Study guide: Revolutionary France and Napoleonic Europe

📋 Course Outline

1. Causes of the French Revolution
2. Foundations of a New France
3. Constitutional Monarchy and Republic
4. The Conservative Directory
5. Napoleon and Europe

📅 Key Dates

1. 17 June 1789the deputies of the Third Estate formed themselves into a National Assembly
2. 20 June 1789the deputies gathered at the Tennis Court and swore not to separate before establishing a constitution
3. 14 July 1789the people of Paris seized the Bastille
4. 26 August 1789the deputies adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
5. 14 July 1790the Federation Festival symbolized national unity
6. 10 August 1792the sans-culottes attacked the palace, leading to the fall of the monarchy and the declaration of the Republic
7. 1799 to 1804Bonaparte governed as First Consul during the Consulate

📖 1. Causes of the French Revolution

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Nation: A large group of people united by shared elements such as language and culture and by a common territory.

★ Must-know

📌 The French Revolution resulted from difficulties that reinforced one another and transformed a social and economic crisis into a political crisis.

📌 Before 1789, the king held sovereign authority and his subjects could not claim the right to exercise legislative, executive, and judicial powers; after 1789, sovereignty belonged to the nation.

Further detail

• The pre-revolutionary situation was perceived by contemporaries as a state of ruin and as requiring reform.

💡 Memory Hook

Accumulated difficulties → political crisis → revolution

📖 2. Foundations of a New France

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: Establishes natural rights including liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

★ Must-know

• The Revolution abolished legal privileges, established equality before the law, and made access to employment depend on merit.

• The Constitution of 1791 separated executive power held by the king from legislative power held by the Assembly, while deputies were elected through indirect censitary suffrage.

Further detail

• France was reorganized into 83 departments to promote territorial equality and create a more unified state.

📌 The Civil Constitution of the Clergy required priests to swear an oath, while the property of the clergy was nationalized and sold to help repay state deficits.

💡 Memory Hook

Subjects under royal sovereignty versus citizens under national sovereignty

📖 3. Constitutional Monarchy and Republic

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Terror: The policy of exceptional measures and harsh repression used by the revolutionary government against enemies of the Revolution, including severe repression in the Vendée.

📝 Essential Points

📌 The Girondins wanted to preserve the Revolution but rejected the king's execution, whereas the Montagnards supported an exceptional revolutionary government in the face of an emergency.

📌 The revolutionary government suspended some freedoms, used a Revolutionary Tribunal without appeal, and organized a mass levy of 300,000 volunteers, including compulsory recruitment.

💡 Memory Hook

Constitutional monarchy → 10 August 1792 → Republic → Terror

📖 4. The Conservative Directory

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Directoire: A conservative republic that sought to restore order through censitary suffrage, distrust of the people, and economic liberalism.

★ Must-know

📌 The Directory was contested by royalists on one side and by radical egalitarians who challenged private property on the other.

📌 The Directory failed to establish a lasting compromise because it faced opposition from several sides and increasingly relied on the army.

Further detail

• The instability and military prestige of the period prepared the seizure of power by Bonaparte.

💡 Memory Hook

Order sought by the Directory versus instability from royalists and radical egalitarians

📖 5. Napoleon and Europe

★ Must-know

• Under the Consulate, the First Consul concentrated most powers, initiated laws, and appointed officials, while the assemblies retained little power.

• Napoleon restored civil peace and established institutions that preserved some revolutionary achievements while imposing an authoritarian political order.

• French domination spread revolutionary ideas across Europe but also turned the French from perceived liberators into enemies of foreign peoples and rulers.

Further detail

• French domination contributed to the emergence of national feeling in Europe, while foreign resistance and the failures of Napoleon's external policy contributed to the end of the Empire in 1815.

💡 Memory Hook

Revolutionary achievements preserved versus political freedoms restricted

📊 Synthesis Tables

Revolutionary political phases

Phase	Political system	Main characteristic
Constitutional monarchy	King and elected Assembly	Restricted censitary suffrage
Republic	Republican government	Radicalization and exceptional measures
Directory	Conservative republic	Order sought amid instability
Consulate and Empire	Authoritarian rule	Power concentrated around Bonaparte