1.3 - World History Notes 06

Elaborate Notes

French Revolution (1789-1815)

The French Revolution was a watershed event in modern European history, marking the decline of powerful monarchies and churches and the rise of democracy and nationalism. It was fundamentally a revolution against the Ancien Régime—the old order of political and social hierarchy—and its inherent injustices, rather than a simple revolt against the king. It can be understood as a violent and transformative response to the intellectual and philosophical challenges posed by the Age of Enlightenment, which had championed reason, individual rights, and popular sovereignty throughout the 18th century.

Character and Nature of the French Revolution

• Centrality in European History: The revolution made the history of Europe synonymous with the history of France. As the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel observed, the revolution was a “glorious mental dawn,” but its impact was not confined to the mind. For nearly a century, European politics revolved around the events in France, the revolution it spawned, and the man who was its ultimate product, Napoleon Bonaparte. France became the epicenter of revolutionary ideals, exporting concepts of liberty, republicanism, and nationalism across the continent, both through intellectual influence and military conquest. Historian Eric Hobsbawm, in his work The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848 (1962), argues that the French Revolution defined the political and ideological landscape of the 19th century.
• ‘Mother of All Revolutions’: The French Revolution served as a template and inspiration for subsequent revolutionary movements. The principles of ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ resonated globally. It directly inspired the liberal Spanish Revolution of 1820, and the chain of revolutions in France itself in 1830 (July Revolution) and 1848, which in turn sparked a wave of upheavals across Europe known as the ‘Springtime of the Peoples’. Furthermore, the revolution gave birth to or popularized modern political ideologies. Liberalism, with its emphasis on constitutional government and individual rights; Nationalism, with its focus on the ‘nation’ as a sovereign entity; and early forms of Socialism, emerging from the radical Jacobin phase and the ideas of thinkers like Gracchus Babeuf, all trace their lineage to the revolutionary crucible. Romanticism, as a cultural movement, also reacted to the revolution’s emphasis on emotion, individualism, and nature.
• Total Revolution: The revolution permeated every aspect of French life. It was not confined to political chambers but was contested in the streets of Paris (the journées or revolutionary days), in palaces like Versailles and the Tuileries, on the battlefields of Valmy and Waterloo, and even in the cafés and restaurants where political clubs like the Jacobins and Cordeliers met. This all-encompassing nature, as described by historians like Simon Schama in Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989), gave it an unprecedented intensity.
• Mob Participation: A unique feature was the direct and often violent intervention of the urban poor, the sans-culottes. These were the artisans, shopkeepers, and laborers of Paris. Often illiterate and driven by immediate concerns like the price of bread, this ‘mob’ became a decisive political force. Their storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and the Women’s March on Versailles in October 1789 are prime examples. Historian Georges Lefebvre highlighted the “Great Fear” of 1789, a rural peasant panic and revolt, demonstrating that popular participation was not just an urban phenomenon. This level of direct, unchanneled popular violence was a new and terrifying feature in European politics.

Causes for the French Revolution

The revolution was a culmination of deep-seated social, political, and economic grievances, making it a rebellion against the entire unjust social order rather than merely against royal absolutism.

The Social Structure: The Three Estates

French society under the Ancien Régime was rigidly divided into three orders or ‘Estates’, a system rooted in feudalism.

