THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION, the revolution of the late 18th century, which eliminated the "old order".
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION
Background.
1787–1789.
The Great French Revolution can be considered with sufficient reason 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") it was undemocratic by its very nature.
The first two estates, which had special privileges – the nobility and the clergy strengthened their positions, relying on a system of various kinds of state institutions.
The monarch's rule was based on these privileged estates.
"Absolute" monarchs could only implement such policies and carry out only such reforms that strengthened the power of these estates.
By the 1770s, the aristocracy felt pressure from two sides at once.
On the one hand, its rights were encroached upon by the "enlightened" monarchs of the reformers (in France, Sweden and Austria); on the other hand, the third, unprivileged, estate sought to eliminate or at least reduce the privileges of the aristocrats and clergy.
By 1789, in France, the strengthening of the king's position caused a reaction from the first estates, 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 States General – something like a national representative body that has long existed in France, but has not been convened since 1614.
It was the convocation 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, there has been a constant increase in prices in the country, caused by the depreciation of the growing mass of metal money and the expansion of credit benefits – in the absence of production growth.
Inflation hit the poor hardest of all.
At the same time, some representatives of all three estates were influenced by educational ideas.
The famous writers Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau proposed to introduce in France the English constitution and the judicial system, in which they saw guarantees of individual freedoms and effective government.
The success of the War of Independence of the United States breathed new hopes into the determined French.
Convocation of the States General.
The States General, convened on May 5, 1789, had the task of resolving the economic, social and political problems facing France at the end of the 18th century.
The king hoped to reach an agreement on a new tax system and avoid financial collapse.
The aristocracy sought to use the States General to block any reforms.
The Third Estate welcomed the convocation of the States General, seeing an opportunity to present their demands for reforms at their meetings.
The preparation for the revolution, during which discussions about the general principles of government and the need for a constitution were expanding, lasted for 10 months.
Lists, so called instructions, were compiled everywhere.
Thanks to the temporary relaxation of censorship, the country was flooded with pamphlets.
It was decided to grant the third estate an equal number of seats in the States General with the other two estates.
However, the question of whether the estates should vote separately or together with other estates was not resolved, as well as the question of the nature of their powers remained open.
In the spring of 1789, elections were held for all three estates 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, the King officially opened the first meeting of the States General in Versailles
The first signs of a revolution.
The States General, who did not receive any clear instructions from the King and his ministers, got bogged down in disputes about the procedure.
Heated by the political debates taking place in the country, various groups took irreconcilable positions on fundamental issues.
By the end of May, the second and third estates (the nobility and the bourgeoisie) completely disagreed, and the first (the clergy) split and sought to gain time.
Between June 10 and 17, the third estate took the initiative and declared itself a National Assembly.
By doing so, it asserted its right to represent the entire nation and demanded the authority to revise the constitution.
In doing so, it disregarded the authority of the king and the requirements of the other two estates.
The National Assembly has decided that in the event of its dissolution, the temporarily approved tax system will be canceled.
On June 19, the clergy voted by a small 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 the nearby ballroom swore not to disperse until the new constitution was put into effect.
On July 9, the National Assembly declared itself a Constituent Assembly.
The gathering of the royal troops to Paris caused a ferment among the population.
In the first half of July, unrest and unrest began in the capital.
The National Guard was created by the municipal authorities to protect the lives and property of citizens.
These riots resulted in the storming of the hated royal fortress of the Bastille, in which the National guardsmen and the people took part.
The fall of the Bastille on July 14 was a vivid evidence of the impotence of the royal power and a symbol of the collapse of despotism.
At the same time, the assault caused a wave of violence that swept across the country.
Residents of villages and small towns burned the houses of the nobility, destroyed their debt obligations.
At the same time, the mood of "great fear" was spreading among the common people – panic associated with the spread of rumors about the approach of "bandits" allegedly bribed by aristocrats.
