1.
Pillnitz Castle
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Pillnitz Castle is a restored Baroque palace at the eastern end of the city of Dresden in the German state of Saxony. It is located on the bank of the River Elbe in the village of Pillnitz. Pillnitz Castle was the residence of many electors and kings of Saxony. The buildings enclose a Baroque garden and are surrounded by a public park. Today, the houses the Arts and Crafts Museum of the Dresden State Art Collections. As early as the 14th century, a modest residential fortress existed on the site of today castle and it was enlarged in the 16th and 17th centuries to a four-winged building. The château was acquired by the Wettin dynasty in 1694 when Elector John George IV of Saxony bought it as a present for his mistress, Magdalena Sibylla of Neidschutz. In 1706, John Georges brother Augustus II the Strong gave the facilities to one of his numerous mistresses, Anna Constantia of Brockdorff, Augustus II then ordered the château to be converted into an oriental summer palace for riverside festivities, necessitating extensive rebuilding. Starting in 1720, the first church and buildings were replaced by elaborate Baroque palaces designed by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, first, in 1720/21, the Riverside Palace was constructed on the river bank to plans by Pöppelmann. The upper staircase built on the Elbe side in 1722 was supplemented in 1725 by water forming a gondola dock. In 1723/24, an almost identical complement to the Riverside Palace, at the same time, a garden was laid out between the two palaces. Construction continued until 1725, with a focus on the Chinoiserie style, Augustus apparently then lost interest in his renovated palace, shifting his focus to other locations. In 1765, Elector Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, a greatgrandson of Augustus the Strong, at the time, an English garden with an English Pavilion, a Chinese garden with a Chinese Pavilion and an artificial ruin were added. When the Countess palace at Pillnitz Castle burnt down in 1818, Frederick Augustus asked his architect, Christian Friedrich Schuricht, the Neoclassical New Palace was completed in 1826. Pillnitz Castle was used as the residence of the House of Wettin until 1918. The main buildings are the Upper Palace, built between 1722 and 1723, and the Riverside Palace, built between 1720 and 1721, the Riverside Palace has elegant steps down to the river. The two are connected on the east side by the New Palace, built in Neoclassical style between 1819 and 1826 after the Countess palace burnt down in 1818, the New Palace contains the royal kitchen and a Catholic chapel. The roofs and moldings in each of the buildings exemplify the Oriental-influenced style fashionable during that period, today, the New Palace contains the Palace Museum with a permanent exhibition presenting its eventful history as a former royal Saxon summer residence
2.
Dresden
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Dresden is the capital city and, after Leipzig, the second-largest city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the border with the Czech Republic, Dresden has a long history as the capital and royal residence for the Electors and Kings of Saxony, who for centuries furnished the city with cultural and artistic splendour. The city was known as the Jewel Box, because of its baroque, the controversial American and British bombing of Dresden in World War II towards the end of the war killed approximately 25,000, many of whom were civilians, and destroyed the entire city centre. After the war restoration work has helped to reconstruct parts of the inner city, including the Katholische Hofkirche, the Zwinger. Since German reunification in 1990 Dresden is again a cultural, educational and political centre of Germany, the Dresden University of Technology is one of the 10 largest universities in Germany and part of the German Universities Excellence Initiative. The economy of Dresden and its agglomeration is one of the most dynamic in Germany and it is dominated by high-tech branches, often called as “Silicon Saxony”. The city is one of the most visited in Germany with 4,3 million overnight stays per year. The royal buildings are among the most impressive buildings in Europe, main sights are also the nearby National Park of Saxon Switzerland, the Ore Mountains and the countryside around Elbe Valley and Moritzburg Castle. The most prominent building in the city of Dresden is the Frauenkirche, built in the 18th century, the church was destroyed during World War II. The remaining ruins were left for 50 years as a war memorial, the church was rebuilt from 1994 to 2005. Although Dresden is a relatively recent city of Germanic origin followed by settlement of Slavic people, Dresdens founding and early growth is associated with the eastward expansion of Germanic peoples, mining in the nearby Ore Mountains, and the establishment of the Margraviate of Meissen. Its name etymologically derives from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the forest, Dresden later evolved into the capital of Saxony. Around the late 12th century, a Slavic settlement called Drežďany had developed on the southern bank, another settlement existed on the northern bank, but its Slavic name is unknown. It was known as Antiqua Dresdin by 1350, and later as Altendresden, dietrich, Margrave of Meissen, chose Dresden as his interim residence in 1206, as documented in a record calling the place Civitas Dresdene. After 1270, Dresden became the capital of the margraviate and it was given to Friedrich Clem after death of Henry the Illustrious in 1288. It was taken by the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1316 and was restored to the Wettin dynasty after the death of Valdemar the Great in 1319, from 1485, it was the seat of the dukes of Saxony, and from 1547 the electors as well. The Elector and ruler of Saxony Frederick Augustus I became King Augustus II the Strong of Poland in personal union and he gathered many of the best musicians, architects and painters from all over Europe to the newly named Royal-Polish Residential City of Dresden. His reign marked the beginning of Dresdens emergence as a leading European city for technology, during the reign of Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland the Zwinger Royal Palace, the Hofkirche and the Frauenkirche were built
3.
Saxony
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Its capital is Dresden, and its largest city is Leipzig. Saxony is the tenth largest of Germanys sixteen states, with an area of 18,413 square kilometres, located in the middle of a large, formerly all German-speaking part of Europe, the history of the state of Saxony spans more than a millennium. It has been a medieval duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, a kingdom, the area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds approximately to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony is divided into 10 districts,1. After a reform in 2008, these regions - with some alterations of their respective areas - were called Direktionsbezirke, in 2012, the authorities of these regions were merged into one central authority, the Landesdirektion Sachsen. The Erzgebirgskreis district includes the Ore Mountains, and the Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district includes Saxon Switzerland, the largest cities in Saxony according to the 31 December 2015 estimate. To this can be added that Leipzig forms a metropolitan region with Halle. The latter city is located just across the border to Saxony-Anhalt, Leipzig shares for instance an S-train system and an airport with Halle. Saxony has, after Saxony Anhalt, the most vibrant economy of the states of the former East Germany and its economy grew by 1. 9% in 2010. Nonetheless, unemployment remains above the German average, the eastern part of Germany, excluding Berlin, qualifies as an Objective 1 development-region within the European Union, and is eligible to receive investment subsidies of up to 30% until 2013. FutureSAX, a business competition and entrepreneurial support organisation, has been in operation since 2002. Microchip makers near Dresden have given the region the nickname Silicon Saxony, the publishing and porcelain industries of the region are well known, although their contributions to the regional economy are no longer significant. Today the automobile industry, machinery production and services contribute to the development of the region. Saxony is also one of the most renowned tourist destinations in Germany - especially the cities of Leipzig and Dresden, new tourist destinations are developing, notably in the lake district of Lausitz. Saxony reported an unemployment of 8. 8% in 2014. By comparison the average in the former GDR was 9. 8% and 6. 7% for Germany overall, the unemployment rate reached 8. 2% in May 2015. The Leipzig area, which recently was among the regions with the highest unemployment rate, could benefit greatly from investments by Porsche. With the VW Phaeton factory in Dresden, and many part suppliers, zwickau is another major Volkswagen location
4.
Frederick William II of Prussia
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Frederick William II was King of Prussia, from 1786 until his death. He was in personal union the Prince-elector of Brandenburg and sovereign prince of the Canton of Neuchâtel, pleasure-loving and indolent, he is seen as the antithesis to his predecessor, Frederick II. Under his reign, Prussia was weakened internally and externally, and his religious policies were directed against the Enlightenment and aimed at restoring a traditional Protestantism. However, he was a patron of the arts and responsible for the construction of notable buildings. Frederick William was born in Berlin, the son of Prince Augustus William of Prussia and his mothers elder sister, Elisabeth, was the wife of Augustus Williams brother King Frederick II. Frederick William became heir-presumptive to the throne of Prussia on his fathers death in 1758, the boy was of an easy-going and pleasure-loving disposition, averse to sustained effort of any kind, and sensual by nature. His marriage with Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg, daughter of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and he then married Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt on 14 July 1769 also in Charlottenburg. He also was a talented cellist, for his part, Frederick William, who had never been properly introduced to diplomacy and the business of rulership, resented his uncle for not taking him seriously. The misgivings of Frederick II appear justified in retrospect, Frederick William also terminated his predecessors state monopolies for coffee and tobacco and the sugar monopoly. However, under his reign the codification known as Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht, initiated by Frederick II, on 26 August 1786 Wöllner was appointed privy councillor for finance, and on 2 October 1786 was ennobled. Though not in name, he in fact prime minister, in all internal affairs it was he who decided. Bischoffswerder, too, still a major, was called into the king′s counsels. From this position Wöllner pursued long lasting reforms concerning religion in the Prussian state, the king proved eager to aid Wöllners crusade. On 18 December 1788 a new law was issued, to secure the orthodoxy of all published books. This forced major Berlin journals like Christoph Friedrich Nicolais Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, moreover, people like Immanuel Kant were forbidden to speak in public on the topic of religion. Finally, in 1791, a Protestant commission was established at Berlin to watch over all ecclesiastical, although Wöllners religious edict had many critics, it was an important measure which, in fact, proved an important stabilizing factor for the Prussian state. The edict was also a step forward regarding the rights of Jews, Mennonites, and Herrnhut brethren. But far more fateful for Prussia was the attitude towards the army
5.
