Louis XV, Louis XVI, and the French Revolution
legislative assembly
A French congress with the power to create laws and approve declarations of war, established by the constitution of 1791.
committee of public safety
Established and led by Robespierre, fixed bread prices and nationalized some businesses. Basically secret police and also controlled the war effort. Instigated the Reign of Terror.
consulate
Form of government which followed the directory -established by Napoleon-ended when Napoleon was crowned emperor.
the marseillaise
French national anthem
emigres
French nobility who fled country to escape the Revolution
jacobin
Radical republicans during the French Revolution. They were led by Maximilien Robespierre from 1793 to 1794.
Benjamin Franklin
regarded by the French as America's leading philosophy, was Ambassador to France, American enlightenment figure who was a scientist and inventor
Girondists
favor a federal republic along the lines of the US, admire articles of Confederation, These were the liberals of France who did not want to execute Louis XVI, but The Mountain did anyway
august 4th decrees
feudal privileges were renounced and all French citizens were subject to the same and equal laws
Treaty of Paris
gave Canada and India to the English, while the French territories west of the Mississippi were transferred to Bourbon Spain, regarded by the British as a lesser threat. British get tired of the war.
Louis XV
grandson of Louis XIV, -King of France (1774-1792). In 1789 he summoned the Estates-General, but he did not grant the reforms that were demanded and revolution followed.
Charlotte Corday
her execution started opposition to the guillotine, she was a Girondist supporter who assassinated Marat
Marie Antoinette
hostile towards Turgot, he became the victim of crop failures, lost control and was fired., Queen of France (as wife of Louis XVI) who was unpopular her extravagance and opposition to reform contributed to the overthrow of the monarchy; she was guillotined along with her husband (1755-1793)
Dr. Ignace Joseph Guillotin
more humane way of execution proposed by him, only invented by Dr. Louis
storming of the Bastille
public outrage that became the French version of the Fourth of July
Gates
victory over Burgoyne (Gentleman Johnny) at Saratoga
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
was Controller-General from 1774 to 1776. wanted to abolish guild privileges in order to encourage laissez-faire economic competition, tighten taxation, avoid unnecessary government expenditure, and establish a national assembly through which the king could sense the will of the nation
cult of supreme being
was a form of deism devised by Robespierre, intended to become the state religion after the French Revolution. The cult represents part of the "de-Christianization" of French society during the Revolution, in that Robespierre sought to move beyond simple deism to a new and, in his view, more rational devotion to God. Robespierre's proclamation of the cult as the new state religion in 1794 was one of the factors that prompted the Thermidorian Reaction, which ended this new religion.
Louis XVI
well-meaning but pathetically weak grandson of Louis XV who promptly fired all his reform ministers. called a meeting of the Estates- General because he recognized the need for reform and wanted to short-circuit the nobility and the parlements, - King of France (1774-1792). In 1789 he summoned the Estates-General, but he did not grant the reforms that were demanded and revolution followed. He and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were executed in 1793.
whiff of grapeshot
when mobs of Parisians joined national guardsmen bent on toppling the republic the goverment called on Napoleon to dispell the crowds and he did so in 1795
Napoleon
won a plebiscite asking if the French people wanted him to become emperor and crowned himself in the presence of Pope Pius VII
Olympe de Gouge
wrote the declaration of rights of women and the female citizen, feminist
edmund burke
(1729-1797) Member of British Parliament and author of Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), which criticized the underlying principles of the French Revolution and argued conservative thought.
women's march
- 1789 -scarcity of bread -guards torn and decapitated -wanted Mary Antoinette killed -brought royal family to Paris -flour from versaille.
Declaration of the Rights of Man
1. all men were born free and have equal rights 2. states exist only to secure natural rights 3. law was the expression of the general will 4. lettres de cachet were abolished becoming the French equivalent of habeas corpus 5. everyone was innocent until proven guilty 6. freedom of opinion 7. freedom of the press 8. flat tax applied to all citizens 9. doctrine of separation of powers, A document drafted by the National Assembly promising all men their natural rights and the freedom of expression. No mechanism to enforce these rights
the directory
1785-1799. Five man group. Passed a new constitution in 1795 that was much more conservative. Corrupt and did not help the poor, but remained in power because of military strength. By 1797 it was a dictatorship.
Treaty of Basel
Prussia tried to save its holdings in Germany
revolutionary tribunals
A court instituted in Paris by the Convention between October 1793 and the Thermidorian Reaction, the Tribunal was one of the main instruments of the Reign of Terror and had many people guillotined.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
A document, issued by the National Assembly in July 1790, that broke ties with the Catholic Church and established a national church system in France with a process for the election of regional bishops. The document angered the pope and church officials and turned many French Catholics against the revolutionaries.
levee en masse
A national draft in France in 1794, created under the Jacobins, of a citizen army with support from young and old, heralding the emergence of modern warfare.
thermidorean reaction
A reaction against the violence of the Reign of Terror after Robespierre was executed (named after month of Thermidor); Terror began to decline and National Convention curtailed power of Committee of Public Safety
declaration of pillnitz
A statement agreed upon by Leopold II and Fredrick William II to intervene if Louis XVI was threatened by revolution
St. Helena
After Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to here where he dies from stomach cancer or arsenic poisoning.
law of suspects
Allows anyone who is merely suspected of challenging the republic or the revolution can be arrested without trial. If that do go to trial. they can be executed for the most minor of things.
jacque-louis David
An influential French painter in the Neoclassical Style. He was considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. Painted the death of Marat and "the oath of horataii"
Continental System
Berlin Decrees none of Napoleon's allies were to carry on trade with Britain
dechristianization
Campaign to eliminate Christian faith and practice in France undertaken by the revolutionary government.
constitution of 1791
Constitution created by the French Revolution that had a limited monarchy
Jean Paul Marat
Cordelier who worked with Georges Jacques Danton, became a propaganda, French revolutionary leader (born in Switzerland) who was a leader in overthrowing the Girondists and was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday (1743-1793)
revolutionary calendar
Created by the National Convention, it was established after the French Revolution; day one was the first day of the French Republic.
