Upper clergy opionted by king

Had in the townscathedrals and churches, monasteries and convents, schools, hospitals and seminaries.

Some bishops were Absenteeism – they did not live in their appointments but chose to live in ‘savoury’ towns and move in social circles

Money from tithes was diverted to fund the extravagant lifestyle of the upper clergy whilst parish priests lived in poverty.

As found in excessive funds through wealth divide in chruch as -

◦Parish priests lived on an income of less than 1000 livres a year

◦Higher clergy could earn 100 times more – 100,000 livres a year

They may want to

-go back to old system- Monarchists

-Believe that revolution is on "wrong path"

-Believe that the revolution has become to radical

◦The tithe

◦Pluralism (the holding of more than 1 clerical office)

◦Could no longer decide how much tax it would pay

biens nationaux gave their land used for revenue to state which was solved for debts

Monastic vows were forbidden and all religious orders and congregations were dissolved.

•All other church property was transferred to the state.

The state assumed responsibility for paying clerical salaries 

However these changes were deemed ‘civil’ because it dealt with the secular administration within the churches systems

Organisation was streamlined with 83 bishops for the 83 departments.  (This was a reduction from 130 bishops). 

Pay rise for parish preists

• couldn't appoint new clergy

• Appointment of clergy done by state based on "merits" and by "active citzens"

  Active citzens

• outlined in DORMAC defined in the Constitution, was any French man, 25 at least, who could pay at least 3 days labour in taxes. 

Asked for reforms be submitted to a national board of the French Church for further discussion

Contentiual assembly wouldn't agree

arguing this would pave a way for the chruch to become what it once was agian

Clergy waited for pope to give final verdict on their next move

• Oppoising bishops of this SACKED

• In Nates 104 bishops lost their revenue stream

Deatiling

• ◦Return to their parishes within a fortnight

  ◦Swear an oath “to be faithful to the nation, the law and to the King, to maintain the Constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the King.”

• ALL opposing would be forced to retire on a pension or be punished

  Oath had to be taken by

Who did take it 4th Jan 1791

◦The majority clerical deputies refused – only 109 took the oath.

◦7 bishops and 55% of clergy took the oath.

◦In Paris few refused as they were targets for intimidation

Refusal varied across regions.

it forced priests to choose and in doing so to accept or reject the revolution

NCA had created a second group of counter-revolutionaries

Divided individual communities+ peoples as decision between

Church- People

Pope handed down the Papal Encyclical ‘Charitas’ Decree,

Through their feelings that

• Assembly was meddling with spirtual matters

  - not civil ones

• Greater support reached when refractory priests were later expelled.

2.The previous supporters of the revolution questioned their allegiance to the Revolution.

3.The revolution had created its own enemies – refractory priests

4.Dispute became poisonous – created division in every community in France.

5.Louis began to doubt whether he could stay in France.

– refractory priests allowed to remain in parishes

May 1791

-refractory priests able to officiate in ‘constitutional churches’

However through popes announcment

◦He felt as a deeply religious man that he must follow the Pope’s spiritual authority

◦He withdrew his support

◦He refused to see his own priest who had taken the oath.

◦He took communion from a refractory priest.

Lafaytette unable to disperse

Consequently people

Doubted kings support of revolution

Evident when St Cloud with refractory priest in April 1791 stopped by a threatening crowd from leaving the Tuileries Palace.

 It put into question of the King’s acceptance of the revolution

hence the decision on 15 July 1791 to announce the fiction that the King had been ‘kidnapped’

“I have ruined myself by over-reaching (trying to magnify myself), at the end of the day, I don’t know what to do”

For the the Jacobin Club –  those who opposed it left to form the Feuillant Club –

The massacre on the Champ de Mars which followed on 17 July led to Lafayette and Bailly’s loss of support from the populace

Making martial law in place which it remained

-The King held the executive power, with the right to name diplomats and ministers, to declare war and peace and to block temporarily the passing of legislation

This is called suspensive veto.

- The courts would determine and apply the law

Excluding those who paid less than 3 days labour in direct taxes, were under 25, domestic servants or women,

And less than a quarter did vote

Only those who paid a silver mark in tax could stand for office.

Additonally Robespierre's self-denying ordinance passed in May 1791

=no deputy in the NCA could stand for election to the Legislative Assembly

“Mostly they were men of property, and above all, lawyers. To the departing Constituents, who had deliberately barred themselves from election, they seemed obscure, inexperienced and (given the relative youth of most of them) callow.

