The French bourgeois revolution took place in. French Revolution

Prerequisites. 1787–1789.

The Great French Revolution can with good reason be considered as the beginning of the modern era. At the same time, the revolution in France itself was part of a broad movement that began before 1789 and affected many European countries, as well as North America.

The “old order” (“ancien régime”) was undemocratic in its very essence. Having special privileges, the first two classes - the nobility and the clergy - strengthened their positions, relying on a system of various kinds state institutions. The monarch's rule rested on these privileged classes. “Absolute” monarchs could only implement such policies and carry out only such reforms that strengthened the power of these classes.

By the 1770s, the aristocracy felt pressure from two sides at once. On the one hand, her rights were encroached upon by “enlightened” monarchs-reformers (in France, Sweden and Austria); on the other hand, the third, unprivileged class sought to eliminate or at least curtail the privileges of the aristocrats and clergy. By 1789 in France, the strengthening of the king's position caused a reaction from the first classes, which were able to nullify the monarch's attempt to reform the management system and strengthen finances.

In this situation, the French king Louis XVI decided to convene the Estates General - something similar to a national representative body that had long existed in France, but had not been convened since 1614. It was the convening of this assembly that served as the impetus for the revolution, during which the big bourgeoisie first came to power, and then the Third Estate, which plunged France into civil war and violence.

In France, the foundations of the old regime were shaken not only by conflicts between the aristocracy and royal ministers, but also by economic and ideological factors. Since the 1730s, the country has experienced a constant rise in prices, caused by the depreciation of the growing mass of metallic money and the expansion of credit benefits - in the absence of growth in production. Inflation hit the poor the hardest.

At the same time, some representatives of all three classes were influenced by educational ideas. Famous writers Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau proposed introducing the English constitution and judicial system in France, in which they saw guarantees of individual freedoms and effective government. The success of the American War of Independence inspired new hope in the determined French.

Convening of the Estates General.

The Estates General, convened on May 5, 1789, was faced with the task of resolving the economic, social and political problems facing France at the end of the 18th century. The king hoped to reach agreement on a new taxation system and avoid financial collapse. The aristocracy sought to use the Estates General to block any reforms. The Third Estate welcomed the convening of the Estates General, seeing an opportunity to present their demands for reform at their meetings.

Preparations for the revolution, during which discussions about general principles government and the need for a constitution, lasted 10 months. Lists, so-called orders, were compiled everywhere. Thanks to a temporary relaxation of censorship, the country was flooded with pamphlets. It was decided to give the Third Estate an equal number of seats in the Estates General with the other two estates. However, the question of whether the estates should vote separately or together with other estates was not resolved, just as the question of the nature of their powers of power remained open. In the spring of 1789, elections were held for all three classes on the basis of universal suffrage for men. As a result, 1201 deputies were elected, of which 610 represented the third estate. On May 5, 1789, in Versailles, the king officially opened the first meeting of the Estates General.

The first signs of revolution.

The Estates General, having received no clear instructions from the king and his ministers, became bogged down in disputes over procedure. Inflamed by the political debate taking place in the country, various groups took irreconcilable positions on fundamental issues. By the end of May, the second and third estates (nobility and bourgeoisie) were completely at odds, and the first (clergy) was split and sought to gain time. Between 10 and 17 June, the Third Estate took the initiative and declared itself the National Assembly. In doing so, it asserted its right to represent the entire nation and demanded the power to revise the constitution. In doing so, it disregarded the authority of the king and the demands of the other two classes. The National Assembly decided that if it was dissolved, the temporarily approved taxation system would be abolished. On June 19, the clergy voted by a slight majority to join the Third Estate. Groups of liberal-minded nobles also joined them.

The alarmed government decided to seize the initiative and on June 20 tried to expel the members of the National Assembly from the meeting room. Then the delegates gathered in a nearby ballroom took an oath not to disperse until a new constitution was put into effect. On July 9, the National Assembly proclaimed itself the Constituent Assembly. The gathering of royal troops towards Paris caused unrest among the population. In the first half of July, unrest and riots began in the capital. To protect the lives and property of citizens, the municipal authorities created the National Guard.

These riots resulted in the storming of the hated royal fortress of the Bastille, in which the national guards and the people took part. The fall of the Bastille on July 14 became clear evidence of the impotence of royal power and a symbol of the collapse of despotism. At the same time, the assault caused a wave of violence that spread throughout the country. Residents of villages and small towns burned the houses of the nobility and destroyed their debt obligations. At the same time, among the common people there was a growing mood of “great fear” - panic associated with the spread of rumors about the approach of “bandits”, allegedly bribed by aristocrats. As some prominent aristocrats began to flee the country and periodic army expeditions began from the starving cities into the countryside to requisition food, a wave of mass hysteria swept through the provinces, causing blind violence and destruction.

On July 11, the minister-reformer, banker Jacques Necker, was removed from his post. After the fall of the Bastille, the king made concessions, returning Necker and withdrawing troops from Paris. The liberal aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the American Revolutionary War, was elected commander of the emerging new National Guard, consisting of representatives of the middle classes. A new national tricolor flag was adopted, combining the traditional red and blue colors of Paris with the white color of the Bourbon dynasty. The municipality of Paris, like the municipalities of many other cities in France, was transformed into the Commune - a virtually independent revolutionary government that recognized only the power of the National Assembly. The latter took responsibility for forming a new government and adopting a new constitution.

On August 4, the aristocracy and clergy renounced their rights and privileges. By August 26, the National Assembly approved the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which proclaimed freedom of the individual, conscience, speech, the right to property and resistance to oppression. It was emphasized that sovereignty belongs to the entire nation, and the law must be a manifestation of the general will. All citizens must be equal before the law, have the same rights when holding public office, as well as equal obligations to pay taxes. The declaration “signed” the death warrant of the old regime.

Louis XVI delayed approving the August decrees, which abolished church tithes and most feudal taxes. On September 15, the Constituent Assembly demanded that the king approve the decrees. In response, he began to gather troops to Versailles, where the meeting was meeting. This had an exciting effect on the townspeople, who saw in the king’s actions a threat of counter-revolution. Living conditions in the capital worsened, food supplies decreased, and many were left without work. The Paris Commune, whose sentiments were expressed by the popular press, incited the capital to fight against the king. On October 5, hundreds of women walked in the rain from Paris to Versailles, demanding bread, the withdrawal of troops and the king's move to Paris. Louis XVI was forced to authorize the August decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The next day, the royal family, which had become virtually hostage to the gloating crowd, moved to Paris under the escort of the National Guard. It was followed 10 days later by the Constituent Assembly.

Situation in October 1789.

By the end of October 1789, the pieces on the chessboard of the revolution moved to new positions, which was caused by both previous changes and random circumstances. The power of the privileged classes was ended. The emigration of representatives of the highest aristocracy increased significantly. The Church - with the exception of part of the higher clergy - has linked its fate with liberal reforms. The Constituent Assembly was dominated by liberal and constitutional reformers who entered into confrontation with the king (they could now consider themselves the voice of the nation).

During this period, much depended on those in power. Louis XVI, a well-intentioned but indecisive and weak-willed king, had lost the initiative and was no longer in control of the situation. Queen Marie Antoinette - the "Austrian" - was unpopular due to her extravagance and connections with other royal courts in Europe. The Count de Mirabeau, the only one of the moderates who had the abilities of a statesman, was suspected by the Assembly of supporting the court. Lafayette was believed much more than Mirabeau, but he did not have a clear idea of ​​​​the nature of the forces that were involved in the struggle. The press, freed from censorship and gaining significant influence, largely passed into the hands of extreme radicals. Some of them, for example Marat, who published the newspaper “Friend of the People” (“Ami du Peuple”), had an energetic influence on public opinion. Street speakers and agitators at the Palais Royal excited the crowd with their speeches. Taken together, these elements made up an explosive mixture.

A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY

Work of the Constituent Assembly.

The experiment with constitutional monarchy, which began in October, has raised a number of problems. The royal ministers were not deputies of the Constituent Assembly. Louis XVI was deprived of the right to postpone meetings or dissolve the assembly, and he did not have the right of legislative initiative. The king could delay the adoption of laws, but did not have the right of veto. The legislature could act independently of the executive and intended to take advantage of the situation.

The Constituent Assembly limited the electorate to approximately 4 million Frenchmen out of a total population of 26 million, taking as the criterion for an "active" citizen his ability to pay taxes. The Assembly reformed local government, dividing France into 83 departments. The Constituent Assembly reformed the judicial system, abolishing the old parliaments and local courts. Torture and the death penalty by hanging were abolished. A network of civil and criminal courts was formed in the new local districts. Attempts to implement financial reforms have been less successful. The tax system, although reorganized, failed to ensure the solvency of the government. In November 1789, the Constituent Assembly carried out the nationalization of church land holdings in order to raise funds to pay the salaries of priests, for worship, education and assistance to the poor. In the following months, it issued government bonds secured by nationalized church lands. The famous “assignats” rapidly depreciated during the year, which fueled inflation.

Civil status of the clergy.

The relationship between the congregation and the church caused the next major crisis. Until 1790, the French Roman Catholic Church recognized changes in its rights, status and financial base within the state. But in 1790 the meeting prepared a new decree on the civil status of the clergy, which actually subordinated the church to the state. Church positions were to be held based on the results of popular elections, and newly elected bishops were prohibited from recognizing the jurisdiction of the papal throne. In November 1790, all non-monastic clergy were required to swear an oath of allegiance to the state. Within 6 months it became clear that at least half of the priests refused to take the oath. Moreover, the pope rejected not only the decree on the civil status of the clergy, but also other social and political reforms of the Assembly. Religious schism was added to the political differences; the church and the state entered into the dispute. In May 1791, the papal nuncio (ambassador) was recalled, and in September the Assembly annexed Avignon and Venescens, papal enclaves on French territory.

On June 20, 1791, late at night, the royal family escaped from the Tuileries Palace through a secret door. The entire journey on the carriage, which could move at a speed of no more than 10 km per hour, was a series of failures and miscalculations. Plans to escort and change horses fell through, and the group was detained in the town of Varennes. The news of the flight caused panic and anticipation of civil war. News of the king's capture forced the Assembly to close the borders and put the army on alert.

The forces of law and order were in such a nervous state that on July 17 the National Guard opened fire on the crowd on the Champ de Mars in Paris. This "massacre" weakened and discredited the moderate constitutionalist party in the Assembly. In the Constituent Assembly, differences intensified between the constitutionalists, who sought to preserve the monarchy and social order, and the radicals, who aimed to overthrow the monarchy and establish a democratic republic. The latter strengthened their position on August 27, when the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Prussia promulgated the Declaration of Pillnitz. Although both monarchs refrained from invasion and used rather cautious language in the declaration, it was perceived in France as a call for joint intervention by foreign countries. Indeed, it clearly stated that the position of Louis XVI was “the concern of all the sovereigns of Europe.”

Constitution of 1791.

Meanwhile, the new constitution was adopted on September 3, 1791, and on September 14 it was publicly approved by the king. It assumed the creation of a new Legislative Assembly. The right to vote was granted to a limited number of representatives of the middle strata. Members of the Assembly did not have the right to re-election. Thus, the new Legislative Assembly at one blow threw away the accumulated political and parliamentary experience and encouraged energetic political figures to be active outside its walls - in the Paris Commune and its branches, as well as in the Jacobin Club. The separation of executive and legislative powers created the preconditions for a deadlock situation, since few people believed that the king and his ministers would cooperate with the Assembly. The Constitution of 1791 itself had no chance of implementing its principles in the socio-political situation that arose in France after the flight of the royal family. Queen Marie Antoinette, after her captivity, began to profess extremely reactionary views, resumed intrigues with the Emperor of Austria and made no attempts to return the emigrants.

European monarchs were alarmed by events in France. Emperor Leopold of Austria, who took the throne after Joseph II in February 1790, and Gustav III of Sweden stopped the wars in which they were involved. By early 1791, only Catherine the Great, the Russian empress, continued the war with the Turks. Catherine openly declared her support for the King and Queen of France, but her goal was to draw Austria and Prussia into war with France and give Russia a free hand to continue the war with the Ottoman Empire.

The deepest response to the events in France appeared in 1790 in England - in the book of E. Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France. Over the next few years, this book was read throughout Europe. Burke contrasted the doctrine of natural human rights with the wisdom of the ages and projects of radical reconstruction - a warning about the high price of revolutionary changes. He predicted civil war, anarchy and despotism and was the first to draw attention to the large-scale conflict of ideologies that had begun. This growing conflict turned the national revolution into a pan-European war.

Legislative Assembly.

The new constitution gave rise to insoluble contradictions, primarily between the king and the Assembly, since the ministers did not enjoy the confidence of either the first or the second and, moreover, were deprived of the right to sit in the Legislative Assembly. In addition, contradictions between rival political forces intensified, as the Paris Commune and political clubs (for example, the Jacobins and Cordeliers) began to express doubts about the authority of the Assembly and the central government. Finally, the Assembly became an arena of struggle between warring political parties - the Feuillants (moderate constitutionalists), who were the first to come to power, and the Brissotines (radical followers of J.-P. Brissot).

Key ministers - Count Louis de Narbonne (illegitimate son of Louis XV), and after him Charles Dumouriez (former diplomat under Louis XV) - pursued anti-Austrian policies and saw the war as a means of containing the revolution, as well as restoring order and a monarchy relying on the army. By implementing a similar policy, Narbonne and Dumouriez became increasingly close to the Brissotines, who later became known as the Girondins, since many of their leaders came from the Gironde district.

In November 1791, in order to stem the wave of emigration, which was negatively affecting the financial and commercial life of France, as well as army discipline, the Assembly adopted a decree obliging emigrants to return to the country by January 1, 1792 under threat of confiscation of property. Another decree of the same month required the clergy to take a new oath of allegiance to the nation, the law and the king. All priests who refused this new political oath were deprived of their salaries and imprisoned. In December, Louis XVI vetoed both decrees, which was a further step towards open confrontation between the crown and the radicals. In March 1792, the king dismissed Narbonne and the Feuillant ministers, who were replaced by Brissotines. Dumouriez became Minister of Foreign Affairs. At the same time, the Austrian Emperor Leopold died, and the impulsive Franz II took the throne. Militant leaders came to power on both sides of the border. On April 20, 1792, after an exchange of notes that subsequently resulted in a series of ultimatums, the Assembly declared war on Austria.

War outside the country.

The French army turned out to be poorly prepared for military operations; only about 130 thousand undisciplined and poorly armed soldiers were under arms. Soon she suffered several defeats, the serious consequences of which immediately affected the country. Maximilien Robespierre, the leader of the extreme Jacobin wing of the Girondins, consistently opposed the war, believing that the counter-revolution should first be crushed within the country, and then fought against it abroad. Now he appeared in the role of a wise people's leader. The king and queen, forced during the war to take openly hostile positions towards Austria, felt the growing danger. The war party's plans to restore the king's prestige turned out to be completely untenable. The leadership in Paris was seized by the radicals.

Fall of the monarchy.

On June 13, 1792, the king vetoed the previous decrees of the Assembly, dismissed the Brissotine ministers and returned the Feuillants to power. This step towards reaction provoked a series of riots in Paris, where again - as in July 1789 - growing economic difficulties were observed. A public demonstration was planned for July 20 in honor of the anniversary of the oath in the ballroom. The people submitted petitions to the Assembly against the removal of ministers and the royal veto. Then the crowd broke into the building of the Tuileries Palace, forced Louis XVI to put on the red cap of liberty and appear before the people. The king's courage endeared him to the crowd, and the crowd dispersed peacefully. But this respite turned out to be short-lived.

The second incident occurred in July. On July 11, the Assembly announced that the fatherland was in danger and called upon all Frenchmen capable of holding arms to serve the nation. At the same time, the Paris Commune called on citizens to join the National Guard. Thus the National Guard suddenly became an instrument of radical democracy. On July 14, approx. arrived in Paris to participate in the annual celebrations of the fall of the Bastille. 20 thousand provincial national guards. Although the celebration of July 14 was peaceful, it contributed to the organization of radical forces who soon came forward with demands for the removal of the king, the election of a new National Convention and the proclamation of a republic. On August 3, in Paris, a manifesto published a week earlier by the Duke of Brunswick, the commander of the Austrian and Prussian troops, became known, which declared that his army intended to invade French territory to suppress anarchy and restore the power of the king, and the national guards who resisted would be shot . The inhabitants of Marseille arrived in Paris to the marching song of the Army of the Rhine, written by Rouget de Lille. Marseillaise became the anthem of the revolution, and subsequently the anthem of France.

On August 9, a third incident occurred. Delegates from the 48 sections of Paris overthrew the legal municipal authorities and established the revolutionary Commune. The Commune's 288-member General Council met daily and exerted constant pressure on political decisions. Radical sections controlled the police and the National Guard and began to compete with the Legislative Assembly itself, which by that time had lost control of the situation. On August 10, by order of the Commune, the Parisians, supported by detachments of federates, headed towards the Tuileries and opened fire, destroying approx. 600 Swiss Guards. The king and queen took refuge in the building of the Legislative Assembly, but the entire city was already under the control of the rebels. The assembly deposed the king, appointed a provisional government, and decided to convene a National Convention based on universal male suffrage. The royal family was imprisoned in the Temple Fortress.

REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT

Convention and war.

