we learn about the french revolution in school, but im curious to know more. What where all the parties involved? How exactly does napoleon factor into this? Did the revolution fail? What influence does it have today?
Ignorant burger here
Jace Torres
Lincoln Taylor
It started with a debt crisis that the monarchy had been trying to walk around since about 1770, but to no avail. Because they needed to raise new taxes, the had to call the Estates general, which was the only body that could legally create new taxes. The estates general was divided into three estates: the first was the clergy, the second was all the nobility, and the third was just everyone else. The third was further divided between the bourgeoisie, the middle class doctors and lawyers who had wealth but no say in government, and the lower classes, who had neither wealth nor a say in government. Because being a delegate to the estates general offered no salary, basically everyone elected from the third estate was bourgeois.
The first problem they ran into was the structure of the estates general: it hadn't been called for 175 years, so there were arguments about how to structure it. Traditionally each estate sent about 300 delegates and the voting was done by estate (so there would be a total of three votes cast). However, as a result of all the enlightenment ideology pumped out in France led the third estate want to double the number of delegates it sent and to vote by head, not by estate. When they finally met in 1789, there were double the amount of third estate delegates but the voting method was unclear. The first few weeks were fraught with tension so the king called a special session to resolve the issue; however, whether by design or accident, the door was locked to the session when the third estate delegates got there. They decided to go over to a nearby tennis court and swear an oath that they were the true representatives of the French nation and that sovereignty lay with them, not with the King. They declared themselves the National Assembly and decided to draft a constitution for a constitutional monarchy.
Josiah Martinez
how does napoleon fit in there? was he truly a french liberal or just a madman who took power? and what did he want to accomplish?
Kevin Jackson
>What where all the parties involved?
>nobles
mostly monarchy side of course but with some defectors like it is in all conflicts
>bourgeoisie and urban population
both small medium big bourgeoisie, jews, middle classes, most parisians, etc
mostly revolutionary side
>rural population
a lot of counter-revolutionaries especially in regions like vendée
they got fucked
>clergy
divided but a lot on the side of aristocracy
they got fucked too
>How exactly does napoleon factor into this?
charismatic strongman who brought peace order and unity in that very unstable uncertain period
liberal ? well officially his ideas could be quite vague and contradictory
if you ask me that was done on purpose, much like trump, because being vague and contradictory is actually a very successful political strategy if you are confident about it
officiously his ideas are unclear and what i have read is pretty contradictory
>Did the revolution fail?
fuck no it was a brilliant success
now are the effects of it positive ? that's another topic entirely but the leaders of the revolution did do what they wanted to do
>What influence does it have today?
a lot, france is still run on those ideas and the new president is entirely in line with that, as we have seen with the flagrant symbolism of the investiture
Xavier Flores
>Economic crisis in the french kingdom, mainly because of expensive foreign policy
>King tries to get to establish new taxes by calling for a reunion of the Estates-General (representatives of the three "estates": the clergy, the nobility and the rest) in 1789
>The Third Estate, which represents 99% of the population, calls for more representation instead
>The bourgeois ideals of freedom and equality thrive during the discussion, the king can't repress it because he still needs money but ignores it instead
>The Third Estate forms the National Assembly, which explicitly challenges the king's legitimacy
>The king orders them to leave the reunion
>The Assembly goes somewhere else and decides to write a constitution
>The king orders them to stop, they don't
>Most of the deputies from the Nobility and the Clergy join the Assembly
>The king is forced to give in to the Assembly, a constitution is written, France becomes a constitutional monarchy
>However, the king and his relatives plan to take back power by assembling a mercenary army around Paris
>The Parisians realize this, take control of the capital and storm the Bastille
>The king orders his army to keep away from Paris and goes there himself, he is humiliated but he is considered an ally of the revolution
>The countryside revolts against the new regime, the reactionaries go in exile
>The king keeps trying to slow down the Revolutionary projects like The Declaration of the Rights of Man, doesn't even show up a the debates and wants a personal army
>Parisians attack Versailles, kill guards and menace the Queen
>During 1790, he gradually loses his power because he has been moved from Versailles to Paris, while the Assembly is divided between the Patriots and the Aristocrats, or Left and Right, the Clergy is nationalized
>Exiled aristocrats start a Counter-Revolution
>The King attemps to join them by fleeing Paris in 1791
>He is arrested and brought back to Paris
Nicholas Torres
All that happened in late June 1789. July was a tense month that year for a variety of reasons (bad harvest, annual settling of debts, hot weather, high prices), so when the lower class workers of Paris learned that Jacques Necker (the finance minister who they believed was the only one who could solve the debt crisis) was fired on July 11, they got anxious. On July 14, a demagogue led them into a frenzied mob, where they attacked the Bastille Prison, eventually freeing the prisoners inside of it and killing its governor. As such, July 14 is the traditional starting date of the revolution. This was one of the first major injections of violence into the revolution, and it spread throughout the countryside, culminating in the "Great Fear", where bands of peasants roamed the countryside attacking castles and chateaus (thinking that the nobles were hoarding grain). The King stepped in in Paris and managed to calm the situation by publicly saying he supported the revolution and donning the tricolor cockade.
