By the time of the reign of Louis XVI (1774), the social atmosphere was becoming more and more tense, and more and more signs foreshadowed the proximity of a revolutionary explosion. There was famine in the country, and the performances of the masses, the so-called « flour war » 1775 took on formidable proportions. Louis XV, to whom rumor attributed the words: « After us - at least a flood! » - left his successor a sad legacy. In the 70s. In the 18th century, as the French historian E. Labrus showed, in France there was a fall in prices for agricultural products, which leads to a reduction in the income of the feudal lords. Since the 80s in the French countryside begins « feudal reaction » , as Shere called this process, and after him the feudal aristocracy, trying to get out of the situation, begins to restore the old medieval duties for the peasants.

Louis XVI began his reign with transformations. In 1774 he appointed Turgot, a supporter of « enlightened absolutism » and reforms in the spirit of the teachings of the Physiocrats, who attempted to allow free trade in grain, limit the extravagance of the court and eliminate the guild system with its conservative traditions, routine technology and labor organization. However, all the reforms of the royal minister ran into strong resistance from the nobility, who achieved the resignation of Turgot in 1776. The decisive Turgot was replaced by the more cautious Necker, but in 1781 he too suffered the fate of his predecessor.

In 1787 - 1789. France was in a revolutionary situation. There was a crisis in industry and commerce caused by the penetration of cheap English goods into the market. The comptrollers of state Calonne and Lomeny de Brienne tried to cover the costs with loans. By 1789, the public debt of France reached 4.5 billion livres, and the annual budget deficit was 80 million livres.

On the advice of Calonne, in 1787, Louis XVI convened an assembly of notables, consisting of representatives of the three estates appointed by the king himself. To overcome the financial crisis that hit the country, Kalonne proposed a change in the tax system, providing for the payment of part of the taxes by the privileged classes. Rejecting the proposals of the royal minister, the assembly of notables was dissolved. Remaining under the threat of financial collapse and growing unrest, Louis XVI in August 1788 returned Necker to power, on whose advice he agreed to the convocation of the Estates General. The convocation of the representatives of the three estates was scheduled for May 1789. The task of finding ways and means to overcome the financial crisis was entrusted to the States General. Forced to reckon with the growing discontent of the third estate, the king agreed to give its representatives a double advantage in the Estates General. However, the important question of how to vote - by estate or by number of votes - was left open.

On May 5, 1789, in one of the palaces of Versailles, the grand opening of the meeting of the States General, which had not been convened in France since the time of Louis XIII (1610 - 1643), took place. In front of the throne of the king, on one side, 300 representatives from the clergy, dressed in purple and white cassocks, took their places. On the other side are 300 representatives of the nobility, dressed in lush camisoles and expensive hats. In the back of the hall of the Palace of Versailles, behind the nobility and clergy, there were 600 deputies from the third estate, dressed in modest and inexpensive black suits. These external differences in clothing and positions occupied indicated the privileged position of deputies from the first and second estates, one of which guarded the tranquility of the feudal-absolutist monarchy, serving the king and government. « prayers » , and another « sword » . Even combined together, they made up just under 1% of France's 25 million population in the 18th century.

Opening the meetings of the representatives of the three estates, Louis XVI delivered a message to the deputies of the Estates General. The king's speech, although it was met with unanimous greetings, still could not justify the hopes placed on it. Louis XVI said nothing about the need for reforms and expressed disapproval of « unbridled desire for innovation » . The monarch was followed by Minister Necker, very popular in the third estate, who demanded on behalf of the government that the estates present to the crown a loan of 80 million livres. In his report, he avoided all the most pressing issues, did not express an opinion either on the state of affairs in the state or on the tasks of the States General.

The next day the Estates General were to proceed to the verification of the powers of the deputies. The question arose about the procedure for conducting a check of credentials, which is closely related to another issue - about voting by estates or polls. The problem that arose, how to vote - by estates or by a majority of votes, was not so much of practical as of fundamental importance. The nobility and clergy insisted on maintaining the former estate division of the Estates General, which allowed them to vote separately and have a double advantage over the third estate.

On May 6, 1789, the deputies from the first and second estates organized themselves in separate halls into chambers independent of each other and began separately to test their powers. For the representatives of the third estate, there was a serious danger that the old principle of division by estates would be preserved in the Estates General and that the deputies, who did not belong to the first two privileged estates and who constituted a significant majority of the French people, would become a third of the assembly. Count Gabriel Honore Mirabeau, deputy of the third estate, pointed out such a danger, he called on his colleagues from the third estate to fight this, seeking a joint verification of the powers of all deputies.

Long negotiations began. The lower clergy were ready to compromise with the deputies of the third estate, offering to elect commissars from each estate in order to reach an agreement. However, the nobility was intransigent and categorically refused any concessions.

The political crisis that arose within the Estates-General and had lasted for more than a month had attracted the attention of the French people. The masses began to gather in Versailles, filling the galleries of the palace in dense rows. « small fun » , in which the meeting of the third estate, named in the English manner « House of Commons » . Having received broad support from the people, the deputies of the third estate decided on bold and decisive actions.

June 10, at the suggestion of the abbe E.-J. Sieyes, the meeting of the third estate began to check the credentials of deputies from the three estates elected to the Estates General. Rejecting the principle of estate division, the French « The House of Commons » invited the first and second estates to join this test on the basis of universal voting on the basis of a majority vote. Deputies who did not show up for inspection were deprived of their powers and were to be considered expelled from the assembly.

These bold political moves, backed up by strong statements, quickly paid off. On June 13, a part of the lower clergy joined the meeting of the third estate, and it also became known about unrest and hesitation among the rest of the clergy and some part of the nobility. From now on, the fullness of the political initiative passed into the hands of the deputies of the third estate, who, assuming full responsibility for organizing the verification of the credentials of deputies of all estates, emphasized that only the third estate is the authorized representative of the entire nation. In addition to E.-J. Sieyes, this idea was repeatedly expressed by Mirabeau, Barnave and the Breton lawyer Le Chapelier.

Transformation of the Estates General on June 17, 1789 into the National Assembly. Proclamation of the National Assembly on 9 July 1789 by the Constituent Assembly.

After the third estate had assumed the responsibility of checking the credentials of all the deputies of the Estates General, when it had divided itself into 20 departments for this purpose, elected its own chairman, Bailly, elected the bureau, when it had identified its rights with those of the whole of France, this new the state of affairs demanded a new legal expression.

On June 17, the assembly of the third estate proclaimed the Estates General the National Assembly, thus becoming the highest legislative and representative body of the entire French people. Alarmed by these events, the king, as well as the highest nobility and clergy hastened to take all necessary measures. On June 20, the government, under the pretext of convening a royal meeting, ordered

In response to this, the deputies of the National Assembly gathered in the hall that had previously served as a ball game. A proposal was made to approve the members of the assembly an oath not to disperse until a constitution was drafted and adopted. The assembly solemnly accepted the text of the drafted oath.

On June 23, at a meeting of the three estates convened by the king, Louis XVI declared all the decisions of the National Assembly invalid, and the Assembly itself - non-existent and proposed that the estates again divide into chambers, maintaining their former class isolation. Whereupon Louis XVI and the first two estates left the meeting room. However, the astronomer Bayi, who was elected chairman of the National Assembly in early June, declared its meeting open. The royal master of ceremonies, the Marquis de Breze, demanded that the deputies obey the order of the monarch, for which he heard an angry response from Mirabeau: « Go and say your Lord, that we are here - by the will of the people and will leave our places, only yielding to the power of bayonets » .

At the suggestion of Mirabeau, the Assembly proclaimed the inviolability of the personality of the deputies, and decided to consider attempts to encroach on these rights a state crime. Thus, on June 23, the absolutist monarchy suffered a serious defeat, after the members of the National Assembly refused to disperse at the will of the royal person. Already on June 24, a significant part of the clergy and nobility hastened to join the National Assembly. The king was forced against his will to sanction this union of the three estates in the National Assembly.

On July 9, the National Assembly proclaimed itself the Constituent Assembly. By this, it emphasized its obligation to work out the constitutional foundations on the basis of which it was supposed to establish a new social system in France. In those distant July days, Count Mirabeau indulged in illusions: « This great revolution will do without atrocities and without tears » . However, this time the insight changed Mirabeau. The great French bourgeois revolution was just beginning, and the French people were just entering its threshold.

The king and his entourage followed the developments in Versailles with anxiety and irritation. The government was gathering troops to disperse the Assembly, which had dared to declare itself Constituent. Troops were gathering in Paris and Versailles. Unreliable parts were replaced with new ones. People's orators in front of a huge crowd of people explained the threat that hung over the Constituent Assembly. A rumor spread among the bourgeoisie about the forthcoming declaration of state bankruptcy, that is, the intention of the government to cancel its debt obligations. The stock exchange, shops and theaters were closed.

On July 12, news of the resignation of Minister Necker, who was ordered by the king to leave France, penetrated Paris. This news caused a storm of indignation among the people, who on the eve of the streets of Paris wore busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans. Necker's resignation was perceived as a transition of the counter-revolutionary forces to the offensive. Already in the evening of July 12, the first clashes between the people and government troops took place.

On the morning of July 13, the alarm sounded over Paris, calling on the Parisians to revolt. In arms stores, in the House of Invalids, people seized several tens of thousands of guns. Under the onslaught of the armed people, government troops were forced to retreat, leaving quarter after quarter. By evening, most of the capital was in the hands of the rebels.

On July 13, the Parisian electors organized a Standing Committee, later transformed into a commune - the Paris Municipality. The Standing Committee on the same day decided to form the National Guard - the armed force of the bourgeois revolution, designed to defend the revolutionary gains and protect bourgeois property.

However, the outcome of the confrontation between the king and the deputies of the Constituent Assembly was not yet decided. The vents of the cannons of the 8-tower fortress-prison of the Bastille still continued to look towards the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The Standing Committee tried to reach an agreement with the commandant of the Bastille, de Launay. Historians attribute the call for the storming of the Bastille to young journalist Camille Desmoulins. In the crowd they noticed how a detachment of dragoons proceeded to the fortress. The people rushed to the gates of the fortress. The garrison of the Bastille opened fire on the crowd that stormed the fortress. Once more blood was shed. However, it was already impossible to stop the people. An angry mob burst into the fortress and killed the commandant de Donet. People of various professions took part in the storming of the Bastille: carpenters, jewelers, cabinetmakers, shoemakers, tailors, marble craftsmen, etc. The capture of the stronghold of tyranny meant the victory of the popular uprising. Having formally acknowledged his defeat, the king, together with the deputation of the Constituent Assembly, arrived in Paris on July 17, and on July 29, Louis XVI returned the popular Necker to power.

The news of the success of the popular uprising quickly spread throughout France. Vox Dei swept like a punishing right hand over many royal officials who despised the people and saw in them only a stupid « black » . The royal official Fulong was hung from a lamppost. The same fate befell the mayor of Paris, Flessel, who slipped boxes of rags instead of weapons. In towns and cities, people took to the streets and replaced appointed king, the power that personified the old order by the new elected municipal self-government bodies. Unrest began in Troyes, Strasbourg, Amiens, Cherbourg, Rouen, etc. This broad movement, which engulfed the cities of France in July - August, was called « municipal revolution » .

Peasant uprisings began as early as the beginning of 1789, before the convocation of the Estates General. Under the impression made by the storming of the Bastille in July-September, the peasants began to protest, which received a new revolutionary scope. Everywhere the peasants stopped paying feudal duties, sacked noble estates, castles and burned documents confirming the rights of the feudal lords to the identity of the peasants. The owners of the estates were seized with horror, which went down in history under the name « great fear » .

The Constituent Assembly, which finally united all three estates, became the most important step towards the establishment of a monarchy limited by law in the kingdom. However, after the victory won on July 14, power and political leadership actually passed into the hands of the big bourgeoisie and the bourgeois liberal nobility, which united with it. Jean Bailly became head of the Parisian municipality, and Lafayette became head of the National Guard that was formed. The provinces and most municipalities were also dominated by the big bourgeoisie, which, in alliance with the liberal nobility, formed the constitutionalist party. Divided into right and left

Already in July, the Assembly created a commission to prepare a declaration and a constitution for France. However, due to the growth of peasant uprisings, the Assembly immediately begins with the solution of the agrarian question. At a meeting of the Constituent Assembly on August 4, 1789, which lasted until late at night, the deputies of the nobility and the bourgeois who owned land rent were more susceptible than others to « Great fear » , make a proposal to solve the problems that hit the village. The Duke d'Aiguilon, painting a terrifying picture of a raging village, proposed a ready-made bill, consisting of 8 sections. Calling on the rest of the nobility « sacrifice one's rights for justice » and make sacrifices « on the altar of the fatherland » , The Constituent Assembly adopted decrees on the agrarian question on August 11 .

All feudal duties were divided into « personal » and « real » . To « personal » included: servage, seigneurial courts, the right of a dead hand, the exclusive right to hunt, etc. « real » payments were considered: church tithe, chinsh, one-time fees to the seigneur in the sale and inheritance of licenses, shampar, etc. The difference between them was that « personal » duty as opposed to « real » canceled without any redemption and were not related to land ownership. Thus, without resolving the essence of the agrarian question, the Constituent Assembly in decrees of August 4-11 announced that « completely destroys the feudal regime » .

