Homework - The class will have a test on the Nationalism in Europe unit on Wednesday, November 4, 2015. Do the Review Sheet on answering test questions for the next class (Monday). These are the review questions for the unit:
1. While the Revolts of 1848 did not have any immediate effect on Europe, what did they show about the conflicts happening across Europe?
2. How accurately does Metternich’s statement, “When France sneezes, Europe catches cold” reflect the conflicts in Europe following the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars?
3. How did the unification of Germany sow the seeds for future conflict between Germany and France, and also destabilizing the balance of power in Europe?
4. How did the Napoleonic Wars and ideas of Romanticism influence the idea of German nationalism?
5. How similar are Count Camillo Cavour and Otto von Bismarck in their programs for unifying their countries?
6. How did the rule of Napoleon III in France and Bismarck’s leadership in Prussia (Germany) demonstrate how authoritarian governments worked to improve the lives of the people living in their countries?
7. How did the revolts of 1848 indicate the power of the idea of nationalism on the region of Germany and the Austrian Empire?
8. How were Fredrick the Great and Bismarck both examples of Prussian leaders who were militaristic in how they dealt with other countries and yet also enlightened in how they improved the lives of people in Prussia?
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
October 28, 2015 - Romantics & German Nationalism
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class.
Biographies - Brothers Grimm
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born Germany in 1785 and 1786. The brothers were very close friends even though they had very different personalities. Wilhelm was easygoing, while Jacob was difficult and introverted. For most of their lives, they worked in the same room, at facing desks. They both studied law with the goal of becoming lawyers, like their father. However, during their studies Napoleon ruled over Germany and the Brothers became more interested in studying German heritage and culture. The Brothers became librarians because this job allowed them to do research and write books. A large part of their work was traveling across Germany and going into villages to hear the oral stories that had been told by people for generations. The Brothers saw themselves as saving the German folk tradition by writing down these stories and showing that the villages of Germany had a common culture of shared stories. They hoped to show that German culture was just as strong as those of England and France. Their type of research and books inspired other nationalistic researchers in Russia, Ireland and other parts of Europe. The Brothers Grimm published their first book of fairy tales, “Nursery and Household Tales” in 1812 – at the same time that Napoleon was beginning is disastrous invasion of Russia.
The Brothers also supported democracy. In 1837, they opposed the king of Hanover who ignored the regional constitution. As a result, they lost their jobs as professors at the local university. However, by this point many German nationalists supported the work of the brothers and they gave the brothers the financial support to continue their research. Jacob Grimm was elected to be part of the Frankfurt National Assembly which met in 1848 to form a united Germany. While this group failed to form a united Germany, it was an important part of the process in building a united Germany.
Later in their lives, the brothers began the process of writing a German language dictionary that would “contain the endless richness of our fatherland’s language”. This dictionary was more than a list of words. There dictionary was also a history of the German language and explained the grammatical ruled of the language. It was process for making a standardized German language and is comparable to the Oxford English Dictionary. The first volume took 16 years to write and it was incomplete at the time of the Brothers deaths – it was finished by their students.
Source # 1 - Preface to the Second Edition of the Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm (1819)
After a storm or another misfortune from the heavens has knocked an entire field of growing crops to the ground, it is possible that near some low hedges or bushes a small safe place can be found where a few growing spikes remain. If the sun shines again, they begin to grow, lonely and unnoticed. No hasty scythe harvests them for the great store houses. But in late summer, when they are ripe and full, poor hands come to search for them. Gleaned one by one, carefully bound together, and valued more than whole sheaves, they are carried home. They provide sustenance for the winter and are perhaps the only seeds for the future.
That is how it appeared to us when we saw how nothing more remained from all that had blossomed in earlier times. Even the memory of it all was almost completely lost among the people, but for a few songs, books, legends, and these innocent fairy tales. Gatherings around the oven, around the kitchen stove, on stair landings, holidays still celebrated, grazing pastures and forests in their silence, and above all the unspoiled imagination – these were the hedges that protected these seeds and passed them down from one age to another.
It was perhaps the right time to grab hold of these fairy tales, for those who preserved them were becoming ever rarer. Admittedly, those who still know them usually know quite a bit, because it is the people who die off, not the tales. But the custom itself is becoming less and less common, as are all the secret places in homes and gardens that live on from grandfather to grandson, giving way to the constant change of empty splendor, which is like the smile with which one speaks of fairy tales, a smile that appears distinguished but in reality costs very little. Where they still exist, they live, so that no one thinks about whether they are good or bad, if they are poetic or in poor taste for intelligent people. One knows them and loves them because that is the way they were learned, and one delights in them without any specific reason…
… There, in the famous old regions of German freedom, legends and fairy tales have been preserved as a regular feature of holidays and the country is still rich in inherited customs and songs. There, partly because written language is not yet disturbed by the introduction of outside influences nor overloaded until it is blunted, and partly because it assures that memory does not become careless, especially among peoples whose literature is not very significant, oral traditions prove themselves to be stronger and more unsullied replacements. Thus, Lower Saxony has also preserved itself more than other regions. How much more complete and internally rich a collection would have been in the fifteenth century, or in the sixteenth century, in the era of Hans Sachs and Fischart!..
…In addition to the tales in the second volume, we received numerous supplements to the first volume as well as better versions of many of the stories published there from the same or similar sources. As a hilly land far away from the grand boulevards and mostly occupied with farming, Hesse has the advantage of being better able to preserve old tales and customs. A certain seriousness, a healthy, thorough, and brave mind-set that history will not ignore, even the large and attractive frame of the region's men – it was at one time the actual dwelling place of the Chatten, a Germanic tribe – all these have been preserved and allow the lack of comfort and elegance (in comparison to other lands, Saxony, for example) to be considered more as an advantage. One perceives as well that regions which are rougher but also magnificent belong to the lifestyle of the whole as does a certain strictness and poverty. The Hessians must certainly be counted as those among our Fatherland's peoples who have held on most firmly through the changing times to the unique features of their essence as well as to their old dwelling places.
Source # 2 - In 1806, when Berlin was under French occupation, German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte said,
“The first, original, and truly natural boundaries of states are beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole."
Source # 3 - Johann von Herder said both, "spew out the ugly slime of the Seine. Speak German, O You German" and “What a treasure language is when kinship groups grow into tribes and nations. Even the smallest of nations…cherishes in and through its language the history, the poetry and songs about the great deeds of its forefathers. The language is its collective treasure.”