• The First Estate (Clergy): Comprising about 130,000 people (less than 0.5% of the population), it was immensely wealthy, owning about 10% of the land in France. It was internally divided between the upper clergy (bishops, abbots), who were often from noble families and lived in luxury, and the lower clergy (parish priests), who were often commoners and lived in poverty, sometimes sympathizing with the Third Estate. The Church enjoyed significant privileges, including exemption from most taxes and the right to levy its own tax, the Tithe (dîme), on peasants.
• The Second Estate (Nobility): Numbering around 400,000 people (about 1.5% of the population), the nobility controlled about 25% of the land. They held the highest positions in the government, army, and church by right of birth. Like the clergy, they were largely exempt from the main direct tax, the Taille. They also enjoyed feudal rights, such as collecting dues from peasants living on their lands (droits seigneuriaux) and holding exclusive hunting rights.
• The Third Estate (Commons): This comprised everyone else, about 98% of the population. It was an extremely diverse group:
  • Bourgeoisie (Middle Class): This dynamic group included merchants, manufacturers, bankers, lawyers, and doctors. They were often well-educated, influenced by Enlightenment ideas, and economically prosperous. However, they were politically powerless and socially snubbed by the nobility, breeding deep resentment against the system of privilege.
  • Peasantry: The largest group, constituting over 80% of the population. While many were legally free, their economic condition was dire. They bore the heaviest tax burden, paying the Tithe to the church, the Taille to the state, and numerous feudal dues to their lords, in addition to indirect taxes like the hated salt tax (gabelle). Chronic crop failures in 1787, 1788, and 1789 led to famine and widespread unrest, turning desperation into revolutionary fervor. It is estimated they were left with less than 20% of their produce after all obligations were met.
  • Serfs and Urban Workers (sans-culottes): A small number of serfs still existed, tied to the land. The urban workers in cities like Paris faced low wages, rising food prices, and poor living conditions, making them a volatile and revolutionary force.

Political and Administrative Causes

• Discredited Monarchy: The ruling Bourbon dynasty, particularly under Louis XV and Louis XVI, had lost much of its authority and prestige. The theory of the Divine Right of Kings, championed by Louis XIV (“L’état, c’est moi” - “I am the state”), was increasingly questioned. France’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) against Britain and involvement in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), while a victory against Britain, plunged the state into catastrophic debt.
• Administrative Chaos: Pre-revolutionary France was a patchwork of different laws, regulations, and administrative divisions. There was no uniform legal code; the north operated under customary law while the south used Roman law. There was a bewildering variety of weights, measures, and currencies. Internal customs barriers hindered trade.
• Corrupt Practices: The administration was riddled with corruption. The practice of Simony (the sale of public offices, known as venality of office) meant that key positions were held by wealthy individuals who bought them, rather than by those with talent. Plurality (holding multiple offices) further concentrated power and led to neglect of duties. This system created a state that was both inefficient and unjust.

Financial Reasons

• Unjust Taxation: The financial system was the most immediate cause of the crisis. The tax system was regressive, with the wealthiest Estates exempt from the primary direct tax (Taille). The burden fell almost entirely on the Third Estate.
• Revenue Farming: The state did not collect taxes directly but outsourced it to a syndicate of financiers known as the Ferme Générale. These ‘tax farmers’ paid a lump sum to the state and then collected as much as they could from the populace, leading to extreme exploitation and resentment.
• State Bankruptcy: By the 1780s, the French treasury was bankrupt. The extravagant spending of the court at Versailles, coupled with the immense cost of wars, had created a mountain of debt. When Louis XVI’s finance ministers—Turgot, Necker, and Calonne—proposed reforms that included taxing the privileged Estates, they were dismissed due to opposition from the nobles.

Role of Philosophers

The Enlightenment provided the ideological fuel for the revolution. The French philosophes questioned the traditional sources of authority and championed reason and human rights.

• Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet): A fierce critic of the Catholic Church and religious intolerance. In his Lettres philosophiques or Letters on the English (1734), written after his exile in Britain, he contrasted British constitutional monarchy and religious tolerance with French absolutism and dogma, implicitly criticizing the French system. He championed reason and freedom of speech.
• Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu): In his magnum opus, The Spirit of the Laws (De l’esprit des lois, 1748), he argued that laws should be adapted to the society they govern. His most enduring contribution was the Theory of Separation of Powers, advocating for the division of government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches to prevent tyranny. This concept heavily influenced the drafting of the French Constitution of 1791.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The most radical and influential thinker. In his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754), he argued that private property was the source of social inequality and corruption. In The Social Contract (Du Contrat Social, 1762), he famously began, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” He argued that legitimate government is based on the ‘General Will’ or ‘Popular Sovereignty’, meaning the collective will of the citizens. This made the people, not the king, the ultimate sovereign, providing a powerful justification for revolution.
• Denis Diderot: The chief editor of the Encyclopédie (1751-1772), a monumental work that aimed to compile all human knowledge. It disseminated Enlightenment ideas widely, applying a critical and rationalist lens to topics like government, religion, and social institutions, thereby undermining the intellectual foundations of the Ancien Régime.
• Physiocrats: French economists like François Quesnay and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot. They argued against mercantilist policies, monopolies, and government interference in the economy (laissez-faire). They believed land was the source of all wealth and advocated for a more equitable system of taxation.