The elections to the National Convention, held in late August and early September, took place in an atmosphere of great excitement, fear and violence. After Lafayette deserted on August 17, a purge of the army command began. In Paris, many suspects were arrested, including priests. A revolutionary tribunal was created. On August 23, the border fortress of Longwy capitulated to the Prussians without a fight, and rumors of betrayal infuriated the people. Riots broke out in the departments of Vendée and Brittany. On September 1, reports were received about the imminent fall of Verdun, and the next day the “September massacre” of prisoners began, which lasted until September 7, in which approx. 1200 people.

On September 20, the Convention met for the first time. His first act on September 21 was the abolition of the monarchy. From the next day, September 22, 1792, the new revolutionary calendar of the French Republic began counting down time. The majority of the members of the Convention were Girondins, heirs of the former Brissotines. Their main opponents were representatives of the former left wing - the Jacobins, led by Danton, Marat and Robespierre. At first, the Girondin leaders seized all ministerial posts and secured strong support from the press and public opinion in the province. The Jacobin forces concentrated in Paris, where the center of the extensive organization of the Jacobin Club was located. After the extremists discredited themselves during the "September Massacre", the Girondins strengthened their authority, confirming it with the victory of Dumouriez and François de Kellerman over the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy on September 20.

However, during the winter of 1792–1793, the Girondins lost their position, which opened the way for Robespierre to power. They were mired in personal disputes, speaking primarily (which turned out to be disastrous for them) against Danton, who managed to gain the support of the left. The Girondins sought to overthrow the Paris Commune and deprive the Jacobins of support, who expressed the interests of the capital, not the province. They tried to save the king from trial. However, the Convention virtually unanimously found Louis XVI guilty of treason and, by a majority of 70 votes, sentenced him to death. The king was executed on January 21, 1793 (Marie Antoinette was guillotined on October 16, 1793).

The Girondins brought France into war with almost all of Europe. In November 1792, Dumouriez defeated the Austrians at Jemappe and invaded the territory of the Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium). The French discovered the mouth of the river. Scheldt for ships of all countries, thereby violating the international agreements of 1648 that navigation on the Scheldt should be controlled exclusively by the Dutch. This served as a signal for Dumouriez to invade Holland, which caused a hostile reaction from the British. On November 19, the Girondin government promised “fraternal assistance” to all peoples who wanted to achieve freedom. Thus, a challenge was thrown to all European monarchs. At the same time, France annexed Savoy, the possession of the Sardinian king. On January 31, 1793, through the mouth of Danton, the doctrine of “natural borders” of France was proclaimed, which implied claims to the Alps and the Rhineland. This was followed by Dumouriez's order to occupy Holland. On February 1, France declared war on Great Britain, ushering in the era of “general war.”

The national currency of France depreciated sharply due to the fall in the value of assignats and military expenditures. British Secretary of War William Pitt the Younger began an economic blockade of France. In Paris and other cities there was a shortage of essentials, especially food, which was accompanied by growing discontent among the people. Military suppliers and profiteers aroused ardent hatred. In the Vendée, the revolt against military mobilization, which had raged throughout the summer, flared up again. By March 1793, all signs of a crisis appeared in the rear. On March 18 and 21, Dumouriez's troops were defeated at Neerwinden and Louvain. The general signed an armistice with the Austrians and tried to turn the army against the Convention, but after the failure of these plans, he and several people from his headquarters switched sides on April 5.

The betrayal of the leading French commander dealt a tangible blow to the Girondins. Radicals in Paris, as well as the Jacobins led by Robespierre, accused the Girondins of aiding the traitor. Danton demanded a reorganization of the central executive. On April 6, the Committee of National Defense, created in January to control the ministries, was transformed into the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Danton. The committee concentrated executive power in its hands and became an effective executive body, taking over the military command and control of France. The Commune came to the defense of its leader, Jacques Hébert, and Marat, chairman of the Jacobin Club, who were persecuted by the Girondins. During May, the Girondins incited the provinces to riot against Paris, depriving themselves of support in the capital. Under the influence of extremists, the Parisian sections established a rebel committee, which on May 31, 1793 transformed the Commune, taking it under its control. Two days later (June 2), having surrounded the Convention with the National Guard, the Commune ordered the arrest of 29 Girondin deputies, including two ministers. This marked the beginning of the Jacobin dictatorship, although the reorganization of the executive did not take place until July. To put pressure on the Convention, an extremist clique in Paris incited hostility between the provinces and the capital.

Jacobin dictatorship and terror.

The Convention was now obliged to take measures aimed at pacifying the provinces. Politically, a new Jacobin constitution was drawn up, intended as a model of democratic principles and practice. In economic terms, the Convention supported the peasants and abolished all seigneurial and feudal duties without compensation, and also divided the emigrants' estates into small plots of land so that even poor peasants could buy or rent them. He also carried out the division of communal lands. The new land legislation was intended to become one of the strongest links connecting the peasantry with the revolution. From this moment on, the greatest danger for the peasants was the restoration, which could take away their lands, and therefore none of the subsequent regimes tried to annul this decision. By mid-1793, the old social and economic system was eliminated: feudal duties were abolished, taxes were abolished, the nobility and clergy were deprived of power and lands. In local districts and rural communities a new administrative system. Only the central government remained fragile, and for many years it was subject to drastic and violent changes. The immediate cause of instability was the ongoing crisis provoked by the war.

By the end of July 1793, the French army was experiencing a series of failures, which created a threat of occupation of the country. The Austrians and Prussians advanced in the north and in Alsace, while the Spaniards, with whom Pitt had formed an alliance in May, threatened an invasion from the Pyrenees. The rebellion in the Vendée spread. These defeats undermined the authority of the Committee of Public Safety under Danton's leadership. On July 10, Danton and six of his comrades were deposed. On July 28, Robespierre joined the Committee. Under his leadership, the Committee during the summer ensured a turning point on the military fronts and the victory of the republic. On the same day, July 28, Danton became chairman of the Convention. Added to the personal enmity between the two Jacobin leaders was a bitter clash with a new enemy - Jacobin extremists, who were called "mad". These were the heirs of Marat, who was killed on July 13 by the Girondist Charlotte Corday. Under pressure from the “mad”, the Committee, now recognized as the real government of France, took more stringent measures against speculators and counter-revolutionaries. Although by the beginning of September the “mad” were defeated, many of their ideas, in particular the preaching of violence, were inherited by the left-wing Jacobins led by Hébert, who occupied significant positions in the Paris Commune and the Jacobin Club. They demanded a tightening of terror, as well as the introduction of tighter government controls over supplies and prices. In mid-August, Lazare Carnot, who soon received the title of “organizer of victory,” became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, and on August 23, the Convention announced a general mobilization.

In the first week of September 1793, another series of crises broke out. The summer drought led to a bread shortage in Paris. A plot to free the queen was uncovered. There were reports of the surrender of the port of Toulon to the British. Hébert's followers in the Commune and the Jacobin Club renewed powerful pressure on the Convention. They demanded the creation of a “revolutionary army”, the arrest of all suspects, tightening price controls, progressive taxation, the trial of the leaders of the Gironde, the reorganization of the revolutionary tribunal to try the enemies of the revolution and the deployment of mass repressions. On September 17, a decree was adopted ordering the arrest of all suspicious persons by revolutionary committees; At the end of the month, a law was introduced that set price limits for basic necessities. The terror continued until July 1794.

Thus, the terror was due to the state of emergency and pressure from extremists. The latter took advantage of the personal conflicts of the leaders and factional clashes in the Convention and the Commune. On October 10, the Jacobin-drafted constitution was formally adopted, and the Convention declared that the Committee of Public Safety would serve as a provisional, or “revolutionary,” government for the duration of the war. The purpose of the Committee was declared to be the implementation of strictly centralized power aimed at the complete victory of the people in saving the revolution and protecting the country. This body supported the policy of terror, and in October it held major political trials of the Girondins. The committee exercised political control over the central food commission, created in the same month. The worst manifestations of terror were “unofficial”, i.e. were carried out on the personal initiative of fanatics and thugs who were settling personal scores. Soon, a bloody wave of terror covered those who had held high positions in the past. Naturally, emigration increased during the terror. It is estimated that about 129 thousand people fled from France, about 40 thousand died during the days of terror. Most executions took place in rebellious cities and departments, such as the Vendée and Lyon.

Until April 1794, the policy of terror was largely determined by the rivalry between the followers of Danton, Hébert and Robespierre. At first, the Eberists set the tone; they rejected Christian doctrine and replaced it with the cult of Reason; instead of the Gregorian calendar, they introduced a new, republican calendar, in which the months were named according to seasonal phenomena and were divided into three “decades.” In March, Robespierre put an end to the Héberists. Hebert himself and 18 of his followers were executed by guillotine after a speedy trial. The Dantonists, who sought to mitigate the excesses of terror in the name of national solidarity, were also arrested, and in early April they were convicted and executed. Now Robespierre and the reorganized Committee of Public Safety ruled the country with unlimited power.

The Jacobin dictatorship reached its most terrible expression in the decree of the 22nd Prairial (June 10, 1794), which accelerated the procedures of the revolutionary tribunal, depriving the accused of the right to defense and turning the death sentence into the only punishment for those found guilty. At the same time, the propaganda of the cult of the Supreme Being, put forward by Robespierre as an alternative to both Christianity and the atheism of the Héberists, reached its peak. Tyranny reached fantastic extremes - and this led to the rebellion of the Convention and the coup of 9 Thermidor (July 27), which eliminated the dictatorship. Robespierre, along with his two main assistants, Louis Saint-Just and Georges Couthon, was executed the next evening. Within a few days, 87 members of the Commune were also guillotined.

The highest justification for terror—victory in war—appeared and main reason its completion. By the spring of 1794, the French Republican army numbered approx. 800 thousand soldiers and represented the largest and most combat-ready army in Europe. Thanks to this, she achieved superiority over the fragmented Allied forces, which became clear in June 1794 at the Battle of Fleurus in the Spanish Netherlands. Within 6 months, the revolutionary armies reoccupied the Netherlands.

THERMIDORIAN CONVENTION AND DIRECTORY. JULY 1794 – DECEMBER 1799

Thermidorian reaction.

Forms of “revolutionary” government remained until October 1795, as the Convention continued to provide executive power through the special committees it created. After the first months of the Thermidorian reaction - the so-called. “White terror” directed against the Jacobins - the terror gradually began to subside. The Jacobin Club was closed, the powers of the Committee of Public Safety were limited, and the decree of 22 Prairial was annulled. The revolution lost its momentum, the population was depleted by the civil war. During the Jacobin dictatorship, the French army achieved impressive victories, invading Holland, the Rhineland and northern Spain. The first coalition of Great Britain, Prussia, Spain and Holland collapsed, and all the countries that were part of it - except Austria and Great Britain - sued for peace. The Vendée was pacified through political and religious concessions, and religious persecution also ceased.

IN Last year existence of the Convention, which got rid of the Jacobins and royalists, key positions in it were occupied by moderate republicans. The convention was strongly supported by peasants happy with the land they had received, army contractors and suppliers, business people and speculators who traded in land holdings and made capital from it. He was also supported by a whole class of new rich people who wanted to avoid political excesses. The social policy of the Convention was aimed at meeting the needs of these groups. The lifting of price controls led to renewed inflation and new misfortunes for workers and the poor, who had lost their leaders. Independent revolts broke out. The largest of these was the uprising in the capital in the prairie (May 1795), supported by the Jacobins. The rebels erected barricades on the streets of Paris and seized the Convention, thereby accelerating its dissolution. To suppress the uprising, troops were brought into the city (for the first time since 1789). The rebellion was ruthlessly suppressed, almost 10 thousand of its participants were arrested, imprisoned or deported, the leaders ended their lives on the guillotine.

In May 1795, the revolutionary tribunal was finally abolished, and emigrants began to look for ways to return to their homeland. There were even attempts by royalists to restore something similar to the pre-revolutionary regime, but they were all brutally suppressed. In the Vendée, the rebels took up arms again. The English fleet landed over a thousand armed royalist emigrants on the Quibron Peninsula on the northeastern coast of France (June 1795). In the cities of Provence in the south of France, the royalists made another attempt at rebellion. On October 5 (13 Vendémière), a monarchist uprising broke out in Paris, but it was quickly suppressed by General Napoleon Bonaparte.

Directory.

The moderate republicans, who strengthened their power and the Girondins, who restored their positions, developed a new form of government - the Directory. It was based on the so-called Constitution of the Year III, which officially established the French Republic, which began its existence on October 28, 1795.

The Directory relied on suffrage, limited by property qualifications, and on indirect elections. The principle of separation of powers was established between the legislative power, represented by two assemblies (the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Elders), and the executive power, vested in a Directory of 5 people (one of whom had to leave his post annually). Two-thirds of the new legislators were elected from among the members of the Convention. The insoluble contradictions that arose in the relations between the legislative and executive powers, apparently, could only be resolved by force. Thus, from the very beginning, the seeds of the coming military coups fell on fertile soil. The new system was maintained for 4 years. Its prelude was a royalist rebellion specially timed to coincide with October 5, which was swept away by Bonaparte with a “volley of grapeshot.” It was not difficult to assume that the general would put an end to the existing regime, resorting to the same means of forceful pressure that happened during the “coup of the 18th Brumaire” (November 9, 1799).

The four years of the Directory were a time of corrupt government within France and brilliant conquests abroad. These two factors in their interaction determined the fate of the country. The need to continue the war was now dictated less by revolutionary idealism and more by nationalist aggression. In treaties with Prussia and Spain, concluded in 1795 in Basel, Carnot sought to keep France practically within its old borders. But the aggressive nationalist doctrine of achieving “natural borders” encouraged the government to lay claim to the left bank of the Rhine. Since European states could not help but react to such a noticeable expansion of the borders of the French power, the war did not stop. For the Directory, it became both an economic and political constant, a source of profit and a means of establishing the prestige necessary to maintain power. In domestic politics, the Directory, which represented the republican majority of the middle class, for the sake of self-preservation had to suppress all resistance on the part of both left and right, since the return of Jacobinism or royalism threatened its power.

Consequently domestic politics The Directory was characterized by a struggle on these two fronts. In 1796, the “Conspiracy of Equals” was discovered - an ultra-Jacobin and pro-communist secret society led by Gracchus Babeuf. Its leaders were executed. The trial of Babeuf and his associates created a new republican myth, which after some time acquired great appeal among adherents of underground and secret societies in Europe. The conspirators supported the ideas of social and economic revolution - as opposed to the reactionary social policies of the Directory. In 1797, Fructidor's coup took place (September 4), when the royalists won the elections, and the army was used to annul their results in 49 departments. This was followed by the Floréal coup (May 11, 1798), during which the results of the Jacobin election victory were arbitrarily annulled in 37 departments. Following them, the Prairial coup took place (June 18, 1799) - both extreme political groups strengthened in the elections at the expense of the center, and as a result, three members of the Directory lost power.

The rule of the Directory was unprincipled and immoral. Paris and other large cities have earned a reputation as hotbeds of debauchery and vulgarity. However, the decline in morals was not general and widespread. Some members of the Directory, primarily Carnot, were active and patriotic people. But it was not they who created the reputation of the Directory, but people like the corrupt and cynic Count Barras. In October 1795, he recruited the young artillery general Napoleon Bonaparte to suppress the rebellion, and then rewarded him by giving him his former mistress Josephine de Beauharnais as his wife. However, Bonaparte encouraged Carnot much more generously, entrusting him with command of an expedition to Italy, which brought him military glory.

The Rise of Bonaparte.

Carnot's strategic plan in the war against Austria envisaged the concentration of three French armies near Vienna - two moving from the north of the Alps, under the command of generals J.B. Jourdan and J.-V. Moreau, and one from Italy, under the command of Bonaparte. The young Corsican defeated the king of Sardinia, imposed the terms of the peace agreement on the pope, defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Lodi (May 10, 1796) and entered Milan on May 14. Jourdan was defeated, Moreau was forced to retreat. The Austrians sent one army after another against Bonaparte. All of them were defeated in turn. Having captured Venice, Bonaparte turned it into an object of bargaining with the Austrians and in October 1797 concluded peace with Austria at Campo Formio. Austria transferred the Austrian Netherlands to France and, according to a secret clause of the agreement, promised to cede the left bank of the Rhine. Venice remained with Austria, which recognized the Cisalpine Republic created by France in Lombardy. After this agreement, only Great Britain remained at war with France.

Bonaparte decided to strike a blow at the British Empire, cutting off access to the Middle East. In June 1798 he captured the island of Malta, in July he took Alexandria and moved troops against Syria. However, British naval forces blocked his land army, and the expedition to Syria failed. Napoleon's fleet was sunk by Admiral Nelson in the battle of Aboukir (August 1, 1798).

Meanwhile, the Directory was in agony due to defeats at the fronts and growing discontent within the country. A second anti-French coalition was formed against France, in which England managed to attract hitherto neutral Russia as an ally. Austria, the Kingdom of Naples, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire also joined the alliance. The Austrians and Russians drove the French out of Italy, and the British landed in Holland. However, in September 1799, British troops were defeated near Bergen, and they had to leave Holland, and the Russians were defeated at Zurich. The seemingly formidable combination of Austria and Russia disintegrated after Russia left the coalition.

