Thomas Paine holding scroll "rights of man," 1792

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Major Effects

Women of the French Revolution

Contribution to modern nationalism and its relationship to totalitarianism

 
Abolition of theocratic absolutism in France

 
Abolition of remaining feudal restrictions and obligations

 
Support for the ideas of popular sovereignty, religious tolerance, and legal equality

• Influential Biography page on Olympe de Gouges

• Influential Biography page on Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution

Impacts of the French Revolution

• The Code Napoleon
• Political Impacts

Link to AP World History Key Concept 5.3 for more on the French Revolution

Focus Question: What are the major effects of the French Revolution?

Lesson plan focusing on the effects and long-term impact of the French Revolution

Crash Course in World History: The French Revolution
Explains the French Revolution's importance in the context of World History

Ten Minute History: French Revolution
Good video explaining the time before, during and after the revolution

For a quick instant Jeopardy game reviewing the French Revolution click here.

Imaging the French Revolution: Depictions of the French Revolutionary Crowd from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the Department of History at the University of California.

Consequences of the French Revolution

An article from Harvard that overviews how the French Revolution impacted neighboring countries:

• In France the bourgeois and landowning classes emerged as the dominant power.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen , the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and other strides to a constitution were particularly disputed. The French were being transformed into a people who were seeing increased democratic nationalism, however.

Napoleonic Satires is a collection of caricatures assembled by Brown University Library for Digital Initiatives.

French Revolution for Kids  

A fun, short video for students to watch on the French Revolution and it's consequences 

Women in the Revolution

Woman holding a French revolution flag

Women played many important roles during the revolution:

• They were at many of the important events of the revolution, Including the storming of the Bastille and the Palace at Versailles

• Hungry peasant women made up most of the rioting group that enter the Palace at Versailles, an event that forced the King and his family to relocate to Paris. Effectively putting them under house arrest and under the authority of the Revolution

• Women wrote their own proposals for new laws and what the french nation should look like to the National Assembly

• Olympe de Gouges, who published the "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen" in 1791 was among the most vocal women of her time

• And when women were not allowed to participate in the National Assembly or political social groups and gatherings they formed their own

• Women even came to symbolize the revolution as a whole

Lady Justice became a symbol of the Revolution. Lady justice is depicted as an elegant woman in a roman toga, blindfolded, holding a sword in one hand and a scale in the other.

• Here is a link to an article on women

Feudalism may have ended with the revolution but social order and contractual relations were consolidated by the Code Napoléon (French Civil Code) which affirmed the right of men to control women, a setback for the idea of women's rights to equality.

• Even though women played many important roles during the revolution, the rise and rule of Napoleon (and the new monarchy after Napoleon) saw French women return to the roles they played in society in pre-revolutionary times

A. Contribution to modern nationalism and relationship to totalitarianism

The French Revolution, lasting from 1789-1799, radically and brutally changed France’s structure from a monarchical state, having a rigid social hierarchy, into a modernized nation whose social structure was looser and whose power was spreading more to the middle class.

• However, the Revolution did not immediately change France to a democratic state. 

• Rather, it became a different kind of authoritarian regime under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

• Soon after the French Revolution, Napoleon conquered much of Europe, albeit supposedly to spread the ideals of freedom.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica's entry (see below), Napoleonic France and its conquests popularized the idea of the modern nation-state, whose identity was determined by popular sovereignty of its people, not hereditary rule of a monarch.

• Even in its conquests, Napoleon's France spread the ideas of popular sovereignty and rule of law, as well as pride in national identity. As the Encyclopedia states,
• "Under [Napoleon's army's] inspiration new rituals were developed that partly took the place of the old religious feast days, rites, and ceremonies: festivals and flags, music and poetry, national holidays and patriotic sermons." This was to become the basis of modern nationalism, and with its rise came calls for the independence and unification of some states in Europe (Greece in 1830, Belgium in 1831, unification of Italy and Germany later in the 19th century).

