Transcription
The Kingdom of France had been ruled for centuries under a regime of monarchy, aristocrats, and the church. There was a huge social divide between the wealthy and powerful clergy and nobility and the working people.
Eighteenth-century Europe was seeing a growth in colonialism, with many powers trying to come out on top. The French economy faced growing pressures, bad harvests, and ineffective tax systems, which taxed the lower classes heavily but included many tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy. Not to mention the many wars, including the American Revolution against the British. These wars gained little for France itself but required a lot of money to rebuild their forces.
By 1787, King Louis the 16th called together the upper-class Assembly of Notables to address the growing French financial crisis, but it was ineffective. Louis the 16th was a pretty ineffective king, quick to back down from a decision and out of touch with a lot of France in his palace in Versailles.
The Age of Enlightenment had seen much forward thinking in science and philosophy, seeking to question tradition and faith, using science with an importance of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. These thoughts spread throughout the people, questioning the king's right to rule, the Catholic Church's wealth, and its influence within politics and the state of the country.
As King Louis did have supreme power and proposed to tax the nobles, the Assembly of Notables refused to cooperate. They claimed Louis needed to bring together the Estates General, a general assembly of the three estates of France: the clergy, the notables, and the common people.
That next summer, in 1789, Louis assembled the Estates General. The clergy and the nobility wanted one vote per estate, giving them a two-to-one advantage over the much bigger Third Estate of the common people. Obviously, the Third Estate wanted to vote per person, giving them the much bigger number and being much more democratic. But the first two estates couldn't agree to this.
So the Third Estate, which consisted of many well-educated lawyers and businessmen, began meeting independently of the Estates General in what became the National Assembly. The National Assembly was to represent the people, not the estates. Louis didn't like this at all and ordered the Salle des États to close, stopping them from meeting.
The National Assembly went to a nearby indoor tennis court and swore to not separate until they'd come up with a constitution for France. Members of the first and second estates began to join them. Louis began to pour the military into Paris, and as support for the National Assembly spread, Louis fired his financial adviser, Jacques Necker, as he published dodgy economic figures to the public and manipulated public opinion.
All this was seen as a move against what was now the National Constituent Assembly, and the people of Paris began to riot, joined by some sympathetic French guards, leading to the storming of the Bastille, a royal fortress full of weapons and ammunition. The governor of the Bastille ordered a ceasefire, but that didn't stop the mob from beating, stabbing, and decapitating him with a saw. The city mayor was butchered, and the riots continued.
Louis backed down, letting assembly man the Marquis de Lafayette command law and order. He proposed adding national French white to the Paris colors of blue and red to create a new cockade for the National Guard, which would go on to become the French tricolor. Law and order fell apart as word of revolution spread throughout France. Many of the nobility fled to neighboring countries and looked for help.
As panic and rumor spread, the commoners of France formed militias, and some stormed chateaus of the nobility. Seeing these rural uprisings, the National Assembly abolished feudalism, ending the flow of taxes from the poor to the clergy and the nobility, bringing more freedom and equality to the people.
The people still had to pay rent to own the land they lived on, but they refused to pay for long enough that they ultimately got the land for free. The old regime of France had been destroyed, and a new order was to take its place.
Eventually, the National Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, influenced in part by Thomas Jefferson, who had written the American Declaration of Independence. It was a list of rights and ideas for the constitution writers to strive for, although it didn't actually apply to women or slaves.
By October, crowds of women were gathering in Paris, angered by hard economic conditions and bread shortages. There was growing fear that the aristocrats were hoarding food and starving the poor. They marched on Versailles in protest and, on the next day, stormed the palace and killed several guards. They demanded that the king move to Paris, which he did, ending his independence.
Huge resentment against the Roman Catholic Church led to all its land being confiscated by the government as it took on the church's responsibilities. The clergy in France became controlled by the French, muscling out the influence from Rome. As 1790 came, the government began to organize itself into various opposing parties while they worked on the new constitution.
Things seemed to be settling down as the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille was celebrated in Paris, along with King Louis himself, people swearing fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king. Divisions in class saw the military weaken as upper-class officers left, unable to control their working-class soldiers. Various political clubs began to spring up to debate politics, the most notable being the Jacobin Club.
By 1791, the king began to fear for his safety while his wife urged him to call for foreign reinforcement against the revolution. They decided to flee to the Austrian border, disguised as servants, but were recognized at Varennes and returned to Paris as prisoners. Up until then, people thought the king had supported the revolution. This escape attempt felt like a betrayal, and talks of a republic began to stir.
On writing the constitution, the assembly was more in favor of a constitutional monarchy, with a king remaining simply as a figurehead rather than a full republic. The people on the streets, however, gathered to sign a petition to depose the king. Lafayette sent the National Guards to control the crowd. Stones were thrown, and the guards shot dead between 13 and 50 people, depending on who you ask.