After the adoption of the agrarian decrees, the assembly returned to constitutional questions. On August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was adopted, consisting of 17 articles, which were based on the anti-feudal educational ideas of J.-J. Rousseau. In contrast to royal absolutism, the Declaration proclaimed the principle of the supremacy of the nation. The nation is the only source of all power. This formulation allowed for the preservation of the monarchy. The Declaration formulated precise definitions « natural, inalienable and inalienable rights » .The first article of the declaration began: « People are born and remain free and equal in rights » . True, a vague clause was introduced into the first article, allowing « social differences » if they lead to « common good » . « Natural and inalienable rights » recognized freedom of the individual, freedom of speech and press, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, security and resistance to oppression, the choice of any kind of occupation. In the 17th article of the Declaration, the right to property was declared the same inviolable right. Taking it out of the hands of the owner was allowed only in case of « social need » , by law and subject to « preliminary and fair remuneration » .

Rejecting class privileges, the Declaration provided for the right of all citizens to participate by themselves or through their representatives in the legislative process.

In the very title of the Declaration, the person comes first after the citizen. This also expressed the ideas of the enlighteners, who sought to focus all their attention on human individuality. Following the humanists of the XVI century. and the rationalists of the 17th century, the enlighteners put man at the center of all their historical and philosophical constructions. They wanted to wrest him out of the clutches of feudal corporations (estate, guild, guild), treating him as an individual equal to everyone else. Universal equality was necessary to eliminate those class barriers that were built by feudal society. Therefore, the allocation of the human personality as opposed to feudal corporatism was the main idea of ​​the bourgeois worldview, which the enlighteners of the XVIII century. brought to extraordinary severity. The famous triune formula « freedom, equality and brotherhood » extracted from the Declaration subsequently reverberate throughout Europe.

After the adoption of the Declaration and the granting of fundamental rights and freedoms to citizens, the question of the right to vote arose. As early as August 31, the majority of the deputies of the Assembly reacted with understanding to the proposal of Deputy Munier to establish a property qualification for voters and to divide citizens into « active » and « passive » . This idea was expressed by Sieyes back in July.

In September, the government was preparing a new counter-revolutionary coup. Louis XVI refused to sign the August decrees and the Declaration. Reliable units were drawn to Versailles and Paris. October 5 from the pages of Marat's newspaper « friend of the people » There was a call to march on Versailles. About 6 thousand women took part in the campaign, demanding bread. Later, the National Guard, led by Lafayette, approached Versailles. On October 6, an armed clash broke out with the royal guards, during which the people broke into the palace. The frightened king twice went out onto the balcony with Lafayette and tried to calm the armed crowd. Fearing the worst possible development of the situation, Louis XVI signed the declaration and the agrarian laws, after which he hastily left Versailles and went to Paris. Following the king, the Constituent Assembly moved to the capital.

On October 21, the Constituent Assembly passed a law authorizing the use of military force to suppress popular uprisings.

administrative reform.

Having abolished in August the old privileges of the provinces, the Assembly then destroyed the entire medieval system of dividing France into provinces, generalites, seneschals, bailages, etc. By the law of January 15, 1790, the Constituent Assembly established a new administrative structure of the kingdom. The whole country was divided into 83 departments, divided in turn into communes, cantons and discrites. This new administrative structure, which destroyed the old feudal fragmentation with internal customs, patrimonial courts, and the like, ensured the national unity of the state. As a result of the reform, 44 thousand municipalities were formed in France.

Church reform

The attempts of Louis XVI and his ministers in 1787 and in 1789 to resolve the socio-political and economic crisis looming over the kingdom ended in vain. The new revolutionary government inherited from the feudal-absolutist monarchy a significant amount of debt and the growing financial crisis in the country. In order to avoid dangerous precedents of violation « inviolable and sacred » of the rights of private property protected by the last article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the Constituent Assembly, on the proposal of Bishop Talleyrand of Autun, supported by G. O. Mirabeau, decided to sequester church property, based on the explanation proposed by Talleyrand that this measure « fully compatible with strict respect for property rights » , since the duties assigned to the priests by the church order do not allow the clergy to be the same owners as the nobility or the bourgeoisie are. Despite the protest of the clergy, outraged by the trick of their brother, and appealing to the 17th article of the August Declaration, the deputies of the Constituent Assembly by decree of November 2, 1789 decided to transfer all church property to the disposal of the nation. Church reform affected not only the Gallican church, which remained faithful to Catholicism, but also those churches that were influenced by the Reformation.

After the property of the church was declared the property of the state, the deputies of the Assembly decided to liquidate the political autonomy of the church, proceeding, in fact, to the reform of the church itself. By decrees of July - November 1790, the Assembly sought to change the internal structure of the church and determine its further sphere of activity in the state. A number of powers under the jurisdiction of the church administration were transferred to the jurisdiction of local civil authorities (marriage registration, registration of the deceased and registration of newborns). In an effort to put the clergy at the service of the interests of the emerging bourgeois order, the deputies of the Assembly decided to withdraw the Gallican church from the influence of the French king and the pope. The king was deprived of the prerogative of appointing persons to episcopal chairs, and the pope was deprived of the right to approve them. All church positions became elected, on the basis of a property qualification established by law. Regardless of confessional affiliation, the higher clergy were elected by departmental electors, the lower ones by parish ones.

The government took upon itself the obligation to pay salaries to the clergy. Relations between the state and the clergy were finally formalized along the state-church vector, expressed, among other things, through the monetary remuneration established by law in the form of wages received by clergy for their work. Thus, anyone who rightfully wears a cassock turned into a spiritual official, a minister, but not in the theological, but in the secular sense of the word.

The old division of France into 18 archbishoprics and 116 bishoprics was replaced by a division into 83 dioceses, which corresponded to 83 departments formed during the administrative reform.

By a decree of November 27, 1790, the Constituent Assembly decided to swear allegiance to the drafted articles of the constitution. Each bishop was obliged to take the oath in the presence of the municipal authorities. However, most of the clergy refused the oath. Of the 83 bishops, only 7 swore allegiance to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, as well as to the articles of the constitution. (sworn) and unconstitutional (refusing to take an oath).

Further attempt to resolve the peasant question by the Constituent Assembly.

The decrees of August 4-11 were perceived by the peasantry as the complete abolition of all feudal duties. The peasants stopped paying not only « personal » duties, which was allowed by law, but also « real » that were supposed to be purchased. Since the authorities tried to force the peasants to bear the prescribed duties until they redeemed them, in February 1790 an uprising broke out again.

In solving the agrarian question, the Constituent Assembly used two methods: the method of persuasion and the method of coercion. By a decree of March 15, 1790, the landowners were deprived of the right to triage. By decrees of February and July 1790, the Assembly confirmed the duty of the peasants to pay « real payments » and gave local authorities the power to impose « martial law » . In the event of a pogrom of the owner's property by the peasants, the government imposed on the communities the obligation to compensate for the damage caused in the amount of 2/3 of the cost of the loss incurred by the owner.

In May 1790, the Assembly established a redemption procedure that was unfavorable for the peasants. « real payments » which led to a new wave of peasant movement. In the departments of Quercy, Perigord, and Rouergue, the peasantry rose again in the winter of 1790 to fight. The meeting sent to « rebellious » departments of troops and commissars. But it was not possible to quickly put out the center of the uprising.

As early as May 15, 1790, the Assembly issued a decree authorizing the sale of national property at auction in small plots with payment by installments of up to 12 years. In June, the payment term was reduced from 12 to 4 years. Instead of selling the land in small plots, now they began to sell it in whole lands. The peasantry at first showed interest in the sale of church lands and the number of unrest was noticeably reduced. However, land prices were set high, and the sale of large plots at auction raised them even higher.

Having started the sale of national property, the Constituent Assembly issued special state monetary obligations for payment for them - assignats, initially in the amount of 400 million livres. This amount was equal to the price intended for the sale of part of the national property. Assignats were initially issued with a face value of a thousand livres and were quoted as securities. However, soon they were given the functions of paper money: they began to be issued in small denominations, and they acquired circulation on a par with specie.

Municipal elections in January - February 1790 Le Chapelier Law. Cancellation of estates.

In January - February 1790, elections to municipal bodies were held on the basis of new constitutional articles on property qualification. Access to them, as well as to the National Guard, was open only to wealthy people.

In the field of commercial and industrial legislation, the Constituent Assembly proceeded from the principles of economic liberalism of the physiocratic school. Striving to ensure the greatest scope for economic initiative, it abolished all previous restrictions. Obstructing the freedom of industrial and commercial activities. On February 16, 1791, a decree was issued on the abolition of workshops and their privileges, even earlier government regulation in industrial production was abolished. 2 March The Assembly adopts a law on freedom of entrepreneurial activity.

In the spring of 1790, workers began to strike in Paris and other cities, demanding higher wages and a shorter working day. A Fraternal Union was formed, uniting thousands of carpenters. Even earlier, the printers of Paris created their own special organization.

On June 14, 1791, the deputy Le Chapelier, a lawyer from Rennes, introduced a draft against the workers, which was adopted almost unanimously by the deputies of the Constituent Assembly. This decree, according to its creator, became known as Le Chapelier Law. The law forbade the association of workers in unions or other associations, forbade strikes, and took action against violators. Violators of the law were punished by fines and imprisonment. The meetings of the strikers were equated with « rebels » and military force could be used against participants. Le Chapelier himself motivated the need for the adoption of this law by the fact that trade unions and workers' strikes restrict the freedom of the individual entrepreneur and thereby contradict the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

The Constituent Assembly eliminated the division of the country into estates, however, while retaining the title of nobility itself. In order to ensure further equality of all citizens in rights, the Assembly on June 19, 1790 abolished the institution of the nobility and all titles associated with it. The wearing of titles: marquis, count, duke, etc., as well as the use of family coats of arms, was prohibited. Citizens could only have the surname of the head of the family.

The first political circles in France

It is generally accepted that the first political club in France arose in June 1789 in Versailles before the revolutionary uprisings of the masses and the fall of the Bastille. They became the Breton Club, which united a group of bourgeois deputies from Brittany, who were soon joined by prominent members of the National Assembly. By the end of June, the number of members of the club exceeded 150 people. After the events of October 5-6, following the king and the Constituent Assembly, members of the Breton Club moved to Paris. Here in the capital of France the club was transformed into « Society of Friends of the Constitution » , or the Jacobin Club, named after the library of the monastery of St. Jacob, in which meetings of its members were held. All members of the club paid an annual entry fee of 12 to 24 livres, which did not allow the poor to take part in its work. Unlike the Concrete Club, which accepted into its ranks only deputies of the Constituent Assembly in « Society of Friends of the Constitution » included supporters of bourgeois-democratic reforms and moderate liberal constitutionalists. In the first years of the revolution, the role of the Jacobin Club, which united almost all the major figures of the third estate, both on the right (from Sieyes, Lafayette and Mirabeau), and on the left (before Robespierre), was great. The club discussed most of the issues considered by the deputies of the Constituent Assembly. The Jacobin Club had many branches. In June 1790, their number reached 100, at the beginning of 1791 it reached 227, and at the time of the Varennes crisis, there were 406 club branches in 83 departments of France.

In 1790, representatives of the constitutionalist party, represented by an alliance of the big bourgeoisie with the liberal-minded nobility, remaining in the majority members of the Jacobin Club, formed « Society of 1789 » , which included: the leader of the constitutionalists Mirabeau, the head of the national guard Lafayette, the mayor of the Parisian municipality of Bailly, a Breton lawyer from Rennes Le Chapelier and others. Chairman « Societies of 1789 » Abbé Sieyes was elected. All of them adhered to right-wing views, and in the Constituent Assembly their representation was called moderate liberal-constitutionalists. AT « Society of 1789 » high membership fees were set, and its meetings were held behind closed doors from prying eyes.

With the growth of the peasant-plebeian movement, new ideological and political circles arose that absorbed the views of the French enlighteners. Among them, a special place was « social circle » , founded in January 1790 by Abbé Claude Fauchet and an ardent admirer of the educational ideas of J.-J. Rousseau by the writer Nicolas de Bonville, who united in his ranks the democratically minded intelligentsia. Huge political influence « social circle » acquired in November 1790, after a broader organization had been founded by its leaders - « » , which absorbed about 3 thousand people. Meetings « » took place in the premises of the circus Palais-Royal and attracted an audience of 4 - 5 thousand people, consisting of artisans, workers and other representatives of the Parisian poor. In speeches at meetings of the federation, as well as in the published « Social circle » newspapers « iron mouth » , Foché and Bonville put forward demands for the allotment of land to all the poor, the equalization of property and the abolition of the right to inherit. Despite the fact that neither Fauchet nor Bonville took an exclusively leftist position on acute political issues, K. Marx and F. Engels argued that in « Social circle » that revolutionary movement began, which then « spawned communist idea » put forward by Babeuf and his followers.

