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All of these notes have come from either sparknotes, HTAV, Thompson, Cantwell, Farmer, Fenwick and Anderson or Crash Course

Sunday, 3 August 2014

U4AOS1 France quotes

National Assembly
 "[the National Assembly's actions] made it impossible to arrest the course of the Revolution." (George Rude)

“The decision [the declaration of the national assembly] marked the beginnings of the real revolution and it was largely as a result of the indecision of Louis XVI” (Jill Fenwick & July Anderson)

 '[The Founding of the National Assembly] was the founding act of the French Revolution. If the nation was sovereign, the king no longer was' (William Doyle)

'The people of Paris [were] convinced that they alone had saved the National Assembly' (William Doyle)

 'The assembled nation cannot take orders' (Jean Sylvain Bailly)

'The gentlemen of the commons invite the gentlemen of the glergy, in the name of the God of peace and for the national interest, to meet them in their hall to consult upon the means of bringing about the concord which is so vital at this moment for the public welfare' (Hibbert)

“Ah fuck it, let them stay.” (Louis XVI on the Third Estate’s refusal to disband, June 1789)

“If you have been instructed to make us leave this place, you should seek permission to use force, for only the power of bayonets will dislodge us”. (Honore Mirabeau, June 1789)

Troops in Paris
' Substantial enough to perform its twin duties of facing down any further attempt at military repression, and if necessary, punishing unlawful violence' (Simon Schama)

 Riots
“Fifteen to sixteen hundred wretches, the excrement of the nation, degraded by shameful vices, covered with rags and gorged with brandy, presented the most disgusting and revolting spectacle.” (Count Dampmartin on the Parisian rioters in 1789)
Day of Tiles
'a three-fold revolution. It signified the breakdown of royal authority and the helplessness of military force in the face of sustained urban disorder. It warned the elite… that there was an unpredictable price to be paid for their encouragement of riot and one that might very easily be turned against themselves. And most important of all, it delivered the initiative for further political action into the hands of a younger, more radical group' (Schama)

'enough money for the government to function for one afternoon' (Schama)

The Storming of Bastille
“[the Storming of the Bastille] was the climax of the popular movement.” (William Doyle)
'it is a revolt' (Louis XVI) 'No, Sire it is a revolution' (Duc de Liancourt)

'Provoked or rather it strengthened a whole series of mini-revolutions throughout France' *Gwynne Lewis)

Tennis Court Oath
William Doyle - [Tennis Court Oath] was one more assertion that they were subject to no other power in France

Revolution (General)/ France
 "It was resistance that made the revolution become violent." (William Doyle)
 "Was, then, the revolution worth it in material terms? For most ordinary French subjects turned by it into citizens, it cannot have been." (William Doyle)
'A national will was taking shape, behind anti-absolutist unaimity' (Francois Furet)

“For the same reason that the Ancien Regime is thought to have an end but no beginning, the Revolution has a birth but no end.”  (Francois Furet)  

“The Ancien Regime had been in the hands of the king; the Revolution was the people’s achievement. France had been a kingdom of subjects; it was now a nation of citizens. The old society had been based on privilege; the Revolution established equality. Thus was created the ideology of a radical break with the past, a tremendous cultural drive for equality.” (Francois Furet)  

 “I have long thought that it might be intellectually useful to date the beginning of the French Revolution to the Assembly of Notables in early 1787. The absolute monarchy died, in theory and in practice, in the year when its intendants were made to share their responsibilities with elected assemblies, in which the Third Estate was given twice as many representatives as the past. Tocqueville dates what he calls the ‘true spirit of the Revolution’ from September 1788.”   (Francois Furet)  

 “There was an essential instability inherent in revolutionary politics, as a consequence of which the periodic professions of faith concerning the ‘stabilisation’ of the Revolution unfailingly led to renewed bursts of revolutionary activity.”(Francois Furet)  

“The two symmetrical and opposite images of undivided power furnished the ingredients for ministers for a plot to institute a ministerial despotism; the royal administration believed in a conspiracy among the grain merchants or the men of letters. It is precisely in that sense that the eighteenth-century French monarchy was absolute, and not as has been said again and again by republican historiography on the basis of what the Revolution asserted – because of the way it exercised its authority. Its power was weak, but it conceived of itself as undivided. The French Revolution is inconceivable without that idea, or that phantasm, which was a legacy of the monarchy; but the Revolution anchored power in society instead of seeing it as a manifestation of God’s will. The new collectively shared image of politics was the exact reverse of that of the Ancien Regime.” (Francois Furet)  

“France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams.” (Thomas Carlyle)

Society of Thirty
[Society of Thirty] were courtiers against the court, aristocrats against privilege, officers who wanted to replace dynastic with national patriotism’ (Simon Schama)
'conspiracy of well-intentioned men' (Schama)

 Royal session 19/11/87
'That is of no importance to me… it is legal because I will it' (Louis XVI via Doyle)

