3. The French Revolution Stage 3
1795-1799: A Republic without Leadership—
Enter Napoleon
4. New Constitution of Year III & The Directory
• August 22, 1795: Citizens vote to approve newest constitution
• Created a Directory of 5 citizens
• Created a legislature of 2 houses (Bicameral Legislature)
• Directory members did not trust democracy
• Indiscriminate killings continued though in smaller numbers and mostly
against groups who had participated in revolts in the provinces
5. Military Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte
• 1793, Captured Toulon from Royalists and the British and promoted
from Captain to Brigadier General at 24
• Rebuffed an uprising against the Directory (group of 5 men that
replaced the Committee of Public Safety)
• Marched into Italy and defeated Austrians, forcing them to withdraw.
• Attacked British forces in Egypt. Escaped from British by leaving his
army surrounded.
6. Coup d’etat
• Abbe Sieyes (“What is the 3rd Estate”) conspired with Napoleon to
replace the Directory.
• Napoleon becomes “temporary consul” on 9 November 1799.
• “confidence from below, authority from above”
• Napoleon rose to lead the French army through merit. In pre-
revolutionary France he would have had to purchase his rank.
• Napoleon was able to rise on his own merits—making him a son of
the Revolution.
• Napoleon was unwilling to wait for the democratic process.
• First Consul
• Second Constitution
• White male suffrage for literate men
• Indirect elections
• 1802 Consul for Life ratified by Plebiscite
• Centralized authority
7. “The Revolution is Over”
• December 15, 1799
• French citizens vote to adopt another constitution
• This constitution is not preceded by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
the Citizen
• New Preface:
• “Citoyens, la Revolution est fixee aux principes qui Pont
commences: elle est finie”
• “Citizens, the Revolution is established upon its
founding principles: the Revolution is over”
9. Domestic Reforms Under Napoleon
• Napoleonic Code
• Affirmed “natural authority” of husband over wife
• Married women required husband’s permission to sell property, own a business or enter
a profession
• Unequal divorce: men- adultery of wife. Women: only if a man moved his mistress into
the family home.
• No paternity suits to establish male parentage of illegitimate children
• Criminal Code
• Citizens are equal before the law
• Outlawed arbitrary arrest and imprisonment (required independent determination of
reasons for arrest)
• Abolished cruel punishments like branding and cutting off hands
• Educational Reform
• Established “lycees” (high schools) in every major town.
• Institute of France
• Military Academy
• Teacher Education
10. Concordat with Pope
• 1801
• Pope had right to appoint and depose Bishops and discipline French clergy
• Pope would forego claims to French land once owned by church and seized
during French Revolution
• Did not revoke principle of religious freedom
• Did ease worries of religious conservatives whose support Napoleon needed
to remain in power
11. Emperor Napoleon I
• 2 December 1804 Napoleon crowns himself Emperor at the
Cathedral of Notre Dame.
12. Napoleonic Wars
• 1805 Russians, Prussians, Austrians, Swedes and British allied to contain
France.
• Napoleon’s military advantages
• Conscript army
• Revolutionary Militias
• Promotions based on talent and merit not birth or patronage
• Domestic economy geared to support of military
• Battle of Austerlitz 5 December 1805
• Napoleon defeats combined forces of Austria and Russia
• Rules the continent from Portugal to Russia
• Allies and client states
• Rome, Papal states, Confederation of the Rhine (principalities in Germany and part of
Poland); Dalmatian territories (Croatia)
• Spain, Naples, Holland: Napoleon’s brother, brother-in-law and general installed as
monarchs.
14. Consequences of Empire
• Brought the practical consequences of French Revolution to Europe
• Powerful, centralizing state and an end to old systems of privilege
• Changed terms of government service: merit vs. patronage or birth
• Ended nobility monopoly on officer corps
• State sponsored military
• Training
• Support beyond pay (food, clothing, armaments)
• Defense taxes “liberty and requisitions”
• Universal conscription
• Elimination of feudal and clerical courts
• State support for education on a broad scale
15. Continental System: Beginning of Napoleon’s Fall
• 1806 Napoleon sought to starve the British into submission by and
embargo on continental trade in British goods
• 1807 British Navy blockades the continent
• Continental trade was hurt more than British trade
• WHY?
