History UsefulNotes / TheFrenchRevolution

* The Terror killed 17,000 people by Guillotine after a trial, while unofficial executions are believed to number approximately 40,000. Towards the final month of Thermidor, it became worse, a period called the "Great Terror". Statistically, and contrary to popular belief, only 8% of the victims were aristocrats (though considering they were less than 2% of the population, they did suffer a disproportionate impact), 25% of the victims were bourgeois and middle-class, 28% were peasants and working-class and the rest were clergy. During the "Great Terror" after the Law of 22 Prarial, where 1000 people were executed in a single month ([[UpToEleven matching all the executions in Paris the previous year]]), the victims became 38% Nobility, 26% Clergy, with [[EatTheRich the wealthy victims]] discriminated against since the law [[KangarooCourt deprived them]] of a right to call for witnesses, legal representatives or evidence by which according to Georges Couthon ([[HangingJudge who drafted the law to the Convention]]), wealthier accused escaped the blade before. Ironically, the largest single mass-execution of the Revolution, 77 people in a single day, happened on the day after Robespierre's execution. Over three days, the National Convention purged and executed without trial 100 people connected to Robespierre and the Paris Commune.

The King himself shared some of this frustration, and he and his various finance ministers (Turgot, Necker, and Callonne) spent the better part of the 1780s trying to figure out a way to reform the royal finances and thus avert financial catastrophe. They had a number of good ideas (and a large number of not-so-good ones), but that didn't really matter because in order for any royal decree to come into effect as law, it had to be registered by the ''parlements'': local judicial and quasi-legislative assemblies of jurists across France that held an important role in France's legislative process. (You thought the King's word was law? He wished!)[[note]]Technically, the King could force registration by holding a ''lit de justice''--literally, a "bed of justice"--in which he personally appeared at a sitting of the ''parlement'' of Paris on a bed, sitting on a throne made of cushions. Seriously. However, this was extremely annoying for the King, as these sessions were set about with heaps of ritual and were thus a logistical nightmare, to say nothing of the fact that the ''parlement'' (correctly) regarded the ''lit de justice'' as an affront to their independence and would thus do their best to be as unhelpful as possible. Also, between the bed and the cushions and the stuffiness of the ''parlement'' chambers, it was painfully easy for the king to ''fall asleep'' in the middle of the ceremony, causing major embarassment to the Crown. (This actually happened to Louis XVI during the crisis years leading up to the Revolution.) As such ''lits de justice'' were therefore avoided unless the King cared enough about the legislation and felt his hand had been forced. Also, the feudal, transactional nature of the legal bonds that held the different parts of the French kingdom together meant that even a ''lit de justice'' would not suffice to make certain needed or useful reforms.[[/note]] As it so happened, the ''parlements'' were made up of people who to the last man believed they would be adversely affected by any serious reform, and they used every trick in the book to prevent or at least delay registration of any reform laws--and very effectively, since they were all lawyers. They even got a good amount of popular support, as they argued that they were acting as defenders of French freedom and the ancient traditions of the French constitution--even though they were blocking legislation that would make the lives of most Frenchmen materially better.

This was worrisome and annoying to the reformers, but for the front half of the 1780s nobody thought that a catastrophic sovereign-debt crisis was imminent--looming, yes, but only at a distance. However, in 1786, Callonne took a look at the royal books and realized that the crisis wasn't merely looming or imminent; it was more or less here. At Callonne's insistence, the King called an "Assembly of Notables"--an appointed body of high-ranking and prominent men called in to advise the King, not called since 1620, in the hope that that would pressure the ''parlements'' to register the laws. No such luck--when the Notables met in 1787, they were mostly from the same class as the members of the ''parlements''. After some heming and hawing (and shenanigans after the Assembly decided it just didn't like Callonne and moved to get him fired), the Assembly had a response to the package. The response was, in essence: "We can't help you. The critical parts of this are way too sweeping to push through the normal process. The only way to get around the ''parlements'' is to call the Estates-General."

Louis was not pleased at this response, because (1) he knew that (the point of the Assembly was not to get ''around'' the ''parlements'', but to encourage/pressure the ''parlements'' to do what the King wanted--"look, the worthiest men of the realm are totally for these changes, don't you think you should just let the decrees go through?") and (2) calling the Estates-General was exactly what he and the royal ministry had been trying to avoid. The Estates-General was an ancient body, going back to the truly feudal era, and largely similar to the old structure of the English/British Parliament: an assembly of clergy (the "First Estate"), an assembly of nobles (the "Second Estate"),[[note]]Of course, these first two have been merged in the English system to become the House of Lords[[/note]] and of everyone else (the "Third Estate"). Each "estate" chose its representatives, who would then meet and discuss and advise the King on important matters of state--particularly matters of finance (as France's patchwork tax system was often structured in a way that made it hard to change without an Estates-General).

