Movie Timeline : The life of the Queen prior to the French Revolution

 

 

1756 – Seven Year’s War starts between France and England. France and Austria join forces.

 

1763 – Seven Year’s War ends. Treaty of Paris was sign by France, allies and enemy, resulting in a major blow on French Colonial Possessions. To maintain the alliance between France and Austria, the marriage of Marie Antoinette and Louis, Dauphin of France, was arranged.

 

 

1768 – Treaty of Versailles was signed in order for the Republic of Genoa to repay her debts by putting Corsica in pledge to France.

 

1778 – Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI gave birth to their first child, Marie Theresa Charlotte. The American colonies were recognised independent from the UK, making its involvement in the American War of Independence official. To assure victory with the Peace of Paris, France waged war with the UK in the Americas and other parts of the world.

 

1789 – The French Revolution began.

1793 – On January 21, Louis XVI was executed by guillotine. On October 15 before nine judges, Marie Antoinette was found guilty and was sentenced to death. The National Convention had taken power a few months earlier. Revolutionary Paris took over the Convention, known as Reign of Terror.

 

1795 – The Directory seized power over the Convention.

 

1797 – Treaty of Campo Formio was signed between France and Austria.

 

1798 – The US Congress rescinded treaties with France. This is considered as the semi-official beginning of the Quasi-War.

 

1799 – General Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the French Directory, replacing it with the French Consulate.

Palace of Versailles
Introduction:

Marie Antoinette spent most of her life with and the place of residence of the most powerful monarchy in the whole of Europe during the 17th century.

The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. It is a symbol of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Regime.

Architectural theme:
"Creation by Division" - expresses the fundamental values of Baroque art.

Architects:
Louis Le Vau, Jules Hardouin Mansart & Charles Le Brun

Architecture Highlights:
- A court of 3,000 residents (the royal family, government ministers. aristocrats, diplomats, civil servants)
- Surrounded by 800 hectares of immaculate garden
- has fountains, vistas and statues
- Contained several symmetrical suites of apartments
- The Hall of Mirrors (gallery of the palace)
        -> 17 mirror-clad arches reflecting the 17                           windows
        -> 357 mirrors
- Royal Opera of Versailles
        -> can seat up to 1200 guests
- Reception rooms are named after Roman gods and goddesses 

- U-shaped layout facing the east, with the corps de logis. 

Corps de logis

- Corps de logis refers to the principal block of a large classical mansion or palace.

- Contains the principal rooms, state apartments and an entry.

- The grandest and finest rooms are usually on the first floor above the ground level.

Cour d’honneur
- Symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north.

- Creates the Royal Court (Court Royale).

- Located in the centre

- It is 3-storey high fronted with eight re marble columns supporting a gilded wrought-iron balcony.

Dormer windows & gilt leaf roof

- The attic storey has square windows and pilasters and crowned by a balustrade bearing sculptured trophies.

-  Flame pots dissimulate the flat roof.

 
Rusticated ground floor

- A range of masonry techniques which contrast in texture.

- Supports the main floor of the palace with round-headed windows divided by reliefs and pilasters or columns.

Art:
Palace of Versailles

Introduction:

There are 67 paint items, 61 France items, 52 Versailles items, 33 oil paint items and also 30 Canvas items were painted throughtout the whole palace.

Vaux-le-Vicomte
- King’s Chamber apartment

- Painted by King’s Chamber Painter, Charles Le Brun

- Co-painter- Girardon and Legendre

Domenichino
- Painted by Domenico Zampieri

- One of the famous painting in Louis XIV’s collection

- Was mentioned in the Mercure Galant

- Reorganized on the Marble Courtyard in 1684

- King had it hung in his own room

- Louis XIV is playing the harp in the painting

The queen's political ideas and her belief in the absolute power of monarchs were based on France's monarchy long established on the divine right of kings. She was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason, and executed by guillotine on Place de la Révolution on 16 October 1793.

