The French Revolution
Introduced| English |
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| mass conscription/mæs kɒnˈskrɪpʃn/ |
Long-term causes plus a short-term trigger
- The French Revolution resulted from a combination of long-term social and political causes, as well as Enlightenment ideas, exacerbated by short-term fiscal and economic crises.
- The CED's structure is precise: long-term causes, ideas, and a short-term crisis that exacerbated them.
- So an answer needs at least one of each, and must not present the fiscal crisis as the whole cause.
Select all the kinds of cause the CED names.
The short-term crisis exacerbated the others; it is not the whole cause.
The liberal phase
- The first, or liberal, phase of the French Revolution established a constitutional monarchy, increased popular participation, nationalised the Catholic Church, and abolished hereditary privileges.
- Four measures, and the third and fourth are attacks on 3.7's absolutist bargain — the privileges absolutism had preserved.
- So the liberal phase is 3.2's constitutional settlement attempted in a state built the other way.
Select all four measures of the liberal phase.
The last two attack the privileges absolutism had preserved.
The radical phase
- After the execution of Louis XVI, the radical Jacobin republic led by Robespierre responded to opposition at home and war abroad by instituting the Reign of Terror, fixing prices and wages, and pursuing a policy of de-Christianisation.
- The CED gives the cause of the radical turn: opposition at home and war abroad.
- Three measures follow — a political one, an economic one and a religious one, all emergency responses.
Separate the conditions from the trigger
The CED distinguishes long-term causes and Enlightenment ideas from the short-term crises that exacerbated them.
Select all the radical-phase measures the CED names.
Conscription is the army's method, listed separately.
The fiscal crisis exacerbated causes that were already there. The CED's structure is long-term social and political causes, plus Enlightenment ideas, exacerbated by short-term fiscal and economic crises — so an answer resting on the deficit alone has taken the trigger for the whole explanation.
The CED says the radical turn responded to...
Three measures follow: political, economic and religious.
Armies and the export of the revolution
- Revolutionary armies, raised by mass conscription 大规模征兵, sought to bring the changes initiated in France to the rest of Europe.
- Mass conscription is possible only when a state can claim the nation as its own — a claim the revolution had just made.
- So the new political idea produces a new military capacity, which 5.6's Napoleon will inherit.
Put the CED's three stages for women in order.
Three stages in one sentence — the clearest instance of the Enlightenment's stated limits.
Women's participation and its limit
- Women enthusiastically participated in the early phases of the revolution; however, while there were brief improvements in the legal status of women, citizenship in the republic was soon restricted to men.
- The CED gives participation, a brief improvement, and a restriction — three stages in one sentence.
- It is 4.3's exclusion enacted in law, and the clearest single instance of the Enlightenment's stated limits.
A state with an empty treasury calls an assembly it has not called in generations. The deficit explains the meeting; it does not explain why the men who arrive already have a theory about consent, a list of grievances about privilege, and a vocabulary in which to state both.
The Revolution resulted from long-term social and political causes, plus Enlightenment ideas, exacerbated by short-term fiscal and economic crises. The liberal phase established a constitutional monarchy, increased participation, nationalised the Church and abolished hereditary privileges. The radical phase, responding to opposition at home and war abroad, brought the Terror, price and wage controls and de-Christianisation. Mass conscription carried the changes abroad, and citizenship was soon restricted to men.