Marie antoinette letter to her mother 1773

HY 1020, Western Civilization II 1

UNIT II STUDY GUIDE

Eighteenth-Century Society and Culture and

the Age of the French Revolution, 1789-1815

Learning Objectives Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Identify the composition of the 18th century aristocracy and nobility and how these groups exercised their power and influence.

2. Describe the diversity that characterized the bourgeoisie and the role of this group in 18th century society.

3. Identify the main features of Enlightenment thought and how it presented a threat to the old order.

4. Support an interpretation of the differences in social and world perception among the different social classes.

5. Support an interpretation of the impact the Enlightenment had on Western culture and politics.

6. Identify the revolutionary changes that took place in French government and society between 1789 and 1791.

7. Discuss how, beginning in 1792, a more radical revolution led to the creation of a regime using the power of the state in the Reign of Terror.

8. Identify the ways in which the political events of the revolution changed French cultural institutions and created a new political culture.

9. Discuss the impact Napoleon’s conquests had on Europe and the world. 10. Explain what the French Revolution ultimately achieved and how it

changed the course of European and Western history.

Unit Lesson In the 18th century, the aristocracy was a small social group, usually no more than four percent of the population, which included the wealthiest and most powerful people in society. The aristocracy was made up of the nobility and lesser aristocrats, sometimes referred to as the gentry. Beginning in the mid-18th century, the aristocracy’s power, as well as their values and lifestyle, came increasingly under attack, resulting in a weakening of the aristocracy by the century’s end. One of the groups that challenged the aristocracy was composed of peasants and serfs who worked the land and over whom the aristocracy exercised direct control. In central and Eastern Europe, serfs suffered oppressive burdens and had little personal freedom. Austria and Prussia abolished serfdom so the monarchs could tax the peasants, who still found themselves financially overburdened. In Western Europe, serfdom had given way to tenant farming, but the peasants there were coming under great pressure from increased taxation and the elimination of common pasture rights, which resulted in a decrease in peasant land ownership and an increase in peasant wage earners throughout the century. In sum, economic pressures led to conflicts between peasants and aristocrats. Another and more serious challenge to the aristocracy came from the bourgeoisie, an urban, untitled, propertied group that included prosperous

Reading Assignment Chapter 19: Eighteenth-Century Society and Culture, pp. 591, 593-594, 587, 596, 607, 611, 613 Chapter 20: The Age of the French Revolution, 1789-1815, pp. 620, 626-627, 629, 633-638, 644

Supplemental Reading See information below.

Key Terms 1. Aristocracy 2. Bourgeoisie 3. Classicism 4. Deism 5. Enlightenment 6. Estates 7. Freemasons 8. Girondins 9. Jacobins

10. Meritocracy 11. Mesmerism 12. Napoleonic Code 13. Neoclassicism 14. Philosophes 15. Plebiscite 16. Reign of Terror 17. Republic of Virtue 18. Salons 19. Sans-culottes 20. Separate spheres 21. Third Estate

HY 1020, Western Civilization II 2

merchants, professionals, minor governmental officials, early industrialists, and some skilled artisans and shopkeepers. The bourgeois critique of the aristocracy became part of political demands, such as equal rights and opportunities, and received much support from the intellectuals who were part of the movement called the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, the defining intellectual and cultural movement of the 18th century, was an attempt to gain understanding solely using reason, discarding dogma, superstition, and the received opinions. Although France was the home of the most famous Enlightenment thinkers and writers, known as philosophes, such 17th century English writers as Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke inspired the movement, and Europeans of many nationalities contributed to Enlightenment thought. A distinctly Western phenomenon, Enlightenment ideas influenced Western values, especially law and politics, but were not fully accepted because of their attack on religion and the social order. Nonetheless, while not universally adopted, the acquisition of Enlightenment values gave Europeans a clear sense of their own identity in respect to the rest of the world. A political revolution involves a fundamental change in a political system, and on this basis, the French Revolution was two distinct revolutions. The first revolution brought about the destruction of royal absolutism and the drafting of a constitution. The second and more radical revolution, which began in 1792, abolished the monarchy and set up a republic. In the period between August 1789 and September 1790, the National Assembly took three revolutionary steps: they abolished the privileges of the nobles and clergy, making every Frenchman an equal citizen; they issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which, influenced by the Enlightenment, proclaimed the natural right of all men to liberty, property, equality before the law, freedom from oppression, and religious toleration; and they reorganized the Church by issuing the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which made the Church a department of state and the clergy government employees. The property of the church was seized, and clerics were required to take a loyalty oath to the nation. Starting in 1792, France experienced another revolution that replaced the constitutional monarchy with a republic, and the state used its greater power to attempt a radical reform of French society. To deal with its internal enemies, the republican government claimed extensive powers and established special courts to prosecute the enemies of the state. A new constitution in 1795 created a five-man Directorate to govern the country, established a two-house assembly, and limited the franchise to property holders. Soon, opposition arose from Jacobins and sans-culottes over the rising price of bread. By the end of 1798, inflation was out of control, tax revenues had plummeted, and the currency had become almost worthless. The government was forced to alienate wealthy citizens by canceling more than half the government debt. Military setbacks brought the situation to a crisis point. In 1799, a coup brought a new government called the Consulate to power. A young general named Napoleon Bonaparte, who was named First Consul, dominated it. A popular military hero, Napoleon, preserved the forms of republican government, but France was now a military dictatorship in all but name. Between 1791 and 1794, the cultural institutions of the Old Regime were either destroyed or radically changed. The revolutionaries wanted to establish a new

