Victoria Anderson - Honors English Final Essay
My City: Paris
My Decade: 1789-1799 (The French Revolution)
Although it is easy to assume that the French Revolution was simply a bloody battle that lead to the violent “Reign of Terror” (which killed many many innocent people) and also enabled the controlling, militaristic rule of Napoleon, in reality it was much more than that. While the French Revolution did have some horrific and violent results and consequences, the unification and change that the Revolution started in France were essential to save the citizens of France.
Prior to 1789, France (and Paris) was divided into three classes: The Bourgeoisie, the peasants, and the aristocracy. The bourgeoisie were the rich, the royalty and the powerful and they ruled France in every way. From controlling who had food and shelter, to what people could say and do. The Bourgeoisie were the middle class citizens whose wealth was growing, but who were still condemned to live with no political power or voice in the nation. The peasants were the everyday citizens of Paris who had no control over their lives and were barely getting by. They were beggars, farmers, laborers and everything in between. They were also the majority in Paris, but were too scattered and weak and weighed down by their efforts to stay alive to do anything. Until the French Revolution. It was the Haves against the Have-Nots and the Have-Nots greatly outnumbered the Haves and were ready to fight for themselves.
At the time, the peasants lives were truly awful. Many were forced to live on the streets and, if they were lucky enough to be landowners, they were still made to pay increasingly, and ridiculously, high taxes on their land and grain that they grew. The main source of food for peasants in Paris was bread because it was the cheapest, but even the price of bread increased a great deal. Food became so expensive that peasants in Paris literally began starving to death. “A Tale of Two Cities” portrayed the lives of the starving peasants in a really powerful way, at one point even graphically. It told a story of a wine bottle falling off a cart in the streets of Paris, and the peasants around fighting to lick the wine off the cobblestone streets of Paris. The book also wrote about the peasants having to steal food or eat garbage to stay alive and keep their families alive.
At the same time, the middle class citizens of Paris (also know as the bourgeoisie), saw their wealth growing tremendously. The bourgeoisie were the landowners and they benefited from the high taxes on the peasants. They reaped all the benefits of farming and didn't have to do any of the work. As their economic status grew, though, their political power didn't and they began to want a say in their government. They were tired of not winning any of the votes against the nobility/aristocracy and they started to complain and became more vocal of their lack of voice in their lives.
The aristocracy, on the other hand, controlled everyone and every one's lives. They took what they wanted and left nothing and gave nothing to the poor. They controlled the vote and therefore maintained the power in France, and also Paris, the main city in France at the time. With control over the vote and therefore the city and the country, the aristocracy made and passed laws that benefited them at the expense of the poor, who could do nothing about it. In “The Golden Hour”, there were a couple of scenes that illustrated the rich, nobility of Paris. The book showed them regularly throwing extravagant parties, dinners, and dances, eating and wearing beautiful clothes. All within sight of the starving poor. All in earshot of the crying, freezing children on the streets. They thought they were better than the poor, more worthy of the luxury they lived in. They looked down on the starving citizens of Paris and hated them, treated them like dirt. They were never going to give up the power they had, so it was time for the middle class and the poor to come together and fight for their freedoms and their voice in their lives.
And that's what they did. In all the books I read, it started out as a beautiful thing. The citizens of Paris unified themselves against the nobility. They marched to Versailles and demanded rights, demanded a voice. They stormed the Bastille, which represented the oppression of the nobility. They stole the arms from the Bastille and tore it down, forming their own army and signifying their strength at the same time. Through my research, I discovered that for a while things went really well. The citizens began receiving some of the rights they wanted, like a constitution and the right to vote on laws (with fair representation). Also, The Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted in the country, which abolished “the privileges of the nobility and” suppressed “the wealth of the clergy”, which was great for the middle class as well as the poor. And until 1792, the revolution was relatively peaceful and progressing well for the citizens of Paris and France.
In 1792, other European leaders saw how successful the revolution in Paris had been so far at overthrowing the power of the nobility, that they began to become nervous that the revolution would spread to their own countries. They sent armies in to Paris to try and defeat the revolutionaries, as they were called, with the French army. In September, such an attack took place and the revolutionaries won and also took control of France in Paris. They abolished the monarchy completely and began putting all previous political leaders on trial and killing them by the guillotine, including King Louis XVI. These revolutionaries that took over also began making their own laws and rules in Paris, and execution by guillotine rose to its highest.
