Revolutions unit 3/4: 2014

Terror (General)

“The central purpose of the Terror was to institute the emergency and draconian measures necessary at a time of military crisis.” (Peter McPhee)

‘The terror was a utopian project that forced people into ideal forms' (Francois Furet)

'Terror was merely 1789 with a higher body count' (Simon Schama)

'Centralised and organised violence' (Simon Schama)

LAW OF SUSPECTS

'the governemnt which functioned under the terms of this declaration was an emergency government , a revolutionary government, but not strictly speaking a constitutional government...and it claimed the right to use terror against its enemies. The agencies through which it functioned were the Committee of Public Safety, the Committee of GeneralSecurity, the Convention, The Revolutionary tribunal, the deputies on Mission and the Watch committees' (Stewart)

THERMIDORIAN REACTION

'Revolution lossed its innocence, and the men who now ruled France were hardened pragmatics, driven above all by the need to end the Revolution' (Peter McPhee)

'A sign that the revolutionary concept had at last begun to lose whatever utopian content it had' (Francois Furet)

STORMING OF THE TUILERIES

'For the nobility it was the night of 10th of August that marked the end of the ancien regime' (Hampson)

' The logical consumption of the Revolution...From 1789, perhaps even before that, it had been the willingness of politicians to exploit either the threat or the fact of violence that had given them the power to challenge constituted authority. Bloodshed was not the unfortunate by product of revolution, it was the source of energy.” (Schama)

“It [August 10th 1792] was the bloodiest day of the Revolution so far, but also one of the most decisive. (William Doyle)

ROBESPIERRE

"The 'defender' [Robspierre] of the rights of man suspended civil and political liberties. The 'spokesman' [Robspierre] for religious toleration persecuted priests and nuns." (David Garrioch)

“Robespierre simply can’t fuck and money scares the hide off him.” (Georges Danton)

“You [Robespierre] will follow us soon. Your house will be beaten down and salt sown in the place where it stood.” (Georges Danton, on his way to execution in April 1794)

“One wonders why there are so many women who follow Robespierre to his home, to the Jacobins, to the Cordeliers and to the Convention. It is because the French Revolution is a religion and Robespierre is one of its sects. He is a priest with his flock… Robespierre preaches, Robespierre censures, he is furious, serious, melancholic and exalted with passion. He thunders against the rich and the great. He lives on little and has no physical needs. He has only one mission: to talk. And he talks all the time.” (Marquis de Condorcet)

SANS CULOTTES

“A sans culotte always has his sabre well sharpened, ready to cut off the ears of all opponents of the revolution.” (Anonymous pamphlet)

'straightforward men, accustomed to rough living and brutal treatment by authority, used to planning on a short term basis and advocates for simple solutions… At once credulous and suspicious they tended to see everything in black and white… at to believe any rumour against a man who had fallen from popular favour' (Hampson)

JACOBINS

“Here, the revolution was prepared. Here it was achieved. Here all the great events were fostered.”(Georges Couthon on the Jacobin Club)

“We must suspend free speech and liberty so we can win the war. Otherwise, there will be nothing left to defend.” (on the terror)

LAW OF FRIMAIRE

'aimed against all those who had exacted the most brutal retribution in the name of republican orthodoxy' and intented, therefore to end 'the anarchic process by which zealots could take the law into their own hands' (Schama)

'heralded the end of the anarchic terror...the end of the depredations of the Revolutionary Armies, now reduced to a single force… and by implication of de-Christianisation' (Doyle)

It also marked the complete reversal of the principles of 1789...and many of the characteristics of the ancien regime reappeared' (Townson)

GIRONDINS/ FALL OF GIRONDIN

'Girondins were victims of their own moderation' (DMG Sutherland)

'Sought the support of the mass against the monarchy but refused to govern by it' (Albert Sobul)

Seen as representing 'wealth, commerce and industry' (Stewart)

'The sans-culottes wanted their enemies silenced at whatever cost. No compromise seemed possible with men who denounced patriotic Parisians as anarchists, blood-drinkers, semptembriseurs, and repeatedly invited the provinces to march on the capital to destroy it' (Doyle)