Filled with this revolutionary spirit and led by a club of radical politicians called the Jacobins, the National Assembly decided to unilaterally abolish all remnants of feudalism, end tithes for the church, end special privileges and tax exemptions for the nobility, completely redraw the administrative and judicial map of France, etc. all on August 4. Although a few of these were eventually walked back, this was the beginning of the "liberal monarchy" phase in France, where the doctrines of classical, enlightenment liberalism were dominant. Later in August the National Assembly passed the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which was effectively the French Bill of Rights.
Despite all this posturing, bread was still scarce and a rumor that the King was going to undo the revolution led a large group of angry Parisian housewives to march the King's palace in Versailles and to bring him and his family back to Paris in October.
Tyler Jones
>now are the effects of it positive ?
Most of Europe would be a backwards shithole akin to Spain without it. Germany might have been making moves in that direction but the feudal order was holding back the development of capitalist society.
Xavier Phillips
>The moderate government declares that he was actually kidnapped to avoided backlash
>The Jacobins call for punishment, start using violence against the government
>The king pretends he will remain faithful to the Assembly, calls for peace
>The Assembly want to divert attention from the king by waging war against the Habsburgs and Prussia
>Europe begins to fear that the revolution spreads across the continent
>The Germans, who started winning battles against France, tell the French they will burn Paris to the ground if any harm is done to the king
>The Jacobins revolt against this provocation, take control of Paris and put the king in jail
>The French start winning against the Germans
>The government is still in crisis after the first election of the Convention in 1792
>The Girondins try to stop the Montagnards from voting for the king's death, which they do anyway
>He gets executed in 1793
Joshua Nguyen
Nothing of particular importance really happened in 1790 except for the nationalization of the Church; all Church officials would be elected, receive salaries from the state, and give whatever donations they received to the state. As time went on, the delegates in the National Assembly further stratified into groups; the conservative right wing absolute monarchists, mostly composed of nobles; the center was mostly bourgeois lawyers and officials who wanted to draft a constitution but basically considered the revolution "finished" by 1790, and on the left were the more radical Jacobins who wanted to further increase the democratic nature of the government, but at this time didn't want to overthrow the monarchy. In the city of Paris itself, many radical Jacobins realized that the urban poor (called the sans-culottes because they didn't wear culottes, the breeches of the middle and upper classes) could effectively function as their personal armies. Increasing tension led to violence over the person of the king, and in June 1971 the King decided to flee France, as many of his noble brethren had done. His escape attempt failed rather spectacularly and he was apprehended in Varennes. His escape attempt confirmed the paranoid fears of many of the radical Jacobins that the King was trying to perform a royalist coup and undo the revolution, and public support of the King plummeted and support for a constitutional monarchy increased. On July 15 some radical Jacobins issued a petition demanding the King be forced to abdicate in the Champs-de-Mars field; petitions had been banned by the National Assembly as potentially seditious activity, so the National Guard was called in to disrupt the proceedings. Things got violent and about 50 of the petitioners were killed. Around this time, the National Assembly had finished its constitution.
Hunter Barnes
>that pic
if I was a politician I'd try my hardest to give fodder to conspiracy theorists constantly
pose in front of every pyramid or eye, "subtly" flash the horns or other "secret" signs, go out of my way to shake the hand of every documented mason or jesuit, hell I'd wear some special effects contact lenses because reptilian theorists need some love too