How Do We Think About the French Revolution?

• How did the French Jacobins use state power to achieve revolutionary goals during the Terror (1793-1794)?

– What were their goals?– Why did extraordinary state power seem

critical to attaining these goals?

Issues: Whose Tyranny is Worse?

• Moderates: Girondins, Feuillants—fear tyranny of mob, crowds, people– Must do what can to preserve order, even if it

means compromise with King

• Radicals: Jacobins, The Paris Commune—fear tyranny of the state, monarchy, emigres– Must do what can to keep them from ending

revolution

The Terror in The French Revolution: Contrasting Images

The Terror as Desperate Measure to deal with Crisis

• During Terror:– Universal Manhood

Suffrage (women’s clubs)– Radical Constitution of

1793– Abolished Serfdom– Abolished Slavery– Attempted Land Reform

• But:– At war with most of Europe– In serious civil war with

uprisings in the Vendée, major cities (Caen, Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon)

Key Problem: Sovereignty

• Who are the sovereign people and how do they exercise sovereignty?

• Why had they not resolved the question between 1789 and1793?

First Hint at Potential of Popular Violence

• Key Questions:

– How much would popular violence influence rational political debate?

– --Violence—Whose Violence?

– Is popular sovereignty possible?

– How do you incorporate working class Parisians, peasants, and women into the polity? Do you want to? Why? Why not?

Flight to Varennes Changes Everything

Clubs and Press Explode

Girondins

Jacobin Club

Champs de Mars Massacre, July 17, 1791

Louis XVI Accepts Constitution, September 13, 1791

France Declares War on Austria, April 20, 1792

August 10, 1792 – Attack on King in Tuileries

September Massacres (September 2-6, 1792)

Princesse de Lamballe Attacked

The Terror as Genocide/Totalitarianism

• 250,000 Insurgents killed in Vendée Fighting Alone -15% population– But 200,000 Revolutionary

troops killed too• Victims of Vendée describe

the Terror as a Genocide of the Catholic Western France

• Probably 40,000 officially executed in all of France

• Others described coercion, the Jacobin Dictatorship, the price controls, and levée en masse (universal draft of all citizens) an example of early Totalitarianism • Drowning Prisoners – The Vendée

Valmy (September 22, 1792)