Focus on : Paris during the Revolution

By the 1780s, the concept of absolute monarchy, long criticised by the philosophers of the Enlightenment, had run out of steam. Many French people, especially in the working-class areas of Paris, were jobless victims of famine and scarcity. No longer willing to tolerate the lack of equality, they revolted. The regime was unable to meet the people’s expectations for reform and was, in addition, destabilised by the financial crisis and the national debt. The king had no choice but to convene the Estates General, which opened on 5 May 1789. This was their first meeting since 1614 and the representatives of the three Estates of the realm (the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners, or Third Estate) wrote up the grievances of their electors in what became known as cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances). The Revolution had not yet begun. The French loved their king and trusted him to put an end to the abuses of the most privileged members of society. But in Versailles, the deputies were unable to reach an agreement. After a long month of quarrels, on 17 June 1789, the Third Estate, joined by a few members of the clergy and aristocracy, decided to set themselves up as the newly christened National Assembly (Assemblée nationale). Since they claimed to represent the sovereignty of the people, this move by the deputies of 1789 was the first truly revolutionary act. Absolute monarchy was now a thing of the past.

In 1789, before the opening of the "Etats Généraux", the people of Paris were severely affected by a bad winter, a rise in the price of bread and increased unemployment.

In July, a concentration of foreign regiments around Versailles gave rise to rumours of an ‘aristocratic plot’ against the National Assembly. The demonstration organised in support of disgraced liberals Necker and the Duke of Orléans, which had begun on 12 July, turned into a vast insurrection. All around Paris, the toll gates had been burning for two days. On the 14, in search of weapons to protect the population, the rioters invaded the Invalides and then moved on to the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) where the Provost of the Merchants of Paris, Jacques de Flesselles, who was suspected of hiding weapons, was shot. Still lacking munitions, the insurgents hurried to the Bastille, which held the largest stock of gunpowder in Paris. There, the governor de Launay, and his soldiers attempted resistance. When he surrendered he too was assassinated. The storming of the Bastille resulted in the deaths of about a hundred people, providing the Revolution with its first martyrs.

During the attack, a municipal government was set up and Jean-Sylvain Bailly became the first mayor of Paris. Louis XVI abandoned attempts to quell the revolt and came to Paris on 17 July, where he agreed to receive the patriotic cockade and recognised the new Commune as well as the National Guard, the volunteer militia created on 14 July.

In the summer of 1789, to ensure the Revolution did not leave disorder and insecurity in its wake, men took up arms in the towns and villages, forming National Guards and organising gatherings that could attract hundreds of thousands of people. The induction of these newly ‘federated’ companies concluded with a huge national ceremony on

14 July 1790: the Fête de la Fédération. The ceremony commemorated the first anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille and was celebrated on the Champ-de-Mars under the leadership of La Fayette. Fifty thousand men from 83 départements (created on 15 January 1790) paraded before the royal family and more than 400,000 Parisians. The Fête de la Fédération also served to display the adhesion of the French people and their king to the constitutional project. The huge crowd swore an oath “to the Nation, to the Law, and to the King” in a state of enthusiasm impervious to the terrible weather. However, behind this facade of unanimity, there were serious tensions. The Revolution was far from over and, in some départements, civil war was breaking out.

Refusing to accept the challenge to his power, Louis XVI attempted to escape during the night of 20 June 1791. He was caught at Varennes and taken back to the Tuileries where he received an icy reception. The idea of a Republic was beginning to take shape. The majority of the deputies had restrained the radicals, declared the king inviolable, and chosen the compromise of a constitutional monarchy. Indeed, on 14 September, the king swore an oath to the constitution. But as soon as the Constituent Assembly gave way to the Legislative Assembly, preparing for war became the top priority. The French Revolution was seen as a threat by the royal courts of Europe and was also targeted by émigrés who constituted the elite of the army of the Ancien Régime; the risk of invasion was high. Anticipating the danger, the French declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792. At the same time, the king was making less and less effort to hide his duplicity, and the most active of the deputies made preparations for insurrection. During the night of 9 August, a rebel Commune overthrew the municipality. On the 10, the fédérés and workers from poor districts attacked the Tuileries Palace.

The king’s power was suspended, but the Republic was not proclaimed until 22 September. The French were spurred to action: two days before, at Valmy, an army of volunteers had managed to drive back the Prussians. A new assembly, the National Convention, was elected by universal male suffrage.

After the storming of the Tuileries Palace on 10 August, the king was stripped of his powers on 21 September and imprisoned, along with his family, at the Temple Tower. From then on, he was nicknamed ‘Louis Capet’ by the revolutionaries, not just in reference to his ancestor, Hugues Capet, but above all as a reminder of his new status as an ordinary citizen.

After the discovery of the king’s "armoire de fer", a secret cupboard full of documents proving his collusion with foreign sovereigns and that he had managed to corrupt many political figures, the Convention decided to put the king on trial.

After a long debate, the king was found guilty almost unanimously, though only a slight majority condemned him to death. He was guillotined on 21 January 1793 in the Place de la Révolution (today’s Place de la Concorde). Marie-Antoinette met the same fate on 16 October closely followed by Madame Élisabeth, the king’s sister. The Dauphin, who would have become Louis XVII, died at the Temple prison on 8 June 1795. Madame Royale, his sister, was exchanged for other prisoners in 1795. The execution of the king was considered a sacrilege by many French people and Europeans, and it brought matters to a head. Many French people, particularly in the West, refused to be enlisted in the Republican armies and took up arms against the Revolution. At the same time, a sizeable European coalition was formed, which in turn further radicalised the revolutionaries in France.

