Week 10: The End of the Old Regime

Discussion: Regicide and Revolution
Read and discuss Walzer, Regicide and Revolution, pp. 35-68 and the following speeches delivered at the trial of Louis XVI:
1. Jean-Baptiste Maihle, 7 November 1792
2. Charles-François-Gabriel Morisson, 13 November 1792
3. Louis-Antoine-Léon Saint-Just, 13 November 1792
4. Maximilien Robespierre, 28 December 1792
5. Pierre-Victurnien Vergniaud, 31 December 1792


David, Tennis Court Oath
Jacques-Louis David, The Tennis Court Oath (1791), pen washed with bistre with highlights of white on paper. Musée National du Château, Versailles. Image source: CGFA.

BastilleThe Old Order Passes
Image: The Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789

I. Introduction: Jacques-Louis David’s Tennis Court Oath
Image: An Annotation of the The Tennis Court Oath
Image: The Tennis Court as it appears today
Image: The Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789
Image: Louis XVI as Constitutional Monarch

II. Ending the Old Regime and Building the New
Image: Convocation of the Estates General of France, 5 May 1789
Text: The Decrees of 4 August 1789
Text: Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, 27 August 1789

III. Sources of Division
A. Religion and the State
B. Central Power versus Local Control
C. Constitutional Monarchy versus Republicanism
D. Peace versus War


Identifications

Assembly of Notables (1787-1788) 
Estates General (1789)

The “Great Fear” of 1789

Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789) 
Storming the Bastille (14 July 1789) 

The “August Decrees” (4 August 1789)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (27 August 1789)
Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), Commander of the French National Guard

Decree Confiscating Church Property (2 November 1789)
Civil Constitution of the Clergy (12 July 1790)

Jacobin Club

Image right: Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), Portrait of Marie Antoinette (1788 replica of the 1786 original).


Terror and Virtue

Image above: Pierre-Antoine Demachy (1723-1807), Fête de l’Etre suprême au Champ de Mars (20 prairial an II - 8 juin 1794) (1794). Oil on canvas, 53.5 x 88.5 cm. Musée Carnavalet. Image source: l'Histoire par l'Image.

I. The Strange Careers of “Marianne” and “Hercules”

Image: Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (1830)
Image: A Bust of Marianne
Image: The First Seal of the Republic (1792)
Image: Hercules as Personification of the Republic (1792)
Image: Hercules vs. "The Hydra of Federalism"
Image: Hercules as "Devourer of Monarchs"
Image: Marianne in 1794

II. The Radical Republic (1792-1794)
A. The End of Monarchy
B. War, Terror, and Resistance
1. Suspending Constitutional Protections
2. Military Conscription and the Levée en masse
3. The Law of the Maximum
4. The Committee for Public Safety
C. Exporting Revolution

Image: The Return of Louis from Varennes to Paris (25 June 1791)
Image: Jacques Bertaux, La Prise du Palais des Tuileries (1793)
Image: The Execution of Louis XVI (21 January 1793)
Image: The Severed Head of Louis XVI

III. The Symbolic Universe of Revolutionary France
A. Transforming Space
B. Transforming Time
C. Transforming Eternity

Map: France Divided into Départements
Image: The Revolutionary Calendar
Image: The Festival of the Supreme Being (8 June 1794)


Image: A military banner from the wars of the revolution, bearing the legend "Tremble, You Tyrants". Source: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution.

Image: Nanine Vallain, “Marianne” (1792). This allegory of republican liberty was created meeting hall of the Jacobin Hall. Source: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution.

Map: Wars of the Revolution (I)
Map: Wars of the Revolution (II)

Image: The Committee for Public Safety at Work (1793)
Map: The Geography of the Terror (1793-1794)
Map: The Geography of Insurrection (1793-1794)
Chart: The Chronology of Terror (1793-1794)
Chart: Indictments Resulting in Execution (1793-1794)
Chart: Victims of the Terror (1793-1794)


Identifications:

Declaration of Pillnitz (27 August 1792)
War of the First Coalition (1792-1797)

Attack on the Tuileries Palace (10 August 1792)
Proclamation of Republic (21 September 1792)
Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792)
Execution of Louis XVI (21 January 1793)

Maximilien Robespierre 
Committee for Public Safety (Est. 6 April 1793)

Levée en masse (23 August 1793)
Law of the Maximum (17 September 1793)

De-Christianization
Proclamation of the Republican Calendar (22 September 1793)
Festival of the Supreme Being (8 June 1794)


Looking to the Future

I. From Heat to Fog: The Revolution from “Thermidor” to Empire
A. The Re-Assertion of Legislative Power
B. A Retreat from Radicalism
1. Greater Freedom of Speech and Assembly
2. New Restrictions on Voting Rights
C. Political Instability and the Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte

Image: Charles Ronot, Les derniers montagnards (1888)
Image: Charles Thevenin, Augereau au pont d'Arcole, 15 novembre 1796 (1798)
Image: Jacques-Louis David, The Consecration of Emperor Napoleon I (1805) [Detail]
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), Napoleon on his Imperial Throne (1806)

Map: Europe in 1812
Image: Louis XVIII, King of France (1814-1824)

II. Legacies of Revolution
A. “Possibilism”
B. New Lines of Confrontation
C. A Triumph of the Middle Classes?


Image above: Louis Sebastien Mercier (1740-1814). Image right: Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon in his Study (1812). Oil on canvas, 204 x 125 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Image source: WGA.

Identifications:  

Coup d'état of 9 Thermidor II (=27 July 1794)
“Thermidorian Reaction”
 

Constitution of the Year III
Council of the 500
Council of the Ancients
The Directory

Coup d'état of 18 Brumaire VIII (=9 November 1799)
The Consulate
 

Napoleon Bonaparte
First Consul, 1799-1802
First Consul for Life, 1802-1804
Emperor of the French, 1804-1814

 

Louis XVIII (r. 1814-1824)

Fulchran Jean Harriet & Jean Joseph François Tassaert, La Nuit du 9 au 10 thermidor an II, Arrestation de Robespierre [19th century]. Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Image source: MSN Encarta.