chapter 11

The collapse of the existing power structure followed by lengthy struggles over the shape of a new one in England, North America, and France.

The Jewish revolts against ancient Rome and the Hussite wars were examples of earlier revolutions.

Massive shifts in civilization have produced deep conflicts within the West and across the world, which have become more common in modern times.
The revolutions of the 17th and 18th century were followed by many more in the 19th and 20th century.

The English, North American, and French revolutions were the result of shifts in civilization that began in the late Middle Ages.

English country gentlemen, American merchants, and French aristocracy were some of the people who resisted increases in central government power.
The king of England, the Parliament, American colonists, the British government, French nobles, and the peasants who worked their lands had to pay taxes because of the growing cost of warfare.
Powerful governments were at risk of collapse because of the discontents among both the elite and the mass.

The Enlightenment made governments illegiti mate in the eyes of those who did not share the religious beliefs or ideological views of their rulers.

Military strongmen used their armies to uphold their own visions of a new order, and counterrevolutionary regimes staged would-be restorations of the old order, as they claimed to build a new heaven and a new earth.

The turmoil of England's revolution ended in a compro mise that led to a new power structure that would eventually replace the old one.

The rulers of England were backed by a powerful class of landowning nobles and country gentlemen and were able to tax their subjects so as to fight worldwide wars.
They were limited monarchs who were bound to respect their subjects' rights, and Parliament allowed them to collect taxes in return for constant legislative oversight.

The Enlightenment thought that society was an arrangement among individuals to secure the earthly goals of life, liberty, and property and that rulers were agents of society who could be resisted if they overstepped their limits.

The American Revolution put these ideas into effect in a more far-reaching way than before.

It was the first democratic republic to govern a large territory and the first community that did not practice a specific form of religious worship.
The British constitutional monarchy was a compromise designed to uphold the country's existing society and values, as well as its commercial interests.

Europe's most powerful absolute monarchy collapsed in France at the end of the 18th century and the turmoil of revolution spread through much of the mainland of Europe.

The French Revolution ended in defeat, unlike the revolutions of England and North America, which ended in compromise.

The partnership of king, nobles, and Church in France could not be turned back because of the shifts in civilization that had undermined it.

After the merging of Greco-Roman civilization and the warrior societies of barbarian Europe, the traditional order was coming to an end, but the struggles over a new order were just beginning.

The English Revolution began as a religious and political struggle in the wake of the Reformation.

The power of the ruler and the Parliament was at stake in the political disputes.

This one ended in compromise like other seventeenth-century religious and political struggles.
The power of the ruler and the official Church diminished and the power of Parliament and the rights of subjects increased, yet the government was more stable and stronger in both war and peace than before.
The English Revolution was a precedent for change in the traditional power structure in many lands of Western civilization.

The Tudor rulers of England built a form of government that relied on the cooperation of the Parliament.

The relationship between the ruler and Parliament deteriorated after the death of Elizabeth I. James I of the Stuart family succeeded Elizabeth as king of Scotland.
The House of Commons was made up of elected representatives of the gentry and middle-class townsmen.

Most of them were Puritans, English supporters of the international Calvinist Reformation, and they had no affection for the religious compromises of the Church of England as reorganized by Queen Elizabeth I.

They didn't like James's foreign policies and extravagance.
They refused to approve new taxes when he asked them to.
James didn't have Parliament during most of his reign.

Charles I was worse off than James's son.

Unable to get Parliament to do his bidding on new taxes, he had to resort to forced loans and increases of established taxes.
The House of Commons considered Charles' violation of English constitutional traditions to be a serious offense.
The feudal principle that kings should rule according to law and respect the rights of their vassals was proclaimed by the Magna Carta.
There was a tradition of cooperation between ruler and Parliament that existed from the late Middle Ages.
When Charles summoned a Parliament in 1640 after a decade of rule without it, the stage was set for an open clash between the king and his opponents.

The measures against the king's ministers were taken by the Long Parliament.

The House of Commons raised a citizens' army to protect it after Charles tried to arrest the parliamentary leaders.
The first modern London revolutions were prepared for by the rest of the Commons and most of the House of Lords.

In the test of arms, the parliamentary forces kept control of the chief cities and seaports and the Civil War in England prosperous country districts of southern and eastern England, and they enjoyed the support of the navy.

Oliver Cromwell, a member of Parliament, organized a new model army to fight their campaigns on land.
The first citizen army to be recruited in the era of revolutions was made up of volunteer yeomen who disliked the established Church.
Cromwell's army defeated Charles's forces in 1646.

The coalition could not agree on what to do next.

Cromwell and his army fell out with the majority of Parliament over questions of religion and the future of the king.
Calvinism replaced Anglicanism as the state religion in 1649.
Cromwell was the leader of the revolution.
He decided that Charles should be executed because he was "ungodly" and attracted "ungodly" people to his cause.

Cromwell drove out the members who were against him.

The title and office of the king were abolished and England became a republic.

The majority of the subjects recoiled from the execution, which was the work of a determined minority.