The reform of the calendar was particularly revealing of revolutionary attitudes towards time and history. The National Convention’s desire to overhaul the measurement of time is just one example of its attempts to adapt French people’s habits to suit the new values of the Republic.

On 20 September 1793, the deputy Gilbert Romme delivered a report to the Convention concerning what was to become the Republican calendar, intended to replace its Gregorian predecessor. After a number of adjustments, an act passed on 4 Frimaire of the year II (24 November 1793) finalized its structure. The Republican calendar began on 1 Vendémiaire of the year i (22 September 1792), the day of the proclamation of the Republic. The calendar year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with six days added at the end of the year. Each month was divided into three sets of ten days. The names of the months and the days were thought up by the poet Fabre d’Églantine to describe the seasons and their corresponding agricultural activity. The revolutionary calendar survived until 1 January 1806. Even as the Empire took hold, many Republican symbols continued to be used in an attempt to unite the French people.

A further measure concerned the division of each day into decimal segments: each of the ten ‘hours’ was divided into ten ‘minutes’, which were divided into ten ‘seconds’. However this urge to reduce all measurements to the same system met with such practical difficulties for watchmakers that the experiment was abandoned in 1795.

The history of the National Convention was marked by a struggle between two political groups: the Girondins, who opposed any extension of participation by the people and supported economic liberalism; and the Montagnards, who were closer to the sans-culottes and in favour of the extension of emergency measures. In the spring

of 1793, the Convention created a Committee of Public Safety, Surveillance Committees in the cities and towns, and a Committee of General Security in Paris. Ordinary law was ousted by emergency measures, which eroded democracy.

After the fall of the Girondins on 2 June 1793, the Montagnards voted a new, more social and democratic constitution known as the Constitution of Year I. Although it was never applied, it had an important effect on the following century.

Overwhelmed by civil war and the invasion of France, the Convention had both to defend the Republic and to create a new egalitarian society. The resulting laws were at times contradictory.

On the one hand, the dictatorship would tolerate no opposition, women were excluded from political life, and violence was sanctioned, On the other hand the Convention also defined a national social action policy, passed the first law making school compulsory and they were the first in history to abolish slavery. But there was a great increase in political repression with the passing, on 10 June 1794, of the law of 22 Prairial. The arrest of Robespierre and his allies on 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor Year II) indicated an urge to temper the Revolution.

The Thermidorian regime in the National Convention began with the fall of Robespierre (27 July 1794). Many French people were now looking for a compromise. The Thermidorians wanted to bring the Revolution to an end by setting up a conservative Republic. The regime was established by the Constitution of Year III (22 August 1795).

It was called ‘The Directory’ (Directoire) because it had five Directors who exercised collective executive power. Although the deputies were no longer entrusted with total power, collegial administration was supposed to avoid authoritarian abuse. The universal suffrage elections were abolished ans the regime established a bicameral system on the English model, by which only qualified property holders elected the two legislative chambers (the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients). Though it has oft been ignored, the Directory was an important political test bed, particularly in Europe, where several ‘Sister Republics’ came into being. But bringing civil war to an end was no easy matter. The period was punctuated by a series of plots and coups d’état, from both the left (Neo-Jacobin) and the right (Royalist). Finally, Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup succeeded on 18 Brumaire, Year VIII (9 November 1799).

The Directory was then replaced by the Consulat, an authoritarian regime run by three consuls, of whom only the first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, appointed for life in 1802, held any real power. Two years later, the proclamation of the First Empire marked the end of the First French Republic (1792-1804).

The Revolution was marked by a long period of war. Innumerable campaigns, involving unprecedented mobilisation, saved the French Republic from defeat. Certain victories even significantly extended its territories. After pushing back the Prussians at Valmy on 20 September 1792, the French went on the offensive, as much to ‘liberate’ neighbouring populations and increase the spread of ‘civilisation’ as to defend the Republic and garner public support. Victories at Jemmapes (6 November 1792) and Fleurus (26 June 1794) led to the annexation of what is now Belgium. Other territorial gains included Savoy, Nice, and the left bank of the Rhine, as well as several ‘Sister Republics’, including the Batavian Republic and the Italian republics.

From the beginning, the French Revolution was also marked by civil war. With the aim of restoring the monarchy, the authority of the church and French ‘traditions’, insurrectionary movements sprang up in various regions of France, but especially in the West, where the Vendée region became synonymous with the Counter-Revolution.

Under the Directory, war and an increasing need for authority provided an opportunity for many soldiers to rise rapidly through the ranks and assert themselves as political figures. Brilliant soldiers, like Kléber, Jourdan, Hoche and Marceau, rose rapidly up the military hierarchy. The most brilliant ascension, however, was that of Napoleon Bonaparte.

From 1789 on, the most visible signs of despotism and social inequality came under attack. This intensified with the king’s attempted escape (20 June 1791) and the abolition of the monarchy (10 August 1792).

In cities and in the country, statues of kings and saints, crosses, fleurs-de-lis and coats of arms were broken, defaced or hammered to pieces, creating in the process a new kind of public space. At the same time, in response to the needs of war, many Parisian churches became places of assembly, or were turned into hospitals, barracks or hay barns. The word ‘vandalism’ was used by Abbé Grégoire in 1794 to deplore such acts, but it obscures the fact that most of them were a concerted response to various laws and that excesses were generally condemned. Many of the objects taken were not destroyed but put on public display for the first time. It could be said that the Revolution invented the notion of ‘national heritage’, and was the creator of the first museums : the Muséum d’histoire naturelle, for example, in June 1793, the Muséum des Arts (the present Musée du Louvre) in November 1793, the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in October 1794, and the Musée des monuments français, created in 1795 by Alexandre Lenoir.