BRUNSWICK MANIFESTO

'Only made them bolder' (DMG Sutherland)

' The sections began to openly petition for the despotism of the King' (William Doyle)

'They had nothing to lose by going whole distance' (Simon Schama)

CONSTITUTION

‘Never to separate and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is established and fixed upon solid foundations’ (Jean Joseph Mounier)

“The revolution is the war of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty against its enemies. The constitution is the rule of liberty when victorious and peaceable.” (Maximilien Robespierre)

George Rudé (Marxist) - “…having won its victory over “privilege” and “despotism”, the Bourgeois now wanted peace and quiet in order to proceed with its task of giving France a constitution.”

JOURNEE OF PRARIAL

George Lefebvre

'The date should have marked the end of the revolution; its mainspring had been broken' (George Lefebvre)

'Prarial was the conclusive end of sans - culottes’ movement' (DMG Sutherland)

OVERTHROW OF ROBESPIERRE

'9 Thermidor marked not so much the overthrow of one man or group of men, bu a rejection of a form of government' (Doyle)

'A tyrant and the deepest of villains' (Gracchus Babeuf)

“Revolutionary France used the paradox of democracy as the sole source of power. Society and the state were fused in the discourse of the people’s will; and the ultimate manifestations of that obsession were the Terror and the war, both of which were inherent in the ever-escalating rhetoric of the various groups competing for the exclusive right to embody the democratic principle. The Terror refashioned, in a revolutionary mode, a kind of divine right of public authority.” (Francois Furet)

CHAMPS DE MARS

“[The Champ de Mars massacre] was the result of open political conflict within the Parisian Third Estate, which had acted so decisively in 1789. The king’s flight and the [National] Assembly’s response had divided the country.” (Mcphee)

COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY

“These men, greedy for the power they are accumulating, have concocted and pompously spread the word of ultra-revolution, to destroy the friends of the people who watch over their plots – as if one person were allowed to set the limits of the national will.” (Jacques Hebert on the CPS, early 1794)

IDEAS

“I shall die in the belief that to make France free, republican and prosperous, a little ink would have sufficed – and only one guillotine.” (Camille Desmoulins)

“How could liberty ever establish itself amongst us? Apart from a few tragic scenes, the revolution has been nothing but a web of farcical scenes.” (Jean-Paul Marat)

FLIGHT TO VARRENES

'King abandoned new government' (Timothy Tacket)

'The terror was a reflection of one single event; the attempted flight of the King' (Timothy Tacket)

'Louis made his own contribution to the death of monarchy' (Francois Furet)

“From this moment the King appeared as the most dangerous foe to the mass of the people; the Flight to Varennes had finally torn off the mask and revealed him in his true colours. (Albert Sobul)

“By fleeing, one King renounced his sovereignty, while another king, the people, looked on.” (Charles Richet)

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI

'This day founded the new republic' (DMG Sutherland)

'The king had been a problem for the revolution from its beginnning' (David Jordan)

'Had severed France's ties with her past' (Francois Furet)

'Created far more enemies than friends' (William Doyle)

“It is with regret that I say the fatal truth, Louis should perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens. Louis must die so that the country may live.” (Maximilien Robespierre)

'The republic is only a house of cards until the head of the tyrant falls under the axe of the law' (Marat)

'I die innocent of all the crimes with which I am charged' (Louis XVI)

AUGUST DECREES AND DOROMAC

'Destroyed aristocratic society from top to bottom, along with structures of decisiveness and privilege' (Francois Furet)

'General sacrifices' (Peter Jones)

'Guardians of liberties' (William Doyle)

'Represented the end of absolutism, seigneurial and corporate structures' (Peter McPhee)

'DOTROMAC and 4th August are what made the French Revolution Revolutionary' (DMG Sutherland)

'Founding document of the revolution (William Doyle)

"While proclaiming the universality of rights and civic equality of all citizens, it [The Declaration Of Rights of Man and Citizen] was ambiguous on whether the propertyless, slaves and women would have political say as well as legal equality." (Peter McPhee)