Cromwell was able to maintain an orderly government through strong personal rule because the revolutionaries were divided.
His government was called a "Protectorate" in one of the written constitutions he sought to institutionalize.
He advanced the interests of the business class by encouraging trade and shipping, and he conducted foreign affairs to the satisfaction of his subjects.
This was not the kind of state that the Puritans wanted.

The first freely elected Parliament in twenty years was assembled after Cromwell's death.

The dead king's son, who was exiled in France, was invited to return as Charles II.

The nightmare of regicide (king-killing) and Puritan tyranny faded into the English past due to his arrival in 1660, but the image is not available due to copyright restrictions.

Parliament didn't intend to restore divine right.

The Anglican Church was once again the established church, but it did not uphold political absolutism.
The bloody revolution and Cromwellism were viewed as mistakes, but few wanted to return to 1600.

Charles II was suspected of having reservations, but he accepted all this on the surface.

He avoided extreme policies because he could not forget the shadow of exile.
James II cannot be compared to his brother.
James fears that "popery" might return to England after converting to Roman Catholicism.

After James's death, his critics expected mat ters to improve.

Mary was the wife of William III of Holland.
The middle-aged English king had a son born to him in 1688.
The leaders of Parliament secretly invited William to land military forces in England as they faced the prospect of continued political reaction and Romanization.
James sailed for France after William's landing.
The throne was declared vacant and offered to William and Mary.

The Revolution of 1688 wasglorious because it was decisive and bloodless.

The Bill of Rights was passed in 1689 in order to keep the new rulers in check.

The revolution started in 1642.

The Bill of Rights gave every citizen the right to petition the monarch, to keep arms, and to enjoy due process of law.

This was a restatement of the guarantees, but they were in a different language.

The triumph of Parliament was important for two reasons.

At the same time, it established a governing aristocracy of property owners and strengthened individual freedom.
The demand for more sharing of political power as a result of the wider enjoyment of civil rights eventually came about.
The way for a representative government in England was prepared by the Glorious Revolution.

Locke is what we have seen.

He was familiar with the scientific, philosophical, and political ideas of his day.
He thought that the Puritan Revolution and the Glorious Revolution were justified.
The first study rejected the theory of divine right and the second defended the right of rebellion and became an ideological handbook for revolutionists everywhere.

Locke denied that the state was founded by God.

The miserable condition of people in the state of nature gave rise to an agreement to establish civil government according to both.

Locke disagreed with Hobbes about the terms of the social contract.

Locke held that all people have certain natural rights, just as physical objects have certain natural properties.
Locke said that a society has power as long as it lasts, but that it delegates it to political agents.
The society is free, legally and morally, to resist any agent who pushes beyond set limits.

The ancient Roman ideas of natural rights and natural law were built upon.

Locke used the seventeenth-century style of reasoning and appeals to common sense to create a universal political theory.
It was a fiction to justify the actions of the parliamentary side in England's civil war.
The Lockean "myth" was embraced by Thomas Jefferson and many other revolutionary leaders as a "self-evident" truth.

The political thought of the following period would be influenced by a French Enlightenment thinker who lived later than Locke.

He was the Baron de Montesquieu.
He was involved in political affairs of the nobility and deeply concerned about the dangers of dictatorship.

The United States Constitution was influenced by these ideas.

The English and American revolutions were connected by Thomas Jefferson, who expressed many of the ideas of Locke and the Enlightenment in the Declaration of Independence.

This was only one part of the American Revolution.
The first expulsion of a European colonial power, replaced monarchical government with a republic, and established the principle and practice of popular sovereignty were all brought about by that rebellion.
The American Revolution was a model for other revolutions around the world.

English settlers came to the North American continent in the 17th century because of the overseas expansion of Europe.

The first modern revolutions were freedom from the strictures of the established Anglican Church.
The thirteen colonies of the Atlantic seaboard between Nova Scotia and Florida were inhabited by most of them after driving back the Native Americans.
The white population of these colonies grew to two million by the year 1750.
Some thirty colonies and companies in America and Asia were controlled by the king and Parliament after they were founded.

Colonies were seen as valuable mainly as a source of raw materials and as a market for exports, which would be dominated by Britain.

The costs to the mother country for defense and administration were heavy, the colonists broke through trading restrictions by means of wholesale smuggling, and they showed little desire to provide for their own military defense.
The collection of taxes and the regulation of trade were tightened after 1750.

British efforts to collect taxes were resented by the colonists.

The American theater of the French and Indian War brought victory to Britain.
There was no longer a serious foreign threat to the thirteen colonies because of the broken French power on the North American continent.
The Americans were defiant toward their rulers because they felt more secure.

The Americans refused to admit that they had the right to send no members to the British Parliament.

English leaders argued that the colonies had virtual representation since members of Parliament represented national and imperial interests as a whole.

Actions and counteractions were building to more entrenched positions.
Most of the colonists were moving toward the point of no return, even though a minority remained loyal to the British flag and British law.
The British king and Parliament were seen by them as tyrants who went beyond their legal limits.

The Americans began to think of seizing control of their own destiny after initially seeking help with their grievances.

