Animated video of French revolution Video Lecture - Class 9

hello friends I welcome you all to study
IQ my name is my pal singh Dodd and in
this video I will be discussing the
French Revolution with you it is
probably the most important topic of
world history because it has influenced
the modern world to a huge extent before
beginning let me remind you that the pen
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directly visit our website let us begin
by knowing what exactly is the French
Revolution so the French Revolution was
a 10-year period of events in France
from 1789 to 1799 that led to a
wide-ranging political and social change
not only in France but also on the
entire modern world the 19th and 20th
centuries have been hugely influenced by
the French Revolution and its ideas and
its ideals whatever happened in here we
will know how did it influence the world
what the revolution did was that it
abolished the monarchy there was a king
earlier in France so now after this
revolution there was no more king France
was made a republic what do you mean by
Republic Republic is a country or a
nation state in which head of state is
elected and is not hereditary it means
that the head of state earlier was King
but now he was elected but finally after
some years this Republic ended in the
dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte so it
started with monarchy with King then it
became a republic during French
Revolution and finally during the French
Revolution itself Napoleon took over
France and he became a military dictator
so the revolution ended up again in
under a dictatorship now we come to the
cause of French Revolution there are
lots and lots of theories regarding the
causes of french revolutions historians
have given many causes this and that it
has been
it has been discussed thoroughly and
intensely for the past 200 years even
today after 200 years people are still
writing books on the causes of French
Revolution but for our purposes to make
it simple I will divide it into four
parts political social economic and
intellectual remember the final the
triggering cause was this the economic
causes they were the trigger for the
French Revolution now first I will begin
with the political causes
the ruling dynasty in France was the
Bourbon dynasty bourbon rulers were
often called as despots what do you mean
by the spot a despot is a dictator who
has no power
anyone controlling him whatsoever no
Constitution no Parliament no ministers
nothing whatever the king wants to do he
will do whatever he wishes to do he can
do and he will do it so that is a despot
and he does not care about the people
the basic thing about this Court is they
do not care about the greater good the
society the good of the society okay
they do not care for the welfare of the
people they only care about themselves
so that is a despot so the two bourbon
kings louis xiv and louis 15 are often
called as the sports food louis xiv
ruled for a long period of time you can
see here 1643 to 1715 almost seventy
years he is often called as an absolute
despot no power to keep him in check
whatsoever he centralized the power in
France to a lot extent he reduced the
power of feudal lords remember in the
Middle Ages in Europe feudal lords had a
lot of power they could they had their
own mini government but louis xiv
centralized the power in France and he
reduced the power of these feudal lords
he also fought many wars lot and lot of
wars were fought but under louis xiv and
he won in many of these battles
enhancing the prestige of france france
won a lot of battles under him but
whenever you fight a war there is always
money required and this money was not
there so he took the loans and due to
this france went into heavy debt
to the Wars of louis xiv then comes
louis 15 after louis xiv louis is a very
popular name in france so there are that
that's why there are almost 1718 louise
okay so Louis 15 ruled from 1715 to 1774
during his time period the Seven Years
War was fought and it was fought with
England if you remember from my video of
American Revolution I pointed out that
this was a cause of the American
Revolution as well because England had
used a lot of money to fight and win
this war and they started taxing the
American colonies to recover the money
on the other hand France lost but France
also used up a lot of money fighting
this war and they lost their colonies as
well so due to that they wanted to get
more revenue and they started taxing
their own people so this 7 Years War
caused two great revolutions the first
one is American and the second one is
France it is a cause on both of them ok
so remember the Seven Years War between
England and France also slowest 15th was
not a very good administrator he was not
capable of running the country in a very
good manner so that this problem of 7
Years War and this debt can be solved
then we come to louis xvi so he is
arguing for the french revolution he
ruled from 1774 to 1792 his intentions
were good but he did not bring bold
reforms reforms were required because
france economy was failing very badly
but he could not take decisions and keep
on them he backtracked on many decisions
one day he took some decision next day
he said no no no let's not do it so he
was here his personality was like that
also his wife was from Austria her name
was mary antoinette she was a very bad
advisor the reason being that she was
not in touch with the ground realities
how people lived what were the
difficulties of the people she did not
interact with common people and she told
him to not interact with common people
as well she told him you are a king you
do not need to talk to common people and
so on so she was also not a very good
adviser then there was the American War
of Independence so America was fighting
with Britain from 1776 to 7
three and France help America the reason
is that because England defeated them in
seven years war so they wanted to take
revenge but what did France achieve out
of it nothing America got their
independence England was humiliated but
it trans get nothing they just
humiliated England they got that
satisfaction but this were true in
France completely because they had to
take a lot of money to support their
American friends they had to take a lot
of loans Wars are not cheap this is the
place where they live the Palace of
Versailles see versal is a little far
from city of paris it is situated here
few kilometers away from the crowded
city of Paris so the rulers of France
built their palace a little away from
the city in between in the jungles so
they built this huge Palace the grounds
the gardens spread over many acres you
can see here and you can see people are
coming in from the city into the Palace
of Versailles
it is said that when you entered the
Versailles Palace it felt that you are
not in this world
the experience was out of this world
it's like you're living in heaven
because you can see the the indoor
decorations of this Palace this is a
Hall of Mirrors there are mirrors all
along this hallway so this palace was a
very royal palace and the lifestyle of
the Kings living in there was completely
different from the people of their own
country then I will talk about the
social causes what are the divisions of
the French society so this these
divisions are called the ancient regime
it simply means the ancient system or
the ancient rule that had been going on
so according to this ancient regime the
French society was divided into three
parts first state second state and third
estate these states where people so the
first state where
clergy church it means the father the
bishops the Cardinals all the people of
church these are the people who are part
