progressive beliefs at some stage in Europe through warfare. On the home front, meanwhile, the political disaster took a radical turn when a crew of insurgents led by the beneficial useful resource of the extremist Jacobins attacked the royal house in Paris and arrested the king on August 10, 1792. The following month, amid a wave of violence in which Parisian insurrectionists massacred hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries, the Legislative Assembly was modified via the capability of the National Convention, which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the enterprise of the French Republic.

On January 21, 1793, it despatched King Louis XVI, condemned to loss of life for immoderate treason and crimes in the direction of the state, to the guillotine; his spouse Marie-Antoinette suffered the equal destiny 9 months later. READ MORE: How a Scandal Over a Diamond Necklace Cost Marie Antoinette Her Head

Reign of Terror

Following the king’s execution, hostilities with a range of European powers and immoderate divisions within the National Convention ushered the French Revolution into its most violent and turbulent phase. In June 1793, the Jacobins seized manipulation of the National Convention from the increased life-like Girondins and instituted a sequence of radical measures, which included the institution of a new calendar and the eradication of Christianity. They additionally unleashed the bloody Reign of Terror (la Terreur), a 10-month measurement in which suspected enemies of the revolution have been guillotined via the ability of way of the thousands. Many of the killings had been carried out below orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Committee of Public Safety until his execution on July 28, 1794.

His death marked the placing up of the Thermidorian Reaction, a life-like phase in which the French human beings revolted against the Reign of Terror’s excesses. Did you know? Over 17,000 humans had been formally tried and carried out for the length of the Reign of Terror, and an unknown large fluctuation of others died in prison or barring trial.

French Revolution Ends: Napoleon’s Rise

On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed usually of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, authorized a new charter that created France’s first bicameral legislature. Executive strength would lie in the fingers of a five-member Directory (Directoire) appointed using the ability of the utilization of parliament. Royalists and Jacobins protested the new regime however have were unexpectedly silenced by the army, now led with the recommended aid of a youthful and worthwhile everyday named Napoleon Bonaparte. The Directory’s four years in electricity had been riddled with monetary crises, traditional discontent, inefficiency, and, above all, political corruption.

By the late 1790s, the administrators relied nearly actually on the navy to preserve their authority and had ceded lots of their electrical power to the generals in the field. On November 9, 1799, as frustration with their management reached a fever pitch, Bonaparte staged a coup d’Atat, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself France’s ‘first consul.’ The inform marked the end of the French Revolution and the opening of the Napoleonic era, in which France would come to dominate masses of continental Europe.

On 14 July 1789 heaps of French town personnel stormed the Bastille fortress in Paris. This marked the commencing of the French Revolution, which would ultimate for 10 years. The Revolution destroyed the Old Order in France that determined every single person’s function and rights. Workers who had long been denied rights and privileges grew aggravated and annoyed that the larger lessons would in no way be trustworthy to them. They determined to challenge the ruling order to stress change. The Bastille used to be a picture of the Old Order and its fall symbolized the crumple of the hated Order. The French Revolution had an impact on the rest of Europe and many one-of-a-kind factors of the world.

Causes What is a Revolution? The overthrow of a government, commonly with the useful resource of the capability of violence; and a spectacular alternative in a political, social, or economic system. A revolution is when human beings rebel nearer to the government or the way extraordinary human beings deal with them. They will try to alternate these things and strive to get into electrical energy themselves. In the French Revolution, the acquainted human beings of France rebelled in opposition to the absolute king and the way the rich and socially important minority exploited and mistreated them. They tried to alternate the whole social order that made the minority mistreat them.

What delivered on the French Revolution?

In France, there used to be as soon as a very strict social order that decided your area in society, what you ought to do for a living, and the vicinity you ought to live. It used to be recognized as the Ancien RAcgime or Old Order.

The Old Order divided society into three firms or Estates. The first two Estates had been very privileged: most of them had big residences and a lot of money so they did now not have to work. They moreover, no longer had to pay taxes. These two Estates have been the clergy (those working for the Roman Catholic Church, like monks and monks) and the aristocracy (or nobles). Together, these two directions made up only 2% of all the human beings in France. The distinct 98% used to be once the frequent people, or the Third Estate. They blanketed peasants (farm workers), urban humans, and a small crew of businessmen and skilled human beings stated as the bourgeoisie, or center class.