In August, Bonaparte left Alexandria, avoiding the English fleet guarding him, and landed in France. Despite huge losses and defeat in the Middle East, Napoleon found himself the only person, who managed to inspire confidence in a country where the government was close to bankruptcy. As a result of the elections in May 1799, many active opponents of the Directory entered the Legislative Assembly, which led to its reorganization. Barras remained as always, but now he has teamed up with Abbot Sieyes . In July, the Directory appointed Joseph Fouché as Minister of Police. A former Jacobin terrorist, insidious and unscrupulous in his means, he began persecuting his former comrades, which prompted the Jacobins to actively resist. On Fructidor 28 (September 14), they attempted to force the Council of Five Hundred to proclaim the slogan “the fatherland is in danger” and create a commission in the spirit of Jacobin traditions. This initiative was thwarted by Lucien Bonaparte, the most intelligent and educated of all Napoleon's brothers, who managed to postpone the discussion of this issue.

On October 16, Napoleon arrived in Paris. He was met and greeted everywhere as a hero and savior of the country. Bonaparte became a symbol of revolutionary hopes and glory, the prototype of the ideal republican soldier, the guarantor of public order and security. On October 21, the Council of Five Hundred, sharing popular enthusiasm, elected Lucien Bonaparte as its chairman. The cunning Sieyes decided to involve him in the conspiracy that he had long been hatching to overthrow the regime and revise the constitution. Napoleon and Lucien saw Sieyes as a tool with which to clear the way to power.

The coup of the 18th Brumaire (November 9, 1799), one might say, was an “internal affair” of the Directory, since two of its members (Sieyes and Roger Ducos) led a conspiracy that was supported by the majority of the Council of Elders and part of the Council of Five Hundred. The Council of Elders voted to move the meeting of both assemblies to the Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud, and entrusted the command of the troops to Bonaparte. According to the plan of the conspirators, the meetings, frightened by the troops, would be forced to vote for the revision of the constitution and the creation of a provisional government. After this, power would be given to three consuls, who were ordered to prepare a new Constitution and approve it in a plebiscite.

The first stage of the conspiracy went according to plan. The meetings moved to Saint-Cloud, and the Council of Elders showed agreement on the issue of revising the constitution. But the Council of Five Hundred showed a clearly hostile attitude towards Napoleon, and his appearance in the meeting chamber caused a storm of indignation. This almost thwarted the plans of the conspirators. If not for the resourcefulness of the chairman of the Council of Five Hundred, Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon could have immediately been declared an outlaw. Lucien told the grenadiers guarding the palace that the deputies were threatening to kill the general. He put his naked sword to his brother's chest and vowed to kill him with his own hand if he violated the foundations of freedom. The grenadiers, convinced that they, in the person of the ardent republican General Bonaparte, were saving France, entered the meeting chamber of the Council of Five Hundred. After this, Lucien hurried to the Council of Elders, where he told about the conspiracy hatched by the deputies against the republic. The elders formed a commission and adopted a decree on temporary consuls - Bonaparte, Sieyes and Ducos. Then the commission, reinforced by the remaining deputies of the Council of Five Hundred, announced the abolition of the Directory and proclaimed the consuls a provisional government. The meeting of the Legislative Assembly was postponed to February 1800. Despite gross miscalculations and confusion, the coup of the 18th Brumaire was a complete success.

The main reason for the success of the coup, which was joyfully greeted in Paris and throughout most of the country, was that the people were extremely tired of the rule of the Directory. The revolutionary pressure had finally dried up, and France was ready to recognize a strong ruler capable of ensuring order in the country.

Consulate.

France was ruled by three consuls. Each of them had equal power, they exercised leadership in turn. However, from the very beginning, Bonaparte's voice was undoubtedly decisive. The Brumaire decrees constituted a transitional constitution. In essence, it was a Directory, reduced to the power of three. At the same time, Fouche remained Minister of Police, and Talleyrand became Minister of Foreign Affairs. The commissions of the two previous assemblies remained and developed new laws at the behest of the consuls. On November 12, the consuls took an oath "to be devoted to the Republic, one and indivisible, based on equality, freedom and representative government." But Jacobin leaders were arrested or exiled while the new system was consolidated. Gaudin, entrusted with the important task of organizing finances that were in a state of chaos, achieved impressive results through his integrity, competence and ingenuity. A truce was reached in the Vendée with the royalist rebels. The work on creating a new fundamental law, called the Constitution of the VIII year, came under the jurisdiction of Sieyes. He supported the doctrine that "trust must come from below and power from above."

Bonaparte had far-reaching plans. On the sidelines of the coup, it was decided that he himself, J.-J. de Cambaceres and C.-F. Lebrun will become consuls. It was assumed that Sieyes and Ducos would top the lists of future senators. By December 13, the new constitution was completed. Electoral system formally relied on universal suffrage, but at the same time a complex system of indirect elections was established, which excluded democratic control. 4 assemblies were established: the Senate, the Legislative Assembly, the Tribunate and the State Council, whose members were appointed from above. Executive power was transferred to three consuls, but Bonaparte, as first consul, towered over the other two, who were content with only an advisory voice. The Constitution did not provide for any counterbalance to the absolute power of the First Consul. It was approved through a plebiscite in an open vote. Bonaparte forced the pace of events. On December 23, he issued a decree according to which the new constitution was to come into force on Christmas Day. The new institutions began to operate even before the results of the plebiscite were announced. This put pressure on the voting results: 3 million votes for and only 1562 against. The consulate opened a new era in the history of France.

Legacy of the revolutionary years.

The main result of the Directory's activities was the creation outside of France of a ring of satellite republics, completely artificial in terms of the system of government and in relations with France: in Holland - the Batavian, in Switzerland - the Helvetic, in Italy - the Cisalpine, Ligurian, Roman and Parthenopean republics. France annexed the Austrian Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine. Thus, it increased its territory and surrounded itself with six satellite states created on the model of the French Republic.

Ten years of revolution left an indelible mark on the state structure of France, as well as on the minds and hearts of the French. Napoleon was able to complete the revolution, but he could not erase its consequences from his memory. The aristocracy and the church were no longer able to restore their pre-revolutionary status, although Napoleon created a new nobility and concluded a new concordat with the church. The revolution gave rise not only to the ideals of freedom, equality, fraternity, and popular sovereignty, but also to conservatism, fear of revolution, and reactionary sentiments.

Literature:

The Great French Revolution and Russia. M., 1989
Freedom. Equality. Brotherhood. The French Revolution. M., 1989
Smirnov V.P., Poskonin V.S. Traditions of the Great French Revolution. M., 1991
Furet F. Understanding the French Revolution. M., 1998
Historical sketches about the French Revolution. M., 1998



The Great French Revolution (French Révolution française) - in France, starting in the spring-summer of 1789, the largest transformation of the social and political systems of the state, which led to the destruction of the old order and monarchy in the country, and the proclamation of a de jure republic (September 1792) of the free and equal citizens under the motto “Liberty, equality, fraternity”.

The beginning of the revolutionary actions was the capture of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and historians consider the end to be November 9, 1799 (the coup of the 18th Brumaire).

Causes of the revolution

France in the 18th century was a monarchy based on bureaucratic centralization and a regular army. The socio-economic and political regime that existed in the country was formed as a result of complex compromises developed during the long political confrontation and civil wars of the 14th-16th centuries. One of these compromises existed between royal power and privileged classes - for the renunciation of political rights, state power protected the social privileges of these two classes with all the means at its disposal. Another compromise existed in relation to the peasantry - during a long series of peasant wars in the 14th-16th centuries. peasants achieved the abolition of the overwhelming majority of cash taxes and the transition to natural relations in agriculture. The third compromise existed in relation to the bourgeoisie (which at that time was the middle class, in whose interests the government also did a lot, maintaining a number of privileges of the bourgeoisie in relation to the bulk of the population (peasantry) and supporting the existence of tens of thousands of small enterprises, the owners of which constituted a layer of French bourgeois). However, the regime that emerged as a result of these complex compromises did not ensure the normal development of France, which in the 18th century. began to lag behind its neighbors, primarily from England. In addition, excessive exploitation increasingly armed the masses against themselves, whose most legitimate interests were completely ignored by the state.

Gradually during the 18th century. At the top of French society, there was a mature understanding that the old order, with its underdeveloped market relations, chaos in the management system, a corrupt system for selling government positions, the lack of clear legislation, the “Byzantine” taxation system and the archaic system of class privileges, needed to be reformed. In addition, royal power was losing credibility in the eyes of the clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie, among whom the idea was asserted that the power of the king was a usurpation in relation to the rights of estates and corporations (Montesquieu's point of view) or in relation to the rights of the people (Rousseau's point of view). Thanks to the activities of educators, of whom the physiocrats and encyclopedists are especially important, a revolution took place in the minds of the educated part of French society. Finally, under Louis XV and even more so under Louis XVI, reforms were launched in the political and economic fields, which inevitably would lead to the collapse of the Old Order.

Absolute monarchy

In the pre-revolutionary years, France was struck by a number of natural disasters. The drought of 1785 caused a food famine. In 1787, there was a shortage of silk cocoons. This entailed a reduction in Lyon silk weaving production. At the end of 1788, in Lyon alone there were 20-25 thousand unemployed. A strong hailstorm in July 1788 destroyed the grain harvest in many provinces. The extremely harsh winter of 1788/89 destroyed many vineyards and part of the harvest. Food prices have risen. The supply of markets with bread and other products has deteriorated sharply. To top it all off, an industrial crisis began, the impetus for which was the Anglo-French trade treaty of 1786. Under this treaty, both parties significantly reduced customs duties. The agreement turned out to be fatal for French production, which could not withstand the competition of cheaper English goods that poured into France.

Pre-revolutionary crisis

The pre-revolutionary crisis dates back to France's participation in the American War of Independence. The revolt of the English colonies can be considered the main and immediate cause of the French Revolution, both because the ideas of human rights resonated strongly in France and resonated with the ideas of the Enlightenment, and because Louis XVI received his finances in a very poor state. Necker financed the war with loans. After peace was concluded in 1783, the royal treasury deficit was more than 20 percent. In 1788, expenses amounted to 629 million livres, while taxes brought in only 503 million. It was impossible to raise traditional taxes, which were mainly paid by peasants, in the conditions of the economic recession of the 80s. Contemporaries blamed the extravagance of the court. Public opinion All classes unanimously believed that the approval of taxes should be the prerogative of the Estates General and elected representatives.

For some time, Necker's successor Calonne continued the practice of loans. When sources of loans began to dry up, on August 20, 1786, Calonne notified the king that financial reform was necessary. To cover the deficit (French Precis d'un plan d'amelioration des finances), it was proposed to replace the twenty, which was actually paid only by the third estate, with a new land tax that would fall on all lands in the kingdom, including the lands of the nobility and clergy . To overcome the crisis, it was necessary for everyone to pay taxes. To revive trade, it was proposed to introduce freedom of grain trade and abolish internal customs duties. Calonne also returned to the plans of Turgot and Necker for local government. It was proposed to create district, provincial and communal assemblies, in which all owners with an annual income of at least 600 livres would participate.

Realizing that such a program would not find support from the parliaments, Calonne advised the king to convene notables, each of whom was personally invited by the king and whose loyalty could be counted on. Thus, the government turned to the aristocracy - to save the finances of the monarchy and the foundations of the old regime, to save most of its privileges, sacrificing only a part. But at the same time, this was the first concession to absolutism: the king consulted with his aristocracy, and did not notify it of his will.

Aristocratic front

The notables gathered in Versailles on February 22, 1787. Among them were princes of the blood, dukes, marshals, bishops and archbishops, presidents of parliaments, intendants, deputies of provincial states, mayors of major cities - a total of 144 people. Reflecting the prevailing opinion of the privileged classes, the notables expressed their indignation at the reform proposals to elect provincial assemblies without class distinction, as well as attacks on the rights of the clergy. As one would expect, they condemned the direct land tax and demanded that the Treasury report be studied first. Amazed by the state of finances heard in the report, they declared Calonne himself to be the main culprit of the deficit. As a result, Louis XVI had to resign Calonne on April 8, 1787.

On the recommendation of Queen Marie Antoinette, Loménie de Brienne was appointed Calonne's successor, to whom the notables provided a loan of 67 million livres, which made it possible to plug some holes in the budget. But the notables refused to approve the land tax, which fell on all classes, citing their incompetence. This meant that they sent the king to the Estates General. Loménie de Brienne was forced to carry out the policy outlined by his predecessor. One after another, the king's edicts appeared on the freedom of grain trade, on the replacement of road corvee with a cash tax, on stamp and other duties, on the return of civil rights to Protestants, on the creation of provincial assemblies in which the third estate had representation equal to the representation of the two privileged estates combined , finally, about the land tax falling on all classes. But the Paris and other parliaments refuse to register these edicts. On August 6, 1787, a meeting is held with the presence of the king (French: Lit de justice), and the controversial edicts are entered into the books of the Paris Parliament. But the next day, parliament repeals the decrees adopted the day before by order of the king as illegal. The king sends the Parisian parliament to Troyes, but this causes such a storm of protests that Louis XVI soon amnesties the rebellious parliament, which now also demands the convening of the Estates General.

The movement for the restoration of the rights of parliaments, begun by the judicial aristocracy, increasingly grew into a movement for the convening of the Estates General. The privileged estates now cared only that the Estates General were convened in the old forms and that the third estate received only one-third of the seats and that voting was carried out by estate. This gave a majority to the privileged classes in the Estates General and the right to dictate their political will to the king in the ruins of absolutism. Many historians call this period the “aristocratic revolution,” and the conflict between the aristocracy and the monarchy became national with the appearance of the Third Estate.

Convocation of the Estates General

At the end of August 1788, the ministry of Lomenie de Brienne was dismissed and Necker was again called to power (with the title of Director General of Finance). Necker again began to regulate the grain trade. He prohibited the export of grain and ordered the purchase of grain abroad. The obligation to sell grain and flour only in markets was also restored. Local authorities were allowed to keep records of grain and flour and force owners to take their stocks to markets. But Necker failed to stop the rise in prices for bread and other products. The Royal Regulations on January 24, 1789 decided to convene the Estates General and stated the purpose of the future meeting was “the establishment of a permanent and unchangeable order in all parts of government relating to the happiness of the subjects and the welfare of the kingdom, the fastest possible healing of the diseases of the state and the elimination of all abuses.” The right to vote was given to all French males who had reached the age of twenty-five, had a permanent place of residence and were included in the tax rolls. The elections were two-stage (and sometimes three-stage), that is, first, representatives of the population (electors) were chosen, who determined the deputies of the assembly.

At the same time, the king expressed the desire that “both on the extreme borders of his kingdom and in the least known villages, everyone would be provided with the opportunity to bring their desires and their complaints to his attention.” These orders (French: cahiers de doleances), “list of complaints,” reflected the sentiments and demands of various groups of the population. The orders from the Third Estate demanded that all noble and ecclesiastical lands, without exception, be taxed in the same amount as the lands of the unprivileged, demanded not only the periodic convening of the Estates General, but also that they represent not the estates, but the nation, and that the ministers be responsible to the nation, represented in the Estates General. Peasant orders demanded the destruction of all feudal rights of lords, all feudal payments, tithes, the exclusive right of hunting and fishing for nobles, and the return of communal lands seized by lords. The bourgeoisie demanded the abolition of all restrictions on trade and industry. All orders condemned judicial arbitrariness (French lettres de cachet) and demanded a trial by jury, freedom of speech and press.

The elections to the Estates General caused an unprecedented rise in political activity and were accompanied by the publication of numerous brochures and pamphlets, the authors of which expressed their views on the problems of the day and formulated a variety of socio-economic and political demands. The brochure of Abbe Sieyès, “What is the Third Estate?” was a great success. Its author argued that only the third estate constitutes a nation, and the privileged are alien to the nation, a burden that lies on the nation. It was in this brochure that the famous aphorism was formulated: “What is the third estate? All. What has it been so far politically? Nothing. What does it require? Become something." The center of the opposition or “patriotic party” was the Committee of Thirty, which arose in Paris. It included the hero of the War of American Independence, the Marquis of Lafayette, Abbot Sieyès, Bishop Talleyrand, Count Mirabeau, and Councilor to the Parliament of Duport. The committee launched an active campaign in support of the demand to double the representation of the third estate and introduce universal (French par tête) voting of deputies.

The question of how the States should operate caused sharp disagreements. The Estates General was convened for the last time in 1614. Then, traditionally, all estates had equal representation, and voting took place by estate (French par ordre): one vote was for the clergy, one for the nobility and one for the third estate. At the same time, the provincial assemblies created by Loménie de Brienne in 1787 had double representation of the third estate and this was what the overwhelming majority of the country's population wanted. Necker also wanted the same thing, realizing that he needed broader support in carrying out the necessary reforms and overcoming the opposition of the privileged classes. On December 27, 1788, it was announced that the Third Estate would receive double representation in the Estates General. The question of the voting procedure remained unresolved.

Opening of the States General

Proclamation of the National Assembly

On May 5, 1789, the grand opening of the Estates General took place in the hall of the palace “Small Amusements” (French Menus plaisirs) of Versailles. The deputies were seated by estate: the clergy sat to the right of the king's chair, the nobility to the left, and the third estate opposite. The meeting was opened by the king, who warned the deputies against “dangerous innovations” (fr. innovations dangereuses) and made it clear that he saw the task of the Estates General only to find funds to replenish the state treasury. Meanwhile, the country was waiting for reforms from the Estates General. The conflict between the estates in the Estates General began on May 6, when deputies of the clergy and nobility gathered in separate meetings to begin checking the powers of the deputies. Deputies of the third estate refused to be constituted into a special chamber and invited deputies from the clergy and nobility to a joint verification of powers. Long negotiations began between the classes.