Source # 4 - The German Fatherland by Ernst Mortiz Arndt (1813)
Where is the German's fatherland?
Then name, oh, name the mighty land!
Wherever is heard the German tongue,
And German hymns to God are sung!
This is the land, thy Hermann's land;
This, German, is thy fatherland.
This is the German's fatherland,
Where faith is in the plighted hand, plighted: pledged or promised
Where truth lives in each eye of blue,
And every heart is staunch and true. staunch: loyal
This is the land, the honest land,
The honest German's fatherland.
This is the land, the one true land,
O God, to aid be thou at hand!
And fire each heart, and nerve each arm,
To shield our German homes from harm,
To shield the land, the one true land,
One Deutschland and one fatherland! Deutschland: Germany, in German
Source # 5 - Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner (1851) - This was part of the four opera Ring Cycle that Wagner composed based on the stories of Norse mythology. The Valkyries were Norse goddesses who rode over battlefield and decided which warriors would live and die, and then take the souls of the dead warriors of Valhalla to live with the gods until the end of the world.
Biographies - Brothers Grimm
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born Germany in 1785 and 1786. The brothers were very close friends even though they had very different personalities. Wilhelm was easygoing, while Jacob was difficult and introverted. For most of their lives, they worked in the same room, at facing desks. They both studied law with the goal of becoming lawyers, like their father. However, during their studies Napoleon ruled over Germany and the Brothers became more interested in studying German heritage and culture. The Brothers became librarians because this job allowed them to do research and write books. A large part of their work was traveling across Germany and going into villages to hear the oral stories that had been told by people for generations. The Brothers saw themselves as saving the German folk tradition by writing down these stories and showing that the villages of Germany had a common culture of shared stories. They hoped to show that German culture was just as strong as those of England and France. Their type of research and books inspired other nationalistic researchers in Russia, Ireland and other parts of Europe. The Brothers Grimm published their first book of fairy tales, “Nursery and Household Tales” in 1812 – at the same time that Napoleon was beginning is disastrous invasion of Russia.
The Brothers also supported democracy. In 1837, they opposed the king of Hanover who ignored the regional constitution. As a result, they lost their jobs as professors at the local university. However, by this point many German nationalists supported the work of the brothers and they gave the brothers the financial support to continue their research. Jacob Grimm was elected to be part of the Frankfurt National Assembly which met in 1848 to form a united Germany. While this group failed to form a united Germany, it was an important part of the process in building a united Germany.
Later in their lives, the brothers began the process of writing a German language dictionary that would “contain the endless richness of our fatherland’s language”. This dictionary was more than a list of words. There dictionary was also a history of the German language and explained the grammatical ruled of the language. It was process for making a standardized German language and is comparable to the Oxford English Dictionary. The first volume took 16 years to write and it was incomplete at the time of the Brothers deaths – it was finished by their students.
Source # 1 - Preface to the Second Edition of the Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm (1819)
After a storm or another misfortune from the heavens has knocked an entire field of growing crops to the ground, it is possible that near some low hedges or bushes a small safe place can be found where a few growing spikes remain. If the sun shines again, they begin to grow, lonely and unnoticed. No hasty scythe harvests them for the great store houses. But in late summer, when they are ripe and full, poor hands come to search for them. Gleaned one by one, carefully bound together, and valued more than whole sheaves, they are carried home. They provide sustenance for the winter and are perhaps the only seeds for the future.
That is how it appeared to us when we saw how nothing more remained from all that had blossomed in earlier times. Even the memory of it all was almost completely lost among the people, but for a few songs, books, legends, and these innocent fairy tales. Gatherings around the oven, around the kitchen stove, on stair landings, holidays still celebrated, grazing pastures and forests in their silence, and above all the unspoiled imagination – these were the hedges that protected these seeds and passed them down from one age to another.
It was perhaps the right time to grab hold of these fairy tales, for those who preserved them were becoming ever rarer. Admittedly, those who still know them usually know quite a bit, because it is the people who die off, not the tales. But the custom itself is becoming less and less common, as are all the secret places in homes and gardens that live on from grandfather to grandson, giving way to the constant change of empty splendor, which is like the smile with which one speaks of fairy tales, a smile that appears distinguished but in reality costs very little. Where they still exist, they live, so that no one thinks about whether they are good or bad, if they are poetic or in poor taste for intelligent people. One knows them and loves them because that is the way they were learned, and one delights in them without any specific reason…
… There, in the famous old regions of German freedom, legends and fairy tales have been preserved as a regular feature of holidays and the country is still rich in inherited customs and songs. There, partly because written language is not yet disturbed by the introduction of outside influences nor overloaded until it is blunted, and partly because it assures that memory does not become careless, especially among peoples whose literature is not very significant, oral traditions prove themselves to be stronger and more unsullied replacements. Thus, Lower Saxony has also preserved itself more than other regions. How much more complete and internally rich a collection would have been in the fifteenth century, or in the sixteenth century, in the era of Hans Sachs and Fischart!..
…In addition to the tales in the second volume, we received numerous supplements to the first volume as well as better versions of many of the stories published there from the same or similar sources. As a hilly land far away from the grand boulevards and mostly occupied with farming, Hesse has the advantage of being better able to preserve old tales and customs. A certain seriousness, a healthy, thorough, and brave mind-set that history will not ignore, even the large and attractive frame of the region's men – it was at one time the actual dwelling place of the Chatten, a Germanic tribe – all these have been preserved and allow the lack of comfort and elegance (in comparison to other lands, Saxony, for example) to be considered more as an advantage. One perceives as well that regions which are rougher but also magnificent belong to the lifestyle of the whole as does a certain strictness and poverty. The Hessians must certainly be counted as those among our Fatherland's peoples who have held on most firmly through the changing times to the unique features of their essence as well as to their old dwelling places.
Source # 2 - In 1806, when Berlin was under French occupation, German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte said,
“The first, original, and truly natural boundaries of states are beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole."
Source # 3 - Johann von Herder said both, "spew out the ugly slime of the Seine. Speak German, O You German" and “What a treasure language is when kinship groups grow into tribes and nations. Even the smallest of nations…cherishes in and through its language the history, the poetry and songs about the great deeds of its forefathers. The language is its collective treasure.”
