France – Historiography Revision - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

France – Historiography RevisionSlide2

Causes of the Revolution

What is the debate?Slide3

Causes of the Revolution - Marxist

Lefebvre and

Soboul

:

“The commercial and industrial bourgeoisie had been growing in importance in the 18

th

Century and had become economically stronger than the nobility.”

“The bourgeoisie won the struggle because the monarchy became bankrupt because of cost of war in America.”Slide4

Causes of the Revolution - Revisionist

Furet

:

“the driving force for change was the advanced democratic ideas of the Enlightenment philosophes such as Rousseau.”

Shennan

: “

Finance problems due to the American War of Independence, compounded by bad harvest, resulting in steep increases in the price of bread. Combined with the conservative nature of the social and political order.” Slide5

Bastille

Bradbury

:

“When the population saw that the government could be successfully defied, the power of that government was broken.”

Fisher

: “A political masterpiece and conspiracy by capitalists like

duc

d’Orleans

… hailed throughout Europe as the end of secretive tyranny… heralded the dawn of a new age.”Slide6

Bastille

Godechot

:

“14 July represents the peak of a much wider revolutionary movement, and spread to most of the towns and villages with extraordinary swiftness.”

Doyle

: “For four weeks the monarchy schemed and plotted to reverse the achievements of the National Assembly. Ultimately they were foiled by a wave of popular support for the stand taken by the Third Estate.”

“Louis XVI drew back, leaving the people of Paris convinced that they alone had saved the National Assembly. From that moment on events in Paris would largely dictate the course and shape of the revolution.” Slide7

ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES

What is the debate?Slide8

Assembly of Notables - Marxist

Rude and

Soboul

:

The clergy and nobles had most of the wealth and power. Therefore, they believe the Notables main purpose was to

“defend their own privileges”.

The stalemate between the nobility and monarchy paralysed the government, leading to revolution.

Soboul

:

“The bourgeoisie… now took over.”

“… to destroy aristocratic privilege… and establish legal and civic equality.”

“They intended to stay with in the law, but was carried forward by the pressure of the masses, the real motive force behind the revolution…”

Rude:

“The Notables refused to endorse ministerial reforms because their own cherished fiscal immunities were threatened.” Slide9

Assembly of Notables - Revisionist

Simon

Schama

:

The Notables were “the first revolutionaries”… that:

1. “accepted financial equality”.

2. “as landowners and businessman sensed the redundancy of privilege”.

3. “matched

Calonne’s

radicalism… and in many cases advanced beyond him.”

Slide10

Assembly of Notables – Post Revisionist

David

Andress

(balanced view)

“Notables rejected methods of the past and the monarchies solutions with almost one voice.”

i.e. united.

“Notables were finding new ways of thinking.”

“They too were landowners”

“They appealed to ‘rights’ and ‘public opinion’ against ‘ministerial despotism’.

However:

“They had no intention of renouncing the privileges of a corporate social order.”Slide11

CAHIERS

What is the debate?Slide12

Cahiers

F&A:

“The cahiers of the Paris 3

rd

Estate were radical, enlightened and revolutionary.”

These followed closely the model cahier by the Society of Thirty. Slide13

Cahiers - Marxist

Rude:

“The

Parlements

and upper clergy made a bid to extend their own power in the noble revolts of 1787-8.”

“By 1789, the bourgeoisie and the common people were now the two main contenders.”

Soboul

: “The bourgeoisie saw itself as representing the interest of all and carrying the burdens of the nation as a whole.”

This was “thwarted by the aristocratic spirit.”Slide14

Cahiers - Revisionist

Schama

:

“first revolutionaries… intent on doing away with much of the old structure of France.”

Rees:

“282 cahiers of the nobility, 90 reflected liberal ideals. 89% were willing to forego financial privileges, 39% supported voting by head.”

“Noble cahiers, in many cases, were more liberal than those of the Third Estate.” Slide15

Cahiers – Post Revisionist

Peter McPhee: claimed that for provincial nobles

“seigneurial rights and noble privileges were too important to be negotiable.”

Peter Jones: The cahiers of the Third Estate are not necessarily reliable as they were sometimes “

brow beaten”.

Markoff

:

“On issues of taxation, seigneurial rights and payments to the Church, the peasants were consistently the most radical. The nobles the least.”

F&A:

“The Society of Thirty’s goal was to design a new constitution for France based on principles of the Enlightenment.”Slide16

Enlightenment Historians

Was the work of these writers a contributing factor in the outburst of revolutionary energy of 1788 and 1789?

How many people had read these works?Slide17

Enlightenment Historians

Doyle sees the reading classes as made up

“of nobles, clerics and bourgeoisie... Magistrates, lawyers, administrators and army officers.”Slide18

Enlightenment Marxists

Rude and

Soboul

:

Rude:

“The ideas... were widely disseminated and were

absorded

by an eager reading public, both aristocratic and plebeian (common). It had become fashionable, even among the clergy, to be

skeptical

and irreligious... Such terms as ‘citizen’, ‘nation’, ‘social contract’, ‘general will’, and ‘rights of man’ – were entering into a common political vocabulary.”Slide19

Enlightenment Marxists

Soboul

,

“it undermined the ideological foundations of the established order and strengthened the bourgeoisie’s consciousness of itself as a class.”Slide20

Enlightenment Revisionist

Schama

: Lafayette bought back the ideas of

“Liberty, Equality and the pursuit of happiness”,

and made them the

“first revolutionaries.”

Darnton

:

“Pornographic literature undermined the royal family and the clergy.” Slide21

Enlightenment Revisionist

Garrioch

:

“there was no Parisian

bourgeosisie

in the eighteenth century,” “bourgeois people did not define themselves as a class with similar interests and outlook.” Slide22

Enlightenment Post

Revisionist

Fenwick and Anderson:

“The works of

philosophes

, physiocrats, scientists,

scandelmongers

and pornographers gave birth to public opinion.”

“People became more aware of and concerned about the state of the nation, the ordering of society, the distribution of power, justice and injustice, and personal rights.” Slide23

Great Fear - Marxist

Rude:

“states that

the peasant riots compelled the Assembly to end feudal privileges

.”

Soboul

:

argues

that

“the

bourgeois deputies, concerned about the chaos in the countryside and the precedent that might be set through attacks on property, urged liberal members of the Second Estate to renounce their privileges as an example to the conservative

nobles.”Slide24

Great Fear - Revisionist

Schama

: disagrees

and argues that

“the

nobility in France were actually citizen-nobles, imbued with patriotic liberty

.”

“They

were waiting for an opportunity to demonstrate their willingness to make sacrifices for the benefit of the nation, and the peasant uprisings provided just such a chance

.”Slide25

Great Fear – Post Revisionist

McPhee – “New of this unprecedented challenge to the might of the state and nobility reached a countryside in an explosive atmosphere of conflict, hope and fear.”

“All over France, from Paris to the smallest hamlet, the summer and spring of 1789 was the occasion of a total and unprecedented collapse of centuries of royal state making.”