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King Stanislaw August Poniatowski
Was the leader of the Polish Patriots.
A nobleman who owned his crown solely to the dubious honor of being Catherine the Great's discared lover.
He was also a favorite correspondant of the Parisian salon hostess Madame Geoffrin.
Poniatowski saw in moderate refomr the oly chance for his country to escape the consequences of a century's misgovernment and cultural decline. -
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Louis XVI Reign
Was the King during the French Revolution and was tried and found guilty of treason; he was executed on January 21st, 1793.
-Many complained of his all to frequent hunting habit and his hobby of making locks rather than solving problems in the government.
-The Girondins and the Mountain conducted his trial.
-Although the Girondins agreed that the king was guilty of treason, many of them argued for clemency
-The National Convention supported the Mountain and Louis XIV was executed via guillotine -
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Food Shortages
Bad weather had damaged the harvest of 1788, causing bread prices to soar in many places in the spring and summer of 1789 and threatening starvation for the porrest people,
-In addition a serious slump in textile production had been causing massive unemployment since 1786.
-Hundreds of thousands of textile workers were out of work and hungry, adding another volatile element to an already tense situation. -
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Atlantic Revolutions
Between 1787 and 1789, revolts in the name of liberty broke out in the Dutch Republic, the Auhstrain Netherlands and Poland as well as in France.
At the same time the newly independent U.S.A. prepared a new federal constitution.
Historians have sometimes referred to these revolts as the Atlantic Revolutions because so many protest movements arose in contries on both shores of the North Atlantic.
These revolutions were the product of long-term prosperity and high expectations. -
Dutch Patriot Revolt
The Dutch Patriots wanted to reduce the powers of the prince of Orange. Government sponspored Dutch baks owned 40 percent of the British national debt, and by 1796 they held the entire foreign debt of the U.S.
Building on support of the middle-class, the Patriots soon gained a more popular audience by demanding political reforms and organizing armed citizen militias of men called Free Corps. Town by town the patriots orce local officals to set up new elections to replace organist officials. -
Belgian Independence Movememnt
Jospeh II abolished torture, decreed toleration for Jews and Protestants and suppressed monasteries.
His reorganization of the administrative and judicial systems eliminated many offices that bleonged to nobles and lawyers, sparking resistane among the upper classes.
A secret society formed armed companies to prepare an uprising. By 1789, each province had seperatly declared its independence and the Austrian administration collapsed. -
The Great Fear
The term used by Historians to describe the French rural panci of 1789 which led to peasant attacks on aristocrats or on seigneurial records of peasants' dues.
-Peasants made up eighty pecent of the population but only owned fifty percent of the land.
Most coud barely make ends meet but still had to pay taxes to the state and a host of seignuerual dues to their lords.
-Peasants attacked aristocats because of food shortages -
Jacobin Club
After the National Convention had abolished the monarchy and established the French Republic, many of the deputies in the Convention belonged to the devotedly republican Jacobin Club.
-They Jacobin Club in Paris headed a national political network of clubs that linked all the major towns and cities.
-Lafayette and other liberal aristocrats who had supported the constitutional monarchy fled into exile. -
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French Revolution
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Monarchy to Republic
Due to increasing distaste towards monarch King Louis XVI, French Republican rebels over threw and executed their king, marking the beginning of the forming of the first French Repulic.
-Even as the Revolution promised democracy, however, it also inauguraed a cycle of violence and intimidation.
-After 1792, huge French republican armies, fueled by patritotc nationalism, marched across Europe, promising liberation from traditional monarchies but often delivering old fashioned conquest -
Stalemate of the Third Estate Ends
After six weeks of stalemate, the deputies of the Third Estate took unilateral action and decalred themselves and whoever would join them the National Assembley in which each deputy would vote as an individual.
-Two days later, the clergy voted by a narrow margin to join them
-The deputies met on a nearby tennis court and swore an oath not to disband until they had given France a constitution that reflected their newly declared authority. -
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Politicizing Daily Life
Colors, clothing and daily speech became politicized.
-The tricolor- the combination of red, white and blue wsa devised in July of 1789 and by 1793 everyone had to wear a cockade witht the colors.