Source # 4 - The German Fatherland by Ernst Mortiz Arndt (1813)
Where is the German's fatherland?
Then name, oh, name the mighty land!
Wherever is heard the German tongue,
And German hymns to God are sung!
This is the land, thy Hermann's land;
This, German, is thy fatherland.
This is the German's fatherland,
Where faith is in the plighted hand, plighted: pledged or promised
Where truth lives in each eye of blue,
And every heart is staunch and true. staunch: loyal
This is the land, the honest land,
The honest German's fatherland.
This is the land, the one true land,
O God, to aid be thou at hand!
And fire each heart, and nerve each arm,
To shield our German homes from harm,
To shield the land, the one true land,
One Deutschland and one fatherland! Deutschland: Germany, in German
Source # 5 - Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner (1851) - This was part of the four opera Ring Cycle that Wagner composed based on the stories of Norse mythology. The Valkyries were Norse goddesses who rode over battlefield and decided which warriors would live and die, and then take the souls of the dead warriors of Valhalla to live with the gods until the end of the world.
Monday, October 26, 2015
October 26, 2015 - Nationalism in Maps
Homework - Use the maps shown below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These maps will be the focus of class discussion in the next class.
Map # 1 - Political Map of Europe in 1815
Map # 2 - Language and Ethnic Map of Europe
Map # 3 - Map of Locations of Revolts of 1848
Map # 4 - Cartoon Map of Europe made in 1871
Map # 1 - Political Map of Europe in 1815
Map # 4 - Cartoon Map of Europe made in 1871
Thursday, October 22, 2015
October 22, 2015 - Romantic Art
Homework - Read the notes "Nationalism in Europe" posted on the class web page. You will have a quiz on these notes on Monday, October 26, 2015.
Classwork - Use the material below to answer the questions on the class worksheet. You should do this after you have read the section of the notes about the Romantic Movement. The ideas of the Romantic Movement had an important contribution to the development of Nationalism - particularly in Germany.
Source # 1 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes Romanticism by saying:
Romanticism, first defined as an aesthetic in literary criticism around 1800, gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until mid-century. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789 ... ...In Romantic art, nature—with its uncontrollable power, unpredictability, and potential for cataclysmic extremes—offered an alternative to the ordered world of Enlightenment thought. The violent and terrifying images of nature conjured by Romantic artists recall the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the Sublime.
Source # 2 - Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Casper David Friedrich (1817)
Source # 3 - Slave Ship by J W Turner (1840)
Source # 4 - Salisbury Cathedral by John Constable (1825)
Source # 5 - Medieval Town by Water by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1813)
Source # 6 - Mephistopheles in Flight by Delacroix (1828)
Source # 7 - Liberty Leading the People - Delacroix (1830)
Source # 8 - Excerpt From Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1816)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Classwork - Use the material below to answer the questions on the class worksheet. You should do this after you have read the section of the notes about the Romantic Movement. The ideas of the Romantic Movement had an important contribution to the development of Nationalism - particularly in Germany.
Source # 1 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes Romanticism by saying:
Romanticism, first defined as an aesthetic in literary criticism around 1800, gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until mid-century. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789 ... ...In Romantic art, nature—with its uncontrollable power, unpredictability, and potential for cataclysmic extremes—offered an alternative to the ordered world of Enlightenment thought. The violent and terrifying images of nature conjured by Romantic artists recall the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the Sublime.
Source # 2 - Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Casper David Friedrich (1817)
Source # 4 - Salisbury Cathedral by John Constable (1825)
Source # 5 - Medieval Town by Water by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1813)
Source # 6 - Mephistopheles in Flight by Delacroix (1828)
Source # 7 - Liberty Leading the People - Delacroix (1830)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
October 21, 2015 - Nationalism
Homework - Read the notes "Nationalism in Europe" posted on the class web page. You will have a quiz on these notes on Monday, October 26, 2015.
Unit Essay - Why is nationalism a point of conflict between people?
Unit Essay - Why is nationalism a point of conflict between people?
Friday, October 16, 2015
October 16, 2015 - Review for Test & Prepare for Essay
Homework - The test on the Revolutionary France unit will be on Tuesday (October 20, 2015) - see below for information about the test.
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to building a democracy?" - the essay will be due on Wednesday, October 21, 2015. The criteria for length and composition are the same are the first essay.
Information about the test - The test will have the same format as the previous test. Use the questions below to help study for the test. Remember, the test is about assessing how well you can think using the big ideas of the unit and the historical information in the unit. The best way to study for the test is to use these questions to practice the process of thinking needed to fully answer the questions. That means making a diagram based on the "big ideas" you find in reading the question and then organizing historical facts to match the "big ideas".
Practice Questions:
1. How did the French Revolutionaries use the ideas of the Enlightenment in the Revolution?
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to building a democracy?" - the essay will be due on Wednesday, October 21, 2015. The criteria for length and composition are the same are the first essay.
Information about the test - The test will have the same format as the previous test. Use the questions below to help study for the test. Remember, the test is about assessing how well you can think using the big ideas of the unit and the historical information in the unit. The best way to study for the test is to use these questions to practice the process of thinking needed to fully answer the questions. That means making a diagram based on the "big ideas" you find in reading the question and then organizing historical facts to match the "big ideas".
Practice Questions:
1. How did the French Revolutionaries use the ideas of the Enlightenment in the Revolution?
2. How did Robespierre and the Jacobins use the Reign of Terror as an opportunity to create their idealized version of France?
3. How was Napoleon similar to Oliver Cromwell?
4. How did the Congress of Vienna try to prevent future events like the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars?
5. Which event should be considered the start of the French Revolution: the Tennis Court Oath or the Storming of the Bastille?
6. How was Louis XVI’s mishandling of the start of the French Revolution similar to Charles I of England’s mishandling of the English Civil War?
7. How was Napoleon the cause of his own downfall?
8. How was the choice of both Louis Phillipe and Napoleon III to be leaders of France a compromise between tradition and change within France?
9. How were the French Revolution and the Revolts of 1848 in France both examples of struggle between the middle class and the poor?
10. How is the history of France during the nineteenth century one of continuing revolutionary conflict between monarchy and democracy?
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
October 15, 2015 - Building the French Republic
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class.
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to building a democracy?"