Despite being a little dim, Louis was well aware that this is more or less exactly what had happened to [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart Charles I of England]] about [[UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar 150 years previously]], and that calling the English Estates--that is, Parliament--to resolve a sovereign debt crisis had eventually cost Charles his head and the English monarchy nearly all of its political power. There was a ''reason'' that none of the French monarchs had seen fit to call an Estates-General since 1614--an Estates-General was a powerful tool because of the immense legitimacy it had to make big changes, but that same legitimacy made it extremely ''dangerous''. Better, Louis thought, to try to make do with what was possible without the Estates. But the Assembly of Notables was his last chance, and they told him in no uncertain terms that he had no options. He did make a few futile attempts to bring the ''parlements'' to heel in 1787 and 1788, but for all the effort the result was the same--the ''parlements'' uniformly held out.

The oath particularly stung, since papal supremacy in spiritual matters is a core Catholic tenet, and the new oath didn't seem to leave any room for that. The state wages were not really a problem, being a logical extension of the "Gallican" theory of papal power of which France had long been a bastion. The Gallican theory was that the Pope had no authority over temporal affairs outside of lands he personally ruled, and that included decisions about Church administration and what amounted to Church HR. For centuries, the French Crown had enjoyed the absolute right to appoint all bishops and abbots in France--with a theoretical but never-used papal veto--and there was no expectation this would change.

Consequently, most French clerics wouldn't have seen the wage as ''that'' big an issue--just a beefier form of Gallicanism. While the tithe the wages were replacing had some biblical support, the way the tithes were distributed in ''Ancien Regime'' France--mostly to the high prelates, with practically nothing going to the parish priests--meant that for the vast majority of French clergy, the regular civil service wage the Civil Constitution promised was actually a better deal than they had been getting. While the parish priests would definitely have preferred the continuation of tithes, with the income stream being redirected at them, becoming a government employee wasn't a huge deal in itself--[[{{Schadenfreude}} especially if it meant that the bishops and abbots who had been getting the tithes were now getting payscale at best and nothing at worst]]. As for the bishops and abbots, they were almost to a man the younger sons of exactly the sort of high nobility who had come to the grim realization that this revolution meant their time was up. (Except of course for the ones like Sieyès and Talleyrand who had had the good sense to be liberals well before the revolution and could join the new administration.)

There was less daylight between the parish priests and the hierarchy on the subject of Church property, but it wasn't as big a deal as it seemed. While they all hated the principle of seizing Church property and railed against it in their sermons, this wasn't anything they hadn't seen before. Governments across Europe had seized Church property from time to time since the Middle Ages, and while the Church always made a big fuss about it, the resistance was usually limited to scathing oratory so long as the situation was dire (which the French Church admitted it was) and the state took only what it needed.[[note]]By way of comparison, Louis's distant ancestor, the [[UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire Byzantine Emperor]] Alexios I Komnenos, had seized Chuch property--including actual icons (images of Christ and the saints) to take their gold, silver, and jewels--but as he was using the proceeds to fight off a Turkish invasion, the Church could do no more than grumble. (He also accused a prominent philosopher of heresy to distract the churchmen, but that was more a reflection of Alexios's belt-and-suspenders caution than any kind of necessity.)[[/note]] Besides, the priests had long grumbled about the extraordinary splendor of the prelates, and probably didn't care all ''that'' much so long as what was seized was just farms and jewels and such that happened to be Church-owned rather than actual church buildings and holy items. Indeed, parish priests probably would have had not a little bit of ''schadenfreude'' at the prospect of seizing property from the abbeys and monasteries, which were often seen as "[[LockedAwayInAMonastery refuges]]" for indolent and troublesome nobles and unproductive parasites that consumed Church income without ministering to the people or doing any productive work themselves. Also while the business of standing for election as priest or bishop—by assemblies which were not limited to Catholics, by the way, so in theory you could have elections for priest turning on the votes of Protestants, atheists, or even Jews—was roundly denounced, it was sufficiently of the times as to just be written off as a weird thing they’d just have to go with.

This seriously undermined popular support for revolutionary aims in the Vendée. The aristocratic counterrevolutionaries opposed the Revolution's changes on general principle (as well as outrage for losing ancient privileges they felt entitled to), but their numbers were few and their political attitude could be best described as "utterly demoralized." By contrast, the Civil Constitution alienated poor but devout peasants, who might have gone along with some of the Revolution's policies (after all, what kind of peasant doesn't want more land and lower taxes?), but turned permanently against the Revolution when it turned on their beloved Church--especially after the Civil Constitution was condemned by the Pope. This led to a long-running counterrevolutionary revolt/insurgency in the Vendée (occasionally spreading to surrounding regions like Brittany). The insurgency became a constant, festering ulcer for the Revolution, often distracting from other policy priorities and threats (including foreign wars) at critical moments.