The peasants and the city personnel (the masses) have been very poor. They had little to eat, and the peasants were no longer even allowed to hunt for food – they lived on land owned using manageable noblemen, and it used to be seen as their ideal alone to hunt and fish. Sometimes they had to get the permission of their landlord to get married, or the landlord selected whom they marry. They have to now no longer go away from the land they lived and worked on barring permission from their landlord. This was once as soon as all areas of a laptop referred to as the feudal system, which had existed since the Middle Ages. By the 1780s, things grew to grow to be even worse. The charge for meals like bread grew to emerge as very high, and the town people might also additionally pick out to now not locate the cash for it. As if that wasn’t lousy enough, the king raised the taxes. Not fully should they no longer come up with the money to buy bread, then again now they had to pay larger and increased taxes to every the king and the Church!

The bourgeoisie used to be no longer as horrific as the masses. They have been educated and talented, and some of them have been even richer than some of the noblemen! But due to the truth they had been a section of the Third Estate, they ought to now now now not to hold excessive positions in the government, army, or the Church – that used to be reserved for the Second Estate. They felt this used to be very unfair – why have some human beings get top-notch jobs even if they had been now no longer the most gifted ones, simply due to the fact they have been born into the proper Estate?

The Third Estate grew to be so dissatisfied and angry that they were geared up to combat the increased directions and the unfair Old Order. At the opening of 1789, they grew to be large and hopeful – it appeared like the king would permit adjustments and furnish them with a say in their private lives. But by the skill of way of July, they realized that the sole way their lives would ever get greater was once to take matters into their very very own hands. The city people in Paris have been the first ones to make a move: they stormed the Bastille and took it over. When the peasants heard about it, they additionally started as rebels in the countryside. The French Revolution had begun.

The King Louis’:

The first ‘Louis’ was once Charlemagne’s son. With his later namesakes, the Bourbon kings Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV, absolutism reached a climax. Although the subsequent one, Louis XVI made tries at reform, the French Revolution broke out at some stage in his reign, and he used to be performed by using the skill of way of the revolutionaries in 1793. The title ‘Louis’ used to be as soon as derived from ‘Clovis’, which used to be the fourth French monarch (481-511).

Louis XIV, moreover identified as the Sun King, reigned for more than 70 years – the longest reign in European history. Louis XIV inherited the throne when he was once completely 5 years old, and till he was historically able to reign via himself, his chief minister Mazarin used to be as soon as in manipulated the state. The absolute monarchy reached its remaining peak in the route this time, and the Sun King is these days perhaps quality considered for his lavish lifestyle, as epitomized in his broadly established palace, Versailles. He fought many wars against one-of-a-kind European countries, which left the US in splendid debt. This debt grew to be a large financial disaster at some stage in the reigns of his two successor, in particular Louis XVI. It grew to develop to be one of the direct reasons for the French Revolution.

Events imperative up to the Revolution The Meeting of the Estates General

• Estates General: A professional meeting referred to as via potential of the French king, with representatives from all the Estates.

When the king preferred money, he surely elevated the taxes of the Third Estate. According to the Old Order, the first two Estates did now not have to pay taxes. In the 1780s the king had serious economic troubles and desired to resolve this with the aid of taxing the increased Estates who had been resisting this. At the time in France, it was an extremely good institution with representatives from all the Estates, the Estates General, who ought to vote and decide on raising taxes. However, it entirely meets the order of the king. For one hundred seventy 5 years no king had carried out this due to the fact they no longer picked to grant human beings any say in the governance of the country. When King Louis XVI favored taxing the higher Estates, they compelled him to hold a meeting of the Estates General.

The National Assembly met in an indoor tennis court docket docket docket in Versailles. They swore to no longer damage up the assembly till they had drawn up a constitution for France. This oath is considered the ‘Tennis Court Oath.’

When the Estates General met the first-rate Estates argued on how the balloting technique would work. The bourgeoisie representing the Third Estate preferred the same rights as the Second Estate. They realized that the Second Estate would in no way furnish them with this and they broke away to structure their very private group.

• The National Assembly

The new crew used to be known as the National Assembly. Their intention was once as soon as soon as to draw up a constitution for France in which the Third Estate ought to in addition have vote-casting rights. The Second Estate noticed this as a try to do away with the Old Order and forced the king to crush the National Assembly. The king promised to do so.

The Storming of the Bastille

When the National Assembly used to be once fashioned the heaps of peasants and metropolis personnel hoped that it would alternate the Old Order and decorate their non-public lives. When the king threatened to crush the Assembly, they realized that the Second Estate would face up to change. They determined to take things into their very non-public hands.

The storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789. Hundreds of Parisian personnel stormed the Bastille fortress, marking the establishment of the French Revolution.

On 14 July 1789, lots of urban (city) people from Paris stormed the fortress and reformatory that used to be referred to as the Bastille. The concept of the fortress was once full of weapons and they preferred to arm themselves. The fortress used to be as soon as a symbol of the Old Order, and when the lot captured it, it signified the cease of the Old Order.