Few, certainly, were nationally known, though the journalist Brissot and the mathematician and publicist Condorcet were men of reputation. But most of the new deputies owed their election to prominence in their home localities, a prominence won in the circumstances of revolutionary clubs.”

In which each claiming to represent what was best for the public good.

Clubs were a place where deputies could speak about current issues and gauge public reaction – and be influenced by the feedback.

Formally known as The Society of The Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

It was founded in 1790 to act as a guardian of the “rights of man”

Allowing women with low subscription fees

opposed to any measures by the Assembly to shut out the common people from voting or becoming deputies.

It was the champion of the sans-culottes and of the democracy won on the streets.

“But what is this much repeated word, active citizen, supposed to mean?” asked Desmoulins. “The active citizens are the ones who took the Bastille.”

Promiment members being

-Georges Danton

- Camille Desmoulins.

-Jean-Paul Marat

-Etta Palm

They organised the famous demonstration on the Champs de Mars to present their petition.

 The demonstration led to the death of 50 people killed by the National Guard, and the party was temporarily disbanded.

 It was a vehicle for popular democracy and debate that radicalised the Revolution.

 The rights of women were also advocated by individual activists such as Olympe de Gouges, the Marquis de Condorcet, Etta Palm and Théroigne de Méricourt, and the Cercle Social urged the vote for women.

Etta Palm addressed the injustices of men to women.

he Fraternal Society of Citizens of Both Sexes, which gathered up to 800 men and women at its sessions, sought to integrate women into institutional politics.

there they were joined by members of the more conservative ‘Society of 1789’

Prominent members being

 Marquis de Lafayette

 Jean Sylvain Bailly

 Dr Joseph Guillotin

 Antoine Barnave

 The Feuillants believed in the Rights of Man and Citizen, freedom of press and speech, and a property qualification necessary for voting.

 They wanted moderate change, supported the idea of a constitutional monarchy as the best way to keep law and order.

 Opposed the republican ideas of the Jacobins and Cordeliers

Champs de mas made them lose support as

the Feuillants as well as Lafayette and Bailly lost credibility with the Parisian crowd. for the actions taken on the day

As popular opinion being

From late 1791 Feuillant was used as a derogatory term to denote moderates and royalists

Known as ‘Society of Friends of the Constitution’

later

changed its name to The Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Liberty and Equality.

Originally

At first, membership of the Jacobin club was restricted to deputies in the Assembly

Later by spring 1790 people were invited and Members had to be ‘active citizens’ and pay an annual fee of 24 livres,

What did they talk about addressing constitutional issues and questions currently before the NCA.

What did they do

exchange of letters with similar societies across the country Showing wide spread of influence.

After the ‘Flight to Varennes’ (June 1791) there was a split in the club over whether to call for the King’s deposition.

Prominent figures

Robespierre

who spoke out against the distinction of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ citizens

Later creating the Feuillants

AFTER overthrow of Monarch

the club entered a new phase as one of the major groups directing the revolution.

 Le Père Duchesne was written by the radical Jacques-René Hébert from September 1790

 Le Vieux Cordelier appeared later in 1793 to express Desmoulins opposition to growing repression

Written by Jean-Paul Marat

He promoted violence and revolt, becoming a popular leader and agitator

 His presses were at times confiscated and he had to go into hiding.

 After the fall of the Monarchy in 1793 he was given the royal presses for his paper

 ‘La grande colère’ is the great anger and this reflected his criticism of all in power.

 Scurrilous and violent in his writings he championed the popular cause

celebrated the Revolutionary zeal of "patriots and also criticized the excesses and inequities of, among a wide range of targets, the aristocratic regime

Published by Desmoulins

celebrated the Revolutionary zeal of "patriots and also criticized the excesses and inequities of, among a wide range of targets, the aristocratic regime.

He curtailed his journalism after the Champ de Mars massacre.

 Desmoulins also wrote pamphlets espousing his revolutionary views

Written from later in 1793 Desmoulins criticised some of the more authoritarian laws and actions of the Committee of Public Safety –

‘ Do you wish at one blow to destroy the aristocracy and the refractory priests, the malcontents?  If so, destroy Koblenz’

- Brissot

¨- Madame Roland

‘ I tell you that you must avenge your glory or condemn yourself to eternal dishonour’

¨- Brissot

Causes                     

Effects                              

Significance                           

¡The armies (there were 3) lacked trained officers, because over 3000 officers, or a third of the whole officer corps, had emigrated, many leaving after Louis’ capture at Varennes.