Debate on their Role: Historians debate the precise impact of the philosophers.

• The Marxist school (e.g., Albert Soboul) sees their ideas as reflecting the class interests of the rising bourgeoisie.
• Revisionist historians (e.g., François Furet) argue that the philosophers did not “cause” the revolution. The material conditions—financial crisis, famine—were already present. The revolution began with illiterate mobs, not intellectuals.
• A balanced view is that while the philosophers did not directly call for revolution, they created a climate of opinion in which revolutionary change became thinkable. They provided the language, ideas, and principles—sovereignty of the people, natural rights, separation of powers—that the revolutionaries later used to justify their actions and shape the new political order.

Immediate Cause: The Summoning of the Estates-General

The immediate trigger for the revolution was the state’s financial collapse. By 1788, Louis XVI was forced to summon the Estates-General, the medieval representative assembly of the three estates, which had not met since 1614. He hoped it would approve new taxes to solve the fiscal crisis. This act, however, opened the door for the Third Estate to voice its long-suppressed grievances.

Work of the National Assembly (1789-1791)

• The Estates-General convened at Versailles in May 1789. A dispute immediately arose over voting procedure. The Third Estate, having been granted double representation, demanded voting by head (one vote per delegate), which would give them a majority. The First and Second Estates insisted on voting by estate (one vote per order), which would allow them to outvote the Third Estate 2-1.
• On June 17, 1789, the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly. On June 20, locked out of their usual meeting hall, they gathered at a nearby tennis court and took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disband until they had drafted a constitution.
• Amidst rising tensions and the dismissal of the popular finance minister Jacques Necker, crowds in Paris stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress and prison symbolizing royal tyranny, on July 14, 1789. This event marked the definitive entry of the Parisian mob into the revolution and is celebrated as France’s national day.
• Reforms of the National Assembly:
  1. Abolition of Feudalism: On the night of August 4, 1789, in a frenzy of patriotic fervor, the Assembly formally abolished feudal privileges, tithes, and tax exemptions.
  2. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1789): This monumental document, inspired by the American Declaration of Independence and Rousseau’s philosophy, proclaimed that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” It guaranteed rights to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
  3. Nationalization of Church Lands: To address the financial crisis, the Assembly confiscated all church lands and used them as collateral to issue a new paper currency, the Assignats.
  4. Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790): This subordinated the French Catholic Church to the state, making priests and bishops elected officials paid by the government. This was a major blunder, as it alienated a large part of the deeply Catholic population and the clergy.
  5. Constitution of 1791:
     • It established a constitutional monarchy, implementing Montesquieu’s theory of separation of powers.
     • Executive power remained with the King, who was given a suspensive veto.
     • Legislative power was vested in a Legislative Assembly of 745 members.
     • Administratively, France was reorganized into 83 uniform departments.

Critical Assessment of the National Assembly

• Failures:
  1. Active vs. Passive Citizens: The new constitution contradicted the principle of equality by dividing citizens into ‘active’ (men over 25 who paid a certain amount in taxes) and ‘passive’ categories. Only active citizens could vote, effectively disenfranchising nearly half the male population and all women.
  2. Religious Schism: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy created a deep and lasting divide within France.
  3. Inflation: The over-issuance of Assignats led to rampant inflation, harming the urban poor.
• Achievements:
  1. It dismantled the Ancien Régime by abolishing feudalism and aristocratic privilege.
  2. It established the principle of popular sovereignty and guaranteed fundamental human rights.
  3. It created a more rational and uniform administrative system.
  4. It opened public office to talent rather than birthright.

Work of the National Convention (1792-1795)

Following the king’s attempted flight to Varennes in 1791 and the outbreak of war with Austria and Prussia in 1792, the revolution radicalized. The monarchy was overthrown in August 1792, and a new body, the National Convention, was elected by universal male suffrage.

