French Revolution

The French Revolution (in French, Révolution française ) was a social and political conflict, with various periods of violence, that convulsed France and, by extension of its implications, other European nations that faced supporters and opponents of the system known as the Old Regime. It began with the self-proclamation of the Third Estate as the National Assembly in 1789 and ended with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état in 1799.

Although after the First Republic fell after Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état, the political organization of France during the 19th century oscillated between republic, empire and constitutional monarchy, the truth is that the revolution marked the definitive end of feudalism and the absolutism in the country, and gave birth to a new regime where the bourgeoisie, sometimes supported by the popular masses, became the dominant political force. The revolution undermined the foundations of the monarchical system as such, beyond its death throes, to the extent that it overthrew it with a discourse and initiatives capable of rendering it illegitimate.

According to classical historiography, the French Revolution marks the beginning of the Contemporary Age by laying the foundations for modern democracy, which places it at the heart of the 19th century. It opened new political horizons based on the principle of popular sovereignty, which would be the engine of the revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1871 .

Ideological background

The enlightened writers of the eighteenth century, philosophers, political scientists, scientists and economists, commonly called philosophes , and from 1751 the encyclopedists, contributed to undermine the foundations of the divine right of kings. The philosophy of the Enlightenment has therefore played a significant role in the turn these historical events took, but its influence must be recounted in a more nuanced way: attaching too much importance to the philosophical precepts born during that century would reveal itself as a major lack of historiographic fidelity.

The current current of thought in France was the Enlightenment, whose principles were based on reason, equality and freedom. The Enlightenment had served as an impetus for the Thirteen North American Colonies for the independence of their European metropolis. Both the influence of the Enlightenment and the example of the United States served as an ideological "springboard" for the start of the revolution in France.

Causes

Historians generally see the underlying causes of the French Revolution as being driven by the failure of the Ancien Régime to respond to growing social and economic inequality. Rapid population growth and restrictions caused by the inability to adequately finance public debt, resulted in economic depression, unemployment and high food prices. Combined with a regressive tax system and resistance to reform of the ruling elite, the result was a crisis that Louis XVI could not handle .

Under Louis XIV, the court of Versailles had become the center of culture, fashion, and political power. Improvements in education and literacy throughout the 18th century meant larger audiences for newspapers and magazines, with Masonic lodges, coffeehouses, and book clubs providing areas where people could debate and discuss ideas. The rise of this so-called "public sphere" led to Paris replacing Versailles as the cultural and intellectual center, leaving the Court isolated and less able to influence opinion .

In addition to these social changes, the French population grew from 18 million in 1700 to 26 million in 1789, making it the most populous state in Europe; Paris had more than 600,000 inhabitants, of whom about a third were unemployed or without regular work. Inefficient farming methods meant that domestic farmers were unable to maintain these numbers, while primitive transportation networks made it difficult to maintain supplies even when there were plenty. As a result, food prices increased by 65% ​​between 1770 and 1790, but real wages increased by only 22%.Food shortages were particularly detrimental to the regime, as many attributed price increases to the government's inability to prevent speculation. In the spring of 1789, a poor harvest followed by a severe winter had created a rural peasantry with nothing to sell and an urban proletariat whose purchasing power had collapsed.

The other big drag on the economy was state debt. Traditional views of the French Revolution often attribute the financial crisis of the 1780s to the heavy spending of the Anglo-French War of 1778-1783, but modern economic studies show this to be incorrect. In 1788, the ratio of debt to gross national income in France was 55.6%, compared to 181.8% in Britain. Although French borrowing costs were higher, the percentage of tax revenue devoted to interest payments was about the same in both countries .

However, these taxes were paid predominantly by the urban and rural poor, and regional parliaments that controlled financial policy blocked attempts to share the burden more equitably. The resulting impasse in the face of widespread economic distress led to the convening of the Estates General, which became radicalized by the struggle for control of public finances. However, neither the level of French state debt in 1788, nor its previous history, can be considered an explanation for the outbreak of the revolution in 1789 .

