French Revolution, 1791-1803

the French Revolution in 1792 to 1803

Louis' refusal to become a constitutional monarch led the revolution to turn violent in an attempt to purge counterrevolutionaries in the reign of terror. The execution of the king in January 1793 led, in turn, to war with virtually every other monarchical regime in Europe. Attacked on all sides by the crowned heads of Europe, the French people rallied to the revolution and a new concept: nationalism. Having stopped the allies at the French border, the French set about trying to settle their their internal problems. The French Revolutionary wars brought to power a series of governments, culminating in the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte. Having fought the Allied powers to peace in 1801, Napoleon concentrated on rational domestic reforms.

the leaders of the French Revolution attempted to demolish the ancien régime without eradicating the monarchy, the nobility,the church, or other long-standing institutions in France, but resistance to the revolution by the King, most aristocrats and clergy, and the invading great powers of Europe would ironically throw the Revolution into the arms of the radicals.

the situation in 1792 is dire: having failed in his attempted counterrevolution, the king became a virtual prisoner of the Constitution of 1791; France was beset by enemies on all sides; the old Royal Army was riddled by faction and unreliable; the state was still laboring under its long-term debt; many clergy rallied against the revolution, encouraging their flocks to join counterrevolutionary mobs; on August 10, 1792, the revolution took a radical turn. A mob of ordinary citizens stormed the Tuileries, demanded a republic, and killed 600 Swiss guards.

the Paris commune, an elected body, appointed George Danton minister of justice, but a special court established to try the enemies of the revolution was not enough for the radical Paris workers, who stormed the jails for a week in early September, murdering or injuring nearly 1000 such enemies of France.

the National Convention, entrusted with drafting a new, Republican Constitution, was divided between the Girondins (moderates) who still wanted to work with the King, and the Jacobins (radicals) who were urged on by the sans-culottes and, led by Maximilian Robespierre, wanted to push the revolution in a more radical direction. A third group at the convention was called the Plain because it existed between these two peaks of extremism.

the state of emergency produced radical solutions. On September 21, 1792, the National Convention declared France a republic and began to draw up a new constitution. The convention established a committee of public safety, soon dominated by Robespierre and the Jacobins, and gave it responsibility for running France.

to deal with France's dire war situation, it created the levee en masse, , a vast national Army, conscripted from all adult males. The Committee of Public Safety reformed the army, installing promotion on merit, but purging any officer of aristocratic background, even if he supported the revolution; the levee en masse, opposed by smaller professional armies, pushed the enemy back beyond France's borders by the fall of 1793; in the summer of 1794, the levee en masse drove the Austrians out of the Austrian Netherlands, that is Belgium; what had been a defensive war of liberation to save France and preserve the revolution now became a war of conquest to spread the revolution beyond France's borders.

at home, the Jacobins sought to create a perfectly egalitarian and secular society, even if that meant infringing on personal liberties: they established free compulsory education for all boys and girls; they established the right to public welfare for the poor; they imposed price controls on bread; but they also abolished the right of workers to form associations and unions or to go on strike; they abolished such titles as monsieur and madame in favor of citizens; they established a new calendar dating from the revolution; they intended to replace the superstitions of organized Christianity with a cult of reason; they confiscated church and noble lands, redistributing them to the poor; they even replaced old Royal measurements with the metric system.

with the revolution beset on all sides, the Committee of Public Safety decided to eliminate its enemies via show trials and executions: the King was tried on a charge of tyranny and conspiring against the Constitution in December 1792 and executed in January, 1793, with a vote for immediate execution winning by one vote; in September 1793, the Convention approved the Reign of Terror;the victims included, first, royalist noblemen, then anyone of noble birth; clergy and other conspirators against the revolution; numerous bourgeois and peasants which simply expressed unpopular opinions; and finally, anyone opposed to the Jacobins and Robespierre.

overall, 2 50,000 were arrested, 17,000 were tried and executed, 12,000 were guillotined without trial, and untold thousands died in jail, including the King son Louis the 17th

the reign of terror ended in the Thermidorian reaction of July 1794 when a group of Jacobins in the convention, fearful that they were next, brought charges against Robespierre himself, who was soon executed. The National Convention later broke the Sans-Coulotts. As in the English civil war, the French Revolution now turned back toward moderation, even conservatism.