In April 1790, the « Society of Friends of Human and Citizen Rights » or the Club of the Cordeliers, which took its name from the convent belonging to the order of the Franciscan Cordeliers, in which the members of the club met. The Club of the Cordeliers, in its composition, represented a more democratic organization that fought against the qualification restriction by the deputies of the Assembly of suffrage. For those wishing to join the club, small membership fees were set. Unlike the Jacobin Club, the Cordelier Club had few deputies to the Constituent Assembly. It included mainly revolutionary-minded public figures, carriers of republican ideas: lawyer Danton, journalist Camille Desmoulins, newspaper publisher « friend of the people » Jean Paul Marat, journalist and lawyer François Robber, typographer Momoro and others. The emblem of the Club was the all-seeing eye, symbolizing the vigilance of the people.

"Varenne Crisis" on June 21, 1791 and the first split within the Jacobin Club on July 16, 1791

After the campaign against Versailles on October 5-6, 1789 and the transfer of the king and the Assembly to Paris, the palace in the Tuileries became the residence of the monarchy. On the morning of June 21, 1791, the Parisians were awakened by the sound of the alarm and cannon shots, announcing the flight from the Tuileries Palace of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette along with their children. It became apparent that the carriage with the highest-born of all the aristocrats was rapidly moving towards the eastern border of France, where the forces of the counter-revolution were gathering to begin their crusade against « rebellious rabble » .

On the same day, at a meeting of the Club of the Cordeliers, a proclamation was drawn up to the French people, published in the form of a poster: after paraphrased verses from « brutus » Voltaire followed the call for the punishment of tyrants by death. Immediately, the members of the Club unanimously approved the petition personally drawn up by Francois Robert to the Constituent Assembly, demanding, after the flight of the king and queen from Paris, the final destruction of the monarchy. On June 21, all the forces of supporters of republican rule were activated. The journalist Brissot and the press called for the deposition of Louis XVI and the proclamation of France as a republic. « World Federation of Friends of Truth » - « iron mouth » . printed organ « Society of Friends of Human Rights and the Citizen » - « friend of the people » called for a revolutionary struggle against tyrants.

After the escape of the monarchs, all measures were urgently taken to detain them. In less than a day, the fugitives were captured near the border in the town of Varennes and taken to Paris under the escort of the National Guard. The capture was helped by the son of the postal clerk Drouet, who recognized Louis XVI from the profile minted on coins, and raised the alarm. Already on June 25, the inhabitants of Paris met the king and queen with hostile silence.

Cordeliers Club and « World Federation of Friends of Truth » led the movement to establish a republic in France. Danton, Chaumette, Condorcet were its ardent champions at the meetings of the sections. Local branches of the Jacobin Club sent petitions to Paris demanding the immediate abdication of the king and queen. The deputies of the Constituent Assembly at the time of the proceedings temporarily removed the king from power. Not losing hope after so many transformations to reach an agreement with Louis XVI and establish a constitutional monarchy in the kingdom, and also striving to give the most decisive rebuff to the supporters of the republic, the deputies of the Assembly made every effort to save the greatly shattered reputation of the French king. By their zeal, on July 15, Louis XVI was rehabilitated before France, which was enshrined in the form of a decree by the deputies of the right-wing Constituent Assembly, who adhere to the version of « kidnapping of the king » in order to compromise it.

The restoration of the power of Louis XVI by decision of the Constituent Assembly led to the indignation of the democrats. The Cordeliers Club refused to recognize the legitimacy of this decision and made another petition calling for not submitting to the illegal authority of the traitor king. The next day, members of the Cordeliers Club went to the Jacobin Club, calling for support for the anti-royal petition.

The process of political division in the chamber of the third estate into supporters and opponents of the revolution began as early as June 1789. Outwardly, it was noticeable that the supporters of the revolution took their places to the left of the chairman's table, which stood in the center of the hall, and the opponents of the revolution always sat on the right. After Louis XVI signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, together with certain articles of the constitution, and left Versailles, on October 13, 1789, ardent supporters of absolutism left the Constituent Assembly. Thus, in the created political « Society of Friends of the Constitution » formed on the basis of the Breton Club, included moderate liberal constitutionalists and revolutionary democrats. However, the division into supporters and opponents of the revolution continued. During « municipal revolutions » July - August 1789 and held at the beginning of 1790 two-stage elections established by law to local bodies of city self-government, supporters of the constitutional monarchy came to power. Having achieved their goals, the big bourgeoisie and the liberal nobility sought to consolidate their position and stop the growing movement for rights and freedoms, coming from the urban and rural poor. The outward expression of the separation of the moderate liberal-constitutionalists from the democratic bourgeoisie was the separation of the right part of the Jacobin Club into a new political organization - « Society of 1789 » who has not yet broken with the Jacobins. By the time the Cordeliers filed a petition with the Jacobin Club, there was already a sharp political struggle in the latter. On July 16, 1791, the left of the Jacobin Club supported the petition. This caused the first split within the Jacobins. The right part of the Jacobins, which consisted of « Society of 1789 » , defiantly left the meeting and soon withdrew from the Jacobin Club. Majority members « Societies of 1789 » , who broke with the leftist Jacobins, founded a new political Feuillian Club, named after the former monastery, formerly owned by the Fauian order. Its leaders were Lafayette, Bailly and formed after the death of Mirabeau « triumvirate » represented by Barnave, Duport and Lamet. The Feuillants set high membership fees to ensure that their organization was well protected against infiltration of the Club by democratically minded citizens. The split of the Jacobin Club in Paris led to a split in all branches belonging to the club. In all the departments of France, the same thing happened. Representatives of the big bourgeoisie left the local departments of the Jacobin Club.

So, the adherents of a limited monarchy have taken a course at all costs to complete July 15, Barnave speaks in the Constituent Assembly, demanding an end to the revolutionary impulses of the masses. The day before the tragedy on the Champ de Mars, the opponents of the Republic left the Jacobin Club. Democratic clubs and newspapers demanded the overthrow of the monarchy. At the call of the Club of the Cordeliers, crowds of people gathered for several days on the Champ de Mars to accept a petition for the abolition of the monarchy in France, the abolition of property qualifications and the re-election of deputies to the Constituent Assembly.

By order of the Constituent Assembly, troops of the National Guard were assembled on the Field of Mars. The assembly of the people proceeded calmly, but the ruling power, seeking to establish a constitutional monarchy, decided to act. The mayor of Paris, Bailly, ordered the demonstration to be dispersed by force. On July 17, the guards under the command of Lafayette opened fire on the unarmed people. About 50 people were killed and hundreds wounded. For the first time, one part of the third estate took up arms against another part of it. The crackdown on the peaceful demonstration was followed by government punitive measures. On July 18, the Constituent Assembly issued a decree on severe punishment « rebels » , deciding to start legal prosecution of the demonstrators.

Having a significant advantage in the Assembly over the supporters of the republic, the constitutionalists decided to raise the property qualification for all categories « active » citizens. Under the pretext of codifying the articles of the constitution adopted earlier by the Constituent Assembly, the deputies from the majority achieved a revision of the articles relating to the electoral qualification. In August, by majority vote « right » It was decided to significantly increase the property qualification.

The victory of the French Revolution caused excitement among the European aristocracy. On July 14, 1789, a dangerous precedent was set. In the autumn of 1789 a national liberation movement flared up in Belgium against the rule of the Austrians and soon developed into a bourgeois revolution. By December of the same year, the Austrians were expelled from Belgian territory. Not wanting to spread revolutionary fire across Europe, on July 27, 1790, by agreement in Reichenbach between Austria and Prussia, the main contentious issues were resolved, followed by the conclusion of an alliance to suppress the revolution in Belgium. By November 1790 the Belgian revolution had failed. The motives that prompted the governments of European monarchies to rush to intervene against revolutionary France were clearly formulated by Catherine II: « We must not betray a virtuous king as a sacrifice to the barbarians, the weakening of the monarchical power in France endangers all other monarchies » .

After the victory in Belgium, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Leopold II, turned to the European powers with a proposal to convene, in view of the impending threat, a pan-European congress in Aachen or Spa to organize a joint intervention against the revolution in France. In view of the fact that Russia and England preferred to avoid participation in the congress, the initiative of Emperor Leopold ended in failure.

On the basis of the suppression of the Belgian revolution, points of contact between Prussia and Austria were outlined. On August 27, 1791, at Pillnitz Castle in Saxony, Emperor Leopold II and Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II signed a declaration on joint action to help the French monarch. On February 7, 1792, the Austro-Prussian Union Treaty concluded on the basis of the Pilnitz Declaration and the Preliminary Treaty of 1791 marked the beginning of the first anti-French coalition.

Back in July 1789, the Constituent Assembly decided to form a commission to prepare the Declaration and draft the main articles of the French constitution. However, the growth of peasant uprisings forced the deputies of the Constituent Assembly to tackle the agrarian issue. At the end of August, the Constituent Assembly returned to the discussion of the constitution, the prologue to which was the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Under the influence of the events of October 5-6, 1789, the deputies of the Assembly accelerated work on editing the articles of the Basic Law. This difficult work was carried out by the deputies already in October, and by the end of December it was completed, and the relevant decrees became legal.

By the legislation of October - December 1789, citizens were divided into « active » and « passive » . « Passive » those who did not possess the established property qualification were considered and therefore were deprived of the right to be elected and to be elected. « Active » Citizens who had a property qualification and voting rights are divided into three categories:

1. The right to elect electors was granted to men who had reached the age of 25 and paid a direct tax in an amount equal to the local three-day wage of a day laborer.

2. The right to be elected as an elector and to elect deputies was granted to persons who paid a direct tax in the amount of ten days' wages.

3. The right to be elected as a deputy was granted only to persons who paid a direct tax in the amount of a silver mark (about 54 livres) and who owned land.

Of the 25-26 million people in France, the constitution granted the right to vote to only 4 million 300 thousand people.

Developing the constitution in parts and putting it into effect as individual articles were approved, by September 1791 the Constituent Assembly completed this work. Having fully restored the power of Louis XVI, the deputies of the Assembly submitted to him for approval the articles of the first bourgeois constitution in France. The Basic Law, signed by the King on 3 September, proclaimed the principle of the supremacy of the nation: « All powers come from the nation » .

In accordance with the articles of the constitution, France was declared a monarchy limited by the Basic Law. The head of the supreme executive power was « by the grace of God and the power of constitutional laws » the king of the French, who was granted the legitimate right to appoint persons to the positions of ministers and senior military leaders, as well as the right to suspend (delay) veto. All the fullness of the highest legislative power was concentrated in the hands of the deputies of the Legislative Assembly, which consisted of one chamber and was elected in the course of two-stage elections. « active » citizens for a period of 2 years. Ministers appointed by the king, at the request of the Legislative Assembly, had to report to the deputies of the Assembly on the state of the budget and could be betrayed by a majority vote of the Assembly of responsibility in the manner prescribed by law. The declaration of war and the conclusion of peace were made by the Legislative Assembly on the basis of the proposal of the king.

The constitution equalized the rights of all confessions professing themselves in the territory of the kingdom, and also kept slavery in the French colonies.

By failing to finally resolve the agrarian question, the constitution of 1791 did not ensure the elimination of feudalism either. While maintaining slavery as the most severe form of exploitation of man by man, the constitutional order contradicted the articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Instead of the declared in the first article of the Declaration of equality of citizens in the rights given to them by the Creator from birth and subsequently preserved, the Basic Law established property inequality between citizens, granting political rights only « active » citizens who can express their civic position in the election of representatives to local authorities and municipalities.

Nevertheless, the French bourgeois constitution was of great progressive importance at that time.

Completion of the work of the Constituent Assembly on September 30, 1791. The end of the first stage of the Great French bourgeois revolution.

After the proclamation of bourgeois rights and freedoms in France, as well as the development of the constitutional foundations of the kingdom, approved by the head of the executive branch - the monarch, the Constituent Assembly, which worked for more than two years, considered its mission completed. The manifesto of Louis XVI, who approved the completion of the work of the deputies of the Constituent Assembly, stated that « the end of the revolution » .

The Constitution of 1791 demarcated the powers of authority between the monarch and the representation. Having endowed the king with executive power, the bourgeoisie limited his legislative activity, granting, however, the right to veto the decisions of the Assembly. Before passing a resolution on the termination of the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, the deputies announced the start of elections to the Legislative Assembly. Only after they were held, the king signed a manifesto, according to which the Constituent Assembly ceased its activities, giving way to deputies elected to the Legislative Assembly.

On October 1, 1791, the Legislative Assembly began its work in Paris. It consisted in its overwhelming mass of representatives of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois-minded intelligentsia. Since the Constituent Assembly decided that its members could not be elected to the Legislative Assembly, the latter's deputies were elected from local municipalities and local elected administration. Although the Jacobins were better represented in these elected bodies of local civil power, they formed a significant minority in the Assembly. The reason for this was the property qualification, which few could overcome.

