Hey guys today we’re going to be talking about the French Revolution it’s going to be a long and complex story that takes us from the beginning of the revolution to the beginning of the rise of Napoleon and I’ll do my best to keep it snappy and simple
Here are the goals for your video these should help guide you through the complex story that I’m about to tell you alright so the roots of the French Revolution go back to a financial crisis that proved to be difficult to resolve because of lasting inequalities in French society so French society was
Divided into three estates the first state was the clergy the second estate was the aristocracy and the third estate was the commoners the first estate controlled only 0.5% of the population and yet it controlled 10% of all of France’s land the second estate the aristocracy was 2% of the population and
It controlled 25 percent of France’s land in comparison the Third Estate which consisted of commoners both wealthy commoners and poor working or farming commoners consisted of 98% of the population but controlled only 65% of the land and yet these guys paid 100 percent of the taxes and so basically
The tax burden placed on these guys was pretty high because they were the only part of French society actually paying for the government by the 1780s France was deeply deeply in debt and it basically had to do something to bring in more money it’s interesting to note
That part of the reason that France was so deeply in debt is that it decided to fight a war to help the British colonies in North America to break away from the British so anyway they need to increase taxes but they really can’t increase taxes on the commoners anymore because
They’re already taxing them very heavily so louis xvi decides that he’s going to try to tax the nobles but the nobles object and they demand a meeting of the estates-general which is basically a representative body that hasn’t met for more than a hundred years at this point
But louis xvi gives in and he decides he’s going to allow the estates-general to meet and discuss different ways in which the French government might be able to raise the money that it needs to pay its debts when Lily xvi decides to assemble the estates-general representatives from each estate are elected and they
Assemble in order to come up with a way to pay off Frances debt there are approximately 600 representatives from the first and second estates and these guys want to keep as many of the privileges as they can and there are also a roughly equal number of representatives from the third
Estates and these guys want to set up a constitutional government and the shift some of the taxes onto the nobles and the clergy and so it seemed like at first that this was going to work out but there are a couple kind of sneaky rules like that are ineffective the
Estates-general that seem like they’re going to prevent the Third Estate that is the commoners from getting a fair hearing and so when the commoners realize this they all storm out of the estates-general building and they march over to a nearby tennis court which is just one of the only other buildings
That could hold all of them and they get together and they all swear that they’re not going to leave the tennis court until they have composed a new constitution for France now with this move of the Third Estate basically claims power as the true representatives of the people of France and they give
Themselves a new name declaring themselves the National Assembly so basically the commoners have risen up and tried to claim power for themselves but so of course the king is not really happy with this whole idea and it seems that louis xvi is preparing to try to end the french
Revolution at the very beginning by storming the tennis court and arresting the National Assembly and for this purpose it is believed the king began to assemble troops around Paris but in reaction of this gathering army the common people of Paris started to grow nervous and in response they attacked
The Bastille which was a huge fortress in the middle of the city that contained a lot of the weapons of the army in that area and also had served as a prison before the Revolution and so the mob successfully takes the castle and the King after the storming
Of the Bastille basically gives up hope of crushing the rebellion he doesn’t want to risk having to fight against the population of Paris in general and so instead he basically backs down and allows the National Assembly to continue to function soon after this a mob of hungry women from Paris there’s they’re hungry
Because there’s not enough food going into the city marched out to Versailles and they break into the palace and force the King to return with them to Paris and to more or less acknowledge the National Assembly as the new government of France so the commoners in a sort of
A spontaneous way helped to support the French Revolution basically by throwing their weight behind the National Assembly so with the National Assembly more or less secure because of the storming of the Bastille and the storming of Versailles they are able to pass a number of reforms from 1789 to 1791 and
This is kind of the first phase of the French Revolution and it’s the least extreme phase of the French Revolution and so the basic ideals of the revolution were summed up in three words liberty equality and fraternity aka Brotherhood and so on the basis of these three ideals they start to reform French
Society they take France from being an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in which the king remains in power but is now checked by a constitution and by an elected representatives and they compose the Declaration of Rights of Man which enumerates certain inalienable rights that belong to all French men and
Citizens the end of feudalism is something that occurs early on in the Revolution when French Nobles renounce all of their special privileges and accept the Enlightenment principle that all men are equal before the law and finally there’s this really strange cultural phenomenon in which they start
To get rid of all sorts of traditional aspects of European society and to quote unquote rationalize them for example the week’s go from being seven days to ten days because it’s believed that ten is a more rational number than seven the names of the months are also changed to
Describe the weather of the season for example August and September are now known as Fructis or because that is the month in which fruits ripen and went in which they’re harvested Thermidor is the new name for July because that is the hottest month thermador a thermometer you get the