This was the time known as “the Reign of Terror”. It was very much like a dictatorship or authoritarian rule. The motto of the revolutionaries in charge (robbespierre and others, who were called Jacobins) was, as “Ninety-three” quoted, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la Mort”, meaning liberty, equality, brotherhood, or die. And they truly meant it. The Jacobins killed thousands of people for being the slightest bit modest in their views of the Revolution. “The Reign” wasn’t any better for the Parisians or French than the French monarchy before was. It is also what made the French Revolution so bloody and made many people view it as a complete failure. And it was a terrible part in the history of the France. It caused the unification of the citizens to split into ‘Jacobins’ and more modest revolutionaries. They fought each other and they also fought European armies. The organization and unification to fight for a common goal that was there at the beginning of the Revolution was gone. The regular people of France, neither Jacobins nor revolutionaries, lived in fear of saying the wrong thing to everybody they talked to. “Ninety-three” tells the story of a poor peasant women who tries to escape the bloody violence in Paris with her children, and is discovered by a group of revolutionaries. They ask her questions about who she is for and who she is against. She has no idea who they are and is scared to say anything for fear of dying or getting her children killed for saying the wrong thing. The Reign of terror lasted a short 2 years, but cost the lives of many people.
None of the books I read or any of my research produced any results on why the Jacobins became so violent, but after studying the French Revolution in such a large context, I believe that they had been oppressed for so long that they couldn't stop once they started. They thought they were promoting good things - liberty, equality, and brotherhood - and they were, but only too hard, too much, No variation from their beliefs were accepted at all, because they had gone far too long without being heard, and now that thy were being heard, they wanted to make sure they kept being heard and got what they want, at any cost. They started with good ideas and good intentions, but they executed poorly and killed many Innocent people and they payed for it with their own lives two years after their rise to power.
In 1794, the jacobins were overthrown and its leaders executed. A new system of government was put into place, but because of the fear of giving too much power to the government at the time, the government was unable to control France, and chaos continued for 4 more years. The money system also collapsed and poverty increased in Paris again. the mobs started once more and an army had to use force to keep control. The army became more occupied in Paris with the mobs of starving, poor citizens than with the other European countries around that when Napoleon came with his army in 1799, it was easy for him to take control of Paris and then France. When Napoleon took control, the revolution ended, as did my decade in Paris.
From 1789-1799, Paris was a whirlwind of political activism, inspiration, unification, violence, and chaos. The citizens went from starving and angry, to empowered and unified, and back to starving and fighting for their rights. There were horrific and terrible events, like the guillotine and the reign of terror, during this time, but also beautiful moments in the history of government, like the Rights of Man, which the U.S. constitution and the British Parliament's Habeas Corpus are based on. Paris, during the French Revolution was a scary and dangerous place to be living, but it was also a great movement to be a part of, at times.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Ware: Wordsworth, 1993. Print.
France, Anatole, and Alex Brown. The Gods Are Athirst. [S.l.]: [s.n.], 1913. Print.
Hugo, Victor. Ninety-three. New York: Crowell, 1888. Print.
Williams, Maiya. The Golden Hour. New York: Amulet, 2006. Print.
Laura K. Egendorf. "Introduction." Opposing Viewpoints in World History: French Revolution, The. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003. August 2004. 16 December 2011. <http://www.enotes.com/french-revolution-article/44882>.
"Napoleon Bonaparte | Emperor of the French." Lucidcafé Interactive Café and Information Resource. Robin Chew. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://lucidcafe.com/library/95aug/napoleon.html>.
"French Revolution: Effects of the Revolution — Infoplease.com." Infoplease: Encyclopedia, Almanac, Atlas, Biographies, Dictionary, Thesaurus. Free Online Reference, Research & Homework Help. — Infoplease.com. 2007. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858289.html>.
http://flatrock.org.nz/static/frontpage/assets/history/french_revolution.gif
http://www.thecorner.org/forum/messages/14/210.gif
"French Revolution." THEOTHERSIDE - Nord/Pas-de-Calais. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/revolution.htm>.
"THE FRENCH REVOLUTION." Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://www.parisrama.com/english%20version/pages_history/revolution.htm>.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The French Revolution (1789–1799).” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.
"FRENCH REVOLUTION." World History International: World History Essays From Prehistory To The Present. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://history-world.org/french_revolution.htm>.