the next Constitution took three years to draw and resulted in something called the Directory in 1795: it's structure implied a step back from democracy; its executive consisted of a five man Board of Directors selected by the legislature; the legislature consisted of two houses, the Council of Ancients and the Council of 500; the members of the legislature were elected by property owners, the 30,000 wealthiest male citizens in France.

the Directory was consistently unpopular: it was criticized by politicians on both sides of the political spectrum; the directors were known to be corrupt; the directory pursued an aggressive military policy to distract the populist from their corruption and a depressed economy. In 1795, the anti-French, anti-revolutionary alliance collapsed: Prussia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Savoy signed peace treaties; this left only Britain and Austria in the field; in 1795, France annexed the Austrian Netherlands; in 1796 to 1797, French armies pushed into Italy.

by 1799, most of the country was sick and tired of revolution, war, high taxes, high prices, new constitutions, and directors. Many Frenchmen began to long, nostalgically, for the good old days of rule by a strong king.

the rise of Napoleon was the result. Napoleon, born of into minor Corsican nobility, had, early on, tied his star to the revolution, rising as the officer corps was purged of aristocrats. A general at age 24, he won a series of victories for the revolution. He took the Royalist city of Toulons in 1793;he suppressed riots against the directory in 1795; thereafter, he swept to Italy, establishing a pro-French puppet Republican the North and gaining territory along the Rhine from the Austrians; France was now an empire again, and Britain was alone.

all of this brought Napoleon to the attention of the lead director, Paul François, Viscount de Barras. Barras wanted to exploit Napoleon's popularity to enhance his own; but the young general proved a little too successful, especially following a spectacular invasion of Egypt in 1798; upon his return from Egypt, on November 9 and 10th 1799, Napoleon led troops against the Directory and forced it to dissolve itself

France was to be ruled by three consuls, with Napoleon at their head, though millions of people boycotted the plebiscite in which this was approved, and the government faked the results.

Napoleon concluded that France was badly need of a restoration of strong central government before it could face its external enemies: before he could turn to domestic reform he had to take the heat off from France's enemies -- in 1799, a new anti-French alliance was formed consisting of Britain, Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire; after completing a series of successful military campaigns, climaxing in the defeat of the Austrians at Marengo, Napoleon forced all parties to discuss peace; the Treaty of Amiens was signed in 1801; everyone knew that it was just a truce, but the two years breathing space it gave allowed Napoleon to begin his domestic reforms.

Napoleon's domestic reforms look, on the surface, to be liberal, egalitarian, and revolutionary, but they owed more to Louis the 14th than to Voltaire, Rousseau, or Robespierre.

Napoleon instigated the drawing up of the new series of law codes, resulting in the code Napoleon on between 1804 and 1811: Napoleon guaranteed free public education for all, but that education included indoctrination in strict patriotism and loyalty to Napoleon; Napoleon established a national bank, reformed French government finances on the English model, stabilized the currency, and imposed taxes equally on all.

in 1801, Napoleon and the Pope signed a concordat recognizing that the Roman Catholic Church is the official religion of France but also preserving religious toleration: confiscation of church lands were to cease, but previously confiscated land was to remain current hands; Napoleon was to appoint bishops.

the administration of France was kept strictly in Napoleon's hands: the legislature became a rubber stamp; the press was censored; the local administrators of the 83 departments kept Napoleon informed of everything going on in their districts; a secret police monitored opposition and disposed of dissenters and dissidents.

these reforms institutionalized the revolution while embracing Napoleon's power: Napoleon began as a soldier of the Revolution, a man of relatively common birth, who rose to the top through merit. But once in power, Napoleon made himself the absolute ruler of revolutionary France: he dominated the administration of government; he dominated the wealth of France, he dominated the religion of France, and, of course, he was the undisputed commander of the Army.

there remained only one of Louis' rules of absolutism left unfulfilled -- in 1802, Napoleon had himself proclaimed First Consul of France for in 1804, he assumed the title Emperor for life, and of course, an Emperor needs an empire.