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had truly universal suffrage (for adult male nationals).[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property--and while the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor, it was full one-(male adult) citizen, one-vote in elections for plebean aedile and tribune of the plebs and in (most) votes to ratify acts of the Senate. The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves (who were often a majority or plurality), freedmen, and resident aliens (and both the freedmen and the foreigners could get quite wealthy). The class of slaves is what's important here, as they obviously had neither political nor civil rights even when they were of the same ethnicity/nationality as the citizens (because, you know, they were slaves). This is a very different dynamic from Early Modern Western Europe, where there were basically no "unfree" nationals of the state for "free citizens" to hold themselves distinct from: serfdom had fallen by the wayside, and slaves were both rare (in Europe itself) and universally foreign (specifically Black African). If you were a Frenchman living in France in 1789, or an Englishman living in England in 1789, you were a freeman, even if you were the lowliest peasant; the aristocrats and rich guys couldn't deny that, so they needed some other way to keep you out of government. The French therefore borrowed the distinctively ''English'' practice of putting a property qualification on the franchise to keep out the riffraff.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

* The Storming of the Tuileries marked the end of Constitutional Monarchy and the birth of the Republic, which led to calls for a new republican constitution. This event took place on August 10, 1792 and was led by Cordeliers, sans culottes, the Paris Commune, the National Guard as well as volunteers from Provençe called Federalists. These last came mainly from Marseilles and along the way they picked up a song and popularized it during their march, which thus became known as "La Marseillaise" (literally "the one from Marseilles")--now the (surprisingly bloody-minded) national anthem of France.

* The National Convention granted mandate to the Committee of Public Safety to ensure that the government remained "Revolutionary until the Peace". Membership in the Committee was renewed every month by votes in the convention and they were an executive body of twelve men, charged with revolutionary dictatorship. They introduced mass {{conscription}} - the Levee en masse issued by the great engineer Lazare Carnot. This involved able-bodied men, women and children performing all kinds of actions in what is often seen as the first attempt to mount a total war. Women were sent to hospitals and sent to work while the men were sent to fight the war in all kinds of capacities. Such initiative and mobilization would be repeated on a far grander scale during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

** The Revolt in the Vendée is often portrayed in a more romantic light by historians and novelists. They cite the large scale killings (130,000 but often inflated to 200,000) committed by the Republican side as an example of Revolutionary violence. In truth, the Republican response was driven by a massacre of ''Republican'' Vendeeans committed by Royalist Vendeeans when they killed 200 of them in Machecoul. The Vendean response by the Committee of Public Safety had considerable local support among Republican Vendeeans and peasants who were quite keen on the fact that the government was cutting down on the feudal privileges that the Royalists wanted to reinstate - [[ValuesDissonance namely giving out Church property to peasant landholders]]. One of France's greatest Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau came from the Vendée and was descended from Republicans who had fought on the side of the Revolution. Undoubtedly there were atrocities committed by the Revolutionary side, but the Vendeeans' own atrocities and sparking the response is under-reported by comparison.

** The monarchs and nations fighting against France during the Wars of the French Revolution (often after France declared war on ''them'') also often are portrayed as utter reactionaries hell-bent on undoing every single political and social advance created by the Revolution (or to "[[UndeadHorseTrope turn back the clock to before 1789]]"), in effect ascribing the ideology of the most extreme royalist "ultras" to all of them.[[note]]That many European monarchs were in fact in favour of reforms in the spirit of "enlightened absolutism" (and that e. g. Denmark managed its modernization without a revolution of its own and without being put under revolutionary French tutelage) tends to be ignored.[[/note]] Some nationalistic historians also like to portray the war as if the very existence of France was at stake, while the monarchic governments in fact pursued widely divergent aims - which e.g. made Prussia and Spain drop out of the coalition in 1795 - and for the sake of the balance of power wanted to preserve France in its established position as a major European power.

** In general, during the Revolution, a lot of money and property was transferred from the nobility and clergy to the bourgeoisie and - to a lesser degree - the more well-to-do peasants, and a lot of shifts happened in the class structure. Napoleon and the Bourbon and July Monarchy restored some monarchical titles to good and bad effect, but it was mostly InNameOnly. In some cases, noblemen actually joined the sans-culottes and blended in and threw off their old life, hippie-style.
** An example of the trickle-down effect: Famous Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni was living in Paris on a pension granted to him by Louis XVI. This was stopped because of the Revolution, and Goldoni died in abject poverty on 6 February 1793 - a day before the National Convention voted to restore the pension, which they had to turn into one for Goldoni's widow.
* SignatureHeadgear: Of course, the 18th century was an age of Nice Hats, but the Revolution has its own hat specifically associated with it: the ''bonnet rouge'', a red Phrygian cap with a tricolor cockade.

