AP European History/Neiffer

Reading Guide:
Chapter 18: The French Revolution!

The Crisis of the French Monarchy

The Monarchy Seeks New Taxes
• What caused French debt during this time?
• Why was taxation such a contentious issue between the Monarchy and the Nobility?
• Rene Mauperou
• How did the personal reputations of Louis XV and Marie Antoinette impact the taxation issue?

Necker's Report
• Jacques Necker
• What did the Necker report blame France's debt on?

Calonne's Reform Plan and the Assembly of Notables

• Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802)
• What was Calonne's plan for reform?
• Assembly of Notables

Deadlock and the Calling of the Estates General

• Calonne fired!
• Estates General called

The Revolution of 1789

The Estates General Becomes the National Assembly
• The First Estate
• The Second Estate
• The Third Estate
• “What is the Third Estate?” - Abby Sieyes
• Voting issues
• What is the Third Estate doubled? What impact did that have?
• Cahiers de Doleances
• Declaration of the National Assembly
• The Tennis Court Oath Louis XVI likes watches...
and that's about it.
Fall of the Bastille
• The Bastille Prison
• bread prices

The Great Fear and the Night of August 4

• Why so serious, France?

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

• Why was the Declaration issued?
• What did the Declaration promise?
• How did its application to men only impact the debate?

The Parisian Women's March on Versailles

• Why did women March to Versailles?

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 • What was the response?

The Reconstruction of France

Political Reorganization
• What did the new government look like?
• Active vs. passive citizens
• Olympe de Gourges's - “Declaration of the Rights of Women”
• departments

Economic Policy
• Chapelier Law
• Confiscation of Church Lands
• Assignats

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy

• What changes dud the National Assembly make to religious policy in France?
• Civil Constitution of the Clergy
• What was the impact of the Civil Constitution?
• What was the reaction from French citizens?

Counterrevolutionary Activity
• emigres
• Louis XIV escapes!
• Declaration of Pillnitz

The End of the Monarchy: A Second Revolution

National Assembly → Legislative Assembly

Emergence of the Jacobins

• What did Jacobins believe?
• Girondists
• Declaration of war on Austria
• Right to bear arms submitted

The Convention and the Role of the Sans-Culottes

• The September Massacres
• The National Convention
• sans-coulottes
• The Mountain
• Execution of Louis XIV

Hard to imagine why the

Europe at War with the Revolution guys didn't want to wear
Edmund Burke Attacks the Revolution these AWESOME pants...
• Reflections on the Revolution in France
• The Rights of Man – Thomas Paine

Suppression of Reform in Britain

• William Pitt the Younger
• What actions did Pitt take to stop criticism of his government?

The Second and Third Partitions of Poland 1783, 1795

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The Reign of Terror
War with Europe
• What was the status of the French war during this time?
• What was the response by those interested in protection the revolution?

The Republic Defended

• Committee of Public Safety
• Levee en Masse
• mass executions

The “Republic of Virtue” and Robespierre's Justification of Terror

• Maximilien de Robespierre
• What defense did Robespierre give for terror?

Repression of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women

De-Christianization
• New calendar
• The Temple of Reason

Revolutionary Tribunals
• Marie Antoinette

The End of the Terror

• Jacques Danton
• Cult of the Supreme Being
• Execution of Robespierre

The Thermidorian Reaction

9 Thermidore

Establishment of the Directory

Remobal of the Sans-Culottes from Political Life

Review Questions
1. Why has France been called a rich nation with an impoverished government? How did the financial
weaknesses of the French monarchy lay the foundations of the revolution of 1789? 2. What were Louis XVI’s
most serious mistakes during the French Revolution? Had he been a more able ruler, could the French
Revolution have been avoided or a constitutional monarchy could have succeeded? Did the revolution
ultimately have little to do with the competence of the monarch? 3. How was the Estates General
transformed into the National Assembly? How does the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen reflect the
social and political values of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment? How were France and its government
reorganized in the early years of the revolution? Why has the Civil Constitution of the Clergy been called the
greatest blunder of the National Assembly? 4. Why were some political factions dissatisfied with the
constitutional settlement of 1791? What was the revolution of 1792 and why did it occur? Who were the sans-
culottes, and how did they become a factor in the politics of the period? How influential were they during the
Terror in particular? Why did the sans-culottes and the Jacobins cooperate at first? Why did that cooperation
end? 5. Why did France go to war with Austria in 1792? What were the benefits and drawbacks for France of
fighting an external war in the midst of a domestic political revolution? 6. What were the causes of the

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Terror? How did the rest of Europe react to the French Revolution and the Terror? How did events in France
influence the last two partitions of Poland? 7. A motto of the French Revolution was “equality, liberty, and
fraternity.” How did the revolution both support and violate this motto? Did French women benefit from the
revolution? Did French peasants benefit from it?

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