Brunswick Manifesto
Issued by Prussia and Austria on July 25, 1792. Stated that if harm done to the king or queen there would be severe retribution. Mistake - played right into hands of radical revolutionaries in France. They used it to panic France into thinking invasion imminent. Began recruiting defence force.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Jacobin artillery officer, 1769-1821. French military and political leader;overthrew Directory. General during French Revolution, Ruler of France as First Consul of French Republic, King of Italy, Mediator of Swiss Confederation, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine.
Robespierre
Jacobin who was a follower of Rousseau, stressed the idea of citizenship, obsession of republic, A French political leader of the 18th century. A Jacobin, a radical leader of the French Revolution. Headed the Committee of Public Safety, responsible for the Reign of Terror, was later executed.
Flight to Varennes
King Louis XVI and his families attempt to escape paris; made it only to Varennes where they were arrested and put on house arrest. End of French Monarchy
treason
Louis XVI convicted of this and condemned to death by only one vote
september massacres
Louis's imprisonment was followed by the September massacres. Wild stories seized the city that imprisoned counter-revolutionary aristocrats/priests were plotting with the allied invaders. As a results, angry crowds invaded the prisons of Paris and summarily slaughtered half the men and women they found.
Battle of Waterloo
Napoleon escaped Elba and became emperor, so the European allies marshaled their armies, the British army was led by the Duke of Wellington, and they prepared near village in Belgium (1815)
Egypt
Napoleon figures if he can't attack Britain directly, he will attack indirectly by attacking where?
Battle of Leipzig
Napoleon's first major defeat on the battlefield, Also known as the Battle of the Nations; in October 1813, the combined armies of the fourth coaliton decisively defeated Napoleon and the French army
august 10, 1792
Parisian mobs storm Tuileries and take king
white terror
The most controversial part of the Directory. The "royalists" attacked all of the suspected revolutionaries. Napoleon first appears. "Whiff of Grapeshot"
great fear
The panic and insecurity that struck French peasants in the summer of 1789 and led to their widespread destruction of manor houses and archives.
national convention
The third estate of the Estates General -broke from the Estates because they wanted the Estates to sit as a committee and not as segregated groups.
National Assembly
Third Estate, reestablished itself as this which the other orders were invited to join.
suspensive veto
Written in the constitution, the king would have the power to delay the implementation of a law, but could not fully block it.
Comte de Grasse
blockaded a smaller British force within Yorktown to which Lord Charles Cornwallis who had been driven by the Franco-American armies, French navy commander; sailed French fleet into Chesapeake Bay to prevent British help from a siege on Yorktown.
Louis XVIII
brother of Louis XVI who was selected as the new Bourbon king., (1814-1824) Restored Bourbon throne after the Revolution. He accepted Napoleon's Civil Code (principle of equality before the law), honored the property rights of those who had purchased confiscated land and establish a bicameral (two-house) legislature consisting of the Chamber of Peers (chosen by king) and the Chamber of Deputies (chosen by an electorate).
Marquis de Lafayette
brought back enthusiastic endorsements of republicanism, French volunteer under Washington, French soldier who joined General Washington's staff and became a general in the Continental Army
Comte de Rochambeau
commander of the French expeditionary force of 6k soldiers to America who joined up with Washington for the invasion of Virginia.
The Tennis Court Oath
committed the delegates to sweeping constitutional reform.
Seven Years War
cost the French much of their overseas empire, Fought between France/Russia and Prussia- Frederick kept fighting against heavy odds and was saved when Peter III took Russian throne and called off the war.
Honore Gabriel Riquetti Mirabeau
resistance centered on this person to resist Louis XVI trying to disband the Assembly, 1791)- French revolutionary, as well as a writer, diplomat, freemason, journalist and French politician at the same time. He was a popular orator and statesman. During the French Revolution, he was a moderate, favoring a constitutional monarchy built on the model of Great Britain. He unsuccessfully conducted secret negotiations with the French monarchy in an effort to reconcile it with the Revolution.
Surrender of Yorktown
resulted in a loss of 7k British troops
French
secretly financed the American army which was run by the famous playwright Pierre de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Fiagaro.
Napoleon II
spent most of his life as a prisoner in Vienna, where he died of tuberculosis, (1852-1870)-The former Louis Napoleon, who became president of the Second Republic of France in 1848 and engineered a coup d'état, ultimately making himself head of the Second Empire.
cahiers de doleances
statements of local grievances drafted throughout France during the elections to the Estates-General, advocating a regular constitutional government abolishing fiscal privileges of the church and nobility
Jacques Necker
the acting Controller-General. Financed French participation in the American Revolution, he disguised the weakness of the French economy through direct collection of many taxes, published Compte rendu au roi, financial expert of Louis XVI, he advised Louis to reduce court spending, reform his government, abolish tarriffs on internal trade, but the First and Second Estates got him fired
Jean Baptiste de Machault
tried to pay for the War of the Austrian Succession by placing a flat 5% income tax on everybody, including the clergy and nobility which replaced the earlier taille which fell upon the peasants