French Revolution

The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃

fʁɑ̃ sɛːz]) began in May 1789 when the Ancien Régime was French Revolution
abolished in favour of a constitutional monarchy. Its replacement in Part of the Atlantic Revolutions
September 1792 by the First French Republic led to the execution
of Louis XVI in January 1793 and an extended period of political
turmoil. This culminated in the appointment of Napoleon as First
Consul in November 1799, which is generally taken as its end
point. Many of its principles are now considered fundamental
aspects of modern liberal democracy.[1]

Between 1700 and 1789, the French population increased from

18 million to 26 million, leading to large numbers of unemployed,
accompanied by sharp increases in food prices caused by years of
bad harvests.[2] Widespread social distress led to the convocation of
The Storming of the Bastille, 14 July
the Estates General in May 1789, the first since 1614. In June, the
1789
Estates were converted into a National Assembly, which swept
away the existing establishment in a series of radical measures. Date 5 May 1789 –
These included the abolition of feudalism, state control of the 9 November 1799
Catholic Church and extending the right to vote. (10 years, 6 months and
4 days)
The next three years were dominated by the struggle for political
control, exacerbated by economic depression and social unrest. Location Kingdom of France
External powers like Austria, Britain and Prussia viewed the Outcome
Revolution as a threat, leading to the outbreak of the French Abolition of the Ancien
Revolutionary Wars in April 1792. Disillusionment with Louis XVI Régime and creation
led to the establishment of the First French Republic on 22 of constitutional
September 1792, followed by his execution in January 1793. In monarchy
June, an uprising in Paris replaced the Girondins who dominated the Proclamation of First
Assembly with a Committee of Public Safety under Maximilien
French Republic in
Robespierre.
September 1792
This sparked the Reign of Terror, an attempt to eradicate alleged Reign of Terror and
"counter-revolutionaries"; by the time it ended in July 1794, over Execution of Louis XVI
16,600 had been executed in Paris and the provinces. As well as
Radical social and
external enemies, the Republic faced a series of internal Royalist
political change
and Jacobin revolts; in order to deal with these, the Directory took
power in November 1795. Despite military success, the cost of the French Revolutionary
war led to economic stagnation and internal divisions, and in Wars
November 1799, the Directory was replaced by the Consulate. This Appointment of
is generally viewed as marking the end of the Revolutionary period.
Napoleon as First
Many Revolutionary symbols such as La Marseillaise and phrases Consul in November
like Liberté, égalité, fraternité reappeared in other revolts, such as 1799
the 1917 Russian Revolution.[3] Over the next two centuries, its key
principles like equality would inspire campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage.[4] Its
values and institutions dominate French politics to this day, and many historians regard the Revolution as one
of the most important events in human history.[5]
Contents
Causes
Crisis of the Ancien Régime
Financial crisis
Estates-General of 1789
Constitutional monarchy (July 1789 – September 1792)
Abolition of the Ancien Régime
Creating a new constitution
Revolution and the church
Political divisions
Varennes and after
Fall of the monarchy
First Republic (1792–1795)
Proclamation of the First Republic
Political crisis and fall of the Girondins
Reign of Terror
Thermidorean reaction
Directory (1795–1799)
French Revolutionary Wars
French colonial policy
Media and symbolism
Newspapers
Revolutionary symbols
La Marseillaise
Guillotine
Cockade, tricolore and liberty cap
Role of women
Prominent women
Counter-revolutionary women
Economic policies
Long-term impact
France
Religion and charity
Economics
Constitutionalism
Communism
Europe outside France
Britain
Germany
Switzerland
Belgium
Scandinavia
 North America
Canada
United States
Historiography
See also
Notes
References
Sources
Bibliography
Surveys and reference
European and Atlantic History
Politics and wars
Economy and society
Women
Historiography and memory
Primary sources
External links

Causes
Historians generally view the underlying causes of the French Revolution as
driven by the failure of the Ancien Régime to respond to increasing social
and economic inequality. Rapid population growth and restrictions caused
by the inability to adequately finance government debt resulted in economic
depression, unemployment and high food prices.[6] Combined with a
regressive tax system and resistance to reform by the ruling elite, the result
was a crisis Louis XVI proved unable to manage.[7][8]

From the late 17th century on, political and cultural debate became part of
wider European society, rather than being confined to a small elite. This
took different forms, such as the English 'coffeehouse culture', and extended
to areas colonised by Europeans, particularly British North America.
Contacts between diverse groups in Edinburgh, Geneva, Boston,
Amsterdam, Paris, London or Vienna were much greater than often
Louis XVI, who came to the
appreciated.[9] Cohesion between these groups was fostered by shared
throne in 1774
experiences; it was common to study at a foreign university or participate in
the European cultural expedition known as the Grand Tour, while many
were fluent in more than one language.[10]

Transnational elites who shared ideas and styles were not new; what changed was their extent and the numbers
involved.[10] Under Louis XIV, the Court at Versailles was the centre of culture, fashion and political power.
Improvements in education and literacy over the course of the 18th century meant larger audiences for
newspapers and journals, with Masonic lodges, coffee houses and reading clubs providing areas where people
could debate and discuss ideas. The emergence of this so-called "public sphere" led to Paris replacing
Versailles as the cultural and intellectual centre, leaving the Court isolated and less able to influence
opinion.[11]
In addition to these social changes, the French population grew from 18 million in 1700 to 26 million in 1789,
making it the most populous state in Europe; Paris had over 600,000 inhabitants, of whom roughly one third
were either unemployed or had no regular work.[12] Inefficient agricultural methods meant domestic farmers
could not support these numbers, while primitive transportation networks made it hard to maintain supplies
even when there was sufficient. As a result, food prices rose by 65% between 1770 and 1790, yet real wages
increased by only 22%.[13] Food shortages were particularly damaging for the regime, since many blamed
price increases on government failure to prevent profiteering.[14] By the spring of 1789, a poor harvest
followed by a severe winter had created a rural peasantry with nothing to sell, and an urban proletariat whose
purchasing power had collapsed.[15]

The other major drag on the economy was state debt.

Traditional views of the French Revolution often attribute the
financial crisis of the 1780s to heavy expenditure in the 1778–
1783 Anglo-French War, but modern economic studies show
this is incorrect. In 1788, the ratio of debt to gross national
income in France was 55.6%, compared to 181.8% in Britain.
Although French borrowing costs were higher, the percentage
of tax revenue devoted to interest payments was about the same
in both countries.[16]

However, these taxes were predominantly paid by the urban

By 1789, France was the most populous
and rural poor, and attempts to share the burden more equally
country in Europe.
were blocked by the regional parlements which controlled
financial policy.[17] The resulting impasse in the face of
widespread economic distress led to the calling of the Estates-
General, which became radicalised by the struggle for control of public finances.[18] However, neither the
level of French state debt in 1788, or its previous history, can be considered an explanation for the outbreak of
revolution in 1789.[19]

Although Louis was not indifferent to the crisis, when faced with opposition he tended to back down.[20] The
court became the target of popular anger, especially Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was viewed as a spendthrift
Austrian spy, and blamed for the dismissal of 'progressive' ministers like Jacques Necker. For their opponents,
Enlightenment ideas on equality and democracy provided an intellectual framework for dealing with these
issues, while the American Revolution was seen as confirmation of their practical application.[21]

Crisis of the Ancien Régime

Financial crisis

In the century preceding the Revolution, the French state faced a series of budgetary crises. These primarily
arose from structural deficiencies, rather than lack of resources; unlike Britain, where Parliament determined
both expenditures and taxes, in France, the Crown controlled spending, but not revenue.[22] Only the Estates-
General could approve a national tax, but this body had not been called since 1614, and its revenue collection
functions had been taken over by the regional parlements. (see Map).[23]

Originally set up as law courts, by the mid-18th century the parlements had wide control over tax and legal
affairs, the most powerful being the Parlement de Paris. Although willing to authorise one-time taxes, the
parlements were reluctant to pass long-term measures. They outsourced tax collection to the Ferme générale,
so the yield from the taxes they did approve was significantly reduced. So although larger and wealthier than
Britain, France struggled to service its debt.[22]
 Following a partial default in 1770, efforts were made to improve
collection of revenues and reduce costs. By 1776, reforms instituted
by Turgot, the Finance Minister, balanced the budget and reduced
government borrowing costs from 12% per year to under 6%.[24] He
opposed intervention in America, arguing that France could not afford
it, and was dismissed in May 1776; his successor was the Swiss
Protestant Jacques Necker, who was replaced in 1781 by Charles de
Calonne.[25]

The war from 1778 to 1783 was financed by borrowing, and created
a large French rentier class, which lived on interest they earned by
holding government debt. By 1785, the government was struggling to
The regional Parlements in 1789; cover these payments. Its options were to either default, or get the
note area covered by the Parlement parlements to approve tax increases. When the parlements refused,
de Paris Calonne persuaded Louis to summon the Assembly of Notables, an
advisory council dominated by the upper nobility. Led by de Brienne,
former archbishop of Toulouse, [a] the Assembly argued that tax
increases could only be authorised by the Estates-General.[27] In May 1787, Brienne replaced Calonne as
Finance Minister; Necker was re-appointed in August 1788 and Louis summoned the Estates-General to
assemble in May 1789.[28]

Estates-General of 1789

The Estates-General was split into three bodies: the clergy, or First Estate,
nobility, or Second Estate, and the commons, or Third Estate. Each of the three
sat separately, enabling the First and Second Estates to outvote the Third, despite
representing less than 5% of the population. In the 1789 elections, the First Estate
returned 303 deputies, representing 100,000 Catholic clergy; nearly 10% of
French lands were controlled by bishops and monasteries, while the Church
collected its own taxes from peasants.[29] Fifty-one were bishops; the wealthiest
had incomes of 50,000 livres a year but more than two-thirds were priests who
lived on less than 500 livres per year, and who were often closer to the urban and
rural poor than the lawyers and officials of the Third Estate.[30]
Caricature of the Third
The Second Estate elected 291 deputies, representing about 400,000 men and Estate carrying the First
Estate (clergy) and the
women, who owned about 25% of the land and collected seigneurial dues and
Second Estate (nobility)
rents from their peasant tenants. Like the clergy, this was not a uniform body, and
on its back
was divided into the noblesse d'épée, or traditional aristocracy, and the noblesse
de robe. The latter derived rank from judicial or administrative posts and tended
to be hard-working professionals, who dominated the regional parlements and
were often intensely socially conservative. Neither the First or Second Estates paid any taxes.[31]

610 deputies sat for the Third Estate, in theory representing 95% of the population, although voting rights were
restricted to French-born or naturalised male taxpayers, aged 25 or more, residing where the vote was to take
place. Half were well-educated lawyers or local officials, nearly a third in trades or industry, while fifty-one
were wealthy land owners.[32]