With the storming of the Bastille, the French Revolution formally started.

The First Moderate Stage (1789-1791)

The French Revolution used to be a battle for freedom from oppression and for the equality of all human beings in France. The motto of the revolutionaries used to be as soon as ‘Liberty [Freedom], Equality and Fraternity [Brotherhood]’.The occasions of the Revolution exceeded over 10 years and can be divided into three stages.

The first used to be an average phase when the modifications carried out were no longer that big and with no longer a lot of violence being inflicted. The 2nd stage was as soon as as soon as greater radical with adjustments taking neighborhood and a lot of violence. Members of the aristocracy as specific as the king and queen have been beheaded at the guillotine. Anyone who did no longer useful resources the authorities used to be killed. This stage ended when the man who used to be accountable for this ‘reign of terror’ was once killed. The 13 and closing stages used to be as quick and more practical a lot like the first stage. This stage ended when Napoleon Bonaparte seized strength and grew to end up France into a mighty and aggressive empire.

In the countryside, the peasants burned down the manor residences of the aristocracy. Fearing for their lives, the aristocracy fled the country. In the picture, one can see them fleeing with their coaches and horses at the same time as the constructions are burning. Health is acknowledged as The Great Fear.

The first stage of the French Revolution started when the urban masses stormed the Bastille. Some of the troopers who had been guarding the Bastille joined them, and they took over the fortress, launched the prisoners who had been stored there, and killed the man in charge of the prison. When the peasants in the geographical vicinity heard what had been received right here in Paris, they

joined in the revolution. They did this via doable of burning the manor homes of their landlords and destroying the feudal registers. These registers had been the full proof on paper of the feudal relationship between the peasants and their landlords. When they had been destroyed, it used to be as soon as straight ahead for the National Assembly to do away with the feudal rights of the Second Estate. On 26 August 1789, the National Assembly commenced to create a constitution with the aid of drawing up the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (almost like a Bill of Rights). This contained liberal ideas of human rights and how human beings have to be ruled.

But the king used to be as quickly even an absolute ruler, and in the past when the Declaration ought to be put into practice, the king had to preserve it. He did not want to do this until irritated masses marched to his palace at Versailles to demand that he be given the Declaration. Fearing that they would take the palace over like they did with the Bastille, he swiftly gave in and well-known the demands. Many nobles had moreover given in to the needs of the Third Estate and had given up their feudal rights. Those who refused to do so started to flee from the u. s . in difficulty of their lives and due to the fact they did no longer decide upon to grant up their privileges.

The first stage ended in 1791 when the bourgeoisie’s National Assembly used to be in power. The March to Versailles. The marchers were generally women, who no longer had bread to feed their families and wanted to demand modifications from the king and queen. These are some of the adjustments they made:

• The Second Estate misplaced its one-of-a-kind privileges;
• Basic human rights – like liberty and equality – have been accepted;
• The Church misplaced its unique privileges – tithes have been stopped and Church land was once as quickly as taken and sold;
• The king misplaced his absolute power;
• Everybody grew to become equal before the regulation and had the suited to a truthful trial;
• All guys above 25 ought to get vote-casting rights (but they had to earn a sure quantity of cash before they may additionally want to get these rights).

The Radical Stage (1792-1794)

After the First Moderate Stage, the bourgeoisie wanted the Revolution to cease with them in power. But the relaxation of the Third Estate and the hundreds had been no longer satisfied. Although the new charter noted that any man over 25 ought to get balloting rights, voters had to earn a certain amount of money. Most human beings now now not earn adequate cash to get these rights. They felt that their lives had not sincerely changed, however, now they had a new unfair master. The bourgeoisie had changed the aristocracy and now dominated the awful people.

The king then sought resources from kings in neighboring international locations to get rid of the revolutionaries. Austria and Prussia then attacked France. The French humans blamed the king for this and took all his electricity away. France no longer had a monarch anymore and grew to be a republic. In January 1793 the French King used to be killed at the guillotine.

The Jacobins and the Reign of Terror

Maximilien Robespierre, the man who used to be responsible for the Reign of Terror.

The new crew that was obtained right here into electricity used to be as soon as called the Jacobins. They came from the masses and wrote a new constitution. Under this constitution, all guys over 25 years of history would have vote-casting rights not be aware of how an entire lot cash they had. The Jacobins used violence to proceed to be in electricity and killed those who did not assist or agree with them. The Jacobins grew to become a feared and hated group, and their rule grew to emerge as identified as the ‘Reign of Terror’. They killed the aristocracy in large public displays so that the different humans might also moreover desire to see how they dealt with their enemies.