• Formation and Purpose: The Convention formally met on September 21, 1792. Its primary goals were to draft a new republican constitution and to defend France against foreign invasion (the First Coalition) and internal counter-revolution.
• Achievements and Reforms:
  1. Establishment of the Republic: Its very first act was to abolish the monarchy and declare France a Republic.
  2. Nationalism and the Army: It created the first truly national army in Europe, based on mass conscription (levée en masse). This citizen army, fired by revolutionary nationalism, successfully defeated the professional armies of the European monarchies.
  3. Cultural Unification: The French language was promoted as the national language, and a new revolutionary calendar was introduced.
  4. Social Reforms:
     • Slavery was abolished in all French colonies (1794).
     • Women were granted rights to property and divorce.
     • The Law of Primogeniture was abolished, establishing equal inheritance for all children.
     • Imprisonment for debt was ended.
  5. Radical Economic Reforms:
     • Lands of émigré nobles were confiscated and offered for sale, sometimes distributed to the landless.
     • The Law of the Maximum (1793) was passed, imposing price controls on essential goods to aid the urban poor. These measures represent an early, pragmatic form of socialism.
• Negative Side: The Reign of Terror (1793-1794):
  1. Faced with war, internal rebellion, and economic crisis, the Convention vested power in the Committee of Public Safety, dominated by Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. To save the revolution, they unleashed the ‘Reign of Terror’. Special courts sentenced thousands to the guillotine on charges of being “enemies of the revolution,” creating a bloodthirsty and anarchic period.
  2. Execution of the King: The Convention tried and executed Louis XVI in January 1793, followed by Queen Marie Antoinette in October. This act made reconciliation with the monarchies of Europe impossible and locked France into a long-term conflict between revolution and reaction.
  3. Creation of the Directory: After the fall of Robespierre in 1794, the Convention drafted a new, more conservative constitution (1795) that established the Directory, an executive body of five directors. By creating a weak and divided executive, it inadvertently created a power vacuum that a powerful military general, Napoleon Bonaparte, would later fill.

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Prelims Pointers

• Period of French Revolution: 1789-1815.
• Ruling Dynasty in France: House of Bourbon.
• French Social Structure: Three Estates (Clergy, Nobility, Commons).
• Taxes:
  • Tithe: Tax levied by the Church on peasants.
  • Taille: Primary direct land tax, from which clergy and nobility were largely exempt.
  • Gabelle: Unpopular tax on salt.
  • Corvée: Unpaid forced labour required of peasants.
• Administrative Abuses:
  • Simony: The buying and selling of public offices.
  • Plurality: Holding more than one office at a time.
• Key Philosophers and their Works:
  • Voltaire: Letters on the English (or Lettres philosophiques).
  • Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws (advocated Separation of Powers).
  • Rousseau: The Social Contract (advocated Popular Sovereignty/General Will); A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.
  • Denis Diderot: Editor of the Encyclopédie.
• Immediate Cause: Financial bankruptcy leading to King Louis XVI summoning the Estates-General in 1789 (first time since 1614).
• Key Events and Dates:
  • June 20, 1789: Tennis Court Oath.
  • July 14, 1789: Fall of the Bastille.
  • August 1789: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
• Revolutionary Assemblies:
  1. National Assembly (1789-1791): Abolished feudalism, created Constitutional Monarchy.
  2. Legislative Assembly (1791-1792):
  3. National Convention (1792-1795): Declared France a Republic, executed the King, responsible for the Reign of Terror.
• Financial Instrument: Assignats - paper currency issued against confiscated church lands.
• Constitutional Terms:
  • Active vs. Passive Citizens: Distinction based on tax payments, determined voting rights in the 1791 Constitution.
  • Suspensive Veto: Power given to the King in the 1791 Constitution to delay legislation.
• Radical Measures of the National Convention:
  • Abolition of slavery in colonies (1794).
  • Abolition of primogeniture (equal inheritance).
  • Law of Maximum: Price controls on essential goods.
• Reign of Terror (1793-1794): Period of radical violence led by the Committee of Public Safety and Maximilien Robespierre.
• Post-Terror Government: The Directory (1795-1799), an executive of five directors.