-Using the formal forms of speech-vous for "you"-or the title monsieur or madame might identify someone as an aristocrat
-Some people changed their names or gave their children new kinds of names that resembled those of Biblical and Saint figures -
Parisians capture Bastille
The French Revolution had its immediate orgins in a constitutional crisis provoked by a grwoing government deficit, traceable back to French involvement in the American War of Independence.
-The constitutional crisis came to a head when armed Parisians captured the Bastille, a royal fortress and symbol of monarchical authority in the center of the capital
-The fall of Bastille showed the determination of the common people to put their marks on events. -
Declaration of the Rights of man and Citizen
The preamble to the French constitution; it established the sovereignty of th enation and equal rights for citiznes.
-The Declaration granted freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equality of taxation and equality before the law.
-It established the principle of national sovereignty as the king derived his authority henceforth from the nation rather than from from traditon or divine right. -
Nobles Give up Duties
Alarmed by peasant unrest, the National Assembley decided to make sweeping changes. On the night of August 4th, 1789, noble deputies announced their willingness to give up their tax exemptions and seigneurial dues.
-By the end of the night dozens of deputies had come to the podiu to relinquish the tax exemptions of their own professional groups, towns or provnices.
-Tha National Assembley decreed the abolition of the Feudal Regime -
Women march to Versailles
Angry women marched on Versailles as they were done with the moarchy and prepared to move towards a republc, as members of the French Revolution
-The sight of armed women frightened many observers
-This demonstrated that the Revolution was not only a men's affair -
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
Set pay scales for the clergy and provided that the voters elect their own parish priests and bishops just as they elected officals.
-The impounded property served as a gurantee for thenew paper money, called asssignats, issued by the government.
-The assignats soon became subject to inflation because the government began to sell the church lands to the highest bidders in state auctions.
-The sales increased the landholdings of wealthy city dwellers but cut the value of paper money. -
The Festival of Federation , the Fall of Bastille
At the center of this elaborate cultural campaign were the revolutionary festivals modeled on Rousseau's plans for a civic religion.
-The Festivals first emerged in 1789 with the planting of liberty trees in villages and towns.
-The Festival of Federation marked the first anniversary of the fall of Bastille on July 14t, 1790. -
Completion of the Constitution
Provided for the immediate election of the new Legislative Assembly.
-In a rare act of self-denial, the deputires of the National Assembly declared themselves ineligible for the new assembly.
-Those who experienced the Revolution first hand departed fro the scene opening the door to men with little experience in national politics. -
Olympe de Gouges Decleration of the Rights of Women
In her Decleration of the Rights of Women in 1791, she played on the language of the official Declaration to make the point that women should also be included.
-"Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights"
-De Gouges linked her complaints to a program of social reform in which women would have equal rights to property and public office and equal responsibilities in taxes and criminal punishment. -
Polish Patriots and the Polish Constitution
A reform party calling itself the Patriots also emerged in Poland which had been shocked by the loss of a third of its territory in the first partition of 1772. The Patriots sought to overhaul the weak commonwealth along modern western European lines and looked to King Stanislaw August Poniatowski to lead them. Pleased to see Russian influence waning in Poland, Austria and Prussia allowd the reform movememnt to proceed. Parliament enacted the constitutio of May 3, 1791. -
Royal Family Escapes
The royal family escaped in disguise from Paris and fled to the eastern border of France, where they hoped to gather support from Austrian emperor Leopold II, the brother of Marie-Antoinette.
-The plans went awry when a postmaster recognized the king from his portrait on the new French money, and the royal family was arreested at Varennes.
-The National Assembley tried to depict the departure as a kidnapping but "flight to Varennes" touched off demonstrations in Paris against the royal family. -
Revolution in the Caribbean Colonies
In August of 1791, the slaves in northern St. Domingue, inspired by the slogan "Listen to the voice of Liberty which speaks in the hearts of all" organized a large-scale revolt. T
-To restore authority over the slaves, the Legislative Assembly in Paris granted civil and political rights to the free blacks
-Whites became made and signed an agreement with Britian decalring British sovereignty over St. Domingue
- Few thousand French troops in St. Domingue were outnumbered and slavery was abolished -
Decleration of the War on Prussia, Austria immediatley joins
After Louis declared war on Austria, Prussia immediately entered on the Austrian side.