The man who used to be in charge of these deaths was Maximilien Robespierre. His terror and violence grew so amazing that even human beings who did assist the Jacobins had been killed. Finally, the human beings determined that they had had enough. Robespierre’s very very own pals became in opposition to him and on 27 July 1794 Robespierre was killed at the guillotine. The Reign of Terror ended and the Radical Stage of the Revolution used to be as soon as over.

The Second Moderate Stage (1795-1799)

The Reign of Terror had established that although the Jacobins had saved the republic, the radical way in which they did it used to be towards the thoughts of civil freedom (how can also want to people be free if they have been killed for disagreeing with the government?) But the Revolution used to be no longer carried out yet. Once again, the men and women of the bourgeoisie had been in power, and their authorities were as soon referred to as the Directorate. In 1795 they drew up a different constitution, one that re-instated the skills for vote-casting rights that had been in the first charter (1791).

During this closing realistic part no most necessary changes have been made and the economic trouble used to be as soon as as soon as no longer solved. Pressure from the masses from the one side, and from these though helping a monarchy on the other, continued. The distant places armies have been although a threat.

So, at the same time as the French government was once weak, their complete safety from the distant places armies used to be the army, and not like their government, the Committee of Public Safety’s combat effort used to realizing now no longer possible success. The generals grew to be extra and more effective and received greater effect within the country.

Napoleon

French armies, in particular led by the aid of the youthful massive Napoleon Bonaparte, have been making developments in nearly every direction. Napoleon’s forces drove through Italy and reached as some distance as Egypt until now then going through a deflating defeat. In the face of this rout, and having received phrases of political upheavals in France, Napoleon limited lower back to Paris. He arrived in time to lead a coup in opposition to the Directory in 1799, in which he stopped stepping up and naming himself ‘first consul’ – effectively, the chief of France. With Napoleon at the helm, the Revolution ended, and France entered a fifteen-year size of military rule.

What did the French Revolution recommend to the rest of the world?

Even though Napoleon used to be an autocratic leader, the thoughts of the French Revolution did now not surely cease when he took power. He did not furnish his human beings political freedom, then again he did maintain many of the changes delivered about through way of the Revolution. People had been however equal before the regulations and jobs had been open to guys with brains rather than relying on their classification of birth. After the Revolution, the Old Order used to be destroyed alongside feudal practices. The aristocracy and clergy were no longer the most fundamental human beings in the country. The bourgeoisie grew to be the crew with the most influence.

Today, long after Napoleon’s time, the ideas of the French Revolution have influenced how we live. It has specifically influenced European countries, the United States of America, Canada, and Australia to run democratically. Citizens have a say in how they are ruled and can select who their leaders are. Everyone has equal rights and humans are free to express themselves. Many human beings see the French Revolution as the most essential tournament that made these thoughts so important. The Revolution ended the Middle Ages with its Old Order and feudal machine and ushered in a modern time with democracy and civil freedoms.

Western Civilization is “the very idea…opposing one form or branch of civilization from others as if they were distinct, even unrelated (Brooks).” Throughout Western Civilization, many events have occurred, such as The Protestant Reformation, the African Slave Trade, the Industrial Revolution, The Renaissance, The Rise Of Christianity, the Civil Rights Movement, and so much more that were significant to what has made us become the present day. These events, all had a force behind historical change throughout Western history from the beginning of the Early Modern period to the present, Either economically, politically, religiously, ideology, geography, individual leadership, and significantly more. Even though multiple of these forces contributed to the historical change of Western Civilization, From my standpoint, I believe the most important force behind historical change throughout Western History from the beginning of the Early Modern period to the present is Politics.

The French Revolution was a drastic constitutional reform in what had been one of the most conservative and strongest of the great European states. Although, it was also bloodshed; Many of our lives were killed through ours. France’s ruler, King Louis XVI spent millions of dollars on himself, including wars, causing debt in the nation and; therefore a rise in taxes and necessities, like food. The French Revolution was long, as it lasted 10 years, from 1789 to 1799. The French Revolution’s primary importance was that it stripped power from a few light rulers and established a political leadership reflecting French citizenship. The three main causes of the Revolution were the tax burden on the Third Estate, social inequality, and the rise of Richmond and women. The goals of the French Revolution war” were liberal Liberty,”, which was their motto. The aim of the French Revolution was the abolition of Imperial law, which spread across Europe. The French Revolution’s effect on the nation was that France went from a Catholic absolute monarchy to a revolutionary, Democratic Republic with equal male suffrage, a new calendar, a revolutionary system of weights and measures, and a goal of Conquering the rest of Europe. The revolution abolished the feudal system and brought a new way of living, Capitalism. The French Revolution was able to annihilate the feudal system by removing any trace of feudalism. The Revolution is reforming not only France but also other nations. The French Revolution brought many radical advancements and it helped shape the economic, political, and social structures of France. The French Revolution made a political historical change throughout Western history from the beginning of the Early Modern by providing more power and control for the Third Estate. The Third Estate was treated unequally, compared to the First and Second Estate. It is important that the Third Estate had equal power and control as the 1st and 2nd Estate in Early Modern because it helped with the votes in the nation, it made it equal. This political change is still as important in the present day because the Third Estate is being treated equally as the First and Second. They have the same rights and opportunities as people in different social classes. Therefore, the French Revolution was a political war that contributed to the historical change in Western Civilization through social classes.