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Mains Insights

GS Paper I (World History)

1. Historiographical Debate on the Revolution’s Origins:

   • The Classical/Marxist Interpretation (Georges Lefebvre, Albert Soboul): Views the revolution as a class struggle. It was a bourgeois revolution, where the rising capitalist middle class overthrew the feudal aristocracy to establish a system that served its economic interests. The participation of the peasantry and sans-culottes was crucial but ultimately co-opted by the bourgeoisie.
   • The Revisionist Interpretation (Alfred Cobban, François Furet): Challenges the class-struggle narrative. They argue it was primarily a political revolution driven by a crisis of the state and the spread of radical political ideas from the Enlightenment, not a socio-economic one. Furet described it as a revolution of political discourse and ideology.
   • Post-Revisionist Synthesis (Simon Schama): Moves away from grand theories to emphasize the role of contingency, human agency, and culture. Schama, in Citizens, argues that violence was not a byproduct but a central engine of the revolution from the very beginning.

2. The French Revolution as the ‘Mother of All Revolutions’:

   • Ideological Progenitor: The revolution’s ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity became the bedrock of modern democratic thought. It established the template for revolutionary action: the overthrow of an old regime, the creation of a republic, and the mobilization of the masses.
   • Inspiration for Nationalism: By creating a ‘nation in arms’ to defend the republic, it gave birth to modern nationalism, a force that would reshape the map of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.
   • Precursor to Socialism: The radical phase of the revolution, with the Law of Maximum and land redistribution, and the “Conspiracy of the Equals” led by Gracchus Babeuf, contained the seeds of socialist and communist thought, which Karl Marx later developed.

3. Cause and Effect: Enlightenment, Revolution, and Terror:

   • Enlightenment to Revolution: The Enlightenment did not directly cause the revolution but created the intellectual preconditions. It delegitimized the Ancien Régime by questioning the divine right of kings and the privileges of the church and nobility. It provided a new vocabulary of rights, sovereignty, and citizenship that the revolutionaries used to frame their demands and construct a new order.
   • Revolution to Terror: The Reign of Terror was not an aberration but a logical, if extreme, consequence of the circumstances. Faced with foreign invasion and widespread internal rebellion, the revolutionaries believed that only extreme measures could save the republic. Rousseau’s concept of the ‘General Will’ was twisted to mean that anyone opposing the revolution was an enemy of the people and could be eliminated for the collective good. This highlights the danger of absolutist ideologies, even those founded on liberty.
   • Terror to Napoleon: The chaos and bloodshed of the Terror and the instability of the subsequent Directory created a longing for order and stability among the French people. This paved the way for a military strongman, Napoleon Bonaparte, to seize power in a coup in 1799, promising to restore order while preserving the revolution’s key gains.

GS Paper IV (Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude)

1. The Ethics of Revolutionary Violence: Ends vs. Means:

   • The Reign of Terror poses a classic ethical dilemma: Do noble ends (establishing a republic based on liberty and equality) justify ignoble means (mass execution without fair trial)?
   • Robespierre and the Jacobins would argue from a consequentialist perspective that terror was a necessary evil to protect the revolution from its enemies and achieve a greater good for millions. They defined it as “nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.”
   • A deontological perspective would argue that acts like executing dissenters are inherently wrong, regardless of their intended outcome. They violate fundamental human rights, the very rights the revolution claimed to champion. The Terror ultimately betrayed the principle of ‘Liberty’.
   • This can be used as a case study to analyze the fine line between revolutionary justice and tyrannical oppression.

2. The Role and Responsibility of Intellectuals:

   • The philosophes like Rousseau and Voltaire unleashed powerful ideas that destabilized an oppressive regime. This raises questions about the social responsibility of intellectuals.
   • Positive Role: They acted as the conscience of society, exposing injustice and advocating for a more rational and humane world. Their ideas on human rights and democracy are invaluable.
   • Potential Negative Consequences: Their abstract ideals, when applied dogmatically by revolutionaries in a complex reality, could lead to unintended and horrific consequences. Rousseau never advocated for the guillotine, but his concept of a ‘General Will’ was used to justify it. This underscores the need for ideas to be tempered with pragmatism, tolerance, and respect for individual dissent.