When some well known aristocrats began to leave the country and periodic army expeditions began from starving cities to rural areas to requisition food, a wave of mass hysteria swept through the provinces, generating blind violence and destruction.
On July 11, the reformist banker minister Jacques Necker was dismissed 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 War of Independence of the United States, was elected commander of the emerging new National Guard, consisting of representatives of the middle classes.
A new state 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 a Commune – in fact, an independent revolutionary government that recognized only the authority of the National Assembly.
The latter assumed responsibility for the formation of a new government and the adoption of a new constitution.
On August 4, the aristocracy and the clergy renounced their rights and privileges.
By August 26, the National Assembly approved the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights, which proclaimed the freedom of the individual, conscience, speech, the right to property and resistance to oppression.
It was emphasized that sovereignty belongs to the whole nation, and the law should be a manifestation of the common will.
All citizens should be equal before the law, have the same rights when holding public positions, as well as equal obligations to pay taxes.
The declaration "signed" the death sentence of the old regime.
Louis XVI delayed approving the August decrees that abolished church tithes and most feudal fees.
On September 15, the Constituent Assembly demanded that the King approve the decrees.
In response, he began to pull troops to Versailles, where the assembly was meeting.
This had an exciting effect on the townspeople, who saw the king's actions as a threat of counter revolution.
Living conditions in the capital were deteriorating, food supplies were decreasing, and many were left without work.
The Paris commune, whose sentiments were expressed by the popular press, set up the capital to fight against the king.
On October 5, hundreds of women marched on foot 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 Citizen.
The next day, the royal family, who had actually become a hostage of the gloating crowd, moved to Paris under the escort of the National Guard.
10 days later, it was followed by the Constituent Assembly.
The situation in October 1789.
By the end of October 1789, the pieces on the chessboard of the revolution had moved to new positions, which was caused by both previous changes and accidental circumstances.
The power of the privileged classes was finished.
The emigration of representatives of the highest aristocracy has significantly increased.
The Church – with the exception of some of the higher clergy has linked its fate with liberal transformations.
The Constituent Assembly was dominated by liberal and constitutional reformers who came into confrontation with the king (now they could consider themselves the voice of the nation).
During this period, much depended on the persons in power.
Louis XVI, a well intentioned, but indecisive and weak willed king, lost the initiative and no longer had control of the situation.
Queen Marie Antoinette – the "Austrian" - was unpopular because of her extravagance and connections with other royal courts of Europe.
The Comte de Mirabeau, the only moderate who possessed 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, which was freed from censorship and gained significant influence, mostly passed into the hands of extreme radicals.
Some of them, for example, Marat, who published the newspaper "Ami du Peuple", exerted a vigorous influence on public opinion.
Street speakers and agitators at the Palais Royal excited the crowd with their speeches.
Taken together, these elements made up a rattling mixture.
CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
The work of the Constituent Assembly.
The experiment with a constitutional monarchy, which began in October, gave rise to 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 postpone the adoption of laws, but did not have the right of veto.
The legislative body could act independently of the executive branch and intended to use the current situation.
The Constituent Assembly limited the electorate to about 4 million French people with a total population of 26 million, taking as a 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 were less successful.
The taxation system, although it was reorganized, could not ensure the solvency of the government.
In November 1789, the Constituent Assembly carried out the nationalization of church land holdings in order to find funds to pay the salaries of priests, for divine services, education and assistance to the poor.
In the following months, it issued government debt obligations to secure the nationalized church lands.
The famous "assignats" rapidly depreciated during the year, which spurred inflation.
The 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 assembly prepared a new decree on the civil status of the clergy, which actually subordinated the church to the state.
Ecclesiastical positions were to be held according to the results of popular elections, and newly elected bishops were forbidden to recognize the jurisdiction of the papal see.
In November 1790, all non orthodox 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.
A religious schism was added to the political differences, and 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 Venessen papal enclaves on French territory.
On June 20, 1791, late at night, the royal family disappeared from the Tuileries Palace through a secret door.