The middle class in the city took the lead.
They realized that British mercantilism would check their own economic development and that their general well-being would always be subservient to imperial aims.
In a geographical perspective, Thomas Paine described the situation.
He said that it was absurd for a continent to be governed by an island.

The common order of nature makes it clear that they belong to different systems.

The cause of rebellion in America was helped by Paine.

The first international revolutionist of modern times, he aided the radicals in France and England.

The port of Boston was closed and the charter of Massachusetts was almost canceled because of the Intolerable Acts.

The British may have thought that the hardline policy would bring the colonists to their senses, but it didn't.

Representatives from all the colonies gathered at a Continental Congress in Philadelphia after protests and opposition grew in Massachusetts.

They formed an association to cut off trade with Britain after drawing up a statement of grievances.
Direct action was the result of the conflict of words.

The illegal step brought about a condition of armed rebellion.

In April 1775, British troops set out from Boston to destroy a rebel supply of weapons.

They suffered heavy losses on their return march.
There was a war going on for independence.

The Continental Congress reassembled after the skirmish.

George Washington, a distinguished officer of the Virginia colonial militia, was appointed the commanding general of the Continental Army after the Minutemen around Boston were enlisted.
The war lasted six years.
Britain, a leading European power, was hampered by long lines of communication.
The Continental Congress was unable to provide enough troops, supplies, or money because of internal differences that usually divide revolutionists.
Although the rebels fought bravely, they could not have won without the help of foreign powers.

After the humiliation of 1763, the French monarchy decided to aid the rebels.

The first significant American victory was won with French weapons.
The French declared war on Britain after watching the American success in that battle.
The Europeans swung the balance in the Americans' favor.
The surrender of the encircled troops of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in Virginia in 1781 was forced by a French fleet controlling the waters offshore.
The United States of America was recognized as a nation stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River by the Treaty of Paris.

The independence of the new government as well as its bid for allies was proclaimed in 1776.

The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress.
It was drafted by Jefferson to justify the resort to force against Britain.
The preamble gives a reason for publishing the document, "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
The influence of foreign opinion on the outcome of a struggle for independence could not be ignored.

The Declaration of Independence is a masterpiece of revolutionary literature.

Jefferson didn't mention the colonists' reluctance to pay their share of defense costs, overlooked the long story of civil disobedience and provocative acts, and gave no hint at the deeper motives of the rebel leaders.
In an era of absolute monarchs, the king could be painted as a tyrant more easily.

Jefferson's version is marked by greater simplicity, clarity, and power, while Locke's version is marked by greater simplicity, clarity, and power.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that there is a pursuit of Happiness.

Jefferson's view of humanity, government, and revolution remains an inspiration to believers in human dignity, liberal principles, and progressive social change.

There were serious divisions within the colonies, but they were moderate compared to other revolutions.

There was a minority of loyalists who opposed the revolutionaries.
Sixty thousand fled to Canada because of the rough treatment they received.
Most of the emigres did not return to stir up trouble after they left the colonies.

The former colonies needed to agree on a plan for self-government after independence.

There was disagreement over what form the union of the states should take after each new state drew up a constitution.
Many citizens who had previously lived in separate colonies preferred complete independence for their states but grudgingly accepted the idea of a loose union as provided by the Articles of Confederation.
The states sent delegates to Philadelphia to revise the Articles after the Confederation proved unable to meet the needs of commerce and defense.
The new constitution was drafted to form a closer union.

Europeans were fired up by the act of Americans framing their own basic law.

The new doctrine of popular sovereignty was explained here.
The Americans rejected the idea of any privileged persons or bodies.
The sole source of civil authority is identified in the opening words of the foreword.
A successful experiment in federalism was launched by the new document, in which individuals hold citizenship both in their state and nation.
The authors of the Constitution tried to balance the powers given to the central government with those given to the states.
The balance had to be adjusted through constitutional interpretation.
federalism is a noble endeavor to harmonize the requirements of centralized planning and power with the desire for local control.

The Constitution followed Jefferson's maxim, which became the founda tion of nineteenth-century liberalism.

They thought that the best way to protect against the human urge to power was to establish separate political authorities.
A division of executive, legislative, and judicial powers was established as a result of the states keeping a watch on the national power.

The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution at the insistence of many citizens.

The first ten amendments clarify and extend the principles of the English Bill of Rights.
Freedom of worship and freedom from an established church are supported by church leaders.
Every person has the right to freedom of expression, petition, and assembly, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.

The liberal principles embodied in the Constitution were well suited to the self-reliant temper of the American people and to the conditions of life during the republic's first hundred years.

With no strong enemies on their borders, Americans were free to use their creativity and talents.
During the Civil War, the federal power survived.
Great forces were not needed for external defense.
The closing of the frontier, the swelling of the population, and the rise of giant industry made conditions less suitable to limited government.

The French Revolution was sparked by the American Revolution and was the most violent and far-reaching upheaval so far.