Although Luis was not indifferent to the crisis, when faced with opposition, he tended to back down. The Court became the target of popular anger, especially Queen Marie Antoinette, who was seen as a spendthrift Austrian spy, and blamed for the dismissal of "progressive" ministers such as Jacques Necker. For her opponents, Enlightenment ideas of equality and democracy provided an intellectual framework for addressing these issues, while the American Revolution was seen as confirmation of their practical application .

Estates General of 1789

The Estates General were made up of representatives from each estate. These were separated at the time of deliberation, and had only one vote per estate. The call of 1789 was a cause for concern for the opposition, since there was a belief that it was nothing more than an attempt, by the monarchy, to manipulate the assembly at will. The question raised was important. At stake was the idea of ​​national sovereignty, that is, admitting that all the deputies of the Estates General represented the will of the nation.

The third impact of the Estates General was one of great political turmoil, particularly over the determination of the voting system. The Parliament of Paris proposed that the voting system that had been used in 1614 be maintained, although the magistrates were not quite sure what that system had actually been. It was known, however, that the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate) and the rest of the population (Third Estate, mainly the bourgeoisie and the peasantry). Immediately, a group of Parisian liberals called the "Committee of Thirty", composed mainly of people from the nobility, began to protest and agitate, demanding that the number of assembly members with the right to vote from the Third Estate (that is, the “Commons”) be doubled. The government accepted this proposal, but left the task of determining voting rights to the Assembly. This loose end created a great uproar.

King Louis XVI and a part of the nobility did not accept the situation. Members of the Third Estate proclaimed themselves National Assembly, and promised to write a constitution. Sectors of the aristocracy trusted that these Estates General could serve to recover part of the lost power, but the social context was no longer the same as in 1614. Now there was a bourgeois elite that had a series of claims and interests that collided head-on with the of the nobility (and also with those of the people, something that would be demonstrated in the following years).

The National Constituent Assembly (1789-1791)

When the Estates General of France finally met at Versailles on May 5, 1789 and disputes arose over the issue of voting, the members of the Third Estate had to verify their own credentials, beginning on May 28 and ending on June 17, when the members of the Third Estate declared themselves as the only members of the National Assembly: this would not represent the wealthy classes but the people themselves. While they invited members of the First and Second Estates to participate in this assembly, they made clear their intentions to proceed even without this participation.

The monarchy, opposed to the Assembly, closed the rooms where it was meeting. The assembly members moved to a nearby building, where the aristocracy used to play the ball game, known as jeu de paume.. That's where they proceeded with what is known as the Ball Game Oath on June 20, 1789, promising not to secede until they gave France a new constitution. Most of the representatives of the lower clergy joined the Assembly, as did 47 members of the nobility. Already on June 27, the representatives of the monarchy gave up, and by that date the king ordered the gathering of large contingents of military troops that began to arrive in Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other cities. On July 9, the Assembly named itself the National Constituent Assembly.

Storming of the Bastille

On July 11, 1789, King Louis XVI, acting under the influence of conservative nobles as well as his brother, Count D'Artois, dismissed Minister Necker and ordered the reconstruction of the Ministry of Finance. Much of the people of Paris interpreted this measure as a royal self-coup, and took to the streets in open rebellion. Some of the military remained neutral, but others joined the people.

On July 14, the people of Paris supported their representatives in the streets and, fearing that the royal troops would stop them, stormed the Bastille fortress, a symbol of monarchical absolutism, but also a strategic point in the repression plan of Louis XVI, because their cannons were aimed at the working-class neighborhoods. After four hours of combat, the insurgents took the prison, killing its governor, the Marquis Bernard de Launay. Although only four prisoners were released, the Bastille became a potent symbol of all that was despicable in the Ancien Régime. Returning to the town hall, the crowd accused Mayor Jacques de Flesselles of treason, who was shot to death. His head was cut off and displayed in the city on a pike,

The Great Fear and the abolition of feudalism

The Revolution spread through cities and towns, creating new municipalities that recognized no other authority than the National Constituent Assembly. The insurrection motivated by popular discontent continued to spread throughout France. In rural areas, to protest against manorial privileges, acts of burning titles to easements, feudal rights and land ownership were carried out, and several castles and palaces were attacked. This agrarian insurrection is known as the Grande Peur (the Great Fear).