of the Roman Catholic Church Father
bishop and Cardinals then there was the
nobility it means the feudal lords and
then there is the third estate which has
everyone form
our artisans people who are making small
things then there are factory workers
from cities traders lawyers public
officials please bear in mind that the
Industrial Revolution had started so a
new middle class was emerging so not
only farmers and workers now there are
traders who have been getting a
profitable Reverb who have profited from
trade they are a little bit more rich
than these workers and farmers so they
can be called the new middle class this
middle class is now slowly emerging
lawyers who are educated then public
officials people who are working for the
government for the king they are also a
little bit educated so these are the
middle class but they are considered
third state along with farmers and
artisans okay now this clergy was around
1 lakh and they owned 10% of the land of
France church was given some amount of
land by the king so that they could
sustain themselves by taxing it or using
the grains that are produced on that
those lines then there's the feudal
lords they had 25% of the land in the
country but they were total 4 lakh in
number so you can see most of the land
if you divide it ten percent by one lakh
so these people are having quite a lot
of land and the nobility had 25 percent
of the land and finally we have the
third state it is almost 95% to 99% of
the population or the population of
France at that time was about 2.7 crores
and this is a huge number so compare it
to the first and second state 1 lakh for
lacan 2.7 crore I will look at the
taxation regime firstly there was no tax
on the first and second estate all the
tax had to be paid by only third estate
they were drowning in various taxes the
taxation system was very poor ok firstly
there was no taxation policy that the
king will decide that there will be only
one tax like GST okay there will be
different taxes these third state people
were drowning in the taxes and the first
and the second estate were living
lavishly they were having a great
lifestyle parties and spending money on
and anything and this was the time when
the French culture was it's at its peak
the high point in 18th century obviously
you can have
the culture only when you have money
without money you cannot have
architecture without money you cannot
have any cultural aspects paintings
everything needs money okay nothing can
be done for free so culture will develop
only when a civilization as money it is
rich so at this time the nobility were
very rich and their lifestyle was
completely different from the Third
Estate now educated middle class was
also coming up as I told you they were
the lawyers the public officials and the
traders and they were called the
bourgeoisie it is also a French word and
pardon my french I do not know any
French so if anyone knows French and if
you are taking offence at my French
pronunciations I am sorry I can't help
it then there were the urban workers
these are the people who are working in
the factories their living conditions
were very poor they lived in horrible
conditions there was no concept of
public hygiene or public safety at that
time so the conditions of workers was
very poor that health was very poor then
we come to the economic cause so the
rising population of France which was 2
crore in 1708 had gone up to almost 2.8
crore in 1789
so the increase in people you need more
food to feed them but people are
increasing but the land is same and
there is no scientific advancement in
agriculture so since there is no
scientific advancement so the land is
giving the same amount of grains that
was there in 1700 so this population
explosion cannot be sustained you have
increased your population by 30% but if
you don't have food to feed them what
will the people do they will die of
famine so this happened a lot of time
that whenever there was a winter there
was a harsh winter crop failure it led
to food prices increasing and that led
to famine this happened in 1789 as well
the winter was very harsh 88 89 in
winter and there was a failure in crops
and because of that food supply was very
less when the supply is less prices
automatically go up if prices go up high
inflation anyways there a poor person
cannot afford everything if the prices
go up he cannot afford anything to even
eat and if he cannot eat the basic
sustenance he will
I that is how the system of trans worked
at that time all the wars that France
had fought in the past hundred two
hundred years had led to high debt and
these dead payments where big had become
so large that by 1789 half of the total
national budget was going into debt
repayments mainly because of the seven
years for and all the earlier Wars so
you see the conditions the social and
the economic conditions the peasants the
farmers are angry the common people are
angry in the cities because they are
dying from hunger the farmers are dying
from hunger you don't have any
advancement in technology the overall
social economic scenario of France was
pretty bleak then we come to the
intellectual cost the 17th and 18th
centuries are the Age of Enlightenment
many philosophers thinkers they came and
they developed the science and
philosophy
they started rational thinking they
wrote books about it these famous
philosophers were John Locke he was a
British British philosophers then there
was John Jacques Rousseau he wrote about
people's sovereignty he said that people
are sovereign if anyone commits a crime
don't take them to court or King take
them to the people the people will
decide what is his punishment okay then
there is Immanuel Kant the he was a
German philosopher then there is
Montesquieu he was French Montesquieu
wrote that there should be separation of
power there should be separation between
church and the state the branches of
government should not they should not
intervene and they should be completely
separate there should be a separate
legislature there should be separate
judiciary and so on the king or the
church should not have power for
judiciary as well as executive as well
as legislature earlier the king was
having all three powers then there is
was there Voltaire wrote about freedom
of speech and expression so all these
are radical thinkers they are
intellectuals they write they wrote
books and their books were spreading far
and wide people in France came to know
about these ideas from their books and
since the advent of the printing press
you could print your books and you could
spread them
easily these intellectuals started to
question the king's right to rule his
mandate from God the role of the
Catholic Church all the King said that
we have the mandate from heaven God has
asked us to rule over this country this
nation this kingdom or the people of
this area we have been assigned a duty
by the God so it is our duty to follow
God's instruction this is all what the
King said but people started to question
that who has given you this authority
why do you rule over us and where is
this mandate from God what is the proof
that God has given you the authority to
rule over us what is the role of the
church and all this such questions were
very difficult for the church and the
king and so these questions were started
to getting to get popularity among the
people via newspapers the books of
philosophers and the salon discussions
what is this salon a salon was a club or
a place where people gathered and they
started discussing ideas they read books
or newspapers and then they discussed
these ideas okay so this salon culture
was very popular in cities like Paris
where there were lots and lots of salon
