The Liberal Revolution

* Effects of the Bastille

- 3rd Estate accidentally into the lead

- king NEEDS to make concessions

- a "Great Fear" sweeps France

-> already in progress actually, but stepped up

-> in the countryside, the peasants are paranoid

=> rumors of bandits uncontrolled

=> rumors of the nobles planning a counter-coup

=> peasant mobs sack chateaus and town halls

+> burning up land titles and proofs of poverty

-> in the cities, mob paranoia

=> worried about the nobles

=> rumors of grain hording amidst their hunger

+> bread was very expensive

=> demands that the king (?!) solve problems

+> Louis XVI too lame to play the populist man of the

people

-> bread riots in Paris spark catalyst

=> as Estates General wrangles, women of Paris rebel

=> October 5-6, 1789, 6000 angry women march to Versailles

+> armed, they kill 2 guards and kidnap the king and

queen

+> Lafeyette and other male "leaders" had run to the

front of the march to "lead" it

=> king brought to Paris as a virtual prisoner

+> under the eye of the mob and the people

* National Assembly (Liberal Revolution Acts)

- Bastille chaos had created a unified National Assembly instead

of the Estates General

-> all Estates meet as a body, no vote by Estate

-> 3rd Estate and supporters held sway

- August 4, 1789 - The Holocaust of Privilege

-> nobles give speeches into the night

-> in a frenzy, all abandon feudal rights and privileges

=> competitive renunciation and the spirit of the moment

=> many wake despairing their acts the next morning

-> now all Frenchmen are equal

- August 27 - The Rights of Man

-> a Bill of Rights

=> women excluded

+> Olympe de Gougee wrote a "Declaration of the Rights of

Women", but it was not taken seriously

++> She was later killed as an enemy of the Revolution

-> Liberty, Equality, and FRATERNITY becomes the slogan of the

Revolution

- from August 1789 on, move towards a Constituitonal Monarchy

-> king's power constrained and demarcated

-> bureaucracy rationalized and "de-noble-ized" (a bit)

- first 1/2 of 1790, a serious debate on the relationship between

Church and State

-> Church forced to pay taxes

-> some of the Church's enormous land holdings were confiscated

-> Church attacked the Revolution, Pope spoke against it

-> Assembly votes to make priests State officials

=> paid and approved by the State

=> a blow against the Church which had been attacking the

Revolution

-> nationalization of the Church seriously alienated the peasants

=> they were largely Catholic and religious

=> this was the first seriously anti-popular move of the Rev.