Holy Roman Emperor
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The Holy Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. From an autocracy in Carolingian times the title evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the Prince-electors, until the Reformation the Emperor elect was required to be crowned by the Pope before assuming the imperial title. The title was held in conjunction with the rule of the Kingdom of Germany, in theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was primus inter pares among the other Catholic monarchs, in practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances made him. Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, effectively became hereditary holders of the title, after the Reformation many of the subject states and most of those in Germany were Protestant while the Emperor continued to be Catholic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by the last Emperor as a result of the collapse of the polity during the Napoleonic wars, from the time of Constantine I the Roman emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. In the west, the title of Emperor was revived in 800, as the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was known as the Investiture Controversy. After Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, no pope appointed an emperor again until the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. Under Otto and his successors, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, the various German princes elected one of their peers as King of the Germans, after which he would be crowned as emperor by the Pope. After Charles Vs coronation, all succeeding emperors were called elected Emperor due to the lack of papal coronation, the term sacrum in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa. Charles V was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope, the final Holy Roman Emperor-elect, Francis II, abdicated in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Empires final dissolution. The standard designation of the Holy Roman Emperor was August Emperor of the Romans, the word Holy had never been used as part of that title in official documents. In German-language historiography, the term Römisch-deutscher Kaiser is used to distinguish the title from that of Roman Emperor on one hand, the English term Holy Roman Emperor is a modern shorthand for emperor of the Holy Roman Empire not corresponding to the historical style or title. Successions to the kingship were controlled by a variety of complicated factors, elections meant the kingship of Germany was only partially hereditary, unlike the kingship of France, although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty until there were no more male successors. The Electoral council was set at seven princes by the Golden Bull of 1356, another elector was added in 1690, and the whole college was reshuffled in 1803, a mere three years before the dissolution of the Empire. After 1438, the Kings remained in the house of Habsburg and Habsburg-Lorraine, with the exception of Charles VII. Maximilian I and his successors no longer travelled to Rome to be crowned as Emperor by the Pope, Maximilian therefore named himself Elected Roman Emperor in 1508 with papal approval. This title was in use by all his uncrowned successors, of his successors only Charles V, the immediate one, received a papal coronation
6.
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Leopold II was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Bohemia from 1790 to 1792, Archduke of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Emperor Francis I and his wife, Empress Maria Theresa, Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism. In 1753, he was engaged to Maria Beatrice dEste, heiress to the Duchy of Modena, the marriage never materialised, Maria Beatrice instead married Leopolds brother, Archduke Ferdinand. On the death of his brother, Charles, in 1761, it was decided that he should succeed to his fathers grand duchy of Tuscany. This settlement was the condition of his marriage on 5 August 1764 with Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, daughter of Charles III of Spain, on the death of his father, Francis I, he succeeded to the grand duchy. Leopold was famous in Florence for his numerous extra-marital affairs, among his lovers was Countess Cowper, wife of the 3rd Earl Cowper, who in compensation for being cuckolded was given honours by Leopolds brother, Joseph II. For five years, he exercised little more than nominal authority, in 1770, he made a journey to Vienna to secure the removal of this vexatious guardianship and returned to Florence with a free hand. During the twenty years which elapsed between his return to Florence and the death of his eldest brother Joseph II in 1790, he was employed in reforming the administration of his small state. As he had no army to maintain, and as he suppressed the small naval force kept up by the Medici, Leopold was never popular with his Italian subjects. His disposition was cold and retiring, but his steady, consistent, and intelligent administration, which advanced step by step, brought the grand duchy to a high level of material prosperity. His ecclesiastical policy, which disturbed the deeply rooted convictions of his people and he was unable to secularize the property of the religious houses or to put the clergy entirely under the control of the lay power. However, his abolition of capital punishment was the first permanent abolition in modern times, Leopolds concept of this was based on respect for the political rights of citizens and on a harmony of power between the executive and the legislative. However, Leopold developed and supported social and economic reforms. Smallpox inoculation was made available, and an early institution for the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents was founded. Leopold also introduced reforms to the system of neglect and inhumane treatment of those deemed mentally ill. On 23 January 1774, the legge sui pazzi was established, a few years later Leopold undertook the project of building a new hospital, the Bonifacio Hospital. He used his skill at choosing collaborators to put a young physician, Vincenzo Chiarugi and he and Joseph II were tenderly attached to one another and met frequently both before and after the death of their mother. The portrait by Pompeo Batoni in which appear together shows that they bore a strong personal resemblance to one another
7.
Marie Antoinette
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Marie Antoinette (/ˈmæriˌæntwəˈnɛt/, /ˌɑ̃ːntwə-/, /ˌɑ̃ːtwə-/, US /məˈriː-/, French, born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, was the last Queen of France and Navarre before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria, and was the fifteenth and second youngest child of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, in April 1770, upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne, she became Dauphine of France. After eight years of marriage, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the Diamond Necklace affair damaged her reputation further. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the family to take refuge at the Assembly. On 21 September 1792, the monarchy was abolished, after a two-day trial begun on 14 October 1793, Marie Antoinette was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason, and executed by guillotine on Place de la Révolution on 16 October 1793. Maria Antonia was born on 2 November 1755, at the Hofburg Palace and she was the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Empire, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Her godparents were Joseph I and Mariana Victoria, King and Queen of Portugal, Archduke Joseph, shortly after her birth, she was placed under the care of the Governess of the Imperial children, Countess von Brandeis. Maria Antonia was raised with her older sister Maria Carolina. As to her relationship with her mother, it was difficult, despite the private tutoring she received, results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of ten she could not write correctly in German or in any language used at court, such as French. Under the teaching of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician and she learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. During the familys gatherings in the evenings, she would sing and she also excelled at dancing, had an exquisite poise, and loved dolls. Following the Seven Years War and the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, Empress Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, on 14 May she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compiègne. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name, a further ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the Palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The lack of consummation of the marriage plagued the reputation of both Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette for the seven years. The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste was mixed, on the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success, on the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria, and others, for personal reasons, had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette. Madame du Barry, for example, was Louis XVs mistress and had political influence over him
8.
Prussia
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Prussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centred on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised, Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership, in November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, from 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its Gleichschaltung laws in pursuit of a unitary state. Prussia existed de jure until its liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No.46 of 25 February 1947. The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk and their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom, and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united the German principalities into a Lesser Germany which excluded the Austrian Empire. At the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleons defeat, Prussia acquired a section of north western Germany. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians. In the Weimar Republic, the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland, the main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background. The black and white colours were already used by the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Order wore a white coat embroidered with a cross with gold insert
9.
Louis XVI of France
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Louis XVI, born Louis-Auguste, was the last King of France and Navarre before the French Revolution, during which he was also known as Louis Capet. In 1765, at the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir apparent of Louis XV of France, Louis XVI was guillotined on 21 January 1793. The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas and these included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille, and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics. The French nobility reacted to the reforms with hostility. Louis implemented deregulation of the market, advocated by his liberal minister Turgot. In periods of bad harvests, it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt, from 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime and this led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. In 1789, the storming of the Bastille during riots in Paris marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Louiss indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the tyranny of the Ancien Régime. The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy, Louis XVI was the only King of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Louis-Auguste de France, who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. Out of seven children, he was the son of Louis, the Dauphin of France. His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. A strong and healthy boy, but very shy, Louis-Auguste excelled in his studies and had a taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather, and rough-playing with his brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence. From an early age, Louis-Auguste had been encouraged in another of his hobbies, locksmithing, upon the death of his father, who died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband, and died on 13 March 1767, throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities. His instructors may have also had a hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became
10.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
11.