you can see here someone is sitting and
reading and then people are discussing
different ideas so this these places are
clubs or salons where such ideas were
discussed after discussing these causes
I will talk about the timeline of the
revolution remember the triggering cause
that started the revolution was the
economic one the debt problem France was
going into heavy debt that is what
started the revolution finally so the
timeline of the revolution goes
something like this in 1789 the King of
France Louis 16 called the estate
General then in 1789 291 National
Assembly ruled over France in 91 to 92
there was a legislative assembly it
ruled for one year but it could not
sustain it was dissolved after one year
itself because of infighting in 92 never
again elections and a National
Convention was formed this National
Convention government ruled for three
years and in in this time there was one
year which was called reign of terror
okay bunny I was reign of terror from 95
to 98 was the rule of directory and
finally in 1799 there was a coup d'etat
by Napoleon Bonaparte and he started his
military dictatorship now I will discuss
all of these in details but if you are
taking down nodes kindly write write
them down because it will be very easy
to revise before your exams so the first
event of this French Revolution is the
calling of the estate general it was
called on 5th May 1789 a state general
is a super parliament with
representatives from all the estates the
1st 2nd and 3rd
it was meeting for the first time in 175
years it had not been called it was
basically a representative body
something like a parliament ok not
exactly a democratic very democratic
body but yes it was a somewhat
representative body and they were
elected by the different people of these
estates and they were sent to meet the
king to advise him but it had not been
called for a long time what was the
agent of this state general then it met
in 1789 to manage the financial crisis
that is basically raised the taxes the
finance minister of that time maker he
had proposed that let us tax the first
and the second state because we need
money the kingdom of France needs money
it is going in severe financial crisis
but the first and the second estate
obviously they were not ready they did
not want to be taxed the king also did
not want that so he called for the
estate general people historians have
said that calling of the first State
General in so many years itself is a
sign of weakness it showed that the
Bourbon dynasty was getting weak doing
16 was a V cooler this is the first sign
of weakness from the king so the
delegates who reached the estate general
were 300 from the first estate sec 300
from the second estate and 600 delegates
from the third state so around 1200
people were in attendance and this
meeting was held in the Palace of
Versailles this is a very famous
painting that shows the meeting of all
these delegates here sitting in the
Great Hall of Palace of Versailles now
there was a deadlock in this me
over voting rights by the deadlock see
earlier what used to happen was that the
first state was counted as one vote
second state as one vote and the Third
Estate has one vote so if there was
voting on any matter let's say the
taxation matter if the first and second
estates say that no tax should be levied
on us so they have a two-thirds majority
obviously they will say that no no tax
on us so they said that do the same
thing again now that count us all as one
so the Third Estate will never have
majority they will always be one-third
whatever they do they have to get
support either from them or them they
are like a minority party they are like
the opposition they cannot do anything
by themselves but the third state this
time they said that no don't count like
this count all the 600 votes all the 300
votes individually like one person has
to be counted as one vote so there
should be twelve hundred votes and among
these you should decide the agenda but
there was a deadlock over this because
King Louie the 16 did not want such kind
of voting why obviously they have
majority out of 200 they have 600 votes
to themselves even if some people from
these vote for them they will have
whatever they want they can pass it so
that there was this look there was a
deadlock and over this deadlock the
Third Estate declared itself as a
National Assembly they were not getting
anywhere so they said that now we are
the National Assembly and we will form a
constitution so the new e16 was very
angry at this he locked them out of the
Great Hall and he said that third estate
members are not allowed into the Great
Hall anymore in the meeting of his
estate General so what these people did
they went to a tennis court and they
took the Tennis Court Oath this is this
is said to be the beginning of the
French Revolution
what was this oath they said that we
will not dispatch this National Assembly
until a constitution is in place so they
have started talking about
constitutional monarchy
they said that we will make a
constitution and we will not despise
ourselves until and unless this
constitution is made this is a painting
of that time of the Tennis Court Oath
you can see this is an indoor ten
this is a person he is reading the oath
and all these people their hands are up
they are reciting the source and
remember some members of the clergy that
is the first state they also join these
these people why because he's the lower
clergy the fathers where the the lower
clergy they knew the pain of the people
they knew what harsh conditions the
people are under what are the problems
the day-to-day problems because they saw
these people in their daily lives
they were not like nobility who did not
come out of their palaces and they were
partying all the time no the clergy the
lower clergy understood the pain of the
Third Estate and that is why many of
these people joined the Third Estate the
National Assembly also some of the
liberal the progressive people from the
nobility they also came and joined the
National Assembly but not all very few
the Tennis Court Oath took place in June
as soon as this declaration of National
Assembly was made the news spread all
over France and everywhere farmers
started revolting against their local
feudal lords they looted grain days
where grains were stored because they
were hungry they also looted the
chateaus that the feudal lords lived the
Chateau meansa a big house a palace or a
manor house where the feudal lord lives
in france so they burnt them they looted
the shadow the shadows and then burnt
the land records this time period is
called the great fear because the
nobility was in fear of the Third Estate
of the peasants because anything could
happen they are rising in revolt they
don't have guns but whatever agriculture
equipment they have with that only they
are rising up against the feudal lords
at the same time riots started in Paris
mainly because of food shortages and
high food prices but these writers were
in support of the National Assembly and
they were against the Kings action so
there was popular support for the
National Assembly so in such a scenario
there was complete breakdown of law and
order revolutionary spirit takes over
people we're in high spirits that now we
will start the revolution under such
circumstances louis xvi orders military
from all over france to assemble in
Paris and outside the Versailles Palace
because he fears that something can
happen so he calls in the army but
people get angry over this so on 14 July
1789 another important event took place
that was the storming of the Bastille so
this is the best TV fort or the Bastille
prison Bastille was a fort which was
around 400 years old but at that time it