On the night of August 4, 1789, the National Constituent Assembly, acting behind the new events, suppressed by law personal servitudes (abolition of feudalism), tithes and seignorial justice, establishing equality before the tax, before penalties and in access to public office. In a matter of hours, the nobles and the clergy lost their privileges. The course of events was already marked, although the implementation of the new model did not become effective until 1793. The king, along with his military followers, backed down at least for the time being. Lafayette took command of the Paris National Guard and Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the National Constituent Assembly, was appointed the new mayor of Paris. The king visited Paris on July 27 and accepted the tricolor cockade.

However, after these acts of violence, the nobles, not quite sure of the direction that the temporary reconciliation between the king and the people would take, began to leave the country, some with the intention of fomenting a civil war in France and bringing European nations to back the king. These were known as the émigrés (emigrants).

Loss of power of the Church

The revolution clashed harshly with the Catholic Church, which became dependent on the State. In 1790 the authority of the Church to impose taxes on crops was eliminated, the privileges of the clergy were also eliminated and their property was confiscated. Under the Old Regime, the Church was the largest landowner in the country. Legislation was later enacted making the clergy employees of the state. These were years of harsh repression for the clergy, with the imprisonment and massacre of priests being common throughout France. The Concordat of 1801 between the Assembly and the Church finalized this process and established norms of coexistence that remained in force until December 11, 1905, when the Third Republic declared the definitive separation between the Church and the State. The old Gregorian calendar

Composition of the Assembly

In an Assembly that wanted to be plural and whose purpose was to draft a democratic constitution, the 1,200 constituents represented the various political tendencies of the moment.

• The Right represented the old privileged classes. His most brilliant speakers were the aristocrat Cazalès, representing the nobility, and the abbot Jean-Sifrein Maury, representing the high clergy. They systematically opposed all kinds of reforms and sought more to sow discord than to propose measures .
• Around the former Minister Jacques Necker, a moderate party was formed, not numerous, which advocated the establishment of a regime similar to the British: Jean-Joseph Mounier, the Count of Lally-Tollendal, the Count of Clermont-Tonnerre and the Count of Vyrieu, formed a group called " realist democrats ". They were later called the " monarchist party " .
• The rest (and majority) of the Assembly made up what was called the “ party of the nation ”. Two great tendencies were outlined in it, without any of them having ideological homogeneity. Mirabeau, Lafayette and Bailly represented the upper bourgeoisie, while the triumvirate composed of Barnave, Duport and Lameth headed those who defended the most popular classes; all three came from the Breton Club and were spokesmen for popular societies and clubs. They represented the most leftist fringe of the Assembly, given that the radical groups that were to appear later had not yet manifested themselves .

In that first constituent period, the undisputed leaders of the Assembly were Mirabeau and Abbé Sieyès .

On August 27, 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, inspired in part by the Declaration of Independence of the United States and establishing the principle of liberty, equality and fraternity. Said declaration established a declaration of principles that would be the inescapable basis of the future Constitution.

Road to constitution

The National Constituent Assembly was not only a legislative body, but the one in charge of drafting a new constitution. Some, like Necker, favored the creation of a bicameral assembly in which the Senate would be chosen by the Crown from among the members proposed by the people. The nobles, for their part, favored a Senate made up of members of the nobility chosen by the nobles themselves. However, the liberal thesis prevailed that the Assembly would have a single Chamber, leaving the king with only the power of veto, being able to postpone the execution of a law, but not its total elimination.

The movement of the monarchists to block this system was dismantled by the people of Paris, composed mainly of women (derogatorily called "the Furies"), who marched on Versailles on October 5, 1789. After several incidents, the king and his family were forced to leave Versailles and moved to the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

From the Feast of the Federation to the Escape from Varennes

The period between October 1789 and the spring of 1791 is usually considered to be one of relative calm, when some of the most important legislative reforms were enacted. While certainly true, many provincial areas experienced conflict over the source of legitimate authority, where Old Regime officials had been swept away, but new structures had not yet been established. This was less obvious in Paris, as the formation of the National Guard made it the best guarded city in Europe, but the growing disorder in the provinces inevitably affected the members of the Assembly .