My City: Paris
My Decade: 1789-1799 (The French Revolution)
Although it is easy to assume that the French Revolution was simply a bloody battle that lead to the violent “Reign of Terror” (which killed many many innocent people) and also enabled the controlling, militaristic rule of Napoleon, in reality it was much more than that. While the French Revolution did have some horrific and violent results and consequences, the unification and change that the Revolution started in France were essential to save the citizens of France.
Prior to 1789, France (and Paris) was divided into three classes: The Bourgeoisie, the peasants, and the aristocracy. The bourgeoisie were the rich, the royalty and the powerful and they ruled France in every way. From controlling who had food and shelter, to what people could say and do. The Bourgeoisie were the middle class citizens whose wealth was growing, but who were still condemned to live with no political power or voice in the nation. The peasants were the everyday citizens of Paris who had no control over their lives and were barely getting by. They were beggars, farmers, laborers and everything in between. They were also the majority in Paris, but were too scattered and weak and weighed down by their efforts to stay alive to do anything. Until the French Revolution. It was the Haves against the Have-Nots and the Have-Nots greatly outnumbered the Haves and were ready to fight for themselves.
At the time, the peasants lives were truly awful. Many were forced to live on the streets and, if they were lucky enough to be landowners, they were still made to pay increasingly, and ridiculously, high taxes on their land and grain that they grew. The main source of food for peasants in Paris was bread because it was the cheapest, but even the price of bread increased a great deal. Food became so expensive that peasants in Paris literally began starving to death. “A Tale of Two Cities” portrayed the lives of the starving peasants in a really powerful way, at one point even graphically. It told a story of a wine bottle falling off a cart in the streets of Paris, and the peasants around fighting to lick the wine off the cobblestone streets of Paris. The book also wrote about the peasants having to steal food or eat garbage to stay alive and keep their families alive.
At the same time, the middle class citizens of Paris (also know as the bourgeoisie), saw their wealth growing tremendously. The bourgeoisie were the landowners and they benefited from the high taxes on the peasants. They reaped all the benefits of farming and didn't have to do any of the work. As their economic status grew, though, their political power didn't and they began to want a say in their government. They were tired of not winning any of the votes against the nobility/aristocracy and they started to complain and became more vocal of their lack of voice in their lives.
The aristocracy, on the other hand, controlled everyone and every one's lives. They took what they wanted and left nothing and gave nothing to the poor. They controlled the vote and therefore maintained the power in France, and also Paris, the main city in France at the time. With control over the vote and therefore the city and the country, the aristocracy made and passed laws that benefited them at the expense of the poor, who could do nothing about it. In “The Golden Hour”, there were a couple of scenes that illustrated the rich, nobility of Paris. The book showed them regularly throwing extravagant parties, dinners, and dances, eating and wearing beautiful clothes. All within sight of the starving poor. All in earshot of the crying, freezing children on the streets. They thought they were better than the poor, more worthy of the luxury they lived in. They looked down on the starving citizens of Paris and hated them, treated them like dirt. They were never going to give up the power they had, so it was time for the middle class and the poor to come together and fight for their freedoms and their voice in their lives.
And that's what they did. In all the books I read, it started out as a beautiful thing. The citizens of Paris unified themselves against the nobility. They marched to Versailles and demanded rights, demanded a voice. They stormed the Bastille, which represented the oppression of the nobility. They stole the arms from the Bastille and tore it down, forming their own army and signifying their strength at the same time. Through my research, I discovered that for a while things went really well. The citizens began receiving some of the rights they wanted, like a constitution and the right to vote on laws (with fair representation). Also, The Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted in the country, which abolished “the privileges of the nobility and” suppressed “the wealth of the clergy”, which was great for the middle class as well as the poor. And until 1792, the revolution was relatively peaceful and progressing well for the citizens of Paris and France.
In 1792, other European leaders saw how successful the revolution in Paris had been so far at overthrowing the power of the nobility, that they began to become nervous that the revolution would spread to their own countries. They sent armies in to Paris to try and defeat the revolutionaries, as they were called, with the French army. In September, such an attack took place and the revolutionaries won and also took control of France in Paris. They abolished the monarchy completely and began putting all previous political leaders on trial and killing them by the guillotine, including King Louis XVI. These revolutionaries that took over also began making their own laws and rules in Paris, and execution by guillotine rose to its highest.