was being used as a prison the people of
Paris saw this as a symbol of royal
operation why because most of the
dissenters who spoke anything against
the King were thrown into this Bastille
prison and they were tortured there
so this Bastille prison was was very
infamous for his tortures for in
imprisoning prisoners who were against
the the king okay so the Bastille prison
was looted and it was torn down by the
writers the reason was mainly to get the
Pens someone said that there are weapons
in the Bastille prison and actually it
was true there were a lot of weapons
stored in there for the the soldiers and
also there were around seven or eight
prisoners in the entire four entire jail
they were also broken out of the jail
and people removed you each and every
stone of this bustling fort and they
completely destroyed it today there is
not even a single stone of this bustling
fort remaining they took off everything
they climbed on the walls and they took
out to get out brick by brick stone by
stone and they sold all these stones in
the market to get money so that they
could buy food people was so angry with
the King and it is still celebrated as
Bastille Day in France and if you
remember in 2016 last year and a
terrorist drove a truck into the
Bastille Day celebrations and killed a
lot of people in France so this happened
on 14 July in 2016 then we come to the
National Assembly so that National
Assembly which had been declared by the
Third Estate now it became the National
Constituent Assembly why because they
decided that we will form a constitution
so obviously it will be a Constituent
Assembly
now this Constituent Assembly started
ruling over the country they took power
in their hands they started giving out
orders
the king could not do much he could not
do much to control them one of the most
important decisions they took was the
abolition of feudalism and they levied
uniform taxes for all so feudalism was
now gone all the feudal lords they could
not levy taxes they could not take rent
they could not take land tax from the
people under them everything was gone
feudalism was completely over all those
feudal lords were very less powerful
than the earlier time period because of
louis xiv but still they had quite quite
a lot of power and this was also
completely removed by the National
Assembly now due to this many Nobles
fled to neighboring countries in Europe
to their relatives other nobility in
countries like Italy Switzerland or
England and they these people were
called em egress so you can see that
this world is similar to emigrant and
what is the difference between immigrant
and emigrant if someone is coming into
your country he is called immigrant if
someone is leaving your country he is
called a emigrant Emme means going out
ma means coming in I for in and I for
immigrant you can remember it like that
so these people were called emigrants so
they fled to neighboring countries also
the clergy it means the church people
they were reduced by 1/3 and they were
made civil officers the National
Assembly told them if you want to work
work for the government you are not
required so many priests are not
required to work in the country this
made the Pope very angry obviously it
will make him angry because they are
interfering with the religion trance was
a deeply Roman Catholic country and the
Catholic Church was very powerful and
the Pope had a good good amount of
control over the Church of France so you
can see now that France is moving from
absolute monarchy to constitutional
monarchy it is not a absolute monarchy
now the king does not have all the
powers but he is still there so it is
still a monarchy but now there will be a
constitution so slowly it is moving
towards the constitutional monarchy
remember no one has discussed anything
about the Republic no one wants a
republic as of now up
in this stage but later the talkSPORT
Republic will come out we will see how
so in August 1789 it is still 89 only
all this happened within 1-2 months so
in August the National Assembly declared
the rights of man and rights of citizens
it is a very important declaration it is
one of the most important documents of
the world along with Magna Carta and
u.s. Bill of Rights Magna Carta was
signed in twelve hundred and fifteen by
the King of England it gives some amount
of power to the feudal lords so that the
King does not have absolute power he
cannot do whatever he wants with the
feudal lords some amount of power was
given to them some restrictions were put
on the condone the rule of the king so
that was Magna Carta and then there is a
u.s. Bill of Rights with which talked
about the civil rights for the first
time
similarly this Declaration of Rights of
Man and of the citizen is also a very
important milestone in the history of
human and civil rights of the world it
talked about Liberty property security
it was based on the ideas of
Enlightenment it was a statement of
intent for the Constitution for the
future Constitution this is not the
Constitution there is not even the
preamble to the Constitution but it is
and it is an intent that our
Constitution will be based on these
ideas so you can see there were total
seventeen articles in this declaration
you don't need to know all of them if
you want to please go ahead and read
them but you will find that many of them
are similar to Indian Constitution
because all the constitutions of the
world have taken something from this so
the most important concepts were those
of liberty equality and fraternity which
were enshrined in this declaration these
are the three words which are synonymous
with the French Revolution liberty
equality and fraternity even in Indian
Constitution you will find these words
liberty equality fraternity also one of
the famous articles says that men are
born and remain free and equal in rights
this is very important it means that if
you are nobility if you are clergy if
you are a third estate member it does
not matter wherever you are born you
will have the equal rights you will be
equally free it does not matter
where
you are born who you are okay what money
you have but the basic drawback of this
declaration was that it did not give any
rights to women or slaves did they were
not considered as citizens in fact the
new constitution that came up next year
it did not even treat women as active
citizens they made a differentiation
they said that there are two types of
citizens active and passive active ones
will be allowed to vote they will decide
what kind of government should be there
and all the decisions all the decisions
they will be a part of it while the
passive citizens they will not have all
these rights so women were considered
passive citizens and active citizens
were only those who had the right to
vote so who paid taxes not everyone okay
so not 100% of the people who are
allowed to vote only few percent very
few people were allowed to vote in the
French elections for the Constitution
and the new system of government that
happened next year then we have to
discuss the women's March on Castle so
why did the women march to the Palace of
Versailles in October 1789 the economic
conditions were very bad France had huge
shortage of food especially Paris people
did not have bread to eat bread is the
staple diet of French people like it is
like rice and roti in India so if you do
not have rice or roti to it imagine what
conditions you are under so 7,000 women
assembled and there was a rumour that
there is a party going on at the Palace
of Versailles while Paris ian's are
struggling for bread so these women they
assembled and whatever agricultural
equipment they had they march to the
palace they killed the guards and they
