Change of regime has had a potent impact on change of national paths, but not as conclusively as the French case of the 1789 Revolution. This devastating disaster shattered the unconditional monarchy of Louis XVI, giving birth to the modern republic, and transforming the landscape of politics in Europe. Spanning more than 1,500 words, this essay deconstructs the significant upheavals in the revolution that transformed France permanently with radical transformations in different facets of feudalism to republicanism, whose impact is still being felt across the world of democracy, as well as led to terror and renewal.
Foundations of Absolutism The Ancien Régime
Divine-right monarchy was a hallmark of France under the Ancien R regime. Louis XVI succeeded to an overgrown court at Versailles with 10,000 nobles fed on a quarter of state revenues at the expense of the peasants. Complete inequality was accomplished by the three estates clergy not paying taxes, nobility privy, and the common 98 percent of the population. Already in the 1780s, American Revolution and Seven Years’ War debt, combined with debt of the French Revolution, totaled 4 billion livres, and interest on this debt consumed half of the national budget.
Thinkers of enlightenment such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu were breeding dissatisfaction. The Social Contract maintained that sovereignty was in the hands of the people and not of kings. In 1788, urban riots were provoked by bad harvests that had increased bread prices by 88%. Calonne, finance minister, suggested levying taxes on the elites but the Assembly of Notables opposed him and Louis XVI had to call the Estates-General in May 1789, the first since 1614. This stalemate smoldered the revolution, with the grievance lists of commoners, full of demands, requiring radical reforms.
The fall of the Bastille and the National Assembly.
The Revolution had an explosive birth on July 14, 1789. Word of royal army led 7,000 Parisians to attack to obtain weapons and gunpowder in the Bastille prison. Only seven prisoners made it, 98 attackers killed and one defender, a symbol of the downfall of tyranny. The governor of the Bastille was beheaded, his head carried about Paris on a pike.
On June 17, the Third Estate together with liberal nobles and clergymen proclaimed itself National Assembly. June 20 The Tennis court Oath vowed never to break up until a constitution had been made. On August 4 feudalism was abolished: the tithing system and the privileges of nobles were abolished, the peasants were liberated to sell their land. On August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen announced liberty, equality and fraternity, reminiscent of the philosophy of Locke and Rousseau.
The royal family was forced to Paris by women marching on Versailles oct. 5-6. These occurrences changed power beyond repair between crown and people, to remake the fundamentals of governance.
The Radicalization and the constitutional monarchy.
The new Constitution of 1791 established a restricted monarch and a legislature. It was accepted by Louis XVI reluctantly but the Legislative Assembly was divided into Girondins (moderate republicans) and Jacobins (radicals such as Robespierre). Counterrevolution was fanned by emigres and renegade priests.
In April 1792 war on Austria followed an ominous warning in the Brunswick Manifesto which threatened to burn Paris. The success of Prussian advancements and the brush with death of Verdun radicalized the sans-culotte. On August 10, insurrection broke into Tuileries Palace killing 1,000 Swiss Guards. On September 21, the National Convention abolished monarchy, guillotining Louis XVI on January 21, 1793 the first regicide of Europe by a modern state.
Universal male suffrage was proposed. In June 1793, Girondins were purged; in their place, the Committee of Public Safety, among which Robespierre, Danton and Saint-Just predominated, assumed control.
Reign of Terror: The Price of Radical Equality
The Terror of 1793-1794 was the quintessence of the two sides of the Revolution. The Law of Suspects resulted in 300,000 arrests; 17,000 received the guillotine, 300,000 were sent to the slumber houses. It represented the egalitarian justice of nobles and peasants on equal terms before the blade. The Vendee royalist insument killed 200,000 people before it was extinguished by scorched-earth colonnes infernales.
The process of de-Christianization shut down churches; The Cult of Reason erected goddesses in Notre-Dame. The economy was governed by price maximums, but inflation continued to take place. This sought a moral republic within the Cult of the Supreme Being in 1794 by Robespierre.
Coalitions were repelled by the military victories in Valmy (1792) and Fleurus (1794). Before Thermidorians took their toll, the Revolutionary Tribunal had seen to it that Hebertists and Dantonists were put to death: Robespierre guillotined July 28, 1794 (9 Thermidor). Terror killed 40,000 people, sweeping out radicals but saving the Republic.
Directory, Napoleon and Republican Consolidation.