Based on the above, Marie Antoinette’s life story happened mainly in the France in 18th century.

In the middle of the 18th Century, as a result of the “Revocation of the Edict of Nantes” by King Louis XIV in 1685, and the implementation of “Edict of Fontainebleau”majority of French population adhered to the Catholic Church as Catholicism was made the official Religion while Protestantism was made illegal.

Edict of Nantes
The Catholic Church of France was known as the "eldest daughter of the Church“ and the King of France was known as "His Most Christian Majesty."

The French Catholic Church, was known as the Gallican Church, where the pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church but the French monarch was given a distinct national identity characterised by considerable autonomy.

During this period, Catholicism was based on communal faith where most people felt blessed by living in the Catholic community. Religion was not a separate activity. It was the governance structure of people’s life. The Church is involved in the country’s economics, governance, politics, warfare as well as way of life.

Catholics belief in the Holy Trinity where there is one God that is made up of three distinct persons, “God the Father” (the heavenly God), “God the Son” (Jesus Christ), and “The Holy Spirit” (also known as “The Holy Ghost”), and they abide by seven blessed sacraments (Rites) in life, as follows:

•Baptism – Celebrated as birth to bless the new born to be part of the Catholic community

•First Holy Communion – Accepting Jesus’s body and blood and participate in his sacrifice.

•Confirmation - confirms and strengthens baptismal grace anointing with chrism

•Sacrament of Penance – for self confession of sins (wrong doings) and seek for God’s forgiveness

•Anointing of the Sick – Bless the sick to help them get well

•Holy Orders – Ordinance of priests, bishop, or deacon

•Matrimony – to bless a marriage

Practice of Tithe :  one-tenth part of earnings were paid as a contribution to the church as compulsory contribution.

Historically tithes were required and could be paid in kind, such as agricultural products.

Assignats – initially used as bonds and eventually evolved to become legal tender.

The value was tagged to Land rather than gold or silver.

In 1787, when King Louis XVI signed the Edict of Versaille which is also known as the Edict of Tolerance—that civil status and rights to form congregations by Protestants were restored.

In 1789, through the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, France became a country with freedom of religion and freedom of thought. 
•On 11 August 1789 tithes were abolished

•On 2 November 1789, Catholic Church property that was held for purposes of church revenue was nationalized, and was used as the backing for the assignats.

This was followed by the French Revolution which was referred by the Catholics as “Reign of Terror”

Through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790:

•Power was removed from the Catholic Church

•Church property was confiscated

•Church crop tax and special clergy privileges were eliminated. 

•Clergy became employees of the state

•Catholic Church became a subordinate arm of the secular French government.

•Traditional Christian holidays were abolished

•Catholic priests were brutally suppressed, went through mass imprisonment and executions by drowning

•Monastic vows were forbidden and all ecclesiastical orders and congregations were dissolved,

•except for those devoted to teaching children and nursing the sick.

On 19 April 1790, administration of all remaining church property was transferred to the State. This marked the separation of the church from the state.

Cult of Reason

Declaration of The First French Republic
•Anti-clericalism solidified into official government policy in 1792.

• De-Christianisation of France was motivated by political and economic concerns. France was at the verge of bankruptcy.

•The Cult of Reason, known is French “Culte de la Raison” was developed based on Jacques Hébert principles of the Enlightenment and anticlericalism.

•Hébert's cult rejected the existence of a deity.

Philosophy
•Work towards perfection of mankind through the attainment of Truth and Liberty

•It encouraged acts of congregational worship and devotional displays to the ideal of Reason.

•Momoro, one of the key contributors to this ideology explained, "Liberty, reason, truth are only abstract beings. They are not gods, for properly speaking, they are part of ourselves."

The overarching theme of the Cult was summarized by Anacharsis Clootz, who declared at the Festival of Reason that henceforward there would be "one God only, Le Peuple." The Cult was intended as a civic religion—inspired by the works of Rousseau, Quatremère de Quincy, and Jacques-Louis David, it presented "an explicit religion of man."