• British global colonies
• Trade with South America
16. Napoleon Dreams of Rome
• Napoleon’s ambition
• Recreate Roman empire
• Rule Rome from Paris
• Divorces Josephine
• Marries Marie Louse (great niece of Marie Antoinette)
• Loses support of former revolutionaries in France, enlightenment thinkers on the continent,
and liberals at home and abroad
17. New Militaries Emerge
• Prussia
• Demand for rigorous practical training
• Citizen army– no mercenaries
• Support from State
• Effect of Napoleon’s defeats on allies
• Defeat at Trafalgar 1805 led to rift with Spain
• Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808
• Peninsular Wars
• British and Spanish insurgents
• French atrocities
19. Invasion of Russia 1811
• Tsar Alexander I turned blind eye to Russian trading with Britain
• Napoleon collected “Grande Armee” of 600,000 soldiers to invade
Russia
• Russian army was outnumbered and withdrew deep into interior of
Russia, burning land which Napoleon’s army might use
• Russian partisans burned Moscow rather than allow it to be conquered
by Napoleon.
• Insurgent strikes on sick and demoralized army of France
• By December 1812 French army had dwindled to a few thousand
20. Last Battles
• Battle of Nations, Leipzig October 1813
• Austrians, Russians, Swedes and Prussians defeat Napoleon
• March 31 Tsar Alexander & King Frederick William III of
Prussia marched into Paris
• Napoleon sent to exile on Elba
21. Brief Return, Final Defeat
• Victorious Allies restore a Bourbon King to throne of France, Louis XVIII
(brother of Louis XVI)
• Napoleon escaped from Elba and Louis XVIII flees France.
• Allies meeting at Congress of Vienna hastily organize and army against
Napoleon.
• Battle of Waterloo June 15-18, 1815
• Napoleon defeated by Britain and Prussia
• Exiled to Saint Helena and died in 1821
22. Haitian Revolution
• Caribbean Islands & French sugar plantations
• Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint-Domingue
• Intense competition with British and Spanish
• Saint-Domingue
• 40,000 whites of different social classes
• 30,000 free people of color
• 500,000 slaves
• 1790 Delegation of Free People of Color to Paris asking to be seated in the
General Assembly.
• Refusal to seat delegation caused unrest in Saint-Domingue
• Vincent Oge` and other leaders of delegation
• Broken on the wheel and decapitated
• August 1791 Largest slave rebellion in History?
• Spanish and British poised to take over the island
• French promised citizenship to Free People of Color and freedom to slaves
23. Toussaint L’Ouverture
• Leader of indigenous forces for independence
• Defeated French planters in 1797
• British 1798
• Spanish 1801
• Haitian Constitution
• Abolished slavery
• Established Christianity
• Toussaint –governor for life
• Allegiance to France but French cannot interfere in Haiti internal affairs
• 1802 Toussaint captured
• 20,000 French troops
• Yellow Fever
• Insurgency
• Atrocities
• French troops recalled in 1803
• Jean-Jacques Dessalines declares independent state of Haiti in 1804
25. What Did the French Revolution
Mean?
Observations
26. Representative Government or Authoritarian
Government
• Revolutionary Situation occurs when the existing government has
lost authority and legitimacy in the eyes of the people
• In a Revolutionary Situation, more than one authority has legitimacy
and multiple authorities refuse to share power
• A Revolutionary Situation continues until one authority reestablishes
power over the other authorities or multiple authorities agree to
share power
• How does a Representative Government establish power?
• Force?
• Collaboration and compromise between competing interests?
• Authoritarian Government establish power?
• Force
• Repressing dissent
27. A Different Model of Government
• Whether representative government or authoritarian government
controlled
• No monarchy
• No hereditary rule
• Church not necessary for legitimacy
• The French Revolution brought new forms of government to Europe
28. Destruction of the Ancien Regime
• The French Revolution not only rejected hereditary monarchy
• The French Revolution violently overthrew feudal structure of France
• Taxation no longer based on birth but on income
• Creation and Extension of new civil rights (with exclusions)
• Careers in military and government—opened to talent not ability to pay
• Single set of laws applied to all: Napoleonic Code
• Increase in size and influence of Bourgeoisie through purchase of Church
property
• France as militantly secular
• A Revolutionary Tradition
• Belief that revolution is a means for bringing about progressive change and
extension of popular sovereignty
• Gave people a sense that their participation mattered and that they could
change their government
• Liberty, Equality and Fraternity
29. Questions to Consider
• Given the violence of the French Revolution and the disruption to
France, was the revolution worth it?
• Costs and benefits: what were they?
• Is violence the nature of a Revolution?
• Is authoritarian rule necessary following a revolution to restore order
to society?