Flight to Varennes
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They escaped only as far as the small town of Varennes, where they were arrested after having been recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould. The incident was a point after which popular hostility towards the French monarchy as an institution, as well as towards the king and queen as individuals. The kings attempted flight provoked charges of treason that ultimately led to his execution in 1793, the failure of the escape plans was due to a series of misadventures, delays, misinterpretations, and poor judgments. Much was due to the Kings indecision, he postponed the schedule. Furthermore, he misjudged popular support for the traditional monarchy and he thought that only radicals in Paris were promoting a revolution that the people as a whole rejected. He believed, mistakenly, that he was beloved by the rural peasants, the kings flight was traumatic for France, inciting a wave of emotions that ranged from anxiety to violence and panic. Everyone was aware that foreign intervention was imminent, republicanism, from being merely a subject of coffeehouse debate, suddenly became the dominant ideal of revolutionary leaders. Henceforth, the king seems to have become emotionally paralyzed, leaving most important decisions to the politically untrained queen, from the autumn of 1791 on, the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the dubious prospects of foreign intervention. Prompted by Marie Antoinette, Louis rejected the advice of the moderate constitutionalists, led by Antoine Barnave, to implement the Constitution of 1791. At Montmédy General François Claude de Bouillé, the marquis de Bouillé, had concentrated a force of 10,000 regulars of the old royal army who were considered to still be loyal to the monarchy. De Bouillé himself had shown energy in suppressing a mutiny in Nancy in 1790. The troops under his command included two Swiss and four German mercenary regiments who were perceived as being reliable in a time of general political unrest than their French counterparts. The long-term political objectives of the couple and their closest advisors remain unclear. Prodded by the queen, Louis committed himself and his family to an attempt of escape from the capital to the eastern frontier on 21 June 1791. The escape was planned by the queens favourite, the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen and the Baron de Breteuil. Fersen had urged the use of two light carriages that could have made the 200-mile journey to Montmédy relatively quickly. This would have involved the splitting up of the family, however, thus Louis and Marie-Antoinette decided on the use of a heavy. Detachments of cavalry posted along the route had been withdrawn or neutralized by suspicious crowds before the large
12.
William Pitt the Younger
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William Pitt the Younger, PC was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 and he left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806. He was also the Chancellor of the Exchequer throughout his premiership, born William Pitt, he is known as the Younger to distinguish him from his father, William Pitt the Elder, who had previously served as Prime Minister. The younger Pitts prime ministerial tenure, which came during the reign of George III, was dominated by events in Europe, including the French Revolution. Pitt, although referred to as a Tory, or new Tory. He is best known for leading Britain in the wars against France. Pitt was an administrator who worked for efficiency and reform. He raised taxes to pay for the war against France. To meet the threat of Irish support for France, he engineered the Acts of Union 1800, Pitt created the new Toryism, which revived the Tory Party and enabled it to stay in power for the next quarter-century. Historian Asa Briggs points out that his personality did not endear itself to the British mind, for Pitt was too solitary, too colourless and his greatness came in the war with France, with the adversary setting the pace. Pitt reacted to become what Lord Minto called the Atlas of our reeling globe and his integrity and industry and his role as defender of the threatened nation allowed him to inspire and access all the national reserves of strength. William Wilberforce said that, For personal purity, disinterestedness and love of this country, for this he is ranked highly amongst British Prime Ministers. The Honourable William Pitt, second son of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, was born at Hayes Place in the village of Hayes, Pitt was from a political family on both sides. His mother, Hester Grenville, was sister to former prime minister George Grenville, according to biographer John Ehrman, Pitt inherited brilliance and dynamism from his fathers line, and a determined, methodical nature from the Grenvilles. Suffering from occasional poor health as a boy, he was educated at home by the Reverend Edward Wilson, an intelligent child, Pitt quickly became proficient in Latin and Greek. In 1773, aged fourteen, he attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, at Cambridge, Pitt was tutored by George Pretyman, who became a close personal friend. Pitt later appointed Pretyman Bishop of Lincoln then Winchester and drew upon his advice throughout his political career, while at Cambridge, he befriended the young William Wilberforce, who became a lifelong friend and political ally in Parliament. Pitt tended to socialise only with students and others already known to him
13.
Partitions of Poland
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The First Partition of Poland was decided on August 5,1772. Two decades later, Russian and Prussian troops entered the Commonwealth again, Austria did not participate in the Second Partition. The Third Partition of Poland took place on October 24,1795, with this partition, the Commonwealth ceased to exist. In Polish, there are two words for the two meanings. In Polish historiography, the term Fourth Partition of Poland has also been used, the term Fourth Partition in a temporal sense can also mean the diaspora communities that played important political role in re-establishing the Polish sovereign state after 1918. A single member of parliaments belief that a measure was injurious to his own constituency, even after the act had been approved and it became increasingly difficult to undertake action. The liberum veto also provided openings for foreign diplomats to get their ways and this applies particularly to the last Commonwealth King Stanisław August Poniatowski, who for some time had been a lover of Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Their alliance later became known in Poland as the Alliance of the Three Black Eagles, the Commonwealth could never be liquidated unless its long-time ally, Austria, allowed it, so Catherine had to use diplomacy to win Austria to her side. Frederick II retaliated by ordering enough Polish currency counterfeited to severely affect the Polish economy and this new constitution undid the reforms made in 1764 under Stanisław II. The liberum veto and all the old abuses of the last one, the irregular and poorly commanded Polish forces had little chance in the face of the regular Russian army and suffered a major defeat. In 1769 Austria annexed a small territory of Spisz and in 1770 – Nowy Sącz and these territories had been a bone of contention between Poland and Hungary, which was a part of the Austrian crown lands. In February 1772, the agreement of partition was signed in Vienna, early in August, Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops simultaneously invaded the Commonwealth and occupied the provinces agreed upon among themselves. The partition treaty was ratified by its signatories on September 22,1772, to Austria fell Zator and Auschwitz, part of Lesser Poland embracing parts of the counties of Kraków and Sandomir and the whole of Galicia, less the city of Kraków. Catherine of Russia was also very satisfied, by this diplomatic document Russia came into possession of that section of Livonia that had remained in Commonwealth control, and of Belarus embracing the counties of Vitebsk, Polotsk and Mstislavl. By this partition, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth lost about 30% of its territory and half of its population, by seizing northwestern Poland, Prussia instantly gained control over 80% of the Commonwealths total foreign trade. Through levying enormous customs duties, Prussia accelerated the collapse of the Commonwealth, after having occupied their respective territories, the three partitioning powers demanded that King Stanisław and the Sejm approve their action. By 1790 the First Polish Republic had been weakened to such a degree that it was forced into an unnatural and terminal alliance with its enemy, the Polish–Prussian Pact of 1790 was signed. The conditions of the Pact contributed to the succeeding and final two partitions of Poland–Lithuania, the May Constitution of 1791 enfranchised the bourgeoisie, established the separation of the three branches of government, and eliminated the abuses of the Repnin Sejm
14.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
15.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
16.
National Constituent Assembly (France)
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The National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789 during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly, the Estates-General of 1789, made up of representatives of the three estates, which had not been convoked since 1614, convened on 5 May 1789. The Estates-General reached a deadlock in its deliberations by 6 May, the representatives of the Third Estate attempted to make the whole body more effective and so met separately from 11 May as the Communes. On 12 June, the Communes invited the other Estates to join them, on 17 June 1789, the Communes approved the motion made by Sieyès that declared themselves the National Assembly by a vote of 490 to 90. The Third Estate now believed themselves to be an authority equal to that of the King. A legislative and political agenda unfolded, there were soon attempts by King Louis XVI and the Second Estate to prevent the delegates from meeting, as well as misunderstandings on both sides about each others intentions. Failing to disperse the delegates, Louis started to recognize their validity on 27 June, the Assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July and began to function as a governing body and a constitution-drafter. However, it is common to refer to the body even after then as the National Assembly or the Constituent Assembly, following the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, the National Constituent Assembly became the effective government of France. In the words of historian François Mignet, The assembly had acquired the power, the corporations depended on it. The royal power, though existing of right, was in a suspended, since it was not obeyed. The number of the Estates-General increased significantly during the election period, according to Timothy Tackett, there were a total of 1,177 deputies in the Assembly by mid-July 1789. Among them,278 belonged to the nobility,295 to the clergy, for the entire duration of the Assembly, a total of 1,315 deputies were certified,330 clerics,322 nobles, and 663 deputies of the Third Estate. Tackett noted that the majority of the Second Estate had a background. In the early period, its most notable leaders included Honoré Mirabeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, lameths brother Charles also belonged to this group. For a partial list of members of the National Constituent Assembly, in the summer of 1791, the National Constituent Assembly decided that the king needed to be restored to the throne if he accepted the constitution. The decision was made after the failed attempt to flee to Varennes. That decision enraged many Parisians into protesting, and one major protest devolved into the Champ de Mars Massacre, after surviving the vicissitudes of a revolutionary two years, the National Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on 30 September 1791. The following day, the Constitution of 1791 went into effect and this article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet, as made available by Project Gutenberg
17.
