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At the core of revolutionary fervor in France was the traditional division of French society into three
estates—clergy, aristocracy, and commoners—that reinforced the wealth and political power of the aristocracy
and the church. In this system, which had emerged in the Middle Ages, the First Estate consisted of the
Catholic clergy, who made up less than 1 percent of the population but held roughly 10 percent of French
lands. Virtually exempt from taxes, the church derived substantial wealth from tithes (taxes of one-tenth of
annual income) and fees imposed on the general population. The nobility, who were the Second Estate,
represented roughly 3–4 percent of the population but held upward of 30 percent of the country’s lands. They
also dominated the most prestigious administrative, military, and judicial positions in the royal bureaucracy
by virtue of their aristocratic status and were exempt from taxes as well. The burden of paying taxes fell largely
on the shoulders of the Third Estate, the remaining 95 percent of the French population consisting of peasants,
the urban poor, the wealthy bourgeoisie or urban middle class who made a living largely through commerce
and the professions, and everyone else who did not fall within the other two estates (Figure 7.12).
FIGURE 7.12 French Inequalities. This cartoon of 1789 depicts the social inequalities and tensions that pervaded
French society on the eve of the French Revolution. The First and Second Estates, a small minority of the population,
controlled the majority of land and wealth, while the labor and tax burden fell on the Third Estate. The caption reads,
“We must hope this game will be over soon.” (credit: “Les Trois Ordres” by Gallica Digital Library/Wikimedia
Commons, Public Domain)
Although persistent wealth inequality became a significant sore point for the French masses, particularly in
the midst of a national economic crisis, exclusion from political power was another issue leading up to the
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revolution. The Enlightenment’s emphasis on public opinion, natural rights, and freedom from tyranny also
resonated with many educated commoners and aristocrats, who believed that political and economic reforms
were desperately needed in France. However, the Estates General, a general assembly made up of
representatives of the nobles, clergy, and commoners that was France’s closest approximation to a
constitutional body, had not been convened by a French monarch since 1614. Equally problematic was the
voting structure of this body, which gave each estate one vote. Since the clergy and nobility generally shared
common interests, their votes typically defeated any initiatives the Third Estate might propose.
In 1789, in an act of desperation, King Louis XVI summoned the Estates General to propose a radical reform of
the economy and the creation of new taxes. But the Third Estate refused to participate until the king reformed
the voting system. After a period of stalemate, the Third Estate gained the support of many members of the
clergy and met separately as a National Assembly. This act of political rebellion reinforced the sovereignty of
the people, to which the king responded by amassing military forces with the goal of subduing the people by
force. His plan backfired, however, when a series of popular uprisings in Paris and throughout the country
resulted in the commoners’ seizure of sites associated with royal authority, such as the Bastille, a fortress in
Paris, land redistribution, and refusal to pay taxes.
In a position of strength, the National Assembly then issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen, which upheld natural rights such as liberty and property, like the U.S. Declaration of Independence,
but also mandated the adoption of representative government, equality before the law, and freedom of
expression. As a means of reducing monarchical power and enforcing the mandates of the Declaration, the
National Assembly created a new constitution in 1791 and charged a newly formed Legislative Assembly with
governing France as a constitutional monarchy and developing legislative reform.
Despite its progressive reforms, the Declaration faced opposition from critics such as French playwright
Olympe de Gouges for failing to address women’s rights. In 1791, Gouges published her Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, which emphasized women’s equality with men and asserted that
women should experience the same rights of citizenship as their male counterparts.
Meanwhile, France’s economic situation continued to worsen, and a group of women struggling to feed their
families organized a crowd of thousands to confront the king and demand action. Also instrumental in
building revolutionary momentum against the king and the nation’s profound wealth inequality were the sans-
culottes, radicals from the lower and working classes who could not afford the culottes, or fashionable short
pants, that were worn by the aristocracy and indicated one did not have to perform manual labor for a living
(sans is French for “without”). After the angry mob captured the royal family, the king lost all remaining
popular support when he and his wife, Queen Marie-Antoinette, attempted to escape.
The newly formed Legislative Assembly suspended the king and created a representative body known as the
National Convention, which convicted Louis of treason. The National Convention was composed of a number of
different groups of revolutionaries with conflicting opinions regarding what the government of France and
French society should be like. A variety of political clubs and organizations expressed a range of ideas about
the goals of the revolution and the best course of action to achieve them. Founded in 1789, the Jacobins
quickly became the most influential of these clubs. The Jacobins sought to end the reign of King Louis XVI and
establish a republic to replace the French monarchy. However, disagreements between their radical and
moderate factions made consensus difficult to achieve. Whereas the Girondins, a moderate faction of the
Jacobins, some of whom hailed from the Gironde region of southwestern France, opposed executing the king,
the radical Jacobin faction the Mountain, so named because its members sat on the highest benches of the
National Convention, supported sentencing him to death. After the Convention held a trial for the king, the
Mountain ultimately prevailed, and the king was executed in January 1793.