¡In addition, the French army had only 140,000 troops, many of them recent volunteers, enthusiastic but lacking in training and experience.

-In April 1792, when the French Army marched into the Netherlands, it retreated in panic to Lille, where the troops murdered their own commander General Dillon.

-The Duc de Biron’s troops refused his order for a bayonet charge, they voted against it! He was forced to fall back.

-Fearing the same fate, Lafayette refused to advance into battle

-In May, the whole regiment of Royal-Allemands defected to the Austrians

§The trial of the king

§The establishment of a republic

used ¡Le Pere Duchesne (Old Man Duchesne)  to call on sans culottes:

“To your pikes good sans culottes! Use them to exterminate aristocrats!

 Roux, leader of the ultra radical Enragés who demanded those who deprived the poor of food be brought to justice

¡From February to June 1792, rural France was in rebellion, on a scale not seen since the Great Fear (July-Aug 1789)

¡Fear that a French defeat would bring back the Ancien Regime

¡In April 1792 alone, at least 100 peasant attacks on châteaux were recorded in the department of the Gard.

¡The months of March to June were the pinnacle of peasant rebellion after 1789 (McPhee)

§27 May a decree banishing refractory priests who were denounced by 20 citizens – Louis vetoed this

On the 8 June, 1792 they decrred for 20k troops

¡Louis saw the threat this force posed to his rule.

¡Louis used his power of veto to stop their recruitment.

SOO

¡On June 13^th in response to the threat Louis dismissed Roland and two other Brissotin Ministers. 

Louis still held this executive power.  They were replaced by Feuillants causing further political division in LA

¡On the 18th June, Lafayette demanded the revolutionary clubs be restrained and revolutionary clubs suppressed

¡Moreover, the Paris National Guard was now led by the militant brewer Santerre, one of the crowd who had stormed the Bastille.

§He vetoed the Legislative Assembly’s order for 20,000 National Guardsmen from the provinces to safeguard the revolution

§13 June, in response to Roland’s criticism of the King’s vetoes, Louis dismissed the radical Brissotin ministry.

¡8000 working people and radicalised National Guards marched first on the Legislative Assembly where they sang Ca Ira

}They demanded the end of Louis’ veto, the recall of the Brissotin ministers and his adherence to revolutionary laws

}Louis remained calm and steadfast; he refused to be intimidated and proclaimed his loyalty to the Constitution.

}His calm demeanour restored his prestige; across the country there was a wave of sympathy for the royal family.

¡In the days that followed, condemnation of the storming poured in from the provinces (20,000 signatures)

¡Royalist National Guards volunteered themselves for duty.

Brissot declared all citzens must sacrifce agianst the "league of kings"

¡August 1^st – all citizens were issued pikes. Anyone who failed to show open patriotism was in danger.

The sectional assemblies’ radicals including Danton agitated for the admission of passive citizens allowing for more enlistments for inserrution ( uprsing or violence agaisnt gov)

-Not conquest but the welfare of France

-To deliver the King and Queen and the Royal Family from their captivity

-All in Paris were to submit to the King, all were to be held responsible for his safety and promised “an exemplary and ever-memorable vengeance... by delivering the city of Paris to military punishment and total destruction” should the Royal Family be harmed.

§Crystallised fears the King was involved in a conspiracy

§Provoked outrage and intensified calls for the King’s deposition

§Raised fears of what might happen should the invading armies reach Paris.

¡What is more, by early August, the enemy is now only 260 km from Paris

-Signifcance fear of invasion and the motivation to protect the country

Danton said “If we are bold, bolder still, and forever bold, then France is saved!”

Getting into paris as

¡2 September came the news that the enemy had passed Verdun – the last fortress on the road to Paris.

-The fear that prisoners would escape and take over Paris, led to attacks on prisons.

Mass prisoner purge

condemning between 1,000 and 1,400 to death, often by butchery or beating. Included 200 priests.

¡It had taken less than four months for war to produce the collapse of the monarchy, and it ‘required less than a month more for that fall to become massacre’ (Andress)

Ridculing of royal family as

¡Princess de Lamballe whose head was paraded on a pike outside the Temple Prison. including others as parish priests, Swiss Guards, nobles further more petty criminals aswell as prostitutes

Those associated with the massacres were later to be labelled ‘Septembriseurs’ and ‘buvers de sang’ (drinkers of blood)

¡At Valmy 20 September 1792, the French forces made a stand and the Prussians retreated to the frontier. Goethe wrote  “a new epoch in the history of the world has begun”

Showing That Danton's speech worked!!!

