Revolution and Napoleon (17891815)

The French Revolution

Main article: French Revolution

The Tennis Court Oath of 20 June 1789 was a pivotal event during the first days of the Revolution. It signified the
first time that French citizens formally stood in opposition to Louis XVI.

The Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789.
The immediate trigger for the Revolution was Louis XVI's attempts to solve the
government's worsening financial situation. When Louis XV died in 1774 he left his grandson
Louis XVI, "A heavy legacy, with ruined finances, unhappy subjects, and a faulty and
incompetent government." Regardless, "the people, meanwhile, still had confidence in royalty,
and the accession of Louis XVI was welcomed with enthusiasm."
[46]

Recent wars, especially the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) and the American
Revolutionary War (1775-1783) had effectively bankrupted the state. The taxation system was
highly inefficient. Several years of bad harvests and an inadequate transportation system had
caused rising food prices, hunger, and malnutrition; the country was further destabilized by the
lower classes' increased feeling that the royal court was isolated from, and indifferent to, their
hardships.
In February 1787 his finance minister, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, convened
an Assembly of Notables, a group of nobles, clergy, bourgeoisie, and bureaucrats selected in
order to bypass the local parliaments. This group was asked to approve a newland tax that
would, for the first time, include a tax on the property of nobles and clergy. The assembly did not
approve the tax, instead demanding that Louis XVI call the Estates-General.
In August 1788 the King agreed to convene the Estates-General in May 1789. While the
Third Estate demanded and was granted "double representation" so as to balance the First and
Second Estate, voting was to occur "by orders" votes of the Third Estate were to be weighted
effectively canceling double representation. This eventually led to the Third Estate breaking away
from the Estates-General and, joined by members of the other estates, proclaiming the creation
of the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People."
In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening,
Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des tats where the Assembly met. After finding the
door to their chamber locked and guarded, the Assembly met nearby on a tennis court and
pledged the Tennis Court Oath on 20 June 1789, binding them "never to separate, and to meet
wherever circumstances demand, until the constitution of the kingdom is established and
affirmed on solid foundations." They were joined by some sympathetic members of the Second
and First estates. After the king fired his finance minister, Jacques Necker, for giving his support
and guidance to the Third Estate, worries surfaced that the legitimacy of the newly formed
National Assembly might be threatened by royalists.
Paris was soon in a state of anarchy. It was consumed with riots and widespread looting.
Because the royal leadership essentially abandoned the city, the mobs soon had the support of
the French Guard, including arms and trained soldiers. On 14 July 1789, the insurgents set their
eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which also served
as a symbol of royal tyranny. Insurgents seized the Bastille prison, killing the governor and
several of his guards.
The French now celebrate 14 July each year as a symbol of the shift away from
the Ancien Rgime to a more modern, democratic state. Gilbert du Motier, a hero of the War of
American Independence, took command of the National Guard, and the king was forced to
recognize the Tricolour Cockade. Although peace was made, several nobles did not regard the
new order as acceptable and emigrated in order to push the neighboring, aristocratic kingdoms
to war against the new democratic regime. Because of this new period of instability, the state
was struck for several weeks in July and August 1789 by the Great Fear, a period of violent class
conflict.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was adopted by the National Assembly
in August 1789 as a first step in their effort to write a constitution. Considered to be a precursor
to modern international rights instruments and using the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a
model, it defined a set of individual rights and collective rights of all of the estates as one.
Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these rights were deemed universal and valid in all
times and places, pertaining to human nature itself. The Assembly also replaced France's
historic provinces with eighty-three departments, uniformly administered and approximately equal
to one another in extent and population.
Abolition of feudalism

