The French Revolution: A radical reform

The French Revolution began as a popular uprising in the eighteenth century against an unpopular regime controlled by the French upper classes. It soon expanded into a movement against an unfair class system, which divided the French population into three ‘estates’ with reducing powers in a descending order; the clergy formed the first estate, the nobility the second and the commoners about 95 per cent of the population forming the third estate with the lowest powers. The Revolution stands out till this day as a warning about the power of popular opinion to unpopular rulers.

Rise of people’s power

The French Revolution began in the second half of 1789 with the formation of the National Assembly controlled by the Third Estate. Thus, began a decade of turbulence, which succeeded in overturning customs and social conventions through a violent outburst of public grievances against the ruling Bourbon dynasty. The Revolution had far-reaching consequences for the ruling Bourbon dynasty represented by King Louis XVI and his Austrian wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. Its major achievement was however in the abolition of the strict hierarchical structure of the French society, which divided its people into haves and have-nots. Numerous innocents were executed on frivolous charges at the guillotine, a new method of execution invented during the Revolution. Another early achievement of its proponents was the enactment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in the first year of the Revolution. The Declaration has since been an inspiration for  democratic movements worldwide, including the United Nations’ ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ passed in 1948.

Turbulent beginnings

The French Revolution had its beginnings in France losing the Seven Years’ War which was fought from 1754 till 1763 against the English across continents for world domination. The French incurred a huge debt due to their loss of the Seven Years’ War as well as through their support to the anti-English coalition of American colonies in the American War of Independence. In a bid to pay the war indemnity, the French rulers decided to raise the taxes on the peasant masses. But France was reeling under the effects of recurrent failed harvests. This exacerbated the class divide between the commoners and the rulers.

The ruling king, Louis XVI, was incapable of taking quick decisions and could not face the crisis. He took to replacing a series of finance ministers who were blamed for not providing a concrete solution to the problems. Among the appointees, Jacques Necker, a foreign immigrant, publicly favoured the removal of the privileges of the clergy and the nobility to spare the Third Estate of more burden. Louis replaced him but took his suggestion for a meeting of the Estates-General, a consultative body comprising of representatives from all three estates. The Estates-General first met on May 5, 1789. The next month, representatives of the Third Estate then met as the Communes (English~Commons) and deliberated for a week until on June 17, 1789 they radically declared themselves as the National Assembly ruling on behalf of the people of France.

Storming of the Bastille

The setting up of the National Assembly set the supporters of the Third Estate, including Necker, on a collision course with the King and the nobility and a higher chance of the French army being called in to suppress the Assembly. However, much to the surprise of the revolutionaries, the French Guard based in Paris sided with the popular rising and aided the local people in storming the Bastille Fortress, a symbol of the French monarchy. A mob stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789 to gain access to the cache of ammunition stored inside the fortress as well as to send a signal of the people’s power triumphing over the monarchy. The French Guard soon transformed itself into the National Guard at Paris under the leadership of Marquise de Lafayette. Louis XVI could not do much except accept the changes though he was still protected by his elite guards, the Swiss Guards. The National Assembly passed a law on August 4, 1789 abolishing the power of the first two estates to collect indirect taxes from the commoners.
On August 26, 1789 the National Assembly also published the Declarations of Rights of the Man and the Citizen introduced by General Lafayette.

French naval ships of the 18th century

The last important event in the first phase of the Revolution came in October 1789 when a mob of 7,000 women marched to the Versailles Palace to question the King about the various issues facing them; however, the mob first ransacked the Palace and almost killed the Queen, which forced the king to agree with their demand to relocate to Paris to look into the citizenry’s problems.

Royal escape and execution

The National Assembly was reconvened as the National Constituent Assembly with the aim of forming a New Constitution. Its members broke into three major political parties — the Right, the National Party and the Radicals led by maverick lawyer Maximillian Robespierre. Additional players were the Jacobins — an influential club of thinkers who favoured an aggressive foreign policy. The Jacobins was further divided into moderate Girondists and the more radical Montagnards who later let loose the Reign of Terror.

