Against
a
background
of
deepening
economic
crisis
and
general
misery,
exacerbated
by the
catastrophic
harvest
of 1788,
controversy
focused
on how
the
Estates-General
should
be
constituted.
Should
they
meet
separately
as on
the last
occasion
- in
1614?
This was
the
solution
favoured
by the
parlement
of
Paris, a
measure
of its
reactionary
nature:
separate
meetings
would
make it
easy for
the
privileged,
namely
the
clergy
and
nobility,
to
outvote
the
Third
Estate
, the
bourgeoisie.
The king
ruled
that
they
should
hold a
joint
meeting,
with the
Third
Estate
represented
by as
many
deputies
as the
other
two
Estates
combined,
but no
decisions
were
made
about
the
order of
voting.
On
June 17,
1789,
the
Third
Estate
seized
the
initiative
and
declared
itself
the
National
Assembly.
Some of
the
lower
clergy
and
liberal
nobility
joined
them.
Louis
XVI
appeared
to
accept
the
situation,
and on
July 9
the
Assembly
declared
itself
the
National
Constituent
Assembly.
However,
the king
then
tried to
intimidate
it by
calling
in
troops,
which
unleashed
the
anger of
the
people
of
Paris,
the sans-culottes
(literally,
"without
trousers").
On
July 14
the sans-culottes
stormed
the
fortress
of the Bastille
, symbol
of the
oppressive
nature
of the ancien
régime
.
Similar
insurrections
occurred
throughout
the
country,
accompanied
by
widespread
peasant
attacks
on
landowners'
châteaux
and the
destruction
of
records
of debt
and
other
symbols
of their
oppression.
On the
night of
August
4, the
Assembly
abolished
the
feudal
rights
and
privileges
of the
nobility
- a
momentous
shift of
gear in
the
Revolutionary
process,
although
in
reality
it did
little
to alter
the
situation.
Later
that
month
they
adopted
the Declaration
of the
Rights
of Man
. In
December
church
lands
were
nationalized,
and the
pope
retaliated
by
declaring
the
Revolutionary
principles
impious.
Bourgeois
elements
in the
Assembly
tried to
bring
about a
compromise
with the
nobility,
with a
view to
establishing
a
constitutional
monarchy,
but
these
overtures
were
rebuffed.
Émigré
aristocrats
were
already
working
to bring
about
foreign
invasion
to
overthrow
the
Revolution.
In June
1791 the
king was
arrested
trying
to
escape
from
Paris.
The
Assembly,
following
an
initiative
of the
wealthier
bourgeois
Girondin
faction,
decided
to go to
war to
protect
the
Revolution.
On
August
10,
1792,
the sans-culottes
set up a
revolutionary
Commune
in Paris
and
imprisoned
the
king.
The
Revolution
was
taking a
radical
turn. A
new
National
Convention
was
elected
and met
on the
day the
ill-prepared
Revolutionary
armies
finally
halted
the
Prussian
invasion
at Valmy.
A major
rift
swiftly
developed
between
the Girondins
and the Jacobins
and sans-culottes
over the
abolition
of the
monarchy.
The
radicals
carried
the day.
In
January
1793,
Louis
XVI was
executed.
By June
the
Girondins
had been
ousted.
Counter-revolutionary
forces
were
gathering
in the
provinces
and
abroad.
A
Committee
of
Public
Safety
was set
up as
chief
organ of
the
government.
Left-wing
popular
pressure
brought
laws on
general
conscription
and
price
controls
and a
deliberate
policy
of de-Christianization.
Robespierre
was
pressed
onto the
Committee
as the
best man
to
contain
the
pressure
from the
streets.
The Terror
began.
As well
as
ordering
the
death of
the
hated
queen,
Marie-Antoinette,
Robespierre
felt
strong
enough
to
guillotine
his
opponents
on both
Right
and
Left.
But the
effect
of so
many
rolling
heads
was to
cool
people's
faith in
the
Revolution;
by
mid-1794,
Robespierre
himself
was
arrested
and
executed,
and his
fall
marked
the end
of
radicalism.
More
conservative
forces
gained
control
of the
government,
decontrolled
the
economy,
repressed
popular
risings,
limited
the
suffrage,
and
established
a
five-man
executive
Directory
(1795).