In the 19th century, women were treated less than men; therefore, women started a movement to obtain equal rights as men. Women and men had different roles in society. Women’s roles were to clean, cook, and care for their children. However, Men were to go to work and provide for the family. Women didn’t have as many opportunities as men; “Women across Europe could not vote, could not initiate divorce…, could not control custody of children, could not pursue higher education, could not open bank accounts in their name, could not maintain ownership of the inherited property after marriage, could not initiate lawsuits or serve as legal witnesses, and could not maintain control of their wages if working and married (Brooks).” The first goals of first-wave feminism was woman suffrage- the right for women to vote because “suffrage itself was seen by feminists as only one component of what was needed to realize women’s equality (Brooks).” Women held peaceful protests, however, they turned militant when the government didn’t recognize their issue as mainstream. By this action, the Constitution finally made the 19th amendment to let women have the right to vote. Despite the importance of the suffrage movement, in the time before World War I, feminists won other legal rights before they had the freedom to vote. This political movement made a historical change throughout Western history from the beginning of the Early Modern because it changed the gender roles of women and how they were treated. Women were treated more equally to women, which gave women more opportunities in getting jobs. However, not only did it make changes to Early Modern, but this movement has changed what’s going on in the present. This movement has made many advancements in women’s rights. Today, women are much more privileged in society, we can vote, get a good education, work in whatever profession we wish to, initiate divorce, control our wages and property, and fight for the custody of children. Many women did not have this privilege in the 19th century, until the movement. Thus, politics through the Women’s Movement had a significant impact on historical change in Western Civilization.

The Youth Movement of the 20th century focused on social justice after the wars that occurred (WW1 & 2). The end of all discriminatory policies and the underlying prejudice in American culture, in general, has been advocated by several youth movement members. Furthermore, a movement developed for the first time promoting the concept that homosexuality was a valid sexual orientation and not an “irrational” social order danger. In May, the youth movement reached its most radical manifestation. The legacy of the youth movement was significant because Western society as a whole has become much more tolerant of personal freedoms, especially sexuality, and generally less fascistic and strict. This Movement made a historical change throughout Western history from the beginning of the Early Modern because it helped change the views people had on sexuality, as it was more open to sexuality, and our freedoms, and made the civilization less strict. This movement contributes to the present day because people can express their sexuality without getting shamed. Also, with the 1st Amendment, every human is born with the freedom of religion, speech, petition, and assembly. Thus, the Youth Movement brought immense political changes to both Early Modern History and Present Day.

In conclusion, throughout Western Civilization, politics was the most important historical change from Early Modern history to the present- day in my opinion. Events such as the French Revolution, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and the Youth Movement all made immense changes in Early Modern History and the Present day. The French Revolution brought equality among the social classes, the Women’s Suffrage Movement gave women the right to vote, along with other rights, and the Youth Movement brought social justice. These events have made a great impact on how we live today.

Works Cited:

1. Brooks, Christopher. “Western Civilization: A Concise History”, Portland Community College, February 2020, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uz0SnatD0t0EAZw-i_dS7q7lQ4W9qDBBCB5R2A5d50k/edit#. Accessed October 22, 2020.
2. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uz0SnatD0t0EAZw-i_dS7q7lQ4W9qDBBCB5R2A5d50k/edit#

On 14 July 1789 heaps of French town personnel stormed the Bastille fortress in Paris. This marked the commencing of the French Revolution, which would ultimate for 10 years. The Revolution destroyed the Old Order in France that determined every single person’s function and rights. Workers who had long been denied rights and privileges grew aggravated and annoyed that the larger lessons would in no way be trustworthy to them. They determined to challenge the ruling order to stress change. The Bastille used to be a picture of the Old Order and its fall symbolized the crumple of the hated Order. The French Revolution had an impact on the rest of Europe and many one-of-a-kind factors of the world.

