Revolution

Revolution in the Eighteenth Century

Courtesy Encyclopoedia Brittanica, Inc.

French Revolution also called REVOLUTION OF 1789, the revolutionary movement that shook France between 1787 and 1799 and reached its first climax there in 1789. Hence the conventional term "Revolution of 1789," denoting the end of the ancien régime in France and serving also to distinguish that event from the later French revolutions of 1830 and 1848.

A brief treatment of the French Revolution follows. For full treatment, see MACROPAEDIA: France:

History.

Although historians disagree on the causes of the Revolution, the following reasons are commonly adduced:

(1) France had the largest population in Europe and could not feed it adequately, (2) the rich and expanding bourgeoisie was excluded from political power more systematically than in any other country, (3) the peasantwere acutely aware of their situation and were less and less inclined to support the anachronistic and burdensome feudal system, (4) the Philosophers, who advocated social and political reform, had been read more widely in France than elsewhere, and (5) French participation in the American Revolutionary War had completed the ruin of the state's finances.

Aristocratic revolt

(1787-89). The revolt took shape in France when the controller general of finances, Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, arranged the summoning of an assembly of "notables" (prelates, great noblemen, and a few representatives of the bourgeoisie) in February 1787 to propose reforms designed to get rid of the deficit in the budget by increasing the taxation of the privileged classes. The assembly refused to take responsibility for the reforms and suggested the calling of the Estates-General, which represented the clergy, the nobility, and the Third Estate (the commoners) and which had not met since 1614. The efforts made by Calonne's successors to enforce fiscal reforms in spite of resistance by the privileged classes led to the so-called revolt of the "aristocratic bodies," notably that of the parlements (the most important courts of justice), whose powers were curtailed by the edict of May 1788. During the spring and summer of 1788, there was unrest among the populace in Paris, Grenoble, Dijon, Toulouse, Pau, and Rennes. The king, Louis XVI, had to yield; summoning Jacques Necker to the ministry, he promised to convene the Estates-General for May 5, 1789. He also, in practice, granted freedom of the press, and France was flooded with pamphlets on projects for the reconstruction of the state. The elections to the Estates-General, held between January and April 1789, coincided with further disturbances, as the harvest of 1788 had been a bad one. There were practically no exclusions from the voting; and the electors drew upcahiers de doléances, which listed their grievances and hopes. They elected 600 deputies for the Third Estate, 300 for the nobility, and 300 for the clergy.

Events of 1789.

The Estates-General met at Versailles on May 5, 1789. They were immediately divided over a fundamental issue: should they vote by head, so as to give advantage to the Third Estate, or by estate, in which case the two privileged ones might outvote the third? In the bitter struggle over this legal issue the deputies of the Third Estate soon won the support of the parish priests against the privileged, whom the king favoured. The Third Estate was victorious when, in defiance of the king, it met on June 20 in the jeu de paume (tennis) court and swore never to disperse until it had given France a new constitution. The king grudgingly gave in and invited the clergy and nobility to join the Third Estate and so to form the National Constituent Assembly; but at the same time he began gathering troops to dissolve it.

These two months of prevarication at a time when the problem of maintaining food supplies had reached its climax infuriated the towns and the provinces. Rumours of an "aristocratic conspiracy" by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate led to the Great Fear of July 1789, when the peasants were nearly panic-stricken. The gathering of troops around Paris and the dismissal of Necker provoked insurrection in Paris.

The Parisian rabble on July 14, 1789, seized the Bastille, symbol of royal tyranny. It was no longer a revolt but a revolution. The king had again to yield; visiting Paris, he showed his recognition of the sovereignty of thepeople by wearing the tricolour cockade.

In the provinces the Great Fear of July made the peasants rise against their lords. The nobles and the bourgeois now took fright. The National Constituent Assembly could see only one way to check the peasants; on the night of Aug. 4, 1789, it decreed the abolition of the feudal regime and of the tithe. Next it introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 26), proclaiming liberty, equality, the inviolability of property, and the right to resist oppression.

The decrees of August 4 and the Declaration were such innovations that the king refused to sanction them. The rabble of Paris rose again and on October 5 marched to Versailles. Next day they brought the royal family back to Paris. The National Constituent Assembly followed the court, and in Paris it went to work on a new constitution.

The new regime.

The National Constituent Assembly completed the abolition of feudalism, suppressed the old "orders," established civil equality (at least in metropolitan France, since slavery was retained in the colonies), and assured equality of rights insofar as eligibility to public office was concerned. The decision to nationalize the lands of the Roman Catholic church in France in order to pay off the public debt led to a widespread redistribution of property. The bourgeoisie and the peasant landowners were undoubtedly the chief beneficiaries, but some farm workers also were able to buy land. Having deprived the church of its resources, the Assembly then resolved to reorganize the church, enacting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which was rejected by the pope and by the majority of the French clergy. This produced a schism that aggravated the violence of the accompanying controversies.

The complicated administrative system of the ancien régime was swept away by the National Constituent Assembly, which substituted a rational system based on the division of France into départements, districts, cantons, and communes administered by elected assemblies. The principles underlying the administration of justice were also radically changed, and the system was adapted to the new administrative divisions. The judgeswere to be elected.

The National Constituent Assembly tried to create a monarchical regime in which the legislative and executive powers were shared between the king and an assembly. This regime might have worked if the king had really wanted to govern with the new authorities, but Louis XVI was weak and vacillating and was the prisoner of his aristocratic advisers. On June 20-21, 1791, he tried to flee the country, but he was stopped at Varennes and brought back to Paris.