Midterm 1

Question 1

Absolutist monarchy (as opposed to aristocratic monarchy)

Answer 1

The concentration of power–socio-political, military and religious–in the hands of a monarch, with no countervailing restraints (no separate judicial authority, written constitution, civil society, or checks and balances in the form of a parliament, senate, etc.)

The kings will determines all

Question 2

Divine Right of Kings (Bishop Bossuet)

Answer 2

One King / One God / One State
Theory that kings ruled through Divine Right

Question 2

Louis XIV, the Sun King (“I am the state”)

Answer 2

This idea was to convey the absolute power that Louis XIV (theoretically) held

Louis XIV being the founder of Absolutism

Question 2

Lisbon Earthquake (1755)

Answer 2

A massive earthquake that destroyed Lisbon which was followed by a Tsunami on “All Saints Day”. This caused people to start questioning the religion.

Question 2

Disenchantment of Universe (examples, in context of Scientific Revolution)

Answer 2

Move from Mythicism to Science

Examples, in context of scientific revoltuions:
- Galileo : Planets Rotate around sun
- Newton : Universal Law of Gravity
- Bacon: Scientific Method

Question 2

Empiricism / Locke’s blank slate / tabula rasa

Answer 2

Human mind is a Blank Slate at birth awaiting sensory input, no innate knowledge; learn through experience, trial and error.

Question 3

Republic of Letters

Answer 3

The Republic of Letters was the long-distance intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas. It fostered communication among the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment, or philosophes as they were called in France.

Question 3

Deism

Answer 3

Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe according to rational rules of nature but does not intervene in its daily functions.

“Clock-maker God”

Question 3

Encyclopedia

Answer 3

Also called universal dictionary of the arts, sciences and crafts, by a company of Men of Letters.

It was made to contain almost the entirety of the knowledge known to man with the goal “To change the common way of thinking”/ enlighten the people to an early version of google.

Question 3

Kant’s answer to question, “What is Enlightenment?”

Answer 3

Enlightenment is humanity’s departure from its self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s intellect without the guidance of others.

Question 3

Salonnière Royal v. public sphere (ex: C17th Royal Academy v. Enlightenment salons)

Answer 3

One was closed off to those without royal title and only contained those in relations to the absolutist power. While the other one was open to public intellectuals with no titles to discuss away from the Royal censorship.

Question 3

Philosophe

Answer 3

intellectuals who applied reason to the study of many areas of learning, including philosophy, history, science, politics, economics and social issues.

Question 4

The Enlightenment (3 key values)

Answer 4

Supremacy of Reason
Utility
Sociability

Question 5

Lettre de cachet (sealed letter)

Answer 5

A Lettre de Cachet was a secret letter written directly from the king. The point of these letters were to imprison anybody the king wanted to. Especially political opponents, he’d write a letter send it out and the person in which it addressed would be sent off to the Bastille

Question 5

Calas Affair

Answer 5

Calas family found their son dead to suicide, they tried to make it look like a murder so he’d be buried in sacred grounds. Calas was arrested and charged with having murdered his son to prevent or punish his conversion to Catholicism since they were protestant. He was immediately sentenced to be tortured to death infront of masses.

Symbol of Anti-Absolutists cause

Question 5

Voltaire, “Treaty on Tolerance” (1763)

Answer 5

“Tyranny over Souls” and “The right to Offend”

Advocated religious freedoms through europe
Protests “Tryanny over Souls”

Question 5

Enlightened absolutism

Answer 5

Top-Down process, trickle-down enlightenment, don’t trust illiterate majority with power. So enlighten the absolutist monarch in power to make him more fair and just.

Question 6

Rousseau on Civic Virtue

Answer 6

morality or a standard of righteous behavior in relationship to a citizen’s involvement in society / citizen virtue is a necessary condition for the emergence of the general will in the first place

Question 6

Marie-Antoinette

Answer 6

Teenage Austrian Arch-Duchess who becomes Queen of France
Distrusted as “The Austrian Woman”
Very unpopular

Question 6

Neo-Classicism (e.g. David’s Oath of the Horatii)

Answer 6

Neoclassicism in the arts is an aesthetic attitude based on the art of Greece and Rome in antiquity, which invokes harmony, clarity, restraint, universality, and idealism.