Causes What is a Revolution? The overthrow of a government, commonly with the useful resource of the capability of violence; and a spectacular alternative in a political, social, or economic system. A revolution is when human beings rebel nearer to the government or the way extraordinary human beings deal with them. They will try to alternate these things and strive to get into electrical energy themselves. In the French Revolution, the acquainted human beings of France rebelled in opposition to the absolute king and the way the rich and socially important minority exploited and mistreated them. They tried to alternate the whole social order that made the minority mistreat them.

What delivered on the French Revolution?

In France, there used to be as soon as a very strict social order that decided your area in society, what you ought to do for a living, and the vicinity you ought to live. It used to be recognized as the Ancien RAcgime or Old Order.

The Old Order divided society into three firms or Estates. The first two Estates had been very privileged: most of them had big residences and a lot of money so they did now not have to work. They moreover, no longer had to pay taxes. These two Estates have been the clergy (those working for the Roman Catholic Church, like monks and monks) and the aristocracy (or nobles). Together, these two directions made up only 2% of all the human beings in France. The distinct 98% used to be once the frequent people, or the Third Estate. They blanketed peasants (farm workers), urban humans, and a small crew of businessmen and skilled human beings stated as the bourgeoisie, or center class.

The peasants and the city personnel (the masses) have been very poor. They had little to eat, and the peasants were no longer even allowed to hunt for food – they lived on land owned using manageable noblemen, and it used to be seen as their ideal alone to hunt and fish. Sometimes they had to get the permission of their landlord to get married, or the landlord selected whom they marry. They have to now no longer go away from the land they lived and worked on barring permission from their landlord. This was once as soon as all areas of a laptop referred to as the feudal system, which had existed since the Middle Ages. By the 1780s, things grew to grow to be even worse. The charge for meals like bread grew to emerge as very high, and the town people might also additionally pick out to now not locate the cash for it. As if that wasn’t lousy enough, the king raised the taxes. Not fully should they no longer come up with the money to buy bread, then again now they had to pay larger and increased taxes to every the king and the Church!

The bourgeoisie used to be no longer as horrific as the masses. They have been educated and talented, and some of them have been even richer than some of the noblemen! But due to the truth they had been a section of the Third Estate, they ought to now now now not to hold excessive positions in the government, army, or the Church – that used to be reserved for the Second Estate. They felt this used to be very unfair – why have some human beings get top-notch jobs even if they had been now no longer the most gifted ones, simply due to the fact they have been born into the proper Estate?

The Third Estate grew to be so dissatisfied and angry that they were geared up to combat the increased directions and the unfair Old Order. At the opening of 1789, they grew to be large and hopeful – it appeared like the king would permit adjustments and furnish them with a say in their private lives. But by the skill of way of July, they realized that the sole way their lives would ever get greater was once to take matters into their very very own hands. The city people in Paris have been the first ones to make a move: they stormed the Bastille and took it over. When the peasants heard about it, they additionally started as rebels in the countryside. The French Revolution had begun.

The King Louis’:

The first ‘Louis’ was once Charlemagne’s son. With his later namesakes, the Bourbon kings Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV, absolutism reached a climax. Although the subsequent one, Louis XVI made tries at reform, the French Revolution broke out at some stage in his reign, and he used to be performed by using the skill of way of the revolutionaries in 1793. The title ‘Louis’ used to be as soon as derived from ‘Clovis’, which used to be the fourth French monarch (481-511).

Louis XIV, moreover identified as the Sun King, reigned for more than 70 years – the longest reign in European history. Louis XIV inherited the throne when he was once completely 5 years old, and till he was historically able to reign via himself, his chief minister Mazarin used to be as soon as in manipulated the state. The absolute monarchy reached its remaining peak in the route this time, and the Sun King is these days perhaps quality considered for his lavish lifestyle, as epitomized in his broadly established palace, Versailles. He fought many wars against one-of-a-kind European countries, which left the US in splendid debt. This debt grew to be a large financial disaster at some stage in the reigns of his two successor, in particular Louis XVI. It grew to develop to be one of the direct reasons for the French Revolution.

Events imperative up to the Revolution The Meeting of the Estates General

• Estates General: A professional meeting referred to as via potential of the French king, with representatives from all the Estates.