The signing of the August Decrees - in bas relief,Place de la Rpublique.
On 4 August 1789, the Assembly abolished feudalism, in what became known as
the August Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate (nobility)
and the tithes gathered by the First Estate (clergy). In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy,
towns, provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges. The Assembly abolished the
symbolic paraphernalia of the Ancien Rgime armorial bearings, liveries, etc. which alienated
the more conservative nobles. Amidst these intrigues, the Assembly continued to work on
developing a constitution.
A new judicial organization made all magistracies temporary and independent of the
throne. The legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials
started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the
legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly abolished all internal trade
barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organizations. Consequently, an
individual could only gain the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license, and
worker strikes became illegal.
The Revolution brought about a massive shifting of powers from the Roman Catholic
Church to the state. Under the Ancien Rgime, the Church had been the largest landowner in the
country. Legislation enacted in 1790 abolished the Church's authority to levy a tax on crops,
cancelled special privileges for the clergy, and confiscated Church property. The Assembly
essentially addressed the financial crisis in part by having the nation take over the property of the
Church.
The republican government also enforced the Systme International
d'Units (International System of Units), commissioned by Louis XVI, which became known as
the Metric System. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb and Andr-Marie Ampre's works on electricity
and electromagnetism were also recognised, and their units are integrated into the Metric
System.
Royal family captured

An illustration of the Women's March on Versailles, 5 October 1789.
When a mob from Paris attacked the royal palace at Versailles in October 1789 seeking
redress for their severe poverty, the royal family was forced to move to the Tuileries Palace in
Paris. Later in June 1791, the royal family secretly fled Paris in disguise for Varennes near
France's northeastern border in order to seek royalist support the king believed he could trust,
but they were soon discovered en route. They were brought back to Paris, after which they were
essentially kept under house-arrest at the Tuileries.
Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The opposition to revolution sat on the
right-hand side of the Assembly. The "Royalist democrats" or monarchiens inclined toward
organizing France along lines similar to the British constitutional model. The "National Party",
representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, represented somewhat more extreme
views. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under Lafayette also slowly emerged as a
power in its own right.
With most of the Assembly still favoring a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic,
the various groupings reached a compromise. Under the Constitution of 1791, France would
function as a constitutional monarchy with Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead. The King
had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, although he still retained his royal veto
and the ability to select ministers. He had perforce to swear an oath to the constitution, and a
decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon
the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to de facto abdication.
The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791 and degenerated into chaos less
than a year later. The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (constitutional
monarchists) on the right, about 330 Girondists (liberal republicans) in the center, a vocal group
of Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with any of
those factions. Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the migrs with death and
that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated
by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, disagreements like this would
result in a constitutional crisis, leading the Revolution to higher levels.
On the foreign affairs front, in the Declaration of Pillnitz of August 1791, Holy Roman
Emperor Leopold II, Count Charles of Artois, and King Frederick William II of Prussia made Louis
XVI's cause their own. These noblemen also required the Assembly to be dissolved through
threats of war, but, instead of cowing the French, it infuriated them. The borders were militarised
as a consequence. Under the Constitution of 1791, the solution of a constitutional monarchy was
adopted, and the king supported a war against Austria in order to increase his popularity, starting
the long French Revolutionary Wars. On the night of the 10 August, the Jacobins, who had
mainly opposed the war, suspended the monarchy. With the Prussian army entering France,
more doubts were raised against the aristocracy, and these tensions climaxed during
the September Massacres.
After the first great victory of the French revolutionary troops at the Battle of Valmy on 20
September 1792, the French First Republic was proclaimed the next day, on 21 September
1792. The new French Republican Calendar was then legally enforced.
Factionalism amongst revolutionaries
The National Convention was fractured into factions, the most dangerous of which
became the Montagnards. The Montagnards and the Girondins were both originally Jacobins, a
political club which was founded according to republican beliefs and whose members wanted a
French democratic republic.
[47]
The Jacobin Club, however, encountered political tension
beginning in 1791 due to conflicting viewpoints in response to several revolutionary events and
how to best achieve a democratic republic.
[48]
Members of "The Mountain" (French: La Montagne)
sided with the Parisian militants, also known as the sans-culottes, who aimed for a more
repressive form of government that would institute a price maximum on essential consumer
goods and would punish all traitors and enemies of the Republic.
[49]

Additionally, between war and political differences, the Montagnards believed these
crises required emergency solutions.
[50]
The Montagnards considered themselves the true
patriots of the French Revolution.
[51]
The Mountain had 302 members during its reign in 1793 and
1794, including committee members and deputies who voted with the faction.
[52]
Most of its
members came from the middle class and tended to represent the Parisian population.
[53]
Its
leaders included Maximilien Robespierre, Jean-Paul Marat, and Georges Danton.
[54]
This party
eventually gained overwhelming power in the Convention and governed France during the Reign
of Terror.