enter into the palace and they force the
royal family to move to Paris actually
they did not find any party or no bread
there was also rumor that there is a
large stockpile of grains in the palace
which is being stocked by Marie
Antoinette the Queen but there was
nothing like that so people got angry
and they said that no the royal family
has to move out of the Palace of
Versailles they are living too lavishly
here and they should come and live in
Paris and they should see how people are
living how people are getting by so for
that they blackmailed the family
actually they were practically they were
hostages the royal family was
practically now a hostage of the
revolution they moved to Paris on a
smaller palace by 1790 political groups
and parties had emerged and due to the
differences in thinking about the
various factions many clubs had also
formed all the people in the National
Assembly did not have the same thinking
about the Revolution some people wanted
the revolution to go at a different pace
they some wanted to go in a different
direction so these political parties
with various ideologies form and at this
time Constitution was being written down
in 1790 the famous clubs are the
Jacobins
they were radical revolutionaries they
wanted a radical revolution they should
they said that remove the king
completely there should be no king it
should be a republic then there was the
Girondins they were liberals they were
not against the king so much but also
they were in favor of slow changes then
there was the Society of revolutionary
Republican women it was a club for women
from by women so these are the three
main clubs that you should know about
Jacobin Club is a bit important because
it will come in this lecture again see
jacobins
were mainly from the poor background
they were the artisans the daily workers
the factory workers in the city so these
were many city-based poor people and
they resented that power had been
consolidated by the upper or the
prosperous middle class the traders the
lawyers the public officials those who
are educated so the power had been
consolidated by those people and they
are not thinking about the benefit of us
the daily workers the artisans the poor
people so they were against the they
were against this present form of
revolution that it was taking they
wanted a different path of revolution
they wanted to remove the King their
leader was maximilien de Robespierre his
name will come again it is very
important remember this these people
were also called as sonic you lots it
means that without breaches breaches are
knee level pants which were the common
common thing which were boned by the
nobility of Trance
but these people to show
them as different from the nobility
different from the middle-class they
both full-length pants okay this these
are different from Reacher's so they
were full-length pants also these
breeches were costly to be stitched and
these pants were cheaper so all the
working-class people they used to wear
these full pants and they soon came to
be known as schwanke lots and if someone
is going on the road you can tell you
can tell by looking at his clothes that
whether he is a Jacobin worker class
member revolutionary okay and later on
also this cab became this hat became a
very famous symbol of revolution a red
colored hat although this guy's wearing
a blue colored one and then there was
this flag of France the blue the white
and the red the three tricolour the
tricolour flag this became a symbol of
France itself now we come to 1791 by
1791 the King Louie who was almost a
hostage of the revolution now he was
living in Paris and he tried to escape
to Austria with his family by Austria
because the king of Austria or the king
holy or the Holy Roman Emperor as he was
called he was his brother-in-law he was
the brother of Mary Antoinette the Queen
so he tried to flee to Austria to get
support but he was caught at the border
and he was brought back to Paris he
could not escape
so this surprised and shocked people of
Paris they thought that the king was in
favor of revolution they thought that he
wanted to give away power to people he
was in favor of all this Constitution
and everything but they realized that no
he just wants to leave the country maybe
he wants to come back with the army of
Austrian attack so this led to a lot of
people resenting the king and demands
started coming for Republic that is no
constitutional monarchy but the removal
of king and republic where the head of
state will be elected and the main
people who were demanding this for the
jacobins but now the Constituent
Assembly the National Assembly which was
now the Constituent Assembly that was in
favor of a constitutional monarchy it
was not in favor of a republic it wanted
the king to stay as on the head of state
even after he was caught trying to flee
they still wanted him to become the head
of the new government of
new constitution they wanted a system
like britain where there is king as well
as a parliament so people started
protesting against this and national
guards were sent by the assembly by the
Constituent Assembly to suppress them
and they fired upon the protesters and
protesters were killed they were
massacred the important point here is
national guard's is not the normal army
it was a unit of army set up in 1789
under the leadership of Marquis de
Lafayette this person had fought in the
American War of Independence with the
Americans and he had come back and he
was he was one of the leaders of the
revolution so he was the leader of this
National Guard and these National Guards
were sent to kill the people of France
for whom the revolution was going on so
this also came as a shock to people now
this Constituent Assembly was behaving
like a despotic ruler so now the
Constitution is written we have a new
constitution it was September 1791
almost two years to write down the
Constitution and a Legislative Assembly
was formed now there is no Constituent
Assembly there the rule of the two-year
rule the two-year rule of the
Constituent Assembly comes to an end now
there is the rule of Legislative
Assembly and Legislative Assembly as the
name only suggests it will make laws but
the king will be the head of state
he was restored as the head of state so
there will be king and then under him
will be this body of people where there
are people who are making laws this is
the legislative body but this system
failed within one year why because
demands of various parties and groups
were different as I told you during this
time period of two years many parties
many political groups had developed
Girondins Jacobins and they were
demanding different things Jacobins
wanted the removal of monarchy Girondins
did not want that there was there were
some loyalists there were some loyalists
who wanted that the king should have a
veto power that every decision made by
this assembly the king should have a
veto like the president has in India but
so due to these reasons the different
demands this Legislative Assembly failed
also things.we was secretly trying to
get help from
kings of Europe crushed the revolution
and go back to his old days where he
used to be a despot now the neighboring
monarchs were also getting scared of all
this revolutionary fever and anarchy
spreading in France they thought that
this will come to their country as well
the revolution will spread to other
monarchies and it was very dangerous
Austria and Prussia declared the support
for French monarchy in August of 1791
they said they said that we will do
everything in our power to restore the
French monarchy back to the power and
suppress this revolution this is called
the declaration of pillnitz and people