-Thousands of French aristocrats had already emigrated and they were gathering along France's eastern border in expectation of joining a counterrevolutionary army.
-When fighting broke out, all the powers expected a brief and relatively contained war. Instead it would continue for the next 23 years.
-The National Assembley came under fire as a result. -
Second Revolution
The people of Paris did not want to await their fate. Known as sans-culottes, they followed every twist and turn in revolutionary fortunes.
-Faced with the threat of military retaliation and frustrated with the inaction of the Legislative Aseembly, the sans-culottes organized an insurrection and attacked the Tuileries palace, the residence of the king.
-The National Convention abolished the monarchy and established the first french Reoublic in history.
-Louis XVI was executed as a result -
Revolutionary Laws
The state took responsibility for all family matters away from the Catholic church: people now registered births, deaths and marriages at city hall.
-The new divorce law of '92: a couple could divorce by mutual consent or for reasons such as insanity, abandonment, battering or criminal conviction.
-National Convention passed a series of laws that created equal inheritance among all children in the family, even girls
-A father's right to favor a child was considered aristocratic. -
Prussians approach Paris
Violence soon exploded when the Prussians approached Paris. Hastily gathered mobs stromed the overflowing prisons to seek out traitors who might help the enemy.
-In an atmosphere of hysteria, eleven hundred inmated were killed, including many ordinary and completley innocnet people.
-The princess of Lambealle was hacked to pieces.
-These September Massacres showed the dark side of the popular revolution, in which the common people demenaded instant revenge on supposed enemies and conspirators. -
Rebellion and Civil War
The arrest of the Girondin deputies in June 1793 sparked insurections in several departments.
-1600 houses were smashed
-2000 people sentenced to death
-Between March and December peasants, artisans joined under noble leadership to form a "Catholic and Royal Army".
-Vendee Rebels stormed the largest towns in the region
-Repubican troops marched through the region to restore control, military courts executed thousands and republican soilders masacred thousands of others. -
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Reign of Terror
The policy establbished under the direction of the COmmittee of Public Safety during the French Revolution to arrest dissidents and execute opponents in order to protect the republic from its enemies.
-Because of Maximilien Robespiere, who wanted to go beyond these stopgap measures and create a repblic of virtue in which the government would teach citizens to become viruous republicans through a massive program of political reeducation, the Terror began in which the guillotine was used often. -
Jaques-Louis David
Created the Festival of Unity on August 10th, 1793, for example celebrated the first anniversary of te overthrow of the monarchy.
-He was a well-known painter and the deputy and an associate of Robespierre and took over festival planning
-David aimed to destroy the mystique of monarchy and to make the republic sacred.
-In front of Statue of Liberty built for the occassion, a bonfire consumed crowns and scepters symbolizing royalty while a cloud of three thousand white doves rose into the sky. -
General Maximum
In an effort to stabilize prices, the National Convention established the General Maximum which set limits on the prices of thirty-nine essential commodities and on wages
-In a speech to the Convention, Robespierre explained the necessity of government by terror: "The first maxim of your policies must be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror."
-Terrow was not an idle term' it seemed to imply that the goal of democracy was justified what we now call totalitarian. -
The Guillotined People of the Month
Through a series of desperate measures, the Committee of Public Safety set the machinery of the Terror in motion. It sent deputies out on a mission to purge unreliable officals and organize the war effort. Marie-Antoinette was convicted of treason and sent her to the guillotine.
-The Girondin Leaders and Madame Roland were also guillotined, as was Olympe de Gouges.
-The government confiscated all the property of convicted traitors. -
The Fall of Robespierre and the End of the Terror
In an atmosphere of fear and of conspiracy that these outbreaks fueled, Robespierre tried simultaneously to exert the National Convention's control over popular political activities and to weed out opposition among the deputies. As a result, the Terror intensified when a group of deputies joined withing the Convention to order the arrest and execution of Robespierre and his followers. The Diirectory government maintained power during four years of battles between the royalists and Jacobins. -
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Thermidorain Reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction was a revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror.
