Definition of French Revolution

The French Revolution was undoubtedly one of the most important political and social events in the history of mankind. Although it was developed in France and there it would unleash the great consequences in the aforementioned social and political orders, its effects also extended to the rest of the world.

Especially in the French Revolution, two political ideals clashed, those supporters of theabsolute monarchy, which was the form of government in France at that time and on the other hand those who opposed what they disparagingly called the Old Regime and as such it should be eliminated by a more inclusive proposal.

It formally began in 1789, with the self-declaration of the third state as the National Assembly and It would end in 1799, ten years later, with the coup d'etat perpetrated by Napoléon Bonaporte. The third state is the name that was given to the population that in those years did not have economic privileges and laws that the nobles and high clergy did have, such is the case of artisans, peasants, merchants, the common people, bourgeoisie.

“It's not a rebellion, it's a revolution"They say that the Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt snapped at Louis XVI when the latter asked about the events that had happened the day before in the Bastille prison in Paris. What both did not suspect is that they were facing events that would be one of the most relevant in modern history.

The Frenchwoman has undoubtedly been a source of inspiration and shaper of the following revolutions, like the Russian of 1917 which, in turn, would also inspire other revolutionary movements such as the Cuban. Hence its great importance, because in one way or another it has marked the world face to this day.

The French Revolution of 1789 was a popular revolutionary movement that deposed King Louis XVI and the monarchy, to establish a republican government in France.

A posteriori, this revolution will be characterized by the attacks received by the rest of the European monarchies (horrified by the execution of the family French royal), and its expansionist will, consuming itself with the so-called period of Terror first, and with the Bonapartist dictatorship a posteriori.

The cause of the revolution is a sum of well-known factors that make up the germ of cultivation for the people's discontent: political, social and economic oppression.

France was bankrupt, a situation that suffered the most was the people, who saw, instead, like the nobles and the monarchy, they continued to enjoy extensive privileges and a comfortable life.

The set of causes is much more complex, and to those cited so far we must add the contributions of the enlightened as the encyclopedists, who undermined the belief among the people about the monarchy of right divine.

The church, aligned with the nobility, was also the cause of the problem of the disaffection of the common people against the sovereign and the noble class, and precisely for this reason the revolution would also bet on the secularization of society against the will of the church.

The spark that began to light the revolutionary fuse was the convocation of the States General in 1789.

This assembly, which had representation of the three main estates of which the society was composed (church, nobility, bourgeoisie), but leaving out a large part of the population that was the least wealthy, it was brought together to find a way to tackle the problem of indebtedness.

The voting system was that each estate corresponded one, that is, one to the church, another to the nobility, and another to the bourgeoisie. A power inversely proportional to the number of people that made up each estate.

The proposal to be discussed by this assembly was a special tax, which nobles and ecclesiastics they will seek to elude so that it falls entirely on the common people, thanks to their majority of votes (two against one)

The representatives of the third estate, the bourgeoisie, saw what the play was about, so they decided to promote a forced change of the rules of the game and declaring themselves the true representatives of the nation, creating the Assembly National.

Louis XVI closed himself in on not recognizing said Assembly, which did not prevent it from meeting in the conference room. Jeu de Paume (in French, ball game) of Versailles. It was there that the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen was proclaimed, the direct precedent to our current human rights.

Faced with the continued defiance of the National Assembly, the king began to concentrate troops at the beginning of July 1789 in the vicinity of Paris, while the atmosphere grew rarefied at times.

The revolution broke out in its fullness on the night of July 14 with the storming of the Bastille prison.

Despite the low real importance of the coup, since there should be barely a dozen common prisoners in that prison, its symbolic importance was such that it made the situation escape from the hands of the crown, as it symbolized that the people were no longer afraid, not even of dying fighting. Worse was starving.

The Bastille was, in addition to a prison, a fortress from which the humble neighborhoods of Paris could be bombarded, so its inhabitants, taking the armed conflict, they preferred to land the first blow to receive it. There was no going back.

The king was not yet "out of the game," and for a time the monarchy and the National Assembly battled for power.

In towns and cities throughout France, there were authorities who declared themselves loyal to the Assembly (the most), while others followed the royalty (the least).