To assist their delegates, each region completed a list of grievances, known as Cahiers de doléances.[33]
Although they contained ideas that would have seemed radical only months before, most supported the
monarchy, and assumed the Estates-General would agree to financial reforms, rather than fundamental
constitutional change.[34] The lifting of press censorship allowed widespread distribution of political writings,
mostly written by liberal members of the aristocracy and upper middle-class.[35] Abbé Sieyès, a political
theorist and priest elected to the Third Estate, argued that since it represented 95% of the population, the Third
Estate should take precedence over the other two.[36]

The Estates-General convened in the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi on 5 May

1789, near the Palace of Versailles rather than in Paris; the choice of
location was interpreted as an attempt to control their debates. As was
customary, each Estate assembled in separate rooms, whose
furnishings and opening ceremonies deliberately emphasised the
superiority of the First and Second Estates. They also insisted on
enforcing the rule that only those who owned land could sit as
deputies for the Second Estate, and thus excluded the immensely
Meeting of the Estates General on 5 popular Comte de Mirabeau.[37]
May 1789 at Versailles
Since the system ensured the clergy and nobility could always outvote
the commons, a key objective was to ensure all three sat as one body.
Led by Sieyès, the Third Estate demanded the credentials of all deputies be approved by the Estates-General
as a whole, instead of each Estate verifying its own members; once they were approved, the built-in weighting
of the Estates-General in favour of a minority would dissolve. After an extended stalemate, Necker suggested
that each Estate verify its own members' credentials and the king act as arbitrator, but this was rejected.[38]

On 10 June, Sieyès moved that the Third Estate proceed to verify its own
deputies, and invite the other two to do the same and not wait. This process
was complete on 17 June. By 19 June, the Third Estate was joined by over
100 members of the clergy, and these deputies declared themselves the
National Assembly. The remaining deputies from the other two Estates were
invited to join, but the Assembly made it clear they intended to legislate with
or without their support.[39]
The National Assembly taking
In an attempt to prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the Tennis Court Oath, by
the Salle des États closed down, claiming it needed to be prepared for a Jacques-Louis David
royal speech. On 20 June, the deputies met in a tennis court outside
Versailles, where they took the Tennis Court Oath, undertaking not to
disperse until they had given France a constitution. By 27 June, they had been joined by the majority of the
clergy, plus forty-seven members of the nobility, and Louis backed down. Messages of support for the
Assembly poured in from Paris and other cities.[40]

Constitutional monarchy (July 1789 – September 1792)

Abolition of the Ancien Régime

Even these limited reforms went too far for reactionaries like Marie Antoinette and Louis' younger brother the
Comte d'Artois; on their advice, Louis dismissed Necker as chief minister on 11 July.[41] On 12 July, the
Assembly went into a non-stop session after rumours circulated he was planning to use the Swiss Guards to
force it to close. The news brought crowds of protestors into the streets, and the elite Gardes Françaises
regiment refused to disperse them.[42]

On the 14th, many of these regulars joined the mob in attacking the Bastille, a royal fortress with a large stores
of arms and ammunition. After several hours of fighting that cost the lives of 83 attackers, its governor,
Marquis de Launay, surrendered. He was taken to the Hôtel de Ville and executed, his head placed on a pike
and paraded around the city; the fortress was then torn down in a remarkably short time. Although rumoured
 to hold many prisoners, the Bastille held only seven: four forgers, two
noblemen held for "immoral behaviour", and a murder suspect.
Nevertheless, as a potent symbol of the Ancien Régime, its destruction
was viewed as a triumph and Bastille Day is still celebrated every
year.[43]

Alarmed by the violence, Louis backed down and appointed the

marquis de Lafayette commander of the National Guard. A new
governmental structure was created for Paris known as the Commune,
headed by Jean-Sylvain Bailly, former president of the Assembly. On
The Storming of the Bastille on 14
17 July, Louis visited Paris accompanied by 100 deputies. He was
July 1789; the iconic event of the
Revolution, still commemorated each
met by Bailly and accepted a tricolore cockade to loud cheers.
year as Bastille Day However, it was clear power had shifted from his court; he was
welcomed as 'Louis XVI, father of the French and king of a free
people.'[44]

The short-lived unity enforced on the Assembly by a common threat quickly dissipated. Deputies argued over
constitutional forms, while civil authority rapidly deteriorated. On 22 July, former Finance Minister Joseph
Foullon and his son were lynched by a Parisian mob, and neither Bailly nor Lafayette could prevent it. In rural
areas, wild rumours and paranoia resulted in the formation of militia and an agrarian insurrection known as la
Grande Peur.[45] The breakdown of law and order and frequent attacks on aristocratic property led much of
the nobility to flee abroad. These émigrés funded reactionary forces within France and urged foreign monarchs
to back a counter-revolution.[46]

In response to this unrest, the Assembly published the August Decrees, ending feudalism and other privileges
held by the nobility, notably exemption from tax. The decrees included equality before the law, opening public
office to all, converting the church tithe into payments subject to redemption, freedom of worship, and
cancellation of special privileges held by provinces and towns.[47]

Over 25% of French farmland had been subject to feudal dues, which provided most of the income of large
landowners. The original intention was that their tenants would pay compensation, but the majority refused to
do so and the obligation was cancelled in 1793, along with the tithe.[48]

The suspension of the 13 regional parlements in November 1789 meant that in the four months since August
the main institutional pillars of the old regime had all been abolished. In their place, they substituted "the
modern, autonomous individual, free to do whatever was not prohibited by law."

From its early stages, the Revolution displayed signs of its radical nature; what remained to be determined
were the mechanisms for turning intentions into practical applications.[49]

Creating a new constitution

Assisted by Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette prepared a draft constitution known as the Declaration of the Rights
of Man and of the Citizen, which echoed some of the provisions of the Declaration of Independence. However
France had reached no consensus on the role of the Crown, and until this question was settled, it was
impossible to create political institutions. When presented to the legislative committee on 11 July, it was
rejected by pragmatists such as Jean Joseph Mounier, President of the Assembly, who feared creating
expectations that could not be satisfied.[50]

After editing by Mirabeau, it was published on 26 August as a statement of principle.[51] Considered one of
the most important political documents in history, it contained provisions then considered radical in any
European society, let alone France in 1789. Arguments between French and American historians over
responsibility for its wording continue, but most agree the reality is a mix.
Although Jefferson made major contributions to Lafayette's draft, he himself
acknowledged an intellectual debt to Montesquieu, and the final version was
significantly different.[52] French historian Georges Lefebvre argues that
combined with the elimination of privilege and feudalism, it "highlighted
equality in a way the (American Declaration of Independence) did not".[53]

More importantly, the two differed in intent; Jefferson saw the US

Constitution and Bill of Rights as fixing the political system at a specific
point in time, claiming they 'contained no original thought...but expressed
the American mind' at that stage.[54] The 1791 French Constitution was
viewed as a starting point, the Declaration providing an aspirational vision, a
key difference between the two Revolutions. Attached as a preamble to the
1791 Constitution, and that of the Third Republic (1870-1940), it was The Declaration of the Rights
of Man and of the Citizen of
incorporated into the current French Constitution in 1958.[55]
26 August 1789
Discussions continued. Mounier, supported by conservatives like Gérard de
Lally-Tollendal, wanted a bicameral system, with an upper house appointed
by the king, who would have the right of veto. On 10 September, the majority led by Sieyès and Talleyrand
rejected this in favour of a single assembly, while Louis retained only a "suspensive veto"; this meant he could
delay the implementation of a law, but not block it. On this basis, a new committee was convened to agree on
a constitution; the most controversial issue was citizenship, linked to the debate on the balance between
individual rights and obligations. Ultimately, the 1791 Constitution distinguished between 'active citizens' who
held political rights, defined as French males over the age of 25, who paid direct taxes equal to three days'
labour, and 'passive citizens', who were restricted to 'civil rights'. As a result, it was never fully accepted by
radicals in the Jacobin club.[56]

Food shortages and the worsening economy caused frustration at the

lack of progress, and the Parisian working-class, or sans culottes,
became increasingly restive. This came to a head in late September,
when the Flanders Regiment arrived in Versailles to take over as the
royal bodyguard and in line with normal practice were welcomed
with a ceremonial banquet. Popular anger was fuelled by press
descriptions of this as a 'gluttonous orgy', and claims the tricolor
cockade had been abused. The arrival of these troops was also viewed
as an attempt to intimidate the Assembly.[57]
The Women's March on Versailles, 5
October 1789 On 5 October 1789, crowds of women assembled outside the Hôtel
de Ville, urging action to reduce prices and improve bread
supplies.[58] These protests quickly turned political, and after seizing
weapons stored at the Hôtel de Ville, some 7,000 marched on Versailles, where they entered the Assembly to
present their demands. They were followed by 15,000 members of the National Guard under Lafayette, who
tried to dissuade them, but took command when it became clear they would desert if he did not grant their
request.[59]

When the National Guard arrived later that evening, Lafayette persuaded Louis the safety of his family
required relocation to Paris. Next morning, some of the protestors broke into the Royal apartments, searching
for Marie Antoinette, who escaped. They ransacked the palace, killing several guards. Although the situation
remained tense, order was eventually restored, and the Royal family and Assembly left for Paris, escorted by
the National Guard.[60] Announcing his acceptance of the August Decrees and the Declaration, Louis
committed to constitutional monarchy, and his official title changed from 'King of France' to 'King of the
French'.[61]
Revolution and the church

Historian John McManners argues "in eighteenth-century France, throne

and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous
collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence."
One suggestion is that after a century of persecution, some French
Protestants actively supported an anti-Catholic regime, a resentment fuelled
by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire.[62] Philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau wrote it was "manifestly contrary to the law of nature... that a
handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the In this caricature, monks and
hungry multitude goes in want of necessities."[63] nuns enjoy their new freedom
after the decree of 16
The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Catholic Church February 1790.
to the state; although the extent of religious belief has been questioned,
elimination of tolerance for religious minorities meant by 1789 being French
also meant being Catholic.[64] The church was the largest individual landowner in France, controlling nearly
10% of all estates and levied tithes, effectively a 10% tax on income, collected from peasant farmers in the
form of crops. In return, it provided a minimal level of social support.[65]

The August decrees abolished tithes, and on 2 November the Assembly confiscated all church property, the
value of which was used to back a new paper currency known as assignats. In return, the state assumed
responsibilities such as paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned.[66] On 13
February 1790, religious orders and monasteries were dissolved, while monks and nuns were encouraged to
return to private life.[67] The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 12 July 1790 made them employees of the
state, as well as establishing rates of pay and a system for electing priests and bishops. Pope Pius VI and many
French Catholics objected to this since it denied the authority of the Pope over the French Church. In October,
thirty bishops wrote a declaration denouncing the law, further fuelling opposition.[68]

