Lecture 5 - French Revolution

Question 1

What were the three main phases of the French Revolution?

Answer 1

1. Early phase
2. Terror
3. Directory

Question 2

What do historians mean when they say that there was a ‘demand for sociability’ in France in the decades leading up to the Revolution, and how does this influence the Revolution?

Answer 2

All sorts of societies start to appear in France, all with different goals and purposes. What these societies share is that they adopt important parts of the Enlightenment vocabulary, leading to the spread and popularization of its ideas and concepts

Question 3

What were the two main structural problems France faced in the lead-up to the Revolution?

Answer 3

1. The problem of political representation
2. The crumbling authority of the Catholic Church

Question 4

What was the problem with political representation in France?

Answer 4

Although the Third Estate accounted for 98% of the French population, it had no formal political representation, except in the Estates General, where they only account for 1/3 of the vote

Question 5

Why does Louis XVI feel the need to call the Estates of France in May 1789?

Answer 5

France is on the edge of financial ruin

Question 6

What were contributing factors to the French financial situation in 1789?

Answer 6

1. Tax system: only the third estate payed taxes
2. Costly wars: American Revolutionary War and Seven Years War

Question 7

What caused the authority of the French Catholic Church to diminish?

Answer 7

Internal disputes between Jesuits and Jansenists

Question 8

What were indicental problems in France in the lead-up to the Revolution?

Answer 8

1. France was the lingua Franca, so the French public was receptive to things happening around the world. They had received information about the success of the Dutch Revolt and American Revolution
2. Rising food prices and bad harvests, leading bread prices to grow out of control

Question 9

What does the Third Estate do after not reaching agreement in the Estates General? How do the other Estates react?

Answer 9

It declares itself the Assemblée Nationale, soon being joined by some of the members of the First and Second Estates

Question 10

What is the Tennis Court Oath?

Answer 10

The pledge that none of the members of the Assemblée Nationale would leave the session until a constitution had been agreed upon

Question 11

What is the storming of the Bastille a reaction to?

Answer 11

The sacking of the minister for Finance, whom the Revolutionaries had trusted

Question 12

What is Louis XVI’s response to the Storming of the Bastille, and what does this lead to?

Answer 12

He withdraws his troops from Paris, allowing the Assemblée Nationale to proclaim itself the authority in Paris

Question 13

What significant piece of legislation does the Assemblée pass in august 1789?

Answer 13

The Declaration of the Rights of Man, which Louis XVI was forced to sign

Question 14

What allows for the Terror to occur?

Answer 14

The falling apart of the Assemblée into factions, some of which are very radical

Question 15

In what year is Louis XVI taken prisoner?

Answer 15

1791

Question 16

What do the radical section of the Assemblée do to the Assemblée?

Answer 16

It abolishes the Assemblée and establishes the National Convention

Question 17

When, and on what grounds, is Lous XVI executed?

Answer 17

Treason against the people of France, executed in 1793

Question 18

What truly marks the beginning of the Terror?

Answer 18

Slaughtering of a large part of the Paris prison population due to rumours that foreign armies were planning to take the city with their help, in september 1793

Question 19

What remarkable and new phenomenon had a great influence on politics during the Terror?

Answer 19

Conspiracy theories

Question 20

What were the years of the Terror?

Answer 20

1792-1794

Question 21

How does the Terror end?

Answer 21

With the execution of many of its prominent figures

Question 22

In what year does Napoleon rise to power, abolish the directory and effectively end the Revolution?

Answer 22

1799

Question 23

What would be a key element of critiques on the Revolution?

Answer 23

Its bloody nature

Question 24

What were the main grievances of counter-Enlightenment authors? (2)

Answer 24

1. The philosophes had been out to destory the authority of the Church
2. The philosophes introduced a morality strictly based on the individual, forgetting that humans are always part of society

Question 25

What are the main philosophical beliefs underlying conservatism? (3)

Which Enlightenment author would agree with these ideas?

Answer 25

1. Humans are not (exclusively) rational beings; humans are feeling beings
2. Humans are more than ‘matter in motion’
3. No society can do without any sort of religion; humans are religious beings, in need of moral codes

Rousseau would agree with these ideas

Question 26

Joseph de Maistre beliefs that the Enlightenment tries to unite two ideals that are impossible to join. Which?

Answer 26

Liberty & equality

Question 27

What is De Maistre’s most influential work?

Answer 27

Soirées de Saint-Petersbourg

Question 28

Which mistakes does De Maistre identify in the common departure point of the philosophes? (3) Which false belief did this lead the philosohophes to?

Answer 28

1. Man is a rational being
2. Man is a sociable being
3. The behaviour of man is rules by laws

This led to the belief that once we found the laws dictating human behaviour, we would be able to construct societies in which man is able to cultivate its freedom

Question 29

Which outlook did De Maistre have on society and nature as a whole, and how does this contrast with the Enlightenment?

Answer 29

De Maistre saw nature as irrational and violent, while the philosophes thought that nature is harmonious

Question 30

What did De Maistre see as the reason why humanity had become a dominant force on earth?

Answer 30

The fact that man is most violent of all creatures (and not its rationality)

Question 31

What did De Maistre see as the underlying fault leading the philosophes to their beliefs?

Answer 31

Their way of thinking: empiricism/induction

Question 32

What was De Maistre’s argument against empiricism?

Answer 32

De Maistre saw it as unphilosophical by nature: observation merely gives you ideas about the surface of thing, whereas philosophers should be interested in deeper essences

Empiricism is by its nature artificial

Question 33

How did De Maistre belief we should reach the essences of things, and on which philosopher is this based?

Answer 33

By thinking and philosophising

This is very reminiscent of Plato

Question 34

Apart from their focus on essences, what other belief did De Maistre share with Plato?

Answer 34

A scepcis about freedom

Question 35

What was De Maistre’s opinion of freedom?

Answer 35

He was it as overrated and politically extremely dangerous, because man is by its nature violent

Question 36

What did De Maistre think we should ask for instead of freedom?

Answer 36

The opportunity to obey

Question 37

De Maistre had an extensive lists of groups which he wished to see executed. What did all these groups share?

Answer 37

The belief that nature is harmonious, and that it is comprehensible

Question 38

How does De Maistre demonstrate that reality is in fact incomprehensible?

Answer 38

He comes up with things ‘too idiotic to be true’:
1. Kings can be idiotic, yet everywhere we look, the world is governed by Kings
2. Christianity is so absurd, that it must be true