France, the largest and most populous country in western Europe, saw drastic changes in its legal, social, and economic order after the French Revolution.
The struggle was intensified by passionate opposition at home.
It was a major turning point in the flow of Western history.
The French Revolution had no territory of its own and its effect was to face all older frontiers.
In spite of law, traditions, character, and language, it brought men together and divided them.
The impact on the Western world was not until the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The rulers, the nobles, and the Church shared power over a society where the land was the main source of wealth and most people were peasants.

The nobility and clergy of the catholic church were superior to the rest of the king's subjects.

The First Estate, made up of 100,000 Catholic clergy, the Second Estate, consisting of 400,000 nobles, and the Third Estate, made up of 400,000 people, are the three "estates" that determine the status of French people in the eyes of the law.
As lords of manors held rights of government and justice, they were able to extract much of the wealth they needed from the peasants who paid the largest share of taxes.
The legal division of society felt that nobles stood far above the rest of the king's subjects, even if they were just commoners.

Two things kept the system from being so unfair in practice as it was in principle.

Most members of the privileged orders did not live in splendid isolation above the rest of society.
There were tens of thousands of parish priests and nuns who worked devotedly among the peasants and townspeople, even though they were too busy at court to visit their dioceses or live in their monasteries.
Farm- and factory-managing nobles, shipowning nobles, and even poverty- stricken nobles were included in the list of courtier-nobles who scrambled for access to the king so as to win positions as ambassadors, bishops, and generals.
"nobles of the sword" who prided themselves on their own or their forebears' prowess, were joined by "nobles of the gown" who earned law degrees and worked as judges and administrators.

At all levels of society, inequality was accepted.

Younger children were not supposed to marry before older ones in high and low-income families.
In the villages, peasants with larger holdings intermarried to form hereditary "dynasties" that looked down on families with smaller holdings.
The traditional order had to at least partially satisfy the hope of most people that they would be treated better than everyone else.
Wealthy people could buy official positions from the king that turned them into tax-exempt "nobles of the hat" and look down upon taxpaying commoners who were still despised by nobles of the sword and gown.

Over many centuries, these safety valves failed to work, and force had been used to uphold the existing order against peasant revolts, religious dissidents, and discontented nobles.

The rebels turned to violence to make the existing order better serve their interests, but not to destroy it.
In the 18th century, France was feeling the effect of gradual changes, some of them under way since the Middle Ages and others more recent, that were causing pressures to build up and safety valves to become blocked.
An explosion of suddenness and violence would occur.

The increase in the power of rulers brought with it problems.

Like all systems of rule by one person, absolute monarchy depended on the character of the monarch, and France's eighteenth-century kings were not as dominating as Louis XIV.
The Sun King's grandson, Louis XV, grew up to be a capable but pleasure-loving ruler, while his own successor, Louis XIV, was indecisive.
Both kings were guided by powerful courtier-nobles and courtier-clergy.
The court of Versailles was designed by Louis XIV to keep the nobles out of government.

The absolute monarchy continued to fight wars, even though there were many victories but also many defeats, because of the enlightened despotism of Prussia and the constitutional monarchy of Britain.

These defeats made rulers, clergy, nobles, and commoners alike feel the need to restructure the French version of absolute monarchy at the same time as the government faced an increasingly urgent short-term problem that of paying for its wars.

The cost of war in France was met by increasing taxes and borrowing, but by the middle of the 18th century both sources had reached their limit.

The burden on the peasants had been growing for more than a century.
Many lords of manors had recently been using their power as lords of manors to extract every penny that the peasants owed them, because they were worried that the peasants might skimp on payments to them.

As the monarchy's debts mounted, so did the cost of repaying them, which had to be met by the taxpayers.

Government debts, oppressive taxation, and shifts in power within the partnership of ruler, nobles, and Church were nothing new, but this time the traditional order was under pressure in other ways as well.

The Third Estate's wealthy and well-educated business and professional people were outgrowing their humble position in the government and social order.
Many traditional beliefs and values were thrown into doubt by the new ideology of the Enlightenment.

The growth of the business and professional classes was related to many other de velopments that had been under way since the late Middle Ages.

The growth of trade within Europe and across the world increased the opportunities for manufacturers and merchants.
The absolute monarchy maintained price controls and guild rules to keep the poor from rioting.
Goods passing from one province to another inside France were an important source of government revenue.
nobles tried to prevent the sons of the bourgeoisie from entering military academies and began to resent the long-standing royal practice of creating nobles of the hat even while impoverished nobles sold their manors to wealthy townspeople or "manured their land"

The literate public, high and low, were reading the books of the sophes and being inspired both to idealistic hopes for future change and to cynicism and resentment at existing realities.

Many royal advisers were envious of Prussia.
Under the influence of the "cult of nature", Marie Antoinette built a village at Versailles where she and her ladies frolicked as milkmaids.
More than a few nobles began to believe that their privileges had become a bar to progress, and sought to lead France toward the British model of constitutional monarchy with a dominant but taxpaying aristocracy and an honored place for other social groups.
Some of the clergy, mostly the offspring of noble families, holding high Church positions, were no longer Christian believers, a development that inspired fury among humble parish priests while only increasing contempt for religion among less privileged unbelievers.
Growing fear and resentment from nobles, as well as the increasingly irksome restrictions of absolute monarchy, were liable to console bourgeois with the unaccustomed thought that all people were endowed with natural rights to freedom and equality.