Biography - Louis-Philippe - The "Citizen King"
Louis-Philippe was born to a French noble family in 1773 and was part of the royal family. His family, while part of the nobility, was greatly influenced by the Enlightenment and was considered liberal. When the French Revolution began in 1789, Louis-Philippe was among the nobles who supported the revolution and he joined the Jacobins in 1790. When the Revolutionary French government went to war in 1792, Louis-Philippe joined the army as an officer and fought in the Battle of Valmy, in which the French army drove back the invading Austrians.
However, in 1793 as France fell into the Reign of Terror, Louis-Philippe found himself in a difficult position as his commanding officer was accused of being a traitor. Fearing for his life, Louis-Philippe fled to Switzerland. Later that year, his father was arrested and executed by the Revolutionary government. As a exile, Louis-Philippe traveled to the United States and then lived in England.
Louis-Philippe returned to France in 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of Louis XVIII as king. However, Louis-Philippe was not a supporter of the king and put himself in the liberal opposition. After Louis XVIII death, Louis-Philippe got on well with the next king Charles X. But in 1830, Charles X’s repressive policies caused a popular uprising, Louis-Philippe took advantage of the situation to gain power. Louis-Philippe was popular with both the radicals of Paris and the middle class and they supported him to become king. The decision to make him king is seen as victory of the middle class over the nobles and aristocracy. When he was crowned king, Louis-Philippe took the title "King of the French", which linked the king to the people (the traditional title was "King of France").
As King, Louis-Philippe's rule tried to follow a path between the conflicting groups in French society - the conservative monarchist and the republicans and supporters of Napoleon. Supporting liberal ideas, he did allow for freedom of the press and trial by jury. He also made the tri-color, the flag of Revolutionary France, the official French flag. In general, his policies favored the wealthy non-noble upper class who gained voting power. The middle class and workers did not benefit as much and resented not having any say in the government. As his reign continued he became more repressive in response to several rebellions and assassination attempts.
A combination of a financial crisis and poor harvests in 1846 caused widespread popular discontent against Louis-Philippe. This anger grew into a political reform movement that demanded the right to vote for the middle and lower classes. Louis-Philippe ignored this popular anger and it grew into a rebellion in the spring of 1848. When the people of Paris rose in rebellion against him, Louis-Philippe abdicated and France became an republic. Louis-Philippe and went into exile in England, where he died two years later.
Biography - Louis Napoleon or Napoleon III - Nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis Napoleon was born in France in 1808. He lived in France for only a few years until his uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, was defeated. After that, he grew up in various European countries. As a young man, Louis Napoleon wanted to be the leader of France, like his uncle. He attempted several military takeovers of France but they all failed, which resulted in him being thrown out of France or being put in prison, from which he escaped and fled to England.
Louis Napoleon returned to France after the Second Republic was declared in 1848. He was elected president of the new Republic because many hoped that he would return France to the glory of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was elected with more than 75 percent of the vote. As president, Napoleon wanted to enact major economic and political changes in France. However, many in the government opposed his plans. Napoleon dealt with this problem by overthrowing the government and making himself a dictator in 1851. The next year he held an election in France in which the majority of people gave him the title of emperor. At this point, he took the name Napoleon III and France became the French Empire.
As the emperor of France, Napoleon III was always careful to rule with the support of the people of France. He said that he would "take the initiative to do everything useful for the prosperity and the greatness of France.” He did this by building railroads, industrial factories and improving farms. He also oversaw the rebuilding of the city of Paris into a modern city with parks and beautiful buildings. He also began to slowly give more rights and power to the French people, including freedom of the press and freedom to assemble. While many of these changes happened toward the end of his rule, they are important because they were used to organize the next democratic government in France, the Third Republic.
Napoleon III lost power when he went to war against the country of Prussia (later Germany) in 1870. Napoleon III did not have the military talents that his uncle had. In the first major battle of the war, Napoleon was defeated and captured by the Prussians. Without Napoleon III’s leadership, the government of France continued the war, but was finally defeated the next year. Napoleon III lived the rest of his life in England.
Biography - Victor Hugo - French Writer
Victor Hugo was born in 1802 in France during the period when Napoleon was establishing his rule over France and across Europe. The turmoil in France was reflected in Hugo's own family. His father was a supporter of the revolutionary republic and an officer in Napoleon's army. While his mother was conservative and a supporter of the monarchy. When he was a child, Hugo held many of his mother's beliefs, but as he got older, he shifted to the ideals of his father. As a student, Hugo studied law, but also spend his time writing poetry.
Hugo published his first book of poems in 1824 which was widely read and resulted in king Louis XVIII awarding Hugo a royal pension. This allowed Hugo to spend his time working on his writing and he continued to write poetry, but also began to write more realistic novels. In 1829, he published his first novel, The Last Day of a Condemned Man, based on the real life story of a murderer. The novel follows the thoughts of a prisoner in his final hours before his execution and was critical of the public executions that were common at the time. He followed this up with The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831 which became popular across Europe and made Notre Dame cathedral at the center of Paris a tourist attraction.
Beginning in the 1820's, Hugo began to turn against the monarchy after the government of king Charles X censored and banned some of his plays. Hugo became more moderate in his political views after witnessing the Revolt of 1830, which brought Louis Philippe, the citizen-king, to power. Hugo had been in Paris during the Revolt and witness the fighting, but was not clear in his public support for the revolutionaries. Hugo was opposed to the potential chaos of democracy and instead began to write in praise of the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had brought order to France after the Revolution. During this time, while Hugo enjoyed the support of Louis Philippe, he began to and become more involved in politics and supported France becoming a republic, opposed to the death penalty and advocated for the freedom of the press.
Following the Revolts of 1830, Hugo began to work on his most important work, Les Misérables or "The Miserable Ones". The book described the brutal lives of the poor people of France and the social, and legal, injustices they faced. The book is centered on the life of a former convict who becomes the mayor of a town and successful businessman who is unjustly pursued by the legal system. The book tied the personal struggles of the characters to larger social conflicts in France during this period. It took Hugo seventeen years to write the book and it was only published in 1862. While the book is set in the years 1807 to 1832 and describes the fighting in the Revolt of 1830, the subject matter of the book was greatly influenced by later events, such as the Revolts of 1848.
Hugo supported the 1848 revolution against Louis Philippe and was elected to the Legislative Assembly and the Constitutional Assembly. However, this revolt divided French society, and shortly after the establishment of the Constitutional Assembly, the workers of Paris rose up in rebellion against the new government. Hugo opposed this rebellion, but he was also against the violence the government used to suppress the rebellion. During this rebellion, Hugo walked the streets of Paris actively trying, but failing, to stop the fighting between the workers and government soldiers. Hugo would draw on this experience in describing the scenes of street fighting in Les Misérables.