The Revolution brought about a massive shift of power from the Catholic Church to the State; although the extent of religious beliefs has been questioned, the elimination of tolerance towards religious minorities meant that by 1789 they were French also meant being Catholic. The church was the largest single landowner in France, controlling almost 10% of all property and tithes collected, effectively a 10% income tax, collected from peasants in the form of crops. In return, he provided a minimal level of social support. The August decrees abolished tithes, and on November 2 the Assembly confiscated all church property, the value of which was used to back a new paper money known as assignats.. In return, the state took on responsibilities such as paying the clergy and caring for the poor, sick, and orphans. On February 13, 1790, religious orders and monasteries were dissolved, while monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of July 12, 1790 made them employees of the State, in addition to establishing pay rates and a system for electing priests and bishops. Pope Pius VI and many French Catholics opposed this because it denied the pope's authority over the French Church. In October, thirty bishops drafted a statement denouncing the law, further fueling opposition .

When the clergy were required to swear allegiance to the Civil Constitution in November 1790, less than 24% did so; the result was a schism with those who refused, the "non-swearing clergy" or the "refractory clergy". This hardened popular resistance against state interference, especially in traditionally Catholic areas such as Normandy, Brittany and the Vendée, where only a few priests took the oath and the civilian population turned against the revolution. The widespread refusal led to new laws against the clergy, many of whom were forced into exile, deported or executed .

In early 1791, the Assembly considered introducing legislation against French people who emigrated during the Revolution ( émigrés ). It was intended to limit the freedom to leave the country to encourage the creation of counterrevolutionary armies from abroad, and prevent capital flight. Mirabeau adamantly opposed this. However, on March 2, 1791, Mirabeau passed away, and the Assembly adopted this draconian measure.

On June 20, 1791, Louis XVI, opposed to the course the Revolution was taking, fled with his family from the Tuileries. However, the next day he was unwise enough to show himself; he was arrested at Varennes by a town official and returned to Paris escorted by the guard. Upon his return to Paris, the people remained silent and both he and his wife, Marie Antoinette, their two children (Maria Teresa and Luis-Carlos, future Louis XVII) and his sister (Madame Elizabeth ) remained in custody.

On September 3, 1791, the first constitution in the history of France was approved. A new judicial organization gave temporary characteristics to all the magistrates and total independence from the Crown. The king only had the Executive Power and the right to veto the laws approved by the Legislative Assembly. The Assembly, for its part, eliminated all commercial barriers and abolished the old mercantile corporations and guilds; henceforth, individuals who wanted to engage in business practices would need a license, and the right to strike was abolished.

Even when there was a strong political current that favored the constitutional monarchy, in the end the thesis of keeping the king as a figurehead won out. Jacques Pierre Brissot filed a petition insisting that, in the eyes of the people, Louis XVI had been deposed for the fact of his flight. A huge crowd gathered on the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges-Jacques Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave impassioned speeches. The Assembly asked the municipal authorities to keep order. Under Lafayette's command, the National Guard engaged the crowd. At first, after receiving a wave of stones, the soldiers responded by firing into the air; Since the crowd did not yield, Lafayette ordered the demonstrators to be shot, causing more than fifty deaths.

After this massacre, the authorities closed several political clubs, as well as several radical newspapers, such as the one edited by Jean-Paul Marat. Danton fled to England and Desmoulins and Marat remained in hiding.

Meanwhile, the Assembly had drawn up the Constitution and the King had been kept in custody, accepting it. The king delivered a speech before the Assembly, which was greeted with loud applause. The National Constituent Assembly ceased its functions on September 29, 1791.

The Legislative Assembly and the fall of the monarchy (1791-1792)

Under the 1791 Constitution, France would function as a constitutional monarchy. The king had to share his power with the Assembly, but he still had the power of veto and the power to choose his ministers.