In the end, a split emerged in the ranks of deputies, first from the clergy, and then from the nobility. On June 10, Abbot Sieyès proposed to address the privileged classes with a final invitation, and on June 12, the roll call of deputies of all three classes began on the lists. In the following days, about 20 deputies from the clergy joined the deputies of the third estate and on June 17, a majority of 490 votes to 90 proclaimed itself the National Assembly (French Assemblee nationale). Two days later, deputies from the clergy, after heated debates, decided to join the third estate. Louis XVI and his entourage were extremely dissatisfied and the king ordered the closure of the “Small Amusements” hall under the pretext of repairs.

On the morning of June 20, deputies of the third estate found the meeting room locked. Then they gathered in the Ballroom (French: Jeu de paume) and, at Mounier’s suggestion, they swore an oath not to disperse until they had worked out a constitution. On June 23, in the hall of “Small Amusements” a “royal meeting” (French: Lit de justice) was held for the Estates General. The deputies were seated by class, as on May 5. Versailles was overrun with troops. The king announced that he was canceling the decisions adopted on June 17 and would not allow any restrictions on his power or violation of the traditional rights of the nobility and clergy, and ordered the deputies to disperse.

Confident that his commands would be immediately carried out, the king withdrew. Most of the clergy and almost all the nobles left with him. But the deputies of the third estate remained in their seats. When the master of ceremonies reminded Chairman Bailly of the king's command, Bailly replied, "The assembled nation is not commanded." Then Mirabeau stood up and said: “Go and tell your master that we are here by the will of the people and will leave our places only by yielding to the force of the bayonets!” The king ordered the Life Guards to disperse the disobedient deputies. But when the guards tried to enter the hall of “Small Amusements”, the Marquis Lafayette and several other noble nobles blocked their way with swords in their hands. At the same meeting, at the suggestion of Mirabeau, the assembly declared the immunity of members of the National Assembly, and that anyone who infringed on their immunity would be subject to criminal liability.

The next day, the majority of the clergy, and a day later, 47 deputies from the nobles joined the National Assembly. And on June 27, the king ordered the rest of the deputies from the nobility and clergy to join. This is how the transformation of the Estates General into the National Assembly took place, which on July 9 declared itself the Constituent National Assembly (French Assemblee nationale constituante) as a sign that it considered its main task to develop a constitution. On the same day, it heard Mounier about the foundations of the future constitution, and on July 11, Lafayette presented a draft Declaration of Human Rights, which he considered necessary to precede the constitution.

But the position of the Assembly was precarious. The king and his entourage did not want to come to terms with defeat and were preparing to disperse the Assembly. On June 26, the king gave the order to concentrate an army of 20,000, mostly mercenary German and Swiss regiments, in Paris and its environs. The troops were stationed in Saint-Denis, Saint-Cloud, Sevres and the Champ de Mars. The arrival of the troops immediately heightened the atmosphere in Paris. Meetings spontaneously arose in the garden of the Palais Royal, at which calls were heard to repel “foreign hirelings.” On July 8, the National Assembly addressed the king with an address, asking him to withdraw troops from Paris. The King replied that he had called in troops to guard the Assembly, but if the presence of troops in Paris disturbed the Assembly, then he was ready to move the place of its meetings to Noyon or Soissons. This showed that the king was preparing to disperse the Assembly.

On July 11, Louis XVI resigned Necker and reorganized the ministry, placing Baron Breteuil at its head, who proposed taking the most extreme measures against Paris. “If it is necessary to burn Paris, we will burn Paris,” he said. The post of Minister of War in the new cabinet was taken by Marshal Broglie. It was the Ministry of the Coup d'Etat. The cause of the National Assembly seemed to have failed.

It was saved by a nationwide revolution.

Oath in the ballroom

Storming of the Bastille

Necker's resignation produced an immediate reaction. The movements of government troops confirmed the suspicions of an “aristocratic conspiracy,” and among wealthy people, the resignation caused panic, since it was in him that they saw the person capable of preventing the bankruptcy of the state.

Paris learned of the resignation on the afternoon of July 12. It was Sunday. Crowds of people poured into the streets. Busts of Necker were carried throughout the city. At the Palais Royal, the young lawyer Camille Desmoulins called out: “To arms!” Soon this cry was heard everywhere. The French Guard (French Gardes françaises), among whom were the future generals of the Republic Lefebvre, Gülen, Eli, Lazar Ghosh, almost entirely went over to the side of the people. Clashes with troops began. Dragoons of the German regiment (French Royal-Allemand) attacked the crowd near the Tuileries Garden, but retreated under a hail of stones. Baron de Bezenval, the commandant of Paris, ordered government troops to retreat from the city to the Champ-de-Mars.

The next day, July 13, the uprising grew even more. The alarm sounded from early morning. At about 8 a.m., the Parisian electors gathered in the town hall (French Hôtel de ville). A new body of municipal government, the Standing Committee, was created to lead and at the same time control the movement. At the very first meeting, a decision was made to create a “civilian militia” in Paris. This was the birth of the Parisian revolutionary Commune and the National Guard.

They were expecting an attack from government troops. They began to erect barricades, but there were not enough weapons to protect them. A search for weapons began throughout the city. They broke into weapons shops, seizing everything they could find. On the morning of July 14, the crowd captured 32,000 rifles and cannon from the Invalides, but there was not enough gunpowder. Then we headed to the Bastille. This fortress-prison symbolized the repressive power of the state in the public consciousness. In reality, there were seven prisoners and a little more than a hundred garrison soldiers, mostly disabled. After several hours of siege, Commandant de Launay capitulated. The garrison lost only one man killed, while the Parisians lost 98 killed and 73 wounded. After the capitulation, seven of the garrison, including the commandant himself, were torn to pieces by the crowd.

Storming of the Bastille

A constitutional monarchy

Municipal and peasant revolutions

The king was forced to acknowledge the existence of the Constituent Assembly. Necker, who had been dismissed twice, was again called to power, and on July 17, Louis XVI, accompanied by a delegation from the National Assembly, arrived in Paris and accepted from the hands of the mayor of Bailly a three-color cockade, symbolizing the victory of the revolution and the accession of the king to it (red and blue are the colors of the Parisian coat of arms, white - color of the royal banner). The first wave of emigration began; The uncompromising high aristocracy began to leave France, including the king's brother, the Count d'Artois.

Even before Necker's resignation, many cities sent addresses in support of the National Assembly, up to 40 before July 14th. A “municipal revolution” began, which accelerated after Necker’s resignation and spread throughout the country after July 14. Bordeaux, Caen, Angers, Amiens, Vernon, Dijon, Lyon and many other cities were in uprisings. Quartermasters, governors, and local military commandants either fled or lost real power. Following the example of Paris, communes and a national guard began to form. Urban communes began to form federal associations. Within a few weeks, the royal government lost all power over the country; the provinces were now recognized only by the National Assembly.

The economic crisis and famine led to the emergence of rural areas many vagrants, homeless people and marauding gangs. The alarming situation, the hopes of the peasants for tax relief, expressed in orders, the approaching harvest of a new harvest, all this gave rise to myriads of rumors and fears in the village. In the second half of July, the “Great Fear” (French Grande peur) broke out, creating a chain reaction throughout the country. The rebel peasants burned the castles of the lords, seizing their lands. In some provinces, about half of the landowners' estates were burned or destroyed.

During the meeting of the “night of miracles” (French: La Nuit des Miracles) on August 4 and by decrees on August 4-11, the Constituent Assembly responded to the revolution of the peasants and abolished personal feudal duties, seigneurial courts, church tithes, the privileges of individual provinces, cities and corporations and declared equality of all before the law in the payment of state taxes and in the right to hold civil, military and ecclesiastical offices. But at the same time it announced the elimination of only “indirect” duties (the so-called banalities): the “real” duties of the peasants, in particular, land and poll taxes, were retained.

On August 26, 1789, the Constituent Assembly adopted the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” - one of the first documents of democratic constitutionalism. The “old regime”, based on class privileges and the arbitrariness of the authorities, was opposed to the equality of all before the law, the inalienability of “natural” human rights, popular sovereignty, freedom of opinion, the principle “everything is permitted that is not prohibited by law” and other democratic principles of revolutionary enlightenment, which have now become requirements of law and current legislation. Article 1 of the Declaration stated: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” Article 2 guaranteed “natural and inalienable human rights,” which meant “liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.” The source of supreme power (sovereignty) was declared to be the “nation”, and the law was declared to be an expression of the “general will”.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Walking to Versailles

Louis XVI refused to authorize the Declaration and the decrees of August 5–11. In Paris the situation was tense. The harvest in 1789 was good, but the supply of grain to Paris did not increase. There were long lines at the bakeries.

At the same time, officers, nobles, and holders of the Order of St. Louis flocked to Versailles. On October 1, the King's Life Guards held a banquet in honor of the newly arrived Flanders Regiment. The banquet participants, excited by the wine and music, shouted enthusiastically: “Long live the king!” First, the Life Guards, and then other officers, tore off their tricolor cockades and trampled them underfoot, attaching the white and black cockades of the king and queen. In Paris, this caused a new outbreak of fear of an "aristocratic conspiracy" and demands to move the king to Paris.

On the morning of October 5, huge crowds of women, who had stood in vain all night in queues at bakeries, filled the Place de Grève and surrounded the town hall (French Hôtel-de-Ville). Many believed that the food supply would be better if the king was in Paris. There were shouts: “Bread! To Versailles! Then the alarm sounded. Around noon, 6-7 thousand people, mostly women, with rifles, pikes, pistols and two cannons moved towards Versailles. A few hours later, by decision of the Commune, Lafayette led the National Guard to Versailles.

At about 11 pm the king announced his agreement to approve the Declaration of Rights and other decrees. However, at night a crowd broke into the palace, killing two of the king's guards. Only Lafayette's intervention prevented further bloodshed. On the advice of Lafayette, the king went out onto the balcony along with the queen and the Dauphin. The people greeted him with shouts: “The king to Paris!” The king to Paris!

On October 6, a remarkable procession headed from Versailles to Paris. The National Guard led the way; The guardsmen had bread stuck on their bayonets. Then came the women, some sitting on cannons, others in carriages, others on foot, and finally the carriage with the royal family. The women danced and sang: “We are bringing a baker, a baker and a little baker!” Following the royal family, the National Assembly also moved to Paris.

Revolutionary-minded Parisians march to Versailles

Reconstruction of France

The Constituent Assembly set a course for the creation of a constitutional monarchy in France. By the decrees of October 8 and 10, 1789, the traditional title of the French kings was changed: from “by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre,” Louis XVI became “by the grace of God and by virtue of the constitutional law of the state, King of the French.” The king remained the head of state and executive power, but he could rule only on the basis of the law. Legislative power belonged to the National Assembly, which actually became the highest authority in the country. The king retained the right to appoint ministers. The king could no longer draw endlessly from the state treasury. The right to declare war and make peace passed to the National Assembly. By decree of June 19, 1790, the institution of hereditary nobility and all titles associated with it were abolished. Calling oneself a marquis, count, etc. was prohibited. Citizens could only bear the surname of the head of the family.

The central administration was reorganized. The royal councils and secretaries of state disappeared. From now on, six ministers were appointed: interior, justice, finance, foreign affairs, military, and navy. According to the municipal law of December 14-22, 1789, cities and provinces were granted the broadest self-government. All local agents of the central government were abolished. The positions of intendants and their subdelegates were destroyed. By decree of January 15, 1790, the Assembly established a new administrative structure for the country. The system of dividing France into provinces, governorates, generalités, bagliages, and seneschalships ceased to exist. The country was divided into 83 departments, approximately equal in territory. Departments were divided into districts (districts). The districts were divided into cantons. The lowest administrative unit was the commune (community). Communes of large cities were divided into sections (districts, sections). Paris was divided into 48 sections (instead of the previously existing 60 arrondissements).

Judicial reform was carried out on the same basis as administrative reform. All old judicial institutions, including parliaments, were liquidated. The sale of judicial positions, like all others, was cancelled. A magistrate's court was established in each canton, a district court in each district, and a criminal court in each main city of the department. A single Court of Cassation for the entire country was also created, which had the right to annul the verdicts of courts of other instances and send cases for a new trial, and the National Supreme Court, whose competence was subject to offenses by ministers and senior officials, as well as crimes against the security of the state. Courts of all levels were elected (based on property qualifications and other restrictions) and tried with a jury.

All privileges and other forms of state regulation of economic activity - workshops, corporations, monopolies, etc. - were abolished. Customs offices within the country at the borders of various regions were eliminated. Instead of numerous previous taxes, three new ones were introduced - on land property, movable property and commercial and industrial activities. The Constituent Assembly placed the gigantic national debt “under the protection of the nation.” On October 10, Talleyrand proposed using church property, which was to be transferred to the disposal of the nation and sold, to pay off the national debt. By decrees adopted in June-November 1790, it implemented the so-called “civil structure of the clergy,” that is, it carried out a reform of the church, depriving it of its previous privileged position in society and turning the church into an organ of the state. The registration of births, deaths, and marriages was removed from the jurisdiction of the church and transferred to government agencies. Only civil marriage was recognized as legal. All church titles were abolished, except for bishop and curé (parish priest). Bishops and parish priests were elected by electors, the former by departmental electors, the latter by parish electors. The approval of bishops by the pope (as the head of the universal Catholic Church) was canceled: from now on, French bishops only notified the pope of their election. All clergy were required to take a special oath to the “civil order of the clergy” under threat of resignation.

Church reform caused a split among the French clergy. After the pope did not recognize the “civil order” of the church in France, all French bishops, with the exception of 7, refused to take the civil oath. About half of the lower clergy followed their example. A sharp struggle arose between the sworn (French assermente), or constitutional, and non-sworn (French refractaires) clergy, which significantly complicated the political situation in the country. Subsequently, “non-sworn” priests, who retained influence over significant masses of believers, became one of the most important forces of the counter-revolution.

By this time, a split had emerged among the deputies of the Constituent Assembly. On a wave of public support, new leftists began to emerge: Pétion, Grégoire, Robespierre. In addition, clubs and organizations sprang up throughout the country. In Paris, the Jacobins and Cordeliers clubs became centers of radicalism. Constitutionalists represented by Mirabeau, and after his sudden death in April 1791, the “triumvirate” of Barnave, Duport and Lamet believed that events went beyond the principles of 1789 and sought to halt the development of the revolution by increasing the electoral qualification, limiting the freedom of the press and the activity of clubs. To do this, they needed to remain in power and have the full support of the king. Suddenly the ground opened up beneath them. Louis XVI fled.

Arrest of Louis XVI

Varenna crisis

The king's escape attempt is one of the most important events of the revolution. Internally, this was clear evidence of the incompatibility of the monarchy and revolutionary France and destroyed the attempt to establish a constitutional monarchy. Outwardly, this accelerated the approach of a military conflict with monarchical Europe.

Around midnight on June 20, 1791, the king, disguised as a servant, tried to escape, but was recognized at the border in Varenna by a postal employee on the night of June 21-22. The royal family was returned to Paris on the evening of June 25 amid the dead silence of the Parisians and the National Guardsmen holding their guns muzzle down.

The country received the news of the escape as a shock, as a declaration of war in which its king was in the enemy’s camp. From this moment the radicalization of the revolution begins. Who can you trust then, if the king himself turned out to be a traitor? For the first time since the beginning of the Revolution, the press began to openly discuss the possibility of establishing a republic. However, constitutionalist deputies, not wanting to deepen the crisis and question the fruits of almost two years of work on the Constitution, took the king under protection and declared that he had been kidnapped. The Cordeliers called on the townspeople to collect signatures on a petition on July 17 on the Champ de Mars demanding the abdication of the king. City authorities banned the demonstration. The mayor of Bailly and Lafayette arrived at the Champ de Mars with a detachment of the National Guard. National Guardsmen opened fire, killing dozens of people. This was the first split of the third estate itself.

On September 3, 1791, the National Assembly adopted the Constitution. It proposed to convene a Legislative Assembly - a unicameral parliament based on a high property qualification. There were only 4.3 million “active” citizens who received the right to vote under the constitution, and only 50 thousand electors who elected deputies. Deputies of the National Assembly could not be elected to the new parliament. The Legislative Assembly opened on October 1, 1791. The king swore allegiance to the new constitution and was restored to his functions, but not the confidence of the entire country in him.

Execution on the Champ de Mars

In Europe, the king's escape caused a strong emotional reaction. On August 27, 1791, the Austrian Emperor Leopold II and the Prussian King Frederick William II signed the Declaration of Pillnitz, threatening revolutionary France with armed intervention. From that moment on, war seemed inevitable. The emigration of the aristocracy began on July 14, 1789. The center of emigration was in Koblenz, very close to the French border. Military intervention was the last hope of the aristocracy. At the same time, “revolutionary propaganda” began on the left side of the Legislative Assembly with the aim of striking a decisive blow monarchical Europe and cross out any hopes of the court for restoration. The war, according to the Girondins, will bring them to power and put an end to the double game of the king. On April 20, 1792, the Legislative Assembly declared war on the King of Hungary and Bohemia.