On the right of the Legislative Assembly were the Feuillants, who received more than 250 seats. The Left Assembly consisted mainly of Jacobins and consisted of 136 deputies. The numerous center, formed by about 350 deputies, did not formally belong to either the right or the left bloc of the Assembly. Nevertheless, the majority of deputies of the center supported the right ideas. The Feuillants could always count on their votes, in the event of active opposition from the Jacobins, which arose during the discussion of the most pressing political issues.

By the end of 1791 - the beginning of 1792. France's economic situation deteriorated. The sale of national property, initiated by the previous Assembly, was successful. But with the accepted sale of land mainly in large plots, most of the land fell into the hands of the bourgeoisie, and not the peasantry. The peasantry, who were also forced to carry out unrepealed duties, openly expressed their dissatisfaction. The increasing issue of banknotes led to the beginning of the depreciation of paper money. The immediate consequence of the depreciation of money was the rise in prices for essential goods.

In connection with the uprising in the French colonies of Negro slaves (Saint-Domingo), by the beginning of 1792, such goods as coffee, sugar, and tea had almost disappeared from sale. Sugar, which cost 25 sous a pound, rose in price to 3 livres. Already in November, unrest of workers and artisans arose in Paris. The Legislative Assembly received complaints and petitions demanding the establishment of fixed prices for products and curbing the arbitrariness of large wholesalers. In February 1792, the Legislative Assembly issued a decree prohibiting the export of various raw materials from France. Then armed peasants in the Noyon area detained barges with grain on the Oise River and partly distributed among themselves, partly allowed at stable prices. This movement was supported by Babeuf, the future leader of the conspiracy « in the name of equality » . Similar cases took place in other parts of France. Priest Jacques Roux, future leader « frenzied » , the Jacobin priest Dolivier already at the beginning of 1792 demanded the establishment of fixed prices for products and the protection of the poor from the arbitrariness of the rich.

On November 9, 1791, a decree was adopted against emigrants, declaring all those who did not return to France before January 1, 1792, traitors to the Fatherland, and on November 29, a decree was adopted against priests who did not swear to the constitution, establishing penalties for them.

Quite a lot of time passed after the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, however, the situation in France still remained tense. The brother of the king, Count d "Artois, who fled from Paris on the night of July 16-17, emigrated abroad. In Turin, counter-revolutionary forces soon began to form around his brother Louis XVI. At the end of 1789, Count d" Artois sent his numerous emissaries to the monarchs of Europe with a call to join the campaign of the French nobility against the revolution. Since 1791, Koblenz became the center of counter-revolutionary forces, where Count d "Artois began to form an army. At the same time, Queen Marie Antoinette, through secret agents, sent letters to her brother, Emperor Leopold II of Austria, in which she belittled him to come to the rescue as soon as possible and put down the rebellion.

In this situation, on October 20, 1791, the Girondin Brissot delivered an excited speech at the Assembly, calling for a rebuff to European despotism, which was preparing an intervention against France. Robespierre and other representatives of revolutionary democracy were categorically against the war with the thrones of Europe. The leader of the left Montagnard Jacobins, Robespierre, believed that the main forces of the counter-revolution threatening France were located inside the country, and not in London, Vienna, St. Petersburg or Koblenz: « To Koblenz, you say, to Koblenz! Is there any danger in Koblenz? Not! Koblenz is by no means the second Carthage, the center of evil is not in Koblenz, he is among us, he is in our bosom » .

In March 1792 the king formed a ministry of Girondins. Roland, led by his wife, was appointed minister of the interior, and Dumouriez, who was one of the most ardent supporters of the war, was appointed minister of foreign affairs. The political center of the Girondins was the salon of Madame Roland, who knew how, over evening tea, in a casual conversation, to discuss the most important questions of the policy of the Girondins.

April 20, 1792 France declared war on the King of Bohemia and Hungary - the Austrian Emperor. Declaring war « reactionary monarchies » in the person of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the Legislative Assembly wanted to emphasize by this that the French Revolution was at war not with the peoples of the German Empire, but with the tyrant.

From the very first days of the war, France suffered setbacks. General Rochambeau resigned shortly after the outbreak of hostilities. Officers, mostly nobles, went over to the side of the enemy. Marat, who resumed the publication of his newspaper, spoke openly about treason. Robespierre accused the traitor generals and the Girondins of betraying the interests of France. The Girondins, in turn, resumed the persecution of Marat and began to persecute Robespierre, declaring that he was serving Austria.

At the end of May and beginning of June, the Legislative Assembly issued three decrees: on the expulsion of the clergy who did not swear allegiance to the French constitution, on the dissolution of the royal guard, and on the creation of a camp of federates of 20 thousand people near Paris. However, the king agreed only with the dissolution of his guard. Using the right given to him by the constitution, Louis XVI vetoed the remaining two decrees.

On June 13, the king, being the head of the executive branch according to the constitution, dismissed the Girondin ministers and called the Feuillants. After such a demarche, troubles for the monarchy were to be expected. And they did not keep themselves waiting. On June 20, several thousand Parisians took part in an anti-royal demonstration. Bursting into the Tuileries Palace, they forced the king to put a red cap on his head and demanded that the Girondin ministers be returned to power.

Meanwhile, the situation on the fronts was becoming critical. The French army under Luckner began to retreat towards Lille. Lafayette left the army and came to Paris. Demanding from the Legislative Assembly the dispersal of revolutionary clubs. Not relying on their generals, the people themselves began to prepare for the defense of the capital. On July 11, 1789, the Legislative Assembly passed a decree declaring « Fatherland in danger » . All men capable of bearing arms were subject to conscription.

After the Varennes crisis, the betrayal of the king and the aristocracy became obvious. Already at the beginning of June 1792, Marat offered to take Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as hostages. In your newspaper « Defender of the constitution » , and also, speaking at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre put forward another demand - the convening of a democratically elected National Convention on the basis of universal suffrage, the tasks of which the Jacobin set were the establishment of a democratic republic in France and the revision of the constitution of 1791, which divided the population of the country into « active » and « passive » . At the end of June, Danton manages to achieve the abolition of such a division in one of the sections of Paris - the section of the French Theater.

From the middle of June, new revolutionary organs began to take shape in Paris. The supporters of the federation who arrived in the capital formed their own central committee, which met in taverns « golden sun » and « Blue dial » . However, the meeting of the commissioners of the 48 sections of Paris played an even more important role. Since June 23, it officially met in the municipality of the city, explicitly establishing another new revolutionary body of Paris - the Commune, in which the Montagnards and Cordeliers played the leading role. The future prosecutor of the Commune Chaumette wrote: « How great was this Assembly! What lofty impulses of patriotism I saw when the deposition of the king was discussed! What was the National Assembly with its petty passions... petty measures, with its decrees delayed halfway... in comparison with this meeting of the Parisian sections » .

With the growth of the forces of the revolution, the demands for the overthrow of the French monarchy began to sound louder and louder. On June 25, the provincial actress Claire Lacombe rose to the podium of the Legislative Assembly, demanding the abdication of Louis XVI and the resignation of Lafayette. The bewildered Assembly, which consisted mainly of Feuillants, was still trying to delay the inevitable denouement.

On July 24, at the time of growing popular unrest, the manifesto of the General of the Prussian army, the Duke of Brunswick, commander of the interventionist forces, was published, and on August 3, became known in Paris. In a manifesto on behalf of the emperor of the Austrian and Prussian king, it was proclaimed that « the united armies intend to end the anarchy in France: to restore the rightful authority of the king » . The document legally warned that in the event of the slightest insult to majesty and his family, Paris would be betrayed by a terrible military execution and complete destruction. However, the threats of the European monarchs were received with irritation by the French people. In an address to the Legislative Assembly, the commissioners of 47 of the 48 sections of Paris demanded the abdication of Louis XVI and the immediate convocation of the National Constituent Convention. Not relying on the representatives of the Legislative Assembly, the commissars of the Paris sections on August 5 began to openly prepare for an armed uprising.

On the night of August 9-10, the alarm sounded over Paris. In the morning, the commissioners of the Commune moved the armed people towards the Tuileries Palace, which served as the residence of Louis XVI. On the outskirts of the Tuileries, a heated battle ensued between the rebels and the forces of the royalists, supported by Swiss mercenaries. During the general assault on the palace, about 500 Parisians were killed and wounded. The King placed himself under the protection of the Legislative Assembly. Thus began the second stage of the Great French bourgeois revolution.

After the popular uprising, all power was in the hands of the Paris Commune. Appearing in the Legislative Assembly, the leaders of the Commune from August 10 to 12 dictated to the Assembly the will of the insurgent people. Under pressure from the Commune, the decision of the Legislative Assembly was the deposition of Louis XVI. For the former monarch, the Assembly designated the Luxembourg Palace as a further residence. However, the revolutionary sections of Paris, taking advantage of all the power they had in the city, arrested Louis XVI, bypassing the decision of the Legislative Assembly, and imprisoned him in the Temple. The assembly decreed the convening of a Convention, elected by two-stage elections by all men who have reached the age of 25 years. But two days later, the age limit was lowered to 21 years. The king's ministers were resigning. Instead, the Assembly elected a Provisional Executive Council, which formed a new revolutionary government, mainly composed of Girondins. Montagnard Danton received the position of Minister of Justice in the Council. Camille Desmoulins wrote: « My friend Danton, by the grace of cannons, became Minister of Justice; this bloody day should have ended for both of us with our rise to power or to the gallows » .

The uprising of August 10 effectively overthrew the monarchy in France, ended the political domination of the Feuillants of the big bourgeoisie in the Legislative Assembly, and also abolished the anti-democratic qualification system established by the 1791 constitution.

Etienne Charles Laurent de Lomeny de Brienne (1727 - 1794) - French politician. From 1763 - Archbishop of Toulouse, in 1787 - 1788. - Controller General of Finance, from August 1787 - Chief Minister, from 1788 - Archbishop of Sens. In 1793 he was arrested by the revolutionary authorities and in the spring of the following year he died in prison.

The Assembly of Notables is a class advisory body convened by the kings of France to discuss state, mainly financial and administrative issues. Notables were appointed by the king from among the most prominent representatives of the nobility, the highest clergy and the highest city leaders. Under Louis XVI, they convened twice: February 22 - May 25, 1787 and November 6 - December 12, 1788.

Alexandre Charles de Calonne (1734 - 1802) - French politician. He was quartermaster of Metz and Lille, in 1783 - 1787. - Comptroller General (Minister) of Finance of France. To solve the financial crisis, he proposed a program of reforms, mainly in the field of taxation. The decision of the Parlement of Paris to put him on trial prompted Calonne to flee to England. At the end of 1790, he joined the royalist emigration camp, being, as it were, the head of the government in exile. After the Peace of Amiens, he returned to France.

The last time the Estates General was convened in France was in 1614 at the request of the feudal nobility, who sought a change of government and the transfer of state control into their own hands. However, representatives of the third estate on it were in the minority. Gathered in 1614 by the General States, the French monarchy was declared divine, and the power of the king was sacred. By edict of the king, parliament was obliged to register all the ordinances of the monarch. The rights of the Parisian and other local parliaments of the kingdom were limited. Thus, by the time of the reign of King Louis XVI (1774 - 1792), the Estates General had not been convened by the French monarchs for more than a hundred years.

The old French formula said: "The clergy serve the king with prayers, the nobility with a sword, the third estate with property." That is, representatives of the third estate had to pay all the expenses of the monarchy and the ruling feudal aristocracy in the person of the secular and spiritual nobility, who were the backbone of French absolutism.

In France, all who did not belong to the clergy and nobility were included in the third estate. The most numerous social stratum in the third estate was the peasantry, the smallest - the bourgeoisie. Having concentrated huge capitals in their hands, the bourgeoisie was an economically strong stratum of society, however, it was the same politically disenfranchised class as the entire third estate, which made up the vast majority of the population of the French kingdom.

Emmanuel Joseph Abbé Sieyes (1748 - 1836) - French pamphleteer, prominent politician of the French Revolution. Member of the States General, the National Assembly and the National Convention, member of the Council of Five Hundred (1795 - 1798), in 1798 - 1799. - Ambassador to Prussia. He assisted the coup on 18 Brumaire X of Freedom on 7 of the Republic (November 9 - 10, 1799), was one of the three temporary consuls (together with Bonaparte and Count Ducos), president of the Senate, from 1808 - Count of the Empire. After the Hundred Days of Napoleon, he emigrated and returned to France only after the revolution of 1830, during which the French bourgeoisie came to power.

Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave (1761 - 1792) - French politician. Member of the States General, the National Assembly and the Constitutional Assembly, a supporter of the constitutional monarchy. In August 1792 he was arrested, convicted by a revolutionary court and guillotined in November 1792.

Henri Evrard, Marquis de Dreux-Brese (1762 - 1829) - French courtier. From 1781, he held the hereditary post of chief ceremonial master of the court. At the beginning of the revolution, he emigrated, after the Restoration - a peer of France.

Honore Gabriel Raqueti grad de Mirabeau (1749 - 1791) - a prominent figure in the French Revolution at its initial stage, a famous pamphleteer and orator. Member of the Estates General and the National Assembly. Playing a prominent role in the development of revolutionary events, Mirabeau became, however, a secret agent of the royal court. Died in the heat; the shadow side of his activities became known only after his death.