- It was triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leading members of the Terror.
-This ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution. -
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The Thermidorian Reaction and the Directory
The men who led the attack on Robespierre in Thermidor did not intend to reverse all his policies but happended anyway because of a violent backlash known as the Thermidorian Reactions.
-As most of the elements of Terror were dismantled, newspapers attacked the Robespierrists
-The new government released hundreds of suspects and arranged a temporary truce in the Vendee.
-Within a year, the new leaders abolished the Revolutionary Tribunal and closed the Jacobin Club in Paris. -
Maximilien Robespierre
The leader of the Committee of Public Safety who wanted to create a republic of virtue in which the government would teach, or force, citizens to become virtuous republicans through a massive progam called reeducation. Thus began the Terror in which the guillotine became the most terrifying instrument of government.
-He supported many emergency measures that restricted their liberties.
-His committee purged unreliable officals and wanted to orgainze the war effort. 300,000 went to prision -
Robespierres's Last Stand
Robespierre appeared before the Convention with yet another list of deputies to be arrested.
-Many feared they would be named and they shouted him dwon and ordered him arrested along with his followers on the committee, the president of teh Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris and the commander of the Parisian National Guard.
-An armed uprising led by Paris officals failed to save Robespierre
-The next day he and his followers went to the guillotine -
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Directory Government Aggressive Policy "Sister Republics"
The Directory government that came to power in 1795 launched an even more aggressive policy of creating semi-independent "sister republics"
-When Prussia decalred neutrality, France swarmed the Dutch Republic
-Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Austrian armies in Northern Italy in 1797 and created the Cisalpine Republic
-Took over Venice and gave it to the Autrians for a peace agreement
-French attacked Swiss Cantons and sut up the Helvetic Republic -
Coup against Directory, Napoleon named First Consul
-During the time that Napoleon took over, France was in turmoil. Poverty and corruption were widespread.
-Napoleon worked with Emmanuel Sieyes to overthrow the Directory.
-Bonaparte became First Consul
-He promised to be a man above party and to restore order to the republic
-A new constitution was submitted to the voters but since millions did not vote the government falsified the results to give an appearance of even greater support to the new regime. -
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Napoleon
As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815, the first monarch of France bearing the title emperor since the reign of Charles the Fat (881–887).
-His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code, has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the Napoleonic Wars.
-He established hegemony over most of continental Europe and sought to spread the ideals of the French. -
Nappoleon signs concordat with Pope
Agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII that reestablished the Roman Catholic Church in France. Napoleon took the initiative in negotiating this agreement; he recognized that reconciliation with the church was politic. It would help consolidate his position, end the royalist–clerical rebellion in W France, reunite the clergy, which had been divided since the French Revolution, and win the support of the large majority of peasant-farmers. -
Napoleon issues Civil Code
After four years of debate and planning, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte enacts a new legal framework for France, known as the "Napoleonic Code." The civil code gave post-revolutionary France its first coherent set of laws concerning property, colonial affairs, the family, and individual rights.
It codified several branches of law, including commercial and criminal law, and divided civil law into categories of property and family. The Napoleonic Code made men head of the family. -
Napoleon crowned emperor
-In Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Napoleon I, the first Frenchman to hold the title of emperor in a thousand years.
- Pope Pius VII handed Napoleon the crown that the 35-year-old conqueror of Europe placed on his own head. -
Battle of Trafalgar
In one of the most decisive naval battles in history, a British fleet under Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the coast of Spain.
In five hours of fighting, the British devastated the enemy fleet, destroying 19 enemy ships. No British ships were lost, but 1,500 British seamen were killed or wounded in the heavy fighting.
Victory ensured that Napoleon would never invade Britain. -
Battle of Austerlitz
A battle fought between the French under Napoleon on one side and the Russians and Austrians on the other. It was one of Napoleon's most brilliant victories; his defeat of the Russians and Austrians broke up a coalition of European nations (the Third Coalition—Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Sweden) opposing him and made him master of Central Europe. Also, it enabled him to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire and organize the Germanies into a confederation. -
Napoleon invades Russia
To complete his "Continental System"–a unilateral European blockade designed to economically isolate Britain and force its subjugation–was the cooperation of Russia. After earlier conflict, Napoleon and Alexander I kept a tenuous peace, but the Russian czar was unwilling to submit to the Continental System. To intimidate Napoleon massed his forces in Poland in the spring of 1812, but still the czar resisted.