--> ''"If we really think about it, there were two Reigns of Terror; in one people were murdered in hot and passionate violence; in the other they died because people were heartless and did not care. One Reign of Terror lasted a few months; the other had lasted for a thousand years; one killed a thousand people [[note]] According to modern research the real number is ca. 16,500 executions of death penalties, leading to estimates of a total of 25,000 to 40,000 including people dying in prison and killed without trial, but not counting something like 130,000 to 150,000 dead in the Vendée, which is not seen as part of the Terror but a separate CivilWar that got out of hand (it preceded and followed the establishment of the Law of Suspects which is the main instrument of the Terror)[[/note]], the other killed a hundred million people. However, we only feel horror at the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. But how bad is a quick execution, if you compare it to the slow misery of living and dying with hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery is big enough to contain all the bodies from that short Reign of Terror, but the whole country of France isn't big enough to hold the bodies from the other terror. We are taught to think of that short Terror as a truly dreadful thing that should never have happened: but none of us are taught to recognize the other terror as the real terror and to feel pity for those people."''

* ''Series/JohnAdams'': The appropriate American response to the French Revolution is a significant point starting in "Unite or Die" and is a major issue of [[UsefulNotes/JohnAdams the title character]]'s presidency starting in "Unnecessary War" (which includes the Citizen Genêt affair). On a personal level, the response to the French Revolution is the start of the rift between Adams and his old friend UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson--Jefferson is sympathetic with it, even during the Terror, while Adams is horrified by the Terror and pursues neutrality as President.

* NiceHat: Of course, the 18th century was an age of Nice Hats, but the Revolution has its own hat specifically associated with it: the ''bonnet rouge'', a red Phrygian cap with a tricolor cockade.

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had truly universal suffrage (for adult male nationals).[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property--and while the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor, it was full one-(male adult) citizen, one-vote in elections for plebean aedile and tribune of the plebs and in (most) votes to ratify acts of the Senate. The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves (who were often a majority or plurality), freedmen, and resident aliens (and both the freedmen and the foreigners could get quite wealthy). The class of slaves is what's important here, as they obviously had neither political nor civil rights even when they were of the same ethnicity/nationality as the citizens (because, you know, they were slaves). This is a very different dynamic from Early Modern Western Europe, where there were basically no "unfree" nationals of the state for "free citizens" to hold themselves distinct from: serfdom had fallen by the wayside, and slaves were both rare (in Europe itself) and universally foreign (specifically Black African). If you were a Frenchman living in France in 1789, or an Englishman living in England in 1789, you were a freeman, even if you were the lowliest peasant; the aristocrats and rich guys couldn't deny that, so they needed some other way to keep you out of government. The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had truly universal suffrage (for adult male nationals).[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property--and while the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor, it was full one-(male adult) citizen, one-vote in elections for plebean aedile and tribune of the plebs and in (most) votes to ratify acts of the Senate. The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves (who were often a majority or plurality), freedmen, and resident aliens (and both the freedmen and the foreigners could get quite wealthy). The class of slaves (and freedmen) is what's important here, as they obviously had no political rights even when they were of the same ethnicity/nationality as the citizens. This is a very different dynamic from Early Modern Western Europe, where there were basically no "unfree" nationals of the state for "free citizens" to hold themselves distinct from: serfdom had fallen by the wayside, and slaves were both rare (in Europe itself) and universally foreign (specifically Black African). The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had truly universal suffrage (for adult males who weren't foreigners).[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property--and while the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor, it was full one-(male adult) citizen, one-vote in elections for plebean aedile and tribune of the plebs and in (most) votes to ratify acts of the Senate. The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. (Indeed, to the extent that poor citizens of classical Greek democracies didn't have a vote in elections for certain important offices, that was usually because the officeholders were chosen ''at random'' from an elected pool of candidates.) The classical republics did tend to require more property to actually hold office, but few if any had any property qualifications for voting among citizens. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves (who were often a majority or plurality), freedmen, and resident aliens (and both the freedmen and the foreigners could get quite wealthy). The class of slaves (and freedmen) is what's important here, since slaves were a very large proportion of the population in most classical republics, and they obviously had no political rights even when they were otherwise indistinguishable from (poor) citizens. This is a very different dynamic from Early Modern Western Europe, where slavery was either rare or nonexistent and serfdom had long since fallen by the wayside, so there were basically no "unfree" people for "free citizens" to hold themselves distinct from. The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had universal suffrage.