The Legislative Assembly met for the first time on October 1, 1791. It was made up of 264 deputies located on the right: feuillants (led by Barnave, Duport and Lameth), and Girondins, republican spokesmen for the big bourgeoisie. In the center were 345 independent deputies, lacking a defined political program. On the left, 136 deputies registered in the Jacobin club or in the cordeliers club, who represented the common Parisian people through their newspapers L´Ami du Peuple and Le Père Duchesne, and with Marat and Hebert as spokespersons. Despite its social importance and popular support and that of the petty bourgeoisie, the influence of the left was scarce in the Assembly, since the Assembly was dominated by the political ideas represented by the Girondins. While the Jacobins had the great mass of the petty bourgeoisie behind them, the Cordeliers had the support of the common people, through the Parisian sections.

This large number of deputies met in clubs, the seed of political parties. The most famous of these was the Jacobin party, dominated by Robespierre. To the left of this party were the cordeliers, who defended universal male suffrage (the right of all men to vote from a certain age). the cordeliersthey wanted the elimination of the monarchy and establishment of the Republic. They were led by Jean-Paul Marat and Georges-Jacques Danton, always representing the humblest people. The group of more moderate ideas was that of the Girondins, who defended the census suffrage and advocated a decentralized constitutional monarchy. There were also those who were part of "el Pantano", or "el Llano", as those who did not have a vote of their own were called, and who left for the propositions that best suited them, whether they came from the Jacobins or from the Girondins.

In the Assembly's first months of operation, the king had vetoed a law that threatened émigrés with death , and another that required clergy to take an oath of allegiance to the state. Disagreements of this type were what later led to the constitutional crisis.

War of Austria and Prussia against France

Meanwhile, two European absolutist powers, Austria and Prussia, set out to invade revolutionary France, turning the French people into a national army, ready to defend and spread the new revolutionary order throughout Europe. During the war, freedom of expression allowed the people to express their hostility towards Queen Marie Antoinette (called the Austrian because she was the daughter of an emperor of that country and Madame Déficit because of the expense she had represented to the State, who was no bigger than most courtiers) and against Louis XVI, who almost always refused to sign laws proposed by the Legislative Assembly.

The “second Revolution”: First French Republic

On August 10, 1792, the masses stormed the Tuileries Palace, and the Legislative Assembly suspended the constitutional functions of the king. The Assembly ended up calling elections with the aim of configuring (by universal suffrage) a new parliament that would receive the name of Convention. Political and social tension in France increased, as did the military threat from European powers. The conflict thus arose between a French constitutional monarchy on the way to becoming a republican democracy, and the absolute European monarchies. The new Parliament elected that year abolished the monarchy and proclaimed the republic. He also created a new calendar, according to which the year 1792 would become year 1 of his new era.

The government came to depend on the Insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent groups of hit men into the prisons, murdering 1,400 people, and when it asked other cities in France to do the same, the Assembly offered no resistance. This situation persisted until September 20, 1792, when a new legislative body called the Convention was created, which in fact became the new government of France.

The Convention (1792-1795)

The legislative power of the new Republic was in charge of the National Convention, while the executive power fell on the Committee of Public Salvation.

Execution of the king and First Coalition against France

In the Brunswick manifesto, the Prussian and Imperial Armies threatened to invade France if the population resisted the reestablishment of the monarchy. This caused Louis XVI to be seen as conspiring with France's enemies. On January 17, 1793, the Convention sentenced the King to death by a small majority, charging him with " conspiracy against public liberty and the general security of the State ." On January 21, the king was publicly executed by guillotine, which again lit the fuse of war with other European countries. Queen Marie Antoinette, born in Austria and sister of the emperor, was executed on October 16 of the same year, thus starting a revolution in Austria to replace the queen. This caused the rupture of all relations between both countries.

The reign of terror

On the very day that the Convention met (September 20, 1792), all French troops (made up of shopkeepers, artisans and peasants from all over France) defeated a Prussian army for the first time at Valmy, marking the start of of the so-called French Revolutionary Wars.