When the king preferred money, he surely elevated the taxes of the Third Estate. According to the Old Order, the first two Estates did now not have to pay taxes. In the 1780s the king had serious economic troubles and desired to resolve this with the aid of taxing the increased Estates who had been resisting this. At the time in France, it was an extremely good institution with representatives from all the Estates, the Estates General, who ought to vote and decide on raising taxes. However, it entirely meets the order of the king. For one hundred seventy 5 years no king had carried out this due to the fact they no longer picked to grant human beings any say in the governance of the country. When King Louis XVI favored taxing the higher Estates, they compelled him to hold a meeting of the Estates General.

The National Assembly met in an indoor tennis court docket docket docket in Versailles. They swore to no longer damage up the assembly till they had drawn up a constitution for France. This oath is considered the ‘Tennis Court Oath.’

When the Estates General met the first-rate Estates argued on how the balloting technique would work. The bourgeoisie representing the Third Estate preferred the same rights as the Second Estate. They realized that the Second Estate would in no way furnish them with this and they broke away to structure their very private group.

• The National Assembly

The new crew used to be known as the National Assembly. Their intention was once as soon as soon as to draw up a constitution for France in which the Third Estate ought to in addition have vote-casting rights. The Second Estate noticed this as a try to do away with the Old Order and forced the king to crush the National Assembly. The king promised to do so.

The Storming of the Bastille

When the National Assembly used to be once fashioned the heaps of peasants and metropolis personnel hoped that it would alternate the Old Order and decorate their non-public lives. When the king threatened to crush the Assembly, they realized that the Second Estate would face up to change. They determined to take things into their very non-public hands.

The storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789. Hundreds of Parisian personnel stormed the Bastille fortress, marking the establishment of the French Revolution.

On 14 July 1789, lots of urban (city) people from Paris stormed the fortress and reformatory that used to be referred to as the Bastille. The concept of the fortress was once full of weapons and they preferred to arm themselves. The fortress used to be as soon as a symbol of the Old Order, and when the lot captured it, it signified the cease of the Old Order.

With the storming of the Bastille, the French Revolution formally started.

The First Moderate Stage (1789-1791)

The French Revolution used to be a battle for freedom from oppression and for the equality of all human beings in France. The motto of the revolutionaries used to be as soon as ‘Liberty [Freedom], Equality and Fraternity [Brotherhood]’.The occasions of the Revolution exceeded over 10 years and can be divided into three stages.

The first used to be an average phase when the modifications carried out were no longer that big and with no longer a lot of violence being inflicted. The 2nd stage was as soon as as soon as greater radical with adjustments taking neighborhood and a lot of violence. Members of the aristocracy as specific as the king and queen have been beheaded at the guillotine. Anyone who did no longer useful resources the authorities used to be killed. This stage ended when the man who used to be accountable for this ‘reign of terror’ was once killed. The 13 and closing stages used to be as quick and more practical a lot like the first stage. This stage ended when Napoleon Bonaparte seized strength and grew to end up France into a mighty and aggressive empire.

In the countryside, the peasants burned down the manor residences of the aristocracy. Fearing for their lives, the aristocracy fled the country. In the picture, one can see them fleeing with their coaches and horses at the same time as the constructions are burning. Health is acknowledged as The Great Fear.

The first stage of the French Revolution started when the urban masses stormed the Bastille. Some of the troopers who had been guarding the Bastille joined them, and they took over the fortress, launched the prisoners who had been stored there, and killed the man in charge of the prison. When the peasants in the geographical vicinity heard what had been received right here in Paris, they

joined in the revolution. They did this via doable of burning the manor homes of their landlords and destroying the feudal registers. These registers had been the full proof on paper of the feudal relationship between the peasants and their landlords. When they had been destroyed, it used to be as soon as straight ahead for the National Assembly to do away with the feudal rights of the Second Estate. On 26 August 1789, the National Assembly commenced to create a constitution with the aid of drawing up the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (almost like a Bill of Rights). This contained liberal ideas of human rights and how human beings have to be ruled.

But the king used to be as quickly even an absolute ruler, and in the past when the Declaration ought to be put into practice, the king had to preserve it. He did not want to do this until irritated masses marched to his palace at Versailles to demand that he be given the Declaration. Fearing that they would take the palace over like they did with the Bastille, he swiftly gave in and well-known the demands. Many nobles had moreover given in to the needs of the Third Estate and had given up their feudal rights. Those who refused to do so started to flee from the u. s . in difficulty of their lives and due to the fact they did no longer decide upon to grant up their privileges.

The first stage ended in 1791 when the bourgeoisie’s National Assembly used to be in power. The March to Versailles. The marchers were generally women, who no longer had bread to feed their families and wanted to demand modifications from the king and queen. These are some of the adjustments they made:

• The Second Estate misplaced its one-of-a-kind privileges;
• Basic human rights – like liberty and equality – have been accepted;
• The Church misplaced its unique privileges – tithes have been stopped and Church land was once as quickly as taken and sold;
• The king misplaced his absolute power;
• Everybody grew to become equal before the regulation and had the suited to a truthful trial;
• All guys above 25 ought to get vote-casting rights (but they had to earn a sure quantity of cash before they may additionally want to get these rights).