-On 21 September 1792, the new Assembly of France, the National Convention met for the first time.

-France was now a Republic – and the National Convention decreed 22 September “Year One of French Liberty”.

People taking the law into their own hands as the assembly did not have the power to stop them and hesitated to call out the massacres

Danton was able to stop the Austria forces as Valmay

L.A is offically dissolved as the new National convention moved

Roles of new national convention

•Establishment of the principles of a new republican constitution for France.

•Legislation to create a successful war effort

•How to conduct the trial of the King and to determine his fate.

•Dominated by lawyers (nearly half), professional men and property owners.

•Mostly younger – late thirties, 2/3 under 45

•Only 55 members of the juring clergy including Sieyès

•A handful of artisans and one peasant

•200 members from the Legislative Assembly, including Brissot and his circle from the Gironde

•83 members of the former NCA were elected, including the Duc d’Orléans (now Philippe Egalité), Pétion and Robespierre.

•Danton, Marat and Desmoulins

•Thomas Paine and Joseph Priestley

•When a year later a new revolutionary calendar was introduced, it was calculated from 22 September 1792, the first day of Year I of the Republic.

•Up to 300 in number

•Jacobins: Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon

•Cordeliers: Danton, Desmoulins, Marat, Hébert

•All but one of the 24 Paris deputies were Jacobins

•Republicans and supporters of the Paris Commune

Backed the clubs and sections of paris

Their power as found within the aliance within the San-Culottes and urban poor

•About 180 in number

•Leaders: Brissot, Roland, Condorcet, Vergniaud, Louvet

•Main source of support: the provinces, regional centres

•Included Brissotins, Rolandists

•

•About 250 deputies

•Held the balance of power

•Bourgeois, believed in economic liberalism

•Deeply distrusted the popular movement

•Voted on an issue-by-issue basis

•Supported the war with Austria and Prussia, the execution of the King and, later, the emergency measures proposed under the Terror.

•The power of both the Montagnards and the Girondins depended on their ability to convince the Plain.

Poised paris as the center of the revolution and center of power

They were regarded as Bourgeois, Anti-clerical, Favoured Liberal Econmic policy as free trade in econmics but later supported poor introduced price controls

THeir aims were to represent the common man and "the genral will"

Supported Paris COmmune

Veiwed the san-culottes as a form of direct democracy

•Opposition to the journée of 10 August had lost them support in Paris

•Supported federalism: the rights of provinces to run their own affairs without interference from Paris

Republican, free-trade, anti-clerical

•They wanted a stable, federalist system of government in which power was shared by all the provinces of France and saw themselves as protecting the liberties of outlying regions against the more radical policies of the capital.

Beliefs

They oppsed the San-cullotes violence the "Blood drinkers"

making them responsible September Massacres, for which they blamed Marat, Danton and Robespierre

•Represented the more conservative and wealthy land owners and factory owners from the provinces

•The provincial bourgeoisie were suffering an economic downturn from the war and were antagonised by the way Paris was determining the policies for all of France.

•The divisions that arose between deputies in the Convention over whether to try the king and later on his fate were to have longer-term repercussions.

•In November 1792, an iron cupboard – une armoire de fer – so like a safe, was found in the Tuileries including more incriminating papers.

As correspondence with Austria proving Treason from •Mirabeau, Dumouriez and Lafayette.

•Minister for Justice and a Girondin was attacked for not being there when it was opened and was accused by the Montagnards of removing documents.

•The Girondins were attracted by the idea of doing nothing – keep the king a hostage against future eventualities.

However

Left started to close off any future possible retorations

As •St-Just

 argued that the tyrant had already been tried, and found guilty, on 10 August by the people. All that was needed was to punish him – so no need for a trial.

•A guard picked up the head by its roughly cut hair and showed it to the people.

•They were silent for a moment, as if stunned. Then they began to cry “Vive la Nation!”, “Vive la République!”

•15 December 1792, generals were authorised in all occupied territories to introduce the full social programme of the French Republic

•It was the French who actually declared war on 1 February 1793 on Britain and the Netherlands and in March on Spain (The War of the First Coalition)

•“They threaten you with kings” roared Danton. “You have thrown down your gauntlet to them, and this gauntlet is a king’s head, the signal of their coming death.”