However, the economic situation continued to worsen, which gave rise to revolts of the poorer classes. The so-called sans-culottesThey expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that the French Revolution was not only not satisfying the interests of the lower classes, but that even some liberal measures caused enormous damage to them (free prices, freedom of contract, Le Chapelier Law, etc.) . At the same time, anti-revolutionary struggles began to take shape in various regions of France. In the Vendée, a popular uprising was especially significant: peasants and villagers rose up for the king and Catholic traditions, provoking the so-called Vendée War, repressed so effectively and bloodily by the revolutionary Parisian authorities that it has come to be described as genocide. On the other hand, the foreign war threatened to destroy the Revolution and the Republic. All this motivated the plot of a coup by the Jacobins, who sought popular favor against the Girondins. The alliance of the Jacobins with thesans-culottes became the de facto center of government.

The Jacobins would carry into their politics some of the demands of the sans-culottes and the lower classes, but not all of their demands would be accepted, and private property was never questioned. The Jacobins never questioned the liberal order, but they did democratize it, despite the repression they unleashed against political opponents (both conservative and radical).

In 1793 a new Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was drafted, and a new constitution of a democratic type that recognized universal suffrage. The Committee of Public Safety fell under the command of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins unleashed what was called the Reign of Terror (1793-1794). No less than 10,000 people were guillotined on charges of counterrevolutionary activities. The slightest suspicion of such activities could bring charges against a person that would eventually lead to the guillotine. The total number of victims varies, but it is believed that up to 40,000 could have been victims of the Terror.

In 1794, Robespierre proceeded to execute ultra-radicals and moderate Jacobins. His popularity, however, began to erode. On July 27, 1794, another popular revolt against Robespierre took place, supported by the moderates who saw the path of the Revolution, increasingly exalted, as dangerous. The people, on the other hand, rebel against the bourgeois condition of Robespierre who, previously a revolutionary, now persecutes Verlet, Leclerc and Roux. The members of the Convention managed to convince the Swamp, and overthrow and execute Robespierre along with other leaders of the Committee of Public Salvation.

The Directory (1795-1799)

The Convention approved a new constitution on August 17, 1795, ratified on September 26 in a plebiscite. The new Constitution, called the Year III Constitution, conferred executive power on a Directory, made up of five members called directors. Legislative power would be exercised by a bicameral assembly, made up of the Council of Elders (250 members) and the Council of Five Hundred. This Constitution abolished universal male suffrage and re-established census suffrage.

Napoleon and the seizure of power

The new Constitution was opposed by monarchist and Jacobin groups. There were different revolts that were suppressed by the army, all of which motivated General Napoleon Bonaparte, returned from his campaign in Egypt, to carry out a coup on November 9, 1799 (Brumaire 18), installing the Consulate.

The Consulate (1799-1804)

The Constitution of the Year VIII, drafted by Pierre Daunou and promulgated on December 25, 1799, established an authoritarian regime that concentrated power in the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte, supposedly to save the republic from a possible monarchical restoration. Contrary to previous constitutions, it did not include any declaration on the fundamental rights of citizens. The executive power fell to three consuls: the first consul, appointed by the same Constitution, was Napoleon Bonaparte, and the other two only had a consultative power. In 1802, Napoleon imposed the approval of a senateconsult, which made him consul for life, with the right to designate his successor.

The position of consuls was held by Napoleon Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos temporarily until December 12, 1799. Later, Sieyés and Ducos were replaced by Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun, who remained in office until May 18 1804 (Floral 28 of the year XII), when a new senate-consultant proclaimed the First Empire and the extinction of the First Republic, thus closing the historical chapter of the French Revolution.

The French flag and the symbols of the Revolution

The colors blue, white and red were already common in various flags, uniforms and flags of France before the eighteenth century. Blue and red were the colors of the town of Paris since the 14th century, and white was at that time the color of the kingdom of France, and by extension of the Bourbon monarchy.