[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property--and while the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor, it was full one-(male adult) citizen, one-vote in elections for plebean aedile and tribune of the plebs and in (most) votes to ratify acts of the Senate. The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. (Indeed, to the extent that poor citizens of classical Greek democracies didn't have a vote in elections for certain important offices, that was usually because the officeholders were chosen ''at random'' from an elected pool of candidates.) The classical republics did tend to require more property to actually hold office, but few if any had any property qualifications for voting among citizens. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves (who were often a majority or plurality), freedmen, and resident aliens (and both the freedmen and the foreigners could get quite wealthy). The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had universal suffrage.[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property (even if the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor). The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. The classical republics did tend to require more property to actually hold office, but few if any had any property qualifications for voting among citizens. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves (who were often a majority or plurality), freedmen, and resident aliens (and both the freedmen and the foreigners could get quite wealthy). The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had universal suffrage.[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property (even if the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor). The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. The classical republics did tend to require more property to actually hold office, but few if any had any property qualifications for voting among citizens. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves (who were often a majority or plurality), freedmen, and foreigners. The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had universal suffrage.[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property (even if the poorest citizens' votes were severely underweighted in elections for the highest offices of the state like consul and praetor). The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same--every (adult male) citizen had the franchise, down to the lowliest ''thete''. The classical republics did tend to require more property to actually hold office, but few if any had any property qualifications for voting among citizens. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of noncitizens, irrespective of their wealth--chiefly slaves, freedmen, and foreigners. The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had universal suffrage.[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property (even if the poorest citizens' votes were heavily diluted). The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same. The nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of slaves, freedmen, and foreigners. The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had universal suffrage.[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding political rights, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism. That said, Rome ''did'' give a vote to every citizen, even ones who had no property (even if the poorest citizens' votes were heavily diluted). The classical "democracies" of Greece (most famously Classical Athens) did the same; the nonvoting class in these ancient republics (outside of women and children) consisted not of the propertyless citizens but of slaves, freedmen, and foreigners. The limitation of political rights to propertyholding citizens, with propertyless (or less-propertyholding) citizens being entitled only to civil rights, was distinctively ''English'', going back to de Montfort's call for "knights of the shire" (necessarily landed) and representatives of the boroughs (necessarily having some kind of property) to appear in Parliament in the 13th century.[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Then there's the issue of who gets to vote. About the only thing everyone (Rightist-Centrist-Leftist) agreed on was that [[StayInTheKitchen only men could vote]]; [[ValuesDissonance on this they agreed with the American Founding Fathers and the English Parliamentarians]]. But after that, the disagreements began. Initially there was suffrage censitatire--distinctions between "active" and "passive" citizenship, where active citizens (wealthy tax paying property owners) could vote but passive citizens could not. This struck many as [[FullCircleRevolution a revival of feudal caste distinctions]], but the historical precedent at the time was that no republic or democracy in the classical world ever had universal suffrage.[[note]]The classical tradition beloved by all politicians were schooled in the philosophy and ideas of the Optimate Republicans of Ancient Rome such as Cato and Cicero who had vociferously and repeatedly agitated against expanding suffrage, ideas which were taken up by populares such as the Gracchi, Marius, Caesar and historically associated, in the conservative imaginary, with authoritarianism and majoritarianism[[/note]] The people of Paris and other parts of France, gathering in a variety of political clubs[[note]]Membership was expensive and open only to men who could pay, but the club assemblies were open to the public and free. They also distributed political pamphlets, and introduced for the first time in the political lexicon, a word borrowed from the Catholic Church for distributing information to prospective converts, ''propaganda''[[/note]] obviously resented these distinctions between "passive" and "active" citizens [[DudeWheresMyRespect and felt miffed about having no voice]] after all the public support they gave to [[UngratefulBastard the Third Estate and Assembly]]. Repeated dismissals of these gatherings as a mob also made them partial to the idea of "direct democracy"; where the assemblies of people in the Paris Commune, clubs and other parts of the nation were no less legitimate than the actions and goings on of the National Assembly. After all, the Assembly claimed their legitimacy from popular sovereignty, and how could representatives compete with actual popular gatherings?[[note]]Some of the popular revolutionaries actually believed sovereignty to be an inversion of royal power. When the King had decreed an act, it was absolute and irrevocable. Now that the republic was based on popular sovereignty that meant people were sovereign just like the King was. These assemblies likewise believed that they were the people, they were sovereign, so what ''they'' say goes. When the King called for death, no one could argue otherwise, so when they call for death...well too bad for you[[/note]]

