After The Revolution

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In 1789, the most populous French colonies were Saint-Domingue (today Haiti), Martinique, Guadeloupe, the Île Bourbon (Réunion) and the Îlede la France. These colonies produced commodities such as sugar, coffee and cotton for exclusive export to France. There were about 700,000 slaves in the colonies, of which about 500,000 were in Saint-Domingue. Colonial products accounted for about a third of France's exports. [191] By February 1795, France had annexed the Austrian Netherlands, established their frontier on the left bank of the Rhine and replaced the Dutch Republic with the Batavian Republic, a satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the anti-French coalition; Prussia made peace in April 1795, followed soon after by Spain, leaving Britain and Austria as the only major powers still in the war. [188] In October 1797, a series of defeats by Bonaparte in Italy led Austria to agree to the Treaty of Campo Formio, in which they formally ceded the Netherlands and recognised the Cisalpine Republic. [189] In early 1793, royalist planters from Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue formed an alliance with Britain. The Spanish supported insurgent slaves, led by Jean-François Papillon and Georges Biassou, in the north of Saint-Domingue. White planters loyal to the republic sent representatives to Paris to convince the Jacobin controlled Convention that those calling for the abolition of slavery were British agents and supporters of Brissot, hoping to disrupt trade. [199] The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarising politics for more than a century. Historian François Aulard wrote:

public Wi-Fi - this extends to the majority of our public spaces including the Reading Rooms, as well as our study desks and galleries at St Pancras (you won't require a login) In their 1965 work, La Revolution française, François Furet and Denis Richet also argued for the primacy of political decisions, contrasting the reformist period of 1789 to 1790 with the following interventions of the urban masses which led to radicalisation and an ungovernable situation. [279] In May 1791, the National Assembly granted full political rights to coloureds born of two free parents, but left the rights of freed slaves to be determined by the colonial assemblies. The assemblies refused to implement the decree and fighting broke out between the coloured population of Saint-Domingue and white colonists, each side recruiting slaves to their forces. A major slave revolt followed in August. [196]Adopted on September 3, 1791, France’s first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices in the Assembly, establishing a constitutional monarchy in which the king enjoyed royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers. This compromise did not sit well with influential radicals like Maximilien de Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins and Georges Danton, who began drumming up popular support for a more republican form of government and for the trial of Louis XVI. French Revolution Turns Radical

The role of ideology in the Revolution is controversial with Jonathan Israel stating that the "radical Enlightenment" was the primary driving force of the Revolution. [160] Cobban, however, argues "[t]he actions of the revolutionaries were most often prescribed by the need to find practical solutions to immediate problems, using the resources at hand, not by pre-conceived theories." [161] Historians often see the impact of the Revolution as through the institutions and ideas exported by Napoleon. Economic historians Dan Bogart, Mauricio Drelichman, Oscar Gelderblom, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal describe Napoleon's codified law as the French Revolution's "most significant export." [244] According to Daron Acemoglu, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson the French Revolution had long-term effects in Europe. They suggest that "areas that were occupied by the French and that underwent radical institutional reform experienced more rapid urbanization and economic growth, especially after 1850. There is no evidence of a negative effect of French invasion." [245] The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government. The Revolution initiated a series of conflicts that began in 1792 and ended only with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815. In its early stages, this seemed unlikely; the 1791 Constitution specifically disavowed "war for the purpose of conquest", and although traditional tensions between France and Austria re-emerged in the 1780s, Emperor Joseph II cautiously welcomed the reforms. Austria was at war with the Ottomans, as were the Russians, while both were negotiating with Prussia over partitioning Poland. Most importantly, Britain preferred peace, and as Emperor Leopold II stated after the Declaration of Pillnitz, "without England, there is no case". [181]Soon, large protests by Russian workers against the monarchy led to the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905. Hundreds of unarmed protesters were killed or wounded by the czar’s troops. Olympe de Gouges was an author whose publications emphasised that while women and men were different, this should not prevent equality under the law. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen she insisted women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. [223] [ full citation needed] Along with other Girondists, she was executed in November 1793 during the Terror. Popery' meant more than just a fear or hatred of Catholics and the Catholic church. It reflected a widely-held belief in an elaborate conspiracy theory, that Catholics were actively plotting the overthrow of church and state. The provisional government had been assembled by a group of leaders from Russia’s bourgeois capitalist class. Lenin instead called for a Soviet government that would be ruled directly by councils of soldiers, peasants and workers.