Fall of the Monarchy

The war started poorly for the French troops. The French army was in a state of chaos and many officers, mostly nobles, emigrated or went over to the enemy. The generals blamed the indiscipline of the troops and the War Ministry. The Legislative Assembly passed decrees necessary for national defense, including the creation of a military camp of the "fedérés" near Paris. The king, hoping for the speedy arrival of Austrian troops, vetoed the decrees and dismissed the Gironde ministry.

On June 20, 1792, a demonstration was organized to put pressure on the king. In the palace, overrun by demonstrators, the king was forced to put on the Phrygian cap of the sans-culottes and drink to the health of the nation, but refused to approve the decrees and return the ministers.

On August 1, news arrived of a manifesto from the Duke of Brunswick threatening “military execution” of Paris in the event of violence against the king. Produced the manifesto reverse action and aroused republican feelings and demands for the deposition of the king. After Prussia entered the war (July 6), July 11, 1792, the Legislative Assembly proclaimed “The Fatherland is in danger” (French: La patrie est en danger), but refused to consider demands for the deposition of the king.

On the night of August 9-10, a rebel Commune was formed from representatives of 28 sections of Paris. On August 10, 1792, about 20 thousand national guards, federates and sans-culottes surrounded the royal palace. The assault was short-lived, but bloody. King Louis XVI and his family took refuge in the Legislative Assembly and were deposed. The Legislative Assembly voted to convene a National Convention based on universal suffrage, which would decide on the future organization of the state.

At the end of August, the Prussian army launched an attack on Paris and took Verdun on September 2, 1792. The Paris Commune closed the opposition press and began to conduct searches throughout the capital, arresting a number of non-sworn priests, nobles and aristocrats. On August 11, the Legislative Assembly gave municipalities the power to arrest “suspicious persons.” Volunteers were preparing to leave for the front, and rumors quickly spread that their departure would be a signal for the prisoners to start an uprising. A wave of prison executions followed, later called the "September Murders", during which up to 2,000 people were killed, 1,100 - 1,400 in Paris alone.

First Republic

On September 21, 1792, the National Convention opened its meetings in Paris. On September 22, the Convention abolished the monarchy and proclaimed France a republic. Quantitatively, the Convention consisted of 160 Girondins, 200 Montagnards and 389 deputies of the Plain (French: La Plaine ou le Marais), for a total of 749 deputies. A third of the deputies had participated in previous meetings and brought with them all previous disagreements and conflicts.

On September 22, news of the Battle of Valmy arrived. The military situation changed: after Valmy, Prussian troops retreated, and in November French troops occupied the left bank of the Rhine. The Austrians besieging Lille were defeated by Dumouriez at the Battle of Jemappes on November 6 and evacuated the Austrian Netherlands. Nice was occupied, and Savoy declared an alliance with France.

The leaders of the Gironde again returned to revolutionary propaganda, declaring “peace to the huts, war to the palaces” (French paix aux chaumières, guerre aux châteaux). At the same time, the concept of the “natural borders” of France with the border along the Rhine appeared. The French offensive in Belgium threatened British interests in Holland, leading to the creation of the first coalition. A decisive break occurred after the execution of the king, and on March 7, France declared war on England and then Spain. In March 1793, the Vendée rebellion began. To save the revolution, on April 6, 1793, the Committee of Public Safety was created, of which Danton became the most influential member.

Trial of the King at the Convention

Trial of Louis XVI

After the uprising on August 10, 1792, Louis XVI was deposed and placed under heavy guard in the Temple. The discovery of a secret safe in the Tuileries on November 20, 1792 made the trial of the king inevitable. The documents found in it proved beyond any doubt the king's treason.

The trial began on December 10. Louis XVI was classified as an enemy and a "usurper", alien to the body of the nation. Voting began on January 14, 1793. The vote for the king's guilt was unanimous. About the result of the vote, the President of the Convention, Vergniaud, announced: “In the name of the French people, the National Convention declared Louis Capet guilty of malicious intent against the freedom of the nation and the general security of the state.”

Voting on the punishment began on January 16 and continued until the next morning. Of the 721 deputies present, 387 spoke in favor of the death penalty. By order of the Convention, the entire National Guard of Paris was lined up on both sides of the road to the scaffold. On the morning of January 21, Louis XVI was beheaded on the Place de la Revolution.

Fall of the Gironde

The economic situation at the beginning of 1793 was increasingly deteriorating and unrest began in large cities. Sectional activists in Paris began to demand a "maximum" on basic foodstuffs. The riots and agitation continued throughout the spring of 1793 and the Convention created the Commission of the Twelve to investigate them, which included only the Girondins. By order of the commission, several sectional agitators were arrested and on May 25 the Commune demanded their release; at the same time, the general meetings of the sections of Paris drew up a list of 22 prominent Girondins and demanded their arrest. At the Convention, in response to this, Maximin Inard declared that Paris would be destroyed if the Parisian sections opposed the provincial deputies.

The Jacobins declared themselves in a state of rebellion and on May 29 delegates representing thirty-three Parisian sections formed a rebel committee. On June 2, 80,000 armed sans-culottes surrounded the Convention. After the deputies attempted to march out in a demonstrative procession and encountered armed National Guardsmen, the deputies bowed to pressure and announced the arrest of 29 leading Girondins.

The Federalist rebellion began before the May 31–June 2 uprising. In Lyon, the head of the local Jacobins, Chalier, was arrested on May 29 and executed on July 16. Many Girondins fled from house arrest in Paris, and the news of the forced expulsion of Girondin deputies from the Convention sparked a protest movement in the provinces and spread to large cities in the south - Bordeaux, Marseille, Nimes. On July 13, Charlotte Corday killed the sans-culotte idol Jean-Paul Marat. She was in contact with the Girondins in Normandy and they are believed to have used her as their agent. In addition to all this, news arrived of an unprecedented betrayal: Toulon and the squadron located there were surrendered to the enemy.

Jacobin Convention

The Montagnards who came to power were faced with dramatic circumstances - a federalist rebellion, the war in the Vendée, military failures, and a deteriorating economic situation. Despite everything, civil war could not be avoided. By mid-June some sixty departments were in more or less open rebellion. Fortunately, the border regions of the country remained loyal to the Convention.

July and August were unimportant months on the borders. Mainz, symbol of the previous year's victory, capitulated to Prussian forces, and the Austrians captured the fortresses of Condé and Valenciennes and invaded northern France. Spanish troops crossed the Pyrenees and began an attack on Perpignan. Piedmont took advantage of the uprising in Lyon and invaded France from the east. In Corsica, Paoli rebelled and, with British help, expelled the French from the island. English troops began the siege of Dunkirk in August and in October the Allies invaded Alsace. The military situation became desperate.

Throughout June, the Montagnards took a wait-and-see attitude, awaiting a reaction to the uprising in Paris. However, they did not forget about the peasants. Peasants made up the largest part of France and in such a situation it was important to satisfy their demands. It was for them that the uprising of May 31 (as well as July 14 and August 10) brought significant and permanent benefits. On June 3, laws were passed on the sale of emigrants' property in small parts with the condition of payment within 10 years; On June 10, an additional division of communal lands was proclaimed; and on July 17, a law abolishing seigneurial duties and feudal rights without any compensation.

The Convention approved a new Constitution in the hope of protecting itself from accusations of dictatorship and pacifying the departments. The Declaration of Rights, which preceded the text of the Constitution, solemnly affirmed the indivisibility of the state and freedom of speech, equality and the right to resist oppression. This went far beyond the scope of the 1789 Declaration, adding the rights to social assistance, work, education and rebellion. All political and social tyranny was abolished. National sovereignty was expanded through the institution of referendum - the Constitution had to be ratified by the people, as well as laws in certain, precisely defined circumstances. The Constitution was submitted for general ratification and was adopted by a huge majority of 1,801,918 in favor and 17,610 against. The results of the plebiscite were published on August 10, 1793, but the application of the Constitution, the text of which was placed in the “sacred ark” in the meeting room of the Convention, was postponed until peace was concluded.

Marseillaise

Revolutionary government

The convention renewed the composition of the Committee of Public Safety (French Comité du salut public): Danton was expelled from it on July 10. Couthon, Saint-Just, Jeanbon Saint-André and Prieur of the Marne formed the core of the new committee. To these were added Barera and Lende, on July 27 Robespierre, and then on August 14 Carnot and Prieur from the Côte d'Or department; Collot d'Herbois and Billau-Varenna - September 6. First of all, the committee had to assert itself and select those demands of the people that were most suitable for achieving the goals of the assembly: to crush the enemies of the Republic and cross out the last hopes of the aristocracy for restoration. To govern in the name of the Convention and at the same time to control it, to restrain the sans-culottes without dampening their enthusiasm - this was the necessary balance of a revolutionary government.

Under the double banner of price fixing and terror, sans-culotte pressure reached its peak in the summer of 1793. The crisis in food supplies remained the main cause of discontent among the sans-culottes; the leaders of the “mad” demand that the Convention establish a “maximum.” In August, a series of decrees gave the committee powers to control the circulation of grain, and also approved harsh penalties for violating them. “Repositories of abundance” were created in each region. On August 23, the decree on mass mobilization (French levée en masse) declared the entire adult population of the republic “in a state of constant requisition.”

On September 5, Parisians attempted to repeat the June 2 uprising. Armed sections again surrounded the Convention demanding the creation of an internal revolutionary army, the arrest of “suspicious” ones and the purge of committees. This was probably a key day in the formation of the revolutionary government: the Convention succumbed to pressure but retained control of events. This put terror on the agenda - September 5, the 9th the creation of a revolutionary army, the 11th - the decree on the “maximum” on bread (general control of prices and wages - September 29), the 14th the reorganization of the Revolutionary Tribunal, the 17th the law on “suspicious” people, and the decree of the 20th gave local revolutionary committees the right to the task of compiling lists.

This sum of institutions, measures and procedures was enshrined in the decree of the 14th Frimaire (December 4, 1793), which determined this gradual development of a centralized dictatorship based on terror. At the center was the Convention, whose executive branch was the Committee of Public Safety, endowed with enormous powers: it interpreted the decrees of the Convention and determined the methods of their application; all government bodies and employees were under his direct leadership; he determined military and diplomatic activities, appointed generals and members of other committees, subject to their ratification by the Convention. He was responsible for the conduct of the war, public order, provision and supply of the population. The Paris Commune, a famous bastion of the sans-culottes, was also neutralized, coming under his control.

The Paris National Guard goes to the front

Organization of victory

The blockade forced France into autarky; In order to preserve the Republic, the government mobilized all productive forces and accepted the need for a controlled economy, which was introduced impromptu as the situation required. It was necessary to develop military production, revive foreign trade and find new resources in France itself, and time was short. Circumstances gradually forced the government to take charge of the economy of the entire country.

All material resources became the subject of requisition. Farmers donated grain, fodder, wool, flax, hemp, and artisans and traders donated their products. They carefully searched for raw materials - metal of all kinds, church bells, old paper, rags and parchment, herbs, brushwood and even ashes for the production of potassium salts and chestnuts for their distillation. All enterprises were transferred to the disposal of the nation - forests, mines, quarries, furnaces, furnaces, tanneries, paper and textile factories, shoe workshops. Labor and the value of what was produced were subject to price regulation. No one had the right to speculate while the Fatherland was in danger. Armament was a big concern. Already in September 1793, an impetus was given for the creation of national manufactories for the military industry - the creation of a factory in Paris for the production of guns and personal weapons, the Grenelle gunpowder factory. A special appeal was made to the scientists. Monge, Vandermonde, Berthollet, Darcet, Fourcroix improved metallurgy and the production of weapons. Experiments in aeronautics were carried out in Meudon. During the Battle of Fleurus, the balloon was lifted over the same places as in the future war of 1914. And nothing less than a “miracle” for contemporaries was the receipt by the Semaphore Chappe in Montmartre within an hour of news of the fall of Le Quesnoy, located 120 miles from Paris.

The summer recruitment (French: Levée en masse) was completed, and by July the total army strength reached 650,000. The difficulties were enormous. Production for the war effort began only in September. The army was in a state of reorganization. In the spring of 1794, the “amalgam” system was undertaken, the merging of volunteer battalions with a line army. Two battalions of volunteers were connected with one battalion of the line army, making up a half-brigade or regiment. At the same time, unity of command and discipline were restored. The army purge excluded most of the nobles. In order to educate new officers, by decree of the 13th Prairial (June 1, 1794), the College of Mars (French Ecole de Mars) was founded - each district sent six young men there. The army commanders were approved by the Convention.

Gradually, a military command arose, incomparable in quality: Marceau, Gauche, Jourdan, Bonaparte, Kleber, Massena, as well as an officer corps, excellent not only in military qualities, but also in a sense of civic responsibility.

Terror

Although the Terror was organized in September 1793, it was not actually applied until October, and only as a result of pressure from the sans-culottes. Large political processes began in October. Queen Marie Antoinette was guillotined on October 16th. A special decree limited the protection of 21 Girondins, and they died on the 31st, including Vergniaud and Brissot.

At the top of the apparatus of terror was the Committee of Public Safety, the second organ of the state, consisting of twelve members elected every month in accordance with the rules of the Convention and vested with the functions of public security, surveillance and police, both civil and military. He employed a large staff of officials, headed a network of local revolutionary committees, and enforced the "suspicious" law by sifting through thousands of local denunciations and arrests, which he then had to present to the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Terror was applied to the enemies of the Republic wherever they were, was socially indiscriminate and politically directed. Its victims belonged to all classes that hated the revolution or lived in those regions where the threat of rebellion was most serious. “The severity of repressive measures in the provinces,” writes Mathiez, “was directly dependent on the danger of rebellion.”

Likewise, the deputies sent by the Convention as "representatives in the mission" (French: les représentants en mission) were armed with broad powers and acted in accordance with the situation and their own temperament: in July, Robert Lende pacified the Girondin uprising in the west without a single death sentence ; in Lyon, a few months later, Collot d'Herbois and Joseph Fouché relied on frequent summary executions, using mass shootings because the guillotine did not work fast enough.

Victory began to be determined in the fall of 1793. The end of the federalist rebellion was marked by the capture of Lyon on October 9 and Toulon on December 19. On October 17, the Vendean uprising was suppressed in Cholet and on December 14 in Le Mans after fierce street fighting. Cities along the borders were liberated. Dunkirk - after the victory at Hondschot (September 8), Maubeuge - after the victory at Wattigny (October 6), Landau - after the victory at Wysambourg (October 30). Kellermann pushed the Spaniards back to Bidasoa and Savoy was liberated. Gauche and Pichegru inflicted a series of defeats on the Prussians and Austrians in Alsace.

Faction fight

As early as September 1793, two wings could be clearly identified among the revolutionaries. One were what were later called the Hébertists - although Hébert himself was never the leader of the faction - and preached war to the death, partly adopting the "rabid" program which the sans-culottes favored. They entered into an agreement with the Montagnards, hoping through them to put pressure on the Convention. They dominated the Cordeliers Club, filled Bouchotte's War Ministry, and could carry the Commune with them. Another wing arose in response to the increasing centralization of the revolutionary government and the dictatorship of committees - the Dantonists; around the deputies of the Convention: Danton, Delacroix, Desmoulins, as the most noticeable among them.

The religious conflict that had been ongoing since 1790 was the background to the “de-Christianization” campaign undertaken by the Hébertists. The Federalist rebellion intensified the counter-revolutionary agitation of the “unsworn” priests. The adoption by the Convention on October 5 of a new, revolutionary calendar designed to replace the old one associated with Christianity, the “ultras” were used as a reason to launch a campaign against the Catholic faith. In Paris, this movement was led by the Commune. Catholic churches were closed, priests were forced to renounce their priesthood, and Christian shrines were mocked. Instead of Catholicism, they tried to implant the “cult of Reason.” The movement brought even more unrest in the departments and compromised the revolution in the eyes of a deeply religious country. The majority of the Convention reacted extremely negatively to this initiative and led to even greater polarization between factions. At the end of November - beginning of December, Robespierre and Danton decisively opposed “de-Christianization”, putting an end to it.

By prioritizing national defense over all other considerations, the Committee of Public Safety tried to maintain an intermediate position between moderantism and extremism. The revolutionary government did not intend to give in to the Hebertists at the expense of revolutionary unity, while the demands of the moderates undermined the controlled economy necessary for the war effort and the terror that ensured universal obedience. But at the end of the winter of 1793, food shortages took a sharp turn for the worse. The Ebertists began to demand the use of harsh measures and at first the Committee behaved conciliatoryly. The Convention voted 10 million to alleviate the crisis, 3 Ventose Barer, on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, presented a new general “maximum” and on the 8th a decree on the confiscation of the property of “suspicious” and its distribution among the needy - Ventose decrees (French: Loi de ventôse an II) . The Cordeliers believed that if they increased the pressure, they would prevail once and for all. There were calls for an uprising, although this was probably as a new demonstration, as in September 1793.

But on 22 Ventose II (March 12, 1794), the Committee decided to put an end to the Hébertists. The foreigners Proly, Kloots and Pereira were added to Hébert, Ronsin, Vincent and Momoro in order to present them as participants in a “foreign conspiracy”. All were executed on the 4th Germinal (March 24, 1794). The Committee then turned to the Dantonists, some of whom were involved in financial fraud. On April 5, Danton, Delacroix, Desmoulins, and Philippo were executed.

