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The French Revolution, 1789-1799 PDF

175 Pages·2002·8.077 MB·English
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On 14 July 1789 thousands of Parisians seized the Bastille fortress in Paris. This was the most famous episode of the Revolution of 1789, when huge numbers of French people across the kingdom successfully rebelled against absolute monarchy and the privileges of the nobility. But the subsequent struggle over what social and political system should replace the ‘Old Regime’ was to divide French people and finally the whole of Europe. The French Revolution is one of the great turning-points in history. It continues to fascinate us, to inspire us, at times to horrify us. Never before had the people of a large and populous country sought to remake their society on the basis of the principles of liberty and equality. The drama, success and tragedy of their project have attracted students to it for more than two centuries. Its importance and fascination for us are undiminished as we try to understand revolutions in our own times. There are three key questions this book investigates. First, why was there a revolution in 1789? Second, why did the Revolution continue after 1789, culminating in civil war, foreign invasion and terror? Third, what was the significance of the Revolution? Was the French Revolution a major turning-point in French, even world history, or instead just a protracted period of violent upheaval and warfare which wrecked millions of lives? Peter McPhee was appointed to a Personal Chair in History at the University of Melbourne in 1993. He has published widely on the history of modern France, most recently Living the French Revolution 1789–1799 (London, 2006); Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life (London, 2012); and Liberty or Death. The French Revolution (London, 2016). He was the University of Melbourne’s first Provost in 2007–09. He became a Member of the Order of Australia in 2012. The French Revolution Peter McPhee MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited 11–15 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia [email protected] www.mup.com.au First published 2014 Revised edition 2015 Second edition 2016 Revised Second edition 2017 Text © Peter McPhee, 2016 Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2016 This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers. Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry McPhee, Peter, 1948– author. The French revolution/Peter McPhee. 9780522870664 (ebook) Includes index. France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799. France—Politics and government—1789–1799. 944.04 Contents List of maps, tables, images and videos 1 France in the 1780s 2 The Revolution of 1789 3 Reform, Conflict, and a Second Revolution, 1789–1792 4 The Crisis of 1792–1793: War and Terror 5 Ending the Terror, Ending the Revolution, 1794–1799 6 The Significance of the French Revolution Chronology Further Reading Index List of maps, tables, images and videos Maps 1. France—physical 2. European Empires in the Atlantic c1760 3. Pays d’élection and pays d’État in France, 1789 4. Tax and customs areas of France, 1789 5. Regions of law and language boundaries, France 1789 6. France, 1789: ecclesiastical 7. North America before 1754 8. North America in 1763 9. Revolutionary Paris 10. Currents of the Great Fear 11. Départements of France, 1800 12. The Clerical Oath, 1791 13. Zones of conflict 1793–1794 14. Priestly abdications, 1793–1794 15. Emigration in 1793 16. Executions, 1793–1794 17. Sister Republics under the Director 18. Political Societies, 1793–1794 19. Colonial Possessions c1780 20. Dates of independence Maps drawn by Gavin Leys, University of Melbourne, information sourced from Peter McPhee, The French Revolution 1789–1799, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 (maps 1, 9, 16); Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789, New York: Vintage Books, 1973 (map 10); Joel Cornette (ed.), Atlas de l’histoire de France 481-2005, Paris: Belin, 2012 (maps 3– 6, 11–15, 17); Paul S. Boyer (ed.), The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1990 (maps 7, 8); ‘Political Evolution of Central America and the Caribbean 1700 and on’ by Esemono (own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Political_Evolution_of_Central_America_and_the_Caribbean_1700_and_on.gif (no. 2, 18, 19). Tables 1. The Price of Wheat in France, 1709–1790 Table drawn by Gavin Leys, University of Melbourne, information sourced from Ernest Labrousse, Esquisse du movement des prix et des revenus en France au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Librairie Dalloz, 1932 2. Depreciation of assignats during the revolutionary period Table drawn by Gavin Leys, University of Melbourne, information sourced from Pierre Caron (ed.), Tableaux de dépréciation du papier-monnaie, Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1909 Images 1. Bas-relief, Port-Vendres, c1783 2. Maximilien