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Economic Issues
During this time France's economy was declining rapidly, there were many variables for this. One is Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette's extreme spending, Louis created the Palace of Versailles while fully aware of the dept the country was in. Another reason for this was the taxes France had, while from the outside their trades were looking great the taxes they had caused them to be barely profitable. While all of this happened Louis XVI was the ruler and completely ignored it all. -
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French Revolution
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The Storming of Bastille
On July 14th, 1789 French citizens stormed Bastille. This was caused by the panic and fear of the French people due to rumors that Louis XVI was going to use military force to dismiss the National Assembly. Another rumor was that foreign troops were going to come to Paris and massacre the citizens. The people of France did this as part of a revolution against Louis XVI but also to keep themselves safe. -
Removal of the Old Regime
On August 4th, 1789 noblemen made speeches about their support of equality, this however was more by fear than the truth. While joined by some of the National Assembly they were able to stay up all night rewriting the rules. By the morning the Old Regime was gone. -
Limited Monarchy
In September 1791 the National Assembly completed the new Constitution. This Constitution created a limited monarchy. It was signed by Louis XVI who did not fully agree with the Constitution. -
France at War
The war started not in France's favor, the Prussian forces were advancing into France. On August 10th around 20,000 men and women invaded the palace of which Louis and Marie were staying and captured Marie and their children. Rumors began to spread saying that the Kings supporters were planning to break from prison, this only caused the people to take the law into their own hands and wreaked havoc across France. -
War Continued
In early 1793 more contenders joined the war against France. They were Great Britain, Holland, and Spain. These strong countries caused France to face many losses. Due to this in February of 1973, they ordered a draft of 300,000 French citizens between the ages of 18 and 40 in hopes to save France. -
Napoleon Crowned Emporer
In 1804 Napolean crowned himself Emperor of France. On December 2, 1804, he took the crown from the pope and put it on himself, this signaled that he was more powerful than the church. He did this in the Notre Dame Cathedral. -
Conquering Europe
Napoleon decided that he wanted to expand France's power in Europe after abandoning his attempts in the Americas, formally known as the New World. He ended up crushing his competitors in amazing battles. After the battle of Austerlitz in 1805, he expressed his gratitude and pride to his troops. -
The Blockade
Napolean set up a blockade to do a few things. One of those is to block themselves off from Great Britain and try to destroy their commercial and industrial economy. Not only that but he insisted that it would make continental Europe more self-sufficient. -
The Containment of France
Metternich made most of the decisions regarding the changes that were being made to France. Even though Great Britain and France were enemies he did not want to leave France powerless. He did not like the ideas of democracy and made the laws more "stable" (Section 5.1).