Home / Courses / European History / Unit 5

European History Unit 5: Conflict, crisis and reaction in the late eighteenth century

The French Revolution overthrew the old order, Napoleon spread its reforms, and the Congress of Vienna tried to restore stability.

Covers: The French Revolution, its radical phase, Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna, Romanticism

Study guide

France's Old Regime divided society into three estates: the clergy (First), the nobility (Second) and everyone else (Third), which paid most taxes. Debt from wars, including support for the American Revolution, bad harvests and Enlightenment ideas created a crisis. When Louis XVI called the Estates-General in 1789, the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly and took the Tennis Court Oath. Parisians stormed the Bastille, and the Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, abolished feudal privileges and passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Olympe de Gouges responded with the Declaration of the Rights of Woman.

The revolution radicalized. France declared war on Austria and Prussia, the monarchy was abolished, and Louis XVI was executed in 1793. The Jacobins under Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety led the Reign of Terror, executing thousands by guillotine. After Robespierre's fall, the moderate Directory ruled weakly until Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799.

Napoleon made himself emperor in 1804. His Napoleonic Code established legal equality for men, protected property and limited women's rights, and he made peace with the Church in the Concordat of 1801. He conquered much of Europe, spreading revolutionary ideas and nationalism, but his Continental System failed, and the invasion of Russia in 1812 destroyed his army. He was defeated at Waterloo in 1815. The Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), led by Austria's Metternich, restored monarchies, redrew borders and set up the Concert of Europe to maintain a balance of power and suppress revolutions. Romanticism rejected Enlightenment reason in favor of emotion, nature and nationalism.

Louis XVI's failed flight to Varennes (1791) destroyed trust in the monarchy and strengthened republicanism. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy required priests to swear loyalty to the state. About half refused, which split French Catholics and fed counterrevolution such as the Vendée revolt (1793). In 1793 the moderate Girondins lost power to the more radical Jacobins, who were backed by the Parisian sans-culottes. The Committee of Public Safety ordered the levée en masse, a mass draft that created a 'nation in arms,' and imposed price controls known as the Maximum.

The Revolution granted citizenship to Protestants and Jews. In 1794 it abolished slavery in the colonies after the revolt of enslaved people in Saint-Domingue, which became the Haitian Revolution. Napoleon restored slavery in 1802, but Haiti won independence in 1804. Women gained the right to divorce but were denied political rights, and women's political clubs were banned in 1793. Napoleon's occupation of Spain in 1808 sparked the Peninsular War, a guerrilla conflict that drained his armies. Nationalist resistance there and in the German states helped erode his empire.

Key ideas

• Debt, inequality and Enlightenment ideas caused the French Revolution.
• The Revolution moved from moderate reform to the radical Reign of Terror.
• Napoleon spread legal equality and nationalism through conquest.
• The Congress of Vienna restored conservative order and a balance of power.
• Romanticism emphasized emotion and nature over reason.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Thinking the Napoleonic Code gave women equal rights; it limited them.
• Thinking the Congress of Vienna spread revolutionary ideals; it was conservative.

Words to know

Old Regime

France's social and political system before 1789.

Three estates

France's division into clergy, nobility and commoners.

Estates-General

French representative assembly called in 1789.

National Assembly

Body formed by the Third Estate in 1789.

Tennis Court Oath

Pledge by the National Assembly to write a constitution.

Bastille

Paris prison stormed on July 14, 1789.

Declaration of the Rights of Man

1789 statement of rights based on Enlightenment ideas.

Olympe de Gouges

Writer of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman.

Jacobins

Radical revolutionary political club.

Reign of Terror

Period of mass executions under Robespierre.

Committee of Public Safety

Revolutionary government that led the Terror.

Directory

Moderate government of France from 1795 to 1799.

Napoleonic Code

Napoleon's legal code establishing equality before the law for men.

Continental System

Napoleon's blockade of British trade.

Congress of Vienna

1814–1815 meeting that restored order after Napoleon.

Metternich

Austrian leader of the conservative Congress of Vienna.

Concert of Europe

Alliance to maintain balance of power and suppress revolutions.

Romanticism

Movement emphasizing emotion, nature and imagination.

Sample practice questions

5 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.