The hopes, fears, and resentments came to a head in the second half of the teenth century, when the ruling partnership of king, nobles, and Church was strained to the breaking point over the question of what to do about the government's debts.

In 1763, King Louis XV and his advisers were faced with the problem of paying for a worldwide war that had ended badly for France.

They didn't think that the problem could be solved at the expense of the peasants, bankers or the government.
The solution would have to come at the expense of the privileged orders, and as a first step the government announced a tax on land belonging to nobles.
This was a language that had been used by English gentry and Puritans and would soon be used by North American colonists.
The people using it now were members of the privileged orders of France.

The government was able to raise enough new revenue to avoid bankruptcy because of this conflict.

For the next quarter of a century, the nobility and the monarchy struggled indecisively over reform of the public finances, which inevitably raised questions about reform of the government system in general.
The idea of giving up privileges to become the dominant force in a constitutional monarchy seemed risky for many nobles who proclaimed the ideal of government by consent.
The rulers and their advisers announced several reform plans that would have made the government more efficient and equitable, but they did not have the stomach for a break with their traditional partners in the privileged orders.
Both sides fell into a dangerous habit of publicly criticizing each other as a result of the unsolved problems.
Both absolute monarchy and the privileges of nobles and clergy became subject to discussion in the court of public opinion, which meant the opinion of the wealthier and better-educated members of the Third Estate.

After the absolute monarchy fought another expensive war against Britain, there was a final crisis.

In 1786, the government announced a reform plan that included a permanent tax on land to be levied on all subjects.
The privileged orders had a trump card to play in the battle for public support, and they protested and resisted.
The new tax could not become law unless the national representative assembly of France accepted it, according to the Parlement of Paris.
The body was an important part of the government in the Middle Ages.
As the rulers' power grew, they found it a nuisance and have not convened it since 1614.

It would mean the dismantling of absolute monarchy to revive it now.

The privileged orders became the leaders of the nation against the king.

The urban poor were suffering from high food prices caused by bad harvests, peasants were hoping for relief from taxes and payments to owners, and the Estates-General was the place to lodge grievances.
Facing open disobedience from nobles, with tax revenues shrinking and threatening bankruptcy, and afraid to use force, King Louis XVI agreed to summon a meeting of the EstatesGeneral, to be held at Versailles the following year.

The plan for the meeting opened a divide between the nobles and the bourgeoisie.

Traditionally, the Estates-General had been an assembly of representatives of the First, Second, and Third Estates, with each estate meeting and voting separately, and the consent of all three required for decisions to become law.
In 1614, the system that allowed the First and Second Estates to dominate seemed fair.
The lawyers and other professional men who emerged as spokesmen for the Third Estate wanted it revised in the age of the Enlightenment and self-confidence.

They argued that the Third Estate should have more representatives than the other two and that all three estates should meet in a single assembly.

The Third Estate would dominate the decision making because reform minded noblemen and clergy would vote with it.

The Parlement of Paris ruled in favor of the traditional voting method after the king granted the demand for double representation of the Third Estate.

The elections for the members of the Third Estate at Versailles began and the arguments continued.

Small businessmen and heads of peasant households were elected to the members by the provincial assembly.

The common people became aware that their votes might not be as important as those of the nobles and clergy.

The king, the privileged orders, and the bourgeoisie were going to be involved in a conflict that would encompass the entire nation.

Riots caused by bad harvests and high bread prices in many parts of France came to a head after the session opened.

Unable to persuade the two higher estates to sit and vote with them as one body, the representatives of the Third Estate decided to walk out.
They declared themselves to be the "National Assembly" of France because they were the only true representatives of the people.
The power to determine the procedure of the Estates-General rested with the king, and this was the first act of revolution.
The crisis of decision was faced by Louis XVI.

Louis was forced to choose between the nobility and the bourgeois.

The meeting hall where the Third Estate was sitting was locked.
The Third Estate found a meeting place at an indoor tennis court.
The members swore the "Tennis Court Oath," promising not to return home until they had drafted a new constitution for France.

The National Assembly was joined by many priests from the First Estate.

Louis tried to intimidate the rebels by showing force.
He called twenty thousand soldiers to Versailles at the end of June.

The National Assembly was saved by the people of Paris, not just the wealthy bourgeois, but also the small business owners and their workers who made up the bulk of the city's population.

They rioted in the course of the civil wars of the Reformation.
They were aroused by the threat to the Third Estate.
Excited by rumors of troop movements, crowds began to roam the streets of the capital in search of weapons, and on July 14, they demanded arms from the Bastille.
The old fortress was hated because it was no longer of military importance.
The mob tried to push its way in when the commander refused to give up his arms.
The commander agreed to surrender after about a hundred of the crowd were killed in an exchange of gunfire.

The mob killed members of the garrison, cut off their heads, and carried them through the city streets.

Louis was worried that his troops would fire on the people.