Consequently, most French clerics wouldn't have seen the wage as ''that'' big an issue--just a beefier form of Gallicanism. While the tithe the wages were replacing had some biblical support, the way the tithes were distributed in ''Ancien Regime'' France--mostly to the high prelates, with practically nothing going to the parish priests--meant that for the vast majority of French clergy, the regular civil service wage the Civil Constitution promised was actually a better deal than they had been getting. While the parish priests would definitely have preferred the continuation of tithes, with the income stream being redirected at them, becoming a government employee wasn't a huge deal in itself--[[{{Schadenfreude}} especially if it meant that the bishops and abbots who had been getting the tithes were now getting payscale at best and nothing at worst]]. As for the bishops and abbots, they were almost to a man the younger sons of exactly the sort of high nobility who had come to the grim realization that this revolution meant their time was up.

And then there was religion. The question of separating Church and State provided a different set of problems and tools than that available to the leaders of the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution.[[note]]These leaders enjoyed the presence of a pre-established dissenting tradition since many American protestant sects originated as exiles or emigrants from Europe, fleeing the Anglican Church so they were already opposed to one denomination of Christianity enforced from above which made them easier to accept a state that no other sect, and by extension no other religion, could interfere with in exchange for the state not interfering or presenting any official position on religion. This made them amenable to the First Amendment.[[/note]] France was "the eldest daughter of the Catholic Church" and a pillar of the Counter-Reformation, and the Church was its largest land owner; heavily involved in culture, society and rituals, placing them in the firing range to many measures to reform finance, fix the economy and establish nationalism. They had support from reformist priests and bishops[[note]]Many of them joined the Church out of career, position, education opportunities and had no real religious belief. This includes Abbe Emmanuel Sieyes, the Bishop Talleyrand. Only Henri Gregoire, the most revolutionary and progressive of this group, displayed authentic religious belief[[/note]] but not a complete consensus.

A few voices even suggested doing away with the King and declaring a republic, but most were still skeptical that a republic could govern such a large nation since republicanism had hitherto mostly been observed in Italian city-states and the ancient world, and in both cases these republics covered smaller areas. The only republic of comparable size was the United States, and even the most sympathetic French rightly viewed it skeptically; the first government under its new federal constitution had met that very spring, and even then it still didn't have full control of its claimed territory (North Carolina would not join until November; Rhode Island held out until May 1790).[[note]]Before you say, "what about the Roman Republic?", recall that while the Roman Republic ''controlled'' vast territories, the people of the provinces in the Republican era were not Roman citizens but subjects and tributaries of the Roman state. The business of government was controlled by Roman citizens who either physically lived in Rome or could make it to Rome in time for all the important votes. If you were out in the provinces, the local Roman governor had full policy discretion, limited only by directives from Rome and whatever treaties and deals governed the relationship between Rome and the local cities and tribes. The governor certainly wasn't at all responsible to the locals, as would happen in a modern republic; at best, the locals' deal would require the governor to consult with and inform their leaders about major decisions. A particular town/city might even be inhabited by Roman citizens (being Roman colonies or cities granted citizenship) and have its own republican constitution, but even then the local governor was still not responsible to the Senate, not to them, and needed only to respect certain legal rights of citizens (e.g. procedural rights in the courts). TL;DR: the Republican era Roman empire was an empire in the same way as, say, Persia's was, just with the monarch replaced with the Roman state, in which only Roman citizens in Rome could participate.[[/note]] The largest stable republic anyone had ever seen was the Netherlands, and even that was seen as [[HereditaryRepublic more or less a monarchy]] (since the Prince of Orange was almost inevitably the stadtholder of all or most of the constituent provinces). The only precedent they had for stable popular government in a country that size was Great Britain's constitutional monarchy.

Finally, on 17 August 1788, Étienne Charles de Brienne, the Archbishop of Sens and the royal Comptroller of Finances, was informed that His Majesty's Treasury only held 400,000 livres. This was literally enough money to run the French government for exactly one day--from 19 August onwards, royal creditors would have to be paid in [=IOUs=]. With the Treasury literally incapable of satisfying state debts, the royal ministry had literally no choice but to call an Estates-General. King Louis XVI therefore signed a decree summoning the Estates-General, to meet at Versailles in May 1789.

Despite being a little dim, Louis was well aware that this is more or less exactly what had happened to [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart Charles I of England]] about [[UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar 150 years previously]], and that calling the English Estates--that is, Parliament--to resolve a sovereign debt crisis had eventually cost Charles his head and the English monarchy nearly all of its political power. There was a ''reason'' that none of the French monarchs had seen fit to call an Estates-General since 1614--an Estates-General was a powerful tool because of the immense legitimacy it had to make big changes, but that same legitimacy made it extremely ''dangerous''. Better, Louis thought, to try to make do with what was possible without the Estates. But the Assembly of Notables was his last chance, and they told him in no uncertain terms that he had no options. He did make a few futile attempts to bring the ''parlements'' to heel in 1787 and 1788, but for all the effort the result was the same--on 17 August 1788, Étienne Charles de Brienne, the Archbishop of Sens and the royal Comptroller of Finances, was informed that His Majesty's Treasury only held 400,000 livres. This was literally enough money to run the French government for exactly one day--from 19 August onwards, royal creditors would have to be paid in [=IOUs=].

This was, of course, the final straw. With the Treasury literally incapable of satisfying state debts, the royal ministry had literally no choice but to call an Estates-General. King Louis XVI therefore signed a decree summoning the Estates-General, to meet at Versailles in May 1789.

Despite being a little dim, Louis was well aware that this is more or less exactly what had happened to [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart Charles I of England]] about [[UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar 150 years previously]], and that calling the English Estates--that is, Parliament--to resolve a sovereign debt crisis had eventually cost Charles his head and the English monarchy nearly all of its political power. There was a ''reason'' that none of the French monarchs had seen fit to call an Estates-General since 1614--an Estates-General was a powerful tool because of the immense legitimacy it had to make big changes, but that same legitimacy made it extremely ''dangerous''. Better, Louis thought, to try to make do with what was possible without the Estates. But the Assembly of Notables was his last chance, and they told him in no uncertain terms that he had no options. So after a few futile attempts to bring the ''parlements'' to heel in 1787 and 1788, King Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates-General at Versailles in May 1789.