The whole 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 for escorting and changing horses were disrupted, and the group was detained in the town of Varennes.
The news of the flight caused panic and a premonition of civil war.
The news of the capture of the king forced the Assembly to close the borders and put the army on alert.
The law enforcement forces 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 party of moderate constitutionalists in the Assembly.
In the Constituent Assembly, the differences between the constitutionalists, who sought to preserve the monarchy and public order, and the radicals, who aimed at overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a democratic republic, intensified.
The latter strengthened their positions on August 27, when the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Prussia published the Pilnitz Declaration.
Although both monarchs refrained from invading and used rather cautious wording in the declaration, it was perceived in France as a call for joint intervention by foreign states.
Indeed, it clearly stated that the position of Louis XVI was "the concern of all the sovereigns of Europe."
The Constitution of 1791.
Meanwhile, the new constitution was adopted on September 3, 1791, and publicly approved by the king on September 14.
It assumed the creation of a new Legislative Assembly.
The right to vote was granted to a limited number of representatives of the middle classes.
The members of the Assembly were not eligible for re election.
Thus, the new Legislative Assembly threw away the accumulated political and parliamentary experience at one blow 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 the executive and legislative powers created the prerequisites for a deadlock, since few people believed that the king and his ministers would cooperate with the Assembly.
By itself, the Constitution of 1791 had no chance of embodying its principles in the socio political situation that developed in France after the flight of the royal family.
After her capture, Queen Marie Antoinette began to profess extremely reactionary views, resumed intrigues with the Emperor of Austria and made no attempts to return the emigrants.
The European monarchs were alarmed by the events in France.
Emperor Leopold of Austria, who took the throne after Joseph II in February 1790, as well as Gustav III of Sweden stopped the wars in which they were involved.
By the beginning of 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 involve Austria and Prussia in the war with France and to provide Russia with a free hand to continue the war with the Ottoman Empire.
The most profound response to the events in France appeared in 1790 in England – in E. Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Over the next few years, this book was read all over Europe.
Burke contrasted the wisdom of the ages with the doctrine of natural human rights, and the projects of radical reconstruction with a warning about the expensive 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.
The Legislative Assembly.
The new constitution created insoluble contradictions, first of all between the king and the Assembly, since the ministers did not enjoy the confidence of either the first or the second and were also deprived of the right to sit in the Legislative Assembly.
In addition, the contradictions between the competing political forces intensified, as the Paris Commune and political clubs (for example, the Jacobins and the Cordeliers) began to express doubts about the authority of the Assembly and the central government.
Finally, the Assembly became the scene of a struggle between the warring political parties the Feuillants (moderate constitutionalists), who were the first to come to power, and the Brissotins (radical followers of J.-P.Brissot).
The key ministers Count Louis de Narbon (the illegitimate son of Louis XV), and after him Charles Dumouriez (a former diplomat under Louis XV) – pursued an anti Austrian policy and considered war as a means of containing the revolution, as well as restoring order and the monarchy based on the army.
Carrying out such a policy, Narbon and Dumouriez became increasingly close to the Brissotins, who later became known as the Girondists, since many of their leaders came from the Gironde district.
In November 1791, in order to bring down the wave of emigration, which negatively affected 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 the 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 financial support and subjected to imprisonment.
In December, Louis XVI vetoed both decrees, which was a further step towards an open confrontation between the crown and the radicals.
In March 1792, the king dismissed Narbon and the ministers of the Feuillants, who were replaced by Brissotins.
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, which later resulted in a series of ultimatums, the Assembly declared war on Austria.
The war is outside the country.
The French army was poorly prepared for military operations, only about 130 thousand undisciplined and poorly armed soldiers were under arms.
Soon it suffered several defeats, the serious consequences of which immediately affected the country.
Maximilien Robespierre, the leader of the extreme Jacobin wing of the Girondists, consistently opposed the war, believing that first the counter revolution should be crushed inside the country, and then fight it outside it.