The rise of modern nationalism is essential to the rise of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, who were heavily nationalistic. However, the professed ideals of the French Revolution seem to deeply contradict the idea of totalitarianism. The Revolution was essential in ending the reign of Absolutist monarchs, who held power comparable to later totalitarian dictators.

Napoleon as 1st consul, 1803

The elimination of Feudalism had consequences, however.

The Encyclopedia Britannica on Nationalism and the French Revolution



The character of Napoleon's regime has sparked considerable historical debate. Was Napoleon a military dictator, or an enlightened despot who spread positive ideals around the world? 

• This article explores that question

Here also is a timeline of Napoleon's rule in Europe, starting with his campaign in Egypt in 1798 until is death in 1821.

B. Abolition of theocratic absolutism in France 

The French Revolution did away with the French monarchy, executing King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. It forever did away with the idea of Absolutist monarchs whose authority to rule came directly from God. While the monarchy was later restored in the Bourbon Restoration of 1830, it was only a constitutional monarchy and would never again have the power and prestige of the monarchy prior to 1789.

Prior to the Revolution, France was a society that was full of privileges and inequality.

France’s population of 27 million was divided, as it has been since the Middle Ages, into three orders, or, estates.

• The first estate consisted of the clergy, numbering about 130,000 people who owned about 10% of the land and shared the interests of the nobility. The parish priests were often poor and from the class of commoners.

• The second estate was the nobility, composed of about 350,000 people who owned about 25%-30% of the land in France.
• The nobility had a very important, and even crucial role, in French society during the 18th century. They held many of the leading positions in the government, the military, the law courts, and the higher of the church offices. The nobility wanted to overpower the monarchy and maintain its control of the military, the church, and the government.

• The last of the estates, the commoners of society, was the overwhelming majority of the population of France. They were separated by differences in occupation, level of education, and wealth. These were the peasants, skilled craftspeople, and shopkeepers.

In 1789-91, the National Assembly modernized France to a great extent. Despite the Declaration of Rights, the newer franchise still excluded the poor, but the public held onto its beliefs of freedom and unity as it is shown in the first Festival of Federation, a celebration of national unity held on July 14, 1790.

Bankruptcy was diverted by the seizing of land. Churches and courts of law were rebuilt to be subject to a uniform system of local government by the election of councils to serve

Dissension developed still as multiple changes, seen as drastic, like the reorganization of the church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), which was followed in rapid and uniform succession. In 1791 the call for a clerical oath of loyalty finalized the conflict between the new independence and traditional loyalties leading to a conflict and splitting the country apart.

Click here for interactive flashcards about the French Revolution and the end of Absolutism in France

The Bourbon Restoration from Princeton.edu

C. Abolition of remaining feudal restrictions and obligations

The initial causes of the French Revolution must be looked at keeping in mind the condition of French society. Social historians emphasize the importance of the growing gap between reality and the legally defined social structure which distinguished people by hereditary, or acquired rank, and recognized corporate, rather than individual, rights. They also emphasize the complexity of French society and question the relevance of capitalism.

The first, or one of the first, acts that the National Assembly carried out was the elimination of artifacts from the feudal era and relics of aristocratic privileges. On August 26, 1789, the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The assembly made concrete the demise of aristocratic privileges in the proclamation of the end of discrepancy of taxation, freedom and equal rights for all men, and access to public office based on talent and not position of birth.

Specifically they struck down to important aspects of Feudalism 

• One: the did away with the First Estates (Church) Tithe. The church could no longer collect this tax which effectively limited the power of the Catholic Church

• Even with the restoration of the monarchy after Napoleon the church still could not collect the tax. This decision by the National Assembly forever changed the distribution of power in France

• Second: they abolished the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate (Nobility)

• This was the basics foundation of feudalism in France. Seigneurial rights of the nobility was the idea of have peasants working their land for them.