of France got very hungry added first of
all they got angry at Prussia and
Austria because they said that what are
you got to do with this secondly they
got angry at looy the sixteen because
they said that without your interference
without your request they would not have
given such a declaration so obviously
you are also against this revolution you
are trying to suppress us so they got
angry at the King as well as Austrian
Prussia
now because of this declaration of
pillnitz there was a threat to France
the new government they thought that
they can be an attack on France and we
should respond so the content of the
France attacked Austria and Prussia
before they could attack them it was a
pre-emptive attack and this started in
April 1792 and this is how the bar of
first coalition began this is how the
first Revolutionary War began it has two
different names
you do not need to remember any of those
names just remember that France attacked
Austria and Prussia its neighbors
because they had threatened were France
that they will restore the French
monarchy back one of the reasons was
because the Austrian Emperor the Holy
Roman Emperor was the brother-in-law of
king louis xvi and mary antoinette was
again and again asking for help from him
have a look at the map here this is the
Habsburg Empire or the Austrian Empire
or the Holy Roman Empire it has many
names and this is the Kingdom of Prussia
here beyou color so both of them
declared against Kingdom of France now
we come to the Year 1798 --all
officer
1992 war had broken out between France
and Austria Prussia so by August there
was a popular sentiment against the king
people thought that the king is helping
Austria and Prussia he is in favor of
Austria and Prussia attacking so a mob
gathered outside his palace where he was
living in Paris and they attacked the
king and his family his bodyguards were
murdered
they were killed but the king and the
family escaped they went and asked for
help from the Legislative Assembly but
this assembly instead suspended the
monarchy itself they said that since the
king is helping Prussia and Austria the
king is suspended he is no longer the
head of State Legislative Assembly also
itself was suspended after few days and
this is how the venire who locked
legislative assembly ended now they said
that there will be a new Republican
Constitution because France is now a
republic there is no more monarchy and
there will be new constitution new
elections will be held so you can see
that in 1792 a lot of revolutionary
activity is happening
so although the revolution started in
1789 but in 92 a lot of things happened
also it was decided that because King
Louie was helping the enemies of France
he will be put to trial he will be tried
by a jury and they sentenced him to
death he was executed On January 9 1793
as soon as King Louie was executed the
British the Dutch and kingdom of Spain
they join Austria and Prussia in this
coalition against France and they
thought that if people can execute the
King if they can execute the king in
broad daylight
with a jury anything can happen this
revolution if it spreads to our kingdoms
it will be very bad for us
so they all came together and they made
a coalition they made up coalition to
fight France and it is called the War of
the first coalition so you have a look
here again this is the map so now France
is at war with all of its neighbor
England Spain Austria Russia and you can
see all these countries here in the
North here Holland that the Dutch so
everyone is against France all the
neighbors are against France there is
this small thing called guilty
or the guillotine you must know about
this it is called the instrument of
humane death why because the person who
invented it dr. Joseph guillotine he
said that hanging someone by a rope and
a nose it is not very humane if someone
does not die instantly in few seconds
then he will die after few minutes when
the blood when the blood supply to his
brain stops so it is a very painful
death so to take the pain out of death
he made this instrument where there is
this sharp blade here and it falls down
on the head of the person and it is the
head is snapped completely in just one
second so he said that no one will even
feel it
but although death is death however you
die the person has to die so this is the
guillotine and it is synonymous with the
French Revolution many executions took
place on this guillotine it became a
very famous and a widespread used thing
during the French Revolution here is the
king himself king louis xvi he is being
taken to the guillotine for execution
another small piece of information is
that the national anthem of France the
La Marseillaise was written during the
French Revolution it was written by
claude de lille it was a revolutionary
song to rally people to fight against
austria and prussia so that they would
join army happily and it was sung by
soldiers who are marching from the city
of marcel into paris and so the people
of paris said that this song is the lama
Sayers so this is the national anthem of
france now we come to a stage where the
constitutional monarchy is gone why
because the king is gone he has been
executed he has been guillotined
and now france is a republic and a new
constitution will be written and this
constitution and new government which
was formed is called the National
Convention it ruled from 7 September
1792 to October 1795 almost three years
and this was the 3rd government of the
revolution the first one was the first
one was the government of the
Constituent Assembly or the National
Assembly the second one was the one
rule of the legislative assembly that
failed miserably and the king was
deposed
so after this legislative assembly now
comes the third government that is the
National Convention government this
government elected by elected by
extending the suffrage right so all
people who are 21 about all the males
who are 21 years of age and above they
were allowed to vote earlier this was 25
from the previous government it was 25
and also only people who own property or
who were paying taxes they were allowed
to vote but now these restrictions were
removed and due to this all the males
who were 21 plus were allowed to vote
and this is the reason that jacobins
become became very powerful during this
rule because they were poor there is not
own property many did not pay taxes so
they got a chance to vote and they got
many members in this government monarchy
was abolished according to this new
constitution and France became a true
republic this National Convention
government made a small group of people
as Committee of Public Safety
now this committee this small group took
all the major decisions they controlled
the entire government this is something
like the cabinet working in a government
in India you can see don't write it down
in your answers that this Committee of
Public Safety was a cabinet or it was
working like a group of ministers but I
am just giving you an example that you
can compare it with that the National
Convention had lot of members lot of
Representatives who were elected but all
the power was vested in this Committee
of Public Safety and this committee was
deck dominated by the jacobins so now
comes the reign of terror reign of
terror was a period of one year from
June 1793 to July 1794 when lots and
lots of people was killed and this was
led by maximilien robespierre who was
heading the who was a part of this
Committee of Public Safety and whichever
person they said was against the
revolution they even thought that the
person was against the revolution he was
executed he was butene 16,000 enemies of
the revolution where guillotine executed
