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The French Revolution and the Great War, 1789-1802
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The French Revolution and the Great War, 1789-1802
We revert from America and India to the affairs of Europe, Barely ten years were to elapse after the American War of Independence was over before Great Britain was plunged into a war which was to last, with one brief interval, for more than twenty years. In 1789 came the famous French Revolution. France had suffered from a government which was incompetent and arbitrary, a court which was extravagant and frivolous, and an aristocracy which clung to its privileges - above all that of not contributing to the chief taxes - whilst it neglected its duties. She endured a system of taxation which had every possible fault, and which left to the poor peasant only one-fifth of his earnings for himself, Moreover, the people had no share in the government, and the States-General - which had in the Middle Ages corresponded in some measure to the English Parliament - had not met since 1614.
The close of the eighteenth century, however, found people's minds prepared for change. A brilliant writer, Voltaire, had attacked various abuses, particularly those connected with the Roman Catholic Church, and had created, it is not too much to say, the critical atmosphere of his generation. A seductive philosopher, Rousseau, had taught people to look back to an imaginary golden age when there was no oppression and no poverty because there were no kings, no nobles, and no priests. In the same year that these two writers died, in 1778, the French monarchy had appealed to its subjects, as we have seen,, to support liberty in America; it is not surprising that the French people should seek liberty for themselves when financial difficulties at last forced the king to summon the States-General in May, 1789. France was at heart loyal, and a great king might have made reforms which would have staved off a revolution, But Louis X VI, the king, though well-meaning and amiable, was vacillating and undecided, whilst his queen, Marie Antoinette, though beautiful, was unpopular and indiscreet. The king had no scheme of reforms and no scheme of coercion - he merely let things drift. Consequently events moved quickly after the meeting of the States-General at Versailles. On previous occasions, the States-General had sat and voted in three estates, representing the nobles, clergy, and people respectively. But on this occasion the representatives of the people insisted on all the orders sitting and voting in one house, and by their pertinacity achieved their object. Then, on July 14, the men of Paris took the Bastille, the great fortress dominating eastern Paris - and its fall was regarded throughout Europe as the sign of the downfall of absolute monarchy in France (To the popular Imagination the Bastille was impregnable, and its dungeons were full of untried prisoners. As a matter of fact, the Bastille was only defended by a hundred and twenty soldiers, most of them old, and by fifteen cannon, only one of which was fired; and there were only seven prisoners, of whom four were forgers, two were madmen, and the other had been put there by the request of his family). In October, the women of Paris, impelled by fear of famine, marched to Versailles, and brought the king, the royal family, and the States-General to Paris, thinking that they would thus be sure of supplies of bread; and, as a consequence, the government and the assembly became, as time went on, increasingly subject to the influence of the Parisian populace.
- The Great Coalition and its Failure, 1793-1796
- Isolation of Great Britain and her Victories on Sea, 1797-1798
- The Second Coalition and its Failure, 1799 - 1800
- Renewed Isolation of Great Britain, 1801 and the Treaty of Amiens, 1802
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Chronology
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