He moved his forces away from Versailles.
He pretended to give in to the demands of the Paris mob and the Third Estate.
The representatives of the privileged estates were ordered to sit in the new National Assembly by the king, who recognized a selfappointed citizens' committee as the new city government of Paris.
For the time being, the revolutionary movement was saved and strengthened by the Parisian populace.

The peasants were the final blow to the Old Regime.

Since the elections, they knew of the issues at stake, and though it took time for news to spread to remote country districts, many of them knew that the Third Estate was in danger.
They had rioted to stop merchants from exporting grain from country districts, but now they turned on the nobles.

It was rumored that the landlords were going to attack the peasants.

The peasants seized the initiative while the nobles were away.
The manor houses of the nobles were vandalized and their records were destroyed during the "Great Fear" of late summer.

The National Assembly tried to quiet the peasants after the king appeased the Paris populace.

The nobles and bourgeois held landed estates.

They realized that they would have to take drastic action to save their families and properties because of the disorders in the country.

The first modern revolutions of the National Assembly removed all special privileges from landed property.
Reformminded noblemen surrendered their historic rights to peasant fees and labor, hunting on farmland, tax exemptions and advantages, and special courts of law for the nobility.
The first major reform of the National Assembly was the overturn of property rights.
The nobles were the ones who lost; the peasants were the ones who were interested in defending the revolution.

The framing of a new constitution is the original task of the National Assembly.

The effort was to prove trying and divisive, but there was agreement on the major principles.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen summarized those principles.
It was drafted as a guide to the new order.

The Declaration was the same as the English and American bills of rights.

Specific principles of government went beyond them.
The duties of individuals in a society were defined after the "natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of man" were stated.

The influence of the French-Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was reflected in this emphasis on the "general will".

Rousseau's political ideas stimulated the rebels of his own day, but he died eleven years before the revolution.

Rousseau meant the collective will of a community, in which every individual has a share.

Since all individuals contribute to the general will, they must obey it, even if they do not, because they are still free.

The general will is difficult to find in practice.

The National Assembly, Napoleon the self-made emperor who eventually took over the Revolution, and the Communist parties of recent times are examples.

Each could speak in the name of the general will of the people.

Rousseau's ideas were raised against all political institutions that had a di vine or historical right rather than a general will.

The National Assembly's claim to authority was supported by his arguments.
The planners of the new constitution accepted their duty to create a framework of government that would respond to and express the will of France.
In October 1789, seven thousand Parisian market women joined an armed march to Versailles to force King Louis XVI to act against high bread prices, approve the National Assembly's revolutionary measures, and come with his queen, Marie Antoinette, and the heir to the throne to live in Paris.
The king agreed to all the demands.

The new government should have an upper and a lower house, and a king with veto power.

Others were worried that the arrangement would give the nobility too much power.

The single-chamber plan was shifted due to the rising distrust of Louis XVI.

The leader of the National Assembly was suspicious of the monarch's loyalty to the revolution and his brother had already fled the country.
The emigres urged foreign powers to intervene in France and Louis hesitated to accept either the Declaration of Rights or the Assembly's decree abolishing feudalism.

The Jacobin Society was the most influential of the radical groups because of their fear of the revolution.

The society was founded in 1789.
By 1793, it had half a million members and was a government within the revolutionary government.
The Jacobins were a prototype for the revolutionary parties of the twentieth century.

Resistance to the revolution grew as it grew more radical.

More than half of the officers of the army left France to recover their lost positions and lands.
Many people who would have supported the revolution were turned against it by their religion.
The properties of the Church were taken as a means of financing the revolutionary government in 1790.
The measures provoked a lot of anger from clerics and a lot of popular opposition in the western and southeastern parts of the country.
The revolutionary government was not acting as the agent of the general will, but as the leader of one side in a divided nation.
A unicameral legislature and a veto for the king were included in the constitution.
The well-to-do members of the National Assembly were able to limit the right to vote.
The candidates for the electoral college had to be male citizens of substantial property.
The reason for the restrictive provisions was to hand control of the country to the wealthy families.

Louis XIV, who was named the official head of the new government, tried to escape from France.

He was captured near the northeast frontier and brought back to Paris in disgrace.
The king was deposed and a new assembly was called to draft a new constitution.
The first French Republic was proclaimed by the National Convention.
In 1795, the Convention approved a constitution for the Republic of France after it had been governed during troubled years of reform and war.

The success of the American Revolution was assured by outside intervention.

It helped to bring about panic, dictatorship, and ultimately, military defeat, because it stimulated extremism and internal splits within the revolution.

The royal and privileged ones were alarmed by the aims and actions of the rev olution, but some individuals outside France sympathized with them.

Blood ties with the Bourbon king and warnings from the emigres strengthened their feeling.
There was a military threat in the Declaration of Pillnitz.
The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II of Austria stated that he would use force to restore the Bourbon rulers' rights if other European powers joined him.
Busy with matters in Austria, the emperor did not really wish to send troops to France, but his declaration encouraged the emigres and alarmed the French leaders.

It strengthened the hand of the more aggressive revolutionists in France, who hoped that foreign war would restore national unity behind the revolution and that the reforms could not be made secure in France unless they were also carried abroad.