Louis Philippe Joseph Duke of Orleans (1747 - 1793) - Prince of the Blood, cousin of Louis XVI; in September 1792 he took the name "citizen Philippe Egalite". As a deputy of the States General, together with a group of representatives of the liberal nobility, he joined the third estate, was a member of the National Assembly and the National Convention. He supported the Jacobins and voted for the execution of Louis XVI. however, in April 1793 he was arrested and seven months later was guillotined by the verdict of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Faubourg Saint-Antoine is a district of Paris where representatives of the third estate lived, mainly artisans and workers. The guns of the Bastille, by order of the authorities, had to always look in this direction. Here an interesting analogy can be drawn with England of the 17th century. In London, the cannons of the Tower fortress-prison were aimed at the City, where the English Parliament, which opposed absolutism, was then sitting. By such acts and others like them, one can immediately see who the authorities consider their enemies, but I am ashamed to say this. It is impossible not to agree with the opinion of Thomas Beard, who became famous thanks to his book "The Theater of Divine Retributions", written in 1597: "Good sovereigns were very rare at all times."

Jacques Necker (1732 - 1804) - a prominent French scientist and statesman of Swiss origin. After the resignation of Turgot, he was appointed three times to the post of general director of finance: 1776 - 1781, then August 25, 1788 - July 11, 1789 and July 29, 1789 - September 8, 1790. Despite his talent and knowledge of the matter, he was not appointed general controller of finance, since he was a Protestant. In 1790 he left France and returned to his native Switzerland.

Vox populi vox Dei (lat.) - "The voice of the people is the voice of God."

Joseph François Foulon (1717 - 1789) - French royal official. During the Seven Years' War he was General Quartermaster of the Army, from 1771 - Quartermaster of Finance, from 1789 - State Counsellor. Rumor attributed to Fulon the words: "If I were a minister, I would make the French eat hay." Executed by the people on July 22, 1789

Jacques de Flessel (1721 - 1789) - French royal official. From April 1789, "prevot des marchands" was the merchant foreman (mayor) of Paris, who headed the city magistrate. Persuaded the Standing Committee, which consisted of Parisian bourgeois electors, to negotiate with the commandant of the Bastille de Launay. Executed by the people in the evening after the storming of the Bastille.

On July 18, an uprising began in Troyes, supported by the peasants. On July 20, the peasants entered the city, but were dispersed by the local militia created by the bourgeoisie - the National Guard. Nevertheless, on August 19, the people managed to break into the town hall building, seize weapons, and form a local municipality. At the same time, a warehouse of salt was seized, which was put on sale at fixed prices. On September 9, the people executed the mayor of Troyes.

July 19 uprising in Strasbourg, where the mayor's house and tax collection offices were destroyed.

Behind the castle, the feudal lord felt safe. The destruction of castles was an important step towards the centralization of the state and the unification of the nation, the elimination of seigneurial arbitrariness.

Jean Sylvain de Bailly (1736 - 1793) - French astronomer and politician. Member of the Estates General. On June 20, 1789, the President of the National Assembly was elected. After the royal official Jacques de Flessel, who was the acting mayor of Paris, was executed by the people's people, Bailly was elected on July 15 as a merchant foreman (mayor) - “prevot des marchands” and held it until November 12, 1791. In 1793 he was executed by the verdict of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

In order to block the way to the National Guard for representatives of the people and the peasantry, a special uniform was established for the guards, which cost at least 4 livres. This was, in a way, a qualification for recruitment into the guard. Since such a chic uniform could only be purchased by wealthy people. In the battle against the Gironde, which followed the events of May 31 - June 2, the Mountain relied on the people's army - the sans-culottes. The words of Robespierre: “Who walks in trousers embroidered with gold is the enemy of all sans-culottes” - pointed to the external difference between the fighters of the warring parties, revealed the social meaning of this struggle.

Marie Paul Joseph Yves Roque Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette (1757 - 1834) - French military leader and politician. During the war of independence of the 13 American states against Great Britain (1775 - 1783) in the period 1777 - 1782. took part with a group of French volunteer nobles in military operations in North America on the side of the Americans, receiving the rank of major general. Later in France he was a deputy of the Assembly of Notables, the Estates General, the National Assembly, the Constitutional Assembly. In July he became commander of the National Guard of Paris. Since December 1791, during the war with Austria, he was the commander of one of the three armies; in August 1792 he was removed from command and was forced to flee, fearing revolutionary terror. He returned to France after the second counter-revolutionary coup on 18 Brumaire, 6th Liberty, III of the Republic (November 9, 1795) by Napoleon Bonaparte. He recognized Napoleon, but refused the positions offered to him, including the post of French ambassador to the United States.

Marat described the love of the nobility for the Fatherland in the pages of his newspaper “Friend of the People” in the following way: “If all these sacrifices were caused by a feeling of charity, one cannot but admit that it waited too long for something before manifesting itself. Yes, what to say! After all, only with the reflections of the flames that devoured the set fire to the castles of the nobles, they showed the greatness of the soul, sufficient to give up the privilege of keeping in chains people who managed to regain their freedom with weapons in their hands!

Joseph Jean Munier (1758 - 1806) - French politician, one of the leaders of the moderate royalists. Member of the Estates General. National Assembly, active member of the Constitutional Committee. In May 1790 he emigrated, returned in 1801 by permission of the consul and was appointed prefect of one of the departments, since 1805 he was a member of the Council of State.

That is, those who had the right to express their civil position in elections and those who were deprived of such a right.

Prohibition or restriction imposed by public authorities on the use or disposal of any property.

Triage- the most common form of seizure of communal peasant lands by the feudal-absolutist aristocracy in France before the revolutionary events of 1789. It was expressed in the allocation of 1/3 of the allotment to the seigneur from communal lands. Sometimes the allotment reached 1/2, and in some cases 2/3.

In the messages of the local authorities of Cahors to the Constituent Assembly at the end of September 1790, it was reported: “In some places the people are again beginning to plant Maypoles, which is a general signal for uprisings ... in other places gallows are being erected for those who will pay rents, and for those who will collect them.

At that time, a worker in France worked 13 to 14 hours a day.

It operated unchanged for 70 years.

A province in the northwest of France.

In November 1790, Foché wrote: “Every man has the right to land and must have his own plot to ensure his existence. He acquires the right to own it through his labor, and part of him must, therefore, draw lines (between sections) so that everyone has something and no one has anything extra.

Bonville wrote: "As long as there are exclusive and hereditary privileges, granting to one what belongs to all, the forms of tyranny may vary according to circumstances, but tyranny will always exist."

Belted with a cord (rope).

Marat was negatively inclined towards the legislative activity of the Constituent Assembly and sharply criticized the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen approved by the deputies of the Assembly, in which he saw privileges granted only to the big bourgeoisie: “Your famous declaration of rights is, therefore, only a temporary bait for the amusement of fools, until you were afraid of their wrath, since it comes down, in the final analysis, only to the transfer to the rich of all the advantages and all the honors of the new order.

It said: “The free Frenchmen who make up the Club of the Cordeliers declare to their fellow citizens that the number of tyrant-killers in this club is equal to the number of its members and that each of them has sworn an oath to stab tyrants who dare to attack our borders or in any way violate our constitution."

The Republican views of François Robert, a member of the Society of Friends of Human Rights and Citizens, are well known. As early as in the autumn of 1790, he expressed his attitude to the limited constitution of monarchical power: "Let us erase the very word 'king' from our concept and our constitution."

Republic (Res publica) in the lane. from lat., - a public matter.

Future head of the Gironde.

Speaking at the Constituent Assembly on July 15, 1791, Antoine Barnave very accurately defined the position of the big bourgeoisie and the liberal nobility after the Varennes crisis: the common interest is that the revolution should be stopped.”

Thus, the conditional concepts of “right” and “left” entered politics, defining their ideological and political views in achieving the ultimate goal, as well as dividing the socio-political movement into opponents and supporters of transformations through revolution.

Membership fees, set at the request of the leaders of the Feuillants Club, reached 250 francs.

This decision was to come into force in two years. During this time, a republic had already been proclaimed in France, all property qualifications had been abolished, the coup of the Jacobins had taken place, and the Jacobin dictatorship had been established.

“For my part, I am ready to resist with all my strength. It is time to act and take up arms to intimidate these raging ones.

However, the words remained only words. Russia under Catherine II did not join the ranks of the anti-French coalition of European powers. The Russian monarchy limited itself to moral support, sending curses to the revolutionaries. The fears of European sovereigns are understandable. In France, the aristocracy and the monarchy perished under the pressure of the revolution. The very notion of a divine monarchy is also dead. The mob, which does not have divine sanction, dictates its will to the anointed of the Lord. Who, if not the monarch, is the most important aristocrat? Whose origin can compare with his origin? In 1815, the aristocracy will win the last major victory throughout Europe, restoring the Bourbon dynasty in France, who arrived in the wagon train of the invaders. The aristocracy itself was well aware that its success would not be repeated in the future. The more terrible will be the coming reaction, dictated by the Holy Alliance. Herzen A.I. wrote about that time: “The revolution turned out to be untenable ... People fled from the present in the Middle Ages, into mysticism - they read Eckartshausen, were engaged in magnetism and the miracles of Prince Hohenlohe.”

The first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen: "People are born and remain free and equal in rights." This article of the Declaration reflected the views of the enlighteners, expressed in natural law. A person is free from birth and has equal political rights. According to the social contract theory, only people equal to each other could create societies and states.

Bursting into the Tuileries Palace, the rebels allegedly put forward an ultimatum to the king: "Choose between Koblenz and Paris."

Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Duke of Brunswick (1735 - 1806). Participated in the Seven Years' War, becoming a field marshal of Prussia. In 1787 he commanded the Prussian army, which suppressed the patriotic movement in the Netherlands. In 1792, the commander-in-chief of the Austro-Prussian troops, who opposed revolutionary France, was defeated in the Battle of Valmy in September. In 1806 - Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian Army, mortally wounded at the Battle of Auerstedt.

Among non-Marxist historians, two views on the nature of the Great French Revolution prevail, which do not contradict each other. The traditional view that arose in the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. (Sieyes, Barnave, Guizot), considers the revolution as a popular uprising against the aristocracy, its privileges and its methods of oppression of the masses, from where the revolutionary terror against the privileged classes, the desire of the revolutionaries to destroy everything that was associated with the Old Order, and build a new free and democratic society . From these aspirations flowed the main slogans of the revolution - freedom, equality, fraternity.

According to the second view, which is shared by a large number of modern historians (including V. Tomsinov, I. Wallerstein, P. Huber, A. Cobbo, D. Guerin, E. Leroy Ladurie, B. Moore, Huneke, and others), the revolution was anti-capitalist in nature and was an explosion of mass protest against capitalism or against those methods of its dissemination that were used by the ruling elite.

There are other opinions about the nature of the revolution. For example, historians F. Furet and D. Richet consider the revolution to a large extent as a struggle for power between various groups that replaced each other several times during 1789-1799. . There is a view of the revolution as the liberation of the bulk of the population (peasants) from a monstrous system of oppression or some kind of slavery, whence the main slogan of the revolution - freedom, equality, brotherhood. However, there is evidence that the vast majority of the French peasantry at the time of the revolution were personally free, and state taxes and feudal requisitions were not at all high. The reasons for the revolution are seen in the fact that it was a peasant revolution caused by the last filling of the reservoir. From this point of view, the French Revolution was systemic and belonged to the same type of revolution as the Dutch Revolution, the English Revolution, or the Russian Revolution. .

Convocation of the Estates General

After a number of unsuccessful attempts to get out of a difficult financial situation, Louis XVI announced in December 1787 that he would convene the government officials of France to a meeting of the States General in five years. When Jacques Necker became a parliamentarian for the second time, he insisted that the Estates-General be convened as early as 1789; the government, however, had no definite program.

The rebellious peasants burned the castles of the lords, seizing their lands. In some provinces, about half of the landowners' estates were burned or destroyed; these events of 1789 were called The Great Fear.

Revocation of class privileges

By decrees of August 4-11, the Constituent Assembly abolished personal feudal duties, seigneurial courts, ecclesiastical tithes, the privileges of individual provinces, cities and corporations, and declared the equality of all before the law in paying state taxes and in the right to hold civil, military and church posts. But at the same time, it announced the elimination of only "indirect" duties (the so-called banalities): the "real" duties of the peasants were left, in particular, land and poll taxes.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Activities of the Constituent Assembly

Was held administrative reform: the provinces were united into 83 departments with a single judiciary.

Following the principle of civil equality, the assembly abolished class privileges, abolished the institution of hereditary nobility, noble titles and coats of arms.

Policy has been established economic liberalism: the lifting of all restrictions on trade was announced; Medieval guilds and state regulation of business were liquidated, but at the same time, strikes and workers' organizations - companions - were prohibited under the Le Chapelier law.