Jacques Pierre Brissot
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Jacques Pierre Brissot, who assumed the name of de Warville, was a leading member of the Girondist movement during the French Revolution. Some sources give his name as Jean Pierre Brissot, Brissot was born at Chartres, where his father was an innkeeper. He received an education and worked as a law clerk, first in Chartres then in Paris and he later moved to London because he wanted to pursue a literary career. He published many literary articles throughout his time in London, while there, he Brissot founded two periodicals that later did not do well and failed. He married Félicité Dupont, who translated English works, including Oliver Goldsmith and they lived in London, and had three children. In the preface of Théorie des lois criminelles, Brissot explains that he submitted an outline of the book to Voltaire, Théorie des lois criminelles was a plea for penal reform. Brissot became known as a writer and was engaged on the Mercure de France, soon after his return to Paris, Brissot was placed in the Bastille in 1784 on the charge of having published a pornographic pamphlet Passe-temps de Toinette against the queen. Brissot had an out with Catholicism, and wrote about his disagreements with the churchs hierarchal system. In1791, Brissot along with Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Paine, as an agent of the society, he paid a visit to the United States in 1788, and subsequently published in 1791 his Nouveau Voyage dans les États-Unis de lAmérique septentrionale. Brissot believed that American ideals could help improve French government and he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1789. At one point, he was interested in uprooting his family to America, Thomas Jefferson, ambassador in Paris at the time was familiar enough with him to note, Warville is returned charmed with our country. He is going to carry his wife and children to settle there, however, such an emigration never happened. The rising ferment of revolution sucked him back into schemes for progress through political journalism that would make him a household name. From the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, Brissot became one of its most vocal supporters and he edited the Patriote français from 1789 to 1793 and took a prominent part in politics. Famous for his speeches at the Jacobin Club, he was elected a member of the municipality of Paris, then of the Legislative Assembly, at the National Convention, Brissot represented Eure-et-Loir. Shortly thereafter, Brissot began to align himself with the more conservative Girondins, the Girondins, or Brissotins as they were often called, were a group of loosely affiliated individuals, many of whom came from Gironde, rather than an organized party with a clear ideology. This group was first led by Brissot, following the arrest of King Louis XVI on charges of high treason and crimes against the State, there was much division over what the fate of the king should be. While many argued to end the life and send him to the guillotine, Brissot
18.
Campaigns of 1792 in the French Revolutionary Wars
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The French Revolutionary Wars began in 1792. France declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792, the army performed poorly in the first engagements. Near Lille, French soldiers fled at sight of the Austrian outposts and murdered their general Théobald Dillon, thus the disciplined soldiers of the Allies had apparently good reason to expect an easy campaign. In the Southern Netherlands, plans called for the Austrians to besiege Lille, after completing its preparations in the leisurely manner of the previous generation, his army crossed the French frontier on 19 August 1792. The Allies readily captured Longwy and slowly marched on to Verdun, the commandant there, Colonel Beaurepaire, shot himself in despair, and the place surrendered on 3 September 1792. Brunswick now began his march on Paris and approached the defiles of the Argonne, kellermann moved but slowly, and before he arrived the northern part of the line of defence had been forced. Brunswick meanwhile had passed the northern defiles and had then swung round to cut off Dumouriez from Châlons, the result was the Cannonade of Valmy. Kellermann’s infantry, nearly all regulars, stood steady, the French artillery justified its reputation as the best in Europe, and eventually, with no more than a half-hearted infantry attack, the duke broke off the action and retired. This seemingly minor engagement proved the point of the campaign. Ten days later, without firing another shot, the army began its retreat. Meanwhile, the French forces in the south had driven back the Piedmontese and had conquered Savoy, another French success was the daring expedition into Germany made by Custine from Alsace. Custine captured Mainz on 21 October 1792 and penetrated as far as Frankfurt, in the north, the Austrian siege of Lille had completely failed, and Dumouriez now resumed his interrupted scheme for the invasion of the Netherlands. Controlling enormously superior forces, he made his late in the season. Custines invasion of the German Palatinate forms the background for Goethes Hermann and Dorothea, original text from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
19.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
20.
Wikisource
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Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg
21.
Causes of the French Revolution
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Financial, Frances debt, aggravated by French involvement in the American Revolution, led Louis XVI to implement new taxations and to reduce privileges. Political, Louis XVI faced virulent opposition from provincial parlements which were the spearheads of the privileged classes resistance to royal reforms, economic, The deregulation of the grain market, advocated by liberal economists, resulted in an increase in bread prices. In period of bad harvests, it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt, all these factors created a revolutionary atmosphere and a tricky situation for Louis XVI. The essence of the situation which existed in France in the 1780s was the bankruptcy of the king. This economic crisis was due to the increasing costs of government. These costs could not be met from the sources of state revenue. Since the 1770s, several attempts by different ministers to introduce financial stability had failed, the taxation system was burdensome upon the middle class and the more prosperous peasants, given that the nobles were largely able to exempt themselves from it. As a result, there was an insistent demand for reform of abuses of privilege, for an equitable means of taxation. The population of France in the 1780s was about 26 million, few of these owned enough land to support a family and most were forced to take on extra work as poorly paid labourers on larger farms. There were regional differences but, by and large, French peasants were better off than those in countries like Russia or Poland. Even so, hunger was a problem which became critical in years of poor harvest. The clergy numbered about 100,000 and yet they owned 10% of the land, the Catholic Church maintained a rigid hierarchy as abbots and bishops were all members of the nobility and canons were all members of wealthy bourgeois families. As an institution, it was rich and powerful. As with the nobility, it paid no taxes and merely contributed a grant to the state five years. The upper echelons of the clergy had considerable influence over government policy, dislike of the nobility was especially intense. The American Revolution demonstrated that it was plausible for Enlightenment ideas about how a government should be organized to actually be put into practice. Some American diplomats, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, had lived in Paris, furthermore, contact between American revolutionaries and the French troops who served in North America helped spread revolutionary ideas to the French people. France in 1787, although it faced difficulties, was one of the most economically capable nations of Europe
22.
French First Republic
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In the history of France, the First Republic, officially the French Republic, was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire in 1804 under Napoleon, under the Legislative Assembly, which was in power before the proclamation of the First Republic, France was engaged in war with Prussia and Austria. The foreign threat exacerbated Frances political turmoil amid the French Revolution and deepened the passion, in the violence of 10 August 1792, citizens stormed the Tuileries Palace, killing six hundred of the Kings Swiss guards and insisting on the removal of the king. A renewed fear of action prompted further violence, and in the first week of September 1792, mobs of Parisians broke into the citys prisons. This included nobles, clergymen, and political prisoners, but also numerous common criminals, such as prostitutes and petty thieves, many murdered in their cells—raped, stabbed and this became known as the September Massacres. The resulting Convention was founded with the purpose of abolishing the monarchy. The Conventions first act, on 10 August 1792, was to establish the French First Republic, the King, by then a private citizen bearing his family name of Capet, was subsequently put on trial for crimes of high treason starting in December 1792. On 16 January 1793 he was convicted, and on 21 January, throughout the winter of 1792 and spring of 1793, Paris was plagued by food riots and mass hunger. The new Convention did little to remedy the problem until late spring of 1793, despite growing discontent with the National Convention as a ruling body, in June the Convention drafted the Constitution of 1793, which was ratified by popular vote in early August. The Committees laws and policies took the revolution to unprecedented heights, after the arrest and execution of Robespierre in July 1794, the Jacobin club was closed, and the surviving Girondins were reinstated. A year later, the National Convention adopted the Constitution of the Year III and they reestablished freedom of worship, began releasing large numbers of prisoners, and most importantly, initiated elections for a new legislative body. On 3 November 1795, the Directory was established, the period known as the French Consulate began with the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. Members of the Directory itself planned the coup, indicating clearly the failing power of the Directory, Napoleon Bonaparte was a co-conspirator in the coup, and became head of the government as the First Consul. He would later proclaim himself Emperor of the French, ending the First French Republic and ushering in the French First Empire
23.
French Directory
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It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution. The Directory was continually at war with foreign coalitions which at different times included Britain, Austria, Prussia, the Kingdom of Naples, Russia and it annexed Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, while Bonaparte conquered a large part of Italy. The Directory established six short-lived sister republics modelled after France, in Italy, Switzerland, the conquered cities and states were required to send to France huge amounts of money, as well as art treasures, which were used to fill the new Louvre museum in Paris. An army led by Bonaparte conquered Egypt and marched as far as Saint-Jean-dAcre in Syria, the French economy was in continual crisis during the Directory. At the beginning, the treasury was empty, the money, the Assignat, had fallen to a fraction of its value. The Directory stopped printing assignats and restored the value of the money, but this caused a new crisis, prices and wages fell, and economic activity slowed to a standstill. The Jacobin political club was closed and the government crushed an uprising planned by the Jacobins. The Jacobins took two seats in the Directory, hopelessly dividing it. In 1799, after several defeats, French victories in the Netherlands and Switzerland restored the French military position, Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October, and was engaged by the Abbé Sieyès and other moderates to carry out a parliamentary coup détat on 8–9 November 1799. The coup abolished the Directory, put the French Consulate led by Bonaparte in its place, Robespierre and his leading followers were declared outside the law, and on 28 July were arrested, and guillotined the same day. The Terror quickly came to a halt, the Revolutionary Tribunal, which had sent thousands to the guillotine, ceased meeting and its head, Fouquier-Tinville, was arrested and imprisoned, and after trial was himself guillotined. More than five hundred suspected counter-revolutionaries awaiting trial and execution were immediately released, in the wake of these events, the members of the Convention began planning an entirely new form of government. They wished to continue the Revolution, but without its excesses and this executive will have a force concentrated enough that it will be swift and firm, but divided enough to make it impossible for any member to even consider becoming a tyrant. A single chief would be dangerous, each member will preside for three months, he will have during this time the signature and seal of the head of state. By the slow and gradual replacement of members of the Directory, you will preserve the advantages of order and continuity and will have the advantages of unity without the inconveniences. To assure that the Directors would have some independence, each would be elected by one portion of the legislature, the members of this legislature had a term of three years, with one-third of the members renewed every year. The Ancients could not initiate new laws, but could veto those proposed by the Council of Five Hundred, the new Constitution required the Council of 500 to prepare, by secret ballot, a list of candidates for the Directory. The Council of the Ancients then chose, again by secret ballot, the Constitution required that Directors be at least forty years old
24.