“The August Decrees were an improvised parliamentary reaction to an emergency situation.” (Francois Furet)

'[The August Decrees] was...a way of escaping a parliamentary impasse, as well as a device to appease the peasantry' (Donald Sutherland)

'the decrees of August 4-11 number among the founding texts of modern France. They destroyed aristocratic society from top to bottom, along with its structure of dependencies and privileges. For this structure, they substituted the modern autonomous individual , free to do whatever was not forbidden by law' (Furet)

Declaration was ' above all, a statement of bourgeois idealism' (McPhee)

'the revolutionary proclamation of the principles of a new golden age… universal in tone, resounding in optimism ad a great statement of liberalism and representative government' (McPhee)

SEPTEMBER MASSACRES

' Fear had commenced its reign' (Furet)

'Paranoid atmosphere in Paris' (Doyle)

' dependency on organised killing to accomplish political ends' (Schama)

“I don’t give a fuck for the prisoners, let them fend for themselves.” (Attributed to Georges Danton in September 1792)

VENDEE REBELLIONS

'The real popular movement was counter revolution in the sense that most ordinary people resented what had happened to them since 1789' (D.G Wright)

'For some the repression of the rebellion amounted to genocide, to others it was a necessary response to a stab in the back' (Peter McPhee)

'The revolution had torn society to pieces' (Francois Furet)

'The vendee rebels were mirror images of the sans-culottes who came to fight them' (Simon Schama)

“Why the Vendee? The Vendee was not initially counter-revolutionary so much as [it was] anti-revolutionary. However the subsequent entry of nobles and refractory clergy gave it a counter-revolutionary hue, even if most peasants were unwilling to form an army to march on Paris, or to recommence paying dues and tithes.” (Peter McPhee)

THE OCTOBER DAYS/WOMEN'S MARCH TO VERSAILLES

“To Burke the revolutionary crowd was purely destructive and presumed to be composed of the most undesirable social elements: the crowds that invaded the chateau of Versailles in October 1789 are ‘a band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with blood.’ On the other hand [the crowd] has [also] been presented as the embodiment of all the popular and Republican virtues.” (George Rude)

'Men made the 14th of July; the 6th of October was the day of the women. Men took the royal Bastille, women took royalty itself' (Jules Michelet)

'The condition on which he would be hailed as King of the French was his own virtual imprisonment' (Schama)

'The revolution of bourgeois deputies had only been secured by the active intervention of the people of Paris' (Mcphee)

'Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette provided the rioters with a cause' (Francois Furet)

'Parisian intervention affected national policies' (DMG Sutherland)

'October insurrection consolidated these gains' (George Rude)

CONSTITUTION OF YEAR III

'the revolution retraced its steps. It reopened the discution about the declaration of rights, the sovereignty of the people, representation. It sought to write a document which would render imposible any return to the revolutionary government, which it branded "anarchy", the lawless regime, and finally to bring 1789 to an end by a republic governed by reason and property-ownership' (Furet)

'the constitution marks the end of the revolution' (McPhee)

WAR WITH AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA

'War revitalised popular movement' (Peter McPhee)

'The course of the war was destined to only end with revolution' (William Doyle)

'Transformed itself at the popular level into paranoia' (Simon Schama)

CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF CLERGY AND CLERICAL OATH

'Beginning of holy war' (Simon Schama)

'Was faded to divide the nation more than any single measure' (Josh Bosher)

'Challenged fundamental basis of countryside' (Timothy Tacket)

'Church was the greatest partner of absolute monarch' (Francois Furet)

'first sign of popular resistance' (Francois Furet)

' Forced citizens to choose; publically declare themselves for or against the new order' (William Doyle)

“The French Revolution had many turning points; but the oath of the clergy was; if not the greatest, unquestionably one of the. It was certainly the Constituent Assembly’s most serious mistake. For the first time, it forced fellow citizens to choose: declare themselves publicly for or against the new order.” (William Doyle)

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