OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!! Part 2

Hey guys! Today we are going to continue last week’s blog about the French revolution.

The Third Estate delegates went to their usual meeting hall just to find it was closed so they gathered in the indoor tennis court. In the tennis court the delegates pledged to remain together until they established a constitution for France. Around this time the political authority was shifting from the king and the estates towards a representative body (The National Assembly) that claimed to speak for the nation. The National Assembly’s actions adopted the idea that the citizens of the nation could be the source of political authority.

King Louis XVI got word of this and was shaking in his boots. He surrounded Paris with troops and many of the delegates thought he wanted to undo the progress that had been made. On July 14,1789, a crowd attacked the Bastille (a fortress-prison that symbolized royal authority). The attackers were also looking for weapons and gunpowder as violence increased. The Bastille held few prisoners, but its capture still had a symbolic importance. This event showed that ordinary people could directly influence the course of the Revolution. This later became France’s National Day.

In 1789, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen were adopted. This became one of the Revolution’s most important statements of political ideals. The document attacked the divine rights of kings and recognized the rights of ordinary citizens to rule themselves. Rights such as natural rights, equality before law, popular sovereignty, and liberty.

The revolution became more radical when a war broke out between France and other European monarchies that feared revolutionary ideas and French expansion. When this war broke out the king attempted to flee France which damaged confidence in the monarchy and encouraged accusations of treason. 

Food shortages and inflation continued to affect ordinary people, increasing pressure for stronger action.

During the height of the Revolution, the revolutionary leaders started to turn on one another. This caused a radical political party by the name of the Jacobins to seize power. The Jacobins feared that the revolution was about to fail so they proclaimed that democracy must be put on hold until the security of France was certain.

They created a twelve-man dictatorship called the Committee of Public Safety, which was led by a man named Maximilien Robespierre. The Committee of Public Safety called for a Reign of Terror in which they used extreme violence to solve the Republic’s crisis.

The national convention found King Louis XVI guilty of treason and voted for his immediate execution. Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette (Mrs. “Let them eat cake” herself) were killed by the guillotine and their children were imprisoned. Seventeen-thousand people were executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

That’s it for today, see you later!!!