After declaring those who opposed the king’s execution enemies of the revolution, in 1793 the Mountain and
their supporters initiated a period of violent repression known as the Reign of Terror. Maximilien de
Robespierre, a lawyer who championed the principles of equality, led the provisional government of France,
7.3 • Revolutions: America, France, and Haiti 267
known as the Committee of Public Safety, from 1793 to 1794. Under the battle cry liberté, égalité, fraternité
(liberty, equality, brotherhood), this radical phase of the revolution achieved many progressive reforms,
including controlling the price of grain, legalizing divorce, and abolishing slavery. Despite such achievements,
however, it was also inherently contradictory, since tens of thousands of people were arbitrarily imprisoned or
executed as a means of silencing dissent.
Disagreements between the Committee of Public Safety and the Convention over religious and economic
policies hastened the end of the Reign of Terror as support for Robespierre’s repressive policies dwindled. By
1794, members of the opposition had removed Robespierre from power, and the Terror finally came to an end
in July 1794 when its leaders, including Robespierre, were executed on the guillotine. The Convention then
dismantled the executive powers of the Committee of Public Safety and sought to restore political stability by
creating a constitution in 1795 that established a new executive councilof five men known as the Directory.
Despite the new government’s efforts to prevent rebellions and dissent, it faced a variety of challenges from
radical Jacobins who wanted to restore the Terror’s revolutionary fervor and from conservative factions that
sought to restore the monarchy. Growing conflict between moderates and radicals, sharpened by a period of
famine and economic difficulty, ultimately led the Directory to invite Napoléon Bonaparte, a charismatic and
ruthless general in the French army, to help them develop a more authoritative government in 1799 and quiet
the voices of opposition.
LINK TO LEARNING
A pervasive symbol of the French Revolution, the guillotine was designed to mechanize executions and render
beheading more humane and efficient while ensuring that all people sentenced to death experienced the same
quick and relatively painless execution regardless of social class. Illustrations of a guillotine
(https://openstax.org/l/77Guillotine1) from the Museum of the French Revolution and an execution by
guillotine (https://openstax.org/l/77Guillotine2) are presented.
Following the Terror’s failure, the revolution took a more conservative turn, and the idealism of the French
Revolution came to an end. The modern democratic tradition emerging in France then transformed into
popular authoritarianism when Napoléon seized control. Although he safeguarded some revolutionary gains,
Napoléon also reinstated slavery in France’s colonies and declared himself emperor in 1804. At the height of
his power, he ruled over a massive empire.
Following a series of failed military campaigns stemming from his desire to dominate Europe, however,
including a disastrous attempted invasion of Russia, Napoléon abdicated his throne in 1814. He then returned
and led France again until his defeat by the British and Prussians at Waterloo (Belgium) in 1815. After this loss,
Napoléon was ultimately banished from France and forced to spend the rest of his days in exile.
The French Revolution now appeared to come full circle with the restoration of the French monarchy in
1814–1815. However, Louis XVIII, the restored French king, could not rule as an absolute monarch and had to
recognize his subjects’ new constitutional rights to participate in government and regulate the king’s power.
Notwithstanding Napoléon’s brief autocratic reign, the French Revolution successfully dismantled the
nobility’s and clergy’s disproportionate share of power and defeated the strongest absolute monarchy in
Europe.
The French revolutionaries failed to fully establish the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity that had
long inspired the movement. They sought to replace royal and aristocratic privilege with sweeping reforms
rooted in ideals of natural rights and protection from tyrannical government. Yet in practice, and regardless of
the instrumental roles they played in the revolution, women in France did not receive many of the rights
extended to their male counterparts. In fact, France was the last of the major Western powers to extend voting
rights to women, in 1944.
Perhaps even more paradoxical was the contradiction between Enlightenment ideals of liberty that fueled the
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https://openstax.org/l/77Guillotine1
https://openstax.org/l/77Guillotine1
https://openstax.org/l/77Guillotine2
https://openstax.org/l/77Guillotine2
revolution on one hand and France’s ongoing colonialism, exploitation of slave labor, and discrimination
against free people of color on the other. Except for a brief period during the Reign of Terror, France continued
to uphold the institution of slavery in its colonies. In particular, in the colony of Saint-Domingue, now known as
Haiti, few if any rights were extended to enslaved or free people of color in the wake of the French Revolution.
Ultimately, then, the legacy of revolution in France was mixed.
The Haitian Revolution
Like the leaders of revolution in the North American colonies and France, the leaders of Haiti’s Revolution
sought to reject tyranny and dismantle long-standing inequities. Unlike the British colonists, however, the
Haitian revolutionaries made addressing racial discrimination and injustice their primary aim. The Haitian
Revolution was the first uprising of enslaved people in history that not only toppled a colonial regime but also
established national independence (Figure 7.13). Independence came at a tremendous cost, however, since
France forced the new republic to pay steep indemnities to compensate French citizens for their property
losses for many years, impoverishing the new nation. Nevertheless, the revolution represented one of the most
significant challenges to colonialism raised in the Western Hemisphere.
