Cleopatra's French Revolution
Terms
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- Jacques Necker
- financial expert of Louis XVI, he advised Louis to reduce court spending, reform his government, abolish tarriffs on internal trade, but the First and Second Estates got him fired
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- In 1791, she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, further exploring issues of women's education, women's equality, women's status, women's rights and the role of public/private, political/domestic life. After correcting her first edition and issuing a second, she decided to go directly to Paris to see for herself what the Revolution was evolving towards.
- (The) September Massacres
- On August 10, 1792, insurgents, supported by a new revolutionary Paris Commune, attacked the Tuileries, took the King and queen prisoner and convened a session of the Legislative Assembly which suspended the monarchy. Then the Commune sent gangs to murder 1400 prisoners some of whom were feared to be counter-revolutionaries who would aid the invading Prussians and invited other cities in France to do the same.
- (The) Second Estate
- (the) nobility (2% of France's population, they were tax exempt themselves, but they could tax the third estate feudal dues)
- emigrés
- Nobles who fled France at the time of the Revolution. Some began plotting civil war and agitating for a European coalition against France.
- assignats
- a new paper currency backed by the confiscated church lands.
- (The) Estates-General
- The king's advisory legislative assembly consisting of representatives of the First, Second and Third Estates; it could be summoned and dismissed at the king's pleasure. Shortly before the revolution, it was convened by Louis XVI in an attempt to solve the government's worsening financial situation.
- (The death of) Louis XVI
- as citizen Louis Capet he was condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a weak majority in Convention. On January 21, 1793, he was executed.
- The Directory
- (1795-1799) created by the new constitution it was the first bicameral legislature in French history. It consisted of a parliament of 500 representatives, but the majority of French people wanted to be rid of them. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, when the elections went against them, appealed to the sword. They resolved to prolong the war because state finances had been so ruined that the government could not meet its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the angry, unemployed soldiers and power hungry generals. The directors was were not supported and their general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.
- (The) Ancien Régime
- Aristocratic social and political system prior to the French Revolution
- (Edmund) Burke
- (British statesman and philosopher, he) published Reflections on the Revolution in France (The Reflections constitute one of the best-known intellectual attacks on the French Revolution, he argued that the French Revolution would end in disaster because it was founded on abstract notions that purported to be rational but in fact ignored the complexities of human nature and society.)
- constitutional monarchy
- is a form of government established under a constitutional system which acknowledges an elected or hereditary monarch as head of state, as opposed to an absolute monarchy, where the monarch is not bound by a constitution and is the sole source of political power.
- (The) Reign of Terror
- a period of about 10 months (Sept. 5 1793 - July 28, 1794) during the French Revolution which took on a violent character with mass executions by the guillotine. It is generally associated with the figures of Maximilien Robespierre and Georges Danton and is popularly represented as an archetype of revolutionary violence.
- Jacobins
- the largest and most powerful political club of the French Revolution (their movement encouraged sentiments of patriotism and liberty amongst the populace and enjoyed the support of the Sansculottes. They saw themselves as constitutionalists, dedicated to the Rights of Man, and, in particular, to the Declaration's principle of "preservation of the natural rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression" but, they were accused of condoning the September Massacres and implementing the Reign of Terror. After the fall of Robespierre the club was closed.)
- sans-culottes
- a term created to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate, because they usually wore pantaloons of the chic knee-length culotte. The term came to refer to the ill-clad and ill-equipped volunteers of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, but, above all, to the working class extremists of the Revolution.
- (The) National Assembly
- the representatives of the Third Estate renamed themselves this as an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People", They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.
- (The) Paris Commune
- government of Paris from 1789 until 1795, and especially from 1792 until 1795
- The Bastille
- a medieval fortress in Paris (it contained a prison and was a symbol of royal tyranny where large quantities of arms, ammunition, and gunpowder were kept)
- (The) First Estate
- (the Roman Catholic) clergy (1% of the population, but the largest landowners, they paid a small voluntary tax on church offices, but levied a large (10%) tax on the crops of the struggling poor - called the dîme which worsened their plight and contributed to widespread malnutrition)
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Commissioned as an officer at age 16, he was a supporter of the Jacobin faction. He rose to military fame through successful military campaigns in Italy, Austria and Venice all the while becoming increasingly influential in French politics. After several resounding French victories in the Middle East including Egypt and Syria the site of present day Syria and Israel, he returned to France finding The Republic bankrupt and the corrupt and inefficient Directory more unpopular than ever with the French public.He seized control and the legislative councils, first becoming a provisional Consuls to administer the government, then securing his own election as First Consul, First Consul for Life and four years later, Emperor.
- Louis XVI
- King of France during the French Revolution
- (The) Tennis Court Oath
- In order to prevent the National Assembly from meeting, Louis closed their meeting place "for repairs", fearing that a royal coup was imminent, the National Assembly met at on a nearby indoor tennis court and took an oath "never to separate, and to meet wherever circumstances demand, until the constitution is established. Their solidarity forced Louis XVI to order the clergy and the nobility to join with the Third Estate in the National Assembly.
