The French Revolution

The story

A society divided into three

In France in 1789 society was divided into three “estates”. The first was the clergy, that is, the bishops and priests; the second was the nobility; the third estate was everyone else: peasants, craftsmen, merchants, lawyers, doctors and workers, about ninety-seven per cent of the population. The first two estates had many privileges: they did not pay most of the taxes, and they received honours and offices. The third estate worked and paid almost everything, without counting for anything in decisions. At the top was an absolute king, Louis XVI, who lived with his court in the palace of Versailles.

The country was in crisis. Wars, including the one to help American independence, had emptied the state's coffers. In 1788 a bad harvest pushed up the price of bread, the staple food of the poor, which in Paris could cost more than half, up to almost nine tenths, of a worker's wages. While the people went hungry, the court spent lavishly. Meanwhile, in salons and newspapers, the ideas of the Enlightenment were explaining that all men have the same rights, and that power belongs to the people.

The Estates-General and the oath

To find money, the king, who could not make nobles and clergy pay taxes, called the Estates-General in 1789, the assembly of the three estates, which had not met for a hundred and seventy-five years. It opened at Versailles on 5 May. But a dispute arose at once: should voting be by estate, so that the first two would always outvote the third, or by head, in which case the third estate, which was larger, would count for more?

On 17 June the representatives of the third estate, backed by some priests and nobles, declared themselves the “National Assembly”, that is, the representatives of the whole nation. Three days later they found their hall locked and met in a nearby one, the Tennis Court, where they swore not to separate until they had given France a constitution: this is the “Tennis Court Oath”.

14 July 1789

The king gathered soldiers around Paris and dismissed a popular minister. In Paris people, frightened that the king wanted to break up the Assembly by force, armed themselves. On 14 July a crowd stormed the Bastille, an old fortress used as a state prison, to seize the gunpowder and weapons stored there and because it was the symbol of absolute power. There were only seven prisoners inside, but its fall had enormous meaning: the people of Paris had defied the king. 14 July is now the French national holiday.

In the countryside the “Great Fear” broke out: peasants, afraid of plots by the nobles, attacked castles and burned the registers of feudal debts and taxes. On the night of 4 August the Assembly abolished feudal privileges.

The rights of man

On 26 August the Assembly approved the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, which began with famous words: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”. It listed liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression; it declared that sovereignty belongs to the nation, that the law is the same for everyone and that no one may be arrested without cause. It was an extraordinary text that would travel around the world, even if it did not apply to everyone: women and slaves in the colonies were left out. In 1791 Olympe de Gouges wrote a “Declaration of the Rights of Woman”.

On 5 and 6 October thousands of Parisian women, driven by hunger, marched to Versailles and forced the king and his family to move to Paris.

From monarchy to republic

In the following months France changed: the system of departments was introduced, there was freedom of the press, and Church property was sold. In 1791 a constitution was approved that limited the king's power. In June 1791 the king tried to flee abroad, but was recognised at Varennes and brought back to Paris: from then on many people no longer trusted him. In 1792 France went to war against Austria and Prussia, which wanted to stop the revolution. On 21 September 1792 the monarchy was abolished and the Republic proclaimed. Louis XVI, after a trial, was guillotined on 21 January 1793.

During this period, to defend the revolution from threats within and without, the government, led by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, set up the “Terror”: anyone suspected of being an enemy was arrested and often sentenced to death by the guillotine. About seventeen thousand people were executed according to the official trials, and many more died in prison or in the crackdowns. In July 1794 Robespierre himself was overthrown and guillotined.