French Revolution
terms for the French Revolution
Terms
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- Night Session of August 4th
- delegates announce that "Feudalism is abolished"
- Jacobins
- mostly middle class lawyers and intellectuals
- Reign of Terror
- time period during the French Revolution from September 1793 to July 1794 when people in France were arrested for not supporting the revolution and many were executed
- Declaration of the Right of Man and Citizen
- issued by the National Assembly; modeled after the American Declaration; "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"; freedom of religion and taxes levied according to ability to pay
- Robespierre
- became leader of the Committee of Public Safety; believed in Rousseau's idea of general will as source of legitimate law; used terror to achieve virtue
- Sans-Culottes
- working class men or women who made the French Revolution more radical; called such because they wore long trousers instead of the fancy knee breeches that the upper class wore
- Congress of Vienna
- assembly of European leaders that met after the Napoleonic era to piece Europe back together; met September 1814 to June 1815
- Storming of the Bastille
- Parisians believed weapons and gunpowder were stored in Bastille, a fortress for political and other prisoners; they gathered around the fortress but were denied access and a battle ensued, killing many and releasing all of the prisoners;no weapons were discovered
- Continental System
- blockade designed by Napoleon to hurt Britain economically by closing European ports to British goods; ultimately unsuccessful
- Balance of Power
- distribution of military and economic power that prevents any one nation from becoming too strong
- Olympe de Gouges
- woman journalist who demanded equal rights for women
- Tennis Court Oath
- famous oath made on a tennis court by members of the Third Estate in France
- Committee of Public Safety
- 12-member committee; issued mass levy that required all to support war effort; they were in charge of trials and executions
- Bourgeoisie
- the middle class
- National Assembly
- delegates of the Third Estate declared themselves the National Assembly, representing the people of France; the National Assembly sooner took the Tennis Court Oath
- Women's March on Versailles
- October 5, six thousand women march 13 miles from Paris to Versailles to demand that the king return to Paris
- Directory
- 5-man directory created by the Constitution of 1795; held power from 1795 to 1799
- Old Regime
- France was divided into three social classes
- Louis XVI
- well-meaning, but weak and indecisive
- Civil Constitution of the Clergy
- bishops and priests became elected, salaried officials; ended papal authority over French Church and dissolved convents and monasteries
- Guerilla Warfare
- fighting carried on through hit-and-run raids
- Napoloen
- military hero; was first used by politicians for their own advances; eventually he became ruler of France
- Estates-General
- legislative body made up of representatives of the three estates in pre-revolutionary France
- Civil Code of 1804 (Napoleonic Code)
- body of French civil laws introduced in 1804; served as a model for many nations' civil codes