Festival of Reason
•Anacharsis Clootz declared : - henceforward there would be "one God only, Le Peuple."The Cult was intended as a civic religion—inspired by the works of Rousseau, Quatremère de Quincy, and Jacques-Louis David, it presented "an explicit religion of man."

Adherence to the Cult of Reason became a defining attribute of the Hébertist faction. It was also pervasive among the ranks of the sans-culottes. Numerous political factions, anti-clerical groups and events only loosely connected to the cult have come to be amalgamated with its name.

Joseph Fouché : (1759–1820)

•Military commander assigned by the Jacobins to enforce the laws of the Cult

•Used brutal but efficient methods

•Spread the developing creed through many parts of France.

•In his jurisdictions, Fouché ordered all crosses and statues removed from graveyards

•Ordered that that all cemetery gates must bear only one inscription—"Death is an eternal sleep.

•on 22 September 1793, at the "Feast of Brutus" Fouché " went so far as to initiate the Cult of Reason

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg turned into a Temple of Reason.

•Known in French as “Fête de la Raison”, supervised by Hébert and Momoro on 10 November 1793 amplified the new way of religion.

•Churches across France were transformed into modern Temples of Reason.

•The largest ceremony of all was at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

•The Christian altar was replaced by “Liberty”

•The words "To Philosophy" was carved in stone over the cathedral's doors.

• To avoid statuary and idolatry, the Goddess figures were portrayed by living women

•In Paris the role was played by Momoro's own wife Sophie

Fête de la Raison ("Festival of Reason"), Notre Dame, Paris.
•France supported the Americans in their revolt against English rule and, in 1789,toppled their own monarchy, with the cry of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité".

“Liberty Enlightening the World”, The Statue of Liberty in New York today , was donated to the US by France and is an artistic personification of liberty.

Resistance from Maximilien Robespierre and others became apparent by late 1793

•he Cult of Reason was officially abandoned in 1794 when Robespierre, nearing complete dictatorial power during the Reign of Terror, announced his own establishment of a new, “deistic” religion for France to replace Roman Catholicism and The Cult of Reason.

•“The Cult of the Supreme Being” was introduced.

Maximilien Robespierre (6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794).

Festival of Supreme Being, 8 June 1794

Inscription on the tympanum of the Cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand "The French people recognize the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul".

•covers a wide variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues –

•maintained that God endowed the world at creation with self-sustaining and self-acting powers and then surrendered it wholly to the operation of these powers acting as second causes.

Reign of Terror : (5 September 1793 – 28 July 1794)

In France, to the Catholics, it was known as The Terror (French: la Terreur): 

•Happened during the French Revolution,

•Initiated by the founders of the Cult of Reason –driven by Joseph Fouché

•Continued by Robespierre who developed the Cult of Supreme Being

•Mass executions of "enemies of the revolution".

•According to Wikipedia, the death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris),and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.

The Guillotine : referred to as the "National Razor" became the symbol of the French Revolution.

Executed :

•King Louis XVI,

•Marie Antoinette,

•The Girondins,

•Philippe Égalité (Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans),

•Madame Roland,

•and others

Nine emigrants are executed by guillotine, 1793

The French Revolution was opposed by

•French nobility - lost inherited privileges.

•The Roman Catholic Church

•The Carmelite Nuns of Compiègne that were sentenced to death for refusing to give up their monastic vows were sent to the guillotine on 17 July 1794

•The way the nuns went freely up to the scaffold while singing the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus”, impacted  on the public mood in Paris greatly and helped turn against the terror

•“Coup d'état” – Resistance within the French Revolution against the leaders of the Jacobin Club who had dominated the Committee of Public Safety.

•Triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leading members of the revolutionary government.

•This ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution.

INTRODUCTION