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 calculations of the war party to restore the prestige of the king turned out to be completely untenable.
The leadership in Paris was seized by the radicals.
The fall of the monarchy.
On June 13, 1792, the king vetoed the previous decrees of the Assembly, dismissed the Brissotin ministers and returned the Feuillants to power.
This step towards reaction provoked a number of riots in Paris, where again – as in July 1789 there was an increase in economic difficulties.
On July 20, it was planned to hold a popular demonstration in honor of the anniversary of the oath in the ballroom.
The people handed over petitions to the Assembly against the removal of ministers and the royal right of veto.
Then the crowd broke into the building of the Tuileries Palace, forced Louis XVI to put on the red cap of freedom and appear before the people.
The king's courage aroused sympathy for him, and the crowd peacefully dispersed.
But this respite was short lived.
The second incident occurred in July.
On July 11, the Assembly declared that the fatherland was in danger, and called all Frenchmen capable of holding weapons to the service of the nation.
At the same time, the Paris Commune called on citizens to join the National Guard.
So the National Guard suddenly turned into an instrument of radical democracy.
On July 14, approx. arrived in Paris to participate in the annual celebrations on the occasion of the fall of the Bastille.
20 thousand provincial national guardsmen.
Although the celebration of July 14 was peaceful, it contributed to the organization of radical forces, which soon came out with demands for the removal of the king, the election of a new National Convention and the proclamation of a republic.
On August 3, the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, the commander of the Austrian and Prussian troops, published a week earlier, became known in Paris, in which it was proclaimed that his army intended to invade the territory of France 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.
The Marseillaise became the anthem of the revolution, and later the anthem of France.
On August 9, the third incident occurred.
The delegates of the 48 sections of Paris removed the legal municipal power and established a revolutionary commune.
The 288 member General Council of the Commune met daily and exerted constant pressure on political decision making.
The 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, on the orders of the Commune, the Parisians, supported by detachments of the federates, went to the Tuileries and opened fire, destroying about 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 on the basis of universal suffrage for men.
The royal family was imprisoned in the fortress of the Temple.
THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT
The Convention and the war.
The elections to the National Convention, held in late August and early September, were held 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 surrendered to the Prussians without a fight,and rumors of treachery infuriated the people.
Riots broke out in the departments of Vendee 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 about 1,200 people died.
On September 20, the Convention met for the first time.
His first act of September 21 was the liquidation of the monarchy.
From the next day, September 22, 1792, the new revolutionary calendar of the French Republic began counting down.
The majority of the members of the Convention were Girondists, heirs of former Brissotines.
Their main opponents were representatives of the former left wing the Jacobins led by Danton, Marat and Robespierre.
At first, the leaders of the Girondists seized all the ministerial posts and secured the strong support of the press and public opinion in the province.
The forces of the Jacobins were 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 Girondists strengthened their authority, confirming it with the victory of Dumouriez and Francois de Kellermann over the Prussians in the Battle of Valmy on September 20.
However, during the winter of 1792-1793, the Girondists lost their positions, which opened the way for Robespierre to power.
They were mired in personal disputes, speaking first of all (which turned out to be disastrous for them) against Danton, who managed to win the support of the left.
The Girondists sought to overthrow the Paris Commune and deprive the Jacobins, who expressed the interests of the capital, not the province, of their support.
They tried to save the king from the court.
However, the Convention actually unanimously found Louis XVI guilty of treason and sentenced him to death by a majority of 70 votes.
The king was executed on January 21, 1793 (Marie Antoinette was guillotined on October 16, 1793).
The Girondists involved France in a war with almost all of Europe.
In November 1792, Dumouriez defeated the Austrians at Gemappe and invaded the territory of the Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium).
The French opened 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 was the signal for the invasion of Holland by Dumouriez, which caused a hostile reaction from the British.