Hugo was a supporter of Louis Napoleon and felt that he should become the president of the new republic. Hugo hoped that Louis Napoleon would be able to bring stability and order to France. However, within a year of Louis-Napoleon's election, Hugo was criticizing the new government for its repressive policies and for doing little to relieve poverty. After Louis-Napoleon declared himself emperor Napoleon III in 1851, Hugo helped organize a rebellion against him. This failed and Hugo had to flee the country and live in exile. While in exile, he wrote Napoleon the Little, a pamphlet attacking the emperor, which was banned in France.
In 1859, Napoleon III granted amnesty to all political exiles. However, Hugo refused to return to France until 1870, when Napoleon III was defeated and the Third Republic was established. Hugo was appointed to the National Assembly and was elected to the Senate in 1876. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, at the age of 83.
Source # 1 - Painting of the Revolt of 1830
Source # 2 - Painting "Liberty Leading the People" (1830) by Eugène Delacroix, showing the Revolt of 1830
Source # 3 - Print of the fighting between the army and the workers during the revolts of 1848
Source # 4 - Scenes from the Movie Les Misérables. based on Victor Hugo's book.
Source # 5 - Excerpts from Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo, describing the fighting in the streets of Paris.
Excerpt # 1 - Chapter - A Burial; an Occasion to be born again
Source # 6 - Election Poster to Louis Napoleon
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to building a democracy?"
Biography - Louis-Philippe - The "Citizen King"
Louis-Philippe was born to a French noble family in 1773 and was part of the royal family. His family, while part of the nobility, was greatly influenced by the Enlightenment and was considered liberal. When the French Revolution began in 1789, Louis-Philippe was among the nobles who supported the revolution and he joined the Jacobins in 1790. When the Revolutionary French government went to war in 1792, Louis-Philippe joined the army as an officer and fought in the Battle of Valmy, in which the French army drove back the invading Austrians. However, in 1793 as France fell into the Reign of Terror, Louis-Philippe found himself in a difficult position as his commanding officer was accused of being a traitor. Fearing for his life, Louis-Philippe fled to Switzerland. Later that year, his father was arrested and executed by the Revolutionary government. As a exile, Louis-Philippe traveled to the United States and then lived in England.
Louis-Philippe returned to France in 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of Louis XVIII as king. However, Louis-Philippe was not a supporter of the king and put himself in the liberal opposition. After Louis XVIII death, Louis-Philippe got on well with the next king Charles X. But in 1830, Charles X’s repressive policies caused a popular uprising, Louis-Philippe took advantage of the situation to gain power. Louis-Philippe was popular with both the radicals of Paris and the middle class and they supported him to become king. The decision to make him king is seen as victory of the middle class over the nobles and aristocracy. When he was crowned king, Louis-Philippe took the title "King of the French", which linked the king to the people (the traditional title was "King of France").
As King, Louis-Philippe's rule tried to follow a path between the conflicting groups in French society - the conservative monarchist and the republicans and supporters of Napoleon. Supporting liberal ideas, he did allow for freedom of the press and trial by jury. He also made the tri-color, the flag of Revolutionary France, the official French flag. In general, his policies favored the wealthy non-noble upper class who gained voting power. The middle class and workers did not benefit as much and resented not having any say in the government. As his reign continued he became more repressive in response to several rebellions and assassination attempts.
A combination of a financial crisis and poor harvests in 1846 caused widespread popular discontent against Louis-Philippe. This anger grew into a political reform movement that demanded the right to vote for the middle and lower classes. Louis-Philippe ignored this popular anger and it grew into a rebellion in the spring of 1848. When the people of Paris rose in rebellion against him, Louis-Philippe abdicated and France became an republic. Louis-Philippe and went into exile in England, where he died two years later.
Biography - Louis Napoleon or Napoleon III - Nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte
Louis Napoleon was born in France in 1808. He lived in France for only a few years until his uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte, was defeated. After that, he grew up in various European countries. As a young man, Louis Napoleon wanted to be the leader of France, like his uncle. He attempted several military takeovers of France but they all failed, which resulted in him being thrown out of France or being put in prison, from which he escaped and fled to England. Louis Napoleon returned to France after the Second Republic was declared in 1848. He was elected president of the new Republic because many hoped that he would return France to the glory of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was elected with more than 75 percent of the vote. As president, Napoleon wanted to enact major economic and political changes in France. However, many in the government opposed his plans. Napoleon dealt with this problem by overthrowing the government and making himself a dictator in 1851. The next year he held an election in France in which the majority of people gave him the title of emperor. At this point, he took the name Napoleon III and France became the French Empire.
As the emperor of France, Napoleon III was always careful to rule with the support of the people of France. He said that he would "take the initiative to do everything useful for the prosperity and the greatness of France.” He did this by building railroads, industrial factories and improving farms. He also oversaw the rebuilding of the city of Paris into a modern city with parks and beautiful buildings. He also began to slowly give more rights and power to the French people, including freedom of the press and freedom to assemble. While many of these changes happened toward the end of his rule, they are important because they were used to organize the next democratic government in France, the Third Republic.
Napoleon III lost power when he went to war against the country of Prussia (later Germany) in 1870. Napoleon III did not have the military talents that his uncle had. In the first major battle of the war, Napoleon was defeated and captured by the Prussians. Without Napoleon III’s leadership, the government of France continued the war, but was finally defeated the next year. Napoleon III lived the rest of his life in England.
Biography - Victor Hugo - French Writer
Hugo published his first book of poems in 1824 which was widely read and resulted in king Louis XVIII awarding Hugo a royal pension. This allowed Hugo to spend his time working on his writing and he continued to write poetry, but also began to write more realistic novels. In 1829, he published his first novel, The Last Day of a Condemned Man, based on the real life story of a murderer. The novel follows the thoughts of a prisoner in his final hours before his execution and was critical of the public executions that were common at the time. He followed this up with The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1831 which became popular across Europe and made Notre Dame cathedral at the center of Paris a tourist attraction.