'no reply could have been more catastrophic… The king's words turned what seemed destined to be a government triumph into a disaster' (Doyle)

Enlightenment/Ideas/Publications
“The Enlightenment undermined the ideological foundations of the established order.” (Albert Soboul)
'What Is The Third Estate?' offers us the French Revolution's biggest secret, which will form its deepest motivating force - hatred of the nobility' (Francois Furet)

'all that is arduous in such services is performed by the Third Estate' (Abbe Sieyes)

“I think it impossible that the great monarchies of Europe can last much longer.”
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

“Man will only be free when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
(Denis Diderot)

“Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.” (Voltaire)

“I had been brought up in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so that having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject the rest.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

“This year has begun hopefully for right thinkers. After all these centuries of feudal barbarism and political slavery, it is surprising to see how the word of ‘liberty’ sets minds on fire.” (Napoleon Bonaparte in 1789)

The Great Fear
Lefebvre Henri (Marxist) - “[the Great Fear] allowed the peasants to realise their strength.”
William Doyle - Hunger, hope and fear were the main ingredients of the rural crisis of 1789

The Estates-General
'The calling of the Estates-General facilitated the expression of tensions at every level of French society, and revealed social divisions which challenged the idea of a society of orders' (Peter McPhee)

'The more brilliantly the first two orders swaggered, the more they alienated the Third estate and provoked it into exploding the institution altogether' (Schama)
“The King did not summon the Estates because he needed them, but out of his own pleasure.” (Jacques Necker)

'The nobles underestimed the determination and powerful political potential of the third estate who finally stood up for its own rights' (EJ Hosbawm)

The estates-general 'produced the upstart National Assembly which thereby set the revolution in motion' (Leo Gershoy)

'Louis' acquiescence in the nobility's demand for voting to be in three separate orders galvanized the outrage of the bourgeois deputies' (Peter McPhee)

August 4
'A moment of revolutionary drunkenness' (Marquis de Ferriers)
“Great and memorable night, we wept and hugged one another. What a nation! What glory! What an honour to be French!” (Ernest-Francois Duquesnoy on August 4th 1789)

Third Estate/ Commons/ Bourgeoisie/The People
“The ultimate cause of the revolution was the rise of the Bourgeois.” (Lefebvre Henri)
'Like the menu people of Paris, peasants adopted the language of bourgeois revolt to their own ends' (Peter McPhee)

“The Revolution of the Bourgeois deputies had only been secured by the active intervention of the people of Paris.” (Peter McPhee)

'The bourgeoisie, the leading element of the Third Estate now took over. Its aim was revolutionary Before long, however, it was carried forward by the' (Albert Soboul)

'The distance which seperates the rich from other citizens is growing daily and poverty becomes more insupportable at the sight of the astonishing progress of luxury which tires the view of the poor. Hatred grows more bitter and the state is divided into two classes: The greedy and insensitive and the murmuring malcontents' (Mercier)

'Everything conspires to render the present period in France critical. The want of breed is terrible: accounts arrive every minute from the provinces of riots and disturbances, and calling in the military' (Arthur Young)

Compte Rendu
 'It is impossible to tax further, ruinous to be always borrowing and not enough to confine ourselves to measures of economy' (Calonne)

“The public nature of the Compte Rendu, rather than its inaccuracy, incensed ministers. Necker was accused of being something less than a Frenchman. Vergennes gave to Louis XVI an opinion of the Compute Rendu which encapsulated this point of view: ‘…the example of England, where accounts are made public, is that of a calculating, selfish, troublesome nation. To apply such principles to France is a national insult: we are people of feeling, trusting and devoted to the person of the King’, and he went on to spell out that the Compte Rendu was a slight to monarchy… The King yielded and Necker lost office.” (Olwen Hufton)

Economy
'It was the domestic perception of financial problems, not their reality that propelled successive French
governments from anxiety to alarm to outright panic' (Simon Schama)

 'It was not because Calonne had shocked the Notables with his announcement of a new fiscal and political world; it was either because he had not gone far enough or because they disliked the operational methods build into the program' (Simon Schama)

'By opposing a single and proportional tax, they were protecting their own interests and at the same time gratifying public opinion' (Francois Furet)

'There were therefore two French economies, only tenuously linked. Coastal regions… were integrated with international and intercontinental trading networks and shared their benefits, which seemed destined to go on improving. But most of Louis XVI's subjects lived in the interior where communication were poo, economic life sluggish, and such improvements as good harvests had brought in mid-century were being eroded by climatic deterioration and an inexorably rising population' (William Doyle)

'no tax be legal or collected unless it has been consented by the nation and that taxes remaining or to be established be borne equally by all order of the state'

'As the prices rose during the years of shortage, so did the tension between urban populations dependent on cheap and plentiful bread and the poorer sections of the rural community' (Peter McPhee)

“I shall easily show that it is impossible to tax further, ruinous to be always borrowing and not enough to confine ourselves to measures of economy.” (Charles Calonne)