On November 19, the Girondist government promised "fraternal assistance" to all peoples who wanted to achieve freedom.
Thus, all European monarchs were challenged.
At the same time, France annexed Savoy, the possession of the Sardinian king.
On January 31, 1793, Danton proclaimed the doctrine of the" natural borders " of France, 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, opening the era of"general war".
The national currency of France has sharply devalued due to the fall in the value of banknotes and military spending.
British Minister of War William Pitt Jr. began an economic blockade of France.
In Paris and other cities, there was a shortage of the most necessary things, especially food, which was accompanied by growing discontent of the people.
Fierce hatred was caused by military suppliers and speculators.
In the Vendee, a revolt against military mobilization broke out again, which raged throughout the summer.
By March 1793, all the signs of a crisis were visible in the rear.
On March 18 and 21, Dumouriez's troops were defeated at Neervinden 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 staff defected to the enemy on April 5.
The betrayal of the leading French commander dealt a tangible blow to the Girondists.
The radicals in Paris, as well as the Jacobins led by Robespierre, accused the Girondists of aiding the traitor.
Danton demanded the reorganization of the central executive power.
On April 6, the Committee of National Defense, created in January to control the ministries, was transformed into the Committee of Public Safety, which was headed by Danton.
The Committee concentrated executive power in its hands and became an effective executive body that took over the military command and control of France.
The commune came to the defense of its leader, Jacques Hebert, and Marat, the chairman of the Jacobin Club, who were persecuted by the Girondists.
During May, the Girondists incited the province to revolt against Paris, depriving themselves of support in the capital.
Under the influence of the extremists, the Paris sections established an insurrectionary 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 forces of the National Guard, the Commune ordered the arrest of 29 Girondist deputies, including two ministers.
This marked the beginning of the Jacobin dictatorship, although the reorganization of the executive branch took place only in July.
In order to put pressure on the Convention, the extremist clique in Paris incited the hostility of the provinces to the capital.
The Jacobin dictatorship and terror.
Now the Convention was obliged to take measures aimed at pacifying the provinces.
In political terms, a new Jacobin constitution was developed, conceived as a model of democratic principles and practice.
In economic terms, the Convention came out in support of the peasants and abolished all seignorial and feudal duties without compensation, and also divided the estates of emigrants into small land plots 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 linking the peasantry with the revolution.
From that moment on, the greatest danger for the peasants was the restoration, which could take away their land, and therefore none of the subsequent regimes tried to annul this decision.
By the middle of 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 land.
A new administrative system has been established in local districts and rural communes.
Only the central government remained fragile, which was subjected to sharp violent changes for many years.
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 setbacks, which threatened to occupy the country.
The Austrians and Prussians were advancing in the north and in Alsace, while the Spaniards, with whom Pitt had made an alliance in May, threatened an invasion from the Pyrenees.
These defeats undermined the authority of the Committee of Public Safety under the leadership of Danton.
On July 10, Danton and six of his comrades were deposed.
Under his leadership, the Committee ensured a turning point on the military fronts and the victory of the republic during the summer.
On the same day, July 28, Danton became the chairman of the Convention.
The personal enmity between the two Jacobin leaders was mixed with a sharp clash with a new opponent – the Jacobin extremists, who were called "rabid".
These were the heirs of Marat, who was killed on July 13 by the Girondist Charlotte Corday.
Under the pressure of the "rabid", the Committee, now recognized as the real government of France, took tougher measures against speculators and counter revolutionaries.
Although by the beginning of September the "rabid" were defeated, many of their ideas, in particular the preaching of violence, were inherited by the left Jacobins led by Hebert, who held significant positions in the Paris Commune and the Jacobin Club.
They demanded tougher terror, as well as stricter government control over supplies and prices.
In mid August, Lazar Carnot, who soon received the title of "organizer of victory", joined the Committee of Public Salvation, and on August 23, the Convention announced general mobilization.
In the first week of September 1793, another series of crises broke out.