FIGURE 7.13 Haitian Revolution. This 1802 engraving by Auguste Raffet depicts one of the major battles of the
Haitian Revolution, the battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, which took place that year. The Haitian army initially suffered a
crushing defeat there but eventually won an inspiring victory. (credit: “Haitian Revolution” by Auguste Raffet/Hebert
in Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
As France’s wealthiest colony, Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola yielded roughly 40 percent of the
sugar and nearly half the coffee imported to Europe in the eighteenth century. Producing these labor-intensive
commodities depended on maintaining a ruthless regime that enslaved the majority of the colony’s
population. At the beginning of the Haitian Revolution, roughly 500,000 enslaved people lived in Saint-
Domingue, mostly of sub-Saharan African descent. A population of about forty thousand Whites was a mix of
wealthy planters, middle-class professionals, and poor laborers. A third group of about thirty thousand were
7.3 • Revolutions: America, France, and Haiti 269
gens de couleur libres (a French term meaning free people of color), many of mixed-race heritage and some
holding enslaved people themselves. Given sharp social divisions and the exploitation of the colony’s enslaved
people, Saint-Domingue was poised for turmoil.
After news of the revolution in France reached the colony, its White planters and gens de couleur libres sent
delegates to Paris in 1789 in hopes of securing greater economic and political freedoms from the French.
Largely driven by self-interest, each group interpreted the principles and goals of the revolution differently.
Whereas wealthy White planters sought political autonomy and greater freedom from trade restrictions, poor
Whites were primarily interested in securing equal citizenship for themselves. Neither wealthy nor poor
Whites were concerned with gaining equal political or legal rights for people of color. The gens de couleur
libres, on the other hand, interpreted the revolutionary rhetoric of liberty to mean the extension of equal rights
to all free people regardless of race. Given that some of them owned enslaved people, however, they did not call
for an end to slavery. The incompatible goals of each group intensified hostilities among the free sectors of
Saint-Domingue’s population. The conflict between Whites and gens de couleur libres exploded in 1791, after
Haiti’s White population refused to acknowledge the citizenship rights that France had extended to wealthy
people of color. The resulting turmoil and instability provided the perfect opportunity for rebellion, which
expanded into a full-fledged revolution.
Although it may seem at first that the French Revolution and Enlightenment ideals provided the motivation for
revolution in Haiti, much of the inspiration actually came from rumors that France had outlawed slavery, the
existence of enslaved leaders poised to rebel against White plantation owners, and the influence of beliefs
based on Vodou (Voodoo), a mix of Roman Catholic and indigenous West African religious practices. In August
1791, a group of enslaved people planning a rebellion met in a heavily wooded area known as Bois Caïmanto
formalize their pact in a Vodou ritual overseen by Dutty Boukman, a Vodou priest from Jamaica. It is difficult to
know the precise nature of the ceremony. Because France had outlawed the practice of Vodou in its colonies,
such gatherings were generally shrouded in secrecy. Nevertheless, it is clear that Vodou was a vital spiritual
tradition for enslaved Africans, and one of the few areas in which they could achieve a sense of psychological
independence. Due to its widespread appeal among Saint-Domingue’s enslaved population, Vodou thus united
different rebel groups and played a significant role in propelling the revolution.
Within a few days of the Bois Caïman meeting, some gens de couleur libres joined forces with rebelling
enslaved people in an uprising against White colonists. After initiating the rebellion in the north of Saint-
Domingue and destroying numerous plantations, they continued to escalate the movement. By September
1791, revolt had spread to Port-au-Prince, the colony’s capital.
Other countries soon became involved in the rebellion in Haiti. In 1792, France, in an effort to stop the
uprising in Haiti, sent troops to the island and extended the rights of citizenship to all free men of color in
order to end their support for the rebellious enslaved people. By 1793, France found itself at war with most of
the nations of Europe, including Britain and Spain. European rulers did not wish the French revolutionary
sentiment that had led to the overthrow of Louis XVI to spread to their states, and France went to war to ensure
that hostile monarchs did not bring an end to the revolution. In 1793, Britain and Spain landed troops in Haiti,
where they supported the White colonists in their attempt to put down the slave rebellion. Both Spain and
Britain hoped to weaken France by depriving it of revenues from the sale of Haitian sugar and to prevent the
slave rebellion from spreading to their own Caribbean colonies. Military intervention did not end the rebellion,
however. France officially abolished slavery in 1794, during the most radical phase of the revolution, and
colonial officials in Saint-Domingue issued an emancipation decree.
With François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, a military leader and formerly enslaved man, at the helm,
many reforms were brought to the island of Hispaniola, which included Saint-Domingue and the Dominican
Republic (Figure 7.14). Louverture freed the enslaved people in both colonies in 1801. He then promoted a
constitution for the new nation of Haiti, which he nevertheless maintained was still part of the French Empire.
The constitution was based on principles of natural rights and social contract theory similar to those that had
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