When clergy were required to swear loyalty to the Civil Constitution in November 1790, fewer than 24% did
so; the result was a schism with those who refused, the 'non-juring' or 'Refractory clergy'.[69] This stiffened
popular resistance against state interference, especially in traditionally Catholic areas such as Normandy,
Brittany and the Vendée, where only a few priests took the oath and the civilian population turned against the
revolution.[68] Widespread refusal led to further legislation against the clergy, many of whom were forced into
exile, deported, or executed.[70]

Political divisions

The period from October 1789 to spring 1791 is usually seen as one of relative tranquility, when some of the
most important legislative reforms were enacted. While certainly true, many provincial areas experienced
conflict over the source of legitimate authority, where officers of the Ancien Régime had been swept away, but
new structures were not yet in place. This was less obvious in Paris, since the formation of the National Guard
made it the best policed city in Europe, but growing disorder in the provinces inevitably affected members of
the Assembly.[71]

Centrists led by Sieyès, Lafayette, Mirabeau and Bailly created a majority by forging consensus with
monarchiens like Mounier, and independents including Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth. At
one end of the political spectrum, reactionaries like Cazalès and Maury denounced the Revolution in all its
forms, with extremists like Maximilien Robespierre at the other. He and Jean-Paul Marat gained increasing
support for opposing the criteria for 'active citizens', which had disenfranchised much of the Parisian
proletariat. In January 1790, the National Guard tried to arrest Marat for denouncing Lafayette and Bailly as
'enemies of the people'.[72]
 On 14 July 1790, celebrations were held throughout France
commemorating the fall of the Bastille, with participants swearing an
oath of fidelity to 'the nation, the law and the king.' The Fête de la
Fédération in Paris was attended by Louis XVI and his family, with
Talleyrand performing a mass. Despite this show of unity, the
Assembly was increasingly divided, while external players like the
Paris Commune and National Guard competed for power. One of the
most significant was the Jacobin club; originally a forum for general
The Fête de la Fédération on 14 July debate, by August 1790 it had over 150 members, split into different
1790 celebrated the establishment of factions.[73]
the constitutional monarchy.
The Assembly continued to develop new institutions; in September
1790, the regional Parlements were abolished and their legal
functions replaced by a new independent judiciary, with jury trials for criminal cases. However, moderate
deputies were uneasy at popular demands for universal suffrage, labour unions and cheap bread, and over the
winter of 1790 and 1791, they passed a series of measures intended to disarm popular radicalism. These
included exclusion of poorer citizens from the National Guard, limits on use of petitions and posters, and the
June 1791 Le Chapelier Law suppressing trade guilds and any form of worker organisation.[74]

The traditional force for preserving law and order was the army, which was increasingly divided between
officers, who largely came from the nobility, and ordinary soldiers. In August 1790, the loyalist General
Bouillé suppressed a serious mutiny at Nancy; although congratulated by the Assembly, he was criticised by
Jacobin radicals for the severity of his actions. Growing disorder meant many professional officers either left or
became émigrés, further destabilising the institution.[75]

Varennes and after

Held in the Tuileries Palace under virtual house arrest, Louis XVI was urged
by his brother and wife to re-assert his independence by taking refuge with
Bouillé, who was based at Montmédy with 10,000 soldiers considered loyal
to the Crown.[76] The royal family left the palace in disguise on the night of
20 June 1791; late the next day, Louis was recognised as he passed through
Varennes, arrested and taken back to Paris. The attempted escape had a
profound impact on public opinion; since it was clear Louis had been
seeking refuge in Austria, the Assembly now demanded oaths of loyalty to Flight to Varennes; the Royal
the regime, and began preparing for war, while fear of 'spies and traitors' family returns to Paris
became pervasive.[77]

Despite calls to replace the monarchy with a republic, Louis retained his position but was generally regarded
with acute suspicion and forced to swear allegiance to the constitution. A new decree stated retracting this
oath, making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would be considered abdication.
However, radicals led by Jacques Pierre Brissot prepared a petition demanding his deposition, and on 17 July,
an immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign. Led by Lafayette, the National Guard was ordered
to "preserve public order" and responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13
and 50 people.[78]

The massacre badly damaged Lafayette's reputation; the authorities responded by closing radical clubs and
newspapers, while their leaders went into exile or hiding, including Marat. [79] On 27 August, Emperor
Leopold II and Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Declaration of Pillnitz declaring their support for
Louis, and hinting at an invasion of France on his behalf. In reality, Leopold and Frederick had met to discuss
the Partitions of Poland, and the Declaration was primarily made to satisfy Comte d'Artois and other émigrés.
Nevertheless, the threat rallied popular support behind the regime.[80]
 Based on a motion proposed by Robespierre, existing deputies were barred
from elections held in early September for the French Legislative Assembly.
Although Robespierre himself was one of those excluded, his support in the
clubs gave him a political power base not available to Lafayette and Bailly,
who resigned respectively as head of the National Guard and the Paris
Commune. The new laws were gathered together in the 1791 Constitution,
and submitted to Louis XVI, who pledged to defend it "from enemies at
Champ de Mars massacre; home and abroad". On 30 September, the Constituent Assembly was
Lafayette orders the National
dissolved, and the Legislative Assembly convened the next day.[81]
Guard to open fire

Fall of the monarchy

The Legislative Assembly has often been dismissed as an ineffective body,

fatally compromised by divisions over the role of the monarchy and the
1791 Constitution. These were exacerbated by Louis' refusal to accept
limitations on his powers and attempts to mobilise external support to
reverse it, combined with discontent over rising prices due to monetary
inflation, which particularly impacted the urban working class.[82]
Restricting the franchise to those who paid a minimum amount of tax meant
only 4 out of 6 million Frenchmen over 25 were able to vote; many of those
excluded were the sans culottes, who increasingly saw the new regime as
failing to meet their demands for bread and work.[83]

As a result, the new constitution was opposed by significant elements inside

Brissot, Jacobin leader and
and outside the Assembly, which was broadly split into three main groups.
architect of the campaign
245 were affiliated with the Feuillants, led by Barnave, constitutional against the monarchy;
monarchists who considered the Revolution had gone far enough. 136 were executed October 1793
Jacobin leftists, led by Brissot and often referred to as Brissotins, who
regarded Louis with hostility and wanted a republic. The remaining 345
belonged to La Plaine, a central faction who switched votes depending on the issue; many of these were also
deeply suspicious of the king.[84]

Despite being a minority, the Brissotins controlled key committees, which allowed them to focus on two
issues, intended to portray Louis as hostile to the Revolution by making him use his veto. The first concerned
émigrés; between October and November, the Assembly approved measures confiscating their property and
threatening them with the death penalty.[85] The second was non-juring priests; opposition to the Civil
Constitution had resulted in a state of near civil war in southern France, which Bernave tried to defuse by
relaxing the more punitive provisions. On 29 November, the Assembly passed a decree giving refractory
clergy eight days to comply, or face charges of 'conspiracy against the nation', which even Robespierre viewed
as too far, too soon. As expected, Louis vetoed both.[86]

Accompanying this was a campaign for war against Austria and Prussia, also led by Brissot, whose aims have
been interpreted as a mixture of cynical calculation and revolutionary idealism. It exploited popular anti-
Austrianism, especially as represented by Marie Antoinette, but also a genuine belief in exporting the values of
political liberty and popular sovereignty.[87] Ironically, Marie Antoinette headed a faction within the court that
also favoured war, seeing it as a way to win control of the military, and restore royal authority. In December
1791, Louis made a speech to the Assembly giving foreign powers a month to disperse the émigrés or face
war; it was greeted with enthusiasm by his supporters, but suspicion by his opponents.[88]

Bernave's failure to respond adequately to Austrian demands resulted in Louis appointing a new government,
chiefly composed of Brissotins. On 20 April 1792, France declared war on Austria and Prussia, beginning the
French Revolutionary Wars, but suffered a series of disastrous defeats. In an attempt to gain support, the
 government ordered non-juring priests to swear the oath or be
deported, dissolved the Constitutional Guard and replaced it with
20,000 fédérés; Louis agreed to disband the Guard, but vetoed the
other two proposals, while Lafayette called on the Assembly to
suppress the clubs.[89]

Popular anger increased when details of the Brunswick Manifesto

reached Paris on 1 August; issued by the Prussian commander, it
threatened the capital with 'unforgettable vengeance' should any
The storming of the Tuileries Palace,
oppose steps to restore the power of the monarchy. On the morning of
10 August 1792
10 August, a combined force of Parisian National Guard and
provincial fédérés attacked the Tuileries Palace, killing many of the
Swiss Guard protecting it. [90] Louis and his family took refuge with the Assembly and shortly after 11:00 am,
the deputies present voted to 'temporarily relieve the king', effectively suspending the monarchy.[91]

First Republic (1792–1795)

Proclamation of the First Republic

In late August, elections were held for the National Convention;

further restrictions meant votes cast fell to 3.3 million, versus 4 million
in 1791, while intimidation was widespread.[92] The former Brissotins
now split into moderate Girondins led by Brissot, and radical
Montagnards, headed by Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Danton
and Jean-Paul Marat. While loyalties constantly shifted, around 160 of
the 749 deputies were Girondists, 200 Montagnards and 389 members
of La Plaine. Led by Bertrand Barère, Pierre Joseph Cambon and Execution of Louis XVI in the Place
Lazare Carnot, as before this central faction acted as a swing vote.[93] de la Concorde, facing the empty
pedestal where the statue of his
From 2 to 6 September, a series of extrajudicial killings took place in grandfather, Louis XV previously
Paris, known as the September Massacres. Between 1,100 and 1,600 stood
prisoners held in Parisian jails were summarily executed; more than
72% were common criminals.[94] A response to the capture of
Longwy and Verdun by Prussia, the perpetrators were largely National Guard members and fédérés on their
way to the front. Exactly who was responsible for their organisation is disputed, but even moderates expressed
sympathy for the killings, which soon spread to the provinces.[95]

On 20 September, the French army won a stunning victory over the Prussians at Valmy. Emboldened by this,
on 22 September the Convention abolished the monarchy and established the French First Republic. It also
introduced a new calendar, and 1792 became Year One of the new republic.[96] The next few months were
taken up with the trial of Citoyen Louis Capet, formerly Louis XVI. Members of the convention were evenly
divided on the question of his guilt, but increasingly influenced by radicals concentrated in the Jacobin clubs
and Paris Commune. The Brunswick Manifesto made it easy to portray Louis as a threat to the Revolution,
confirmed when extracts from his personal correspondence allegedly showed him conspiring with Royalist
exiles serving in their armies.[97]