Mass shootings at Nantes, War in the Vende, 1793.
Possibly the two most significant factors in the quarrel and consequential split between
the Montagnards and the Girondins include the September Massacres and the trial of Louis XVI,
both in 1792. The official fall of the monarchy came on 10 August 1792 after Louis XVI refused to
rescind his veto of the National Assembly's constitution. The Mountain argued for immediate
execution of the king by military court-martial, insisting that he was undermining the Revolution.
Because a trial would require the "presumption of innocence," such a proceeding would
contradict the mission of the National Convention. The Girondins, in contrast, agreed that the
king was guilty of treason but argued for his clemency and favored the option of exile or popular
referendum as his sentence.
[55]
However, the trial progressed and Louis XVI was executed by
guillotine on 21 January 1793.
The second key factor in the split between the Montagnards and the Girondins was the
September Massacres of 1792. Radical Parisians, members of the National Guard, and fdrs
were angry with the poor progress in the war against Austria and Prussia and the forced
enlistment of 30,000 volunteers. On 10 August, radicals went on a killing spree, slaughtering
roughly 1,300 inmates in various Paris prisons, many of whom were simply common criminals,
not the treasonous counterrevolutionaries condemned by the Mountain.
[56]
The Girondins did not
tolerate the massacres, but neither the Montagnards of the Legislative Assembly nor the Paris
Commune took any action to stop or condemn the killings. Members of the Girondins later
accused Marat, Robespierre, and Danton as inciters of the massacres in an attempt to further
their dictatorial power.
[57]

Execution of Louis XVI[edit]

The Execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793 in what is now the Place de la Concorde, facing the empty
pedestal where the statue of his grandfather,Louis XV, had stood.
When the Brunswick Manifesto of July 1792 once more threatened the French population
with Austrian (Imperial) and Prussian attacks, Louis XVI was suspected of treason and taken
along with his family from the Tuileries Palace in August 1792 by insurgents supported by a new
revolutionary Paris Commune. The King and Queen ended up prisoners, and a rump session of
the Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy. Little more than a third of the deputies were
present, almost all of them Jacobins. The King was later tried and convicted and, on 21 January
1793, was executed by the guillotine. Marie Antoinette, would follow him to the guillotine on 16
October.
What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary
Commune. When the Commune sent gangs into prisons to arbitrarily adjudicate and butcher
1400 victims, and then addressed a circular letter to the other cities of France, inviting them to
follow this example, the Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted until
a National Convention, charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and
became the new de facto government of France. The next day it abolished the monarchy and
declared a republic.
Members of the Mountain went on to establish the Committee of Public Safety in April
1793 under Robespierre, which would be responsible for The Terror (5 September 1793 28
July 1794), the bloodiest and one of the most controversial phases of the French Revolution. The
time between 1792 and 1794 was dominated by the ideology of the Mountain until the execution
of Robespierre on 28 July 1794.
The war went badly. Prices rose, the sans-culottes (poor labourers and radical Jacobins)
rioted, and counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins
to seize power through a parliamentary coup, backed up by force effected by mobilising public
support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian sans-
culottes. An alliance of Jacobin and sans-culottes elements thus became the effective centre of
the new government. Policy became considerably more radical.
The Reign of Terror
Starting in September 1793, a period known as the Reign of Terror ensued for
approximately 12 months, the bloodiest and one of the most controversial phases of the French
Revolution. The Committee of Public Safety, set up by the National Convention on 6 April 1793,
formed the twelve-member de facto executive government of France. Under war conditions and
with national survival seemingly at stake, the Montagnard Jacobins under Maximilien
Robespierre centralized denunciations, trials, and executions. At least 18,000 people met their
deaths under the guillotine or otherwise, after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities.