Connection so and last of all they try to remove Christianity from the central point that it has in French society so they begin desecrating churches destroying a religious artwork and they also support a new religion called the cult of the Supreme Being which becomes the official French
Religion in this time period and so with all these new reforms it seemed like the French Revolution that could have stopped the bear but there are still a lot of instability and there are lots of economic problems rising prices and shortages of certain important items and so there’s still some problems but they
Probably could have been overcome if the king had not attempted to flee France to Austria and so basically the king had disguised himself and his family as just like normal upper-middle class Frenchmen and had tried to escape during the night from Paris up into the Austrian Netherlands which were
Controlled by Austria and the King Louis the sixteenth actually was married to a woman named Marie Antoinette who was the daughter of the king of Austria so if they had gotten to Austria they might have been able to escape and then who knows would have happened perhaps the
King of France would have led an army back to France to reclaim his throne but so anyway the reason that this is so problematic that the King tries to escape is because the nation is still technically a monarchy and the king is still technically in charge of the
Country but soldiers arrest the king and take him back to Paris and this car – and it makes fun of the fact that the King is more or less herded back to Paris like some kind of domesticated animal and it seems like the king was pretty much ready to betray the new
French government but so the king is now under house arrest and Austria and Prussia the absolutist monarchies to the east war in France to not harm the royal family France basically interprets this as a threat and feels insulted and they respond by declaring war on Austria but the French army is incredibly incredibly
Disorganized because a lot of their officers have quit or have been fired and so the initial battles go really terribly for France and Prussia soon’s join soon joins Austria in the war against France so it starts to look as if Austria and pressure are going to capture Paris and end the
Revolution and put louis xvi back on the throne in response to all this instability and the threat to the revolution of the the French Revolution undergoes a period of radicalization and the first thing that happens as France becomes a republic basically the king is no longer in
Charge and the new government known as the National Convention is elected by universal male suffrage any man in France gets to vote the second the newly elected National Convention decides as kind of its first measure to execute the King for treason and so on seventeen are in 1793 the king is executed via
Guillotine and this outrages basically every other nation in France and they all ally against France and start fighting a war against France so at this point it’s basically France against everybody else in Europe this leads to the formation of the Committee of Public Safety and this small group of men is
Given more or less absolute control over the French government and the reason they’re given total control is so that they can take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the survival of France the guy who runs this committee is maximilien robespierre and they begin taking really drastic steps in order to
Save the revolution first of all these guys declare total war when they issue something called the lavell moss I think that means something as to a similar to mass conscription and so basically what this decree entails is that every single young Frenchman is drafted all married Frenchmen are expected to contribute to
The war effort by helping to manufacture weapons and arms and basically the entire population of France is mobilized in order to ensure that they win this war and one other thing that the Committee of Public Safety does and perhaps its most notorious action is this period of time known as the reign
Of terror it’s more or less a year from 17 1793 to 1794 in which the Committee of Public Safety executes basically anybody that they perceive as a threat to the revolution and they execute almost 30,000 people basically anybody that seems to be disloyal to the ideas of the French Revolution or
Anybody that questions the methods of the Committee of Public Safety now this is often seen as one of the first instances of totalitarian government in European history via Slee the Committee of Public Safety is not very popular because they start executing basically anybody and it’s really dangerous to be a member of the
National Convention because you never know when the Committee of Public Safety is going to have you executed maybe you’re not revolutionary enough you’re don’t seem loyal enough so it’s only it could only be a matter of time until you yourself are guillotined and so not surprisingly the National Convention decides to arrest
Maximilien robespierre and the other leaders of the Committee of Public Safety and these guys in what seems like a fair move are also executed via guillotine and so this period is called the thermidorian reaction when basically the reign of terror is brought to an end and after this a new system of
Government is put in place called the directory which lasts for four years and the directory is basically pretty unpopular and pretty unsuccessful they keep fighting the war against France’s many enemies but they’re not doing a great job and it seems like if things keep going the way they’re going the
French Revolution might still fail so France has continually pushed back but there is one bright spot in this whole story and this happens to be a general named Napoleon Bonaparte who is a a very bright young man who has worked his way up the ranks of the French army
And he has now as general begun winning major battles and he is viewed as a hero by the people of France and he becomes incredibly popular and he returns to Paris after a number of victories and basically begins plotting to take over the government and to make himself the
Leader of France and you’re gonna learn more about this in our next video all right so here your goals once again hopefully you understood all of that stuff make sure you can answer these questions and we will discuss it in more detail in class tomorrow
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