•Turning north Dumouriez defeated the Austrian force at Jemappes on 3 November.

•Both won by sheer weight of numbers

•Patriotism had seen 180,000 patriotic recruits volunteer to defend the new order since 1789

•Vendée – began a counter revolutionary civil war.

Conscription into French army Causes Counter revolutionary civil war

•Extraordinary measures were to be taken to ensure ‘public safety’.

•It satisfied the sans-culottes, but throughout Europe, and probably France too, it made the Revolution far more enemies than friends.

-Divison in convention

-Girondins Attacked Jacobins as Stembriseurs (drinkers of blood)

•The Jacobins saw the Girondins as ‘soft’ (as they had proposed the appeal to the people to try to prevent Louis’ execution)

•Dumouriez offered to lead his army on Paris to release the Queen and proclaim the Dauphin Louis XVII – but his men refused to follow him...

So he defected to Austria as a General

Tainting the Girdinons as he had been a leader there

“Louis cannot be judged, he has already been judged. He has been condemned, or else the Republic is not blameless. To suggest putting Louis on trial, in whatever way, is a step back towards royal and constitutional despotism; it is a counter-revolutionary idea; because it puts the Revolution itself in the dock. After all, if Louis can still be put on trial, Louis can be acquitted; he might be innocent. Or rather, he is presumed to be until he is found guilty. But if Louis is acquitted, if Louis can be presumed innocent, what becomes of the revolution?”

•The blade rushed down between the upright posts. Louis was heard to scream for “his head did not fall at the first stroke, his neck being so fat”.

-Internal Enemies

-Counter Revolution- Venclee

-Polices that allowed terror to spread within France

and allowed to happen

•Established in response to the September Massacres – intended according to Danton to ‘replace the supreme tribunal of the people’s vengeance’

Ideology

•Danton ‘Let us [the Convention] be terrible, in order that the people are not so’

Practices

The CGS was to oversee the internal security of the Republic – it had police powers to deal with counter-revolutionaries and bring them to justice.

-•Fouché was the most important member – he ran a network of spies who informed on the people of France

Created to hasten the trial and execution of suspects – this necessarily limited the independence of judges and the rights of defendants

How did it run

•sixteen magistrates, a jury of sixty and a public prosecutor.

•In October 1793 trials were limited to 3 days

•After the Law of 22 Prairial in June 1794 – there was only one sentence for the guilty - death

•Members of the Convention sent to the provinces to ensure compliance with decrees.

Practices

•Initially 83 representatives were sent to raise troops and coordinate the war effort.

•They became local agents for the two ‘Great Committees’ enforcing the dictatorship of Paris.

Aims

•They were to oversee the suppression of the Civil War in the Vendée and the Federalist Revolt.

Historian Perspective

•Bosher “None played a bigger role in terrorising the nation”

•This enacted the trial and execution of armed rebels within twenty-four hours

Why was it made?

•A measure in response to the counter-revolution in the Vendée

How did it work?

•These would also be overseen by representatives-on-mission.

•To be established in every commune and in cities in every section,  these ‘police committees’ consisted of 12 elected members.

•Their job 

•watch foreigners

•identify and arrest suspects

•to issue certificates of ‘vertu’ (loyal and patriotic citizenship)

•An executive body to coordinate the work of other agencies, members elected by the Convention.

Power 

•The CPS held executive power to control the conduct of the war inside and outside France and to maintain supplies to the army and civilian population.

Practices

•From July 1793 it had 12 members; it worked in secret and maintained no records of its meetings.

What were they able to do

•The CPS issued orders to reps-on-mission

What happened within it 

•Robespierre joined CPS on 27 July 1793

•Law of Frimaire 4 Dec 1793 it was granted full executive powers.

eld

-The  Vendéan peasants resented their able-bodied young men being taken off to fight distant enemies with whom they had no quarrel, by authorities with whom their quarrels were limitless

oThe counter-revolutionary uprising in the Vendée (Feb – Dec 1793)

oThe defection of General Dumouriez

oThe demands of the sans-culottes

oThe factionalism in the Convention

oThe Federalist revolt in the provinces (June – December 1793

oThe Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat (13 July 1793)

90% of the local priests had refused the Clerical Oath

Vendée the last bastion of the Ancien regime. Enraged with death of louis

It became an open rebellion against the entire course the Revolution had taken