By Lakshay Khanna

A3221510015
BBA LLB (H)

FRENCH
REVOLUTION
French Project
In this project, I intend to put some light on one of the most important chapters of French
history – The French Revolution.

The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval
in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries
collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation
as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault
from liberal political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and
tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights.

The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May.
The first year of the Revolution witnessed members of the Third Estate proclaiming
the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic
march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years
were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and conservative monarchy
intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King
Louis XVI was executed the next year. External threats also played a dominant role in the
development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and
ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian
peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine—achievements that had
defied previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular sentiments radicalized
the Revolution significantly, culminating in the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during
which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed. After the fall of Robespierre and
the Jacobins, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until
1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.

The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of
republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of
modern ideologies and the invention of total war all mark their birth during the Revolution.
Subsequent events that can be traced to the Revolution include the Napoleonic Wars, two
separate restorations of the monarchy and two additional revolutions as modern France took
shape. In the following century, France would be governed at one point or another as
a republic, constitutional monarchy and two different empires.
Financial crisis:
Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the nation was nearing bankruptcy
and outlays outpaced income. This was because of France’s financial obligations stemming
from involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American
Revolutionary War. In May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after he failed to
enact much needed reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed
Comptroller-General of Finance. He could not be made an official minister because he was a
Protestant. Necker realized that the country's tax system, which was perceived as
quite regressive, subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden; while numerous exemptions
existed for the nobility and clergy. He argued that the country could not be taxed higher, that
tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced, and proposed that borrowing
more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support
this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed
restricting the power of the parlements. This was not received well by the King's ministers
and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister. The King refused,
Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the
Comptrollership. Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial
situation and proposed a new tax code. The proposal included a consistent land tax, which
would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the
parliaments, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables. But the
Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through
its criticism. In response, the King promulgated calling of the Estates-General, for May 1789,
the first time the body had been summoned since 1614. This was a signal that the Bourbon
monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.

National Assembly (1789):

In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis
XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse
that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not
allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor real
tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under
which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of
the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27
June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large
numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from
Paris and other French cities.

Legacy:
The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the
general public and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have
been characterized as falling along ideological lines, with liberal, conservative, communist,
and anarchist scholars—among others—disagreeing over the significance and the major
developments of the Revolution. Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation
of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance. Other
thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the
product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the
old order—a claim rooted in the belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate
complaints. Other historians, influenced by Marxist thinking, have emphasized the
importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution as a
gigantic class struggle. In general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the
political ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social
history that analyses the impact of the Revolution on individual lives.

Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human
history, and the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500, is traditionally
attributed to the onset of the French Revolution in 1789. The Revolution is, in fact, often seen
as marking the "dawn of the modern era". Within France itself, the Revolution permanently
crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two
institutions survived despite the damage they sustained. After the collapse of the First
Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges earned since the Revolution,
but they remembered the participatory politics that characterized the period, with one
historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained first-hand
experience in the political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they
joined new organizations; and they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a
tradition, and republicanism an enduring option." Some historians argue that the French
people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination
of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social
deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution. Outside
France, the Revolution captured the imagination of the world. It had a profound impact on
the Russian Revolution and its ideas were imbibed by Mao Zedong in his efforts at
constructing a communist state in China.