French Revolution

Topic: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 1 "The Rise of Nationalism in Europe"; Class 10, Ch 5 "Print Culture and the Modern World"; Class 11, Ch 6 "Displacing Indigenous Peoples"

Meaning

The French Revolution was the great change in France that began in 1789. It ended absolute monarchy (rule by one king who held all power) and passed sovereignty (the highest power to rule) to the body of citizens. It matters because it was the first clear expression of nationalism: the idea that the nation is its people, and the people make the laws. French armies and Napoleon then carried this idea across Europe.

Explanation

Background: from king to citizens (1789)

• Before 1789, France was an absolute monarchy. The king ruled. People were his subjects, not citizens.
• The new idea: the nation is the people. A king rules only if the nation allows it.
• Print spread the new ideas. NCERT (Class 10, Ch 5) notes that books and pamphlets carried the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers to ordinary readers. Many historians argue that this helped prepare the ground for revolution. The exact link is still debated.
• Sequence of 1789:
• 17 June 1789: deputies of the Third Estate (the common people, meaning neither clergy nor nobles) declared themselves a National Assembly [5].
• 20 June 1789: they were locked out of their hall at Versailles. They moved to an indoor tennis court (salle du jeu de paume) and swore the Tennis Court Oath. They promised not to separate until France had a written constitution [5].
• 27 June 1789: King Louis XVI gave in and ordered the clergy and nobility to join the National Assembly [5].
• 26 August 1789: the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen [3]. Its core line: men are born and remain free and equal in rights. The natural rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression [3].

How the revolutionaries built a "nation"

• New words for a new loyalty.
• la patrie: the fatherland. People now owed loyalty to the land, not to a king.

• le citoyen: the citizen. A citizen has equal rights under one constitution.

• New symbols.

• The tricolour (three-colour flag) replaced the old royal standard. People carried it to show their belief in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen [3].

• Hymns, oaths and martyrs (people who died for the revolution) built a shared feeling.

• New institutions. The Estates General was the old assembly chosen by the estates. It was renamed the National Assembly, which was now chosen by the body of active citizens.

• One law, one market, one speech.
• Uniform laws for all French people.
• Internal customs duties abolished, so goods were no longer taxed at every provincial border.
• Uniform weights and measures across the country.
• Parisian French (the French spoken and written in Paris) became the common national language. Regional dialects lost ground.

Exporting the revolution: Jacobins, armies and Napoleon

• Declared mission: revolutionaries said it was France's destiny to free the peoples of Europe from despotism (rule by one all-powerful ruler).
• Two carriers of the idea:
• Jacobin clubs: political clubs of students and educated men outside France. They prepared the ground.

• French armies: they moved into Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and much of Italy in the 1790s.

• Napoleon's contradiction:

• Inside France, he destroyed democracy. He brought back monarchy in all but name and crowned himself Emperor in 1804.

• Outside France, he spread revolutionary principles through administration. He made government rational, uniform and efficient.

• The Civil Code of 1804 (Napoleonic Code) was promulgated on 21 March 1804 [2]. It did three main things:

• It ended privileges based on birth.
• It set up equality before the law and abolished all class privileges [2].
• It secured the right to property [2].
• It also protected individual liberty, freedom of work, freedom of conscience and the lay (non-religious) character of the state [2].
• It followed Roman law and had three books: the law of persons, of things, and of modes of acquiring ownership of things [2].

• Limit: divorce stayed legal, but women got only limited legal rights [2]. Equality was for men.

• Napoleon's reforms in the conquered territories:

• Simplified administrative divisions, meaning fewer and cleaner units of government.
• Abolition of feudalism, serfdom (peasants bound to the land and the lord) and manorial dues (forced payments to the lord).
• Guild restrictions removed. Guilds were old craft associations that controlled who could make and sell goods.
• Transport and communication improved.
• Businessmen gained from uniform laws, standard weights and measures and a common national currency.

Results: welcome first, hatred later

• First welcomed in Holland, Switzerland, Brussels, Mainz, Milan and Warsaw. People there saw the French as bringers of liberty.
• Then hated, because three burdens outweighed the gains:
• Increased taxation.
• Censorship, meaning control over what could be printed and said.