HY 1020, Western Civilization II 3

political culture that would glorify the new regime and its ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Genuinely popular with almost the entire population, the new political culture was based on the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which meant that the people held the highest political power in the state. The dress of ordinary people was now fashionable, while various forms of media, from pamphlets to ballads, promoted a distinctive revolutionary language. The new revolutionary culture also attempted to de-Christianize France, with churches turned into temples of reason, but this did not win widespread support. Using the radical vocabulary of the revolution, Napoleon presented himself as an ally of the common person and a supporter of popular sovereignty. As a ruler, Napoleon was authoritarian, but he was, in fact, a promoter of equality, both equality of opportunity and equality before the law. Once in power, Napoleon set out to strengthen the French state by creating an efficient, centralized bureaucracy and a uniform legal system. He also settled the conflict between church and state that had erupted during the revolution. Napoleon created a massive European empire by defeating the armies of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Spain between 1797 and 1809. Napoleon’s stunning military successes secured his reputation as a brilliant military leader, although he made strategic and tactical mistakes. The impact of the French Revolution was felt throughout the Western world. Almost 2,000,000 soldiers were killed in the battles of the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic Empire, while internal political violence killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Men of property, regardless of social background, profited from the revolution, while women, regardless of rank, did not benefit much from the revolution and continued to be limited to the private sphere. The major legacy of the revolution was in politics. The revolutionary era saw an enormous growth in the competence and power of the state. However, even more important was the revolution’s promotion of the doctrine of popular sovereignty as the people were the highest political authority in the state and could never be completely suppressed. Another permanent political legacy was the active participation of a nation’s citizens in politics. In the same way that the Scientific Revolution changed the way people viewed their world, the spread of the ideals during the French Revolution became a central turning point in not only French history, but also the history of the West. Aside from confirming the French in their belief that they were the standard-bearers of Western civilization, the export of French revolutionary culture caused permanent change that had transformed Europe by 1815. The ideas of the revolution and the changes it brought did not go unchallenged, but they were never completely reversed, and the conflict between demands for, and resistance to, political reform continued into the 19th century.

Supplemental Reading Supplemental Readings are provided in the below links:

 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/

 Paine “The Rights of Man” http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/thomas-paine-the- rights-of-man/

http://plato.stanford.edu/
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/thomas-paine-the-rights-of-man/
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/thomas-paine-the-rights-of-man/
HY 1020, Western Civilization II 4

 Declaration of the Rights of Man – 1789 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp

 “Marie Antoinette: Letter to Her Mother, 1773” Modern History Sourcebook http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1773marieantonette.asp

 “Madame Campan: Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette, 1818” http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1818marieantoinette.asp

 “Edmund Burke: The Death of Marie Antoinette” http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1793burke.asp

 The Oath of the Tennis Court http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/tennis_oath.html

 La Marseillaise http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/MARSEILL.asp

 “Ça Ira” http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/caira.asp

 “Maximilien Robespierre: Justification of the Use of Terror” http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robespierre-terror.asp

 “Napoleon Bonaparte: Farewell to the Old Guard” http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1814napoleon.asp

 Images of the French Revolution http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/imaging/images1--14.html

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1773marieantonette.asp
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1818marieantoinette.asp
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1793burke.asp
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/tennis_oath.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/MARSEILL.asp
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/caira.asp
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robespierre-terror.asp
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1814napoleon.asp
http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/imaging/images1--14.html