On 17 January 1793, the Assembly condemned Louis to death for "conspiracy against public liberty and
general safety", by a margin of 361 to 288; another 72 members voted to execute him subject to a variety of
delaying conditions. The sentence was carried out on 21 January on the Place de la Révolution, now the Place
de la Concorde.[98] Horrified conservatives across Europe called for the destruction of revolutionary France; in
February the Convention anticipated this by declaring war on Britain and the Dutch Republic; these countries
were later joined by Spain, Portugal, Naples and the Tuscany in the War of the First Coalition.[99]

Political crisis and fall of the Girondins

The Girondins hoped war would unite the people behind the
government and provide an excuse for rising prices and food
shortages, but found themselves the target of popular anger. Many left
for the provinces. The first conscription measure (levée en masse) on
24 February sparked riots in Paris and other regional centres. Already
unsettled by changes imposed on the church, in March the
traditionally conservative and royalist Vendée rose in revolt. On 18th,
Dumouriez was defeated at Neerwinden and defected to the
The Vendeans revolted against the
Austrians. Uprisings followed in Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulon, Marseilles
Revolutionary government in 1793
and Caen. The Republic seemed on the verge of collapse.[100]

The crisis led to the creation on 6 April 1793 of the Committee of

Public Safety, an executive committee accountable to the convention.[101] The Girondins made a fatal political
error by indicting Marat before the Revolutionary Tribunal for allegedly directing the September massacres; he
was quickly acquitted, further isolating the Girondins from the sans-culottes. When Jacques Hébert called for a
popular revolt against the "henchmen of Louis Capet" on 24 May, he was arrested by the Commission of
Twelve, a Girondin-dominated tribunal set up to expose 'plots'. In response to protests by the Commune, the
Commission warned "if by your incessant rebellions something befalls the representatives of the nation,...Paris
will be obliterated".[100]

Growing discontent allowed the clubs to mobilise against the Girondins.

Backed by the Commune and elements of the National Guard, on 31 May
they attempted to seize power in a coup. Although the coup failed, on 2
June the convention was surrounded by a crowd of up to 80,000,
demanding cheap bread, unemployment pay and political reforms, including
restriction of the vote to the sans-culottes, and the right to remove deputies at
will.[102] Ten members of the commission and another twenty-nine
members of the Girondin faction were arrested, and on 10 June, the
Montagnards took over the Committee of Public Safety.[103]

Meanwhile, a committee led by Robespierre's close ally Saint-Just was

tasked with preparing a new Constitution. Completed in only eight days, it
The Death of Marat by was ratified by the convention on 24 June, and contained radical reforms,
Jacques-Louis David (1793) including universal male suffrage and abolition of slavery in French
colonies. However, normal legal processes were suspended following the
assassination of Marat on 13 July by the Girondist Charlotte Corday, which
the Committee of Public Safety used as an excuse to take control. The 1793 Constitution itself was suspended
indefinitely in October.[104]

Key areas of focus for the new government included creating a new state ideology, economic regulation and
winning the war.[105] The urgent task of suppressing internal dissent was helped by divisions among their
opponents; while areas like the Vendée and Brittany wanted to restore the monarchy, most supported the
Republic but opposed the regime in Paris. On 17 August, the Convention voted a second levée en masse;
despite initial problems in equipping and supplying such large numbers, by mid-October Republican forces
had re-taken Lyon, Marseilles and Bordeaux, while defeating Coalition armies at Hondschoote and
Wattignies.[106]
Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror began as a way to harness revolutionary fervour,

but quickly degenerated into the settlement of personal grievances. At
the end of July, the Convention set price controls over a wide range of
goods, with the death penalty for hoarders, and on 9 September
'revolutionary groups' were established to enforce them. On 17th, the
Law of Suspects ordered the arrest of suspected "enemies of
freedom", initiating what became known as the "Terror". According
to archival records, from September 1793 to July 1794 some 16,600 Nine émigrés are executed by
people were executed on charges of counter-revolutionary activity; guillotine, 1793
another 40,000 may have been summarily executed or died awaiting
trial.[107]

Fixed prices, death for 'hoarders' or 'profiteers', and confiscation of grain stocks by groups of armed workers
meant that by early September Paris was suffering acute food shortages. However, France's biggest challenge
was servicing the huge public debt inherited from the former regime, which continued to expand due to the
war. Initially financed by sales of confiscated property, this was hugely inefficient; since few would buy assets
that might be repossessed, fiscal stability could only be achieved by continuing the war until French counter-
revolutionaries had been defeated. As internal and external threats to the Republic increased, the position
worsened; dealing with this by printing assignats led to inflation and higher prices.[108]

On 10 October, the Convention recognised the Committee of Public Safety as the supreme Revolutionary
Government, and suspended the Constitution until peace was achieved.[104] In mid-October, Marie Antoinette
was found guilty of a long list of crimes and guillotined; two weeks later, the Girondist leaders arrested in June
were also executed, along with Philippe Égalité. Terror was not confined to Paris; over 2,000 were killed after
the recapture of Lyons.[109]

At Cholet on 17 October, the Republican army won a decisive victory over

the Vendée rebels, and the survivors escaped into Brittany. Another defeat at
Le Mans on 23 December ended the rebellion as a major threat, although the
insurgency continued until 1796. The extent of the brutal repression that
followed has been debated by French historians since the mid-19th
century.[110] Between November 1793 to February 1794, over 4,000 were
drowned in the Loire at Nantes under the supervision of Jean-Baptiste
Carrier. Historian Reynald Secher claims that as many as 117,000 died
between 1793 and 1796. Although those numbers have been challenged,
François Furet concluded it "not only revealed massacre and destruction on
an unprecedented scale, but a zeal so violent that it has bestowed as its
legacy much of the region's identity."[111] [b]
Georges Danton;
At the height of the Terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary
Robespierre's close friend and
Montagnard leader, executed
thought could place one under suspicion, and even its supporters were not
5 April 1794 immune. Under the pressure of events, splits appeared within the
Montagnard faction, with violent disagreements between radical Hébertists
and moderates led by Danton.[c] Robespierre saw their dispute as de-
stabilising the regime, and as a deist he objected to the anti-religious policies advocated by the atheist Hébert.
He was arrested and executed on 24 March with 19 of his colleagues, including Carrier.[115] To retain the
loyalty of the remaining Hébertists, Danton was arrested and executed on 5 April with Camille Desmoulins,
after a show trial that arguably did more damage to Robespierre than any other act in this period.[116]
The Law of 22 Prairial (10 June) denied "enemies of the people" the right to defend themselves. Those
arrested in the provinces were now sent to Paris for judgement; from March to July, executions in Paris
increased from five to twenty-six a day.[117] Many Jacobins ridiculed the festival of the Cult of the Supreme
Being on 8 June, a lavish and expensive ceremony led by Robespierre, who was also accused of circulating
claims he was a second Messiah. Relaxation of price controls and rampant inflation caused increasing unrest
among the sans-culottes, but the improved military situation reduced fears the Republic was in danger. Many
feared their own survival depended on Robespierre's removal; during a meeting on 29 June, three members of
the Committee of Public Safety called him a dictator in his face.[118]

Robespierre responded by not attending sessions, allowing his

opponents to build a coalition against him. In a speech made to
the convention on 26 July, he claimed certain members were
conspiring against the Republic, an almost certain death sentence
if confirmed. When he refused to give names, the session broke
up in confusion. That evening he made the same speech at the
Jacobins club, where it was greeted with huge applause and
demands for execution of the 'traitors'. It was clear if his
opponents did not act, he would; in the Convention next day,
Robespierre and his allies were shouted down. His voice failed The execution of Robespierre on 28 July
when he tried to speak, a deputy crying "The blood of Danton 1794 marked the end of the Reign of
chokes him!"[119] Terror.

The Convention authorised his arrest; he and his supporters took

refuge in the Hotel de Ville, defended by the National Guard. That evening, units loyal to the Convention
stormed the building, and Robespierre was arrested after a failed suicide attempt. He was executed on 28 July
with 19 colleagues, including Saint-Just and Georges Couthon, followed by 83 members of the
Commune.[120] The Law of 22 Prairial was repealed, any surviving Girondists reinstated as deputies, and the
Jacobin Club was closed and banned.[121]

There are various interpretations of the Terror and the violence with which it was conducted; Marxist historian
Albert Soboul saw it as essential to defend the Revolution from external and internal threats. François Furet
argues the intense ideological commitment of the revolutionaries and their utopian goals required the
extermination of any opposition.[122] A middle position suggests violence was not inevitable but the product
of a series of complex internal events, exacerbated by war.[123]

Thermidorean reaction

The bloodshed did not end with the death of Robespierre; Southern France saw a wave of revenge killings,
directed against alleged Jacobins, Republican officials and Protestants. Although the victors of Thermidor
asserted control over the Commune by executing their leaders, some of the leading "terrorists" retained their
positions. They included Paul Barras, later chief executive of the French Directory, and Joseph Fouché,
director of the killings in Lyon who served as Minister of Police under the Directory, the Consulate and
Empire. Others were exiled or prosecuted, a process that took several months.[124]

The December 1794 Treaty of La Jaunaye ended the Chouannerie in western France by allowing freedom of
worship and the return of non-juring priests.[125] This was accompanied by military success; in January 1795,
French forces helped the Dutch Patriots set up the Batavian Republic, securing their northern border.[126] The
war with Prussia was concluded in favour of France by the Peace of Basel in April 1795, while Spain made
peace shortly thereafter.[127]
 However, the Republic still faced a crisis at home. Food shortages arising
from a poor 1794 harvest were exacerbated in Northern France by the need
to supply the army in Flanders, while the winter was the worst since
1709.[128] By April 1795, people were starving and the assignat was worth
only 8% of its face value; in desperation, the Parisian poor rose again.[129]
They were quickly dispersed and the main impact was another round of
arrests, while Jacobin prisoners in Lyon were summarily executed.[130]

A committee drafted a new constitution, approved by plebiscite on 23

September 1795 and put into place on 27th.[131] Largely designed by Pierre
Daunou and Boissy d'Anglas, it established a bicameral legislature, intended
to slow down the legislative process, ending the wild swings of policy under
the previous unicameral systems. The Council of 500 was responsible for
Former Viscount and drafting legislation, which was reviewed and approved by the Council of
Montagnard Paul Barras, who Ancients, an upper house containing 250 men over the age of 40. Executive
took part in the Thermidorean power was in the hands of five Directors, selected by the Council of
reaction and later headed the Ancients from a list provided by the lower house, with a five-year
French Directory mandate.[132]