This was the time known as “the Reign of Terror”. It was very much like a dictatorship or authoritarian rule. The motto of the revolutionaries in charge (robbespierre and others, who were called Jacobins) was, as “Ninety-three” quoted, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, ou la Mort”, meaning liberty, equality, brotherhood, or die. And they truly meant it. The Jacobins killed thousands of people for being the slightest bit modest in their views of the Revolution. “The Reign” wasn’t any better for the Parisians or French than the French monarchy before was. It is also what made the French Revolution so bloody and made many people view it as a complete failure. And it was a terrible part in the history of the France. It caused the unification of the citizens to split into ‘Jacobins’ and more modest revolutionaries. They fought each other and they also fought European armies. The organization and unification to fight for a common goal that was there at the beginning of the Revolution was gone. The regular people of France, neither Jacobins nor revolutionaries, lived in fear of saying the wrong thing to everybody they talked to. “Ninety-three” tells the story of a poor peasant women who tries to escape the bloody violence in Paris with her children, and is discovered by a group of revolutionaries. They ask her questions about who she is for and who she is against. She has no idea who they are and is scared to say anything for fear of dying or getting her children killed for saying the wrong thing. The Reign of terror lasted a short 2 years, but cost the lives of many people.
None of the books I read or any of my research produced any results on why the Jacobins became so violent, but after studying the French Revolution in such a large context, I believe that they had been oppressed for so long that they couldn't stop once they started. They thought they were promoting good things - liberty, equality, and brotherhood - and they were, but only too hard, too much, No variation from their beliefs were accepted at all, because they had gone far too long without being heard, and now that thy were being heard, they wanted to make sure they kept being heard and got what they want, at any cost. They started with good ideas and good intentions, but they executed poorly and killed many Innocent people and they payed for it with their own lives two years after their rise to power.
In 1794, the jacobins were overthrown and its leaders executed. A new system of government was put into place, but because of the fear of giving too much power to the government at the time, the government was unable to control France, and chaos continued for 4 more years. The money system also collapsed and poverty increased in Paris again. the mobs started once more and an army had to use force to keep control. The army became more occupied in Paris with the mobs of starving, poor citizens than with the other European countries around that when Napoleon came with his army in 1799, it was easy for him to take control of Paris and then France. When Napoleon took control, the revolution ended, as did my decade in Paris.
From 1789-1799, Paris was a whirlwind of political activism, inspiration, unification, violence, and chaos. The citizens went from starving and angry, to empowered and unified, and back to starving and fighting for their rights. There were horrific and terrible events, like the guillotine and the reign of terror, during this time, but also beautiful moments in the history of government, like the Rights of Man, which the U.S. constitution and the British Parliament's Habeas Corpus are based on. Paris, during the French Revolution was a scary and dangerous place to be living, but it was also a great movement to be a part of, at times.
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Ware: Wordsworth, 1993. Print.
France, Anatole, and Alex Brown. The Gods Are Athirst. [S.l.]: [s.n.], 1913. Print.
Hugo, Victor. Ninety-three. New York: Crowell, 1888. Print.
Williams, Maiya. The Golden Hour. New York: Amulet, 2006. Print.
Laura K. Egendorf. "Introduction." Opposing Viewpoints in World History: French Revolution, The. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003. August 2004. 16 December 2011. <http://www.enotes.com/french-revolution-article/44882>.
"Napoleon Bonaparte | Emperor of the French." Lucidcafé Interactive Café and Information Resource. Robin Chew. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://lucidcafe.com/library/95aug/napoleon.html>.
"French Revolution: Effects of the Revolution — Infoplease.com." Infoplease: Encyclopedia, Almanac, Atlas, Biographies, Dictionary, Thesaurus. Free Online Reference, Research & Homework Help. — Infoplease.com. 2007. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858289.html>.
http://flatrock.org.nz/static/frontpage/assets/history/french_revolution.gif
http://www.thecorner.org/forum/messages/14/210.gif
"French Revolution." THEOTHERSIDE - Nord/Pas-de-Calais. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/revolution.htm>.
"THE FRENCH REVOLUTION." Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://www.parisrama.com/english%20version/pages_history/revolution.htm>.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The French Revolution (1789–1799).” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.
"FRENCH REVOLUTION." World History International: World History Essays From Prehistory To The Present. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. <http://history-world.org/french_revolution.htm>.
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