In July 1790, the Constituent Assembly completed church reform: bishops were appointed in all 83 departments of the country; all ministers of the church began to receive salaries from the state. The Constituent Assembly required the clergy to swear allegiance not to the Pope, but to the French state. Only half of the priests and only 7 bishops decided to take this step. The Pope responded by condemning the French Revolution, all the reforms of the Constituent Assembly, and especially the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen".

adoption of the constitution

Arrest of Louis XVI

On June 20, 1791, the king tried to escape the country, but was recognized at the border in Varennes by a postal employee, returned to Paris, where he actually ended up in custody in his own palace (the so-called "Varenne Crisis").

On September 3, 1791, the National Assembly proclaimed the fourth in the history of Europe (after the Constitution of Pylyp Orlik, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of May 3, and the Constitution of San Marino) and the fifth in the world (the US Constitution of 1787) constitution. According to it, it was proposed to convene the Legislative Assembly - a unicameral parliament based on a high property qualification. There were only 4.3 million "active" citizens who received the right to vote under the constitution, and only 50 thousand electors who elected deputies. Deputies of the National Assembly could not be elected to the new parliament. The Legislative Assembly opened on October 1, 1791. This fact testified to the establishment of a limited monarchy in the country.

At meetings of the Legislative Assembly, the issue of unleashing a war in Europe was raised, first of all, as a means of solving internal problems. On April 20, 1792, the King of France, under pressure from the Legislative Assembly, declared war on the Holy Roman Empire. On April 28, 1792, the National Guard launched an offensive against the positions of Belgium, which ended in complete failure.

From the Storming of the Tuileries to the Execution of the King

On August 10, 1792, about 20 thousand rebels (the so-called sans-culottes) surrounded the royal palace. His assault was short-lived, but bloody. The attackers were resisted by several thousand soldiers of the Swiss Guard, almost all of them fell at the Tuileries or were killed in prisons during the "September murders". One of the results of this assault was the actual removal of Louis XVI from power and the emigration of Lafayette.

From that moment on, for several months, the highest revolutionary bodies - the National Assembly and the Convention - were under the strong influence and pressure of the popular masses (sans-culottes) and in a number of cases were forced to fulfill the immediate demands of the crowd of rebels who surrounded the building of the National Assembly. These demands included curtailing previous trade liberalization, freezing prices and wages, and cracking down on speculators. These measures were taken and lasted until the arrest of Robespierre in July 1794. All this took place against the backdrop of a growing mass terror, which, although directed mainly against the aristocracy, led to the execution and murder of tens of thousands of people from all walks of life.

At the end of August, the Prussian army launched an offensive against Paris and took Verdun on 2 September 1792. The confusion that arose in society and fear of the return of the old order led to the “September murders” of aristocrats and former soldiers of the Swiss guard of the king, who were imprisoned in Paris and a number of other cities, which took place in early September, during which more than 5 thousand people were killed.

Accusations and attacks on the Girondins

Trial of Marie Antoinette

The revolution took a huge toll. According to estimates, from 1789 to 1815. only from revolutionary terror in France, up to 2 million civilians died, and even up to 2 million soldiers and officers died in wars. Thus, only in revolutionary battles and wars, 7.5% of the population of France died (in the city the population was 27,282,000), not counting those who died over the years from famine and epidemics. By the end of the Napoleonic era, there were almost no grown men left in France capable of fighting.

At the same time, a number of authors point out that the revolution brought liberation from heavy oppression to the people of France, which could not have been achieved in any other way. A "balanced" view of the revolution sees it as a great tragedy in the history of France, but at the same time inevitable, arising from the severity of class contradictions and the accumulated economic and political problems.

Most historians believe that the Great French Revolution was of great international importance, contributed to the spread of progressive ideas throughout the world, influenced a series of revolutions in Latin America, as a result of which the latter was freed from colonial dependence, and a number of other events of the first half of the 19th century.

Songs of Revolutionary France

A revolution in philately

Literature

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• Actual problems of studying the history of the Great French Revolution (materials of the "round table" September 19-20, 1988). M., 1989.
• Bachko B.. How to get out of Terror? Thermidor and Revolution. Per. from fr. and last D. Yu. Bovykina. M.: BALTRUS, 2006.
• Bovykin D. Yu. Is the revolution over? Results of Thermidor. M.: Publishing House of Moscow. un-ta, 2005.
• Gordon A.V. Fall of the Girondins. Popular uprising in Paris May 31 - June 2, 1793. M .: Nauka, 2002 .
• Dzhivelegov A.K. The army of the French Revolution and its leaders: a historical essay. M., 2006.
• Historical studies of the French Revolution. In memory of V. M. Dalin (on the occasion of his 95th birthday). Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. M., 1998.
• Zacher J. M."Mad", their activities and historical significance / / French Yearbook, 1964. M., 1965
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• Lewandowski A. Danton. M .: Young Guard, 1964. (ZhZL)
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• Manfred A. Z. The French Revolution. M., 1983.
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• The first explosion of the French Revolution. From the reports of the Russian envoy in Paris I. M. Simolin to Vice-Chancellor A. I. Osterman// Russian archive, 1875. - Prince. 2. - Issue. 8. - S. 410-413.
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see also

Notes

1. Wallerstein I. The Modern World-System III. The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s. San Diego, 1989, pp. 40-49; Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 265
2. See, for example: Goubert P. L'Ancien Regime. Paris, Vol. 1, 1969, p. 235
3. The imposition of market relations began in 1763-1771. under Louis XV and continued in subsequent years, until 1789 (see Old order). The leading role in this was played by liberal economists (physiocrats), who were almost all representatives of the aristocracy (including the head of the government, the physiocrat Turgot), and kings Louis XV and Louis XVI were active supporters of these ideas. See Kaplan S. Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the reign of Louis XV. Hague, 1976
4. See old order. One such example is the uprising of October 1795 (shot from cannons by Napoleon), in which 24,000 armed bourgeois - residents of the central districts of Paris - participated. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek et al., Minsk, 1997-1999, v. 16, p. 86-90. Another example is the uprising of the sans-culottes on August 10, 1792, which for the most part represented the petty bourgeoisie (small business, artisans, etc.), who opposed big business - the aristocracy. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 109
5. Goubert P. L'Ancien Regime. Paris, Vol. 2, 1973, p. 247
6. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 255
7. Wallerstein I. The Modern World-System III. The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s. San Diego, 1989, pp. 40-49
8. Furet F. et Richet D. La revolution francaise. Paris, 1973, pp. 213, 217
9. Goubert P. L'Ancien Regime. Paris, T. 1, 1969; Kuzovkov Yu. World history of corruption. M., 2010, chapter XIII
10. Aleksakha A. G. Introduction to progressology. Moscow, 2004 p. 208-233 alexakha.ucoz.com/vvedenie_v_progressologiju.doc
11. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek et al., Minsk, 1998, v. 16, p. 7-9
12. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek et al., Minsk, 1998, v. 16, p. fourteen
13. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 71
14. Palmer R. The World of the French Revolution. New York, 1971, p. 111, 118
15. World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek et al., Minsk, 1998, v. 16, p. 37-38

Question 28.French bourgeois revolution of 1789-1794: causes, main stages, character, results

The first period of the French bourgeois revolution. The big bourgeoisie is in power (1789 - 1792).

The character of the revolution is bourgeois-democratic. During the revolution, there was a polarization of political forces and military intervention.

On July 12, 1689, the first armed clashes begin. The reason is that Louis XVI dismissed Necker, comptroller general of finances. On the same day, the Paris Committee is created in Paris - the body of the municipal government of Paris. July 13, 1789. this committee creates the National Guard. Its mission is to protect private property. What is the manifestation of the petty-bourgeois character of the guard. July 14, 1789. The revolutionary forces of Paris capture the Bastille, where a large arsenal of weapons was stored. July 14, 1789 is the official date for the start of the French Revolution. Since then, the revolution has been gaining momentum. In the cities, there is a municipal revolution, during which the aristocracy is removed from power and the bodies of people's self-government arise.

The same process takes place in the villages, in addition, before the revolution, a rumor swept that the nobles were going to destroy the peasant crops. The peasants, in order to prevent this, attack the nobles. During this period, a wave of emigration took place: the nobles, who did not want to live in revolutionary France, moved abroad and began to prepare countermeasures, hoping for the support of foreign states.

On September 14, 1789, the Constituent Assembly adopts a number of decrees that abolish the personal dependence of the peasants on the feudal lords. The church tithe was abolished, but dues, qualifications and corvee were subject to redemption.

August 26, 1789. the constituent assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The document was drawn up on the ideas of the Enlightenment and fixed the natural right of the people to freedom, to property and to resist oppression. This document spelled out the freedoms of speech, press, religion, and other bourgeois freedoms. These ideas are sent for signature to the king, who refuses to sign this declaration.

On October 6, 1789, the masses of the people set off for the Palace of Versailles. The king is forced to sign a declaration.

November 2, 1789. the constituent assembly adopts a decree on the confiscation of all church lands. These lands were transferred under state control and sold in large plots. The measure was designed for the big bourgeoisie.

In May 1790, the constituent assembly adopted a decree according to which peasants could redeem feudal payments and duties immediately by the whole community and the amount of payment should be 20 times more than the average annual payment.

In June 1790. The Constituent Assembly adopts a decree abolishing the division of people into estates. According to it, titles of nobility and coats of arms are liquidated. From 1790, supporters of the king, the royalists, began to become more active, who planned to disperse the constituent assembly and restore the king's rights, returning the old order. To do this, they prepare the escape of the king. June 21 - 25, 1791 - unsuccessful escape of the king. This escape marked the polarization of political forces in France. Many clubs advocated the preservation of the constitutional monarchy and the monarch as head of the executive branch. Other clubs argued that everything cannot and should not depend on one person. So the most rational form of government, in their opinion, will be a republic. They were talking about the execution of the king.

In 1791. the constituent assembly adopts a constitution, according to which the constitutional monarchy was consolidated in France. Legislative power was concentrated in a 1-chamber parliament (term of office 2 years), executive power - the king and the ministers appointed by him. Participation in the elections was limited. All citizens were divided into active and passive. The latter did not have the right to stand as a candidate for elections. Of the 26 million people in France, only 4 million were recognized as active.

The Constituent Assembly, having adopted the constitution, dissolved itself and transferred power to the legislative assembly, which functioned from 1 October. 1791 to 20 Sept. 1792

From August 1791, a coalition of Prussia and Austria began to form with the aim of restoring the absolutist system in France. They are preparing an offensive and in 1792 Sweden and Spain adjoin them. This coalition invades France and from the 1st day the French army begins to suffer defeat from the coalition troops. Radical measures were needed and the revolutionary forces were completely breaking with the king. Radical politicians are preparing to proclaim France a republic.

Second period of the French Revolution. Girondins in power (1792 - 1793).

AT August 1792. under the influence of the invasion of the interventionists in Paris, a commune arises, which captures the royal castle of the Tuileries and arrests the king. The Legislative Assembly under these conditions was forced to abdicate Louis XVI from power. Two forces are really operating in the country: 1) the commune, where democratic elements are grouped, 2) the legislative assembly, which expresses the interests of rural and urban entrepreneurial strata. After August 10, 1792, a temporary executive council was immediately created. Most of it was occupied by the Girondins - a political party that expressed the interests of the owners of manufactories, merchants, and medium landowners. They were supporters of the republic, but in no case did they want to abolish the feudal payments and duties of the peasants free of charge.

The Legislative Assembly on August 11, 1792 abolishes the division of the French into active and passive voters (in fact, general suffrage). On August 14, 1792, the legislative assembly adopts a decree on the division of peasant and communal lands among the community members so that these lands become their private property. The lands of emigrants are divided into plots and sold to peasants.

In August 1792, the interventionists were actively moving deep into France. On August 23, the Duke of Brunswick, one of the leaders of the interventionists, captured the fortress of Longwy and on September 2, 1792, the interventionists took control of Verdun. The Prussian army was a few kilometers from Paris. The Legislative Assembly announces recruitment into the army and already on September 20, the French manage to defeat the coalition forces. By mid-October 1792, France was completely cleared of interventionists. The French army even goes on the offensive, having defeated the Austrian army, it goes on to capture. In September 1792, Nice and Savoy were captured. By October, Belgium was captured.

On September 20, the National Assembly held its last meeting, and the National Convention began its work. September 21, 1792. A republic was established in France by convention. From the very beginning of the existence of the convention, 3 forces have been operating in it:

1) Montagnards. It was believed that at this stage the revolution had not fulfilled its tasks. The agrarian question must be resolved in favor of the peasants. The Montagnards are represented by 100 deputies in the convention. Their leader is M. Robespierre.

2) centrists, who called themselves a swamp. With 500 deputies, the swamp is the largest grouping in the convention.

3) the Girondins, who tried to realize the interests of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie. They believed that the revolution was over, private property was established.

The main point - who will support the swamp? The key issue was the question of the execution of the king. The Girondins were against the execution of the king. The Jacobins (the basis of the Montagnards) believed that the king needed to be eliminated. The Jacobins said that the king kept in touch with the emigrants.. January 21, 1793. King Louis XVI of France was executed. The socio-economic situation in the country is deteriorating. This is reflected in the lack of food. Because it was sold by speculators at the highest prices. The Jacobins are demanding maximum prices to limit the scope of speculation.