Robespierre’s house, Arras, 1787–1789 3. The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 4. Marie-Anne Charpentier’s diary, Orléans, 1789 5. Stone image of the Bastille, 1790, Camps-sur-l’Agly 6. Plane tree, 1790, Tamniès 7. and 8. Bastille stone, 1790, St-Julien-du-Sault in Burgundy 9. The siege of the Tuileries palace and overthrow of the monarchy, 10 August 1792 10. Revolutionary plate, 1792 11. Statue honouring General Kellermann, battle of Valmy, 20 September 1792 12. Liberty tree, Villardebelle, 1792 13. Home of Charlotte Corday, Les Champeaux, near Écorches in Normandy 14. Physical destruction of religious statuary, Moulins 15. Note calling to clandestine celebration of the ‘holy sacraments’, western France, 1793– 1794 16. Inscription from the 1794 Cult of the Supreme Being, Houdan 17. Chapel of St-Cornélis, Spain 18. ‘Temple de la Nature’, near Sallanches, 1796 19. ‘Altar of the homeland’, Thionville, 1796 20. History and memory: Varennes 21. History and memory: Savenay 22. History and memory: Le Louroux 23. History and memory: Auray 24. History and memory: Vannes 25. Measuring distance, 1799 Videos 1. Peter McPhee interviews Professor Ian Germani, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, on the role of military discipline in the French Revolutionary Wars. 2. Peter McPhee interviews Dr Marisa Linton, Kingston University in London, about her book, Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution, a major study of the politics of Jacobinism. 3. Peter McPhee interviews Professor Timothy Tackett, University of California, Irvine, on the origins of terror in the French Revolution. Chapter 1 France in the 1780s [1.1] Introduction On 14 July 1789 thousands of Parisians seized the Bastille fortress in Paris, a towering symbol of royal power in the heart of the popular neighbourhoods of eastern Paris. This was the most famous episode of the French Revolution, when huge numbers of French people across the kingdom successfully rebelled against absolute monarchy and the privileges of the nobility. But the subsequent struggle over which social and political system should replace the Ancien Régime (Old Regime) was to divide French people and eventually the whole of Europe. The French Revolution is one of the great turning-points in history. It continues to fascinate us, to inspire us, at times to horrify us. Never before had the people of a large and populous country sought to fundamentally remake their society on the basis of the principles of liberty and equality. The drama, success and tragedy of their project has attracted students to it for more than two centuries. Its importance and fascination are undiminished as we try to understand revolutions in our own times. There are three key questions that have exercised the minds of people ever since 1789. First, why was there a Revolution at all? Ever since Parisians seized the Bastille people have debated the origins and meaning of what had happened. Was the Revolution the result of the monarchy’s bankruptcy and political ineptitude, or the eruption of long-term social change and frustration, revolutionary ideas, or something else? Second, why did the Revolution continue after 1789? The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, proclaimed in August of that year, was a revolutionary statement about a radically different society that was now to be created. It was greeted enthusiastically. However, in the years after 1789, people could not agree on the practical application of the Declaration’s principles, driving the Revolution in new directions. Opponents of change inside and outside France forced governments to take measures to preserve the Revolution itself, culminating in the most controversial period of all, the ‘Terror’ of 1793–94. Third, what was the significance of the Revolution? What were its outcomes? By the time Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, how revolutionary had the changes been in France? Did the protracted political instability of these years disguise a more fundamental social and economic stability? Was the French Revolution a major turning-point in French, even world, history, as its proponents claim, or instead just a protracted period of violent upheaval and warfare that caused the premature deaths of many thousands of people and wrecked millions of lives? [1.2] Some Essentials of Eighteenth-century France France is the largest country in Europe outside Russia, a land of great geographic contrasts: from mountains—Mont Blanc in the Alps, at 4800 metres of altitude; the Pyrenees at 3000 metres—to the plains of the Paris Basin, and the rugged landscape of the Massif Central. Tourists today relish the diversity of the French landscape, but the contrasting topography of this sprawling country was to pose great challenges for the leaders of the Revolution in communicating with distant towns and villages.1 Map 1 France—physical

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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.