The assembly, once the revolutionary body of France, was now clamping down and killing more radical revolutionaries. Louis's brother-in-law, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, along with the King of Prussia, sought to defend Louis and threatened an invasion if he was threatened further. This really angered the people.
The constitution was completed, the king restored to his place, and the National Assembly was dissolved to allow the new Legislative Assembly to govern as a constitutional monarchy. But it failed miserably and practically fell apart within a year. France had changed so much on the ground amidst the revolution that the government didn't seem to reflect the people.
Republican and anti-monarchy ideals threatened to spread throughout Europe, and to strengthen its position, France declared war on Austria weeks after Leopold II died. Russia came in to help Austria, and France suffered many defeats due to disorganized and deserting armies.
In August 1792, revolutionary soldiers of the Paris government attacked the king's palace, massacred the king's guards, and captured the king. A rump session of the Legislative Assembly was held, consisting mainly of revolutionary Jacobins, to suspend the monarchy. The Paris government was essentially in control now, but Austrian forces were advancing on Paris.
Fearing traitors within the prisons, they had many prisoners killed and urged other French cities to follow suit, and they did. But then, of course, these acts were seen as too harsh, and politics rolled up into another mess. It was then voted upon, and the Convention Assembly became the new government, which would write another new constitution.
It immediately abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic, a system of government where the leaders represent the people, usually elected by the people, and thus should reflect the needs and opinions of the people. At least that's how it should work.
The 22nd of September 1792 became the dawn of the French Republic, coinciding with a decisive victory at the Battle of Valmy against the Prussian invasion. Two days before, France had proof it could be strong. France continued to win victories in the Rhineland and Austrian Netherlands, grabbing the attention of Britain and the Dutch Republic.
Because he tried to flee the country, Louis XVI was tried by the Convention Assembly and found guilty of high treason by conspiring with the enemies of France. So they executed him in January 1793. This really woke up the rest of the monarchs of Europe, who went to war with France, initially taking back much of what was gained.
The war continued to put a strain on food supplies in France, allowing the radical Jacobins to seize power, led by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. They sought to stamp out anti-revolutionaries in France, so they executed thousands of people in what became known as the Reign of Terror.
They confiscated grain and food from the countryside to feed the cities and controlled food prices, but this didn't go down too well either. At this time, even suspicion of being against the revolution could have you sent to the guillotine. The government began conscripting people to strengthen the weakened army.
During the Reign of Terror, the government became extremely anti-Christian, closing and destroying churches, designing new ten-day calendars to forget when Sunday was, and establishing alternative churches like the Cult of Reason. But this was ultimately a step too far, as it led to counter-revolutionary movements, including Vendée in West France, which would fight against the revolutionaries until 1796, suffering massive massacres on both sides.
Again, depending on who you ask, people ultimately got sick of the terror, and it was voted to have the Jacobin Club banned and Robespierre himself executed, along with many others, because why not at this stage? The coalition of countries against France was unwise to not take advantage of these internal fights, and by summer 1794, France pushed right back through Austria and the Netherlands and even into the Dutch Republic itself, forming a puppet state.
Prussia and Spain ultimately made peace with France in 1795, but Austria, Britain, and others remained at war with them. The French government had settled on the Constitution of the Year III, establishing yet another new regime called the Directory, run by five directors, and it wasn't too successful either.
France tried to aid Irishman Theobald Wolfe Tone in a republican invasion of Ireland against British rule in 1796 but failed to land due to bad weather. France's army continued to win victories in Switzerland and Italy, led by a very successful tactician named Napoleon Bonaparte. Austria sued for peace as he marched on Vienna, ending the War of the First Coalition.
A second coalition of monarchies, including Britain, Austria, Russia, and others, joined against Republican France in 1798. Napoleon knew France's navy wasn't yet ready to take on the might of the British navy, so he decided to invade Egypt and disrupt the British trade route to India. British naval commander Lord Nelson came down and destroyed Napoleon's ships, keeping Napoleon's forces stuck in Egypt.
In 1799, hearing of defeats in France, Napoleon made his way back to Paris and overthrew the Directory, ultimately with yet another constitution, declaring himself the First Consul. Though it was still a republic by name, it was very much a military dictatorship with Napoleon at the head.
The revolution had set out to stop one guy controlling everything, and by the end of it, they again had one guy controlling everything. Napoleon pushed against the coalition, leading to victory against the Holy Roman Empire in 1801 and Britain in 1802. They would remain at peace for another 14 months, and then would follow what would become the Napoleonic Wars.
But sure, I can tell you about that some other time. Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to subscribe, and if you want to see more videos like this, you can donate on Patreon. You can also find my Facebook and Twitter pages. It's loads of fun reading all the comments and seeing all the debates, and I'm glad to see that I can get some people talking about history. Thanks, and subscribe!