Germinal's drama completely changed the political situation. The Sans-culottes were stunned by the execution of the Hébertists. All their positions of influence were lost: the revolutionary army was disbanded, the inspectors were fired, Bouchotte lost the War Ministry, the Cordeliers Club was suppressed and intimidated, and 39 revolutionary committees were closed under government pressure. The Commune was purged and filled with the Committee's nominees. With the execution of the Dantonists, the majority of the assembly for the first time was horrified by the government it had created.

The committee played the role of intermediary between the meeting and the sections. By destroying the section leaders, the committees broke with the sans-culottes, the source of government power, whose pressure the Convention had been so afraid of since the uprising of May 31. Having destroyed the Dantonists, it sowed fear among the members of the assembly, which could easily turn into a riot. The government seemed to have the support of the majority of the assembly. It was wrong. Having freed the Convention from the pressure of the sections, it remained at the mercy of the assembly. All that remained was the internal split of the government to destroy it.

Thermidorian coup

The government's main efforts were aimed at military victory and the mobilization of all resources began to bear fruit. By the summer of 1794, the republic had created 14 armies and 8 Messidors. 2 years (June 26, 1794) a decisive victory was won at Fleurus. Belgium was open to French troops. On July 10, Pichegru occupied Brussels and linked up with Jourdan's Sambro-Meuse army. The revolutionary expansion has begun. But victories in the war began to call into question the meaning of continuing the terror.

The centralization of the revolutionary government, terror and executions of opponents on the right and left led to the resolution of all kinds of political differences in the field of conspiracies and intrigues. Centralization led to the concentration of revolutionary justice in Paris. Representatives on the ground were recalled and many of them, such as Tallien in Bordeaux, Fouché in Lyon, Carrier in Nantes, felt themselves under immediate threat for the excesses of terror in the provinces during the suppression of the Federalist uprising and the war in the Vendée. Now these excesses seemed to be a compromise of the revolution, and Robespierre did not fail to express this, for example, to Fouche. Disagreements intensified within the Committee of Public Safety, leading to a split in the government.

After the execution of the Hébertists and Dantonists and the celebration of the Festival of the Supreme Being, the figure of Robespierre acquired an exaggerated importance in the eyes of revolutionary France. In turn, he did not take into account the sensitivity of his colleagues, which could seem like calculation or lust for power. In his last speech at the Convention, on 8 Thermidor, he accused his opponents of intrigue and brought the issue of a split to the court of the Convention. Robespierre was asked to name the accused, but he refused. This failure destroyed him, as MPs assumed he was demanding carte blanche. That night an uneasy coalition was formed between the radicals and moderates in the assembly, between the deputies who were in immediate danger, the committee members and the plain deputies. The next day, 9 Thermidor, Robespierre and his supporters were not allowed to speak, and a decree of indictment was issued against them.

The Paris Commune called for an uprising, released the arrested deputies and mobilized 2-3 thousand national guards. The night of 9-10 Thermidor was one of the most chaotic in Paris, with the Commune and the Convention competing for sectional support. The convention declared the rebels outlaws; Barras was given the task of mobilizing the armed forces of the Convention, and sections of Paris, demoralized by the execution of the Hébertists and the economic policies of the Commune, after some hesitation supported the Convention. The National Guardsmen and artillerymen, gathered by the Commune at the town hall, were left without instructions and dispersed. At about two o'clock in the morning, a column of the Gravilliers section, led by Leonard Bourdon, burst into the town hall (French Hôtel de Ville) and arrested the rebels.

On the evening of 10 Thermidor (July 28, 1794), Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon and nineteen of their supporters were summarily executed. The next day, seventy-one functionaries of the insurgent Commune were executed, the largest mass execution in the history of the revolution.

Execution of Robespierre

Thermidorian reaction

The Committee of Public Safety was the executive branch and, in the conditions of the war with the first coalition, an internal civil war, was endowed with broad prerogatives. The convention confirmed and elected its members every month, ensuring the centralization and permanent composition of the executive branch. Now, after military victories and the fall of the Robespierrists, the Convention refused to confirm such broad powers, especially since the threat of uprisings from the sans-culottes had been eliminated. It was decided that no member of the management committees should hold office for more than four months and its composition should be renewed by a third every month. The committee was limited only to the areas of warfare and diplomacy. There will now be a total of sixteen committees with equal rights. Realizing the danger of fragmentation, the Thermidorians, taught by experience, were even more afraid of the monopolization of power. Within a few weeks the revolutionary government was dismantled.

The weakening of power led to a weakening of terror, the subordination of which was ensured by nationwide mobilization. After the 9th Thermidor, the Jacobin Club was closed, and the surviving Girondins returned to the Convention. At the end of August, the Paris Commune was abolished and replaced by the “administrative commission of police” (French commission administrative de police). In June 1795, the very word “revolutionary,” a symbolic word for the entire Jacobin period, was banned. The Thermidorians abolished government intervention in the economy and abolished the “maximum” in December 1794. The result was rising prices, inflation, and disruption of food supplies. The misfortunes of the lower classes and the middle class were countered by the wealth of the nouveau riche: they feverishly made money, greedily used their wealth, unceremoniously flaunting it. In 1795, driven to the point of famine, the population of Paris twice raised uprisings (12th Germinal and 1st Prairial) demanding “bread and the constitution of 1793,” but the Convention suppressed the uprisings with military force.

The Thermidorians destroyed the revolutionary government, but nevertheless reaped the benefits of national defense. In the fall, Holland was occupied and in January 1795 the Batavian Republic was proclaimed. At the same time, the collapse of the first coalition began. On April 5, 1795, the Peace of Basel was concluded with Prussia and on July 22, peace with Spain. The Republic now declared the left bank of the Rhine as its “natural border” and annexed Belgium. Austria refused to recognize the Rhine as France's eastern border and the war resumed.

On August 22, 1795, the Convention adopted a new constitution. Legislative power was entrusted to two chambers - the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Elders, and a significant electoral qualification was introduced. Executive power was placed in the hands of the Directory - five directors elected by the Council of Elders from candidates nominated by the Council of Five Hundred. Fearing that elections to new legislative councils would give a majority to opponents of the republic, the Convention decided that two-thirds of the “five hundred” and “elders” would be necessarily taken from the members of the Convention for the first time.

When this measure was announced, the royalists in Paris itself raised an uprising on the 13th of Vendémière (October 5, 1795), in which the main participation belonged to the central sections of the city, who believed that the Convention had violated the “sovereignty of the people.” Most of the capital was in rebel hands; a central rebel committee was formed and the Convention was besieged. Barras attracted the young general Napoleon Bonaparte, a former Robespierrist, as well as other generals - Carto, Brun, Loison, Dupont. Murat captured cannons from the camp at Sablon, and the rebels, lacking artillery, were driven back and scattered.

On October 26, 1795, the Convention dissolved itself, giving way to the councils of five hundred and elders and the Directory.

Directory

Having defeated their opponents on the right and left, the Thermidorians hoped to return to the principles of 1789 and give stability to the republic on the basis of a new constitution - “a middle ground between monarchy and anarchy” - in the words of Antoine Thibaudeau. The Directory suffered a difficult economic and financial situation, aggravated by the ongoing war on the continent. Events since 1789 have split the country politically, ideologically and religiously. Having excluded the people and the aristocracy, the regime depended on a narrow circle of electors provided for by the qualifications of the Constitution of the Year III, and they moved more and more to the right.

Attempt at stabilization

In the winter of 1795 the economic crisis reached its peak. Paper money was printed every night for use the next day. On 30 pluviosis of year IV (February 19, 1796), the issue of assignats was stopped. The government decided to return to specie again. The result was the squandering of much of the remaining national wealth in the interests of speculators. In rural areas, banditry became so widespread that even mobile columns of the National Guard and the threat of the death penalty did not lead to improvement. In Paris, many would have died of starvation if the Directory had not continued the distribution of food.

This led to a renewal of Jacobin agitation. But this time the Jacobins resorted to conspiracies and Gracchus Babeuf heads the “secret rebel directory” of the Conspiracy of Equals (French: Conjuration des Égaux). In the winter of 1795-96, an alliance of former Jacobins was formed with the goal of overthrowing the Directory. The "for equality" movement was organized in a series of concentric levels; An internal rebel committee was formed. The plan was original and the poverty of the Parisian suburbs was appalling, but the sans-culottes, demoralized and intimidated after the Prairial, did not respond to the calls of the Babouvist. The conspirators were betrayed by a police spy. One hundred and thirty-one people were arrested and thirty were shot on the spot; Babeuf's associates were brought to trial; Babeuf and Darté were guillotined a year later.

The war on the continent continued. The republic was unable to strike England; all that remained was to break Austria. On April 9, 1796, General Bonaparte led his army to Italy. A series of victories followed in a dazzling campaign - Lodi (May 10, 1796), Castiglione (August 15), Arcole (November 15-17), Rivoli (January 14, 1797). On October 17, peace was concluded with Austria at Campo Formio, ending the war of the first coalition, from which France emerged victorious, although Great Britain continued to fight.

According to the constitution, the first elections of a third of the deputies, including the “eternal” ones, in the Germinal of the 5th year (March-April 1797), turned out to be a success for the monarchists. The Republican majority of the Thermidorians disappeared. In the councils of five hundred and elders, the majority belonged to opponents of the Directory. The right in the councils decided to dilute the power of the Directory, depriving it of financial powers. In the absence of instructions in the Constitution of the Year III on the issue of the emergence of such a conflict, the Directory, with the support of Bonaparte and Hoche, decided to resort to force. On 18 Fructidor V (September 4, 1797), Paris was placed under martial law. The Decree of the Directory announced that everyone who called for the restoration of the monarchy would be shot on the spot. In 49 departments, elections were annulled, 177 deputies were stripped of their powers, and 65 were sentenced to the “dry guillotine” - deportation to Guiana. Emigrants who returned without permission were asked to leave France within two weeks under threat of death.

Crisis of 1799

The coup of the 18th Fructidor is a turning point in the history of the regime established by the Thermidorians - it put an end to the constitutional and liberal experiment. A crushing blow was dealt to the monarchists, but at the same time the influence of the army increased greatly.

After the Treaty of Campo Formio, only Great Britain stood against France. Instead of concentrating its attention on the remaining enemy and maintaining peace on the continent, the Directory began a policy of continental expansion, which destroyed all possibilities of stabilization in Europe. The Egyptian campaign followed, which added to Bonaparte's fame. France surrounded itself with “daughter” republics, satellites, politically dependent and economically exploited: the Batavian Republic, the Helvetic Republic in Switzerland, the Cisalpine, Roman and Partenopean (Naples) Republics in Italy.

In the spring of 1799 the war became general. The second coalition united Britain, Austria, Naples and Sweden. The Egyptian campaign brought Turkey and Russia into its ranks. The military operations began extremely unsuccessfully for the Directory. Soon Italy and part of Switzerland were lost and the republic had to defend its “natural borders”. As in 1792-93. France faced the threat of invasion. The danger awakened national energy and the last revolutionary effort. On 30 Prairial Year VII (June 18, 1799) the councils re-elected the members of the Directory, bringing “real” Republicans to power and carried out measures somewhat reminiscent of those of Year II. At the suggestion of General Jourdan, a conscription of five ages was announced. A forced loan of 100 million francs was introduced. On July 12, a law on hostages from among the former nobles was passed.

Military failures became the reason for royalist uprisings in the south and the resumption of the civil war in the Vendée. At the same time, the fear of the return of the shadow of Jacobinism led to the decision to put an end once and for all to the possibility of a repetition of the times of the Republic of 1793.

General Bonaparte in the Council of Five Hundred

18th Brumaire

By this time the military situation had changed. The very success of the coalition in Italy led to a change in plans. It was decided to transfer Austrian troops from Switzerland to Belgium and replace them with Russian troops with the aim of invading France. The transfer was carried out so poorly that it allowed French troops to re-occupy Switzerland and defeat the enemy piece by piece.

In this alarming situation, the Brumerians are planning another, more decisive coup. Once again, as in Fructidor, the army must be called in to cleanse the assembly. The conspirators needed a “saber”. They turned to the Republican generals. First choice, General Joubert was killed at Novi. At this moment, news arrived of Bonaparte's arrival in France. From Fréjus to Paris, Bonaparte was hailed as a savior. Arriving in Paris on October 16, 1799, he immediately found himself at the center of political intrigue. The Brumerians turned to him as a man who was well suited to them based on his popularity, military reputation, ambition and even his Jacobin background.

Playing on fears of a "terrorist" plot, the Brumerians convinced the councils to meet on November 10, 1799 in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud; To suppress the “conspiracy,” Bonaparte was appointed commander of the 17th division located in the department of the Seine. Two directors, Sieyès and Ducos, themselves conspirators, resigned, and the third, Barras, was forced to resign. In Saint-Cloud, Napoleon announced to the Council of Elders that the Directory had dissolved itself and the creation of a commission for a new constitution. The Council of the Five Hundred was not so easily persuaded, and when Bonaparte entered the council chamber uninvited, cries of "Outlaw!" Napoleon lost his nerve, but his brother Lucien saved the situation by calling the guards into the meeting room. The Council of Five Hundred was expelled from the chamber, the Directory was dissolved, and all powers were entrusted to a provisional government of three consuls - Sieyès, Roger Ducos and Bonaparte.

The rumors that came from Saint-Cloud on the evening of the 19th Brumaire did not surprise Paris at all. Military failures, which were overcome only at the last moment, the economic crisis, the return of civil war - all this spoke of the failure of the entire period of stabilization under the Directory.

The coup of the 18th Brumaire is considered the end of the French Revolution.

Results of the revolution

The revolution led to the collapse of the old order and the establishment of a new, more “democratic and progressive” society in France. However, speaking about the goals achieved and the victims of the revolution, many historians are inclined to conclude that the same goals could have been achieved without such a huge number of victims. As the American historian R. Palmer points out, a common view is that “half a century after 1789 ... conditions in France would have been the same if no revolution had occurred.” Alexis Tocqueville wrote that the collapse of the Old Order would have occurred without any revolution, but only gradually. Pierre Goubert noted that many remnants of the Old Order remained after the revolution and flourished again under the rule of the Bourbons, established since 1815.

At the same time, a number of authors point out that the revolution brought liberation from heavy oppression to the people of France, which could not have been achieved in any other way. A “balanced” view of the revolution views it as a great tragedy in the history of France, but at the same time inevitable, resulting from the severity of class contradictions and accumulated economic and political problems.

Most historians believe that the Great French Revolution had enormous international significance, contributed to the spread of progressive ideas throughout the world, influenced a series of revolutions in Latin America, as a result of which the latter was freed from colonial dependence, and a number of other events in the first half of the 19th century.

Historiography

Character

Marxist historians (as well as a number of non-Marxist ones) argue that the Great French Revolution was “bourgeois” in nature, consisted of replacing the feudal system with a capitalist one, and the leading role in this process was played by the “bourgeois class”, which overthrew the “feudal aristocracy” during the revolution. Many historians disagree with this, pointing out that:

1. Feudalism in France disappeared several centuries before the revolution. At the same time, it should be noted that the absence of “feudalism” is not an argument against the “bourgeois” character of the Great French Revolution. With the corresponding absence of “feudalism” of the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. were bourgeois in character;

2. capitalism in France was quite developed even before the revolution, and industry was well developed. At the same time, during the years of the revolution, industry fell into severe decline - i.e. Instead of giving impetus to the development of capitalism, in reality the revolution slowed down its development.

3. The French aristocracy actually included not only large landowners, but also large capitalists. Supporters of this view do not see the class division in the France of Louis XVI. The abolition of all class privileges, including taxation, was the essence of the conflict between the classes in the Estates General of 1789 and was enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Meanwhile, as R. Mandru points out, the bourgeoisie for many decades preceding the revolution bought aristocratic titles (which were officially sold), which led to the washing out of the old hereditary aristocracy; Thus, in the Paris Parliament in the 18th century, out of 590 members, only 6% belonged to the descendants of the old aristocracy that existed before 1500, and 94% of the members of parliament belonged to families that received the title of nobility during the 16th-18th centuries. This “washing out” of the old aristocracy is evidence of the ascending influence of the bourgeoisie. All that remained was to formalize it politically; however, this required the expulsion from the country or the physical destruction of that part of the bourgeoisie that had previously become part of the aristocracy and, in fact, constituted the majority of the latter.

4. it was the French aristocracy that imposed capitalist (market) relations during the 25-30 years preceding 1789; “Again, however, there are serious flaws in such an argument.” writes Lewis Gwyn. “It must be remembered that the aristocracy owned most of the land, under which were coal, iron ore and other mineral deposits; their participation is often seen as just another way to increase income from their land holdings. Only the aristocratic minority managed industrial enterprises directly. Recent studies show differences in "economic behavior." While the "bourgeois" of the third estate invested huge sums in the mines, for example, concentrating production in a few main places, introducing new methods of coal mining, the aristocrat, having "feudal" control over the land where the most productive mines were located, worked through his agents and managers who constantly advised him not to involve himself too deeply in modern industrial enterprise (les entreprises en grand). Ownership here, in terms of land or shares, is not the key issue; it is more a question of “how” investment, technical innovation and “management” of industrial enterprises took place.”

