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Home , Camille Desmoulins, French Second Republic, Second French Empire

French revolution and Napoléon Bonaparte Assembled by Eijiro Hashiseko from several English websites

1: Today I would like to talk about and Bonaparte because I think it is the real beginning of democracy and he was the real hero of at that time and ever since. One more reason, the most fundamental element to change the world is surely the human being’s thoughts or ideas, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Another interesting person is Maximilien de Robespierre, who was so-called extremist but a French revolution’s brain child. Please watch these three big figures.

2: The most important event in modern European history, the French Revolution began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French citizens destroyed and redesigned their country’s political landscape, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as absolute and the feudal system. Like the American Revolution before it, the French Revolution was influenced by Enlightenment ideals, particularly the concepts of popular sovereignty and inalienable rights. Although it failed to achieve all of its goals and at times degenerated into a chaotic bloodbath, the movement played a critical role in shaping modern nations by showing the world the power inherent in the will of the people.

3: Prelude to the French Revolution: Monarchy in crisis As the 18th century drew to a close, France’s costly involvement in the American Revolution and extravagant spending by Louis XVI (1754-1793) had left the country on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but two decades of poor cereal harvests, drought, cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest among peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy taxes but couldn’t do it by rioting, looting and striking.

4: The three estates; clergy, nobles and common people. In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI’s controller general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802), proposed a financial reform package that included a universal land tax including the privileged classes. To garner support for these measures and prevent a growing aristocratic revolt, the king ordered the Estates-General –an assembly representing France’s clergy, nobility and middle class–for the first time since 1614. The meeting was scheduled for May 5, 1789; in the meantime, delegates of the three estates from each locality would compile lists of complaints to present to the king.

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5: The French Revolution at Versailles: Rise of the Third Estate France’s population had changed considerably since 1614. The non-aristocratic members of the Third Estate now represented 98 percent of the people but could still be outvoted by the other two bodies. In advance of the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate began to mobilize support for equal representation, they wanted voting by head and not by status. While all of the orders shared a common desire for fiscal and judicial reform as well as a more representative form of government, the nobles in particular were loath to give up the privileges they enjoyed under the traditional system.

6: By the time the Estates-General convened at Versailles, the highly public debate over its voting process had erupted into hostility between the three orders, eclipsing the original purpose of the meeting and the authority of the man who had convened it. On June 17, with talks over procedure stalled, the Third Estate met alone and formally adopted the title of National Assembly; three days later, they met in a nearby indoor tennis court and took the so-called , vowing not to disappear until constitutional reform had been achieved. Within a week, most of the clerical deputies and 47 liberal nobles had joined them, and on June 27 Louis XVI grudgingly absorbed all three orders into the new assembly.

7: The French Revolution Hits the Streets: The and the On June 12, as the National Assembly (known as the National Constituent Assembly during its work on a constitution) continued to meet at Versailles, fear and violence consumed the capital. Though enthusiastic about the recent breakdown of royal power, Parisians grew panicked as rumors of an impending military coup began to circulate. A popular insurgency culminated on July 14 when rioters stormed the Bastille fortress in an attempt to secure gunpowder and weapons; many consider this event, now commemorated in France as a national holiday, as the start of the French Revolution.

8: The wave of fervor and widespread hysteria quickly swept the countryside. Revolting against years of exploitation, peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlord elites. Known as the Great Fear, the farmers’ riots hastened the growing exodus of nobles from the country and inspired the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4, 1789, signing what a later called the “death certificate of the old order.”

9: The French Revolution’s Political Culture: Drafting a Constitution

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On August 4, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a statement of democratic principles grounded in the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, , popular sovereignty and representative government.

10: Drafting a formal constitution proved much more of a challenge for the National Constituent Assembly. For months, its members wrestled with fundamental questions about the shape and expanse of France’s new political landscape in vain. Perhaps most importantly, how much authority would the king retain? Adopted on September 3, 1791, France’s first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices in the Assembly, establishing a in which the king enjoyed royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers. This compromise did not sit well with influential radicals like Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794), Camille Desmoulins (1760-1794) and (1759-1794), who began drumming up popular support for a more republican form of government and the trial of Louis XVI.