* During the Terror, the Revolutionary Calendar was introduced. The calendar operated in decimal measures[[note]]Each Day had 10 Hours, Each Hour Had 100 Minutes and Each Minute Had 100 Seconds. Each month had thirty days organized in three 10 day weeks, with the tenth day being a public holiday. Five extra days were added to the end of the year to make a total of 365 days and a leap year likewise had six extra days.[[/note]]. Each year had 12 months divided into sets of three months to reflect the four seasons of Autumn (Vendémiaire,[[note]]from Latin vindemia, "grape harvest"[[/note]] Brumaire,[[note]]From brume, French for "fog"[[/note]] Frimaire,[[note]](From French frimas, "frost")[[/note]]) Winter, (Nivôse [[note]] from Latin nivosus, "snowy"[[/note]] Pluviôse,[[note]]from Latin pluvius, "rainy"[[/note]] Ventôse,[[note]](from Latin ventosus, "windy")[[/note]]) Spring, (Germinal,[[note]]from Latin germen, "germination"[[/note]] Floréal,[[note]]from Latin flos, "flower"[[/note]] Prairial,[[note]]from French prairie, "pasture"[[/note]]) and Summer (Messidor,[[note]]Harvest[[/note]] Thermidor,[[note]]summer heat[[/note]] Fructidor[[note]]Fruitful Month[[/note]]). One problem with the new calendar, apart from widespread cultural inertia vis-a-vis the Gregorian calendar, was that the new months, while corresponding well, more or less, to the seasonal climate of Paris, were not quite as appropriate to the colonies or parts of France where a month literally called "Snowy" (Nivôse) might not get any snow. A more prosaic reason the calendar was unpopular was that it reduced the number of weekends people got (one day's rest out of ten, instead of one out of seven). The calendar was also deliberately designed so that what ''would'' be Sunday in the old calendar would now be a normal workday, just to grind the Church's face into the dirt a little more. Today the Calendar only remains well known on account for the fact that some of the dates have become proverbial, namely 9 Thermidor (The Fall of Robespierre), and 18 Brumaire (The Rise of Napoleon).

Ever since the Revolution took place, it has been one of the most debated and contested of all historical events, if not ''the'' most contested and debated event. Conservatives disapproved of such radical social transformation on basic principle, with some (as well as many reactionaries) going so far as to argue that the whole event was arranged by a small minority (possibly members of the Freemasons and/or TheIlluminati, though French reactionaries at the time actually tended to blame the Duke of Orléans[[note]]Whom they thought had started the revolution as a way to prise the crown from his royal cousins, but then lost control of events.[[/note]]) and had zero popular support. Moderate 19th century liberals argued that everything was going fine but was derailed by bloodthirsty radicals who gave power to completely unqualified people, rather than trusting in their carefully voted-in elites. Radical revolutionaries looked at the Terror and said, [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans "Yes, more of that, please,"]] and believed that events failed because its leaders weren't ruthless ''enough''. Unsurprisingly, these interpretations usually say more about later political developments than they do about the actual events. UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies of the 19th and 20th Century, and the [[UsefulNotes/StandardEuropeanPoliticalLandscape European political spectrum]], to this very day, is largely oriented by one's opinions on the French Revolution: the terms "left" and "right" themselves originate in where the delegates sat in the national assembly (other cool terms like Montagnard (Mountaineer) have not survived).[[note]]The French Revolution also influenced American politics. Many political clubs developed in America in imitation of the French, much to President George Washington's displeasure. The pro-Revolution camp was called "Democrat" by Citizen Genet (a Girondin ambassador who got stranded in America when the ReignOfTerror was unleashed).[[/note]] The Revolution also [[TropeMaker made]] and [[TropeCodifier codified tropes]] associated with nationalism, such as national flags, national festivals, national holidays on significant anniversaries, monuments open to the public, museums and institutions for public education.

The result was the French Revolution's original sin: the [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned mess]] of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. This legislation demanded that priests across France swear an oath to the Nation above the Pope, accept wages from the government and devolve to the status of civil servants and accept nationalization and confiscation of Church property. This was truly divisive and controversial to say the least, since it offended the beliefs of many devout Catholics, including the King.