In the spring of 1793, the Jacobins first raised the question of introducing a maximum price in the convention. part of the swamp supported them. May 4, 1793. In France, the 1st price maximum was introduced. It concerned primarily the prices of flour and grain. He did nothing to curb the speculation. The food issue was not resolved.

AT January 1793. England joins the anti-French coalition. From this moment the coalition consists of: Sardinia, Spain, England, Austria, Prussia, Holland and other small German states. Russia breaks off diplomatic relations with Republican France. The French army is forced to leave Belgium and the war continues on French territory.

The masses are becoming more and more dissatisfied with the policy of the Girondins. A rebellion is brewing against them, the backbone of which was the Jacobins, who decided to act illegally. On June 2, 1793, they gather a detachment of the Parisian poor of 100 thousand people and block the building of the national convention. They forced the leaders of the convention to sign a bill to remove the Girondins from power. The most prominent figures of the Girondins are arrested. The Jacobins come to power.

Jacobin dictatorship 1793 - 1794 Struggle within the Jacobin bloc.

Immediately after the events of June 2, 1973 (the expulsion of the Girondin deputies from the convention), anti-Jacobin riots broke out in many departments. To strengthen their positions, the Jacobins are developing a draft of a new constitution.

June 24, 1793. The convention adopted a new constitution. According to it, the republic was to be governed by a unicameral assembly, directly elected by all male citizens over the age of 21. France remained a republic according to it, the right of the French people to labor and social security and free education was proclaimed. Along with the representative body, elements of direct democracy were supposed to be introduced: laws were submitted for approval to primary assemblies of voters, and the law against which a certain number of such assemblies spoke out was subject to referendum. Such a procedure for the participation of every citizen in lawmaking undoubtedly impressed the masses with its democracy, but it was hardly feasible. However, the Jacobins did not immediately put the Constitution into effect, postponing it until "peacetime."

The draft constitution was criticized by the rabid (a radical group close to the socialists). Under their influence, new uprisings break out in the Department of P-Alvados. During the uprisings, many Jacobins were killed, and there was a threat of loss of power by the Jacobins. The Jacobins begin to decide in favor of the peasants the agrarian question:

June 3, 1793. they adopt a decree on the sale of the lands of emigrants by auction; On June 10, 1793, I adopt a decree on the return of the seized communal lands to the seigneurs-peasants. The decree spoke of the right of the community to divide the lands among its members; June 17, 1793 g. - all feudal payments and duties of peasants are destroyed free of charge. Thanks to this decree, the peasants became the owners of their lands. The bulk of the French population supported the Jacobins. This allowed the Jacobins to move on to eliminate the Yantiyakobin rebellions in a short time, and also made it possible to effectively conduct military operations with the coalition.

The Jacobins began to adhere to a tough policy in solving the food problem. July 27, 1793 d. - Decree on the death penalty for speculation. It was possible to reduce the scale of speculation, but the food problem could not be solved. The Jacobins began to actively fight the counter-revolution within the country. On September 5, 1793, a decree was adopted on the creation of a revolutionary army. Its function is to suppress the counter-revolution.

September 17, 1793. passed a law on suspicious. All those who publicly spoke out against the Jacobins (radicals and royalists) fit into this category. According to the constitution, the convention should be dissolved and power should be transferred to the legislative assembly, but the Jacobins do not do this. And they form a provisional government on October 10, 1793 - this marked the beginning of the Jacobin dictatorship. Dictatorships were exercised by the following bodies:

1) committee of public safety. He had the widest powers. Carried out domestic and foreign policy, army commanders were appointed under his sanction; according to his plan, military operations were developed; the committee absorbed all ministerial functions.

2) public safety committee. Performed purely police functions.

These 2 committees began to pursue a policy of fighting the opposition. They began to persecute all those who were dissatisfied with the Jacobin regime. Executed without trial or investigation locally. From this moment begins mass terror. At first, the Jacobins fought only with the royalists, then they began to fight with their former allies.

Due to the entry of England into the war with France, the Jacobins are forced to resolve the issue of strengthening their forces. From the middle of 1793 they began to reorganize the army. It provided:

The connection of linear regiments with volunteer

Purge of command staff (all opposition officers were replaced by pro-Jacobin officers);

There is a massive recruitment into the army, according to a decree from August 1793. about general mobilization (the size of the army reached 650 thousand people);

The construction of defense plants (for the production of guns, guns, gunpowder) begins;

New technologies are being introduced into the army - balloons and optical telegraphs;

The tactics of military operations are changing, which now provided for the main strike with the concentration of all forces.

As a result of this reorganization, the Jacobins managed to gradually clear the country of coalition troops. In the autumn of 1793, the Austrian troops were expelled from the territory of France. In the summer of 1793, Belgium was cleared of Austrian troops. The French army switches to the tactics of capture. In parallel with these Jacobins, I am reforming the social system. They sought to completely do away with the old traditions and establish a new republican era in French history. They are actively drilling with the Catholic Church. Since the autumn of 1793, all Catholic priests have been expelled, churches have been closed, and Catholic worship has been banned in Paris. This policy proved unpopular with the people. Then the Jacobins renounce these measures and adopt a decree on freedom of worship.

The Jacobins introduce a new French revolutionary calendar (1792, the year France was proclaimed a republic, was considered the beginning of a new era in France). The calendar was valid until 1806.

As time went on, a crisis began to brew in the Jacobin bloc. The entire block becomes a battlefield for 3 factions:

1) the most radical - rabid. Eber leader. They demanded a deepening of the revolution, the division of large farms among the peasants, they wanted a transition from private to collective ownership.

2) Robespierres (leader dictator M. Robespierre). They were in favor of the current policy, but against property equality. They were ardent private owners.

3) indulgent (leader - Danton). They fought for the immediate cessation of terror, for internal peace in the country, for the stable development of capitalism in the country. Even the policy of the Jacobins seemed too radical to them.

Robespierre tried to maneuver, but as soon as he satisfied the interests of the rabid, the indulgent ones acted and vice versa. This happened during the adoption in February 1794 of the Lanto laws. They provided for the division of the property of all suspicious among the poor. The mad considered the law incomplete and began to conduct propaganda among the people for the overthrow of the Jacobins. In response, Robespierre arrested the leader of the rabid Hebert, then the latter was executed, i.e. carried out terror against the left opposition. As a result, the poorest layers turned away from Robespierre, the Jacobin regime began to lose popular support. In April 1794 he began arrests of the lenient. They accused Robespierre of wanting to restore the monarchy. Indulgent activists arrested.

According to the new calendar, at a meeting of the convention, one of the deputies jokingly suggested arresting Robespierre. The deputies voted for it. Robespierre was sent to prison, where he was subsequently released. Robespierres tried to block the building of the convention. The Robespierres are arrested. On July 28, 1794, Robespierre and his supporters (altogether 22 people) were executed. The Jacobin dictatorship fell.

The main result of the French Revolution there was a radical destruction of the feudal-absolutist system, the establishment of bourgeois society and clearing the way for the further development of capitalism in France. The revolution completely eliminated all feudal obligations, turned the peasant holding (as well as the noble domain) into bourgeois property, thereby solving the agrarian question. The French Revolution decisively abolished the entire system of feudal estate privileges. The revolution was bourgeois-democratic in character.

Part of question 28.Economic and political development of France in the XVII - XVIII centuries.

France in the 17th century was an agrarian country (80% of the population lived in the countryside). The agrarian system was based on feudal relations, the social support of which was the nobility and the clergy. They owned the land as proprietors. Capitalist relations begin to develop at the beginning of the 16th century, but the development was slow and gradually penetrated the French economy.

Characteristic features of the capitalist development of France:

1) The absence of landlord farms. The king granted land to the nobles and the nobleman's possession (seigneury) was divided into 2 parts: domain (domain - direct possession of the feudal lord, a smaller part); license, (which the landowner divided into parts and gave to the use of the peasants for the fulfillment of feudal payments and duties by them). Unlike the English and Dutch nobles, the French did not manage their household and even divided the domain into parts and gave it to the use of the peasants. According to French custom, if the peasant regularly carried out his duties, then the nobleman could not take away the allotment of land. Formally, the land was in the hereditary holding of the peasants. According to the 1789 census, up to 80% of the land was owned by the peasant censors. They were personally free, but they had to bear duties and payments for the use of the land. The censors made up 80% of the number of peasants.

2) The French nobles refused to engage in industry, trade, i.e. they were less enterprising and initiative, because the state could at any moment confiscate the capital accumulated by the nobleman; more prestigious than trade was considered to serve in the army or in the administration or in the church.

3) the property stratification of the peasantry was due to higher taxes, thanks to usury.

The feudal lord charged the peasants the following payments:

1) qualification (chinzh) - an annual monetary contribution for the use of land.

2) one-time payment when inheriting an allotment from father to son (payment is based on the right of a dead hand)

3) road duties and construction work

4) shampar - natural quitrent, which reached 20 - 25% of the harvest.

5) duty for banal rights, when the feudal lord forced the peasant to use only his mill, etc.

6) corvee - 15 days during the period of sowing or harvesting

The church charged the peasant with a tithe (1/10 of the annual profit of the peasant). + the state charged the peasant twenty (1/20 of the annual profit), the head tax, the gabel (tax on salt).

Being in such a vice, the main demand of the revolution, the peasants in the future revolution will put forward demands for the abolition of all feudal duties and payments.

4th line cap. Household. - the capitalist structure in France was formed not among the nobility (as in England), but among the peasantry.

Features of the capitalist structure:

Rental growth

The use in the economy of labor of small and landless peasants.

Stratification among the peasantry and the emergence of the peasant bourgeoisie. Capitalism is infiltrating the countryside through crafts, through scattered manufacture.

Features of the development of manufacturing production:

Only industries that met the needs of the richest part of the population (the royal court, the clergy and the nobility) developed. They need luxuries, jewelry and perfumes.

Manufactories are developing with significant support from the state. It gave them loans, subsidies, exempted them from taxes.

Industrial manufacturing production in France was hampered by a lack of capital and a shortage of workers, but from the 30s. 18th century the pace of capitalist relations is accelerated by the collapse of the state bank. King Louis XV found himself in a difficult financial situation and called on the Scot John Law to make financial reforms. He proposed to cover the shortage of specie by issuing paper money. The issue of money is proposed in proportion to the population of France, and not in proportion to the economic development of the country. This gave rise to inflation and many nobles began to go bankrupt. As a result, the state bank collapsed, but there were also positive aspects of this situation:

1) the turnover of the domestic market is expanding

2) the land is actively entering into market relations (it becomes a subject of sale and purchase. The first large farms began to appear using hired labor. The ruined peasants went to the cities.

In the XVII - XVIII centuries. French industry played a secondary role and was significantly inferior to trade in terms of pace of development. In 1789, the national income of France was 2.4 million livres: of which industry gave about 6 million, the rest was agriculture and trade. On the eve of the French bourgeois revolution, scattered manufacture was the predominant form of industrial organization. The 1st centralized manufactory appears in the perfume industry (it employed more than 50 workers). On the eve of the revolution, actively developing capitalist relations come into conflict with the feudal system. The main task of the bourgeois strata in the forthcoming revolution was the elimination of the feudal system and ensuring the freedom of entrepreneurial activity.

After the death of Louis XIII in 1643, his young son Louis XIV took the throne. Due to his infancy, Cardinal Mazarin was appointed regent under him. He directed his efforts to the maximum strengthening of the power of the king in order to make France an absolutist state. This policy caused discontent among the lower strata and the political elite. AT 1648 – 1649 gg. formed a parliamentary opposition to the royal power, called parliamentary opposition. It relied on the masses of the people, but expressed the interests of the bourgeoisie. Under the influence of events in England, the Fronde raises an uprising in Paris in 1649 Paris has been under the control of the rebels for 3 months.

AT 1650 – 1653 gg. The Fronde of Princes of the Blood acted, which set itself the task of limiting royal power, convening the States General and making France a constitutional monarchy. In 1661 Mazarin dies and Louis XIV becomes full ruler (1661 – 1715) . He abolished the post of 1st Minister and began to rule alone. During his reign, French absolutism reaches its apogee in its development. Under him, state power becomes as centralized as possible. All self-governing bodies are liquidated, a strict censorship regime is introduced, all opposition movements are suppressed. This policy causes dissatisfaction among the peasants. It was fueled by increased taxation aimed at maintaining a lush court and recruiting kits. Of the 53 years of the reign of Louis XIV, the country was at war for 33 years. Wars:

1) 1667 - 1668 -war with Spain over Belgium

2) 1672 - 1678 - war with Holland, Spain and Austria

3) 1701 - 1714 - War of the Spanish Succession.

The wars did not bring France positive results. The male population has decreased by 3 million people. Such a policy leads to a number of uprisings: 1) the uprising of 1675 - for the abolition of feudal duties in Brittany, 2) 1704 - 1714. - Peasant uprising in the south of France in the Languedoc district. These were Protestant peasants who fought against religious upheavals.

