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LITERARY/HISTORICAL INFORMATION (continued)

The National Assembly established a new legal structure; privileges and feudal obligations were abolished. On August 4, a Declaration of Rights was formulated and the king was the chief executive power, but he had no legislative power except a suspensive veto. Louis XVI was reluctant to sanction the new decrees, and this led to the second Parisian uprising--the so- called March of the Women. On October 5, a mob marched to Versailles and forced the king to sign. The king and the queen, Marie Antoinette, were moved to Paris, followed by the Assembly. France became a constitutional monarchy, and legal distinctions between Frenchmen disappeared. From 1789 to 1791, the National Assembly did much to modernize France. However, the reformed franchise excluded the poor. But the people had faith in freedom as shown in the first Festival of Federation, a celebration of National Unity on July 14, 1790, Bastille Day.

When King Louis tried to escape from Paris on June 20, 1791), civil war was imminent. The Assembly retained control, and the crowd that had assembled in Paris to demand a republic was dispersed by force. In 1791, the king was reinstated after he accepted the completed Constitution. The Revolution was then believed to be over. This, however, was not true, as religious and social strife had already broken the unity of the Third Estate.

On April 20, 1792, the New Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria as King Louis was believed to have asked them for help to stop the revolution. Austrian and Prussian forces invaded France, and riots broke out in Paris. On August 10, the palace was stormed, and Louis was imprisoned by a new revolutionary Commune of Paris. The Legislative Assembly now did not have any power and so ordered an election. Counter revolutionaries were massacred in the prisons of Paris.

On September 22, 1792, the National Convention established a republic, and the king was sent to the guillotine on January 21, 1793. France was divided by a militant minority comprised of the Monteguards and the Jacobins who wanted to take vigorous revolutionary measures, while their opponents, the Girondists, leaders of the amorphous majority, looked to the Provinces and hoped to consolidate the Revolution.

In 1793, a savage royalist uprising commenced, and the hard-core revolutionaries began to gain ground. Emergency bodies were set up, but there was no leadership and the Parisian insurrection of June 2 forced the Convention to expel the Girondists and accept Monteguard control. The Reign of Terror lasted from 1793 until 1794. The Monteguard Convention had to deal with invasion, royalist civil war, and widespread revolts in the provinces. At first George Danton tried to placate the provinces, who were revolting against the dictatorship of Paris, but later Maxmillian Robespierre sent armies to subdue the rebellious cities.

The city of Toulon surrendered to the British, and a demonstration in Paris forced the National Convention to establish a repressive regime known as the Terror. The Revolutionary Tribunal sent state prisoners, including Girondists, to the guillotine and agents of the Convention known as representatives of the people enforced bloody repression throughout France. The churches were closed on November 23, 1793. The republican armies were now in command, and the Terror became identified with ruthless and centralized revolutionary government. Any dissidence was classified as counter revolutionary, and Monteguards and extremists were guillotined early in 1794.

Robespierre insisted on associating Terror with virtue, and his effort to make the republic a morally united patriotic community became equated with the endless bloodshed. Robespierre was overthrown by a conspiracy of certain members of the National Convention on July 27, 1794. The Robespierrist deputies and most members of the Commune were guillotined the next day, July 28.

The period from 1794 to 1795 of the Thermidorian Reaction was so weak that anarchy and inflation almost overwhelmed the country. However, the extreme republicans could achieve nothing, and the Convention broke the popular movement permanently with the aid of the army. The Constitution was completed in 1795, and it took effect after a reactionary rising in Vendemiare was suppressed by General Napoleon Bonaparte. The Constitution of 1795 established an executive directory, two assemblies, and a property owner's franchise. Care was taken to see that the country could not revert to either democratic Terror or monarchy.

In 1797 the directors purged the parliament ruthlessly. Many deputies were labeled as royalists and sent to the penal colony of French Guinea--called the dry guillotine. Soon the moderates were outnumbered, and in 1799, the Consulate, with Bonaparte as the First Consul, was established. The revolutionary period ended with the creation of the First Empire, which lasted from 1804 until 1815.

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