Louis XVI accepted some of the changes proposed by the Assembly, while others did not accept them, despite the fact that they were approved by the Assembly. The disagreement continued.

The privileges of the nobility and the clergy were progressively being eliminated, in the midst of an environment that led, in some cases, to violence.

That is why some nobles thought that the best thing would be to put land in the middle and left the country. Some of these already had the idea of ​​asking for help abroad to draw a "health" intervention from the other European powers.

In October 1789 the royal family had to leave Versailles for their own safety, being taken to the Tuileries Palace in Paris (where the Louvre Museum is currently located).

The following months continued in the midst of a weather revolutionary agitation and anti-revolutionary conspiracies hatched mainly from abroad, while the National Assembly discussed the elaboration of a Constitution for the country.

Not seeing it clearly, on June 20, 1791, King Louis XVI and his family tried to flee from France, but they were arrested in Varennes and taken to Paris, where the king complied with the constitution.

In 1792, Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain promoted what would later become known as the First Coalition, a bloc that he will try, by military means, to contain the French Revolution and return to Louis XVI his power as absolute monarch.

The fact that the queen (Marie Antoinette) was Austrian and blamed for the high deficit of the state, and that foreign powers flocked to the rescue of the monarchy, they caused a new popular explosion that crystallized in the assault on the Tuileries Palace on August 10, 1792.

The king was imprisoned, and a new body was created to exercise power, called the Convention, of a republican court. The new democratically elected parliament definitively abolished the monarchy and established the republic in August 1792.

In January 1793, the Convention condemned the deposed king, Louis XVI to death.

The execution, by beheading, of the monarch, provoked the rapid intervention of the European powers led by Prussia and Austria with the British and Spanish assistance.

The external attack provoked fear against the internal counterrevolution, and purges began in French society, planting the seed of the period that would later be known as "the Terror." The lifting of the Vendée, forcibly repressed by the new republic, is a good example of how the internal environment had deteriorated in France.

In this climate, the radical Jacobin party, led by Maximilien de Robespierre, seizes power, initiating a period of purges known as The horror.

The Terror was characterized by a general climate of fear - hence its name - and denunciations, which often ended in the execution of the accused. An estimated 50,000 people succumbed in that period.

The popularity of Robespierre and the Jacobins was eroding, provoking a boredom similar to that which the king had provoked in the town, amid an oppressive atmosphere. This boredom exploded in July 1794 with another popular revolt that would end in the removal of Robespierre.

Paradoxically, the same leader of the Jacobins would end up executed by guillotine, as would many of his victims.

The next protagonist of the revolution, and with whom we will consider that the revolutionary process formally ends: Napoleon Bonaparte.

Steeped in the Revolutionary Wars, a young Napoleon had progressively climbed the ranks of the military ladder. From a traditionally Corsican independence family - Napoleon himself had cherished the independence movement in his youth - he would align with the Jacobin postulates, which would lead him to spend a few days in prison after the fall of Robespierre (he was a friend of his brother).

However, and after having to flee from Corsica, he gets, thanks to his friendships, the command of various units, and is consecrated in the Italian campaign of 1796/97 defeating in several battles against the Austrian troops (considered at that time as one of the most powerful in Europe), always in conditions of numerical inferiority and material.

He also defeats the troops of the Papal States, and shows a freedom of thought and judgment that makes him disobey the orders of the Directory (which, for example, he had been ordered to conquer Rome, an order that Bonaparte disobeys) and to be well liked by his soldiers, with whom he has a very close relationship. direct.

On November 9, 1799 (Brumaire 18 of the year VIII according to the French revolutionary calendar), Napoleon staged a coup.

The reasons given are to end the corruption of the Board and provide stability to the government. Bonaparte has strong popular and military support.

With some speed, the government of Napoleon became more personalistic until he was proclaimed emperor in 1804. It is with this important historical figure that we can formally end the French Revolution, although its echoes will not be extinguished even to this day, more than two centuries later.

Coinciding with this movement, would develop the movement of the Illustration that proposed a barrage of new ideas that were especially based on values ​​such as the equality, reason and freedomIssues that, of course, coincided like a glove with the demands of the third state.

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