On June 24th, he invades Russia with the largest army ever consisting of 500,000 men. -
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Congress of Vienna
It was never formally opened or closed, but negotiations began in 1814 and ended in 1815. The Congress restored some balance of power and succeeded in postponing a general European war for a number of years. However, its disregard of nationalism led to disputes and revolutions within a generation of its signing.
The main policy governing the Congress was that of compensation. The various nations and rulers were "punished" or "rewarded" according to the part that they played in the Napoleonic War -
Napoleon exiled to St. Helena
Defeated at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, Napoleon retreated to Paris where he recounced his throne in 1814. The European powers exiled him to the island of Elba, Within eleven months, Napoleon was back in Europe, head of a army intent on restoring Napoleon to the throne. Napoleon's defeat came in June 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. This time, the European powers were not going to take any chances on Napolon's possible return. They exiled him to the island of St.Helena in the Pacific Ocean -
Napoleon defeated at Waterloo
In a day-long battle near Brussels, Belgium, a coalition of British, Dutch, Belgian, and German forces defeated the French army led by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo led to his second and final fall from power, and ended more than two decades of wars across Europe that had begun with the French Revolution. Napoleon lost 25,000 men (killed and wounded) and had another 9,000 captured. Allied casualties numbered about 23,000. -
Mary Shelley Frankenstien
Frankenstein's monster can be taken as a particularly horrifying incarnation of the fears of the postrevolutionary era. Did the monster represent the Frecnch Revolution which had ate its own children in the Terror? Frakenstein make the forceful point that humans cannot always control their own creations. The Englightenment and the French Revolution had celebrated the vitues of human creativity but Shelley shows that innovation often has a dark and uncontrollable side. -
Revolt Against Spanish Crown
The Spanish American wars of independence were the numerous wars against Spanish rule in Spanish America that took place after the French invasion of Spain during Europe's Napoleonic Wars. The conflict started with short-lived governing juntas established in Chuquisaca and Quito opposing the composition of the Supreme Central Junta of Seville. When the Central Junta fell to the French invasion, numerous new juntas appeared across the Spanish domains in the Americas -
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best-known works of the repertoire of classical music.Among critics, it is almost universally considered to be among Beethoven's greatest works, and is considered by some to be the greatest piece of music ever written.The symphony was the first example of a major composer using voices in a symphony. The words are sung during the final movement by four vocal soloists and a chorus. -
Decembrist Revolt in Russia
n December of 1825 in St. Petersburg, Russia, a group of military officials staged a revolt against Tsar Nicholas I. These rebels were liberals who felt threatened by the new ruler's conservative views. They were, however, defeated by the tsar's forces. As a result of this revolt, Nicholas I implemented a variety of new regulations to prevent the spread of the liberal movement in Russia. -
Greece Gains Independence
Was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1830, with later assistance from Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and several other European powers against the Ottoman Empire, who were assisted by their vassals, the Eyalet of Egypt, and partly by the Beylik of Tunis.As a result of years of negotiation, Greece was finally recognized as an independent nation in May 1832 but had already gained independence two years earlier. -
Charles X Overthrown
-had taken away the right to vote from the middle class
-many people felt threatened by his extremist religious views
-he was a roman catholic and still believed in divine kings
-he proposed a sacrilege law, which mean that anybody caught damaging or defacing a Roman catholic church or item in the church would be subjected to execution -
Polish Revolt Fails
The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress Poland's military academy revolted,They were joined by segments of Polish society, and the insurrection spread to the territories of Lithuania, Western Belarus, and the right-bank of Ukraine. Despite some local successes, the uprising was eventually crushed by a numerically superior Imperial Russian Army.Czar Nicholas I decreed that Poland was now a part of Russia. -
Englsih Reform Bill
Introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales. According to its preamble, the act was designed to take effectual Measures for correcting divers Abuses that have long prevailed in the Choice of Members to serve in the Commons House of Parliament.