- Olympe de Gouges
- A proponent of democracy, she demanded the same rights for French women that French men were demanding for themselves. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791), she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality. She lost her life to the guillotine due to her revolutionary ideas.
- Rousseau
- a philosopher and composer of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of both liberal and socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism.
- republic
- a state or country that is not led by a hereditary monarch, where the people of that state or country have impact on its government
- The Enlightenment
- An era marked politically by governmental consolidation, nation creation, greater rights for the common people, and a decline in the influence of authoritarian institutions such as the nobility and Church
- Jean-Paul Marat
- Swiss-born French physician, philosopher, political theorist and scientist best known as a radical journalist and politician from the French Revolution. At one point during the Revolution he was one of the three most important men in France, alongside Danton and Robespierre.
- (The) Divine Right of Kings
- The doctrine that a monarch is chosen by God, accountable only to Him and need answer only before God for his actions
- (The) Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- modeled after the Declaration of Independence of the United States and published by the Assembly on 26 August 1789, it comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect.
- (The) Brunswick Manifesto
- the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population should it resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. As a consequence, King Louis was seen as conspiring with the enemies of France.
- cahiers
- A list of complaints drawn up by each Estate, at the request of the King in preparation for the Estates General.
- LaFayette
- served in the American Revolutionary War both as a general and as a diplomat and was a key figure in the early phases of the French Revolution, serving in the Estates General and the subsequent National Constituent Assembly.
- coup d'etat
- A sudden seizure of political power in a nation
- Girondists
- liberal republicans
- (The) French Guards
- Armed royal soldiers assigned to protect the French King and his family, they had local ties in Paris and a resentment of their new leadership and discipline, they defected on July 14 and helped in the Storming of the Bastille. The Gardes Françaises subsequently provided the professional core of the new Garde Nationale.
- bourgeoisie
- a classification used in analysing human societies to describe a social class of people who are in the upper or merchant class, whose status or power comes from employment, education, and wealth as opposed to aristocratic origin.
- Marie Antoinette
- daughter of the empress of Austria, married to Louis XVI at age 15, accused of lavish spending that added to the national debt
- (The) Estates of the Realm
- The three divisions of power in the Ancien Régime: the clergy, the nobility and the commoners
- tithes
- called the "dîme" in French, This taxation derived from Biblical tradition that went all the way back to the Book of Genesis, Abraham and the Law given to Moses requireing that 10% of earnings be given to the Church.
- (The) Storming of the Bastille
- On July 14, 1789, 1,000 insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the fortress, which also served as a symbol of tyranny by the monarchy. It was protected by 80 veterans and 30 Swiss Guard and housing only 7 prisoners. After several hours of combat, with the help of the defecting French Guard and two cannons, the prison fell that afternoon. This is considered to be the official beginning of the French Revolution.
- (The) Third Estate
- (the) commoners (80% of the population and the most taxed, neither noble nor clergy, they had to pay a and tax, labor on roads, a tithe to the church, and feudal dues to certain lords, it included all those who were not members of the aristocracy or the clergy, including peasants, working people and the bourgeoisie)
- (The) Women's March on Versailles
- Bread was expensive and scarce, when on October 5, 1789, rumours spread in Paris that the royals were hoarding all the grain. Angry and incited by revolutionaries, 6,000 knife-wielding fishwives and their husbands marched on the Palace of Versailles and broke into the palace, killed two royal bodyguards and caused the king and queen to run for their lives. Trapped, Louis XVI reluctantly agreed to move with the royal family to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, a palace which had been mostly sat abandoned for 130 years, to lead the people. The royal family would not live to see Versailles again.
- absolutism
- a form of government in which the political power is held by a single self appointed ruler, a form of absolute monarchy
- Feuillants
- constitutional monarchists
- (The) Prisoners of the Bastille
- Seven. The prison was nearly empty of prisoners, housing only seven inmates: four forgers, two "lunatics" and one "deviant" aristocrat, the Comte de Solages; the Marquis de Sade had been transferred out ten days earlier.
- Robespierre
- a lawyer by profession, he was one of the best-known leaders of the French Revolution. He served at the Deputy for the Third Estate of the Estates-General May to June 1789. He took the position that the king must be executed
- (The) Civil Constitution of the Clergy
- passed on 12 July 1790 this law turned the remaining clergy into employees of the State and required that they take an oath of loyalty to the constitution
- (The) French Revolutionary Wars
- Agitated by émigrés and the desires of European royals not to see the French Revolution exported to their countries, France declared war on Austria (1792) and and then on Prussia who stepped in to defend Austria.
- (The death of) Marie Antoinette
- "Antoinette Capet" she given less than one day to prepare for her trial before a revolutionary tribunal on October 14. Accused of orchestrating orgies in Versailles, sending millions of livres of treasury money to Austria, plotting to kill the Duc d'Orleans, declaring her son to be the new King of France, orchestrating the massacre of the Swiss Guards in 1792 and sexually abusing her son. She was found guilty and executed that afternoon.
- Versailles
- palace in Paris seat of power during the French Revolution, site of the Tennis Court Oath