Beginning in the 1820's, Hugo began to turn against the monarchy after the government of king Charles X censored and banned some of his plays. Hugo became more moderate in his political views after witnessing the Revolt of 1830, which brought Louis Philippe, the citizen-king, to power. Hugo had been in Paris during the Revolt and witness the fighting, but was not clear in his public support for the revolutionaries. Hugo was opposed to the potential chaos of democracy and instead began to write in praise of the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had brought order to France after the Revolution. During this time, while Hugo enjoyed the support of Louis Philippe, he began to and become more involved in politics and supported France becoming a republic, opposed to the death penalty and advocated for the freedom of the press.
Following the Revolts of 1830, Hugo began to work on his most important work, Les Misérables or "The Miserable Ones". The book described the brutal lives of the poor people of France and the social, and legal, injustices they faced. The book is centered on the life of a former convict who becomes the mayor of a town and successful businessman who is unjustly pursued by the legal system. The book tied the personal struggles of the characters to larger social conflicts in France during this period. It took Hugo seventeen years to write the book and it was only published in 1862. While the book is set in the years 1807 to 1832 and describes the fighting in the Revolt of 1830, the subject matter of the book was greatly influenced by later events, such as the Revolts of 1848.
Hugo supported the 1848 revolution against Louis Philippe and was elected to the Legislative Assembly and the Constitutional Assembly. However, this revolt divided French society, and shortly after the establishment of the Constitutional Assembly, the workers of Paris rose up in rebellion against the new government. Hugo opposed this rebellion, but he was also against the violence the government used to suppress the rebellion. During this rebellion, Hugo walked the streets of Paris actively trying, but failing, to stop the fighting between the workers and government soldiers. Hugo would draw on this experience in describing the scenes of street fighting in Les Misérables.
Hugo was a supporter of Louis Napoleon and felt that he should become the president of the new republic. Hugo hoped that Louis Napoleon would be able to bring stability and order to France. However, within a year of Louis-Napoleon's election, Hugo was criticizing the new government for its repressive policies and for doing little to relieve poverty. After Louis-Napoleon declared himself emperor Napoleon III in 1851, Hugo helped organize a rebellion against him. This failed and Hugo had to flee the country and live in exile. While in exile, he wrote Napoleon the Little, a pamphlet attacking the emperor, which was banned in France.
In 1859, Napoleon III granted amnesty to all political exiles. However, Hugo refused to return to France until 1870, when Napoleon III was defeated and the Third Republic was established. Hugo was appointed to the National Assembly and was elected to the Senate in 1876. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, at the age of 83.
Source # 1 - Painting of the Revolt of 1830
Source # 2 - Painting "Liberty Leading the People" (1830) by Eugène Delacroix, showing the Revolt of 1830
Source # 3 - Print of the fighting between the army and the workers during the revolts of 1848
Source # 4 - Scenes from the Movie Les Misérables. based on Victor Hugo's book.
Video # 1 - Scene of the city streets of Paris and speech by the radical Marius - click here
Video # 2 - Scene of the rebellion and street battle - click here
Source # 5 - Excerpts from Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo, describing the fighting in the streets of Paris.
Excerpt # 1 - Chapter - A Burial; an Occasion to be born again
In the spring of 1832, although the cholera had been chilling
all minds for the last three months and had cast over their agitation an
indescribable and gloomy pacification, Paris had already long been ripe for
commotion. As we have said, the great city resembles a piece of artillery; when
it is loaded, it suffices for a spark to fall, and the shot is discharged. In
June, 1832, the spark was the death of General Lamarque.
Lamarque was a man of renown and of action. He had had in
succession, under the Empire and under the Restoration, the sorts of bravery
requisite for the two epochs, the bravery of the battle-field and the bravery
of the tribune... ...Napoleon had died uttering the word army, Lamarque
uttering the word country.
His death, which was expected, was dreaded by the people as a
loss, and by the government as an occasion. This death was an affliction. Like
everything that is bitter, affliction may turn to revolt. This is what took
place.
On the preceding evening, and on the morning of the 5th of June,
the day appointed for Lamarque's burial, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which the
procession was to touch at, assumed a formidable aspect. This tumultuous
network of streets was filled with rumors. They armed themselves as best they
might. Joiners carried off door-weights of their establishment "to break
down doors." One of them had made himself a dagger of a stocking-weaver's
hook by breaking off the hook and sharpening the stump. Another, who was in a
fever "to attack," slept wholly dressed for three days. A carpenter
named Lombier met a comrade, who asked him: "Whither are you going?"
"Eh! well, I have no weapons." "What then?" "I'm going
to my timber-yard to get my compasses." "What for?" "I
don't know," said Lombier. A certain Jacqueline, an expeditious man,
accosted some passing artisans: "Come here, you!" He treated them to
ten sous' worth of wine and said: "Have you work?" "No."
"Go to Filspierre, between the Barriere Charonne and the Barriere
Montreuil, and you will find work." At Filspierre's they found cartridges
and arms. Certain well-known leaders were going the rounds, that is to say,
running from one house to another, to collect their men. At Barthelemy's, near
the Barriere du Trone, at Capel's, near the Petit-Chapeau, the drinkers
accosted each other with a grave air. They were heard to say: "Have you
your pistol?" "Under my blouse." "And you?"
"Under my shirt."
On the 5th of
June, accordingly, a day of mingled rain and sun, General Lamarque's funeral
procession traversed Paris with official military pomp, somewhat augmented
through precaution. Two battalions, with draped drums and reversed arms, ten
thousand National Guards, with their swords at their sides, escorted the
coffin. The hearse was drawn by young men. The officers of the Invalides came
immediately behind it, bearing laurel branches. Then came an innumerable,
strange, agitated multitude, the sectionaries of the Friends of the People, the
Law School, the Medical School, refugees of all nationalities, and Spanish,
Italian, German, and Polish flags, tricolored horizontal banners, every
possible sort of banner, children waving green boughs, stone-cutters and
carpenters who were on strike at the moment, printers who were recognizable by
their paper caps, marching two by two, three by three, uttering cries, nearly
all of them brandishing sticks, some brandishing sabres, without order and yet
with a single soul, now a tumultuous rout, again a column. Squads chose
themselves leaders; a man armed with a pair of pistols in full view, seemed to
pass the host in review, and the files separated before him. On the side alleys
of the boulevards, in the branches of the trees, on balconies, in windows, on
the roofs, swarmed the heads of men, women, and children; all eyes were filled
with anxiety. An armed throng was passing, and a terrified throng looked on.
