French Revolution Stages HW#3

Reign of Terror

1793-1794. Robespierre's Committee of Public Saftey tried and executed thousands suspected of treason and a new revolutionary culture was imposed. Special revolutionary courts responsible only to Robespierre's Committee of Public safety tried enemies of the nation for political crimes. 40,000 French men and women were executed or died in prison making Robespierre's Reign of Terror one of the most controversial phases of the Revolution. The Terror was a weapon directed against all suspected of opposing the revolutionary government. Robespierre stated that Terror is nothing more than prompt, severe inflexible justice. For many Europeans of the time, the Reign of Terror represented a frightening perversion of the ideals of 1789. Jacobins took actions to also suppress women's participation in political debate in an effort to enforce unity. Jacobins felt that having women participate in politics as disorderly and distraction from women's proper place in the home. The National Convention declared "the club and popular societies of women under whatever denomination are prohibited." (Oct 1793). Among those convicted was Olympe de Gouges who was guillotine in November 1793. Terror also brought the Revolution into all aspects of everyday life. The government sponsored revolutionary art and songs as well as new series of secular festivals to celebrate republican virtues and patriotism. Government attempted to rationalize French daily life by adopting the decimal system for weights and measures and a new calendar based on 10 day weeks. Another important cultural revolution was the campaign of de-Christianization which aimed at eliminating Catholic symbols and beliefs. Fearful of the hostility around rural France, Robespierre called to halt de-Christianization in mid-1794.

Girondists

A moderate group that fought for control of the French national Convention in 1793. They accepted Louise XVI guild but did not wish to put the king to death.

Jacobin club

A political club in revolutionary France whose members were well-educated radical republicans. The Jacobins were increasingly divided into two bitterly opposed groups- the Girondists and the Mountain, led by Robespierre and another young lawyer, Georges Jacques Danton.

Thermidorian Reaction

A reaction to the violence of the Reign of Terror in 1794, resulting in the execution of Robespierre and the loosening of economic controls. Other followers of Robespierre were sent to the guillotine. The respectable middle class lawyers and professionals who had led the liberal revolution of 1789 reasserted their authority. Thermidorian reaction is similar to the beginnings of the Revolution: the middle class rejected the radicalism of the sans-culottes in favor of moderate policies that favored property owners. In 1795 the National Convention abolished many economic controls, let prices rise sharply and severely restricted the local political organizations through which the sans-culottes exerted their strength.

Total War and the Terror

By July 1794, the central government had reasserted control over the provinces and the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhineland. This was accomplished through 1. revolutionary government's success in harnessing the explosive force of a planned economy,2. Revolutionary terror and 3. modern nationalism in a total war effort. The all out mobilization of French resource under the Terror combined with the fervor of nationalism to create an awesome fighting machines, After August 1793, all unmarried young men were subject to the draft and by January 1794, French armed forces outnumbered those of their enemies almost 4 to 1. The enormous armies of the republic were led by young, impetuous generals. These young generals personified the opportunities the Revolution offered gifted sons of the people. BY the Spring of 1794 French armies were victorious on all fronts. The republic was saved.

Second revolution

From 1792-1795, the second phase of the French Revolution, during which the fall of the French monarchy introduced a rapid radicalization of politics. King Louis' imprisonment was followed by the September Massacres. Fearing invasion by the Prussians and riled up by rumors that counter-revolutionaries would aid the invaders, angry crowds stormed the prisons and killed jailed priests and aristocrats.

The Directory

In 1795, the middle-class members of the National Convention wrote yet another constitution to guarantee their economic position and political supremacy. The mass population can vote only for electors who would in turn elect the legislators. The new constitution greatly reduced the number of men eligible to become electors by instating a substantial property requirement. For the first time a bicameral legislative system was started with Council of 500 serving as the lower house that initiated legislation and a Council of Elders ( 250 members aged 40 years or older) acting as the upper house that approved new laws. To prevent a new Robespierre from monopolizing power, the new Assembly granted executive power to a 5 man body called the Directory. The Directory continued to support French military expansion abroad. Large, victorious French armies reduced unemployment at home. However the French people quickly grew weary of the corruption and ineffectiveness that characterized the Directory. In the national elections of 1797 a large number of conservative and even monarchist deputies were elected. They favored peace at almost any price. 2 years later, Napoleon Bonaparte ended the Directory in a coup d'état and replaced with a strong dictatorship.