during this one year time period if you
divided then approximately 40
five to 50 people every day imagine 50
people executed every day and these
numbers are just from the cities of like
Paris many people were killed in rural
areas as well and at the same time
France was fighting a war with Austria
and Prussia many soldiers were dying
many people were dying due to hunger
beautiful mind and France was in a very
bad state at this time throughout the
French Revolution the economy of France
was very bad because of the war mainly
because of the war and the economic
prosperity was disrupted by this
revolutionary activity during this reign
of terror Marie Antoinette was also
executed earlier her husband the king
was gone but now she was also brought to
the guillotine because it was said that
she was also working against France
Robespierre was a radical and he also
destroyed many churches and closed down
many other churches he said that
churches are not required religion is
not required and so they destroyed and
closed down many many churches this is a
painting from the reign of terror and it
was a very dangerous and difficult time
for France if you were even little bit
politically active that person did not
know whether he would be alive the next
day or not whether he would be
guillotine or whether he would survive
the day so he have a look here also
there is someone holding the head of a
person where just was just been
guillotined his body is lying here so
such public executions took place
everything took place in public nothing
was behind closed doors or closed walls
all these executions were taking place
in in the city in front of the public
also Robespierre abolished slavery but
it was not long lasting because Napoleon
reinstated it after few years this
government brought in a new calendar
this calendar had 10 hours in one day
100 minutes in one hour and 10 days a
week so this calendar was followed for
few years but after after this torment
was gone people came back to the old
Gregorian calendar there were food
shortages throughout this time period
due to the war food from rural areas
were sent was sent to urban areas
Robespierre told farmers that it is very
important for the urban people to eat
food why because the
jacobins mainly had their Basin cities
in the urban areas the farmers got very
angry at this they said that if we don't
if we are not alive this year who will
give you food the next year but still
the food was sent from Google to urban
areas also they try to regulate the
prices because inflation was going up so
they brought in a few monetary policies
tried to control inflation but they
could not and the still the food prices
remained very high finally after this
reign of terror for one year and
thousands of people dying a thousands of
people dying people got sick of the
jacobins so they were banned and
Robespierre himself was executed
actually Robespierre wasn't executed by
the Jacobins himself because jacobins
also thought that he is getting too
extreme he is killing anyone and
everyone who is coming in his path so
Jack of some Jacobins got together and
they sentenced Robespierre himself to
death so he was also given in July 1794
the man who had sent thousands of people
to the guillotine himself died at the
guillotine after August fair's death the
jacobins were completely banned by all
the other people in the government and
after this the Girondins came to power
in this National Convention government
but they also did not last very long
hardly one year after this a new type of
government was formed new constitution
new elections again so then there was
the directory rule directory was from
1795 to 999 new constitution was adopted
in 1795 again in this directory the
affluent middle-class took control see
people had seen what the jacobins had
done Jacobins where the the the poor the
workers so they had when they had power
they unleashed a reign of terror
everyone was terrified of that no one
wanted that reign of terror again so the
people who were from the affluent middle
classes they again took control and they
gave the right to vote only to people
who are property so now no one if you do
not have property you do not pay taxes
you cannot vote so automatically who
will become powerful only the affluent
middle class because only they will be
elected more there this government also
had a bicameral legislature which
on the laws and out of this legislature
it was decided that there will be
executed body form again here also just
like the the Committee of Public Safety
earlier which had all the power this
executive body had all the executive
powers and it had five directors that is
the reason it is called directory rule
because it had directors in the
executive body and why five directors so
that to avoid dictatorship like
Robespierre had become almost a dictator
during his reign of terror and to avoid
such a situation five people were kept
so that they could keep each other in
control checks and balances during this
directory rule there were a lot of coos
and counter coos we do not need to go
into the details of that this rule was
also not very stable this three four
year period was also not very stable but
the French armies were winning a lot of
battles against the war which was going
on against its neighbors especially
under the leadership of Napoleon
Bonaparte a young army leader army
general French victories in Italy
Austria Switzerland these B's ended the
war of the first coalition Napoleon was
born in 1769 he was hardly twenty-seven
twenty-eight at the time he was winning
these battles in Italy Austria and
Switzerland but after some time due to
winning these battles and becoming very
popular Germany at Regeneron apollyon
Bonaparte himself did a coup against the
directory rule and established his own
consulate rule
he was just thirty years old when he did
this coup and became the leader of the
country so now there were three councils
councils means head of government so
there will be a first council second
Council and third Council the first
council will be the most powerful one
and Napoleon declared himself as the
first Council of France and in after
five years in 1804 he declared himself
as the Emperor of France so look at the
irony of it that the french revolution
is a true revolution what do you mean by
revolution it means going 360 degrees so
you will end up from at the place from
where you started so in french
revolution we started with a king louis
xvi and we have ended with an emperor in
napoleon bonaparte so it is a true
revolution in some
sense in this painting you can see
Napoleon a young military general of
just 30 years of age being appointed as
the first council and then there are the
second and the third councils here at
the back have a look at this map it
shows the extent of French victories
during the Revolutionary Wars France was
fighting against all of its neighbors
like Prussia Austria England Spain all
these countries under Holland they were
at war with France while the revolution
was going on so it is quite surprising
that France managed to then against all
of them while the revolution was going
on you you have seen how much troubles
were going on in France but still they
managed quite a lot of victories first
reason is that they had conscription
they started conscription young men who
are capable of fighting they had to join
the army
they had to go and fight the war
secondly if you remember Robespierre
sent food rations to the army even if
they did not have anything to eat the
farmers did not have anything to eat so
although this was bad for the farmers
but it was good for the army because
they managed to win a lot of battles and
finally Napoleon he was a brilliant
