Phases of the French Revolution

Phase 1: Moderate Revolution (1789-1792)

The Third Estate demanded equal voting in the Estates-General. When refused, they declared themselves the National Assembly and swore the Tennis Court Oath (June 1789), pledging not to disperse until they had written a constitution.

On July 14, 1789, Parisians stormed the Bastille (a royal fortress and prison) seeking weapons. The fall of the Bastille became the symbolic beginning of the Revolution and is commemorated as France's national holiday.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1789): The foundational document of the French Revolution. Inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Enlightenment thought, it proclaimed that men are born free and equal in rights, that sovereignty resides in the nation, and that law is the expression of the general will. Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges criticized its silence on women.

The National Assembly abolished feudalism, seized Church lands, and produced the Constitution of 1791, which established a constitutional monarchy. Louis XVI was retained but constrained.

Phase 2: Radical Revolution and the Reign of Terror (1792-1794)

The moderate phase collapsed under pressure. Foreign monarchies (Austria, Prussia) declared war on revolutionary France, fearing the spread of revolutionary ideas. Louis XVI's attempted flight to escape Paris (the Flight to Varennes, June 1791) discredited him. By 1792 the monarchy was overthrown, and France was declared a republic.

Louis XVI was tried for treason and executed by guillotine in January 1793. Marie Antoinette followed in October 1793.

The Reign of Terror (1793-1794): The Committee of Public Safety, dominated by Maximilien Robespierre, ruled France during the crisis. The Committee suspended the constitution, conducted mass executions of perceived enemies (about 17,000 official executions, with thousands more dying in prison), and tried to remake French society. Tens of thousands of people, including former revolutionaries, were guillotined. The Terror ended when Robespierre himself was arrested and executed in July 1794 (the Thermidorian Reaction).

<mark>Why the Terror matters for the exam: The Reign of Terror is the canonical case study for the enduring issue of power and abuse of power, and for the way revolutionary ideals can produce tyranny. The Regents has used it as a turning-point question ("why did the Revolution become radical"), as a comparison case (with Napoleonic rule, with Stalinist terror), and as a CRQ on causation.</mark>

Phase 3: The Directory (1795-1799)

After Robespierre's fall, France was governed by the Directory, a five-man executive. The Directory was corrupt and unstable. It suffered military reverses and political coups. In 1799 a young general named Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in a coup, ending the Directory and effectively ending the Revolution.

Lasting effects of the French Revolution

• Abolished feudalism and the legal privileges of the nobility
• Established the principle that sovereignty rests with the nation, not the monarch
• Spread the language of natural rights and citizenship across Europe
• Created the modern political vocabulary of left and right (originating in the seating of the National Assembly)

• Demonstrated both the promise and the terrifying potential of revolutionary politics • Triggered a quarter-century of European war that would end only at Waterloo (1815)