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AP European History Mr. Blackmon the French Revolution and Napoleon Page 2 AP European History Mr. Blackmon The French Revolution and Napoleon I. France on the Eve of the Revolution A . Major Social Groups 1. First Estate 2. Second Estate 3. Third Estate B . The First Estate: The Clergy 1. 130,000 clergymen (priests, monks, and nuns) 2. Higher Clergy: Bishops, Archbishops, Abbots a. Drawn from nobility b. Large incomes c. Generally supportive of the Second Estate 3.Lower Clergy: Parish priests a. Drawn from the Third Estate b. Quite poor c. Tended to identify with their flock d. Rural parishioners often devout and devoted to their priest e. Initially will support the Revolution C . The Second Estate: The Nobility 1.Noblesse d’epée: Ancient families 2. Nobility of the Robe: Families which had purchased or earned titles through service to the monarch. a. 400,000 out of 25,000,000 3. Court Nobility a. Centered at Versailles, wealthier, influenced by the Enlightenment b. Serve as Tax Farmers, ministers c. Some are very Reactionary: Charles, duc d’Artois (later Charles X, who had “learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” d. Some are strongly influenced by the Enlightenment (1) Louis-Phillippe, duc d’Orleans (Phillippe Egalite) (2) Marquis de Lafayette (3) Comte de Mirabeau (4) Duc de Talleyrand (5) Condorcet 4. Provincial Nobility a. Much poorer b. Quite conservative D. The Third Estate 1. Peasants: 80% a. 1,500,000 were serfs b. Peasants owned 50% of the land in France c. The peasantry is not united! AP European History Mr. Blackmon The French Revolution and Napoleon Page 2 (1) Village life was quite hierarchical (a) At the top were big farmers, who owned their own land and farmed estates as tenants. i) These farmers, called the “cock of the village” controlled the village council and parish decisions. ii) These farmers might have as many as 50 others working for them, usually for wages. (b) Landless Peasants i) More than half of the peasants had no land of their own and worked as tenant farmers, sharecroppers, or agricultural laborers. ii) In some areas, these families would supplement income by the putting out system: spinning and weaving cloth at home. (c) Geographic Differences i) Farming in Northern France was more profitable than in the South, where peasants were often particularly miserable. (2) Vestiges of Feudalism (a) Only peasants paid the taille, on their produce (b) Only peasants paid the gabelle, the salt tax (which was not only a government monopoly on the price usually given to tax farmers, but the tax farmer could set how much salt a peasant had to buy) (c) Only peasants had to provide the corvée (labor on local roads) (d) Typical restrictions on peasants included i) A ban on hunting (an aristocratic privilege) including trapping rabbits who destroyed gardens and doves, who ate seed ii)Banalités: seigneurial monopolies on mill, oven, and wine press iii) Hearth and death taxes (3) The Threat of Famine (a) A crop failure, such as in 1788 due to a massive hail storm followed by drought, still threatened people with starvation. (b) The staple food for 75% of French men and women were 4 lbs loaves of bread. (c) Two loaves were needed to feed a family of 4, with AP European History Mr. Blackmon The French Revolution and Napoleon Page 3 a daily average wage of 20-30 sous (d) A journeyman mason might make 40 sous. (e) The cost of a 4 lbs loaf in good times was 8 sous (f) The cost of food would therefore be half one’s income. (g) By October, 1788, the cost was 12 sous (h) By February, 1789, the cost was 15 sous (i)“Let them eat cake!” (j) It is questionable whether Marie Antoinette ever said that. (k) The quote has been attributed to Mde. Pompadour (l) The quote reveals a very serious issue as well as a fierce hatred of the foreign queen. 2. Middle Classes (bourgeoisie): 5% a. Rich merchants and high-ranking government officials tried to emulate the nobility, and aspired to join that class. b. Property owners, doctors, lawyers, merchants, officials saw themselves as superior all manual laborers. c.They therefore tended to support Liberalism (1) Natural Rights (2) Sovereignty of the People (3) Equal Rights (by which they meant that all were equal before the Law) (4) Laissez-faire–freedom from state control over the economy (5) Property is sacred d. Artisans were divided into masters and journeymen or apprentices. (1) Master artisans tended to be loyal to the guilds, opposed economic innovation (after all, guilds tried to ensure profits for their own members, not to improve quality while lowering prices.) 