National Convention

In late September 1792 the new popularly elected National Convention replaced the Legislative Assembly, proclaiming France a republic, a nation in which the people instead of a monarch held sovereign power. Many of its members belonged to the Jacobin Club of Paris. French armies invaded Savoy and captured Nice, moved into the German Rhineland and by November 1792, were occupying the entire Austrian Netherlands (Modern Belgium). French armies would chase princes, abolished feudalism and found support among some peasants. and middle class people. But French army also lived off the land and requiring food and supplies from the locals. The liberators became more like foreign invaders. National Convention also waged war against Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain as well as Prussia and Austria. within France, peasants in western France revolted against being drafted into the army. Devout Catholics, royalist and foreign agents encouraged their rebellions and the counter-revolutionaries recruited armies to fight for their cause. With the middle class divided, the people of Paris once again emerged as the decisive political factor. The laboring poor and the petty traders were often known as the sans-culottes because of type of trousers men wore.

The Mountain

Led by Robespierre, the French National Convention's radical faction, which seized legislative power in 1793. They wanted the King executed. By narrow majority the Mountain won and Louise was executed on January 21, 1793 by Guillotine. Marie Antoinette suffered the same fate later that year. Both Girondists and the Mountain were determined to continue the "war against tyranny"

The Third most important victory over the First Coalition

National Convention ability to draw on the power of dedication to a national stated and a national mission. The entire nation was behind the modern nationalism ideal. With a common language and a common tradition newly reinforced by the ideas of popular sovereignty and democracy', large numbers of French people were stirred by a common loyalty. They developed an intense emotional commitment to the defense of the nation and they saw the war against foreign opponents as a life-and-death struggle between good and evil.

What values do the sources seem to emphasize and why do you think ordinary objects were decorated with revolutionary symbols?

Special festivals were all Patriotic themes and replaced the traditional Catholic feast days. One of the most important was the festival of the Cult of the Supreme Being (a form of deism promoted by Robespierre as the state religion). Every citizen was required to wear a tricolor cockade on his or her hat to symbolize loyalty to the republic. The republic wanted to ensure that French citizen embraced the new government and new way of living. Ordinary objects with revolutionary symbols will constantly remind them of the revolution.?

San-Culottes

The laboring poor of Paris, so called because the men wore trousers instead of the knee breeches of the aristocracy and middle class; the word came to refer to the militant radical of the city. They demanded radical political action to defend the Revolution. The Mountain joined with san-culottes activists to engineer a popular uprising. on June 1793, armed sans-culottes invaded the National Convention and forced its deputies to arrest 29 Girondist deputies for treason. All power passed to the Mountain.

Robespierre and the committee of Public Safety

They sought for republican unity across the nation. 1)they collaborated with the sans-culottes who continued pressing the common people's case for fair prices and a moral economic order. Robespierre and his coworkers established a planned economy with egalitarian social overtones. The government set maximum prices for key products. It fixed the price of bread at a level that poor could buy. People were put to work mainly producing arms and munitions for the war effort. Through these economic reforms the second revolution produced an emergency form of socialism. This frightened Europe's propertied classes and greatly influenced the subsequent development of socialist ideology. 2)Reign of Terror enforced compliance with republican beliefs and practices. 3)National Convention ability to draw on the power of dedication to a national stated and a national mission. The entire nation was behind the modern nationalism ideal. With a common language and a common tradition newly reinforced by the ideas of popular sovereignty and democracy', large numbers of French people were stirred by a common loyalty. They developed an intense emotional commitment to the defense of the nation and they saw the war against foreign opponents as a life-and-death struggle between good and evil. The success of the French armies led Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety to relax the emergency economic controls but extended the political Reign of Terror. In March 1794, The Reign of Terror wiped out many of Robespierre critics. He even sent his long time collaborator Danton to the guillotine believing that he may turn against him. A group of radicals and moderates in the Convention, knowing that they might be next to be executed, organized a conspiracy against Robespierre. They took down Robespierre on Jul 27, 1794 a date known as 9 Thermidor according to France's newly adopted republican calendar. The next day he was guillotined.

Why do you think they thought it was necessary to create a new calendar?

This was an attempt by the new representative government to make sure the people saw the new change and transform the nation not just political change but changes that affected ordinary life of people. This was a cultural revolution. New calendar to mark the total rebirth of time. The new calendar began at year 1 on the day of the foundation of the French republic (September 22, 1792)

Committee of Public Safety

This was formed by the National Convention in April of 1793 to deal with threats from within the outside France. The committee, led by Robespierre, held dictatorial power, allowing it to use whatever force necessary to defend the Revolution. Moderates in leading provincial cities revolted against the committee's power and demanded a decentralized government. Counter-revolutionary force in the Vendee won significant victories and the republic's armies were driven back on all sides. By July of 1793, only the areas around Paris and on the eastern frontier were firmly held by the central government.