A Beginner's Guide to the French Revolution: Part Four

The fourth and final part of A Beginner's Guide to the French Revolution will focus on what happened after the first constitution was drafted. As we will see, the Revolution began to turn toward a more radical approach after dissatisfaction with the moderate reforms mounted. Pressures from foreign powers, civil unrest, and internal dissent within the French government threatened to tear down the advances made by the National Assembly. And now, the final part of A Beginner's Guide to the French Revolution.

After the National Assembly drafted its constitution, a new legislative body called the National Convention was formed. At this point in 1791 there was still a monarch, though with very limited powers. However, support for the king was still strong enough to cause problems for the young Revolutionary France. French royalists fleeing the country, known as émigrés, fled east to Austria and the German States, which were strongholds of absolute monarchy. They appealed to these governments for aid in order to turn back the tide of the French Revolution and restore Louis XVI as an absolute monarch. The princes and rulers in these states were swayed due to fears that revolutionary action would spread outward from France into their own lands. As the possibility of invasion loomed on the horizon, the French government declared war on Austria in order to take the offensive.

As French forces struggled in the face of more powerful and better trained armies on the frontiers, the National Convention met in 1792 to prepare for the widening conflict both at home and abroad. Lawmakers drafted a new constitution, which laid out the structure of a new democratic government. The monarchy was abolished and the unicameral legislature was to be elected by universal manhood suffrage. As you may recall, the first Revolutionary constitution made provisions for this unicameral legislature to be elected only by men who could pay a voting (poll) tax. In addition, the National Convention laid out a new system of official weights and measures (the metric system) as well as a new calendar. As a final measure, the National Convention arrested and tried Louis XVI for crimes against his country. He was convicted and sentenced to death later that year. These more sweeping and dramatic reforms were indicative of a shift of power within the National Convention away from moderates and increasingly toward radicals.

In fact, the National Convention was polarizing. No longer were there the royalists, the moderates, and the radicals. By now, there was little open support for the king after his trial and execution. Now, the moderate contingent of the National Convention was represented by the Girondists, who supported the wealthier segment of the middle class. Generally, middle class politicians will support only moderate reform in order to protect their own interests but still quell discontent in the lower masses. The radicals were represented by a group called the Jacobins. This group, led by three powerful radicals named Maximilian Robespierre, Georges-Jacques Dalton, and Jean-Paul Marat had the support of a group in France called the sans-culottes. This group included shopkeepers and urban laborers in Paris who were on the forefront of revolutionary fervor in the face of foreign invasion. Finally, there was a small group of undecided politicians called The Plain in the middle who eventually would gravitate toward the side of the Jacobins. Due to the arrangement of seats in the National Convention, the Jacobins were seated on the left, the Plain in the middle, and the Girondists on the right. This arrangement forms the basis for our current political map of left (more radical), center, and right (more conservative).

On the war end of things, France was incurring losses after its brief initial success against the invading coalition forces that included Austria, the German States, and Great Britain. The foreign forces were much better trained than the French army composed mainly of rural poor-turned revolutionaries. In order to help the war effort, the National Convention created an organization called The Committee of Public Safety, charged with organizing a better-equipped French army through conscription. In the midst of the confusion of war, Robespierre and the Jacobins seized their opportunity to take control. Labeling the Girondists as royalists, the Jacobins ordered the arrest of many prominent members of this group. This cemented their position of control within the National Convention.

The Jacobins seized power at a pivotal point in the French Revolution. The war was starting to spill into the countryside and civil unrest was on the rise. Therefore, the Jacobins used the guise of preserving public safety in order to perform purges of anyone who opposed them either within the government or in Paris as a whole. This was the start of a campaign of paranoia and violence known as The Reign of Terror. During this time, suspected enemies of the French state (usually enemies of the Jacobins) were arrested, tried quickly (and often unfairly), and handed harsh sentences. It is during The Reign of Terror that a new execution device became widely used. The guillotine consisted of a restraining device and a giant blade that would fall and remove the convicted person's head. It was thought to be a more humane method of execution than beheading by axe, though it mainly served as a means to accompany the Jacobin's swift and brutal justice. Some 40,000 people lost their lives during The Reign of Terror.

As in other moments of history, campaigns of state violence are only supported and tolerated when conditions are unstable enough to merit it. As time wore on, the French army took the offensive against coalition forces and civil unrest was decreasing in Paris. The Jacobins were losing favor with the people, and after he ordered members of his own party to be executed, Robespierre himself lost his head by the metal arm of the guillotine. In the wake of the terror and the fall of the Jacobins, more conservative leaders took control of the National Convention. Representing the upper middle class, these men believed that the French Revolution had gone too far and that a new constitution needed to be drafted. What followed was a brief period known as The Directory, which was the final fleeting stage of the French Revolution.

The Directory was formed when new leaders in the National Convention drafted a new constitution. Now, instead of a king or powerful legislature, the constitution made provisions for France to be controlled by an executive council of five men called directors. However, as history was soon to show, putting five executives in charge of your state was not a very wise decision. Constant disagreement showed the weakness of the Directory, and once again extremist fervor rose on both ends of the political spectrum. Royalists began to seep back into influence now that the Jacobins were swept from power, and the sans-culottes were extremely dissatisfied with the new government. It was during this governmental turmoil that a young, diminutive general landed on the shore of France and marched into Paris. This man, Napoleon Bonaparte had seized his opportunity to execute his grand aspirations for a better and more powerful France, a French Empire. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Directory had gasped its last breath. Napoleon's coup d'etat opened up France to his control, which would shape the course of European politics well into the next century. But that's another story.

I hope you enjoyed A Beginner's Guide to the French Revolution. This is a very exciting in history to study and one that had far-reaching consequences. The model of the French Revolution would serve to touch off revolutionary fervor in neighboring areas on the European continent. People of all walks of life who had been oppressed for centuries seized their opportunity to secure themselves similar rights of man and citizen. This struggle continues today.