There was less daylight between the parish priests and the hierarchy on the subject of Church property, but it wasn't as big a deal as it seemed. While they all hated the principle of seizing Church property and railed against it in their sermons, this wasn't anything they hadn't seen before. Governments across Europe had seized Church property from time to time since the Middle Ages, and while the Church always made a big fuss about it, the resistance was usually limited to scathing oratory so long as the situation was dire (which the French Church admitted it was) and the state took only what it needed.[[note]]By way of comparison, Louis's distant ancestor, the [[UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire Byzantine Emperor]] Alexios I Komnenos, had seized Chuch property--including actual icons (images of Christ and the saints) to take their gold, silver, and jewels--but as he was using the proceeds to fight off a Turkish invasion, the Church could do no more than grumble. (He also accused a prominent philosopher of heresy to distract the churchmen, but that was more a reflection of Alexios's belt-and-suspenders caution than any kind of necessity.)[[/note]] Besides, the priests had long grumbled about the extraordinary splendor of the prelates, and probably didn't care all ''that'' much so long as what was seized was just farms and jewels and such that happened to be Church-owned rather than actual church buildings and holy items. Indeed, parish priests probably would have had not a little bit of ''schadenfreude'' at the prospect of seizing property from the abbeys and monasteries, which were often seen as "[[LockedAwayInAMonastery refuges]]" for indolent and troublesome nobles and unproductive parasites that consumed Church income without ministering to the people or doing any productive work themselves.

This was worrisome and annoying to the reformers, but for the front half of the 1780s nobody thought that a catastrophic sovereign-debt crisis was imminent--looming, yes, but only at a distance. However, in 1786, Callonne took a look at the royal books and realized that the crisis wasn't merely looming or imminent; it was more or less here. At Callonne's insistence, the King called an "Assembly of Notables"--an appointed body of high-ranking and prominent men called in to advise the King, not called since 1620, in the hope that that would pressure the ''parlements'' to register the laws. No such luck--when the Notables met in 1787, they were mostly from the same class as the members of the ''parlements''. After some heming and hawing (and shenanigans after the Assembly decided it just didn't like Callonne and moved to get him fired), the Assembly had a response to the package. The response was, in essence: "We can't help you. This is way too sweeping to push through the normal process. The only way to get around the ''parlements'' is to call the Estates-General."

Thus in late 1786, the King called an "Assembly of Notables"--an appointed body of high-ranking and prominent men called in to advise the King, not called since 1620, in the hope that that would pressure the ''parlements'' to register the laws. No such luck--when the Notables met in 1787, they were mostly from the same class as the members of the ''parlements'', and uniformly the response of the Assembly was "We can't help you. The only way to get around the ''parlements'' is to call the Estates-General."

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-->--'''[[Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe Goethe]]''' to the defeated German soldiers after the Battle of Valmy [[note]] This quote is first mentioned in Goethe's autobiographical ''Campagne in Frankreich'' (1820/1821), written decades later. No eyewitness recalls Goethe saying it in 1792 and the general belief is that he was writing with the benefit of hindsight.[[/note]]

The King himself shared some of this frustration, and he and his various finance ministers (Turgot, Necker, and Callonne) spent the better part of the 1780s trying to figure out a way to reform the royal finances and thus avert financial catastrophe. They had a number of good ideas (and a large number of not-so-good ones), but that didn't really matter because in order for any royal decree to come into effect as law, it had to be registered by the ''parlements'': local judicial and quasi-legislative assemblies of jurists across France that held an important role in France's legislative process. (You thought the King's word was law? He wished!)[[note]]Technically, the King could force registration by holding a ''lit de justice''--literally, a "bed of justice"--in which he personally appeared at a sitting of the ''parlement'' of Paris on a bed, sitting on a throne made of cushions. Seriously. However, this was extremely annoying for the King, as these sessions were set about with heaps of ritual and were thus a logistical nightmare, to say nothing of the fact that the ''parlement'' (correctly) regarded the ''lit de justice'' as an affront to their independence and would thus do their best to be as unhelpful as possible. Also, between the bed and the cushions and the stuffiness of the ''parlement'' chambers, it was painfully easy for the king to ''fall asleep'' in the middle of the ceremony, causing major embarassment to the Crown. (This actually happened to Louis XVI during the crisis years leading up to the Revolution.)[[/note]] As it so happened, the ''parlements'' were made up of people who to the last man believed they would be adversely affected by any serious reform, and they used every trick in the book to prevent or at least delay registration of any reform laws--and very effectively, since they were all lawyers. They even got a good amount of popular support, as they argued that they were acting as defenders of French freedom and the ancient traditions of the French constitution--even though they were blocking legislation that would make the lives of most Frenchmen materially better.

The election of the 1789 Estates General brought people from across France to the government. Many of the representatives were quite young and very few of them had direct experience in handling politics. Almost immediately it became clear that the Third Estate, whose representatives were from the middle classes, professionals and guild members, were in effect a separate ruling body on their own and that they represented France better than the first two estates. The great debate was that traditionally, the Estates-General had been three equally sized bodies who each offered one vote per estate, and thus had been dominated by aristocrats, who were the nobility (obviously) and generally the clergy, since most of the clergy were high-ranking church officials who were non-inheriting children. The Third Estate protested this greatly and in an age where newspapers were rampant and the Enlightenment was running wild across Europe, they demanded that the Third Estate be double the size (in essence, 250 nobles, 250 clergy, 500 commoners) and that voting be done by head rather than by order (thus handing most power to the Third Estate). The king and his ministry quickly agreed to double the Third Estate's numbers, but never did get around to deciding whether voting would be by orders or by head.