Deputies were chosen by indirect election, a total franchise of around

5 million voting in primaries for 30,000 electors, or 0.5% of the population. Since they were also subject to
stringent property qualification, it guaranteed the return of conservative or moderate deputies. In addition,
rather than dissolving the previous legislature as in 1791 and 1792, the so-called 'law of two-thirds' ruled only
150 new deputies would be elected each year. The remaining 600 Conventionnels kept their seats, a move
intended to ensure stability.[133]

Directory (1795–1799)
The Directory has a poor reputation amongst historians; for Jacobin
sympathisers, it represented the betrayal of the Revolution, while
Bonapartists emphasised its corruption to portray Napoleon in a better
light.[134] Although these criticisms were certainly valid, it also faced
internal unrest, a stagnating economy and an expensive war, while
hampered by the impracticality of the constitution. Since the Council
of 500 controlled legislation and finance, they could paralyse
government at will, and as the Directors had no power to call new
elections, the only way to break a deadlock was to rule by decree or
use force. As a result, the Directory was characterised by "chronic Troops under Napoleon fire on
violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy- Royalist insurgents in Paris, 5
handed repression."[135] October 1795

Retention of the Conventionnels ensured the Thermidorians held a

majority in the legislature and three of the five Directors, but they faced an increasing challenge from the right.
On 5 October, Convention troops led by Napoleon put down a royalist rising in Paris; when the first elections
were held two weeks later, over 100 of the 150 new deputies were royalists of some sort.[136] The power of
the Parisian san culottes had been broken by the suppression of the May 1795 revolt; relieved of pressure from
below, the Jacobins became natural supporters of the Directory against those seeking to restore the
monarchy.[137]

Removal of price controls and a collapse in the value of the assignat led to inflation and soaring food prices.
By April 1796, over 500,000 Parisians were reportedly in need of relief, resulting in the May insurrection
known as the Conspiracy of the Equals. Led by the revolutionary François-Noël Babeuf, their demands
included the implementation of the 1793 Constitution and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Despite
limited support from sections of the military, it was easily crushed, with Babeuf and other leaders
executed.[138] Nevertheless, by 1799 the economy had been stabilised and important reforms made allowing
steady expansion of French industry; many remained in place for much of the 19th century.[139]

Prior to 1797, three of the five Directors were firmly Republican; Barras, Révellière-Lépeaux and Jean-
François Rewbell, as were around 40% of the legislature. The same percentage were broadly centrist or
unaffiliated, along with two Directors, Étienne-François Letourneur and Lazare Carnot. Although only 20%
were committed Royalists, many centrists supported the restoration of the exiled Louis XVIII in the belief this
would end the War of the First Coalition with Britain and Austria.[140] The elections of May 1797 resulted in
significant gains for the right, with Royalists Jean-Charles Pichegru elected President of the Council of 500,
and Barthélemy appointed a Director.[141]

With the royalists apparently on the verge of power, the Republicans staged
a coup on 4 September. Using troops from Bonaparte's Army of Italy under
Pierre Augereau, the Council of 500 was forced to approve the arrest of
Barthélemy, Pichegru and Carnot. The election results were cancelled, sixty-
three leading royalists deported to French Guiana and new laws passed
against émigrés, Royalists and ultra-Jacobins. Although the power of the
monarchists had been destroyed, it opened the way for direct conflict
between Barras and his opponents on the left.[142]

Despite general war weariness, fighting continued and the 1798 elections
saw a resurgence in Jacobin strength. The invasion of Egypt in July 1798
Napoléon Bonaparte in the confirmed European fears of French expansionism, and the War of the
Council of 500 during 18 Second Coalition began in November. Without a majority in the legislature,
Brumaire, 9 November 1799 the Directors relied on the army to enforcing decrees and extract revenue
from conquered territories. This made generals like Bonaparte and Joubert
essential political players, while both the army and the Directory became
notorious for their corruption.[143]

It has been suggested the Directory did not collapse for economic or military reasons, but because by 1799,
many 'preferred the uncertainties of authoritarian rule to the continuing ambiguities of parliamentary
politics'.[144] The architect of its end was Sieyès, who when asked what he had done during the Terror
answered "I survived". Nominated to the Directory, he now turned his attention to removing Barras, using a
coalition that included Talleyrand and former Jacobin Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother and president of
the Council of 500.[145] On 9 November 1799, the Coup of 18 Brumaire replaced the five Directors with the
French Consulate, Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger Ducos; most historians consider this the end point of the
French Revolution.[146]

French Revolutionary Wars

The Revolution initiated a series of conflicts that began in 1792 and ended only with Napoleon's defeat at
Waterloo in 1815. In its early stages, this seemed unlikely; the 1791 Constitution specifically disavowed "war
for the purpose of conquest", and although traditional tensions between France and Austria re-emerged in the
1780s, Emperor Joseph cautiously welcomed the reforms. Austria was at war with the Ottomans, as were the
Russians, while both were negotiating with Prussia over partitioning Poland. Most importantly, Britain
preferred peace, and as Emperor Leopold stated after the Declaration of Pillnitz, "without England, there is no
case".[147]
In late 1791, factions within the Assembly came to see war as a way
to unite the country and secure the Revolution by eliminating hostile
forces on its borders and establishing its "natural frontiers".[148]
France declared war on Austria in April 1792 and issued the first
levée en masse (conscription) orders. Since it expected a short war,
the recruits were to serve for twelve months. By the time peace finally
came in 1815, the conflict had involved every major European power
as well as the United States, redrawn the map of Europe and
expanded into the Americas, the Middle East and Indian Ocean.[149] French victory at the Battle of Valmy
on 20 September 1792 validated the
From 1701 to 1801, the population of Europe grew from 118 to Revolutionary idea of armies
187 million; combined with new mass production techniques, this composed of citizens
allowed belligerents to support large armies, requiring the mobilisation
of national resources. It was a different kind of war, fought by nations
rather than kings, intended to destroy their opponents' ability to resist, but also to implement deep-ranging
social change. While all wars are political to some degree, this period was remarkable for the emphasis placed
on reshaping boundaries and the creation of entirely new European states.[150]

In April 1792, French armies invaded the Austrian Netherlands but suffered a series of setbacks before victory
over an Austrian-Prussian army at Valmy in September. After defeating a second Austrian army at Jemappes
on 6 November, they occupied the Netherlands, areas of the Rhineland, Nice and Savoy. Emboldened by this
success, in February 1793 France declared war on the Dutch Republic, Spain and Britain, beginning the War
of the First Coalition.[151] However, the expiration of the 12-month term for the 1792 recruits forced the
French to relinquish their conquests. In August, new conscription measures were passed and by May 1794 the
French army had between 750,000 and 800,000 men.[152] Despite high rates of desertion, this was large
enough to manage multiple internal and external threats; for comparison, the combined Prussian-Austrian army
was less than 90,000.[153]

By February 1795, France had annexed the Austrian Netherlands,

established their frontier on the left bank of the Rhine and replaced the
Dutch Republic with the Batavian Republic, a satellite state. These
victories led to the collapse of the anti-French coalition; Prussia made
peace in April 1795, followed soon after by Spain, leaving Britain
and Austria as the only major powers still in the war.[154] In October
1797, a series of defeats by Bonaparte in Italy led Austria to agree to
the Treaty of Campo Formio, in which they formally ceded the
Netherlands and recognised the Cisalpine Republic.[155]
Napoleon's Italian campaigns
Fighting continued for two reasons; first, French state finances had
reshaped the map of Italy
come to rely on indemnities levied on their defeated opponents.
Second, armies were primarily loyal to their generals, for whom the
wealth achieved by victory and the status it conferred became
objectives in themselves. Leading soldiers like Hoche, Pichegru and Carnot wielded significant political
influence and often set policy; Campo Formio was approved by Bonaparte, not the Directory, which strongly
objected to terms it considered too lenient.[155]

Despite these concerns, the Directory never developed a realistic peace programme, fearing the destabilising
effects of peace and the consequent demobilisation of hundreds of thousands of young men. As long as the
generals and their armies stayed away from Paris, they were happy to allow them to continue fighting, a key
factor behind sanctioning Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt. This resulted in aggressive and opportunistic policies,
leading to the War of the Second Coalition in November 1798.[156]
French colonial policy
Although the French Revolution had a dramatic impact in numerous
areas of Europe, the French colonies felt a particular influence. As the
Martinican author Aimé Césaire put it, "there was in each French
colony a specific revolution, that occurred on the occasion of the
French Revolution, in tune with it."[157]

The Haitian Revolution (Saint Domingue) became a central example

of slave uprisings in French colonies. In the 1780s, Saint-Domingue
had been France's wealthiest colony, producing more sugar than all of The Saint-Domingue slave revolt in
the British West Indies colonies put together. During the Revolution, 1791
the National Convention voted to abolish slavery in February 1794,
months after rebelling slaves had already announced an abolition of
slavery in Saint-Domingue.[158] However, the 1794 decree was only implemented in Saint-Domingue,
Guadeloupe and Guyane, and was a dead letter in Senegal, Mauritius, Réunion and Martinique, the last of
which had been conquered by the British, who maintained the institution of slavery on that Caribbean
island.[159]

Media and symbolism

Newspapers

Newspapers and pamphlets played a central role in stimulating and defining

the Revolution. Prior to 1789, there have been a small number of heavily
censored newspapers that needed a royal licence to operate, but the Estates-
General created an enormous demand for news, and over 130 newspapers
appeared by the end of the year. Among the most significant were Marat's
L'Ami du peuple and Elysée Loustallot's Revolutions de Paris. Over the next
decade, more than 2,000 newspapers were founded, 500 in Paris alone.
A copy of L'Ami du peuple Most lasted only a matter of weeks but they became the main
stained with the blood of communication medium, combined with the very large pamphlet
Marat
literature.[160]

Newspapers were read aloud in taverns and clubs, and circulated hand to
hand. There was a widespread assumption writing was a vocation not a business, and the role of the press
advancement of civic republicanism.[161] By 1793 the radicals were most active but initially the royalists
flooded the country with their publication the "L'Ami du Roi" (Friends of the King) until they were
suppressed.[162]

Revolutionary symbols

To illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a
new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbols. To this end, symbols
were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or
reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instil in the public a new sense of
tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.[163]
La Marseillaise

"La Marseillaise" (French pronunciation: [la maʁsɛjɛːz]) became the national anthem of France. The song was
written and composed in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre
pour l'Armée du Rhin". The French National Convention adopted it as the First Republic's anthem in 1795. It
acquired its nickname after being sung in Paris by volunteers from Marseille marching on the capital.