They pictured French armies taking the banner of "liberation" into neighboring lands and teaming up with native radicals to overthrow established governments.

A period of continental revolution and war lasted for twenty-three years after the government declared war on Austria.

The war produced panic and disorder in Paris and the provinces.

The king's Swiss Guard was massacred by a mob in the autumn.
A group of army recruits invaded the Paris jails and seized prisoners who had been rounded up as suspected sympathizers with the aristocracy.
The unfortunates were put to death after mock trials.
The winds of violence were released by the revolution and are now sweeping across France.
The National Convention faced immediate problems when it first met, such as dealing with the king, restoring law and order, and conducting the war.

There was a major split between the moderates and the radi cals after Louis's trial.

The leaders of the Convention were all Jacobins, but they were divided into different groups based on their interests and temperaments.

The order of execution was passed by a narrow margin after Louis was voted guilty.

The majority of the convention members marked themselves as regicides and the others as counterrevolutionary.
The seeds of mutual distrust and hostility were sown within the revolution, and the rival leaders devoured one another.

The Convention's guiding spirit was the radical Maximilien Robespierre.

Prussia, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, and Sardinia joined Austria to form the First Coalition of powers against France.
Out of opposition to the Convention's measures, violent uprisings erupted in the strongly Catholic parts of the country.
The concentration of power in Paris is growing.
The trial courts were set up to fight lynchings and rebellions.
As many as forty thousand heads were guillotined, usually on charges of treason or sedition.

The drafting of all able-bodied men was approved to oppose the First Coalition.

The French draftees showed themselves to be more than a match for their enemies.
They turned the tide of battle in June of 1794.
The enemies of Robespierre put an end to his political domination after foreign peril declined.
He was executed along with many of his associates after the Convention voted to outlaw him.

The return to power of the moderates was marked by the fall of Robespierre.

The convention's final approval of the republican constitution was secured by the moderates.
The Directory, established by the government, restricted political participation to men of substantial wealth, even fewer than those who had held power under the constitution.

feudal property rights, titles of nobility, and special privileges had been stripped away after the monarchy was abolished.

The traditional administration, with its chaotic mixture of royal authority and noble privilege, had been replaced by self-governing cities and departments.

The mercantilist regulations of the late monarchy were scrapped.

What kind of country France would become, and whether it would provide an example of reform that other countries would want to follow, were still uncertain.

The leaders of the Directory were mostly ex-Jacobins who were involved in the killing of the king, the persecution of the Church, and atrocities against Catholic and royalist peasants; but they had also killed Robespierre and his followers among impoverished urban workers.

They were hated and despised by both opponents and supporters of the revolution.
The bourgeois men of property who now run the government deliberately closed the door to building popular support because of the restriction of the suffragist vote.
The government of the Directory lacked effective leadership since many sincere reformers had either dropped out of public affairs or been destroyed in the rivalry of factions.
The politicians who remained were mostly men of narrow vision and selfinterest who were unable to solve the nation's problems.

High hopes were turned into disappointment, animosity, and bloodshed among the people.

Economic conditions for the poor had worsened, families had been torn apart, and mothers bore a heavier burden of securing food and shelter for their children.
Many citizens fell into a feeling of indifference or cynicism after years of excitement.
The Directory ruled a mostly hostile country with the help of the military.

Napoleon Bonaparte was quick to understand the political situation.

The government was attacked by royalist mobs in 1795.
After two years, his troops were called on to enforce illegal measures that had been taken by the Directory, and in 1799, he plotted with some of its leaders to take over the state by a coup d'etat.

The conspirators believed that only a strong government headed by a general could defeat France's enemies.

He ruled for fifteen years as a virtual dictator.

Napoleon was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica in 1769 and was a fervent French nationalist.

France and the leading European monarchies had been at war for seven years.

The result was an expanded France and a belt of satellite republics, stretching from the Netherlands to Italy, called by the names of their territories in Roman times.

The power of France's conquering armies had grown to overshadow the authority of its republican institutions.

There is no reason to doubt Napoleon's dedication to revolutionary goals, even though he was a master of politics and cunning.

He was impatient with the inefficiency of the former government and disliked inherited and artificial privilege.
The first modern opportunity revolutions were equality of c hapter 11 and careers open to talent.

Napoleon was a child of the Enlightenment and a believer in progress.

He felt free from ordinary morality when he viewed himself as above ordinary people.
He was the heir to Caesar and Machiavelli.

The image was to be turned into a myth.

The revolution is being Stabilized.

The old aristocracy and the new democracy were not used by the new master of France.
His various constitutions gave voting rights to all adult males, but the voters only elected lists of candidates from which his government named the legislators and officials.
Only men loyal to Napoleon were appointed and advanced in office.
The democratic charade gave satisfaction to the populace and brought honor to his favorites, but Napoleon was the real power.

It's not true that Napoleon snuffed out democracy in France.

The majority of the people had no political power under either the monarchy or the Republic.

Napoleon's overthrow of the Directory meant that a nonnoble but propertied aristocracy had been displaced.