In 1715, Louis XIV dies and Louis XV becomes king ( 1715 – 1774 ). The collapse of the state bank is associated with his name. He did not stop his aggressive foreign policy and led 2 bloody wars: 1) for the Austrian inheritance 1740 - 1748, 2) the seven-year war (1756 - 1763). The dissatisfaction of the peasants began to manifest itself much more often. In 1774 Louis XV died. Louis XVI was forced to postpone his coronation several times due to the control of Paris and Versailles by the rebels.

Louis XVI (1774 – 1789). A trade agreement with England played a negative role in the state of public affairs in France. 1786 d. According to him, English goods could pass unhindered to the French market. This measure was conceived to saturate the French market with English goods. Many French industrialists went bankrupt. The king found himself in a difficult financial situation. At the suggestion of the Minister of Finance Necker, the States General are convened (May 1, 1789), which have not been convened since 1614. They represent: the clergy, the nobility, the 3rd estate. In the states-general, a grouping of the 3rd estate (96% of the total French population) immediately stood out. Realizing that they represent the French nation June 17, 1789 d. they proclaim themselves a national assembly. It receives wide public support. The king tried to dissolve it. July 9, 1789. a constituent assembly is proclaimed.

Reasons for the revolution:

The main cause of the revolution is the contradiction between the developing capitalist and the dominant feudal-absolutist relations.

In addition, on the eve of the revolution, the royal treasury was empty, it was impossible to introduce new taxes or forced loans, the bankers refused to lend money.

The crop failure caused high prices and food shortages.

The old feudal-absolutist relations (royal power, the absence of a unified system of measures of length and weight, estates, noble privileges) hampered the development of capitalist relations (the development of manufactories, trade, the political lack of rights of the bourgeoisie).

The Great French Revolution is the general name for the processes that swept France in the late 1780s - the first half of the 1790s. Revolutionary changes were radical, they caused:

• breaking the old system
• liquidation of the monarchy
• gradual transition to democracy.

In general, the revolution was bourgeois, directed against the monarchy and feudal remnants.

Chronologically, the revolution covers the period from 1789 to 1794, although some historians believe that it ended in 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte came to power.

Members

The Great French Revolution was based on the opposition of the privileged nobility, which was the backbone of the monarchical system, and the "third estate". The latter was represented by such groups as:

• Peasants;
• Bourgeoisie;
• Manufactory workers;
• Urban poor or plebs.

The uprising was led by representatives of the bourgeoisie, who did not always take into account the needs of other groups of the population.

Background and main causes of the revolution

At the end of the 1780s. in France, a protracted political, economic and social crisis erupted. Changes were demanded by the plebs, the peasants, the bourgeoisie and the workers, who did not want to put up with this state of affairs.

One of the most difficult issues was agrarian, which was constantly becoming more complicated due to the deep crisis of the feudal system. Its remnants prevented the development of market relations, the penetration of capitalist principles into agriculture and industry, the emergence of new professions and production areas.

Among the main causes of the French Revolution, it is worth noting such as:

• Commercial and industrial crisis that began in 1787;
• The bankruptcy of the king and the country's budget deficit;
• Several lean years that led to the peasant uprisings of 1788-1789. In a number of cities - Grenoble, Besançon, Rennes and the suburbs of Paris - there was a series of speeches by the plebs;
• Crisis of the monarchical regime. At the royal court, attempts were made to solve the problems that had arisen, but the methods of overcoming the systemic crisis, which officials resorted to, were hopelessly outdated and did not work. Therefore, King Louis XVI decided to make certain concessions. In particular, notables and the States General were convened, which last met in 1614. Representatives of the third estate were also present at the meeting of the Estates General. The latter created the National Assembly, which soon became Constituent.

The nobility and the privileged strata of French society, including the clergy, spoke out against such equality, and began to prepare to disperse the assembly. In addition, they did not accept the king's proposal to tax them. The peasants, the bourgeoisie, the workers and the plebs began to prepare for a popular uprising. On July 13 and 14, 1789, an attempt to disperse it brought many representatives of the third estate to the streets of Paris. Thus began the French Revolution, which changed France forever.

Stages of the revolution

Subsequent events are usually divided into several periods:

• From July 14, 1789 - to August 10, 1792;
• From August 10, 1792 - to June 3, 1793;
• June 3, 1793 - July 28, 1794;
• July 28, 1794 - November 9, 1799

The first stage began with the capture of the most famous French prison - the Bastille fortress. The following events also belong to this period:

• Replacing old authorities with new ones;
• Creation of the National Guard, subordinate to the bourgeoisie;
• The adoption in the fall of 1789 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen;
• The adoption of a number of decrees concerning the rights of the bourgeoisie and the plebs. In particular, class division was abolished, church property was confiscated, the clergy came under the control of secular authorities, the old administrative division of the country was abolished and workshops were abolished. The most intense was the abolition of feudal duties, but in the end the rebels managed to achieve this as well;
• The emergence of the so-called Varna crisis in the first half of the summer of 1791. The crisis was connected with the king's attempt to escape abroad. This event is associated with: the execution of a demonstration on the Champ de Mars; the beginning of the confrontation between the poorest segments of the population and the bourgeoisie, who went over to the side of the nobility; as well as the separation from the revolutionary Jacobin club of the moderate political party of the Feuillants;
• Constant contradictions between the main political forces - the Girondins, Feuillants and Jacobins, which made it easier for other European states to penetrate French territory. During 1792-1792. The following declared war on the state torn apart by the revolution: Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, Austria, the Kingdom of Naples, Spain, the Netherlands and some German principalities. The French army was not ready for such a turn of events, especially since most of the generals fled the country. Because of the threat of an attack on the capital, detachments of volunteers began to appear in Paris;
• Activation of the anti-monarchist movement. On August 10, 1792, the final overthrow of the monarchy and the creation of the Paris Commune took place.

The main feature of the second stage of the revolution was the confrontation between the Girondins and the Jacobins. The leaders of the first were Zh.P. Brissot, J.M. Roland and P.V. Vergniaud, who were on the side of the commercial, industrial and agricultural bourgeoisie. This party wanted a speedy end to the revolution and the establishment of political stability. The Jacobins were led by M. Robespierre, J.P. Marat and J.J. Danton, who were representatives of the middle class and the poor bourgeois. They defended the interests of the workers and peasants, and also advocated the further development of the revolution, since their demands remained unheeded.

The main events of the second period of the French Revolution were:

• Struggle between the Jacobin-controlled Paris Commune and the Girondin Legislative Assembly. The result of the confrontation was the creation of the Convention, whose representatives were elected from the entire male population of France over 21 years old on the basis of universal suffrage;
• France declared a republic on September 21, 1792;
• Execution of the last king of the Bourbon dynasty on January 21, 1793;
• Continuation of peasant uprisings caused by poverty, landlessness and hunger. The poor seized the estates of their masters and divided the communal land. The townspeople also rioted, demanding fixed food prices;
• The expulsion of the Girondins from the Convention in late May - early June 1793. This ended the second period of the uprising.

Getting rid of opponents allowed the Jacobins to concentrate all power in their own hands. The third period of the Great French Revolution is known as the Jacobin dictatorship and, first of all, is associated with the name of the head of the Jacobins - Maximilian Robespierre. It was a rather difficult period for the young republic - while internal contradictions were tearing the country apart, the troops of neighboring powers were advancing to the borders of the state. France was involved in the Vendean Wars, which engulfed the southern and northwestern provinces.

The Jacobins, first of all, took up the solution of the agrarian question. All communal lands and lands of the fleeing nobles were transferred to the peasants. Then feudal rights and privileges were abolished, which contributed to the formation of a new class of society - free owners.

The next step was the adoption of a new Constitution, which was distinguished by its democratic character. It was supposed to introduce constitutional government, but a complex socio-political and economic crisis forced the Jacobins to establish a regime of revolutionary democratic dictatorship.

At the end of August 1793, a decree was adopted on the mobilization of the French in the fight against foreign invaders. In response, the opponents of the Jacobins who were inside the country began to massively carry out terrorist acts in all cities of France. As a result of one of these actions, Marat was also killed.

At the end of July 1796, the republican troops defeated the interventionist troops near Fleurus. The last decisions of the Jacobins were the adoption of the Vantoise decrees, which were not destined to come true. Dictatorship, repression and the policy of requisition (expropriation) turned the peasants against the Jacobin regime. As a result, a conspiracy arose to overthrow the government of Robespierre. The so-called Thermidorian coup ended Jacobin rule and brought moderate republicans and the bourgeoisie to power. They created a new governing body - the Directory. The new government carried out a number of transformations in the country:

• Adopted a new Constitution;
• Replaced universal suffrage with census (admission to elections was received only by those citizens who possessed property for a certain amount);
• Established the principle of equality;
• Gave the right to elect and be elected only to those citizens of the republic who are 25 years old;
• She created the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of the Elders, who monitored the political situation in France;
• She waged wars against Prussia and Spain, culminating in the signing of peace treaties. Continued hostilities against England and Austria.

The Board of the Directory ended on November 9, 1799, when another coup took place in the republic. It was led by General of the Army Napoleon Bonaparte, who was very popular among the soldiers. Relying on the military, he managed to seize power in Paris, which was the beginning of a new era in the life of the country.

Outcomes and results of the revolution

• The elimination of the remnants of the feudal system, which contributed to the rapid development of capitalist relations;
• Establishment of a republican system based on democratic principles;
• The final consolidation of the French nation;
• Formation of authorities formed on the basis of suffrage;
• The adoption of the first constitutions, the provisions of which guaranteed citizens equality before the law and the opportunity to enjoy national wealth;
• Solving the agrarian question;
• Liquidation of the monarchy;
• Adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

However, positive transformations also contained a number of negative features:

• Introduction of property qualification;
• Ignoring the opinion of the majority of citizens, which led to new unrest;
• The establishment of a complex administrative division, which prevented the formation of an effective management system.

The Great French Revolution is known as the largest transformation of the political and social systems of the country with the complete elimination of the absolute monarchy. According to historians, it lasted more than ten years (from 1789 to 1799).

The reasons

France of the eighteenth century is also a complete disorder in the socio-economic sphere. Power in his reign was based on the army and bureaucratic centralization. Due to numerous civil and peasant wars in the last century, the rulers had to make unfavorable compromises (with peasants, bourgeois, privileged classes). But even despite the concessions made, the masses were increasingly dissatisfied.

The first wave of dissent rose under Louis XV, and reached its peak during the reign of Louis XVI. Philosophical and political works of the enlighteners added fuel to the fire (for example, Montesquieu criticized the authorities, calling the king a usurper, and Rousseau stood up for the rights of the people). Thus, discontent matured not only among the lower strata of the population, but also among educated society.

So, the main causes of the French Revolution:

• decline and stagnation of market relations;
• disorder in the control system;
• corruption and the sale of public positions;
• incomprehensible system of taxation;
• poorly worded legislation;
• an archaic system of privileges for different classes;
• lack of trust in government;
• the need for reforms in the economic and political spheres.

Developments

The above causes of the French Revolution reflect only the internal state of the country. But the first impetus for the coup came from the American Revolutionary War, when the English colonies revolted. This served as a signal for all classes to support the ideas of human rights, freedom and equality.

The war demanded huge expenses, the funds of the treasury were exhausted, there was a shortage. It was decided to convene in order to carry out financial reform. But what was planned by the king and his advisers did not happen. During the meeting at Versailles, the third estate stood up in opposition and declared itself the National Assembly, demanding to adopt

From the point of view of historians, the French Revolution itself (its stages will be briefly described) began with - the symbol of the monarchy - July 14, 1789.

All events of the ten-year period can be conditionally divided into parts:

1. Constitutional monarchy (until 1792).
2. Girondin period (until May 1793).
3. Jacobin period (until 1794).
4. Thermidorian period (until 1795).
5. Period of the Directory (until 1799).
6. Brumer coup (the end of the revolution, in November 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte comes to power).

The causes of the French Revolution during this decade were never resolved, but the people had hope for a better future, and Bonaparte became their "savior" and ideal ruler.

Monarchy

The king was deposed on September 21, 1792, after about twenty thousand rebels surrounded his palace.

Together with his family, he was closed in the Temple. The monarch was accused of betraying the nation and state. Louis refused all lawyers, at the trial, relying on the Constitution, he defended himself. By decision of twenty-four deputies, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. On January 21, 1793, the verdict was put into effect. On October 16, 1793, his wife Marie Antoinette was executed.

After some countries and the French monarchists recognized his young son Louis-Charles as the next king. However, he was not destined to ascend the throne. At the age of ten, the boy died in the Temple, the place of his imprisonment. The official cause of death was tuberculosis.

Thus, of all the children, only Maria Theresa survived, who was released from prison in 1793 in exchange for French prisoners of war. She went abroad. She managed to return to her homeland only in 1814.

Results

The results of the French Revolution are such that the old order collapsed. The country has entered a new era with a democratic and progressive future.

However, many historians argue that the causes of the French Revolution did not involve such a long and bloody transformation. According to Alexis Tocqueville, what the coup led to would have happened by itself over time and would not have entailed so many victims.

Another part of historians highly appreciates the significance of the French Revolution, noting that, based on its example, Latin America freed itself from colonization.