The Government, on its side, was taking observations. It
observed with its hand on its sword. Four squadrons of carabineers could be
seen in the Place Louis XV. in their saddles, with their trumpets at their
head, cartridge-boxes filled and muskets loaded, all in readiness to march; in
the Latin country and at the Jardin des Plantes, the Municipal Guard echelonned
from street to street; at the Halle-aux-Vins, a squadron of dragoons; at the
Greve half of the 12th Light Infantry, the other half being at the Bastille;
the 6th Dragoons at the Celestins; and the courtyard of the Louvre full of
artillery. The remainder of the troops were confined to their barracks, without
reckoning the regiments of the environs of Paris. Power being uneasy, held
suspended over the menacing multitude twenty-four thousand soldiers in the city
and thirty thousand in the banlieue.
The procession
proceeded, with feverish slowness, from the house of the deceased, by way of
the boulevards as far as the Bastille. It rained from time to time; the rain
mattered nothing to that throng. Many incidents, the coffin borne round the
Vendome column, stones thrown at the Duc de Fitz-James, who was seen on a
balcony with his hat on his head, the Gallic cock torn from a popular flag and
dragged in the mire, a policeman wounded with a blow from a sword at the Porte
Saint-Martin, an officer of the 12th Light Infantry saying aloud: "I am a
Republican," the Polytechnic School coming up unexpectedly against orders
to remain at home, the shouts of: "Long live the Polytechnique! Long live
the Republic!" marked the passage of the funeral train. At the Bastille,
long files of curious and formidable people who descended from the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine, effected a junction with the procession, and a certain terrible
seething began to agitate the throng.
One man was heard to say to another: "Do you see that
fellow with a red beard, he's the one who will give the word when we are to
fire." It appears that this red beard was present, at another riot, the
Quenisset affair, entrusted with this same function.
The hearse passed the Bastille, traversed the small bridge, and
reached the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz. There it halted. The crowd,
surveyed at that moment with a bird'seye view, would have presented the aspect
of a comet whose head was on the esplanade and whose tail spread out over the
Quai Bourdon, covered the Bastille, and was prolonged on the boulevard as far
as the Porte Saint-Martin. A circle was traced around the hearse. The vast rout
held their peace. Lafayette spoke and bade Lamarque farewell. This was a
touching and august instant, all heads uncovered, all hearts beat high.
All at once, a man on horseback, clad in black, made his
appearance in the middle of the group with a red flag, others say, with a pike
surmounted with a red liberty-cap. Lafayette turned aside his head. Exelmans
quitted the procession.
This red flag raised a storm, and disappeared in the midst of
it. From the Boulevard Bourdon to the bridge of Austerlitz one of those clamors
which resemble billows stirred the multitude. Two prodigious shouts went up:
"Lamarque to the Pantheon!-- Lafayette to the Town-hall!" Some young
men, amid the declamations of the throng, harnessed themselves and began to
drag Lamarque in the hearse across the bridge of Austerlitz and Lafayette in a
hackney-coach along the Quai Morland.
In the meantime, the municipal cavalry on the left bank had been
set in motion, and came to bar the bridge, on the right bank the dragoons
emerged from the Celestins and deployed along the Quai Morland. The men who
were dragging Lafayette suddenly caught sight of them at the corner of the quay
and shouted: "The dragoons!" The dragoons advanced at a walk, in
silence, with their pistols in their holsters, their swords in their scabbards,
their guns slung in their leather sockets, with an air of gloomy expectation.
They halted two hundred paces from the little bridge. The
carriage in which sat Lafayette advanced to them, their ranks opened and
allowed it to pass, and then closed behind it. At that moment the dragoons and
the crowd touched. The women fled in terror. What took place during that fatal
minute? No one can say. It is the dark moment when two clouds come together.
Some declare that a blast of trumpets sounding the charge was heard in the
direction of the Arsenal others that a blow from a dagger was given by a child
to a dragoon. The fact is, that three shots were suddenly discharged: the first
killed Cholet, chief of the squadron, the second killed an old deaf woman who
was in the act of closing her window, the third singed the shoulder of an
officer; a woman screamed: "They are beginning too soon!" and all at
once, a squadron of dragoons which had remained in the barracks up to this
time, was seen to debouch at a gallop with bared swords, through the Rue
Bassompierre and the Boulevard Bourdon, sweeping all before them.
Then all is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a
fusillade breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank,
and pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in, the timber-yards of the
Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand, bristle with combatants, stakes
are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men who are
thrust back pass the Austerlitz bridge with the hearse at a run, and the
municipal guard, the carabineers rush up, the dragoons ply their swords, the
crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to all four quarters of
Paris, men shout: "To arms!" they run, tumble down, flee, resist.
Wrath spreads abroad the riot as wind spreads a fire.
Excerpt # 2 - Chapter - The Heroes
All at once,
the drum beat the charge.
The attack was
a hurricane. On the evening before, in the darkness, the barricade had been
approached silently, as by a boa. Now, in broad daylight, in that widening
street, surprise was decidedly impossible, rude force had, moreover, been
unmasked, the cannon had begun the roar, the army hurled itself on the
barricade. Fury now became skill. A powerful detachment of infantry of the
line, broken at regular intervals, by the National Guard and the Municipal
Guard on foot, and supported by serried masses which could be heard though not
seen, debauched into the street at a run, with drums beating, trumpets braying,
bayonets levelled, the sappers at their head, and, imperturbable under the
projectiles, charged straight for the barricade with the weight of a brazen beam
against a wall.
The wall held
firm.
The insurgents
fired impetuously. The barricade once scaled had a mane of lightning flashes.
The assault was so furious, that for one moment, it was inundated with
assailants; but it shook off the soldiers as the lion shakes off the dogs, and
it was only covered with besiegers as the cliff is covered with foam, to
re-appear, a moment later, beetling, black and formidable.
The column,
forced to retreat, remained massed in the street, unprotected but terrible, and
replied to the redoubt with a terrible discharge of musketry. Any one who has
seen fireworks will recall the sheaf formed of interlacing lightnings which is
called a bouquet. Let the reader picture to himself this bouquet, no longer
vertical but horizontal, bearing a bullet, buck-shot or a biscaien at the tip
of each one of its jets of flame, and picking off dead men one after another
from its clusters of lightning. The barricade was underneath it.