military strategist and general and he
led to a lot of victories here in Italy
Switzerland and in Austria especially
against Austria very powerful army but
he defeated them as well so due to this
France was able to establish puppet
States here with the governments where
of their choosing
and the ideas of the revolution spread
far and wide because of the many places
where France was able to make inroads
now we come to the analysis of the
French Revolution first we will see
whether this revolution changed much we
will look at the negative aspects of it
first thing it started as an absolute
monarchy and at the end of wrench
revolution there was a military
dictatorship so there was not much
change you replaced one dictator for
another so it can be said that there is
not much drastic changes in the system
of government secondly church was
restored by Napoleon see Napoleon
understood that the poor farmers they
needed Church they needed the
guidance of the fathers the church the
clergy in that life religion was very
important for those people and because
of these reasons he reinstated the
church he was not like Robespierre that
churches will be destroyed and they will
be shut down
no Napoleon reinstated the church and
for that people were very happy with him
nearby Napoleon was very popular in
France third nobility returned back to
France after the Revolution was over all
those emigrates they came back although
did they did not have power they do not
have all that land but still they they
had some of them had their houses were
given back to them and they easily lived
in France for many years they are still
living there so you cannot say that the
nobility has been completely removed
third the Bourbon dynasty the burned
Bourbon monarchy of which Louis 14 15
and 16 were part it was restored in 1815
after Napoleon was defeated and he was
thrown in jail so then all the enemies
of France they made the Bourbon King
Louis 17th as the ruler there was a
Louis 17th he was a younger brother of
16 he had escaped France so did it
succeed the Bourbon monarchy was still
present and it was there for many years
even after this the condition of women
and slaves did not see any change the
African slaves were were traded from
Africa for the colonies of France they
did not see any change
Napoleon brought back slavery and France
did not abolish it until 1848 the
condition of women also was not changed
drastically in fact they were reduced to
passive citizens after the first
constitution then the condition of
farmers and the workers also did not
have much changes and they did not
change a lot but yes they brought the
revolution they were the main people of
the revolution the bourgeoisie but their
condition did not improve quite much so
what is the legacy of this French
Revolution why is it important if there
was not much change we saw this in the
American Revolution as well there was
not much change the system of government
changed from the British to the the
great British to rich Americans here
also something similar that
but the legacy of this French Revolution
is very important by because of these
reasons first the constitutional
monarchy concept the laws constitutional
monarchy earlier in the world before
French Revolution but it was not very
strong okay
earlier the King used to be strong the
Constitution used to be weak but after
French Revolution the Constitution
became very strong and powers of the
Kings were limited and this model of
government has been followed in 19th and
20th century by many countries lot and
lot of countries best example India's
neighbor Bhutan it is a very successful
constitutional monarchy it has a king it
has a parliament and the king is not an
absolute monarchy as limitations on his
power secondly the power of nobility the
remaining vestiges of feudalism were
gone forever feudalism was removed
forever from the society the european
society at least the french society and
soon the other european nations also
followed suit as i said earlier
louis xiv had made the feudal lords
weaker because he had centralized power
but still they had considerable power
feudal lords were very powerful but this
french revolution it abolished feudalism
completely this is a very radical change
and one of the most important changes
brought about by french revolution it
was a big social change in the society
of france so feudalism is gone then
third church power was highly diminished
as I told you that churches were closed
the property of church was confiscated
fathers were told to go into civil
servants work for the government and if
they would not want to work they had to
just leave the clergy and go back and
live as private citizens all this was
diminishing church power and after this
an era of religious tolerance started
France was a highly Catholic country and
there were problems for protests and see
this was a running theme in all the
European countries if a country was
Protestant they did not let Catholics
live live there easily for example in
England if there were Catholics then
they made laws against Protestants and
so on so all this stopped after French
evolution there was an era of religious
tolerance because the interference of
the church stopped in the government now
the government did not have anything to
do with the church later in 20th century
France adopted a very strict form of
secularism it is called lycée day or
less each day I wonder how it's
pronounced but this is a very strict
adoption of separation of powers of
church and state this policy of
separation of church and state is so
strong in France that today French
government workers are not allowed to
wear cross on their necks burkas or
scars while they are coming to office
they are not allowed to wear any
religious symbols at all and this is
been going on in France since many years
now but it was not there after right of
the French Revolution this started in
the 20th century then power was
transferred from nobility to people
especially the bourgeoisie class the
middle class because they were the main
propagators of this revolution they
brought this revolution and they took it
forward the ideas of rights of man were
long lasting the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and rights of citizens is
a very important document and the laws
and the articles included in that have
been have inspired many constitutions of
the world now it says that the laws
apply equally to everyone debility
equality fraternity you can find these
words in Indian Constitution and many
other constitutions then there was the
rise of humanitarian movements
throughout Europe and the Western world
their human rights were given importance
people started giving importance to
human rights earlier it was not the case
but after French Revolution and its
emphasis on these ideas human rights
gained prominence then there was the
spread of nationalism in Europe
countries like Germany and Italy United
and a lot of big cause for that was the
French Revolution then women although
they were not given voting rights until
1946 but still their education their
education was now looked after it was
decided that women can marry whoever
they want they cannot be
to marry anyone freedom to start
business or trade independently so all
these things were up step forward in the
direction for women's rights and women's
upliftment so this is the end of the
French Revolution I have a question for
you tell me who is the recently elected
president of France and home daily
defeat also write down the names of the
political parties of both of them
I hope you know that you're reading the
newspapers viva la revolution have a
good day keep the education trivet
revolution going