EUROPEAN UNION WORLD

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NAPOLEON AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

The French Revolution and Napoleon

The year 1789 marks a signal event in European and world history: the overthrow of a monarchy through a popular revolution. Like most historical markers, the use of this one particular year, 1789, is shorthand that masks a much more complex reality extending over many more years.

Although 1789 marked the storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the king, Louis XVI (r. 1774–1793), was not actually dethroned until 1792 and he was executed in 1793. And, much of the impact of the French Revolution was felt elsewhere in Europe only after Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799. The Revolution was not fully concluded until the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy in 1815 (nor was it truly defeated even then).

That these events occurred in France had special significance for the rest of Europe. As noted in the previous chapter, France was in many ways the most important country on the Continent at the time of the Revolution. Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), the Sun King, had established a standard for a rigorous, powerful, and elegant monarchy, and his luxurious palace at Versailles was admired all over Europe. With some twenty-eight million inhabitants, France was the most populous country on the Continent. It was the leading center of arts and sciences and the focal point of the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment. French was the most widely used international language, the language both of diplomacy and of most of the royal courts of Europe.

As with all revolutions, the causes of the French Revolution of 1789 included both long-term and structural factors, as well as more immediate events. The former included the socioeconomic changes of the eighteenth century, the ideas of the Enlightenment, and weaknesses in the monarchy. The short-term factors were primarily economic: government debt, a financial crisis, and a bad harvest year. The financial crisis led the king to convoke a meeting of the Estates General in 1789, and from there events cascaded out of control.

During most of the eighteenth century, France experienced both economic stability and growth. Agricultural productivity and industrial production increased steadily in the middle part of the century, and the literacy rate of the population grew from 21 percent at the beginning of the century to 37 percent at the end. However, as we saw in the previous chapter, it was also a time of economic and intellectual ferment. Industry and commerce were transforming the economic landscape and fostering the growth of cities and a new middle class (the bourgeoisie), who were agitating for more influence both in the economy and in the political realm. Enlightenment writers were broaching ideas of religious and cultural freedom, representative institutions, and legal equality. And, they were more generally pressing for change and progress. The eighteenth century saw a rapid expansion in the publication of books, periodicals, and pamphlets, which allowed wide dissemination of these new ideas and, with that, the early stages of public opinion.

By the end of the century, however, France was suffering serious problems. An inefficient system of taxation made it difficult for the monarchy to raise the money it needed. Furthermore, both the church and the nobility, which together owned much of the land in the country, were virtually exempt from taxes. The financial problems of the regime were made worse by the financial and material aid provided by France to the American colonies during their war of independence against Britain. For France, this was a strategic decision, rather than a moral or ideological one, as it was intended to weaken the country’s chief rival, England, and to avenge the loss of French colonies in America and India during the Seven Years’ War (the French and Indian War in North America). The combination of mounting debts and ineffective tax collection meant that, by 1787, payments on the debt absorbed about half of all the taxes that were collected.

The economic slump impacted the rest of the French population as well. The economic growth of the eighteenth century and the import of silver from the New World had fueled inflation in France, a phenomenon that was both new and alarming for many people. Between 1726 and 1789, the cost of living increased by 62 percent, whereas wages rose by only 25 percent. In the 1780s, increased competition from British textile manufacturers led to massive unemployment in the textile towns of northern France. Then, 1788 saw the worst grain harvest in France since 1709, causing increases in grain and food prices, food shortages, and even famine. All this provoked rising discontent in both the cities and the countryside. One more problem was the weakness of the monarchy. Louis XIV had been a strong and vigorous leader, but his successors were neither, and Louis XVI was both weak and ineffectual. He was not able to control his ministers, and ministerial infighting made it difficult to deal with the financial crisis of the 1780s. Furthermore, Louis had become a virtual prisoner of Versailles, rarely leaving the Paris region, and he was consequently increasingly isolated from his subjects and the diverse regions of his kingdom.