The Terror came to an end, Thermidor and the Constitution of 1795 instituted the Directory– bicameral legislature, five directors. Corruption was the fruit of conspiracy on the part of royalists and neo-Jacobians. The royalists were dispersed by a cannon fire of Napoleon in 1795; and he became a hero by the 1796 Italian war.
Royalties were purged in Fructidor Coupe (1797), Jacobins in Floreal (1798). The expedition to Egypt never succeeded but was a glory to Napoleon. On November 9, 1799, The coup staged on 18 Brumaire overthrew the Directory and Napoleon assumed the role of First Consul, Emperor in 1804.
The reconciliation of Church and state in the Concordat (1801) was accompanied by the standardization of laws through the Napoleonic Code (1804), eliminating the remains of feudalism and guaranteeing equality before the law(with an exception of women). In the contemporary France there is persistence of centralized administration.
Political change: Monarchy to Republic
The Revolution abolished absolutism to have popular sovereignty. Feudal levies were eliminated; careers were made available to talent through meritocracy. In 1792, suffrage was extended to all men over 21, but limited afterwards, after Terror.
The Assembly spawned the left-right political spectrum. Federalism was denied; the unitary state increased. Republican ideals were met by the Second Republic (1848) and the Third Republic (1870) and the Ideals of republicanism is today being supported by the Fifth Republic that upholds Jacobin centralism.
On the one hand, it is Economic Restructuring and Modernization.
Guilds of pre-Revolution stampeded trade, the Revolution liberated markets. The assignats became hyperinflated, and auctioning of church and noble lands produced 1 million smallholders, which increased productivity 50% by 1800.
The decimal time and the metric system were tested. The Continental System (1806) failed and the canals and roads established the foundations of industrialization. In the year 1850, France was the 4th largest economy in the world.
Measures of inequality were still present between urban poor and new bourgeoisie, although social mobility accelerated to a rapid pace.
Social and Cultural Revolution
The Third Estate acquired power; the bourgeoisies were the masters, yet sans-culottes gave voice to plebians increased. Slavery was abolished in 1794 (recured 1802); women gained the right to divorce, except Olympe de Gouges who was executed due to her Declaration of the rights of woman.
Education was secularized by establishing lycees. It gave rise to 4,000 newspapers in the newspaper press which blew up in the 1790s. Art changed to the neoclassical paintings of David such as Oath of Horatii, which praised the virtue of the city.
The democratization of death was achieved by the guillotine; the unity across classes was encouraged by the public festivals.
International Retaliations: The Redrawing of Europe
The Revolution exported ideals with such sister republics as Batavian and the Helvetic. During 1792 -1815 coalitions also included France, however the congress of Vienna (1815) restored monarchies with constitutions.
German and Italian unification came about as a result of nationalism. The independence of Haiti was a result of slave uprisings on 1789 inspiration. Revolts in 1820s,1830 and 1848 were liberal and had their origins in the French ideals.
The conquests by Napoleon propagated the Code, measures and abolished the Holy Roman Empire.
The Limits of Challenge and Restoration.
White Terror after 1815 took 100,000 lives away. Bourbon Restoration (1814-1830) came gradually; Orleanist July Monarchy on the other hand, was the brainchild of absolutism created by Charles X.
Louis-Philippe was overthrown in 1848 and gave way to Napoleon III Second Empire (1852-1870), an authoritarian republican reflection. The Revolution was proved permanent and the Third Republic (1870-1940) survived.
Legacy: History Rewritten
The French Revolution was the Big Bang of modernity in comparison with regime change. Citizenship, rights discourse, secular state nationalism were constructed by the ruins of absolutism. Inspirations: United States of America Bill of Rights (1791), Haiti constitution (1805), UN charter (1948), decolonization of Africa. Conservatism was born with the Reflections (1790) of Burke; socialism with the Conspiracy (1796) of Babeuf; positivism technocracy of Saint-Simon.
The five republics in France are in flux: Fourth (1946) on the level after WWII; Fifth (1958 de Gaulle), presidential power amid Algerian crisis. Mairies have Liberte, egalite, fraternite, military parade at Bastille Day brings back Federation 1790, a centrifugal third wave of EU, migration wars Jacobin integrity versus regionalism tensions.
In the end, 1789 graped cataclysm births possibility: 40,000 deaths under the banner of Terror, a million deaths in war brought approximately Enlightenment victory human power over divine right, over stasis.
By: Alifah Hana Nur Faiza
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