D. Support for ideas of popular sovereignty, religious tolerance, and legal equality

Prior to the French Revolution, these ideas were largely confined to the thoughts and writings of Enlightenment philosophers. They had received some practical application in the American Revolution, but they saw their most lasting impact on European affairs in the events of the French Revolution. The French Revolution made formation of states not based on religious or monarchical authority much, much easier. As such, it provided a basis for the modern model of the non-religious nation state.

• The whole of the French Revolution revolved around the idea of equality and popular sovereignty

• The ideas that were discussed and implemented in the early years of the revolution are the ideas many democracies hold dear today
• The right to have a say in how you are governed
• The ability to worship as you see fit
• And the right to be equal in the eyes of the law no matter you own standing in society

• With these ideas now out there Europe would increasingly start to shift towards them: many countries (including France) would move towards a limited Monarchy or even a parliamentary form of government

Portrait de Toussaint Louverture 

The Haitian Revolution

The current nation of Haiti was a French colony in the Caribbean in the years of the French Revolution, and home to several thousand black slaves. From 1791-1804, Haiti saw a slave revolt which resulted in the new Republic of Haiti, not under French control and the abolition of slavery.


PBS Documentary on Toussaint L'ouverture and the Haitian Revolution

Toussaint-Louverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first Black man to become governor of a colony.

Crash Course in World History: The Haitian Revolutions

Impacts of the French Revolution

• The French Revolution had a crucial influence on the British intellectual, philosophical, and political life of people in the 19th century.

• The Revolution advanced the belief that all citizens should have rights in the processes of the legislature.

• The installment of freedom of speech and the press went along with the removal of arbitrary arrests.

• Religious and social strife were key components in aiding to the destruction of the third estate.

• The completely fundamental results of the French Revolution were probably achieved in 1789-91 when land was freed from customary burdens and the old corporate society was destroyed.

• The removal of feudalism promoted individualism but probably hindered the expansion of a capitalistic economic base.

• Although only the most successful of peasants were able to purchase land confiscated from the church and the emigrant nobility, France became more of a land with peasant proprietors.

• The bourgeoisie that acquired social predominance during the Directory and the Consulate was mostly made out of officials and landed proprietors.

• Although the war enabled some speculators to make fortunes, it slowed down the development of a sound economy and hindered economic growth and development.

The Code Napoleon

• The reforms of 1789 and 1791 established a prevailing administrative and legal system. Much of the revolutionaries' work in humanizing the law was subsequently taken into in the Napoleonic Code.
•  
• The Code Napoleon from the Constitutional Rights Foundation

The Wife is Obliged: The French Code from Women in World History

Homosexuality was also decriminalized during the revolution, but as you see here, it was still frowned upon, and most changes did not occur until after 1990.

• For more, see the Napoleonic Code from the GLBTQ Archive

Click here for information on how Jewish people across Europe were affected by the Revolution.


Political Impacts of the French Revolution

Politically, the French Revolution was more of an impact than a success. The government of France had either been parliamentary and constitutional, or based on the plebiscitary system that Napoleon devised and developed.

• Between 1789 and 1799, however, democracy failed.
• Frequent elections incited apathy and filing of offices by election was already instated before Napoleon made it mandatory.
• The Jacobins' fraternal--and Jacobin-controlled--community expired in 1794
• The democracy of the sansculottes was smashed in 1795, and the republic dissolved in 1804. As ideals, however, they continued on to inspire and make bitter the politics of France and to help keep church and state separated.

Click here for lesson plans titled "Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn". This covers the American Revolution, French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution


Sources
1. Duiker, William J. and Spielvogel, Jackson J., (2005). The essential world history. Belmonet, CA: Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc.
2. Sydenham, M. J (1997). The french revolution. Retrieved March 1, 2007, from Discover Frence Web site: http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/History/DF_revolution.shtml
3. Answers Corporation, (2007). Answers.com. Retrieved March 1, 2007, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/french-revolution-from-the-abolition-of-feudalism-to-the-civil-constitution-of-the-clergy
4. Cody, David (1999). French revolution. Retrieved March 1, 2007, from The Victorian Web Web site: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist7.html
5. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858289.html