The song is the first example of the "European march" anthemic style, while the evocative melody and lyrics
led to its widespread use as a song of revolution and incorporation into many pieces of classical and popular
music. De Lisle was instructed to 'produce a hymn which conveys to the soul of the people the enthusiasm
which it (the music) suggests.'[164]

Guillotine

The guillotine remains "the principal symbol of the Terror in the French
Revolution."[165] Invented by a physician during the Revolution as a quicker, more
efficient and more distinctive form of execution, the guillotine became a part of
popular culture and historic memory. It was celebrated on the left as the people's
avenger and cursed as the symbol of the Terror by the right.[166]

Its operation became a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of

spectators. Vendors sold programmes listing the names of those scheduled to die.
Many people came day after day and vied for the best locations from which to
observe the proceedings; knitting women (tricoteuses) formed a cadre of hardcore
Cartoon attacking the
regulars, inciting the crowd. Parents often brought their children. By the end of the
excesses of the
Revolution as
Terror, the crowds had thinned drastically. Repetition had staled even this most
symbolised by the grisly of entertainments, and audiences grew bored.[167]
guillotine
Cockade, tricolore and liberty cap

Cockades were widely worn by revolutionaries beginning in 1789. They now

pinned the blue-and-red cockade of Paris onto the white cockade of the Ancien
Régime. Camille Desmoulins asked his followers to wear green cockades on 12
July 1789. The Paris militia, formed on 13 July, adopted a blue and red cockade.
Blue and red are the traditional colours of Paris, and they are used on the city's
coat of arms. Cockades with various colour schemes were used during the
storming of the Bastille on 14 July.[168]

The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap
that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. It reflects Roman
republicanism and liberty, alluding to the Roman ritual of manumission, in which
a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty.[169] A sans-culotte and
Tricoloure

Role of women
The role of women in the Revolution has long been a topic of debate. Deprived of political rights under the
Ancien Regime, the 1791 Constitution classed them as "passive" citizens, leading to demands for social and
political equality for women and an end to male domination. They expressed these demands using pamphlets
and clubs such as the Cercle Social, whose largely male members viewed themselves as contemporary
feminists.[170] However, in October 1793, the Assembly banned all women's clubs and the movement was
crushed; this was driven by the emphasis on masculinity in a wartime situation, antagonism towards feminine
 "interference" in state affairs due to Marie Antoinette, and traditional male
supremacy.[171] A decade later the Napoleonic Code confirmed and
perpetuated women's second-class status.[172]

At the beginning of the Revolution, women took advantage of events to

force their way into the political sphere, swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn
declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political
responsibilities of citizenship." Activists included Girondists like Olympe de
Club of patriotic women in a Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the
church Female Citizen, and Charlotte Corday, the killer of Marat. Others like
Théroigne de Méricourt, Pauline Léon and the Society of Revolutionary
Republican Women supported the Jacobins, staged demonstrations in the
National Assembly and took part in the October 1789 March to Versailles. Despite this, the constitutions of
1791 and 1793 denied them political rights and democratic citizenship.[173]

On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the
Legislative Assembly, into the Tuileries Garden, and then through the King's residence."[174] Women also
assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793 by Corday; as part of the
funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which he died, as well as a shirt stained with his blood.[175] On
20 May 1793 women were in the forefront of a crowd demanding "bread and the Constitution of 1793"; when
they went unnoticed, they began "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."[176]

The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, a militant group on the

far left, demanded a law in 1793 that would compel all women to wear the
tricolour cockade to demonstrate their loyalty to the Republic. They also
demanded vigorous price controls to keep bread – the major food of the
poor people – from becoming too expensive. After the Convention passed
the law in September 1793, the Revolutionary Republican Women
demanded vigorous enforcement, but were countered by market women,
former servants, and religious women who adamantly opposed price
controls (which would drive them out of business ) and resented attacks on
the aristocracy and on religion. Fist fights broke out in the streets between
the two factions of women.

Meanwhile, the men who controlled the Jacobins rejected the Revolutionary
Republican Women as dangerous rabble-rousers. At this point the Jacobins
Olympe de Gouges, Girondist
controlled the government; they dissolved the Society of Revolutionary
author of the Declaration of
Republican Women, and decreed that all women's clubs and associations
the Rights of Woman and of
were illegal. They sternly reminded women to stay home and tend to their the Female Citizen, executed
families by leaving public affairs to the men. Organised women were in November 1793
permanently shut out of the French Revolution after 30 October 1793.[177]

Prominent women

Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasised that
women and men are different, but this shouldn't prevent equality under the law. In her Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas
concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children.[178]

Madame Roland (a.k.a. Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus
was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a
feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to
leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins,
a political group which allowed women to join. As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O
liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!"[179]

Most of these activists were punished for their actions. Many of the women of the Revolution were even
publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".[180]

Counter-revolutionary women

A major aspect of the French Revolution was the dechristianisation movement, a movement strongly rejected
by many devout people. Especially for women living in rural areas of France, the closing of the churches
meant a loss of normalcy.[181]

When these revolutionary changes to the Church were implemented, it sparked a counter-revolutionary
movement among women. Although some of these women embraced the political and social amendments of
the Revolution, they opposed the dissolution of the Catholic Church and the formation of revolutionary cults
like the Cult of the Supreme Being.[182] As Olwen Hufton argues, these women began to see themselves as
the "defenders of faith".[183] They took it upon themselves to protect the Church from what they saw as a
heretical change to their faith, enforced by revolutionaries.

Counter-revolutionary women resisted what they saw as the intrusion of the state into their lives.[184]
Economically, many peasant women refused to sell their goods for assignats because this form of currency was
unstable and was backed by the sale of confiscated Church property. By far the most important issue to
counter-revolutionary women was the passage and the enforcement of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in
1790. In response to this measure, women in many areas began circulating anti-oath pamphlets and refused to
attend masses held by priests who had sworn oaths of loyalty to the Republic. These women continued to
adhere to traditional practices such as Christian burials and naming their children after saints in spite of
revolutionary decrees to the contrary.[185]

Economic policies
The French Revolution abolished many of the constraints
on the economy that had slowed growth in the Ancien
régime. It abolished tithes owed to local churches and
feudal dues owed to landlords. The results hurt tenants,
who paid both higher rents and higher taxes.[186] It
nationalised all church lands, as well as lands of royalists
who went into exile. It planned to use these seized lands
to finance the government by issuing assignats. It
abolished the guild system as a worthless remnant of
feudalism.[187] It also abolished the highly inefficient
system of tax farming, whereby private individuals
would collect taxes for a hefty fee. The government Early Assignat of 29 September 1790: 500 livres
seized the foundations that had been set up (starting in
the 13th century) to provide an annual stream of revenue
for hospitals, poor relief, and education. The state sold the lands but typically local authorities did not replace
the funding and so most of the nation's charitable and school systems were massively disrupted.[188]

The economy did poorly in 1790–96 as industrial and agricultural output dropped, foreign trade plunged, and
prices soared. The government decided not to repudiate old debts. Instead it issued more and more paper
money (assignats) supposedly backed by seized lands. The result was escalating inflation. The government
imposed price controls and persecuted speculators and traders in the
black market. People increasingly refused to pay taxes and the annual
government deficit increased from 10% of gross national product in
1789 to 64% in 1793. By 1795, after the bad harvest of 1794 and the
removal of price controls, inflation reached a level of 3500%. The
assignats were withdrawn in 1796 but their replacements also fuelled
inflation. Inflation was finally ended by Napoleon in 1803 with the
franc as the new currency.[189]

Napoleon after 1799 paid for his expensive wars by multiple means, The value of assignats (1789–96)
starting with the modernisation of the rickety financial system.[190] He
conscripted soldiers at low wages, raised taxes, placed large-scale
loans, sold lands formerly owned by the Catholic Church, sold Louisiana to the United States, plundered
conquered areas and seized food supplies, and levied requisitions on countries he controlled, such as Italy.[191]

Long-term impact
The French Revolution had a major impact on Europe and the New
World, decisively changing the course of human history.[192] It ended
feudalism and created the path for future advances in broadly defined
individual freedoms.[193] [194] [5] Its impact on French nationalism
was profound, while also stimulating nationalist movements
throughout Europe.[195] Its influence was great in the hundreds of
small German states and elsewhere, where it was either inspired by
the French example or in reaction against it.[196]

Liberty Leading the People, painting

France by Eugène Delacroix
commemorating the July Revolution
The changes in France were enormous; some were widely accepted of 1830
and others bitterly contested into the late 20th century.[197] Before the
Revolution, the people had little power or voice. The kings had so
thoroughly centralised the system that most nobles spent their time at Versailles, and thus played only a small
direct role in their home districts. Thompson says that the kings had "ruled by virtue of their personal wealth,
their patronage of the nobility, their disposal of ecclesiastical offices, their provincial governors (intendants)
their control over the judges and magistrates, and their command of the Army."[198]

After the first year of revolution, the power of the king had been stripped away, he was left a mere figurehead,
the nobility had lost all their titles and most of their land, the Church lost its monasteries and farmlands,
bishops, judges and magistrates were elected by the people, and the army was almost helpless, with military
power in the hands of the new revolutionary National Guard. The central elements of 1789 were the slogan
"Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" and "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen", which
Lefebvre calls "the incarnation of the Revolution as a whole."[199]

The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarising
politics for more than a century. Historian François Aulard writes:

"From the social point of view, the Revolution consisted in the suppression of what was called the
feudal system, in the emancipation of the individual, in greater division of landed property, the
abolition of the privileges of noble birth, the establishment of equality, the simplification of life....
 The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed
at benefiting all humanity."[200]

Religion and charity

The most heated controversy was over the status of the Catholic Church.[201] From a dominant position in
1788, it was almost destroyed in less than a decade, its priests and nuns turned out, its leaders dead or in exile,
its property controlled by its enemies, and a strong effort underway to remove all influence of Christian
religiosity, such as Sundays, holy days, saints, prayers, rituals and ceremonies. The movement to de-
Christianise France not only failed but aroused a furious reaction among the pious.[202][203]

During the Terror, extreme efforts of dechristianisation took place, including the imprisonment and massacre of
priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the
Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones. The establishment of the Cult of
Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianisation. These events led to widespread disillusionment with
the Revolution and to counter-rebellions across France. Locals often resisted de-Christianisation by attacking
revolutionary agents and hiding fugitive members of the clergy.