When Louis XVI visited the newly created National Guard at the Paris City Hall on July 17, 1790, the tricolor cockade appeared for the first time, offered to the King by the commander of the Guard, the Marquis de La Fayette. It united the National Guard rosette that wore the colors of the capital, with the white color of the kingdom. However, it was not until March 20, 1790 that the National Assembly mentioned in a decree the three colors as "colors of the nation: blue, red and white".But the cockade was not yet a national symbol, and the first national emblem as such was the flag designed for the stern of warships, adopted by decree of the National Assembly on October 24, 1790. It consisted of a small flag red, white and blue in the upper left corner of a white flag. This flag was later modified by the Republican Convention on February 15, 1794, at the request of the sailors of the national navy who demanded that the predominance of white, which still symbolized the monarchy, be reduced. The flag then adopted its definitive design, and the order of the colors was changed to place the blue near the mast and the red to the wind for chromatic reasons, according to the advice of the painter Louis David.

Another symbol of the French Revolution is the Phrygian cap (also called liberty cap), worn in particular by the Sans-culottes. It also appears in the National Shields of France, Haiti, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.

The anthem "La Marseillaise", with lyrics and music by Rouget de Lisle, captain of engineers of the Strasbourg garrison, became so popular that on July 14, 1795 it was declared the national anthem of France; originally it was called « Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin » ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine"), but when General François Mireur's volunteers who left Marseilles entered Paris on July 30, 1792 singing said anthem as a marching song, the Parisians welcomed them with great enthusiasm and baptized the song " La Marseillaise ".

The motto Liberté, égalité, fraternité ("Liberty, equality, fraternity"), derived from the unofficial motto of the 1789 Revolution Liberté, égalité ou la mort ("Liberty, equality or death"), was officially adopted after the Revolution of 1848 by the Second French Republic.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

One of the events with the greatest historical significance of the revolution was the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen. In its double aspect, moral (inalienable natural rights) and political(necessary conditions for the exercise of natural and individual rights), conditions the appearance of a new model of State, that of citizens, the State of Law, democratic and national. Although the first time the rights of man were solemnly proclaimed was in the United States (Virginia Bill of Rights in 1776 and United States Constitution in 1787), the human rights revolution is a purely European phenomenon. It will be the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 that serves as the basis and inspiration for all the declarations of both the 19th and 20th centuries.

The different scope of both declarations is due both to questions of form and substance. The French declaration is indifferent to the circumstances in which it is born and adds to the natural rights, the rights of the citizen. But above all, it is a timeless, unique text, separate from the constitutional text and, therefore, with a universal character, to which must be added the brevity, clarity and simplicity of the language. Hence its importance and success both in France and in Europe and the Western world as a whole.

The declaration, however, excluded women from its consideration as citizens and forgot about women in its egalitarian project. Two years after the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the political activist Olympe de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen (1793), which became one of the first historical documents that raises the juridical and legal equality of women in relation to men .

Women and the French Revolution

Women occupied the streets during the weeks preceding the insurrection and played a leading role in the beginning of the Revolution. On October 5, 1789, they were the ones who started the march to Versailles to look for the king. However, when the revolutionary associations lead the uprising, women are excluded from the deliberative people, from the armed people —the National Guard—, from local committees and from political associations.

Not being able to participate in the political assemblies, they take the floor in the tribunes open to the public and create women's clubs in which they read and debate the laws and the newspapers. Among the most recognized was the Patriotic and Benevolent Society of the Friends of Truth (1791-1792), founded by Etta Palm, in which education for poor girls, divorce and political rights were claimed.

Among the most outstanding revolutionaries was the playwright and political activist, considered a precursor of feminism, Olympe de Gouges, who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens (1793), claiming equal rights between men and women. Olympe de Gouges confronted Robespierre and published Monsieur Robespierre's letter Pronostic pour un animale amphibie , which led to her being accused of seditious intrigue. She was tried, sentenced to death and guillotined .

On September 30, 1793, women's clubs were banned. In 1794, the prohibition of the presence of women in any political activity was insisted on, and in May 1795 the Convention prohibited women from attending political assemblies, ordering them to retire to their homes under an arrest warrant if they did not comply with what was prescribed. Finally, the Napoleonic Code approved in 1804 consecrated women's defeat in the fight for equality, freedom and fraternity that the revolution meant for men .