A Constitution for the French Nation: From the Estates General to the Convention (1789-1792).
On May 4 and 5, the Estates General take place in Versailles. The king does not meet the expectations of the representatives and there is no internal regulation. The voting is not agreed and little by little the different political currents are being defined. May and June the two main currents of opinion appear: aristocrats and patriots, the latter claiming their place in politics.
After a month of discussions, the Third Estate gains strength and the members of the Assembly call themselves representatives of the Nation. On June 17, 1789, the States General decided to become a National Assembly. They invite the other two estates to join them, and on June 19, several priests and 47 members of the nobility join the Third Estate. This initiative calls into question the entire state apparatus. The Assembly, confronting the existing state model, will turn the situation around and vindicating its legitimacy will launch a new state model. The king and the estate society are not immovable, another society is possible.
On June 20, the king, with the intention of stopping the initiative, closed the place where they were to meet. Even so, the assembly meets in an adjacent pediment and they promise to stay together until the town has a constitution. This initiative is called the Oath of the Ballgame and it becomes a symbol of power, rights and legitimacy of the people.
These movements accelerate events and the reforms proposed by the King are rejected. On July 9, the National Assembly takes the name of the National Constituent Assembly. The finance minister, Necker, appears as an ally of the Third Estate and becomes someone highly appreciated by the people. But responding to pressure from the Count of Artois (the King's brother) and other nobles, the King decides to dismiss Necker. This generates great anger in the town, which is revealed. On July 14, the people rose up and took the Bastille fortress by force, then converted into a prison, in search of weapons. The rebels assassinate the Marquis Bernard de Launay, and display his head on a pike throughout the city. The Bastille becomes a symbol of hatred of the Old Regime. The king, overcome by the situation, is forced to leave Versailles and go to Paris to give legitimacy to the National Assembly. The nobility feels in danger and begins to leave France. From the outside, they will try to organize the counterrevolution, for which they will ask for help from other European states.
The National Constituent Assembly demands the abolition of privileges on August 4. Therefore the rights of lord or of the nobility and the clergy disappear. Taking as a model the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, on August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is accepted, which will be the basis of the Constitution. According to it, all people are equal before the law, and the church and the state will be separate powers.
Political changes, instability, crisis and uprisings turn the situation around. On October 4 and 5, a group of women, driven by hunger and poor living conditions, go to Versailles with the intention of throwing the King out of the palace. With great violence they enter Versailles, kill the guards, take the Queen out of her room by force and force the King to go to Paris. In the painful economic situation that exists, while bread rationing is applied to the population, the king and the court continue to celebrate lavish parties. On October 6, taking with him 20,000 soldiers of the National Guard, the King moved to Paris and gave legitimacy to the Constituent Assembly. The King is kept prisoner in the Tuileries Palace. On June 2, 1791, the King and his family will try to flee but they will not succeed and they will be kept under surveillance.
With respect to the clergy, say that during the Old Regime the church was the largest land owner. In 1790 the church's right to collect taxes on crops was abrogated, the special privileges of the clergy were abolished, and much church property was confiscated. In addition, through the civil constitution of the clergy, the State obliges them to take an oath of fidelity to the constitution and to be under its ordinance. The Pope does not accept this pact and consequently there is a division those who have taken the oath of obedience to the constitution and those who have not. In the following years the priests will suffer harsh repression, especially those who have not signed obedience, who will be considered counterrevolutionary.
Within the Assembly the parties began to appear. The aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazal s and the priest Jean-Sifrein Maury as leaders of the right (in the assembly they are located on the right side), oppose the revolution. Democratic monarchists, including Jean Joseph Mounier, the Count of Lally-Tollendal, the Count of Clermont-Tonnerre, Victor Maoulet, the Count of Virieu and Necker, advocate a United Kingdom-style constitutional monarchy. . In the National Party, a center-left party, Honor Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Bailly stand out. Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth, who represent the most radical approaches. Finally, and still further to the left, is Maximilien Robespierre. Political clubs were also created, among them the monarchist and the best known of the Jacobins, which groups the Girondins and the Montagues; the most virulent discussions will take place there.
In September 1791 the National Constituent Assembly presented the constitution and created the Legislative Assembly. The assembly is constituted mainly by constitutional monarchists (Feuillants), liberal moderates (Girondins) and with more leftist positions, the Montagues. Everyone accepts the new regime. Those who are against or do not take part in the vote or emigrate. The majority of the Assembly is in favor of the constitutional monarchy, being Louis XVI a head of state who must obey the constitution. Consequently, the Assembly adopts the constitutional monarchy as a political . For the first time the King must share power with an assembly elected by the people.
The political and social situation in France continues to be bad. The legislative assembly does not achieve stability and the king uses the right to veto to hinder and delay the reforms. While the newspapers affiliated with the king call for resistance, the revolutionaries question the legitimacy of the king. In addition, taxes are ed for everyone and they go against the clergy. The atmosphere of civil war is evident. Each political group is reinforced and demands each time in a more clear way, its political claims. As if this were not enough, the state coffers are empty and there is no discipline in the army.
The Count of Artois, who is in exile, achieves the support of the European monarchies. The Emperor of the Holy Roman German Empire and the King of Prussia do not accept the situation in which the King of France finds himself and join forces against the revolution. The French revolutionaries take his statements and actions as threats. All parties, except Robespierre, have an interest in going to war, which worsens the atmosphere. The king and the monarchists trust that the war will weaken the revolution, while the Girondins think that the war will spread the revolution throughout Europe. Robespierre and his supporters think that better than waging war is stabilizing the revolution in their own country.
On April 20, 1792, the Assembly d war on Austria, with which it allied itself with Prussia. The first attacks are detrimental to France, its army is weakened as a result of internal intrigues. But throughout France, volunteers are mobilized to defend the borders and, in addition to defending the revolution, they will take punitive measures against the priests and the counterrevolutionaries. The War turns to the side of the revolutionaries and concludes on September 20 with the battle of Valmy.
In addition to the war that takes place outside the borders, the internal situation is increasingly complicated. The so-called Sans-Culottes represent the most radical wing of the revolution. It is a movement made up of humble and popular people of a progressive nature, not too organized, who demand social improvements, women's rights, etc. But above all it demands the disappearance of the figure of the King. They will have great influence in the political class since their presence is noticeable in the streets. This movement is strong above all in Paris and they will organize various uprisings that destabilize the situation.
On August 10, 1792, driven by the threats of foreign monarchies and by the risk of betrayal by Louis XVI, the Sans-Culottes and the radical revolutionaries organized an uprising and removed the Legal Commune of Paris (Municipal Government of Paris). s created after the taking of the Bastille in 1789) to put in its place the Commune of the Rising . The Girondins will be expelled from it. In this context, there are uprisings against the king and his family, but also against the Legislative Assembly. As a result of the pressures, the Legislative Assembly abolishes the Monarchy and arrests the king and his family. This crisis affects the whole of society and has its peak September 3 and 6. The Sans-Culotte assassinate nams of a thousand priests and counterrevolutionaries. In the end, in this conflictive environment, with the initiative lost by the government, the National Convention was created to renew the constitution and reclaim the Republic. The Republic will be established on September 21.