The Radical Stage (1792-1794)

After the First Moderate Stage, the bourgeoisie wanted the Revolution to cease with them in power. But the relaxation of the Third Estate and the hundreds had been no longer satisfied. Although the new charter noted that any man over 25 ought to get balloting rights, voters had to earn a certain amount of money. Most human beings now now not earn adequate cash to get these rights. They felt that their lives had not sincerely changed, however, now they had a new unfair master. The bourgeoisie had changed the aristocracy and now dominated the awful people.

The king then sought resources from kings in neighboring international locations to get rid of the revolutionaries. Austria and Prussia then attacked France. The French humans blamed the king for this and took all his electricity away. France no longer had a monarch anymore and grew to be a republic. In January 1793 the French King used to be killed at the guillotine.

The Jacobins and the Reign of Terror

Maximilien Robespierre, the man who used to be responsible for the Reign of Terror.

The new crew that was obtained right here into electricity used to be as soon as called the Jacobins. They came from the masses and wrote a new constitution. Under this constitution, all guys over 25 years of history would have vote-casting rights not be aware of how an entire lot cash they had. The Jacobins used violence to proceed to be in electricity and killed those who did not assist or agree with them. The Jacobins grew to become a feared and hated group, and their rule grew to emerge as identified as the ‘Reign of Terror’. They killed the aristocracy in large public displays so that the different humans might also moreover desire to see how they dealt with their enemies.

The man who used to be in charge of these deaths was Maximilien Robespierre. His terror and violence grew so amazing that even human beings who did assist the Jacobins had been killed. Finally, the human beings determined that they had had enough. Robespierre’s very very own pals became in opposition to him and on 27 July 1794 Robespierre was killed at the guillotine. The Reign of Terror ended and the Radical Stage of the Revolution used to be as soon as over.

The Second Moderate Stage (1795-1799)

The Reign of Terror had established that although the Jacobins had saved the republic, the radical way in which they did it used to be towards the thoughts of civil freedom (how can also want to people be free if they have been killed for disagreeing with the government?) But the Revolution used to be no longer carried out yet. Once again, the men and women of the bourgeoisie had been in power, and their authorities were as soon referred to as the Directorate. In 1795 they drew up a different constitution, one that re-instated the skills for vote-casting rights that had been in the first charter (1791).

During this closing realistic part no most necessary changes have been made and the economic trouble used to be as soon as as soon as no longer solved. Pressure from the masses from the one side, and from these though helping a monarchy on the other, continued. The distant places armies have been although a threat.

So, at the same time as the French government was once weak, their complete safety from the distant places armies used to be the army, and not like their government, the Committee of Public Safety’s combat effort used to realizing now no longer possible success. The generals grew to be extra and more effective and received greater effect within the country.

Napoleon

French armies, in particular led by the aid of the youthful massive Napoleon Bonaparte, have been making developments in nearly every direction. Napoleon’s forces drove through Italy and reached as some distance as Egypt until now then going through a deflating defeat. In the face of this rout, and having received phrases of political upheavals in France, Napoleon limited lower back to Paris. He arrived in time to lead a coup in opposition to the Directory in 1799, in which he stopped stepping up and naming himself ‘first consul’ – effectively, the chief of France. With Napoleon at the helm, the Revolution ended, and France entered a fifteen-year size of military rule.

What did the French Revolution recommend to the rest of the world?

Even though Napoleon used to be an autocratic leader, the thoughts of the French Revolution did now not surely cease when he took power. He did not furnish his human beings political freedom, then again he did maintain many of the changes delivered about through way of the Revolution. People had been however equal before the regulations and jobs had been open to guys with brains rather than relying on their classification of birth. After the Revolution, the Old Order used to be destroyed alongside feudal practices. The aristocracy and clergy were no longer the most fundamental human beings in the country. The bourgeoisie grew to be the crew with the most influence.

Today, long after Napoleon’s time, the ideas of the French Revolution have influenced how we live. It has specifically influenced European countries, the United States of America, Canada, and Australia to run democratically. Citizens have a say in how they are ruled and can select who their leaders are. Everyone has equal rights and humans are free to express themselves. Many human beings see the French Revolution as the most essential tournament that made these thoughts so important. The Revolution ended the Middle Ages with its Old Order and feudal machine and ushered in a modern time with democracy and civil freedoms.