The French Revolution UnfoldsSection #2

The Moderate Phase Of the Revolution

1789-1791

Political Crisis Leads to Revolt

In 1789 the worst famine coincided with political crisis in France.

Starving peasants flocked to towns, and increased the number of the unemployed.

People had to spend as much as 80 percent of their income on bread as grain prices soared.

Rumors Create the “Great Fear” In such desperate times, rumors ran wild and set

off what was later known as the “Great Fear” Rumors:

- tales of attacks on villages spread panic.- government troops were seizing peasant

crops. Inflamed by famine and fear, peasants

unleashed their fury on nobles, who were trying to impose medieval dues.

Peasants reacted by setting fire to manor records and stealing grain from storehouses.

Paris Commune Comes to Power Paris was in turmoil, as it was the revolutionary center. A variety of factions, or dissenting groups of people,

competed to gain power. Moderates looked to Marquis de Lafayette, the

aristocratic “hero of two worlds” who fought alongside George Washington in the American Revolution.

Lafayette headed the National Guard, a largely middle-class militia organized in response to the to the arrival of the royal troops.

The Guard was the first group to don the tricolor, a red, white, and blue badge that was eventually adopted as the national flag of France.

A more radical group, the Paris Commune, replaced the royalist government of the city. It could mobilize whole neighborhoods for protest or violent action.

The National Guard’s Tricolorand Marquis de Lafayette

The National Assembly Acts Peasant uprisings and the storming of the Bastille

forced the National Assembly into action. On August 4th, in an intense and all night meeting,

nobles voted to end end their own privileges:- no manorial dues- no exclusive hunting rights- no special legal status- no longer exempt from taxes.

The National Assembly turned the reforms of August 4th into law, meeting a key Enlightenment goal – the equality of all male citizens before the law.

Declaration of the Rights of Man The Assembly’s first step towards writing a constitution was the

issuing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

The document was modeled in part on the American Declaration of Independence, written 13 years earlier.

All men, the French declaration announced, were:- born and remain free and equal in rights.- rights to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.- all male citizens were equal before the law.- every Frenchmen had a right to hold public office.- freedom of religion.- taxes would be levied according to ability to pay.

Olympe de Gouges Women were not granted equal citizenship. Olympe de Gouges, a journalist, demanded equal rights in her Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen. “Women is born free and her rights are the same as those of man.” –Gouges Many women who protested for their rights were imprisoned and executed. Olympe de Gouges was executed for her beliefs!

Women March on Versailles On October 5th of 1789, six thousand women marched 13 miles

in the pouring rain from Paris to Versailles shouting “Bread”! They demanded to see the King, but their anger was directed at

Marie Antoinette, the Austrian-born queen, who lived a life of great extravagance.

She was against reforms, and often retreated to the Petit Trianon, a small chateau on the palace grounds where she lived a life of amusement.

The women refused to leave Versailles until King Louis XVI returned to Paris.

The next morning the king was escorted by the women back to Paris along with Marie Antoinette.

Women were perched on barrels of seized cannons. For three years, the royal family were prisoners at Tuileries.

Marie Antoinette

Outline AssignmentPgs. 117-119

I. The National Assembly Presses OnwardA. The Church is Placed Under State Control

1. 2.3.

B. The Constitution of 1791 Establishes a New Government1.2.3.

C. Louis’s Escape Fails1.2.3.

II. Radicals Take OverA. Rulers Fear Spread of Revolution.

1.2.3.

B. Threats Come From Abroad1.2.

C. Radicals Fight for Power and Declare War1.2.3.4.

D. The National Assembly Declares War on Tyranny1.2.

Sans-culottes