Robespierre, himself a deist, and the Committee of Public Safety were forced to denounce the campaign,[204]
replacing the Cult of Reason with the deist but still non-Christian Cult of the Supreme Being. The Concordat
of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianisation period and established the rules for a
relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third
Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. The persecution of the Church led to a
counter-revolution known as the revolt in the Vendée.[205]

The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianisation period and
established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French state that lasted until it was
abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. Napoleon's
Concordat was a compromise that restored some of the Catholic Church's traditional roles but not its power, its
lands or its monasteries. Priests and bishops were given salaries as part of a department of government
controlled by Paris, not Rome. Protestants and Jews gained equal rights.[206] Battles over the role of religion in
the public sphere, and closely related issues such as church-controlled schools, that were opened by the
Revolution have never seen closure. They raged into the 20th century. By the 21st century, angry debates
exploded over the presence of any Muslim religious symbols in schools, such as headscarves, for which
Muslim girls could be expelled. J. Christopher Soper and Joel S. Fetzer explicitly link the conflict over
religious symbols in public to the French Revolution, when the target was Catholic rituals and symbols.[207]

The revolutionary government seized charitable foundations that had been set up (starting in the 13th century)
to provide an annual stream of revenue for hospitals, poor relief, and education. The state sold the lands but
typically local authorities did not replace the funding and so most of the nation's charitable and school systems
were massively disrupted.[188]

In the Ancien régime, new opportunities for nuns as charitable practitioners were created by devout nobles on
their own estates. The nuns provided comprehensive care for the sick poor on their patrons' estates, not only
acting as nurses, but taking on expanded roles as physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries. During the
Revolution, most of the orders of nuns were shut down and there was no organised nursing care to replace
them.[208] However, the demand for their nursing services remained strong, and after 1800 the sisters
reappeared and resumed their work in hospitals and on rural estates. They were tolerated by officials because
they had widespread support and were a link between elite male physicians and distrustful peasants who
needed help.[209]
Economics

Two thirds of France was employed in agriculture, which was transformed by the Revolution. With the
breakup of large estates controlled by the Church and the nobility and worked by hired hands, rural France
became more a land of small independent farms. Harvest taxes were ended, such as the tithe and seigneurial
dues, much to the relief of the peasants. Primogeniture was ended both for nobles and peasants, thereby
weakening the family patriarch. Because all the children had a share in the family's property, there was a
declining birth rate.[210][211] Cobban says the Revolution bequeathed to the nation "a ruling class of
landowners."[212]

In the cities, entrepreneurship on a small scale flourished, as restrictive monopolies, privileges, barriers, rules,
taxes and guilds gave way. However, the British blockade virtually ended overseas and colonial trade, hurting
the cities and their supply chains. Overall, the Revolution did not greatly change the French business system,
and probably helped freeze in place the horizons of the small business owner. The typical businessman owned
a small store, mill or shop, with family help and a few paid employees; large-scale industry was less common
than in other industrialising nations.[213]

A 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that the emigration of more than 100,000
individuals (predominantly supporters of the old regime) during the Revolution had a significant negative
impact on income per capita in the 19th century (due to the fragmentation of agricultural holdings) but became
positive in the second half of the 20th century onward (because it facilitated the rise in human capital
investments).[214] Another 2017 paper found that the redistribution of land had a positive impact on
agricultural productivity, but that these gains gradually declined over the course of the 19th century.[215][216]

Constitutionalism

The Revolution meant an end to arbitrary royal rule and held out the promise of rule by law under a
constitutional order, but it did not rule out a monarch. Napoleon as emperor set up a constitutional system
(although he remained in full control), and the restored Bourbons were forced to go along with one. After the
abdication of Napoleon III in 1871, the monarchists probably had a voting majority, but they were so
factionalised they could not agree on who should be king, and instead the French Third Republic was
launched with a deep commitment to upholding the ideals of the Revolution.[217][218] The conservative
Catholic enemies of the Revolution came to power in Vichy France (1940–44), and tried with little success to
undo its heritage, but they kept it a republic. Vichy denied the principle of equality and tried to replace the
Revolutionary watchwords "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" with "Work, Family, and Fatherland." However,
there were no efforts by the Bourbons, Vichy or anyone else to restore the privileges that had been stripped
away from the nobility in 1789. France permanently became a society of equals under the law.[219]

Communism

The Jacobin cause was picked up by Marxists in the mid-19th century and became an element of communist
thought around the world. In the Soviet Union, "Gracchus" Babeuf was regarded as a hero.[220]

Europe outside France

Economic historians Dan Bogart, Mauricio Drelichman, Oscar Gelderblom, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal
described codified law as the French Revolution's "most significant export." They wrote, "While restoration
returned most of their power to the absolute monarchs who had been deposed by Napoleon, only the most
recalcitrant ones, such as Ferdinand VII of Spain, went to the trouble of completely reversing the legal
innovations brought on by the French."[221] They also note that the French Revolution and the Napoleonic
Wars caused England, Spain, Prussia and the Dutch Republic to centralize their fiscal systems to an
unprecedented extent in order to finance the military campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars.[221]

According to Daron Acemoglu, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson the French
Revolution had long-term effects in Europe. They suggest that "areas that were occupied by the French and
that underwent radical institutional reform experienced more rapid urbanization and economic growth,
especially after 1850. There is no evidence of a negative effect of French invasion."[222]

A 2016 study in the European Economic Review found that the areas of Germany that were occupied by
France in the 19th century and in which the Code Napoleon was applied have higher levels of trust and
cooperation today.[223]

Britain

On 16 July 1789, two days after the Storming of the Bastille, John Frederick Sackville, serving as ambassador
to France, reported to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds, "Thus, my
Lord, the greatest revolution that we know anything of has been effected with, comparatively speaking – if the
magnitude of the event is considered – the loss of very few lives. From this moment we may consider France
as a free country, the King a very limited monarch, and the nobility as reduced to a level with the rest of the
nation.[224]" Yet in Britain the majority, especially among the aristocracy, strongly opposed the French
Revolution. Britain led and funded the series of coalitions that fought France from 1793 to 1815, and then
restored the Bourbons.

Philosophically and politically, Britain was in debate over the rights and wrongs of revolution, in the abstract
and in practicalities. The Revolution Controversy was a "pamphlet war" set off by the publication of A
Discourse on the Love of Our Country, a speech given by Richard Price to the Revolution Society on 4
November 1789, supporting the French Revolution (as he had the American Revolution), and saying that
patriotism actually centers around loving the people and principles of a nation, not its ruling class. Edmund
Burke responded in November 1790 with his own pamphlet, Reflections on the Revolution in France,
attacking the French Revolution as a threat to the aristocracy of all countries.[225][226] William Coxe opposed
Price's premise that one's country is principles and people, not the State itself.[227]

Conversely, two seminal political pieces of political history were written in Price's favor, supporting the
general right of the French people to replace their State. One of the first of these "pamphlets" into print was A
Vindication of the Rights of Men by Mary Wollstonecraft (better known for her later treatise, sometimes
described as the first feminist text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman); Wollstonecraft's title was echoed by
Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, published a few months later. In 1792 Christopher Wyvill published Defence
of Dr. Price and the Reformers of England, a plea for reform and moderation.[228]

This exchange of ideas has been described as "one of the great political debates in British history".[229] Even
in France, there was a varying degree of agreement during this debate, English participants generally opposing
the violent means that the Revolution bent itself to for its ends.[230]

In Ireland, the effect was to transform what had been an attempt by Protestant settlers to gain some autonomy
into a mass movement led by the Society of United Irishmen involving Catholics and Protestants. It stimulated
the demand for further reform throughout Ireland, especially in Ulster. The upshot was a revolt in 1798, led by
Wolfe Tone, that was crushed by Britain.[231]

Germany
German reaction to the Revolution swung from favourable to antagonistic. At first it brought liberal and
democratic ideas, the end of guilds, serfdom and the Jewish ghetto. It brought economic freedoms and agrarian
and legal reform. Above all the antagonism helped stimulate and shape German nationalism.[232]

Switzerland

The French invaded Switzerland and turned it into an ally known as the "Helvetic Republic" (1798–1803).
The interference with localism and traditional liberties was deeply resented, although some modernising
reforms took place.[233][234]

Belgium

The region of modern-day Belgium was divided between two polities:

the Austrian Netherlands and Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Both
territories experienced revolutions in 1789. In the Austrian
Netherlands, the Brabant Revolution succeeded in expelling Austrian
forces and established the new United Belgian States. The Liège
Revolution expelled the tyrannical Prince-Bishop and installed a
republic. Both failed to attract international support. By December
1790, the Brabant revolution had been crushed and Liège was
subdued the following year. The Brabant Revolution broke out in
the Austrian Netherlands in October
During the Revolutionary Wars, the French invaded and occupied the 1789, inspired by the revolution in
region between 1794 and 1814, a time known as the French period. neighbouring France, but had
The new government enforced new reforms, incorporating the region collapsed by the end of 1790.
into France itself. New rulers were sent in by Paris. Belgian men were
drafted into the French wars and heavily taxed. Nearly everyone was
Catholic, but the Church was repressed. Resistance was strong in every sector, as Belgian nationalism emerged
to oppose French rule. The French legal system, however, was adopted, with its equal legal rights, and
abolition of class distinctions. Belgium now had a government bureaucracy selected by merit.[235]

Antwerp regained access to the sea and grew quickly as a major port and business centre. France promoted
commerce and capitalism, paving the way for the ascent of the bourgeoisie and the rapid growth of
manufacturing and mining. In economics, therefore, the nobility declined while middle-class Belgian
entrepreneurs flourished because of their inclusion in a large market, paving the way for Belgium's leadership
role after 1815 in the Industrial Revolution on the Continent.[236][237]

Scandinavia

The Kingdom of Denmark adopted liberalising reforms in line with those of the French Revolution, with no
direct contact. Reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of
weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders. Much of the initiative came from
well-organised liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century.[238]

North America

Canada
The press in the colony of Quebec initially viewed the events of the Revolution positively.[239] Press coverage
in Quebec on the Revolution was reliant, and reflective of public opinion in London, with the colony's press
reliant on newspapers and reprints from journals from the British Isles.[240] The early positive reception of the
French Revolution had made it politically difficult to justify withholding electoral institutions from the colony
to both the British and Quebec public; with the British Home Secretary William Grenville remarking how it
was hardly possible to "maintain with success," the denial "to so large a body of British Subjects, the benefits
of the British Constitution".[241] Governmental reforms introduced in the Constitutional Act 1791 split Quebec
into two separate colonies, Lower Canada, and Upper Canada; and introduced electoral institutions to the two
colonies.[241]

French migration to the Canadas was decelerated significantly during, and after the French Revolution; with
only a small number of artisans, professionals, and religious emigres from France permitted to settle in the
Canadas during that period.[242] Most of these migrants moved to Montreal or Quebec City, although French
nobleman Joseph-Geneviève de Puisaye also led a small group of French royalists to settle lands north of York
(present day Toronto).[242] The influx of religious migrants from France reinvigorated the Roman Catholic
Church in the Canadas, with the refectory priests who moved to the colonies being responsible for the
establishment of a number of parishes throughout the Canadas.[242]

United States

The French Revolution deeply polarised American politics, and this polarisation led to the creation of the First
Party System. In 1793, as war broke out in Europe, the Democratic-Republican Party led by former American
minister to France Thomas Jefferson favored revolutionary France and pointed to the 1778 treaty that was still
in effect. George Washington and his unanimous cabinet, including Jefferson, decided that the treaty did not
bind the United States to enter the war. Washington proclaimed neutrality instead.[243] Under President John
Adams, a Federalist, an undeclared naval war took place with France from 1798 until 1799, often called the
"Quasi War". Jefferson became president in 1801, but was hostile to Napoleon as a dictator and emperor.
However, the two entered negotiations over the Louisiana Territory and agreed to the Louisiana Purchase in
1803, an acquisition that substantially increased the size of the United States.