'Financial crisis was the immediate cause of the revolution' (George Lefebvre)

 Assembly of Notables
'in a controversial career Calonne had made many enemies and they were well represented in the assembly… The first president of the Parlement of Paris was… a personal enemy' (William Doyle)
'if Calonne's proposals had come from anybody else there is little doubt that the Notables would have welcomed them more warmly' (Doyle)

Politics/The King
The French King's government could not command the confidence of its most eminent subjects. (William Doyle)

The King had thrown away his authority almost as soon as he had tried to reassert it (William Doyle)

"I have no intention of sharing my authority" (Louis XVI)

"L'état, c'est moi." (I am the state) (Louis XVI)

"One king, one law, one faith." (Louis XVI)

"The interests of the state must come first" (Louis XVI)

'The power to make the laws belongs only to me (Louis XVI)

'the weakness and indecision of the king is beyond description' (Comte de Provence)

'It was the rural population above all which underwrote the cost of the three pillars of authority and privilege in France: The church, the nobility and monarchy. Together the two privileged order and the monarchy exacted on average one-quarter to one-third of peasant produce through taxes, seigniorial dues and the tithe' (Peter McPhee)

 'The French King's government could not command the confidence of its most eminent subjects.' (William Doyle)

'it was the policies of the old regime  rather than its operational structure which brought it close to bankruptcy and political disaster' (Simon Schama)

“…the actual irrational Versailles Government? Alas, that is a Government existing there only for its own behoof: without right, except possession; and now also without might. It foresees nothing, sees nothing; has not so much as a purpose, but has only purposes, and the instinct whereby all that exists will struggle to keep existing. Wholly a vortex; in which vain counsels, hallucinations, falsehoods, intrigues, and imbecilities whirl; like withered rubbish in the meeting of winds!” (Thomas Carlyle)

Cahiers de Doleances
're-establish the empire of morals, make religion reign, reformat, find a remedy for the evils of the state, be an era of prosperity for France and profound and durable glory for his majesty' ( Dwyer and McPhee)

'In every political society, all men are equal in rights. All power emanates from the nation and may only be exercised for its well-being...In the french monarchy, legislative power belongs to the nation conjointly with the king; executive power belongs to the King alone' (Fielding and Morcombe)

'The distinction of the three orders will be maintained in the French
government' (Cahier of First Estate- Clergy of Troyes)

'That nobility no longer be purchasable' (Cahier of Second Estate- Nobility of Crepy)

'In ever political society, all men are equal in rights' (Cahier of Third Estate- Citizens of Paris)

'the bourgeoisie saw themselves as representatives of the interests of all, and carrying the burden of the nation as a whole' (Sobul)

Parlement
Function was to 'maintain the citizens in the enjoyment of rights which the law assure them' (Sutherland)
Nation saw parlements as 'a barier to despotism of which everyone was weary' (Rabaut Saint-Etienne)
They let the people 'be overwhelmed [with taxes] for over a century [permitting government] all its waste and its loans which it knew all about' (Abbe Morellet)
'the constitutional principles of the French monarchy was that taxes should be consented by those who had to bear them' (Schama)

Dismissal of Necker
' A large number of troops already surrounds us. More are arriving each day. Artillery is being brought up… These preparations for war and obvious to anyone and fill every heart with indignation' (Mirabeau)

'The signal for popular action was the dismissal of Necker' (Peter McPhee)

'[Dismissal of Necker was] interpreted as a double unlucky omen: bankruptcy and counter-revolution' (Francois Furet)

Marie Antoinette
“Poor ill-advised Marie-Antoinette; with a woman’s vehemence, not with a sovereign’s foresight!”(Thomas Carlyle)
  
The Privileged Estates
“Foolish enough! These Privileged Classes have been used to tax; levying toll, tribute and custom, at all hands, while a penny was left: but to be themselves taxed? Of such Privileged persons, meanwhile, do these Notables, all but the merest fraction, consist.” (Thomas Carlyle)

Church
“It was in the Church, more than any other group in France, that the separation between rich and poor was most bitterly articulated.” (Simon Schama
In the end, it proved impossible to reconcile a church based on divinely ordained hierarchy... with a revolution based on popular sovereignty.” (Peter McPhee)
“It is clear that refusal to take the Oath was the first sign of popular resistance to the revolution… the religious element was immediately transformed into a political issue because both the monarchy and the revolution had turned the catholic Church into an auxiliary of the state.” (Francois Furet)
 "...aroused the determined hostility of at least half the French clergy and of the entire Church abroad... This [The Civil Constitution] was fated to divide the nation more than any other single measure." (J.F.Bosher)
Nobility
' nobility was a club which every wealthy man felt enriched, indeed obliged, to join. Not all nobles were rich, but sooner or later, all the rich ended up noble' (William Doyle)
'they want everything to themselves-dignities, employments and preferences' (Louis Sebastien Mercier)




1 comment:

  1. In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten. For more france Quotes Visit here.

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