The execution of Robespierre, July 1794.
In 1794, Robespierre had ultra-radicals and moderate Jacobins executed. As a
consequence of these actions, however, Robespierre's own popular support eroded markedly.
On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre. The
new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror and,
after taking power, they took revenge as well by banning the Jacobin Club and executing many
of its former members including Robespierre in what was known as the White Terror.
After the stated aim of the National Convention to export revolution, the guillotining of
Louis XVI of France, and the French opening of the Scheldt, a European military coalition was
formed against France. Spain, Naples, Great Britain, and the Netherlands joined Austria and
Prussia in The First Coalition (17921797), the first major concerted effort of multiple European
powers to contain Revolutionary France. It took shape after the wars had already begun.
The Republican government in Paris was radicalised after a diplomatic coup from the
Jacobins said it would be the Guerre Totale ("total war") and called for a Leve en masse (mass
conscription of troops). Royalist invasion forces were defeated atToulon in 1793, leaving the
French republican forces in an offensive position and granting a young officer, Napoleon
Bonaparte, a certain fame. Following their victory at Fleurus, the Republicans occupied Belgium
and the Rhineland. An invasion of the Netherlands established the puppet Batavian Republic.
Finally, a peace agreement was concluded between France, Spain, and Prussia in 1795
at Basel.
Directory
The Convention approved a new "Constitution of the Year III" on 17 August 1795; it was
ratified by a national plebiscite and took effect on 26 September 1795.
[58]
The new constitution
created the Directory and the first bicameral legislature in French history. The parliament
consisted of 500 representatives le Conseil des Cinq-Cents (the Council of the Five Hundred)
and 250 senators le Conseil des Anciens (the Council of Elders). Executive power went to five
"directors", named annually by the Conseil des Anciens from a list submitted by le Conseil des
Cinq-Cents. The nation desired rest and the healing of its many wounds. Those who wished to
restore Louis XVIII and the Ancien Rgime and those who would have renewed the Reign of
Terror were insignificant in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the
failure of the First Coalition.
The four years of the Directory were a time of arbitrary government and chronic disquiet.
The late atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between the parties impossible. As the
majority of French people wanted to be rid of them, they could achieve their purpose only by
extraordinary means. The Convention habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and,
when the elections went against them, resorted to the sword. They resolved to prolong the war
as the best expedient for prolonging their power. They were thus driven to rely upon the armies,
which also desired war and were becoming increasingly less civic in temper.
The Directory lasted until 1799 when Napoleon staged a coup and installed The
Consulate. The Consulate still operated within the First Republic. The Consulate was replaced by
theFirst Empire, established by Napoleon in 1804.
[59]


The Napoleonic Era
See also: Napoleonic wars

Napoleon on his Imperial throne, byJean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
During the War of the First Coalition (17921797), the Directoire had replaced the
National Convention. Five directors then ruled France. As Great Britain was still at war with
France, a plan was made to take Egypt from the Ottoman Empire, a British ally. This
was Napoleon's idea and the Directoire agreed to the plan in order to send the popular general
away from the mainland. Napoleon defeated the Ottoman forces during the Battle of the
Pyramids (21 July 1798) and sent hundreds of scientists and linguists out to thoroughly explore
modern and ancient Egypt. Only a few weeks later the British fleet under Admiral Horatio
Nelson unexpectedly destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile(13 August 1798).
Napoleon planned to move into Syria but was defeated and he returned to France without his
army, which surrendered.
[60]