11: The French Revolution Turns Radical: Terror and Revolt In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and , where it believed that French refugees were building counterrevolutionary alliances; it also hoped to spread its revolutionary ideals across Europe through warfare. On the domestic front, meanwhile, the political crisis took a radical turn when a group of insurgents led by the extremist attacked the royal residence in and arrested the king on August 10, 1792. The following month, amid a wave of violence in which Parisian insurrectionists massacred hundreds of accused counterrevolutionaries, the Legislative Assembly was replaced by the , which proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the French . On January 21, 1793, it sent King Louis XVI, condemned to death for high treason and crimes against the state, to the ; his wife Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) suffered the same fate nine months later.

12: Following the king’s execution, war with various European powers and intense divisions within the National Convention ushered the French Revolution into its most violent and turbulent phase. In June 1793, the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention from the more moderate and instituted a series of radical measures, including the establishment of a new calendar and the eradication of Christianity.

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13: They also unleashed the bloody , a 10-month period in which suspected enemies of the revolution were guillotined by the thousands. Many of the killings were carried out under orders from Robespierre, who dominated the draconian Committee of Public Safety until his own execution on July 28, 1794. His death marked the beginning of the , a moderate phase in which the revolted against the Reign of Terror’s excesses.

14: The French Revolution Ends: Napoleon’s Rise On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, approved a new constitution that created France’s first bicameral, or two parliaments, . Executive power would lie in the hands of a five-member Directory appointed by parliament. and Jacobins protested the new regime but were swiftly silenced by the army, now led by a young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821).

15: The Directory’s four years in power were riddled with financial crises, popular discontent, inefficiency and, above all, political corruption. By the late 1790s, the directors relied almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority and had ceded much of their power to the generals in the field. On November 9, 1799, as frustration with their leadership reached a fever pitch, Bonaparte staged a coup d’état, abolishing the Directory and appointing himself France’s “first consul.” The event marked the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the , in which France would come to dominate much of continental Europe.

16: Napoleon di Bonaparte; （15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution and its associated wars. As Napoleon I, he was of the French from 1804 to 1814 and again in 1815. Napoleon dominated European affairs for almost two decades while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He won the large majority of his battles and seized control of most of continental Europe before his ultimate defeat in 1815. One of the greatest commanders in history, his campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide and he remains simultaneously one of the most celebrated and controversial political figures in European history. In civil affairs, Napoleon implemented a wide array of liberal reforms across Europe, including the abolition of feudalism, the establishment of legal equality and

4 religious toleration, and the legalization of divorce. His lasting legal achievement, the , has been adopted to varying degrees by dozens of nations around the world.

17: Napoleon was born in to a relatively modest family of noble Italian ancestry that had settled on the island in the 16th century. Well-educated and an earnest reader, he spoke French with a heavy Corsican accent. A supporter of the radical faction, his military skills led to very rapid promotions under the Republic. He became the leading figure of the Revolution after his celebrated military campaigns in and Egypt from 1796 until 1799.

18: Napoleon took power in 1799 and installed himself as First Consul with few restrictions on his control of France. In 1804 he was crowned people. He made peace with the pope and the , much to the relief of the religious element. He launched a new aristocracy for France while allowing the return of most of the aristocrats who had been forced into exile by the Revolution. He fought a series of wars—the Napoleonic Wars—that involved complex ever-changing coalitions against the French . With his victories at Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805, he put an end to the Third Coalition, then he dissolved the old Holy and created the Confederation of the Rhine. However, his navy was destroyed at the Battle Trafalgar in October 1805 and Britain imposed a naval blockade of the French coasts. In revenge, he established the Continental System to cut off all European trade with Britain. A Fourth Coalition was set up against France, but it was defeated at the battles of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806 and again at the Battle of Friedland in 1807. These French victories resulted in the dismemberment of Prussia and the resurgence of a Polish State. At Wagram in 1809, Napoleon dissolved a Fifth Coalition and secured a dominant position in continental Europe.

19: Napoleon maintained the French sphere of influence through the formation of fluctuating alliances and the elevation of friends and family members to rule other European countries as belong to France. Napoleon was himself President (1802–1805), then King of Italy (1805–1814), Mediator of the Swiss Confederation (1803–1813) and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine (1806–1813). In late 1807, Napoleon tried to compel Portugal to follow the Continental System. The following year he declared his brother the King of Spain, which precipitated the outbreak of the Peninsular War, widely noted for its brutal guerrilla conflict. The war also featured the participation of the British army and substantially drained French resources over time.

