12.2: Events of the Early Revolution

Louis XVI called an Assembly of Notables, consisting of the most powerful noblemen in France who outright refused to grant new revenues to the crown. Next, Louis reluctantly agreed to revive France's ancient representative assembly, the Estates General. For the first time in the history of French absolutism, a king was required to formally negotiate with his subjects simply to stave off bankruptcy.

Like the British parliament, the Estates General served as a venue for the French king to raise money, almost always in the service of war. The Estates General contained representatives from the Three Estates - clergy, nobility, and everyone else. In return for tax revenue, the French king would make bargains and promises. The Estates General had not met since 1614. Thus, no living French person had any experience of what to expect.

The spring of 1789 witnessed a surprisingly democratic election, with the majority of the male population voting for delegates to the Estates General. Before the estates met, many voters and their representatives drew up lists of grievances demanding relief from unfair financial burdens imposed by the nobility, better representation of townsfolk and peasants, and royal intervention on behalf of the people of France, among other things. At the same, the price of bread skyrocketed as a result of very poor harvests in 1787 and 1788. There was widespread fear of outright famine. As members of the Third Estate drew up their lists of grievances, rumors spread that nobles and wealthy merchants were hoarding grain to drive up prices.

In the past, the Estates General had consisted of three separate groups:

• clergy (the First Estate)
• the nobility (the Second Estate)
• prosperous townsfolk (the Third Estate).

Voting was done by the estate, not by proportional representation. Generally, the first and second estates joined together to outvote the third. Thus, a small minority of the population (nobles and clerics) could always outvote the majority of the population (townfolk). Political stability was jeopardized because French society had changed enormously since the last meeting of the Estates General. Many of the Third Estate thought of themselves as the representatives of France itself, since the immense majority of the population consisted of commoners and laypeople. If the king allowed voting to follow the number of representatives, the Third Estate would have a clear majority. Or he could insist on the old model in which the clergy and nobility dominated.

Figure 12.2.1: The cover of What Is The Third Estate?, a highly influential pamphlet written by a liberal clergyman, the Abbe Abbé Sieyès, in the lead-up to the meeting of the Estates General. His argument: the Third Estate was “everything,” representing the nation of France as a whole.

After weeks of contemplation, the king confirmed that voting would be by estate in June of 1789. This action prompted a spontaneous, peaceful act of defiance on the part of the Third Estate, joined by some sympathetic nobles and priests. First, they declared themselves to be representatives of France itself as a whole. In other words, they were the “National Assembly”, in whom the will of the French people would be expressed. On the morning of June 20, this group discovered their meeting hall was locked (by accident, as it turned out, although they feared royal interference). So, they occupied the tennis court of Versailles and pledged not to leave until they had drafted a constitution and the king had accepted it. This meeting became known as the Tennis Court Oath, and marks the start of the French Revolution.

Figure 12.2.2: The greatest painter of the revolutionary era, Jacques-Louis David, captured the moment in which the Tennis Court Oath was declared. Note the Catholic priest, Protestant minister, and agnostic “freethinker” embracing in the front of the crowd. Religious divisions were to be laid aside in the name of national unity.

The King was unsure of how to proceed. A few days later, he addressed representatives of all three estates, promising reform. When faced with continued defiance, he ordered the representatives of all three estates to join together in the National Assembly. However, as the crucial weeks of late June and early July unfolded, a faction of conservative nobles and the queen tried to persuade Louis to use force to eliminate what they correctly perceived to be a fundamental challenge to royal authority, and he cautiously moved forward with a plan to summon troops to watch over the proceedings.

In Paris, about twenty miles away, rumors spread that the king was going to crush the new National Assembly with force. As a result, on July 12, crowds took to the streets. On the 14th, a crowd searching for weapons overwhelmed the Bastille, a royal prison and arsenal, and murdered its guards. Soon, royal troops started abandoning their posts and joining the rebels. (This event remains the national holiday of the French Republic to this day, commemorated as Bastille Day.) On July 16, the war minister advised the king that the army could no longer be relied upon. The king accepted the appointment of a liberal nobleman, Lafayette, as commander of a new "National Guard" and, reluctantly, committed to working with the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, rioting had spread to the countryside as peasants, learning of the developments in Versailles and Paris, sought to feed themselves and lash out against the nobility who, they thought, were driving them into destitution. Rumors spread that nobles were hoarding stores of grain, driving up prices, and starving the peasants into submission. The resulting “Great Fear,” saw peasants attacking and looting noble manors. Their main target was the debt ledgers, which the peasants gleefully burned. (Thereby, erasing the peasants' debts entirely since there was no such thing as a "backup copy" in 1789).

With anarchy occurring in the countryside, the National Assembly needed to do something dramatic to maintain control of the situation. On August 4, 1789, it voted to end feudal privilege (the landlords' rights to coerce labor and fees of various kinds from the peasantry). On August 14, the selling of offices was abolished. On August 26, a Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was issued, partially modeled on the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights. In October, the Assembly seized church lands and property, selling them at auction to fund the Revolutionary state. Finally, in early 1790, it abolished noble titles altogether.

The abolition of privilege meant that government should treat people as individual citizens rather than as members of social classes, especially in the matter of taxation and law. People differed quantitatively in the amount of wealth owned, but not qualitatively according to social rank or estate. In a shockingly short amount of time, the French state was forced to accept that legitimate power belongs to the nation as a whole, not to the king, and that every citizen should be equal before the law. The Revolutionaries summarized their ideals with the motto of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” - to this day, the official credo of the French state.