The Directoire was threatened by the Second Coalition (17981802). Royalists and their
allies still dreamed of restoring the monarchy to power, while the Prussian and Austrian crowns
did not accept their territorial losses during the previous war. In 1799 the Russian army expelled
the French from Italy in battles such as Cassano, while the Austrian army defeated the French in
Switzerland at Stockach andZurich. Napoleon then seized power through a coup and established
the Consulate in 1799. The Austrian army was defeated at the Battle of Marengo (1800) and
again at the Battle of Hohenlinden (1800).
[61]

While at sea the French had some success at Boulogne but Nelson's Royal Navy
destroyed an anchored Danish and Norwegian fleet at theBattle of Copenhagen (1801) because
the Scandinavian kingdoms were against the British blockade of France. The Second Coalition
was beaten and peace was settled in two distinct treaties: the Treaty of Lunville and the Treaty
of Amiens. A brief interlude of peace ensued in 1802-3, during which Napoleon sold French
Louisiana to the United States because it was indefensible.
[61]

In 1801 Napoleon concluded a "Concordat" with Pope Pius VII that opened peaceful
relations between church and state in France. The policies of the Revolution were reversed,
except the Church did not get its lands back. Bishops and clergy were to receive state salaries,
and the government would pay for the building and maintenance of churches.
[62]
Napoleon
reorganized higher learning by dividing the Institut National into four (later five) academies.

Napolon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by Franois Grard
In 1804 Napoleon was titled Emperor by the senate, thus founding the First French
Empire. Napoleon's rule was constitutional, and although autocratic, it was much more advanced
than traditional European monarchies of the time. The proclamation of the French Empire was
met by the Third Coalition. The French army was renamed La Grande Arme in 1805 and
Napoleon used propaganda and nationalism to control the French population. The French army
achieved a resounding victory at Ulm (1619 October 1805), where an entire Austrian army was
captured.
[63]

A Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated at Trafalgar (21 October 1805) and all plans to
invade Britain were then made impossible. Despite this naval defeat, it was on the ground that
this war would be won; Napoleon inflicted on the Austrian and Russian Empires one of their
greatest defeats at Austerlitz (also known as the "Battle of the Three Emperors" on 2 December
1805), destroying the Third Coalition. Peace was settled in the Treaty of Pressburg; the Austrian
Empire lost the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the Confederation of the Rhine was created by
Napoleon over former Austrian territories.
[63]

Pan-European efforts to contain Napoleon
Prussia joined Britain and Russia, thus forming the Fourth Coalition. Although the
Coalition was joined by other allies, the French Empire was also not alone since it now had a
complex network of allies and subject states. Largely outnumbered, the Prussian army was
crushed at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806; Napoleon captured Berlin and went as far as Eastern
Prussia. There the Russian Empire was defeated at the Battle of Friedland (14 June 1807).
Peace was dictated in the Treaties of Tilsit, in which Russia had to join the Continental System,
and Prussia handed half of its territories to France. The Duchy of Warsaw was formed over these
territorial losses, and Polish troops entered the Grande Arme in significant numbers.

The height of the First Empire
Freed from his obligation in the east, Napoleon then went back to the west, as the French
Empire was still at war with Britain. Only two countries remained neutral in the war: Sweden and
Portugal, and Napoleon then looked toward the latter. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1807), a
Franco-Spanish alliance against Portugal was sealed as Spain eyed Portuguese territories.
French armies entered Spain in order to attack Portugal, but then seized Spanish fortresses and
took over the kingdom by surprise. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was made King of
Spain after Charles IV abdicated.
This occupation of the Iberian peninsula fueled local nationalism, and soon the Spanish
and Portuguese fought the French using guerilla tactics, defeating the French forces at the Battle
of Bailn (June and July 1808). Britain sent a short-lived ground support force to Portugal, and
French forces evacuated Portugal as defined in the Convention of Sintra following the Allied
victory at Vimeiro (21 August 1808). France only controlled Catalonia and Navarre and could
have been definitely expelled from the Iberian peninsula had the Spanish armies attacked again,
but the Spanish did not.
Another French attack was launched on Spain, led by Napoleon himself, and was
described as "an avalanche of fire and steel." However, the French Empire was no longer
regarded as invincible by European powers. In 1808 Austria formed the War of the Fifth
Coalition in order to break down the French Empire. The Austrian Empire defeated the French
at Aspern-Essling, yet was beaten at Wagram while the Polish allies defeated the Austrian
Empire at Raszyn (April 1809). Although not as decisive as the previous Austrian defeats,
the peace treaty in October 1809 stripped Austria of a large amount of territories, reducing it
even more.