Question 7

David’s Oath of the Horatii

Answer 7

The painting, exhibited in 1785, depicts the Horatii brothers taking an oath to fight for Rome. David’s work highlights Enlightenment ideas, with strong, angular male figures and passive, curvilinear women.

Question 7

Leading Philosophes

Answer 7

Voltaire
Diderot
Rousseau
Montesquieu
Condorcet

Question 8

King Louis XVI

Answer 8

Crowned King Louis XVI in 1786
Wasn’t meant to be king previous heirs died
Very Dutiful and really did try to improve things

Question 9

Constitutional Monarchy Replaces Absolutism

Answer 9

Liberal/Moderate/Voltairean Revolution (1789-1791)

Question 10

Tennis Court Oath

Answer 10

frustrated by attempts to reform EG voting system, Third Estate representatives (mostly bourgeois lawyers, merchants and bureaucrats) vow to write new constitution, declare themselves National Assembly

Question 11

Storming of the Bastille

Answer 11

Parisian Crowd (many sans-Cullotes) invade the royal fortress/prison/armory, liberate handful of prisoner, seize weapons when some royal troops switch sides; new militia (National Guard) is formed

Question 12

Great Fear

Answer 12

Peasants attack symbols of feudalism in countryside

Question 13

March to Versailles

Answer 13

Paris market-women assert their traditional bread-based relationship with their "Good Father" Louis; force royal family to relocate to Paris

Question 14

Royal Family's flight to Varennes

Answer 14

Attempt to escape Paris, they are arrested, surge in republicanism, constitutional monarchy doomed

Question 15

Key legacies of moderate revolution

Answer 15

1. abolition of feudalism/society of orders 2. Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (universal, natural rights) 3. church property nationalized, priests became civil servants, controversial loyalty oath to state (over Rome), divorce granted and secularized 4. constitutional monarchy, limited male suffrage

Question 16

Radicalization of the revolution was triggered by:

Answer 16

Kings betrayal at Varennes Outbreak of war abroad and counter-revolution at home

Question 17

Counter-Revolutionaries

Answer 17

Peasant/Priest/Noble alliance mainly in the provinces

Question 18

From Fall 1792: First Republic officially declared, inspired by Rousseau’s idea of a social contract formed b/t equal citizens with the same rights and duties; in early 1793, Louis XVI (now just “citizen Louis Capet”) is executed for treason. In response to mounting crises, the republican constitution is suspended, revolutionary government declared “until the peace,” and the 12-member Committee of Public Safety created to rule by decree during state of emergency.

Answer 18

Radical/Rousseauian Phase of the Revolution (1792-94): From Monarchy to Republic

Question 19

Jacobin Strategy (engineered by Robespierre)

Answer 19

Expand Soc/Pol Rec into cultural rev Inculcate Civic Virture in Citizens Unleash Terror against "internal enemies" Push "Over-excitable" women into domestic sphere in line with Rousseauian Gender Norms

Question 20

Revolutionary Radical inventions

Answer 20

Revolutionary calendar, Levee en mass/mass conscription, liberty trees, 10 hour clock/days

Question 21

How did the reign of terror end?

Answer 21

Coup d'etat overthrows Robespierre and radical Jacobins, ends Terror; during Thermidorian Reaction

Question 22

Festival of Supreme Being

Answer 22

Deist Cult of Civic Religion

Question 23

The Directory (1795-1799)

Answer 23

to avoid concentration of power that facilitated Terror, new constitution inserts (too many!) checks and balances: an upper and lower legislature, as well as FIVE executives (Directors). Result: gridlock, corruption, extreme inequalities, far left and far right gain traction.

Question 24

The Consulate (1799-1804

Answer 24

- Sieyès masterminds Brumaire coup d’état to replace gridlocked Directory with Consulate (modeled on ancient Rome); recruits ambitious, charismatic General Napoleon Bonaparte as one of three Consuls - Bonaparte soon outmaneuvers Sieyès, declares himself First Consul, then Consul-for-Life, then eventually…. EMPEROR!