King Louis XVI was wary of the Revolution and its progressively rising assaults on his rights as the ruler of the country. Dressed as servants, he and Queen Marie Antoinette attempted to flee the country on the night of June 20, 1791. The royal couple was intercepted at Varenne by watchful guards and promptly sent back to Paris and held under strict guard.

The next major uprising against the monarchy happened on August 10, 1792 when the royal residence in Paris, the Tuileries Palace was targeted by members of the National Guard supported by the radical Paris Commune. The uprising, termed as the Insurrection, led to the killing of the members of Louis XVI’s Swiss Guard and confinement of the royal family at the Temple Prison. The insurrection led to the birth of the National Convention, a third avatar of the National Constituent Assembly, which took over the government from the Legislative Assembly, the second avatar.

The National Convention took the revolutionary step of announcing a government with no monarch heading it and announced the formation of the First French Republic on September 20, 1792 abolishing French monarchy. This left Louis XVI’s fate open to debate. The ‘discovery’ of his personal correspondence with prominent French politicians were selectively used against him to denounce him as a traitor in a trial which sentenced him to death by guillotine. Louis XVI was put to death on the morning of January 21, 1793 at the Place de la Revolution (now Place de la Concorde) in Paris. Queen Marie Antoinette was similarly tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal set up in September 1793 and put to guillotine on October 16, 1793.

The deaths of the two monarchical figures however did not satiate the revolutionaries’ yearning for bloodshed as the Revolutionary Tribunal set up by the Montagnards let loose the ‘Reign of Terror’. The violence intensified in June-July 1794 but a counter-reactionary group called the Thermidorian Reaction brought it to an end with the summary execution of Radical leaders like Robespierre on July 28, 1794. Thus, the curtain came down on the most radical phase of the Revolution.

The National Convention, in order to do away the excesses of the Reign of Terror, announced a new government called the

Directory which also blundered through its reign from 1795 to 1799 when it gave way to the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, the rising leader of the French army.

DECODING HISTORY

History is a subject that merits discussions and debates beyond the confines of a classroom. Its purpose is to create a sense of inquiry and engage us in conversations and explorations of the past; because that is what defines our present. Decoding History is a weekly Saturday page where we explore an event in World and Indian history for answers to questions about the past that may lead us straight across the boundaries of nations, empires and civilisations. It is a page to educate and familiarise teens and adults with historical events that continue to hold relevance at a personal, national and global level.

LEGACY AND SYMBOLS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

• Though chaotic in its approach, the French Revolution heralded massive changes in the form of popular governments throughout the world. Importantly, its motto of liberty, equality and fraternity amongst all humanity became the aspiration of movements across the world.
   
• The prominent role played by newspapers, pamphlets and other publications led to the recognition of the importance of the role of the Fourth Estate or Free Press in modern democracies.
   
• It helped various suppressed identities emerge and express themselves better; these included an increased role for women, blacks, slaves and religious minorities. Importantly, the French Revolution came down heavily upon the Church and diminished the role of religion in day-to-day life leading to the idea of a ‘secular state’ without any affinity to a major religion which was unimaginable till then in Europe.
   
• Many recent controversies in France like the Burkha ban emerge from this ‘neutral’ secularism which calls for non-exhibition of any religious emblems including the Holy Cross or the Star of David prominently on the body of a person.  
   
• Another important achievement of the French Revolution was the permanent decline of feudalism which dominated the French countryside leading to a lopsided owning of lands by the French aristocracy.
   
• The concept of abolition of feudalism was enacted world over including modern India where it was used for the abolition of zamindari rights of feudal landlords under important amendments to the Indian Constitution after independence.
   
• The French Revolution gave many important events and symbols to modern France like the Tricolour flag, La Marseillaise, the revolutionary song which became the French National Anthem and the Bastille Day celebrated on July 14 as the French National Day.
   
• French Nationalism gave rise to other European nationalisms to consolidate smaller states which formed new nations notably Germany and Italy.
   
• Its radical phase also inspired the Russian Revolution in the twentieth century for evicting the Tsar of Russia from power.