French Revolution

I. Origins of the French Revolution

A. (Economic cause) Bankruptcy of the royal government (1787)

1. constant war with Britain for world domination

2. inadequate financial system

B. (Social cause) Social system based on birth and privilege

C. (Intellectual cause) Enlightenment ideas of natural rights and equality under law

II. Revolution (1789)

A. Calling the Estates General (May)

1. King refuses demand for equal representation of Third Estate

2. Defection of Third Estate and Tennis Court Oath (June 17)

a. Jaques-Louis David's painting

B. National Guard and Storming of the Bastille (July 14)

1. to defend the new National Assembly against the King

C. The "Great Fear" and renunciation of Feudalism (August 4)

D. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (August 26)

E. Women's March on Versailles (October 5)

1. The king is forced to move to Paris and be the "King of the French Nation"

III. Birth of Modern Politics

A. Rule of reason

1. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

a. equality under the law

b. professions open to talents

2. abolition of feudalism

3. Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790)

B. What role for the king in a rational government?

1. Does monarchy express or interfere with the "General Will"?

2. moderates establish constitutional monarchy in Constitution of 1791

3. Jacobins (sitting on the left) demand a true republic (removal of king)

C. King causes a crisis by attempting to flee the country

1. He is not prepared to be constitutional monarch

2. Captured and imprisoned. The turning point has arrived.

3. War declared on Austria

D. Declaration of the Republic (1792)

1. War goes badly at first. Defections of officers

2. Citizens of Paris take matters into their own hands

3. Storm convention. Demand trial of king and declaration of the Republic

4. Republic declared (Sept. 1792)

a. Statue of Liberty

5. Rule of the Jacobins and the Terror

E. Trial and Execution of the King (Jan. 1793)

IV. Building a Rational Society

A. Robespierre's idea of a Republic of Virtue

1. working to form the "general will"

2. top virtue is love of equality and nation

B. Revolutionary Calendar

1. throwing out traditional time

2. a new time of reason, measured according to nature

C. Festival of the Supreme Being

1. rational religion