French Consulate
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The Consulate was the government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804. By extension, the term The Consulate also refers to period of French history. Due to the institutions established during these years, Robert B. Holtman has called the Consulate one of the most important periods of all French history, Napoleon brought authoritarian personal rule which has been viewed as military dictatorship. French military disasters in 1798 and 1799 had shaken the Directory, an irregularity emerged in the election of Jean Baptiste Treilhard, who retired in favor of Louis Jérôme Gohier. Within days, Philippe-Antoine Merlin and Louis-Marie de La Revellière were driven to resign, Baron Jean-François-Auguste Moulin, the three new directors were generally seen as non-entities. A few more military disasters, royalist insurrections in the south, Chouan disturbances in a dozen departments of the part of France, Orléanist intrigues. In order to soothe the populace and protect the frontier, more than the French Revolutions usual terrorist measures was necessary, the new Directory government, led by Sieyès, decided that the necessary revision of the constitution would require a head and a sword. Jean Victor Moreau being unattainable as his sword, Sieyès favoured Barthélemy Catherine Joubert, but, success was reserved for Bonaparte, suddenly landing at Fréjus with the prestige of his victories in the East, and now, after Hoches death, appearing as sole master of the armies. In the coup of 18 Brumaire Year VIII, Napoleon seized French parliamentary and military power in a two-fold coup détat, the initial 18 Brumaire coup seemed to be a victory for Sieyès, rather than for Bonaparte. Sieyès was a proponent of a new system of government for the Republic, Bonapartes cleverness lay in counterposing Pierre Claude François Daunous plan to that of Sieyès, and in retaining only those portions of both which could serve his ambition. Ultimate executive authority was vested in three consuls, who were elected for ten years, popular suffrage was retained, though mutilated by the lists of notables. Napoleon vetoed Sieyès original idea of having a single Grand Elector as supreme executive, Sieyès had intended to reserve this important position for himself, and by denying him the job Napoleon helped reinforce the authority of the consuls, an office which he would assume. Nor was Napoleon content simply to be part of an equal triumvirate, by consolidating power, Bonaparte was able to transform the aristocratic constitution of Sieyès into an unavowed dictatorship. On 7 February 1800, a referendum confirmed the new constitution. It vested all of the power in the hands of the First Consul. A full 99. 9% of voters approved the motion, according to the released results and he gave everyone a feeling that France was governed once more by a real statesman, and that a competent government was finally in charge. Bonaparte had now to rid himself of Sieyès and of those republicans who had no desire to hand over the republic to one man, particularly of Moreau and Masséna, his military rivals
25.
Day of the Tiles
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The Day of the Tiles is an event that took place in the French town of Grenoble on the 7th of June in 1788. It was one of the first disturbances which preceded the French Revolution, Grenoble was the scene of popular unrest due to financial hardship from the economic crises. The causes of the French Revolution affected all of France, tensions in urban populations had been rising already due to poor harvests and the high cost of bread in France. These tensions were exacerbated by the refusal of the classes, the Church. They insisted on retaining the right to collect feudal and seignorial royalties from their peasants and this acted to block reforms attempted by the kings minister Charles Alexandre de Calonne and the Assembly of Notables that he convoked in January 1787. Added to this, Brienne, appointed the kings Controller-General of Finance on 8 April 1787, was regarded as being a manager without experience or imagination. Shortly prior to the 7th of June in 1788, in a meeting at Grenoble those who attended the meeting decided to call together the old Estates of the province of Dauphiné. The government responded by sending troops to the area to put down the movement. At roughly 10 in the morning of Saturday, June 7, merchants closed down their shops as groups of 300 to 400 men and women formed, armed with stones, sticks, axes, bars. They rushed to the city gates to prevent the departure of judges who took part in the Gernoble meeting, some rioters attempted to cross the Isère but faced a picket of 50 soldiers at the St. Lawrence bridge, while others headed to the Rue Neuve. The cathedral’s bells were seized by French peasants at noon, the crowd swiftly grew, as the bells provoked the influx of neighboring peasants to creep in the city, climbing the walls, using boats on the Isere and for some, pushing open the city gates. Other insurgents boarded the ramparts and rushed to the hotel the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre was staying in at the time. The Duke had two regiments in Grenoble, the Regiment of the Royal Navy whose colonel was Marquis dAmbert. The Royal Navy was the first to respond to the growing crowds, however, as the mob stormed the hotel entrance, the situation escalated. Soldiers sent to quell the disturbances forced the townspeople off the streets, some sources say that the soldiers were sent to disperse parliamentarians who were attempting to assemble a parlement. During an attack, Royal Navy soldiers injured a 75 year old man with a bayonet, at the sight of blood, the people became angry and started to tear up the streets. Townspeople climbed onto the roofs of buildings around the Jesuit College to hurl down a rain of roof-tiles on the soldiers in the streets below, many soldiers took refuge in a building to shoot through the windows, while the crowd continued to rush inside and ravage everything. A noncommissioned officer of the Royal Navy, commanding a patrol of four soldiers, one civilian was killed and a boy of 12 wounded
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Assembly of Vizille
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The Assembly of Vizille was the result of a meeting of various representatives in Grenoble. Its purpose was to discuss the events of The Day Of The Tiles, on 7 June 1788, riots broke out all over the town of Grenoble. Soldiers sent to quell the disturbances forced the townspeople off the streets, some sources say that the soldiers were sent to disperse parliamentarians, who were attempting to assemble a parliament. However, the townspeople climbed onto the roofs of buildings, hurling roof-tiles at the soldiers in the streets below and this drove royal troops out of the city in the first outbreak of political violence that became the revolution. Almost 500 men gathered that day at the banquet hosted by Claude, in attendance there were many notables including churchmen, businessmen, doctors, notaries, municipal officials, lawyers, and landed nobility. Demanded at this meeting, the Convocation in Paris of an Estates-General and this meeting marked the first portion of the French Revolution. Opposition to absolutist monarchy finally came out into the open, with increasing support for its demands, culminating in the meeting of the Estates General
27.
What Is the Third Estate?
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Is a political pamphlet written in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, by the French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès. The pamphlet was Sieyès response to finance minister Jacques Neckers invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized. Sieyès stated that the people wanted genuine representatives in the Estates-General, equal representation to the two orders taken together, and votes taken by heads and not by orders. These ideas came to have an influence on the course of the French Revolution. The pamphlet is organized around three hypothetical questions and Sieyès responses, the questions are, What is the Third Estate. What has it been hitherto in the political order, what does it desire to be. He advocates equal representation of all three orders in government, and asserts that taxes and government policy should affect all portions of society equally, thus, he asserts, it should replace the other two estates entirely. The Third Estate has to pay tax, the idea of the pluralistic state theory was led by English political philosophers such as G. D. H. Cole, J. N. Figgis and H. J. A comprehensive collection of writings was released under Pluralist Theory of the State, modern equivalent theories building upon the ideas within pluralistic state theory is libertarian socialism and free-market anarchism. An example of the former is guild socialism, one of the founders of which is G. D. H. Cole, estates of the realm Pluralism Modernism Excerpts from What is the Third Estate. Internet History Sourcebooks – Fordham University
28.
