Study guide: Revolution and Napoleonic France

📋 Course Outline

1. The Convention and the Fate of the King
2. The Fall of the Girondins
3. The Revolutionary Government and Terror
4. Factional Conflict and Thermidor
5. The Directory and Its Collapse
6. The Consulate and the Empire
7. Control, Concordat, and Civil Code
8. French Hegemony in Europe
9. Resistance and the Fall of Napoleon

📅 Key Dates

1. 21 September 1792the Convention proclaimed the French Republic
2. 21 January 1793Louis XVI was executed, provoking strong emotion in France and abroad
3. 2 June 1793sans-culottes entered the Assembly and had the Girondin deputies arrested
4. 17 September 1793the Law of Suspects made anyone unable to prove attachment to the Revolution a suspect
5. October 1793Marie-Antoinette was guillotined after what the course describes as an unfair trial
6. 28 July 1794the deputies of the Plain overthrew Robespierre; these deputies became known as Thermidorians
7. April 1797royalists won the elections, and Bonaparte’s troops intervened to preserve the Directory
8. 18 Brumaire Year VIII (9 November 1799)Napoleon Bonaparte seized power with army support, ending the Republic and establishing the Consulate, governed by three consuls
9. 1802voters accepted by plebiscite that Napoleon Bonaparte become consul for life
10. 1804voters accepted by plebiscite that Napoleon Bonaparte become emperor

📖 1. The Convention and the Fate of the King

★ Must-know

• The Convention was a national assembly elected by universal male suffrage.

📌 The Girondins wanted to spare Louis XVI, whereas the Montagnards wanted to execute him as a tyrant.

Further detail

• The execution of Louis XVI intensified the European coalition against France, multiplied French defeats, and encouraged internal revolts, including the Vendée uprising fought in the name of the king and religion.

💡 Memory Hook

Girondins defend the king; Montagnards demand his execution.

📖 2. The Fall of the Girondins

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Levée en masse: The levée en masse was a recruitment of soldiers by volunteering or drawing lots, decreed by the Assembly to save the Republic.

★ Must-know

📌 The course presents the June 1793 coup as popular sovereignty prevailing over national sovereignty and representation.

Further detail

• The Girondin deputies were later guillotined during the Terror, and Manon Roland was arrested on 2 June 1793.

• In 1793, departments supportive of the Girondins, including Toulon and Marseille, revolted against the Parisian authorities.

📖 3. The Revolutionary Government and Terror

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Committee of Public Safety: The Committee of Public Safety was a 12-member body established by the Convention to hold executive power during the First Republic and the Terror.

★ Must-know

• The Terror ended the presumption of innocence and used the Revolutionary Tribunal for rapid trials without defense lawyers; some prisoners were killed without trial, including prisoners drowned in the Loire at Nantes.

Further detail

• The Law of Suspects targeted:

  • royalists
  • provincial opponents of Parisian power
  • refractory priests and their supporters
  • families of emigrated nobles
  • émigrés

• Olympe de Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen and an advocate of political claims for women, was guillotined in November 1793.

💡 Memory Hook

Suspicion replaces presumption of innocence, enabling the Terror.

📖 4. Factional Conflict and Thermidor

★ Must-know

• The Terror caused 40,000 deaths, but the Republic emerged victorious over the Vendée rebels and federalists.

📌 The Hébertists wanted to continue the Terror, Danton’s supporters called the Indulgents wanted it stopped, and Robespierre’s faction eliminated both groups.

Further detail

📌 Manon Roland was a Girondin who co-wrote her husband’s speeches, whereas Olympe de Gouges publicly advanced political claims for women through her writing.

• From December 1793, young generals, including Bonaparte, helped push the foreign invasion beyond France’s borders.

💡 Memory Hook

The Hébertists fall, then Danton’s supporters, then Robespierre.

📖 5. The Directory and Its Collapse

★ Must-know

• The Constitution of Year III established the Directory and restored census-based suffrage, limiting the vote to 30,000 property owners.

• Under the Directory, executive power belonged to five directors and legislative power to two assemblies, with strict separation intended to prevent dictatorship.

Further detail

• The Directory signed peace with Spain, Prussia, and the Netherlands between April and July 1795.

📖 6. The Consulate and the Empire

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Plebiscite: A plebiscite is a yes-or-no vote in which the executive asks the people a question.

📝 Essential Points

• Under the Consulate, all male citizens could vote, but the First Consul held executive power and appointed members of four assemblies in which legislative power was diluted.

• On 2 December 1804, Napoleon I was crowned emperor at Notre-Dame de Paris and placed a crown on his wife’s head.

💡 Memory Hook

Universal male suffrage legitimizes power while the First Consul concentrates it.

📖 7. Control, Concordat, and Civil Code

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Concordat of 1801: The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon’s government and the Pope intended to end religious conflict and reconcile Catholics with the state.

★ Must-know

• Napoleon restricted individual liberties, censored the press, strengthened the police under Fouché, and used prefects to relay state authority in each department.

• The Concordat recognized Catholicism as the religion of most French people, while the state appointed bishops, paid priests, and required the clergy to swear fidelity to the government.

• The Civil Code of 1804 maintained the principle of equality before the law and the abolition of privileges, while organizing society around the family.

Further detail

• The Concordat ended the requirement that priests choose between loyalty to the Pope and loyalty to the French nation, facilitating reconciliation with royalists and the return of émigré nobles.

• The Civil Code established patriarchal authority of husbands and fathers over women and children, and treated women as minors throughout their lives.

💡 Memory Hook

Reconciliation through the Concordat strengthens state control of the Church.

📖 8. French Hegemony in Europe

★ Must-know

• French hegemony developed in two stages: annexations from 1804 to 1810, followed by a system of alliances with different statuses from 1811 to 1814.

• By 1810, France had 130 departments, including annexed territories such as Belgium and the present-day Netherlands.

• The French armies initially received a welcome in some European territories, but theft, looting, and massacres turned populations toward resistance.

Further detail

• The later alliance system included dependent states such as Spain, whose monarch was Napoleon’s brother, and provisional allies; the United Kingdom never joined it.

• The Civil Code spread through annexed territories and some dependent states, including territories in present-day Germany and Poland.

💡 Memory Hook

Annexations from 1804 to 1810 give way to alliances from 1811 to 1814.

📖 9. Resistance and the Fall of Napoleon

★ Must-know

• On 2 May 1808, an uprising by the people of Madrid against French occupation was followed by severe repression and the execution of participating civilians by the French army.

• In 1812, the disastrous Russian campaign marked a turning point, followed by European uprisings and Napoleon’s military and political defeat.

• In April 1814, Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba, while Louis XVIII was proclaimed king of France.

• On 18 June 1815, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, abdicated for a second time, and was deported to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

Further detail

• On 1 March 1815, Napoleon returned to France with 800 men and reached Paris after the king fled.

• The Napoleonic wars caused one million French deaths, and Napoleon left France reduced to its 1792 borders.

💡 Memory Hook

Occupation provokes resistance; the failed Russian campaign precedes Napoleon’s fall.