The summer drought has led to a shortage of bread in Paris.
A plot was discovered to free the Queen.
There were reports of the surrender of the port of Toulon to the British.
The followers of Hebert in the Commune and the Jacobin Club renewed their powerful pressure on the Convention.
They demanded the creation of a" revolutionary army", the arrest of all suspects, tighter 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 repression.
On September 17, a decree was passed ordering the arrest of all suspicious persons by the revolutionary committees; at the end of the month, a law was introduced setting maximum prices for basic necessities.
The terror lasted until July 1794.
Thus, the terror was caused by the state of emergency and the pressure of extremists.
The latter used for their own purposes the personal conflicts of the leaders and factional clashes in the Convention and the Commune.
On October 10, the constitution developed by the Jacobins was officially adopted, and the Convention declared that for the duration of the war, the Committee of Public Safety would perform the functions of a provisional, or "revolutionary", government.
The purpose of the Committee was declared to be the exercise of rigidly 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 held major political trials against the Girondists.
The Committee exercised political control over the central food commission, established in the same month.
The worst manifestations of terror were of an "unofficial nature", i.e. they were carried out on the personal initiative of fanatics and thugs who settled personal scores.
Soon, a bloody wave of terror covered those who 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 of the executions took place in rebellious cities and departments, for example in Vendee and Lyon.
Until April 1794, the policy of terror was largely determined by the rivalry between the followers of Danton, Hebert and Robespierre.
At first, the Eberists set the tone, they rejected the Christian doctrine and replaced it with the cult of Reason, introduced a new, republican calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar, in which the months were named according to seasonal phenomena and divided into three "decades".
In March, Robespierre finished with the Eberists.
Eber himself and 18 of his followers were executed by guillotine after a quick 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, using unlimited power.
The Jacobin dictatorship reached its most terrible expression in Decree 22 of the Prairie (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 who were 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 Eberists, reached its peak.
The 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 Couton, were executed the next evening.
Within a few days, 87 members of the Commune were also guillotined.
The supreme justification of terror – the victory in the war was also the main reason for its completion.
By the spring of 1794, the French Republican army numbered about.
800 thousand soldiers and represented the largest and most combat ready army in Europe.
Thanks to this, she achieved superiority over the fragmented allied troops, 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.
The forms of the" revolutionary " government were preserved until October 1795, since the Convention continued to provide executive power based on the special committees created by it.
After the first months of the Thermidorian reaction – the so called "white terror" directed against the Jacobins the terror began to gradually subside.
The Jacobin Club was closed, the powers of the Committee of Public Safety were limited, and the decree of 22 prairie was annulled.
The revolution lost its momentum, the population was exhausted 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 broke up, and all the countries that were part of it – except Austria and Great Britain – asked for peace.
The Vendee was pacified with the help of political and religious concessions, and religious persecution also stopped.
In the last year of the Convention's existence, which got rid of the Jacobins and Royalists, moderate Republicans occupied key positions in it.
The Convention was thoroughly supported by peasants who were satisfied that they had received land, 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 ensuring the requests of these groups.
The abolition of price controls led to a resumption of inflation and to new disasters for the workers and the poor, who had lost their leaders.
Independent rebellions broke out.
The largest of these was the uprising in the capital in Prairie (May 1795), supported by the Jacobins.
The rebels erected barricades on the streets of Paris, seized the Convention, thereby hastening 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 people.
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 the emigrants began to look for ways to return to their homeland.
There were even attempts by the royalists to restore something similar to the pre revolutionary regime, but all of them were brutally suppressed.
In the Vendee, the rebels took up arms again.
The English fleet landed over a thousand armed royalist emigrants on the Quibron Peninsula on the north eastern 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 Vendemieres), a monarchist uprising broke out in Paris, but it was quickly suppressed by General Napoleon Bonaparte.
The directory.
The moderate Republicans who strengthened their power and the Girondists who restored their positions developed a new form of government – the Directory.