Estates General of 1789
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The estates general, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm, the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. It was brought to an end when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly and this signals the outbreak of the French Revolution. The suggestion to summon the Estates General came from the Assembly of Notables installed by the King on 22 February 1787 and it had not met since 1614. The usual business of registering the Kings edicts as law was performed by the Parlement of Paris, in this year it was refusing to cooperate with Charles Alexandre de Calonnes programme of badly needed financial reform, due to the special interests of its noble members. Calonne was the Controller-General of Finances, appointed by the King to address the state deficit, as a last measure, Calonne was hoping to bypass them by reviving an archaic institution. The initial roster of Notables included 137 nobles, among them many revolutionaries, such as the Comte de Mirabeau. Lafayette had served in George Washingtons army, much of the debt had been incurred on behalf of the Americans. The final defeat of Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown was due in part to the participation of the French army. If Calonne thought he would find more cooperation by changing the assembly and he proposed a land tax, Subvention Territoriale, to be imposed on all land-holders, rich or poor. Calonne was dismissed on 8 April 1787, and then was exiled and he commented on the French political scene from London. Calonnes replacement was Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne, President of the Assembly of Notables and he was offered the post of Prime Minister, which was to include being Controller. They made a number of proposals but they would not grant the King money, Lafayette suggested that the problem required a national assembly. Brienne asked him if he meant the Estates General, on receiving an affirmative answer, Brienne recorded it as a proposal. Frustrated by his inability to obtain money, the King staged a day-long harangue and their proposals reverted to the Parlement. Turning again to the Parliament, the King found that they were inclined to continue the issues that had raised in the Assembly of Notables. Unless registered, the edicts were not lawful, on 6 July 1787, Loménie forwarded the Subvention Territoriale and another tax, the Edit du Timbre, or Stamp Act, based on the American model, for registration. Parlement refused, an act, demanding accounting statements, or States. It was the Kings turn to refuse, the members of the Parlement began to jest that they required either the accounting States or the Estates General
29.
National Assembly (French Revolution)
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The Estates-General had been called on Dec 4,1789 to deal with Frances financial crisis, but promptly fell to squabbling over its own structure. Its members had elected to represent the estates of the realm, the 1st Estate, the 2nd Estate. They refused this and proceeded to meet separately, on June 13, this group began to call itself the National Assembly. This newly created assembly immediately attached itself onto the capitalists — the sources of the credit needed to fund the national debt — and to the common people. They consolidated the public debt and declared all existing taxes to have been illegally imposed and this restored the confidence of the capitalists and gave them a strong interest in keeping the Assembly in session. As for the people, the Assembly established a committee of subsistence to deal with food shortages. Jacques Necker, finance minister to Louis XVI, had proposed that the king hold a Séance Royale in an attempt to reconcile the divided Estates. The king agreed, but none of the three orders were formally notified of the decision to hold a Royal Session, all debates were to be put on hold until the séance royale took place. Events soon overtook Neckers complex scheme of giving in to the Communes on some points while holding firm on others. On June 19, he ordered the Salle des États, the hall where the National Assembly met, closed, when, on June 23, in accord with his plan, the king finally addressed the representatives of all three estates, he encountered a stony silence. He concluded by ordering all to disperse, the nobles and clergy obeyed, the deputies of the common people remained seated in a silence finally broken by Mirabeau, whose short speech culminated, A military force surrounds the assembly. Where are the enemies of the nation, I demand, investing yourselves with your dignity, with your legislative power, you inclose yourselves within the religion of your oath. It does not permit you to separate till you have formed a constitution, Necker, conspicuous by his absence from the royal party on that day, found himself in disgrace with Louis, but back in the good graces of the National Assembly. The French military began to arrive in numbers around Paris. This move failed, soon part of the deputies of the nobles who still stood apart joined the National Assembly at the request of the king. Louis offered to move the assembly to Noyon or Soissons, that is to say, public outrage over this troop presence precipitated the Storming of the Bastille, beginning the Revolution. This article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. French Revolution. Http, //www. assemblee-nationale. fr/english/8am. asp History of the National Assembly http, //www. saylor. org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/National-Assembly-French-Revolution. pdf National Assembly
30.
Tennis Court Oath
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It was a pivotal event in the early days of the French Revolution. On 17 June, the Third Estate, led by the comte de Mirabeau, on the morning of 20 June, the deputies were shocked to discover that the chamber door was locked and guarded by soldiers. There,576 of the 577 members from the Third Estate took an oath not to separate. The only person who did not join was Joseph Martin-Dauch from Castelnaudary and this oath would come to have major significance in the revolution as the Third Estate would constantly continue to protest to have more representation. The oath was both an act, and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarch himself. Their solidarity forced Louis XVI to order the clergy and the nobility to join with the Third Estate in the National Assembly in order to give the illusion that he controlled the National Assembly. This oath would prove vital to the Third Estate as a step of protest that would lead to more power in the Estates General. The Oath signified for the first time that French citizens formally stood in opposition to Louis XVI, and it was foreshadowed by, and drew considerably from, the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, especially the preamble. The Oath also inspired a variety of revolutionary activity in the months afterwards. Likewise, it reinforced the Assemblys strength and forced the King to formally request that voting occur based on head, not power. The Tennis Court Oath, which was taken in June 1789, preceded the 4 August 1789 abolition of feudalism and the 26 August 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
31.
Storming of the Bastille
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The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming but was a symbol of abuses by the monarchy, in France, Le quatorze juillet is a public holiday, usually called Bastille Day in English. During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced an economic crisis, partially initiated by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution. The king initially opposed this development, but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which subsequently renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July. The commoners had formed the National Guard, sporting tricolour cockades of blue, white and red, formed by combining the red and blue cockade of Paris and the white cockade of the king. These cockades, and soon simply their colour scheme, became the symbol of the revolution and, later, Paris, close to insurrection and, in François Mignets words, intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm, showed wide support for the Assembly. The press published the Assemblys debates, political debate spread beyond the Assembly itself into the public squares, the Palais-Royal and its grounds became the site of an ongoing meeting. The Assembly recommended the imprisoned guardsmen to the clemency of the king, they returned to prison, the rank and file of the regiment, previously considered reliable, now leaned toward the popular cause. News of Neckers dismissal reached Paris in the afternoon of Sunday,12 July, the Parisians generally presumed that the dismissal marked the start of a coup by conservative elements. Crowds gathered throughout Paris, including more than ten thousand at the Palais-Royal and this very night all the Swiss and German battalions will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all, one resource is left, to take arms. By early July, approximately half of the 25,000 regular troops in Paris, the crowd clashed with the Royal German Cavalry Regiment between the Place Vendôme and the Tuileries Palace. From atop the Champs-Élysées, the Prince de Lambesc unleashed a cavalry charge that dispersed the protesters at Place Louis XV—now Place de la Concorde. The Royal commander, Baron de Besenval, fearing the results of a blood bath amongst the poorly armed crowds or defections among his own men, then withdrew the cavalry towards Sèvres. Meanwhile, unrest was growing among the people of Paris who expressed their hostility against state authorities by attacking customs posts blamed for causing increased food, the people of Paris started to plunder any place where food, guns and supplies could be hoarded. That night, rumors spread that supplies were being hoarded at Saint-Lazare, a property of the clergy. An angry mob broke in and plundered the property, seizing 52 wagons of wheat and that same day multitudes of people plundered many other places including weapon arsenals. The Royal troops did nothing to stop the spreading of chaos in Paris during those days
32.