5. at the end of the Old Order and further during the revolution, there were mass uprisings of peasants and townspeople against the methods of economic liberalism (free trade) used in France, against large private enterprises in the cities (while workers and sans-culottes, representing a part of the then bourgeoisie); and against enclosures, the construction of irrigation systems and modernization in the countryside.

6. During the revolution, what came to power was not the “bourgeoisie” that Marxist historians mean - not merchants, entrepreneurs and financiers, but mainly officials and representatives of liberal professions, which is also recognized by a number of “neutral” historians.

Among non-Marxist historians there are different views on the nature of the Great French Revolution. The traditional view, which arose at the end of the 18th - early XIX centuries (Sieyès, Barnave, Guizot) and supported by some modern historians (P. Guber), considers the revolution as a nationwide uprising against the aristocracy, its privileges and its methods of oppressing the masses, hence the revolutionary terror against the privileged classes, the desire of revolutionaries to destroy everything that was associated with The old order, and build a new free and democratic society. From these aspirations flowed the main slogans of the revolution - freedom, equality, brotherhood.

According to the second view, the revolution as a whole (A. Cobben) or by the basic nature of the protest movements (V. Tomsinov, B. Moore, F. Furet) was anti-capitalist in nature, or represented an explosion of mass protest against the spread of free market relations and large enterprises (I. Wallerstein, W. Huneke, A. Milward, S. Saul).According to G. Rude, this is a representation of radical and radical left views. At the same time, the Marxist view of the French Revolution is widespread among radical left politicians such as Louis Blanc, Karl Marx, Jean Jaurès, Peter Kropotkin, who developed this view in their works. Thus, one of the authors adjacent to the Marxist trend, Daniel Guerin, a French anarchist, expressed the neo-Trotskyist in “La lutte des classes sous la Première République, 1793-1797 view - “The French revolution had a double character, bourgeois and permanent, and bore within itself the beginnings of a proletarian revolution,” “anti-capitalist” - summarizes the views of Guerin Wallerstein[, and adds that “Guerin managed to unite both Soboul and Furet against himself,” i.e. e. representatives of both the “classical” and “revisionist” movements - “They both reject such an “implicit” representation of history,” writes Wallerstein. At the same time, among the supporters of the “anti-Marxist” view are mainly professional historians and sociologists (A. Cobben, B. Moore, F. Furet, A. Milward, S. Saul, I. Wallerstein, V. Tomsinov). F. Furet, D. Richet, A. Milward, S. Saul believe that, by its nature or reasons, the Great French Revolution had much in common with the revolution of 1917 in Russia.

There are other opinions about the nature of the revolution. For example, historians F. Furet and D. Richet view the revolution largely as a struggle for power between various factions that replaced each other several times during 1789-1799, which led to a change in the political system, but did not lead to significant changes in social and economic system. There is a view of the revolution as an explosion of social antagonism between the poor and the rich.

Songs of revolutionary France

"Marseillaise"

Among non-Marxist historians, two views prevail on the nature of the Great French Revolution, which do not contradict each other. The traditional view that arose at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. (Sieyès, Barnave, Guizot), considers the revolution as a nationwide uprising against the aristocracy, its privileges and its methods of oppressing the masses, hence the revolutionary terror against the privileged classes, the desire of the revolutionaries to destroy everything that was associated with the Old Order and build a new free and democratic society . From these aspirations flowed the main slogans of the revolution - freedom, equality, brotherhood.

According to the second view, which shares big number modern historians (including V. Tomsinov, I. Wallerstein, P. Huber, A. Cobbo, D. Guerin, E. Leroy Ladurie, B. Moore, Huneke, etc.), the revolution was anti-capitalist in nature and represented an explosion mass protest against capitalism or against those methods of its spread that were used by the ruling elite.

There are other opinions about the nature of the revolution. For example, historians F. Furet and D. Richet view the revolution largely as a struggle for power between various factions that replaced each other several times during 1789-1799. . There is a view of the revolution as the liberation of the bulk of the population (peasants) from a monstrous system of oppression or some kind of slavery, hence the main slogan of the revolution - Liberty, equality, brotherhood. However, there is evidence that at the time of the revolution the vast majority of the French peasantry were personally free, and state taxes and feudal duties were not at all high. The reasons for the revolution are seen to be that it was a peasant revolution caused by the last filling of the reservoir. From this point of view, the French Revolution was systemic in nature and belonged to the same type of revolution as the Dutch Revolution, the English Revolution or the Russian Revolution. .

Convocation of the Estates General

After a number of unsuccessful attempts to get out of a difficult financial situation, Louis XVI announced in December 1787 that he would convene French government officials for a meeting of the States General in five years. When Jacques Necker became a parliamentarian for the second time, he insisted that the Estates General be convened as early as 1789; the government, however, had no specific program.

The rebel peasants burned the castles of the lords, seizing their lands. In some provinces, about half of the landowners' estates were burned or destroyed; these events of 1789 were called the “Great Fear”.

Abolition of class privileges

By decrees of August 4-11, the Constituent Assembly abolished personal feudal duties, seigneurial courts, church tithes, privileges of individual provinces, cities and corporations and declared the equality of all before the law in the payment of state taxes and the right to occupy civil, military and church positions. But at the same time it announced the elimination of only “indirect” duties (the so-called banalities): the “real” duties of the peasants, in particular, land and poll taxes, were retained.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Activities of the Constituent Assembly

Was held administrative reform: The provinces were united into 83 departments with a single judicial system.

Following the principle of civil equality, the assembly abolished class privileges and abolished the institution of hereditary nobility, noble titles and coats of arms.

The policy began to take hold economic liberalism: it was announced that all trade restrictions would be lifted; Medieval guilds and state regulation of entrepreneurship were liquidated, but at the same time, according to Le Chapelier's law, strikes and workers' organizations - companionships - were prohibited.

In July 1790, the Constituent Assembly completed church reform: bishops were appointed to all 83 departments of the country; all church ministers began to receive salaries from the state. The Constituent Assembly demanded that the clergy swear allegiance not to the Pope, but to the French state. Only half of the priests and only 7 bishops decided to take this step. The Pope responded by condemning the French Revolution, all the reforms of the Constituent Assembly, and especially the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.”

Adoption of the constitution

Arrest of Louis XVI

On June 20, 1791, the king tried to escape the country, but was recognized at the border in Varenna by a postal employee and returned to Paris, where he actually found himself in custody in his own palace (the so-called “Varenna crisis”).

On September 3, 1791, the National Assembly proclaimed the fourth constitution in European history (after the Constitution of Pylyp Orlik, the Constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of May 3, and the Constitution of San Marino) and the fifth constitution in the world (the US Constitution of 1787). It proposed to convene a Legislative Assembly - a unicameral parliament based on a high property qualification. There were only 4.3 million “active” citizens who received the right to vote under the constitution, and only 50 thousand electors who elected deputies. Deputies of the National Assembly could not be elected to the new parliament. The Legislative Assembly opened on October 1, 1791. This fact indicated the establishment of a limited monarchy in the country.

At meetings of the Legislative Assembly, the question of starting a war in Europe was raised, primarily as a means of solving internal problems. On April 20, 1792, the King of France, under pressure from the Legislative Assembly, declared war on the Holy Roman Empire. On April 28, 1792, the National Guard launched attacks on the Belgian positions, which ended in complete failure.

From the storming of the Tuileries to the execution of the king

On August 10, 1792, about 20 thousand rebels (the so-called sans-culottes) surrounded the royal palace. His assault was short-lived, but bloody. The attackers were resisted by several thousand soldiers of the Swiss Guard, almost all of whom fell at the Tuileries or were killed in prisons during the “September Murders”. One of the results of this assault was the virtual removal of Louis XVI from power and the emigration of Lafayette.

From this point on, for several months, the highest revolutionary bodies - the National Assembly and the Convention - were under strong influence and pressure from the popular masses (sans-culottes) and in a number of cases were forced to fulfill the immediate demands of the crowd of rebels who surrounded the building of the National Assembly. These demands included the rollback of previously implemented trade liberalization, freezing prices, wages and harsh prosecution of speculators. These measures were taken and lasted until the arrest of Robespierre in July 1794. All this occurred against the backdrop of a rise in mass terror, which, although directed mainly against the aristocracy, led to the executions and murders of tens of thousands of people from all walks of life.

At the end of August, the Prussian army launched an attack on Paris and took Verdun on September 2, 1792. The confusion and fear of the return of the old order in society led to the “September murders” of aristocrats and former soldiers of the king’s Swiss guard, prisoners in prisons in Paris and a number of other cities, which occurred in early September, during which more than 5 thousand people were killed.

Accusations and attacks on the Girondins

The trial of Marie Antoinette

The revolution led to enormous casualties. It is estimated that from 1789 to 1815. Only from revolutionary terror in France up to 2 million civilians died, and up to 2 million soldiers and officers died in wars. Thus, 7.5% of the population of France died in revolutionary battles and wars alone (the population in the city was 27,282,000), not counting those who died over the years from hunger and epidemics. By the end of the Napoleonic era, there were almost no adult men left in France capable of fighting.

At the same time, a number of authors point out that the revolution brought liberation from heavy oppression to the people of France, which could not have been achieved in any other way. A “balanced” view of the revolution views it as a great tragedy in the history of France, but at the same time inevitable, resulting from the severity of class contradictions and accumulated economic and political problems.

Most historians believe that the Great French Revolution had enormous international significance, contributed to the spread of progressive ideas throughout the world, influenced a series of revolutions in Latin America, as a result of which the latter was freed from colonial dependence, and a number of other events in the first half of the 19th century.

Songs of revolutionary France

Revolution in philately

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• The first explosion of the French Revolution. From the reports of the Russian envoy in Paris I. M. Simolin to Vice-Chancellor A. I. Osterman// Russian archive, 1875. - Book. 2. - Issue. 8. - pp. 410-413.
• Popov Yu. V. Publicists of the Great French Revolution. M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2001.
• Revunenkov V. G. Essays on the history of the Great French Revolution. L., 1989.
• Revunenkov V. G. Parisian sans-culottes of the era of the French Revolution. L., 1971.
• Sobul A. From the history of the Great Bourgeois Revolution of 1789-1794. and the revolution of 1848 in France. M., 1960.
• Sobul A. The problem of the nation during the social struggle during the French bourgeois revolution of the 18th century. New and Contemporary History, 1963, No. 6. P.43-58.
• Tarle E. V. Working class in France during the revolution
• Tocqueville A. The old order and revolution. Per. from fr. M. Fedorova. M.: Moscow. Philosophical Foundation, 1997.
• Tyrsenko A. V. Feyants: at the origins of French liberalism. M., 1993.
• Frikadel G.S. Danton. M. 1965.
• Yure F. Understanding the French Revolution. St. Petersburg, 1998.
• Hobsbawm E. Echo of the Marseillaise. M., Inter-Verso, 1991.
• Chudinov A.V. The French Revolution: History and Myths. M.: Nauka, 2006.
• Chudinov A.V. Scientists and the French Revolution

see also

Notes

1. Wallerstein I. The Modern World-System III. The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s. San Diego, 1989, pp. 40-49; Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 265
2. See, for example: Goubert P. L’Ancien Regime. Paris, T. 1, 1969, p. 235
3. The introduction of market relations began in 1763-1771. under Louis XV and continued in subsequent years, until 1789 (see Ancien Regime). The leading role in this was played by liberal economists (physiocrats), who were almost all representatives of the aristocracy (including the head of government, the physiocrat Turgot), and kings Louis XV and Louis XVI were active supporters of these ideas. See Kaplan S. Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the reign of Louis XV. Hague, 1976
4. See Old Order. One such example is the uprising of October 1795 (shot from cannon by Napoleon), in which 24 thousand armed bourgeois - residents of the central districts of Paris - took part. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek and others, Minsk, 1997-1999, vol. 16, p. 86-90. Another example is the uprising of the sans-culottes on August 10, 1792, who for the most part represented the petty bourgeoisie (small businesses, artisans, etc.) opposing big business - the aristocracy. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 109
5. Goubert P. L'Ancien Regime. Paris, T. 2, 1973, p. 247
6. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 255
7. Wallerstein I. The Modern World-System III. The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s. San Diego, 1989, pp. 40-49
8. Furet F. et Richet D. La revolution francaise. Paris, 1973, pp. 213, 217
9. Goubert P. L'Ancien Regime. Paris, T. 1, 1969; Kuzovkov Yu. World history of corruption. M., 2010, chapter XIII
10. Aleksakha A. G. Introduction to progressology. Moscow, 2004 p. 208-233 alexakha.ucoz.com/vvedenie_v_progressologiju.doc
11. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek et al., Minsk, 1998, vol. 16, p. 7-9
12. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek et al., Minsk, 1998, vol. 16, p. 14
13. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 71
14. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 111, 118
15. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek et al., Minsk, 1998, vol. 16, p. 37-38

Almost all nations have had revolutions in history. But today we will talk about the French Revolution, which began to be called the Great.

The largest transformation of the social and political system of France, which led to the destruction of the absolute monarchy and the proclamation of the First French Republic.

We will tell you about the Great French Revolution from various sources.

Source I – Wikipedia

Reasons for the revolution

The beginning of the revolution was the capture of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and historians consider the end to be November 9, 1799 (the coup of the 18th Brumaire).

France in the 18th century was an absolute monarchy, based on bureaucratic centralization and a regular army. The socio-economic and political regime that existed in the country was formed as a result of complex compromises developed during the long political confrontation and civil wars of the 14th-16th centuries. One of these compromises existed between royal power and privileged classes - for the renunciation of political rights, state power protected the social privileges of these two classes with all the means at its disposal.

Another compromise existed in relation to the peasantry - during a long series of peasant wars in the 14th-16th centuries. peasants achieved the abolition of the overwhelming majority of cash taxes and the transition to natural relations in agriculture. The third compromise existed in relation to the bourgeoisie (which at that time was the middle class, in whose interests the government also did a lot, maintaining a number of privileges of the bourgeoisie in relation to the bulk of the population (peasantry) and supporting the existence of tens of thousands of small enterprises, the owners of which constituted a layer of French bourgeois). However, the regime that emerged as a result of these complex compromises did not ensure the normal development of France, which in the 18th century. began to lag behind its neighbors, primarily from England. In addition, excessive exploitation increasingly armed the masses against the monarchy, whose vital interests were completely ignored by the state.

Gradually during the 18th century. At the top of French society, there was a mature understanding that the old order, with its underdeveloped market relations, chaos in the management system, corrupt system for selling government positions, lack of clear legislation, confusing taxation system and archaic system of class privileges, needed to be reformed. In addition, royal power was losing credibility in the eyes of the clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie, among whom the idea was asserted that the power of the king was a usurpation in relation to the rights of estates and corporations (Montesquieu's point of view) or in relation to the rights of the people (Rousseau's point of view). Thanks to the activities of educators, of whom the physiocrats and encyclopedists were especially important, a revolution took place in the minds of the educated part of French society. Finally, under Louis XV and even more so under Louis XVI, liberal reforms were begun in the political and economic fields. The granting of some political rights to the third estate, along with a significant deterioration in its economic position as a result of reforms, inevitably led to the collapse of the Old Order.

The meaning of the Great French Revolution

Accelerated the development of capitalism and the collapse of feudalism
Influenced the entire subsequent struggle of peoples for the principles of democracy
Became a lesson, example and warning to life transformers in other countries
Contributed to the development of national self-awareness of European peoples

Source II – catastrofe.ru

Characteristic look

The Great French Revolution is the largest transformation of the social and political systems of France, which occurred at the end of the 18th century, as a result of which the Old Order was destroyed, and France from a monarchy became a de jure republic of free and equal citizens. Motto: Freedom, equality, brotherhood.
The beginning of the revolution was the capture of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and various historians consider its end to be July 27, 1794 (Thermidorian coup) or November 9, 1799 (Coup of the 18th Brumaire).

Marxist historians argue that the Great French Revolution was “bourgeois” in nature, consisted of replacing the feudal system with a capitalist one, and the leading role in this process was played by the “bourgeois class”, which overthrew the “feudal aristocracy” during the revolution. Most other historians disagree with this, pointing out that feudalism in France disappeared several centuries before the revolution; the French aristocracy actually included not only large landowners, but also large capitalists) it was the French aristocracy that imposed capitalist (market) relations for 25 years. 30 years preceding 1789, the revolution began with mass uprisings of peasants and townspeople, which were anti-capitalist in nature, and they continued throughout its entire course, and the bourgeoisie, which represented the French middle class, also took an active part in them) Those who found themselves in power after During the first stage of the revolution, especially in the provinces, the majority did not come from the bourgeoisie, but were nobles who, even before the revolution, were at the helm of power - collecting taxes, rent from the population, etc.

Among non-Marxist historians, two views prevail on the nature of the Great French Revolution, which do not contradict each other. The traditional view that arose at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. (Sieyès, Barnave, Guizot), considers the revolution as a nationwide uprising against the aristocracy, its privileges and its methods of oppressing the masses, hence the revolutionary terror against the privileged classes, the desire of the revolutionaries to destroy everything associated with the Old Order and build a new free and democratic society . From these aspirations flowed the main slogans of the revolution - freedom, equality, brotherhood.