• Forced conscription, meaning young men were made to join the French army.

• Scale of the draft:

• The levée en masse of 1793 had called up all able-bodied unmarried men aged 18 to 25 [4].

• As Emperor, Napoleon made the draft a permanent system. He began with 60,000 Frenchmen a year, and by 1810 the quota reached 120,000 [4].

• The Continental System began with the Berlin Decree of 21 November 1806. It declared the British Isles blockaded and shut Continental ports to British ships and goods [4]. Traders in occupied Europe lost business.

• In the German states:
• Napoleon's money demands made people angry.
• Patriotic feeling spread.

• Secret societies grew up with the aim of driving out the French [4].

• The irony: French armies spread the idea of the nation, and Europe then used that same idea against the French.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: began in 1789. Its ideas were carried abroad in the 1790s. The Napoleonic phase covers the Civil Code (1804), the Berlin Decree (1806) and the conscription quota reaching 120,000 by 1810.
• Places: Versailles (the Tennis Court Oath) and Paris (the source of the national language) in France. The ideas spread to Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, the German states, Brussels, Mainz, Milan and Warsaw.
• Key people and groups: Louis XVI, the Third Estate deputies, the Jacobin clubs and Napoleon Bonaparte.
• How we know:
• The text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted in August 1789. A copy is held by the US Library of Congress [3].
• The text of the Civil Code of 1804 [2].
• The Berlin Decree and the conscription records of the Napoleonic state [4].
• Visual evidence in NCERT: the print from Zweibrücken. It shows French soldiers as oppressors, not liberators, which was the local people's view of the occupation.

Don't confuse with

• Estates General vs National Assembly: the Estates General was the old body chosen by the estates. The National Assembly was what the Third Estate deputies called themselves on 17 June 1789 [5], and it was chosen by the active citizens.
• Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) vs Civil Code (1804): the Declaration was a statement of natural rights by the National Assembly [3]. The Civil Code was Napoleon's working law book in three books [2].
• Levée en masse (1793) vs Napoleon's conscription: the levée en masse was the revolutionary call-up of unmarried men aged 18–25. Napoleon later made the draft a permanent yearly quota of 60,000, which rose to 120,000 by 1810 [4].
• French civic nationalism vs German cultural nationalism: in France, the nation meant equal citizens under one constitution. Later German nationalism was built on shared language and folk tradition.

Prelims Hooks

• Order of events in 1789: National Assembly (17 June) → Tennis Court Oath (20 June) → Louis XVI orders clergy and nobles to join (27 June) [5] → Declaration of the Rights of Man (26 August) [3].
• According to the Declaration, the natural rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression [3].
• The tricolour replaced the royal standard. Parisian French became the national language. Internal customs duties were abolished.
• Napoleonic Code: promulgated on 21 March 1804. It has three books (persons, things, modes of acquiring ownership) on the Roman law pattern [2].
• Continental System: began with the Berlin Decree of 21 November 1806 against Britain [4].
• Trap: Napoleon was first welcomed in Holland, Switzerland, Brussels, Mainz, Milan and Warsaw. The Zweibrücken print shows the later hostility, not the welcome.

Mains Points

• Nationalism was born as a political idea, not an ethnic one.
• In 1789 the nation meant a community of equal citizens under one constitution.
• It rested on shared law and rights, not on blood or language.

• This civic nationalism can be contrasted with later German cultural nationalism.

• The Napoleonic paradox.

• Napoleon ended democracy inside France.
• Abroad, he spread equality before the law, the end of feudalism and uniform administration through the Civil Code of 1804 [2].

• Judge him by results: his institutions lasted longer than his empire. The Code became a model for 19th-century civil codes across continental Europe and Latin America [2].

• Occupation created its own opposition, and the economic reforms pointed towards unification.

• Taxes, censorship and forced conscription turned liberators into oppressors [4]. In the German states, anger grew into patriotic feeling and secret societies [4].
• Uniform laws, standard weights and measures and a common currency created a single market that businessmen wanted.
• This leads directly to the Zollverein (1834) and to the middle-class support behind later unification movements.

Related concepts

• Tennis Court Oath
• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Napoleonic Code
• Simon Bolivar

Read more

• The French Revolution, Napoleon and the idea of the nation