Women's March on Versailles
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The Womens March on Versailles, also known as The October March, The October Days, or simply The March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were near rioting over the high price and their demonstrations quickly became intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries, who were seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France. The market women and their various allies grew into a mob of thousands, encouraged by revolutionary agitators, they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched to the Palace of Versailles. The crowd besieged the palace, and in a dramatic and violent confrontation, the next day, the crowd compelled the king, his family, and most of the French Assembly to return with them to Paris. These events ended the independence and signified the change of power. The march symbolized a new balance of power that displaced the ancient privileged orders of the French nobility and favored the common people. Bringing together people representing sources of the Revolution in their largest numbers yet, the deregulation of the grain market implemented by Turgot, Louis XVIs Controller-General of Finances, in 1774, was the main cause of the famine which led to the Flour War in 1775. Mere rumors of food led to the Réveillon riots in April 1789. Rumors of a plot aiming to destroy crops in order to starve the population provoked the Great Fear in the summer of 1789. When the October journéesa took place, Frances revolutionary decade, 1789–1799, had barely begun, the revolutions capacity for violence was as yet not fully realized. The storming of the Bastille had occurred less than three months earlier, flush with newly discovered power, the common citizens of France – particularly in the teeming capital, Paris – felt a newly discovered desire to participate in politics and government. The poorest among them were almost exclusively concerned with the issue of food, in the post-Bastille period, price inflation and severe shortages in Paris became commonplace, as did local incidents of violence in the marketplaces. Now their attention was turned to the creation of a permanent constitution, monarchists and conservatives of all degrees had thus far been unable to resist the surging strength of the reformers, but by September their positions were beginning, however slightly, to improve. In constitutional negotiations they were able to secure a veto power for the king. Many of the reformers were left aghast by this, and further negotiations were hobbled by contentiousness, quiet Versailles, the seat of royal power, was a stifling environment for reformers. The bustling metropolis lay within walking distance, less than 21 kilometres to the northeast, worse, many feared that the king, emboldened by the growing presence of royal troops, might simply dissolve the Assembly, or at least renege on the August decrees. The king was indeed considering this, and when on 18 September he issued a statement giving his approval to only a portion of the decrees. Stoking their anger even further, the king even stated on 4 October that he had reservations about the Declaration of the Rights of Man, despite its post-revolutionary mythology, the march was not a spontaneous event
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Parlement
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A parlement was a provincial appellate court in the France of the Ancien Régime, i. e. before the French Revolution. In 1789,13 parlements existed, the most important of which was by far the Parlement of Paris, while the English word parliament derives from this French term, parlements were not legislative bodies. They consisted of a dozen or more judges, or about 1,100 judges nationwide. They were the court of appeal of the judicial system. Laws and edicts issued by the Crown were not official in their respective jurisdictions until the parlements gave their assent by publishing them, the members were aristocrats called nobles of the gown who had bought or inherited their offices, and were independent of the King. From 1770 to 1774 the Lord Chancellor, Maupeou, tried to abolish the Parlement of Paris in order to strengthen the Crown, however, when King Louis XV died in 1774, the parlements were reinstated. The parlements spearheaded the resistance to the absolutism and centralization of the Crown, but they worked primarily for the benefit of their own class. Alfred Cobban argues that the parlements were the obstacles to any reform before the Revolution. In November 1789, early in the French Revolution, all parlements were suspended, the political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the Kings Council, and consequently enjoyed ancient, customary consultative and deliberative prerogatives. In the 13th century, the parlements acquired judicial functions, then the droit de remontrance against the king, the Paris parlements jurisdiction covered the entire kingdom as it was in the 14th century, but did not automatically advance in step with the Crowns ever expanding realm. The Parlement of Paris played a role in stimulating the nobility to resist the expansion of royal power by military force in the Fronde. In the end, the King won out and the nobility was humiliated, in such a case, the parlements powers were suspended for the duration of this royal session. King Louis XIV moved to centralize authority into his own hands, in 1665, he ordained that a Lit de justice could be held without the king having to appear in person. In 1667, he limited the number of remonstrances to only one, in 1671–1673, however, the parlements resisted the taxes occasioned by the Dutch War. In 1673, the king imposed additional restrictions that stripped the parlements of any influence upon new laws by ordaining that remonstrances could only be issued after registration of the edicts. After Louis death in 1715, all the restrictions were discontinued by the regent and these locations were provincial capitals of those provinces with strong historical traditions of independence before they were annexed to France. Nevertheless, the Parlement of Paris had the largest jurisdiction of all the parlements, covering the part of northern and central France. In some regions provincial States-General also continued to meet and legislate with a measure of self-governance, tenure on the court was generally bought from the royal authority, and such positions could be made hereditary by payment of a tax to the King called la Paulette
34.
French nobility
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The French nobility was a privileged social class in France during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period to the revolution in 1790. The nobility was revived in 1805 with limited rights as an elite class from the First Empire to the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848. Hereditary titles, without privileges, continued to be granted until the Second Empire fell in 1870 and they survive among their descendants as a social convention and as part of the legal name of the corresponding individuals. In the political system of pre-Revolutionary France, the nobility made up the Second Estate of the Estates General, although membership in the noble class was mainly inherited, it was not a fully closed order. New individuals were appointed to the nobility by the monarchy, or they could purchase rights and titles, sources differ about the actual number of nobles in France, however, proportionally, it was among the smallest noble classes in Europe. For the year 1789, French historian François Bluche gives a figure of 140,000 nobles and states that about 5% of nobles could claim descent from feudal nobility before the 15th century, with a total population of 28 million, this would represent merely 0. 5%. Historian Gordon Wright gives a figure of 300,000 nobles, in terms of land holdings, at the time of the revolution, noble estates comprised about one-fifth of the land. The French nobility had specific legal and financial rights and prerogatives, the first official list of these prerogatives was established relatively late, under Louis XI after 1440, and included the right to hunt, to wear a sword and, in principle, to possess a seigneurie. Nobles were also granted an exemption from paying the taille, except for lands they might possess in some regions of France. Furthermore, certain ecclesiastic, civic, and military positions were reserved for nobles and these feudal privileges are often termed droits de féodalité dominante. With the exception of a few isolated cases, serfdom had ceased to exist in France by the 15th century, in early modern France, nobles nevertheless maintained a great number of seigneurial privileges over the free peasants that worked lands under their control. They could, for example, levy the tax, an annual tax on lands leased or held by vassals. Nobles could also charge banalités for the right to use the lords mills, ovens, alternatively, a noble could demand a portion of vassals harvests in return for permission to farm land he owned. In the 17th century this system was established in Frances North American possessions. However, the also had responsibilities. Nobles were required to honor, serve, and counsel their king and they were often required to render military service. The rank of noble was forfeitable, certain activities could cause dérogeance, most commercial and manual activities were strictly prohibited, although nobles could profit from their lands by operating mines and forges. The nobility in France was never a closed class
35.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
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The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was a law passed on 12 July 1790 during the French Revolution, that caused the immediate subordination of the Catholic Church in France to the French government. Earlier legislation had already arranged the confiscation of the Catholic Churchs French land holdings and this new law completed the destruction of the monastic orders, outlawing all regular and secular chapters for either sex, abbacies and priorships, both regular and in commendam, for either sex, etc. It also sought to settle the chaos caused by the confiscation of Church lands. Additionally, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy regulated the current dioceses so that they could become more uniform and it emphasised that officials of the church could not provide commitment to anything outside of France, specifically the Pope which was outside of France. Lastly, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy made Bishops and Priest elected, the measure was opposed, but ultimately acquiesced to, by King Louis XVI. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy document had 4 tittles with different articles, the document began with an introduction that introduced why the document was written. Title I focused on the dioceses and how they were to be administered, Title II focused on the administration of the dioceses and how elections were to take place. Title III focused on payment because the Clergy was an employee of the State. Title IV focused on the requirements for bishops, parish priests. Even before the Revolution and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, even prior to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, On 11 August 1789 tithes were abolished. On 2 November 1789, Catholic Church property that was held for purposes of church revenue was nationalized, on 13 February 1790, monastic vows were forbidden and all ecclesiastical orders and congregations were dissolved, excepting those devoted to teaching children and nursing the sick. On 19 April 1790, administration of all remaining property was transferred to the State. The Church owned about six percent of the land in France, in addition the Church collected tithes. Owing, in part, to abuses of this system, there was resentment of the Church, taking the various forms of atheism, anticlericalism. Many of the revolutionaries viewed the Catholic Church as a retrograde force, at the same time, there was enough support for a basically Catholic form of Christianity that some means had to be found to fund the Church in France. On 6 February 1790, one week before banning monastic vows, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy came before the Assembly on 29 May 1790. François de Bonal, Bishop of Clermont, and some members of the Right requested that the project should be submitted to a council or to the Pope. Joining them in their opposition to the legislation was Abbé Sieyès, one of the political theorists of the French Revolution
36.
Champ de Mars Massacre
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The Champ de Mars Massacre took place on 17 July 1791 in Paris in the midst of the French Revolution. The event is named after the site of the massacre, the Champ de Mars, two days before, the National Constituent Assembly issued a decree that the king, Louis XVI, would remain king under a constitutional monarchy. This decision came after King Louis XVI and his family had tried to flee France in the Flight to Varennes the month before. Later that day, leaders of the republicans in France rallied against this decision, jacques Pierre Brissot, editor and main writer of Le Patriote français and president of the Comité des Recherches of Paris, drew up a petition demanding the removal of the king. A crowd of 50,000 people gathered at the Champ de Mars on July 17 to sign the petition, jean Sylvain Bailly, the mayor of Paris, used this incident to declare martial law. The Marquis de Lafayette and the National Guard, which was under his command, were able to disperse the crowd, later in the afternoon, the crowd, led by Danton and Camille Desmoulins, returned in even greater numbers. The larger crowd was more determined than the first. Lafayette again tried to disperse it, in retaliation, the crowd threw stones at the National Guard. After firing unsuccessful warning shots, the National Guard opened fire directly on the crowd, the exact numbers of dead and wounded are unknown, estimates range from a dozen to fifty dead. When Louis XVI and his family fled to Varennes, it set off political turmoil, earlier, information had been received by the assembly that there was potentially a plan for the king to flee. The idea that Louis planned on fleeing the Tuileries palace began in early 1791 and was one of the causes of the Day of Daggers on 28 February 1791. The escape event was not subtly planned, and enough suspicions were aroused in those working in the palace that the information trickled down to newspapers. The Marquis de Lafayette promised on his own life such a thing was not true. Lafayette and the Assembly created a lie that the king had been kidnapped, ultimately the king and his family were brought back and the assembly decided that he needed to be a part of the government if he agreed to consent to the constitution. At the time of the massacre, divisions within the Third Estate had already began to grow, many workers were already angered by the closing of various workshops, which took away jobs, leaving some unemployed. Higher skilled journeymen were also angered due to a lack of increase in wages since the beginning of the Revolution, the attempted flight of the King only increased the tensions between groups. The massacre was the result of various factions reacting to the decree by the Constituent Assembly in different ways. The Cordeliers Club, a populist group, chose to create a petition for a protest and this was originally backed by the Jacobins, though support was withdrawn at Robespierres suggestion
37.