According to the second view, which is shared by a large number of modern historians (including I. Wallerstein, P. Guber, A. Cobbo, D. Guerin, E. Leroy Ladurie, B. Moore, Huneke, etc.), the revolution was anti-capitalist in nature and represented represents an explosion of mass protest against capitalism or against those methods of its spread that were used by the ruling elite.

There are other opinions about the nature of the revolution. For example, historians F. Furet and D. Richet view the revolution to a large extent as a struggle for power between various factions that replaced each other several times during 1789-1799. There is a view of the revolution as the liberation of the bulk of the population (peasants) from a monstrous system of oppression or some kind of slavery, hence the main slogan of the revolution - freedom, equality, brotherhood.

From the storming of the Bastille to the march on Versailles

When the royal court's preparations for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly became obvious, this was enough to cause an even greater outburst of discontent among the Parisians, who linked the prospects for improving their position with the work of the National Assembly. On July 12, 1789, new clashes occurred between the people and the troops in Paris; Camille Desmoulins called the people to arms by attaching a green ribbon to his hat. On July 13, the alarm sounded over Paris.
On the morning of July 14, 12 cannons, 32 thousand rifles and gunpowder for them were captured in the Invalides. Countless crowds of people, armed partly with guns, but also with pikes, hammers, axes and clubs, flooded the streets adjacent to the Bastille, a military fortress and the main political prison of Paris. The officers of the regiments stationed in Paris no longer counted on their soldiers. Communication with Versailles was interrupted. At about one o'clock in the afternoon the fortress's cannons began firing at the people.

However, the people continued the siege, and the cannons captured in the morning were prepared to bombard the fortress. The garrison realized that resistance was pointless, and surrendered at about five o'clock.
The king was forced to acknowledge the existence of the Constituent Assembly. In the following weeks, the revolution spread throughout the country. On July 18, an uprising took place in Troyes, on July 19 in Strasbourg, on July 21 in Cherbourg, and on July 24 in Rouen. In a number of cities, uprisings took place under the slogans “Bread! Death to the buyers! The rebels seized grain, took possession of local town halls, and burned documents stored there.

Subsequently, new elected authorities - municipalities - were formed in the cities, and a new armed force was created - the National Guard.
The rebel peasants burned the castles of the lords, seizing their lands. In some provinces, about half of the landowners' estates were burned or destroyed. (these events of 1789 were called the “Great Fear” - Grande Peur).

By decrees of August 4-11, the Constituent Assembly abolished personal feudal duties, seigneurial courts, church tithes, privileges of individual provinces, cities and corporations and declared the equality of all before the law in the payment of state taxes and the right to occupy civil, military and church positions. But at the same time it announced the elimination of only “indirect” duties (the so-called banalities): the “real” duties of the peasants, in particular, land and poll taxes, were retained.

On August 26, 1789, the Constituent Assembly adopted the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” - one of the first documents of democratic constitutionalism. The “old regime”, based on class privileges and the arbitrariness of the authorities, was opposed to the equality of all before the law, the inalienability of “natural” human rights, popular sovereignty, freedom of opinion, the principle “everything is permitted that is not prohibited by law” and other democratic principles of revolutionary enlightenment, which have now become requirements of law and current legislation. The Declaration also affirmed the right of private property as a natural right.

On October 5, a march took place on Versailles to the king's residence in order to force Louis XVI to authorize the decrees and Declaration, which the monarch had previously refused to approve. At the same time, the National Assembly ordered Lafayette, commander of the National Guard, to lead the guards to Versailles. As a result of this campaign, the king was forced to leave Versailles and move to Paris, to the Tuileries Palace.

Source III – studopedia.ru

I am the Kobe dictatorship

On September 21, the Republic (First Republic) was proclaimed in France. The motto of the Republic was the slogan “Liberty, equality and fraternity.”

The question that worried everyone then was the fate of the arrested King Louis XVI. The convention decided to try him. On January 14, 1793, 387 deputies of the Convention out of 749 voted in favor of imposing the death penalty on the king. One of the deputies of the Convention explained his participation in the vote this way: “This process is an act of public salvation or a measure of public safety...” On January 21, Louis XVI was executed, and in October 1793, Queen Marie Antoinette was executed.

The execution of Louis XVI served as a reason for the expansion of the anti-French coalition, which included England and Spain. Failures on the external front, deepening economic difficulties within the country, rising taxes - all this shook the position of the Girondins. Unrest intensified in the country, pogroms and murders began, and on May 31 - June 2, 1793, a popular uprising took place. The third stage of the Revolution begins with this event.

Power passed into the hands of radical strata of the bourgeoisie, which relied on the bulk of the urban population and the peasantry. The Montagnards' national victory was preceded by their victory over their opponents in the Jacobin Club; therefore, the regime they established was called the Jacobin dictatorship. To save the revolution, the Jacobins considered it necessary to introduce an emergency regime. The Jacobins recognized the centralization of state power as an indispensable condition. The Convention remained the highest legislative body. Subordinate to him was a government of 11 people - the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Robespierre. The Committee of Public Safety of the Convention for the fight against and counter-revolution was strengthened, and revolutionary tribunals were activated.

The position of the new government was difficult. The war was raging. There were riots in most departments of France, especially the Vendée. In the summer of 1793, Marat was killed by a young noblewoman, Charlotte Corday, which had a serious impact on the course of further political events.

The Jacobins continued their attack on the Catholic Church and introduced a republican calendar. In June 1793, the Convention adopted a new constitution, according to which France was declared a single and indivisible Republic; the supremacy of the people, equality of people in rights, and broad democratic freedoms were consolidated. The property qualification for participation in elections to government bodies was abolished; all men over the age of 21 received voting rights. Wars of conquest were condemned. This constitution was the most democratic of all French constitutions, but its implementation was delayed due to the state of emergency in the country.

The Jacobin dictatorship, which successfully used the initiative of the social lower classes, demonstrated a complete denial of liberal principles. Industrial production and agriculture, finance and trade, public celebrations and the private life of citizens - everything was subject to strict regulation. However, this did not stop the further deepening of the economic and social crisis. In September 1793 the Convention "put terror on the agenda."

The Committee for Public Safety carried out a number of important measures to reorganize and strengthen the army, thanks to which in a fairly short time the Republic managed to create not only a large, but also a well-armed army. And by the beginning of 1794, the war was transferred to enemy territory. The decisive victory of General J. B. Jourdan on June 26, 1794 at Fleurus (Belgium) over the Austrians guaranteed the inviolability of the new property, the tasks of the Jacobin dictatorship were exhausted, and the need for it disappeared.

Internal divisions intensified among the Jacobins. Thus, since the autumn of 1793, Danton demanded the weakening of the revolutionary dictatorship, a return to constitutional order, and a renunciation of the policy of terror. He was executed. The lower classes demanded deeper reforms. Most of the bourgeoisie, dissatisfied with the policies of the Jacobins, who pursued a restrictive regime and dictatorial methods, switched to positions of counter-revolution, dragging along significant masses of peasants.

On Thermidor 9 (July 27), 1794, the conspirators managed to carry out a coup, arrest Robespierre, and overthrow the revolutionary government. “The Republic is lost, the kingdom of robbers has come,” these were the last words of Robespierre at the Convention. On the 10th of Thermidor, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and their closest associates were guillotined.

Thermidorian coup and the Directory. In September 1794, for the first time in the history of France, a decree was adopted on the separation of church and state. Confiscations and sales of emigrant property did not stop.

In 1795, a new constitution was adopted, according to which power transferred to the Directory and two councils - the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Elders. Universal suffrage was abolished, and the property qualification (albeit a small one) was restored. In the summer of 1795, the republican army of General L. Ghosh defeated the forces of the rebels - the Chouans and royalists, who landed from English ships on the Quiberon Peninsula (Brittany). On October 5 (13 Vendemier), 1795, the republican troops of Napoleon Bonaparte suppressed the royalist rebellion in Paris. However, in the politics of the changing groups in power (Thermidorians, the Directory), the struggle with the masses of the people became increasingly widespread. Were suppressed popular uprisings in Paris April 1 and May 20-23, 1795 (12-13 Germinal and 1-4 Prairial). On November 9, 1799, the Council of Elders appointed Brigadier General Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) as commander of the army. Large-scale external aggression - the Napoleonic wars in Italy, Egypt, etc. - protected Thermidorian France both from the threat of the restoration of the old order and from a new rise in the revolutionary movement.

The revolution ended on November 9 (18 Brumaire), 1799, when the Directory regime was “legally” liquidated and a new state order was established - the Consulate, which lasted from 1799 to 1804. “Solid power” was established - the dictatorship of Napoleon.

The main results of the Great French Revolution

1. It consolidated and simplified the complex variety of pre-revolutionary forms of ownership.

2. The lands of many (but not all) nobles were sold to peasants in small plots (parcels) in installments over 10 years.

3. Abolished the privileges of the nobility and clergy and introduced equal social opportunities for all citizens. All this contributed to the expansion of civil rights in all European countries and the introduction of constitutions.

4. The revolution took place under the auspices of representative elected bodies: the National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791), the Legislative Assembly (1791–1792), the Convention (1792–1794). This contributed to the development of parliamentary democracy, despite subsequent setbacks.

5. The resolution gave birth to something new government structure- parliamentary republic.

6. The state was now the guarantor of equal rights for all citizens.

7. The financial system was transformed: the class nature of taxes was abolished, the principle of their universality and proportionality to income or property was introduced. The budget was declared open.

The 18th century is considered to be the century of the Great French Revolution. The overthrow of the monarchy, revolutionary movements and vivid examples of terror eclipsed in their cruelty even the bloody events of the October Revolution of 1917. The French prefer to bashfully remain silent and in every possible way romanticize this period in their history. The French Revolution is difficult to overestimate. A striking example how the most bloodthirsty and terrible beast, dressed in the robes of Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood, is ready to sink its fangs into anyone, and its name is Revolution.

Prerequisites for the start of the revolution: socio-economic and political crisis

Upon ascending the throne in 1774, he appointed Robert Turgot as Comptroller General of Finance, but a wide range of reforms proposed by this politician were rejected. The aristocracy strenuously clung to its privileges, and all extortions and duties fell heavily on the shoulders of the third estate, whose representatives in France numbered 90%.

In 1778, Turgot was replaced by Necker. He abolishes serfdom in the royal domains, torture during interrogations, and limits court expenses, but these measures were only a drop in the ocean. Absolutism did not allow capitalist relations to develop in society. Therefore, a change in economic formations was only a matter of time. There was a deepening economic crisis, expressed in rising prices in the absence of production growth. Inflation, which hit the poorest segments of the population hard, was one of the catalysts that spurred the growth of revolutionary sentiment in society.

The US War of Independence also set an excellent example, inspiring hope in the revolutionary-minded French. If we talk briefly about the Great French Revolution (and about the preconditions that were ripe), then we should also note the political crisis in France. The aristocracy considered itself located between a rock and a hard place - the king and the people. Therefore, she fiercely blocked all innovations that, in her opinion, threatened liberties and preferences. The king understood that at least something had to be done: France could no longer live in the old way.

Convocation of the Estates General on May 5, 1789

All three classes pursued their own goals and objectives. The king hoped to avoid economic collapse by reforming the tax system. The aristocracy wanted to maintain its position; it clearly did not need reforms. The common people, or the third estate, hoped that they would become the platform where their demands would finally be heard. Swan, crayfish and pike...

Fierce disputes and discussions, thanks to the enormous support of the people, were successfully resolved in favor of the third estate. Of the 1,200 parliamentary seats, 610, or the majority, went to representatives of the broad masses. And soon they had the opportunity to show their political strength. On June 17, at the ball arena, representatives of the people, taking advantage of the confusion and vacillation among the clergy and aristocracy, announced the creation of the National Assembly, vowing not to disperse until a Constitution was developed. The clergy and part of the nobles supported them. The Third Estate showed that it must be taken into account.

Storming of the Bastille

The beginning of the Great French Revolution was marked by a significant event - the storming of the Bastille. The French celebrate this day as a national holiday. As for historians, their opinions are divided: there are skeptics who believe that there was no capture: the garrison itself voluntarily surrendered, and everything happened because of the frivolity of the crowd. We need to clarify some points right away. There was a capture, and there were victims. Several people tried to lower the bridge, and it crushed these unfortunate people. The garrison could resist; it had guns and experience. There was not enough food, but history knows examples of heroic defenses of fortresses.

Based on the documents, we have the following: from the Minister of Finance Necker to the deputy commandant of the Pugeot fortress, everyone spoke out about the abolition of the Bastille, expressing universal opinion. The fate of the famous fortress-prison was predetermined - it would have been demolished anyway. But history does not know the subjunctive mood: on July 14, 1789, the Bastille was stormed, and this marked the beginning of the Great French Revolution.

A constitutional monarchy

The determination of the people of France forced the government to make concessions. City municipalities were transformed into a commune - an independent revolutionary government. A new state flag was adopted - the famous French tricolor. The National Guard was led by de Lafayette, who became famous in the American War of Independence. The National Assembly began forming a new government and drafting a Constitution. On August 26, 1789, the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” was adopted - the most important document in the history of the French Revolution. It declared the fundamental rights and freedoms of the new France. Now everyone had the right to freedom of conscience and resistance to oppression. He could openly express his opinion and be protected from attacks on private property. Now everyone was equal before the law and had equal obligations to taxation. the French Revolution was expressed in every line of this progressive document. While most European countries continued to suffer from social inequality generated by the remnants of the Middle Ages.

And although the reforms of 1789-1791. many things changed radically, the adoption of a law to suppress any uprising was directed against the poor. It was also forbidden to form unions and conduct strikes. The workers have been deceived again.

On September 3, 1891, a new Constitution was adopted. It gave the right to vote only to a limited number of representatives of the middle strata. A new Legislative Assembly was convened, whose members could not be re-elected. All this contributed to the radicalization of the population and the possibility of the emergence of terror and despotism.

Threat of external invasion and fall of the monarchy

England was afraid that with the adoption of advanced economic reforms, the influence of France would increase, so all efforts were thrown into preparing the invasion of Austria and Prussia. Patriotic French people supported the call to defend the Motherland. The French National Guard advocated the removal of the king's power, the creation of a republic and the election of a new national convention. The Duke of Brunswick issued a manifesto outlining his intentions: to invade France and destroy the revolution. After they learned about him in Paris, the events of the Great French Revolution began to develop rapidly. On August 10, the rebels went to the Tuileries and, having defeated the Swiss Guards, arrested the king's family. The illustrious persons were placed in the Temple fortress.

War and its impact on the revolution

If we briefly characterize the Great French Revolution, it should be noted that the mood in French society was an explosive mixture of suspicion, fear, mistrust and bitterness. Lafayette fled, the border fortress of Longwy surrendered without a fight. Purges, arrests and mass executions began on the initiative of the Jacobins. The majority in the Convention were Girondins - they organized the defense and even won victories at first. Their plans were extensive: from the liquidation of the Paris Commune to the capture of Holland. By that time, France was at war with almost all of Europe.

Personal disputes and squabbles, a drop in living standards and an economic blockade - under the influence of these factors, the influence of the Girondins began to fade, which the Jacobins took advantage of. The betrayal of General Dumouriez served as an excellent reason to accuse the government of aiding its enemies and remove him from power. Danton headed the Committee of Public Safety - executive power was concentrated in the hands of the Jacobins. The significance of the Great French Revolution and the ideals that it stood for have lost all meaning. Terror and violence swept through France.

Apogee of terror

France was going through one of the most difficult periods in its history. Her army was retreating, the southwest, under the influence of the Girondins, rebelled. In addition, supporters of the monarchy became more active. The death of Marat shocked Robespierre so much that he only thirsted for blood.

The functions of the government were transferred to the Committee of Public Safety - a wave of terror swept through France. After the adoption of the decree of June 10, 1794, the accused were deprived of the right to defense. The results of the Great French Revolution during the Jacobin dictatorship - approximately 35 thousand died and over 120 thousand fled into exile.

The policy of terror so consumed its creators that the republic, having become hated, perished.

Napoleon Bonaparte

France had been drained of blood by civil war, and the revolution had lost its momentum and grip. Everything changed: now the Jacobins themselves were persecuted and persecuted. Their club was closed, and the Committee of Public Safety gradually lost power. The Convention, defending the interests of those who enriched themselves during the years of the revolution, on the contrary, strengthened its positions, but its position remained precarious. Taking advantage of this, the Jacobins staged a rebellion in May 1795, which, although it was harshly suppressed, it accelerated the dissolution of the Convention.

Moderate Republicans and Girondins created the Directory. France is mired in corruption, debauchery and a complete breakdown of morals. One of the most prominent figures in the Directory was Count Barras. He noticed Napoleon Bonaparte and promoted him through the ranks, sending him on military campaigns.

The people finally lost faith in the Directory and its political leaders, which Napoleon took advantage of. On November 9, 1799, the consular regime was proclaimed. All executive power was concentrated in the hands of the first consul - Napoleon Bonaparte. The functions of the other two consuls were only advisory in nature. The revolution is over.

Fruits of the revolution

The results of the Great French Revolution were expressed in a change in economic formations and changes in socio-economic relations. The church and aristocracy finally lost their former power and influence. France embarked on the economic path of capitalism and progress. Its people, seasoned in battle and adversity, possessed the most powerful combat-ready army of that time. The significance of the Great French Revolution is great: the ideals of equality and dreams of freedom were formed in the minds of many European peoples. But at the same time, there was also a fear of new revolutionary upheavals.