With Royalists apparently on the verge of power, Republicans attempted a pre-emptive coup on 4 September. Using troops from Napoleon's Army of Italy under Pierre Augereau, the Council of 500 was forced to approve the arrest of Barthélemy, Pichegru and Carnot. The elections were annulled, sixty-three leading Royalists deported to French Guiana, and new laws passed against émigrés, Royalists and ultra-Jacobins. The removal of his conservative opponents opened the way for direct conflict between Barras, and those on the left. [155]This is the type of novel where nudist cyborg super-soldiers ride robot horses into battle against bloodthirsty theocrats. Stuff blows up. More stuff blows up. Dudes kill other dudes and then even more chaos ensues. The action all works. Other authors have spilled a lot of ink over America’s internal contradictions, but After the Revolution is unique in its gusto." Centrists led by Sieyès, Lafayette, Mirabeau and Bailly created a majority by forging consensus with monarchiens like Mounier, and independents including Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth. At one end of the political spectrum, reactionaries like Cazalès and Maury denounced the Revolution in all its forms, with radicals like Maximilien Robespierre at the other. He and Jean-Paul Marat opposed the criteria for 'active citizens', gaining them substantial support among the Parisian proletariat, many of whom had been disenfranchised by the measure. [80] In September 1788, the parlement of Paris ruled that the Estates-General should convene in the same form as in 1614, meaning that the three estates (the clergy, nobility and Third Estate or "commons") would meet and vote separately and votes would be counted by estate rather than by head. As a result, the clergy and nobility could combine to outvote the Third Estate despite representing less than 5% of the population. [29] [30] Deprived of political rights by the Ancien Régime, the Revolution initially allowed women to participate, although only to a limited degree. Activists included Girondists like Olympe de Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, and Charlotte Corday, killer of Marat. Others like Théroigne de Méricourt, Pauline Léon and the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women supported the Jacobins, staged demonstrations in the National Assembly and took part in the October 1789 March to Versailles. Despite this, the 1791 and 1793 constitutions denied them political rights and democratic citizenship. [218] The Constitution of Norway of 1814 was inspired by the French Revolution, [257] and was considered to be one of the most liberal and democratic constitutions at the time. [258] North America

On 10 October, the Convention recognised the Committee of Public Safety as the supreme Revolutionary Government, and suspended the Constitution until peace was achieved. [114] In mid-October, Marie Antoinette was convicted of a long list of crimes, and guillotined; two weeks later, the Girondist leaders arrested in June were also executed, along with Philippe Égalité. The "Terror" was not confined to Paris, with over 2,000 killed in Lyons after its recapture. [121] Georges Danton; Robespierre's close friend and Montagnard leader, executed 5 April 1794 Russia entered into World War I in August 1914 in support of the Serbs and their French and British allies. Their involvement in the war would soon prove disastrous for the Russian Empire.Although intended to bolster revolutionary fervour, the Reign of Terror rapidly degenerated into the settlement of personal grievances. At the end of July, the Convention set price controls on a wide range of goods, with the death penalty for hoarders. On 9 September, 'revolutionary groups' were established to enforce these controls, while the Law of Suspects on 17th approved the arrest of suspected "enemies of freedom". This initiated what has become known as the "Terror". From September 1793 to July 1794, around 300,000 were arrested, [118] with some 16,600 people executed on charges of counter-revolutionary activity, while another 40,000 may have been summarily executed, or died awaiting trial. [119] A population boom at the end of the 19th century, a harsh growing season due to Russia’s northern climate, and a series of costly wars—starting with the Crimean War—created frequent food shortages across the vast empire. Moreover, a famine in 1891-1892 is estimated to have killed up to 400,000 Russians. The final betrayal came on the king’s return to his capital on the 26 November when he discovered that his daughter, Princess Anne had also absconded to join the Orangist side. The desertions continued, with the defection of John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, and James’ son-in-law, the Prince of Denmark on 24 November. The Kingdom of Denmark adopted liberalising reforms in line with those of the French Revolution. Reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders. Much of the initiative came from well-organised liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century. [256]