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20: To enforce the Continental blockade, he launched a large-scale invasion of Russia in 1812 that proved to be a major military failure. Much of the Grande Armée was destroyed in the campaign due to disease. Most European countries then turned against him. The Sixth Coalition defeated him at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813 and then invaded France. Napoleon was forced to step down by April 1814, ending up exiled to the island of Elba. Most French territorial gains since 1792 were reversed and the Bourbons were restored to power. In 1815, he escaped from Elba and returned to power for roughly one hundred days, but was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.

21: He spent the last six years of his life in confinement by the British on the remote island of Saint Helena. He was the great hero of the French people throughout the , and his nephew Napoleon III built on that fame to become ruler of France from 1848 until 1870. The cause of his death has been debated. Napoleon's physician, François Carlo Antommarchi, led the autopsy, which found the cause of death to be stomach cancer. The doctor did not, however, sign the official report. Napoleon's father had died of stomach cancer, although this was seemingly unknown at the time of the autopsy. The doctor found evidence of a stomach ulcer; this was the most convenient explanation for the British, who wanted to avoid criticism over their care of Napoleon.

22: Gold-framed portrait painting of a gaunt middle-aged man with receding hair and laurel wreath, lying eyes-closed on white pillow with a white blanket covering to his neck and a gold Jesus cross resting on his chest. This is the picture painted by , 1826 In 1955, the diaries of Napoleon's subordinate, Louis Mrchand, were published. His description of Napoleon in the months before his death led Sten Forshufvud in a 1961 paper in Nature to put forward other causes for his death, including deliberate arsenic poisoning. Arsenic was used as a poison during the era because it was undetectable when administered over a long period. Forshufvud, in a 1978 book with Ben Weider, noted that Napoleon's body was found to be remarkably well preserved when moved in 1840. Arsenic is a strong preservative, and therefore this supported the poisoning hypothesis. Forshufvud and Weider observed that Napoleon had attempted to quench abnormal thirst by drinking large amounts of orgeat syrup that contained cyanide compounds in the almonds used for flavoring. They maintained that the potassium tartrate used in his treatment prevented his stomach from expelling these compounds and that his thirst was a symptom

6 of the poison. Their hypothesis was that the calomel given to Napoleon became an overdose, which killed him and left extensive tissue damage behind. According to a 2007 article, the type of arsenic found in Napoleon's hair shafts was mineral, the most toxic, and according to toxicologist Patrick Kintz, this supported the conclusion that he was murdered.

23: Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the first President of the and, as Napoleon III, the Emperor of the . He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I. He was the first to be elected by a direct popular vote. However, when he was blocked by the Constitution and Parliament from running for a second term, he organized a coup d'état in 1851, and then took the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation. During the first years of the Empire, his government imposed censorship and harsh repressive measures against his opponents. Some six thousand were imprisoned or sent to penal colonies until 1859. Thousands more, including , went into voluntary exile abroad. Beginning in 1862, Napoleon loosened the reins, in what was known as the "Liberal Empire." Many of his opponents returned to France and became members of the National Assembly. Napoleon III is best known today for his grand reconstruction of Paris, carried out by his of the Seine Baron Haussmann. He launched similar public works projects in , Lyon and other French cities. Napoleon III modernized the French banking system, greatly expanded and consolidated the French railroad system, and made the French merchant marine the second largest in the world. He promoted the building of the Suez Canal, and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made France an agricultural exporter. He negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier agreement with Britain, and similar agreements with France's other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike and the right to organize. Women's education greatly expanded, as did the list of required subjects in public schools.

24: The tricolor flag is derived from the used in the 1790s. These were circular rosette-like emblems attached to the hat. 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 . Blue and red are the traditional colors of Paris, and they are used on the city's coat of arms. Cockades with various color schemes were used during the on 14 July. The blue and red cockade was presented to King Louis XVI at the Hôtel de Ville on 17 July.

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Lafayette argued for the addition of a white stripe to "nationalise" the design. On 27 July, a tricolor cockade was adopted as part of the uniform of the , the national police force that succeeded the militia.

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