It was based on the so called Constitution of the third year, which officially approved the French Republic, which began its existence on October 28, 1795.
The Directory relied on the electoral right, limited by the property qualification, and on indirect elections.
The principle of separation of powers was approved between the legislative power, represented by two assemblies (the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Elders), and the executive power, entrusted to a Directory of 5 people (one of whom had to leave his post annually).
Two thirds of the new legislators were elected from the members of the Convention.
The insoluble contradictions that arose in the relations between the legislative and executive authorities, apparently, could only be solved by force.
Thus, from the very beginning, the seeds of the upcoming military coups fell on fertile ground.
The new system was maintained for 4 years.
Its prelude was a specially timed royalist mutiny on October 5, swept away by Bonaparte with a "volley of buckshot".
It was not difficult to assume that the general would put an end to the existing regime by resorting to the same means of forceful pressure that occurred during the "coup of 18 brumaire" (November 9, 1799).
The four years of the Directory were a time of the rule of a corrupt government inside 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 to a lesser extent by revolutionary idealism, and to a greater extent by nationalist aggression.
In the 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 claim the left bank of the Rhine.
Since the 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 a political constant, a source of profit and a means of asserting the prestige necessary to maintain power.
In domestic politics, the Directory, representing the Republican majority of the middle class, in order to preserve itself, had to suppress all resistance from both the left and the right, since the return of Jacobinism or royalism threatened its power.
As a result, the internal policy of the Directory was characterized by a struggle in these two directions.
In 1796, the "Conspiracy of Equals" was revealed – 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 became very attractive 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 policy of the Directory.
In 1797, there was a coup of fryuktidor (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 Floreal coup (May 11, 1798), during which the results of the Jacobin election victory were arbitrarily canceled in 37 departments.
They were followed by the Prairie coup (June 18, 1799) – both extreme political groups strengthened at the expense of the center, and as a result, three members of the Directory lost power.
The management of the Directory was unprincipled and immoral.
Paris and other major cities have earned a reputation as hotbeds of promiscuity and vulgarity.
However, the decline in morals was not universal and widespread.
Some members of the Directory, primarily Carnot, were active and patriotic people.
But they did not create the reputation of the Directory, but people like the corrupt and cynical Count Barras.
In October 1795, he enlisted the young artillery general Napoleon Bonaparte to suppress the rebellion, and then rewarded him by giving him his former mistress Josephine de Beauharnais as a wife.
However, Bonaparte was much more generously encouraged by Carnot, entrusting him with the command of an expedition to Italy, which brought him military glory.
The rise of Bonaparte.
Carnot's strategic plan in the war against Austria assumed 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.Moro, and one from Italy, under the command of Bonaparte.
The young Corsican defeated the king of Sardinia, imposed the terms of a 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 in Campo Formio.
Austria handed over 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 at the British Empire, blocking 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, the 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 Abukir (August 1, 1798).
Meanwhile, the Directory was in agony because of the defeats on the fronts and the growing discontent within the country.
A second anti French coalition was formed against France, in which England managed to attract Russia, which had been neutral up to that time, 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, the 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 collapsed after Russia withdrew from the coalition.
In August, Bonaparte left Alexandria, avoiding a meeting with the British fleet that was guarding him, and landed in France.
Despite the huge losses and defeat in the Middle East, Napoleon was 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, as always, remained, but now he has teamed up with Abbot Sieyes.
In July, the Directory appointed Joseph Fouche as the Minister of Police.
A former Jacobin terrorist, treacherous and unscrupulous, he began the persecution of former comrades in arms, which prompted the Jacobins to actively resist.
On September 28 (September 14), they attempted to force the Council of Five Hundred to proclaim the slogan "the Fatherland is in danger" and to create a commission in the spirit of Jacobin traditions.
This initiative was prevented by Lucien Bonaparte, the most intelligent and educated of all the brothers of Napoleon, who managed to postpone the discussion of this issue.