3. Urban workers: 10% a. Journeymen, apprentices, day laborers, servants, were lowest on the rung, and most exploited. b. They were also hit the hardest with high food prices. c.The Sans-culottes (1) The term means “without breeches” referring to the tight, knee length garments worn by the wealthy (including Robespierre!) (2) They come from the world of the workshops. (3) The Sans-culottes are radically egalitarian, anti-capitalist, anti-modern, anti-liberal. (4) They will urge the overthrow of the educated elite of the AP European History Mr. Blackmon The French Revolution and Napoleon Page 4 Constituent Assembly. (5) They will oppose economic individualism, demanding government regulation of grain prices, the death penalty for hoarders and speculators (flexible terms!), and acceptance of the assignat at full face value (a) That is, they are anti-Liberal (6) The Enragés (a) Led by Jacques Roux and Jacques-René Hébert. (b) Mobilization of the Sans-culottes i) They demand common ownership of goods and strict economic controls. ii) Robespierre and the Jacobins will try to use the Sans-culottes, and also to preempt them and lead them iii) The Sans-culottes of Paris, mobilized through the 48 Sections of the city Commune, are consistently the most radical element in the Revolution II. Major Interpretations of the French Revolution A . A Marxist View: Albert Soboul 1. “The Revolution marks the advent of bourgeois, capitalist society in French history. Its essential achievement was the creation of national unity through the destruction of the seigneurial system and the privileged orders of feudal society; as [Alexis ] de Tocqueville [note: de Tocqueville is not only a very important commentator on the French Revolution, but also of Jacksonian America] observed in The Old Regime and the Revolution (published in 1856), the Revolution*s “real purpose was to do away everywhere with what remained of the institutions of the Middle Ages. Its final outcome, the establishment of liberal democracy, provides a further clue to its historical meaning. From this double point of view, and considered within the perspective of world history, it may be regarded as the definitive model of all bourgeois revolutions.” 2. “By the eighteenth century the bourgeoisie had taken the lead in finance, commerce, and industry, while it also provided the monarchy with the administrative personnel and resources required by the developing machinery of the state.” 3. “This [political] consciousness was positive; a rising class, with a belief in progress, the bourgeoisie saw itself as representing the interests of all and carrying the burdens of the nation as a whole.” 4. “In France during the second half of the eighteenth century, the growth of capitalism, which formed the basis of bourgeois power, was held in check by the feudal structure of society and by traditional systems of regulation AP European History Mr. Blackmon The French Revolution and Napoleon Page 5 affecting property rights, production and exchange.” 5. “The bourgeoisie, however, wanted more than just equality with the aristocracy. It demanded liberty; not just political liberty, abut even more, the idea of economic liberty, of free enterprise and profit. 6. “Capitalism required liberty in all its forms as an essential condition for its development; personal liberty as the condition permitting the emergence of a work-force of wage-earners; liberty of property to guarantee its free mobility and disposal; intellectual liberty as the necessary condition for the pursuit of scientific and technological discovery.” 7. This Marxist model is the best fit for the provincial nobility, who often squeezed peasants very hard in order to maintain their incomes a. Reactionaries, such as Charles d’Artois also fit this model. 8. But recent research also shows that many nobles were engaged in entrepreneurial activities, recognized the need for reform, and were strongly influenced by the Enlightenment. Furthermore, the ranks of the Second Estate were growing. a. The August Decrees, which abolished feudalism, were introduced by the Vicomte de Noailles and seconded by the Duc d’Aiguillon. b. The Decrees provided that all citizens should pay taxes, abrogated feudal dues, and abolished the Corvée III. The Aristocratic Revolt A. French “Constitutionalism” 1. There was a desire by many of the Nobility, working through the parlements, to reverse the Absolutist trend and restore their own local power in the name of a fictive French Constitution. 2.Voltaire and Montesquieu play a significant role in this development due to their praise of the English constitution. 3. “Parlements were courts, not an assembly like the English Parliament. They had the power to register laws from King 4. There were 13 Parlements in all throughout France, but the Parlement of Paris was the most important. They began to claim, with no really good reason, a right of veto. Traditionally a King could always override Parlements with a lit de justice.” (The Frnech Reovlution: Liberalism and Radicalism) 5. The Second Estate could dress up their old fashioned attempt to seize power in the guise of a struggle for “Liberty. 6. Many of the aristocrats were genuinely convinced of the need for Enlightenment inspired reforms.
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