French Constitution of 1791
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The short-lived French Constitution of 1791 was the first written constitution in France, created after the collapse of the absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. One of the precepts of the revolution was adopting constitutionality. The National Assembly began the process of drafting a constitution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, adopted on 27 August 1789 eventually became the preamble of the constitution adopted on 3 September 1791. The Declaration offered sweeping generalizations about rights, liberty, and sovereignty, a twelve-member Constitutional Committee was convened on 14 July 1789. Its task was to do much of the drafting of the articles of the constitution and it included originally two members from the First Estate, two from the Second, and four from the Third. Many proposals for redefining the French state were floated, particularly in the days after the sessions of 4–5 August 1789. The main controversies early on surrounded the issues of what level of power to be granted to the king of France and their greatest controversy faced by this new committee surrounded the issue of citizenship. Would every subject of the French Crown be given equal rights, as the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen seemed to promise, the October Days intervened and rendered the question much more complicated. In the end, a distinction was held between active citizens which had rights, and passive citizens, who had only civil rights. This conclusion was intolerable to such radical deputies as Maximilien Robespierre, a second body, the Committee of Revisions, was struck September 1790, and included Antoine Barnave, Adrien Duport, and Charles de Lameth. Because the National Assembly was both a legislature and a convention, it was not always clear when its decrees were constitutional articles or mere statutes. It was the job of this committee to sort it out, after very long negotiations, the constitution was reluctantly accepted by King Louis XVI in September 1791. Redefining the organization of the French government, citizenship and the limits to the powers of government and it abolished many “institutions which were injurious to liberty and equality of rights”. The National Assembly asserted its legal presence in French government by establishing its permanence in the Constitution, the Assemblys belief in a sovereign nation and in equal representation can be seen in the constitutional separation of powers. The National Assembly was the body, the king and royal ministers made up the executive branch. By the same token, representative democracy weakened the executive authority. The constitution was not egalitarian by todays standards and it distinguished between the propertied active citizens and the poorer passive citizens. Women lacked rights to such as education, freedom to speak, write, print
38.
Legislative Assembly (France)
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The Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from 1 October 1791 to 20 September 1792 during the years of the French Revolution. It provided the focus of debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention. The National Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on 30 September 1791, upon Robespierres motion it had decreed that none of its members would be eligible to the next legislature. The Legislative Assembly entrenched the perceived left-right political spectrum that is commonly used today. The elections of 1791, held by franchise, brought in a legislature that desired to carry the Revolution further. Prominent in the legislature were the Jacobin Club and its affiliated societies throughout France, the Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791. It consisted of 745 members, mostly from the middle class, the members were generally young, and since none had sat in the previous Assembly, they largely lacked national political experience. They tended to be people who had made their name through successful political careers in local politics and they were staunch constitutional monarchists, firm in their defence of the King against the popular agitation. The leftists were of 136 Jacobins and Cordeliers and its most famous leaders were Jacques Pierre Brissot, the philosopher Condorcet, and Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud. The Left drew its inspiration from the radical tendency of the Enlightenment, regarded the émigré nobles as traitors. They were suspicious of Louis XVI, some of them favoring a general European war, the remainder of the House,345 deputies, generally belonged to no definite party. They were called the Marsh or the Plain and they were committed to the ideals of the Revolution, hence generally inclined to side with the Left but would also occasionally back proposals from the Right. The kings ministers, named by him and excluded from the Assembly, are described by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as mostly persons of little mark. For a detailed description of the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly and related events, see The Legislative Assembly, the 27 August 1791 Declaration of Pillnitz already threatened France with attack by its neighbors. King Louis XVI favored war hoping to exploit a military defeat to restore his absolute power and this led in April 1792 to the first of the French Revolutionary Wars. Louis vetoed the decree as a matter of conscience, Louis XVI formed a series of cabinets, veering at times as far left as the Girondins. However, by the summer of 1792, amid war and insurrection, it had become clear that the monarchy, on 11 July 1792, the Assembly formally declared the Nation in danger because of the dire military situation. On 9 August 1792, a new revolutionary Commune took possession of Hôtel de Ville, and early on the morning of 10 August, the insurgents assailed the Tuileries, Louis and his family sought asylum with the Legislative Assembly
39.
War of the First Coalition
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France declared war on the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria on 20 April 1792. In July 1792, an army under the Duke of Brunswick and composed mostly of Prussians joined the Austrian side and invaded France, France suffered reverses and internal strife and responded with draconian measures. The Committee of Public Safety formed and the en masse drafted all potential soldiers aged 18 to 25. The new French armies counterattacked, repelled the invaders, and advanced beyond France, the French established the Batavian Republic as a sister republic and gained Prussian recognition of French control of the Left Bank of the Rhine by the first Peace of Basel. With the Treaty of Campo Formio, the Holy Roman Empire ceded the Austrian Netherlands to France, Spain made a separate peace accord with France and the French Directory carried out plans to conquer more of the Holy Roman Empire. The First Coalition collapsed, leaving only Britain in the fighting against France. The key figure, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, brother to the French Queen Marie Antoinette, had looked on the Revolution calmly. He became more concerned as the Revolution grew further radical, although he hoped to avoid war. Dumouriez prepared an invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected the population to rise against Austrian rule. However, the revolution had thoroughly disorganized the French army, which had insufficient forces for the invasion and its soldiers fled at the first sign of battle, deserting en masse, in one case murdering General Théobald Dillon. While the revolutionary government frantically raised fresh troops and reorganized its armies, in July 1792 the invasion commenced. Brunswicks army, composed mostly of Prussian veterans, took the fortresses of Longwy, although the battle was a tactical draw, it bought time for the revolutionaries and gave a great boost to French morale. Dumouriez went on the offensive in Belgium once again, winning a victory over the Austrians at Jemappes on 6 November 1792. On 21 January the revolutionary government executed Louis XVI after a trial and this united all European governments, including Spain, Naples, and the Netherlands against the Revolution. France declared war against Britain and the Netherlands on 1 February 1793, in the course of the year 1793 the Holy Roman Empire, the kings of Portugal and Naples, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany declared war against France. Thus the First Coalition was formed, the French government sent Citizen Genet to the United States to encourage them into entering the war on Frances side. The newly formed nation refused and remained throughout the conflict. After a victory in the Battle of Neerwinden in March, the Austrians suffered twin defeats at the battles of Wattignies, British land forces were defeated at the Battle of Hondschoote in September
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Brunswick Manifesto
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The Brunswick Manifesto threatened that if the French royal family were harmed, then French civilians would be harmed. On 20 April 1792, Revolutionary France declared war on Austria, later, on 28 April, France invaded the Austrian Netherlands. Prussia joined the war against France, and on 30 July Austria and Prussia began an invasion of France, on 25 July, the Duke of Brunswick issued the Brunswick Manifesto. The manifesto promised that if the French Royal family was not harmed, however, if acts of violence or acts to humiliate the French Royal family were committed, the Allies threatened to burn Paris to the ground. The manifesto was written primarily by Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, the leader of a corps of French émigrés in Brunswicks army. On August 1 news of the manifesto began sweeping through Paris, many believed the Brunswick Manifesto was final proof that Louis XVI was collaborating with the Allies. Also on August 1, Prussian forces crossed the Rhine near Coblenz, consequently, in late August and early September, the French were defeated in skirmishes with the Allied army, but on 20 September the French triumphed in the Battle of Valmy. Following its defeat, the Prussian army withdrew from France, recent research, however, argues that the Brunswick Manifesto did not have nearly the impact upon the revolutionaries suggested in earlier source material. Lastly, the French refused to take the Brunswick Manifesto seriously in any respect and this determination stemmed from what they believed to be its illegality, disrespect for the law of war, and denial of national sovereignty. War of the First Coalition House of Bourbon The Proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick,1792 Connelly, the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, 1792–1815. The Myth of the Foreign Enemy, the Brunswick Manifesto and the Radicalization of the French Revolution. The Oxford History of the French Revolution, the empire of the French, a chronology of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1792–1815
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Paris Commune (French Revolution)
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The Paris Commune during the French Revolution was the government of Paris from 1789 until 1795. Established in the Hôtel de Ville just after the storming of the Bastille, the Paris Commune became insurrectionary in the summer of 1792, essentially refusing to take orders from the central French government. It took charge of routine civic functions but is best known for mobilizing extreme views and actions among the people and for its campaign to dechristianize the churches and it lost much power in 1794 and was replaced in 1795. In 1792, the Commune was dominated by those Jacobins who were not in the Legislative Assembly due to the Self-Denying Ordinance, the all-powerful Commune demanded custody of the royal family, imprisoning them in the Temple fortress. A list of opponents of the Revolution was drawn up, the gates to the city were sealed, the government of the republic was succeeded by the French Directory in November 1795
Media related to Declaration of Pillnitz at Wikimedia Commons