On October 16, Napoleon arrived in Paris.
He was greeted everywhere and hailed 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 the popular enthusiasm, elected Lucien Bonaparte as its chairman.
The cunning Sieyes decided to involve him in a plot that he had been hatching for a long time 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 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799), we can 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 Paris suburb of Saint Cloud, and entrusted the command of the troops to Bonaparte.
According to the plan of the conspirators, the assemblies, intimidated by the troops, would have been forced to vote for the revision of the constitution and the creation of a provisional government.
After that, the power would be given to three consuls, who were instructed to prepare a new Constitution and approve it at a plebiscite.
The first stage of the conspiracy went according to plan.
The assemblies moved to Saint Cloud, and the Council of Elders was accommodating in the matter of revising the constitution.
But the Council of Five Hundred showed a clearly hostile attitude towards Napoleon, and his appearance in the chamber of sessions caused a storm of indignation.
This almost thwarted the plans of the conspirators.
If it had not been for the resourcefulness of the president of the Council of Five Hundred, Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon could have been immediately 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 swore to kill him with his own hand if he violated the foundations of freedom.
The Grenadiers, convinced that they were saving France in the person of the devout Republican General Bonaparte, entered the chamber of the Council of Five Hundred.
After that, Lucien hurried to the Council of Elders, where he told about the conspiracy that the deputies were plotting against the republic.
The elders formed a commission and adopted a decree on temporary consuls Bonaparte, Sieyes and Ducos.
Then the commission, supported 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 the gross miscalculations and confusion, the coup of 18 brumaire was completely successful.
The main reason for the success of the coup, which was joyfully welcomed in Paris and in most of the country, was that the people were extremely tired of the rule of the Directory.
The revolutionary pressure finally dried up, and France was ready to recognize a strong ruler capable of ensuring order in the country.
The 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 were a transitional constitution.
In fact, it was a Directory that was reduced to the power of three.
At the same time, Fouche remained the Minister of police, and Talleyrand became the 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 loyal to the Republic, one and indivisible, based on equality, freedom and representative government."
But the Jacobin leaders were arrested or exiled during the consolidation of the new system.
Godin, who was entrusted with the important task of organizing finances in a state of chaos, achieved impressive results thanks to his honesty, competence and ingenuity.
There was a truce with the Royalist rebels in the Vendee.
The work on the creation of a new basic law, called the Constitution of the VIII year, was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Sieyes.
He supported the doctrine that " trust should come from below, and power from above."
Bonaparte had far reaching plans.
On the "sidelines of the coup" it was decided that he himself, Zh.
- Zh.
de Cambaceres and S.-F.
Lebrun will become consuls.
It was assumed that Sieyes and Ducos would head the lists of future senators.
By December 13, the new constitution was completed.
The electoral system was formally based 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 just an advisory voice.
The Constitution did not provide for any counterbalances to the absolute power of the first consul.
It was approved by a plebiscite in an open vote.
Bonaparte forced the course 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 announcement of the results of the plebiscite.
Thus, pressure was exerted on the results of the vote: 3 million votes in favor and only 1562 against.
The consulate opened a new era in the history of France.
The legacy of the revolutionary years.
The main result of the Directory's activities was the creation of a ring of satellite republics outside of France, completely artificial in terms of the management system 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 have left an indelible mark on the state structure of France, as well as in the minds and hearts of the French.
Napoleon was able to complete the revolution, but he did not manage to 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, popular sovereignty, but also conservatism, fear of revolution and reactionary moods.
LITERATURE The Great French Revolution and Russia.
Moscow, 1989
Freedom.
Equality.
The brotherhood.
The Great French Revolution.
Moscow, 1989
Smirnov V. P., Poskonin V. S. Traditions of the Great French Revolution.
Moscow, 1991
Fuhrer F. Comprehension of the French Revolution.
Moscow, 1998
Historical sketches about the French Revolution.
Moscow, 1998