Napoleon Bonaparte retreating from Moscow, by Adolf Northern.
In 1812 war broke out with Russia, engaging Napoleon in the disastrous French invasion
of Russia (1812). Napoleon assembled the largest army Europe had ever seen, including troops
from all subject states, to invade Russia, which had just left the continental system and was
gathering an army on the Polish frontier. Following an exhausting march and the bloody but
inconclusive Battle of Borodino, near Moscow, the Grande Arme entered and captured Moscow,
only to find it burning as part of the Russian scorched earth tactics.
Although there still were battles, such as Maloyaroslavets, the Napoleonic army left
Russia in late 1812 annihilated, most of all by the Russian winter, exhaustion, and scorched
earth warfare. On the Spanish front the French troops were defeated at Vitoria (June 1813) and
then at the Battle of the Pyrenees (JulyAugust 1813). Since the Spanish guerrillas seemed to
be uncontrollable, the French troops eventually evacuated Spain.
Since France had been defeated on these two fronts, states previously conquered and
controlled by Napoleon saw a good opportunity to strike back. The Sixth Coalition was formed,
and the German states of the Confederation of the Rhine switched sides, finally opposing
Napoleon. Napoleon was largely defeated in the Battle of the Nations outside Leipzig in October
1813, and was overwhelmed by much larger armies during the Six Days Campaign (February
1814), although, the Six Days Campaign is often considered a tactical masterpiece because the
allies suffered much higher casualties.
Napoleon abdicated on 6 April 1814, and was exiled to Elba. The conservative Congress
of Vienna reversed the political changes that had occurred during the wars. Napoleon's
attempted restoration, a period known as the Hundred Days, ended with his final defeat at
the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
The monarchy was subsequently restored and Louis XVIII became king.
Napoleon's impact on France
Napoleon centralized power in Paris, with all the provinces governed by all-powerful
prefects whom he selected. They were more powerful than royal intendants of the ancien rgime
and had a long-term impact in unifying the nation, minimizing regional differences, and shifting all
decisions to Paris.
[64]

Religion had been a major issue during the Revolution, and Napoleon resolved most of
the outstanding problems. Thereby he moved the clergy and large numbers of devout Catholics
from hostility to the government to support for him. The Catholic system was reestablished by
the Concordat of 1801 (signed with Pope Pius VII), so that church life returned to normal; the
church lands were not restored, but the Jesuits were allowed back in and the bitter fights
between the government and Church ended. Protestant, Jews and atheists were tolerated.
[65]

The French taxation system had collapsed in the 1780s. In the 1790s the government
seized and sold church lands and lands of exiles aristocrats. Napoleon instituted a modern,
efficient tax system that guaranteed a steady flow of revenues and made long-term financing
possible.
[66]

Napoleon kept the system of conscription that had been created in the 1790s, so that
every young man served in the army, which could be rapidly expanded even as it was based on
a core of careerists and talented officers. Before the Revolution the aristocracy formed the officer
corps. Now promotion was by merit and achievementevery private carried a marshal's baton, it
was said.
[67]

The Napoleonic Code
Of permanent importance was the Napoleonic Code created by eminent jurists under
Napoleon's supervision. Praised for its Gallic clarity, it spread rapidly throughout Europe and the
world in general, and marked the end of feudalism and the liberation of Jews where it took
effect.
[68]
The Code recognized the principles of civil liberty, equality before the law, and the
secular character of the state. It discarded the old right of primogeniture (where only the eldest
son inherited) and required that inheritances be divided equally among all the children. The court
system was standardized; all judges were appointed by the national government in Paris.












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