Historiography
The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public
and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have been characterised as falling
along ideological lines, with disagreement over the significance and the major developments of the
Revolution.[244] Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous
middle class becoming conscious of its social importance.[245]

Other thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the product of a few
conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order, a claim rooted in the
belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate complaints.[246] Other historians, influenced by Marxist
thinking, have emphasised the importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution
as a gigantic class struggle.[247] In general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the political
ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social history that analyses the impact
of the Revolution on individual lives.[248]

Historians until the late 20th century emphasised class conflicts from a largely Marxist perspective as the
fundamental driving cause of the Revolution.[249] The central theme of this argument was that the Revolution
emerged from the rising bourgeoisie, with support from the sans-culottes, who fought to destroy the
aristocracy.[250] However, Western scholars largely abandoned Marxist interpretations in the 1990s. By the
year 2000 many historians were saying that the field of the French Revolution was in intellectual disarray. The
old model or paradigm focusing on class conflict has been discredited, and no new explanatory model had
gained widespread support.[251][252] Nevertheless, as Spang has shown, there persists a very widespread
agreement that the French Revolution was the watershed between the premodern and modern eras of Western
history, and one of the most important events in history.[251]

It marks the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500 and is often seen as marking the
"dawn of the modern era".[253] Within France itself, the Revolution permanently crippled the power of the
aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived despite the damage
they sustained. After the collapse of the First Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges
earned since the Revolution, but they remembered the participatory politics that characterised the period, with
one historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained firsthand experience in the
political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they joined new organisations; and
they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring
option."[254]

Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity,
evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in
social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution.[255] The Revolution
represented the most significant and dramatic challenge to political absolutism up to that point in history and
spread democratic ideals throughout Europe and ultimately the world.[256] Throughout the 19th century, the
revolution was heavily analysed by economists and political scientists, who saw the class nature of the
revolution as a fundamental aspect in understanding human social evolution itself. This, combined with the
egalitarian values introduced by the revolution, gave rise to a classless and co-operative model for society
called "socialism" which profoundly influenced future revolutions in France and around the world.

See also
Age of Revolution
Cordeliers
Glossary of the French Revolution
History of France
List of people associated with the French Revolution
List of political groups in the French Revolution
Musée de la Révolution française
Paris in the 18th Century
Timeline of the French Revolution

Notes
a. In 1781, Louis allegedly refused to appoint him Archbishop of Paris on the grounds 'an
Archbishop should at least believe in God'.[26]
b. Other estimates of the death toll range from 170,000 [112] to 200,000–250,000 [113]
c. In one exchange, a Hébertist named Vadier threatened to 'gut that fat turbot, Danton', who
replied that if he tried, he (Danton) would 'eat his brains and shit in his skull'.[114]

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Garrioch, David (1994). "The People of Paris and Their Police in the Eighteenth Century.
Reflections on the introduction of a 'modern' police force". European History Quarterly. 24 (4):
511–535. doi:10.1177/026569149402400402 (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0265691494024004
02). S2CID 144460864 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:144460864).
Goldhammer, Jesse (2005). The headless republic : sacrificial violence in modern French
thought. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-4150-1. OCLC 783283094 (https://www.worldc
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Gough, Hugh (1998). The Terror in the French Revolution (2010 ed.). Palgrave. ISBN 978-
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Greenwood, Frank Murray (1993). Legacies of Fear: Law and Politics in Quebec in the Era of
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Hampson, Norman (1988). A Social History of the French Revolution. Routledge: University of
Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-7100-6525-4.
Hanson, Paul (2009). Contesting the French Revolution. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-
4051-6083-4.
Hanson, Paul (2007). The A to Z of the French Revolution. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-1-
4617-1606-8.
Harden, David J (1995). "Liberty Caps and Liberty Trees". Past & Present. 146 (146): 66–102.
doi:10.1093/past/146.1.66 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fpast%2F146.1.66). JSTOR 651152 (http
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Jordan, David (2004). The King's Trial: The French Revolution versus Louis XVI. University of
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Jourdan, Annie (2007). "The "Alien Origins" of the French Revolution: American, Scottish,
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Kennedy, Emmet (1989). A Cultural History of the French Revolution. Yale University Press.
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Keitner, Chimene I (2007). The Paradoxes of Nationalism: The French Revolution and Its
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Lalevée, Thomas J (2019). National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New
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Lefebvre, Georges (1962). The French Revolution: From Its Origins to 1793. Columbia
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Lefebvre, Georges (1963). The French Revolution: from 1793 to 1799. vol. II. New York:
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Lefebvre, Georges (1964). The Thermidorians & the Directory. Random House.
Lewis, Gwynne (2002). The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate. Routledge. ISBN 978-
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Livesey, James (2001). Making Democracy in the French Revolution. Harvard University Press.
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Ludwikowski, Rhett (1990). "The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the
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Surveys and reference

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Aulard, François-Alphonse. The French Revolution, a Political History, 1789–1804 (4 vol.
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Azurmendi, Joxe (1997). The democrats and the violent. Mirande's critique of the French
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European and Atlantic History

Amann, Peter H., ed. The eighteenth-century revolution: French or Western? (Heath, 1963)
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Brinton, Crane. A Decade of Revolution 1789–1799 (1934) the Revolution in European context
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Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. ed. The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic
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Goodwin, A., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 8: The American and French
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Palmer, R.R. "The World Revolution of the West: 1763–1801," Political Science Quarterly
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Palmer, Robert R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and
America, 1760–1800. (2 vol 1959), highly influential comparative history; vol 1 online (https://w
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Rude, George F. and Harvey J. Kaye. Revolutionary Europe, 1783–1815 (2000), scholarly
survey excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Europe-Blackwell-Cla
ssic-Histories/dp/0631221905/)

Politics and wars

Andress, David. The terror: Civil war in the French revolution (2006).
ed. Baker, Keith M. The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture
(Oxford, 1987–94) vol 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime, ed. K.M. Baker (1987); vol. 2:
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Baker (1994). excerpt and text search vol 4 (https://www.amazon.com/French-Revolution-Creati
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Blanning, T.C.W. The French Revolutionary Wars 1787–1802 (1996).
Desan, Suzanne. "Internationalizing the French Revolution," French Politics, Culture & Society
(2011) 29#2 pp. 137–60.
Doyle, William. Origins of the French Revolution (3rd ed. 1999) online edition (https://www.que
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Englund, Steven. Napoleon: A Political Life. (2004). 575 pp; emphasis on politics excerpt and
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coverage of diplomatic history; hostile to Napoleon; online edition (https://www.questia.com/libr
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Wahnich, Sophie (2016). In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in the French Revolution
(Reprint ed.). Verso. ISBN 978-1-78478-202-3.

Economy and society

Anderson, James Maxwell. Daily life during the French Revolution (2007)
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Review (1989) 94#5 pp. 1265–80 JSTOR 906350 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/906350)
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French Revolution and religion, 1795–1815," in Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett, eds.
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Women
Dalton, Susan. "Gender and the Shifting Ground of Revolutionary Politics: The Case of
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JSTOR 650282 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/650282)
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debates and New Controversies Ed. Gary Kates. (1998) pp. 302–36
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prominent writers and activists
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re-French-Revolution/dp/0801494818/)
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Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1992)
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online (https://www.questia.com/read/14219316/women-equality-and-the-french-revolution)
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Historiography and memory

Andress, David. "Interpreting the French Revolution," Teaching History (2013), Issue 150,
pp. 28–29, very short summary
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2003 37(1): 145–50. online (http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/jou
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 Desan, Suzanne. "What's after Political Culture? Recent French Revolutionary Historiography,"
French Historical Studies (2000) 23#1 pp. 163–96.
Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989),
1120 pp; long essays by scholars; strong on history of ideas and historiography (esp pp. 881–
1034 excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Dictionary-French-Revolution/d
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Germani, Ian, and Robin Swayles. Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution.
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McPhee, Peter, ed. (2012). A Companion to the French Revolution (https://books.google.com/b
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Anderson, F.M. (1904). The constitutions and other select documents illustrative of the history of
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External links
Museum of the French Revolution (http://www.domaine-vizille.fr/) (French)
Primary source documents (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook13.html) from The
Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution (http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/),
a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and
the American Social History Project (City University of New York).
Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789 (https://web.archive.org/web/20151114165139/
http://cliojournal.wikispaces.com/The%20Cahiers%20de%20Doleances%20of%201789), Clio
History Journal, 2008.
French Revolution Digital Archive (https://web.archive.org/web/20140130232229/http://frda-sta
ge.stanford.edu/en/images) a collaboration of the Stanford University Libraries and the
Bibliothèque nationale de France, containing 12000 digitised images
The guillotined of the French Revolution (http://les.guillotines.free.fr/) factsheets of all the
sentenced to death of the French Revolution
Jean-Baptiste Lingaud papers (http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/ead/upenn_rbml_MsColl51
5), Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of
Pennsylvania. Includes a vast number of name lists and secret surveillance records as well as
arrest warrants for aristocrats and their sympathisers. Most notable in this part of the collection
are letters and documents from the Revolutionary Committee and the Surveillance Committee.
French Revolution Pamphlets (http://purl.lib.ua.edu/18375), Division of Special Collections,
University of Alabama Libraries. Over 300 digitised pamphlets, from writers including
Robespierre, St. Juste, Desmoulins, and Danton.
"The French Revolution's Legacy" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00547gg) BBC Radio 4
discussion with Stefan Collini, Anne Janowitz and Andrew Roberts (In Our Time, 14 June
2001)

Preceded by
French Revolution Succeeded by
Ancien Régime (Old
1789–1792 French First Republic
Regime)

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