He invited all the emigres who were willing to work for their homeland back to France.
He called his service men who ranged from royalist to regicide to help consolidate the new order.

He was tasked with securing domestic peace and order.

He arranged to have his op ponents silenced by means of deportations, exposure of alleged plots, and efficient work of his secret police.
The Catholic disaffection was dissolved by an agreement with the Pope in 1802.
Napoleon accepted that the Roman Catholic faith was the main religion of the French.
Public religious processions were once again allowed.
Priests who had submitted to the Civil Constitution were left to papal discipline, while those who had remained loyal to Rome were recognized as legitimate.

The pope accepted the new status of Catholicism in France.

The French government was given the right to nominate bishops after he dropped Rome's claims.
The toleration of all faiths was secured by the revolutionary regimes.
The settlement established a peace between the state and the Church in France that lasted over a century.

Napoleon, a nonbeliever, appreciated the advantage of having the Church on the side of the state and recognized the importance of religion to the people.

He wouldn't allow it to be the primary force in shaping citizens.
The state had to provide for the education and patriotism of the young.
He approved the earlier closing of Church schools by the National Convention and put into effect its comprehensive plans for a national educational system.
Napoleon's version of the ceremony of coronation is depicted in a painting by Jacques-Louis David.
The pope is present to show the Church's approval, but Napoleon has set the crown on his own head and is about to crown his empress, Josephine.
The emperor's mother is depicted, along with a bunch of cardinals, generals, ambassadors, courtiers, and relatives.
"Madame Mother," the only person Napoleon did not dare to give orders to, hated her daughter-in-law and refused to attend the ceremony.

The basis of French education is still supervised from Paris.

The plans of revolutionary leaders for reorganizing French law and administration were carried out by Napoleon.

The Napoleonic Code was brought to completion by his appointed commissions.
The collection of laws and principles relating to persons and property was the result of a lot of work.
The code is similar to the ancient Roman codes that inspired it and would become the new basis of law in major parts of Europe and America.
The code was Napoleon's most durable accomplishment.
He wrote that his true glory was not in having won forty battles, but in the memory of the many victories.

Modern techniques of administering a centralized state took shape under Napoleon.

The historic provinces of France, the local courts and offices, and the administration of justice were all destroyed by the revolution.
The central government has officials who are responsible for the cities and departments.

The reform of public administration extended to taxation, expenditure, and money and banking, and with it the equality of citizens before the law.

The grand design for public works was in keeping with the rationalism of the Enlightenment and with bourgeois ideas of efficiency.

Napoleon caused turmoil abroad if he brought peace and order at home.

There was tension between France and the rest of Europe at the beginning of the revolution.
If a revolution is a threat to established social systems, it creates tension.
The privileged classes of Europe reacted in fear to the events of 1789 and the French leaders declared war in the expectation of being attacked.
The armies of the revolution extended the frontiers of France to the Rhine River and central Italy, but the outcome of the struggle was still undecided when Bonaparte took over.

The Second Coalition of powers, which had come together against France, was his first move in foreign affairs.

He achieved this goal by using military moves and skillful diplomacy.
There was peace between France and its neighbors for the first time in a decade.
It was an uneasy truce.

Napoleon could have chosen a defensive military posture, against which his enemies might have struck in vain, because the French state now held more territory than the Bourbon kings had dreamed of.

His political and military moves resulted in a break with Britain, renewal of the war, and the rise of the Third Coalition against France.

Napoleon's genius and the confusion of his enemies brought him to his goal.

His downfall was caused by the stubbornness of the British and their control of the seas, exhausting warfare against popular uprisings in Spain and Portugal, and the vast manpower and distances of Russia.

Napoleon lost a bloody naval battle off Cape Trafalgar, near the Atlantic entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.

The French and allied fleets were destroyed after Nelson was killed in battle.
Napoleon tried to bring down the island nation through an economic blockade after abandoning his plans to invade Britain.
The "Continental System" was a failure by 1810.

Spain was Napoleon's second failure.

Their tactics were ambush, surprise, and retreat before superior forces, and they were backed by the British with money, supplies, and an expeditionary force of regulars.
The guerrillas held down tens of thousands of troops that Napoleon needed elsewhere.

Napoleon launched a land attack on Russia in 1812.

This was his fatal mistake.

After initial victories, his "Grand Army" of French and allied troops was destroyed by the terrible winter, disease, and stamina of the Russian guerrillas, using tactics similar to those of Spain and Portugal.

Napoleon was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba after he abdicated as emperor in 1814.

He raised a new army after escaping a short while later.

France absorbed Germany and Italy, its satellite states stretched from Spain to Poland, and only Britain stood against it.

The emperors of Rome ruled for centuries after the Roman Republic gave way to a single ruler.
Napoleon's empire lasted only a dozen years after he conquered Europe.
Napoleonic victories are marked by the battle names in Roman type.

Napoleon planted the seeds of a new order in Europe, and the Continent would never be the same again.

The books that are recommended are related to revolutions.

The World History Resources Center at http://history.wadsworth.com/west_civ/ offers a variety of tools to help you succeed in this course.