On both sides,
the resolution was equal. The bravery exhibited there was almost barbarous and
was complicated with a sort of heroic ferocity which began by the sacrifice of
self.
This was the
epoch when a National Guardsman fought like a Zouave. The troop wished to make
an end of it, insurrection was desirous of fighting. The acceptance of the
death agony in the flower of youth and in the flush of health turns intrepidity
into frenzy. In this fray, each one underwent the broadening growth of the
death hour. The street was strewn with corpses....
...
The interior of the barricade was so strewn with torn cartridges that
one would have said that there had been a snowstorm.
The assailants
had numbers in their favor; the insurgents had position. They were at the top
of a wall, and they thundered point-blank upon the soldiers tripping over the
dead and wounded and entangled in the escarpment. This barricade, constructed
as it was and admirably buttressed, was really one of those situations where a
handful of men hold a legion in check. Nevertheless, the attacking column,
constantly recruited and enlarged under the shower of bullets, drew inexorably
nearer, and now, little by little, step by step, but surely, the army closed in
around the barricade as the vice grasps the wine-press.
One assault
followed another. The horror of the situation kept increasing.
Then there
burst forth on that heap of paving-stones, in that Rue de la Chanvrerie, a
battle worthy of a wall of Troy. These haggard, ragged, exhausted men, who had
had nothing to eat for four and twenty hours, who had not slept, who had but a
few more rounds to fire, who were fumbling in their pockets which had been
emptied of cartridges, nearly all of whom were wounded, with head or arm
bandaged with black and blood-stained linen, with holes in their clothes from
which the blood trickled, and who were hardly armed with poor guns and notched
swords, became Titans. The barricade was ten times attacked, approached,
assailed, scaled, and never captured.
They fought
hand to hand, foot to foot, with pistol shots, with blows of the sword, with
their fists, at a distance, close at hand, from above, from below, from
everywhere, from the roofs of the houses, from the windows of the wine-shop,
from the cellar windows, whither some had crawled. They were one against sixty.
The facade of
Corinthe, half demolished, was hideous. The window, tattooed with grape-shot, had
lost glass and frame and was nothing now but a shapeless hole, tumultuously
blocked with paving-stones.
Bossuet was
killed; Feuilly was killed; Courfeyrac was killed; Combeferre, transfixed by
three blows from a bayonet in the breast at the moment when he was lifting up a
wounded soldier, had only time to cast a glance to heaven when he expired.
Marius, still
fighting, was so riddled with wounds, particularly in the head, that his
countenance disappeared beneath the blood, and one would have said that his
face was covered with a red kerchief.
Enjolras alone
was not struck. When he had no longer any weapon, he reached out his hands to
right and left and an insurgent thrust some arm or other into his fist. All he
had left was the stumps of four swords....Source # 6 - Election Poster to Louis Napoleon
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
October 13, 2015 - Napoleon & The French Empire
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class.
You can access the homework sheet here
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the Challenges to Building a Democracy?"
Biography - Napoleon Bonaparte, Leader of the French Empire
Napoleon Bonaparte was born in France in 1769. Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power began when he was a young officer in the French Army during the French Revolution. Napoleon was a supporter of the Jacobins in the Revolution, which earned him promotion in the army. Napoleon was a brilliant military leader. In 1793, he successfully drove the British from the French city of Toulon, which made him a hero in France. Then in 1795, he used military force to prevent a rebellion in Paris from toppling the government. As a result, he was very popular in France and his soldiers were loyal to him. In 1799, when he was 30, Napoleon used his army to overthrow the French government. After that, he ruled with dictatorial powers. Then, in 1804, with the support of the French people, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France.
As emperor, Napoleon insisted on directly controlling all parts of his empire and personally leading the French army in battle. As a result, Napoleon seldom rested. He would work twenty-hour days and often dictated his commands to several secretaries at once. He improved the lives of the French people by reforming the legal system, creating the Napoleonic Code, which made the laws the same for all people in France, regardless of their class. He also established public schools where any child could be educated and established the Bank of France with a new the currency called the franc, which was used by France until 1999. However, Napoleon never gave the French people democracy and did not allow them freedom of speech.
For most of the time Napoleon ruled France, he was at war with the other countries of Europe. He was very successful in these wars and he was able to force most of Europe to follow his rule. The only country in Europe he could not defeat was England, which was protected by its powerful navy. Because he could not defeat England with his army, Napoleon tried to destroy its economy by not allowing any country in Europe to trade with England. However, this plan backfired because England used its navy to prevent Europe from trading with the rest of the world. This hurt many European countries. Russia, however, decided to ignore Napoleon and began to trade with England.
In response to Russia trading with England, Napoleon decided to invade Russia with his 400,000 man Grand Army. This action marked the beginning of Napoleon’s downfall. Instead of fighting Napoleon, the Russians retreated deep into Russia, destroying everything that Napoleon’s army could use for support. The Russians even burned the city of Moscow after Napoleon captured it. Napoleon was unable to force the Russians to surrender and decided to retreat from Russia. However, the cold Russian winter hit and froze Napoleon’s soldiers. In addition, the Russians decided to attack Napoleon’s retreating army. During this retreat, Napoleon’s army was destroyed - only 94,000 men of the Grand Army returned from Russia, less than 1/4 of his original army. After this, the combined armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia advanced across Europe to end Napoleon’s rule in France and break-up his Empire. After two more years of constant warfare, Napoleon surrendered and was exiled to the island of Elba, in the Mediterranean Sea.
However, Napoleon was not yet finished. In 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to rule France for “The Hundred Days”. The French welcomed Napoleon as a hero and he was able to quickly rebuild his army. However, the British and Prussian armies were able to defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. After Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later.
Biography - Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand - French Diplomat
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was born in 1754 to a noble French family with little money. He was born with a clubfoot which prevented him from joining the army or serving in the king's court. Instead his family decided for him to join the church. In 1770 he entered a seminary to be educated to be a priest. After completing his studies, he became a priest and in 1788, he became a bishop.
In 1789, Talleyrand attended the Estates General as a member of the First Estate (the Catholic Church). However, at the Estates General, Talleyrand turned against Church and even helped the National Assembly confiscation of Church property. This ability of Talleyrand to change his position as situations changed would become characterize much of his life. Talleyrand became a leader in the National Assembly and participated in the writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and then the new constitution of France.
The Revolutionary government then sent Talleyrand to England several times to try to prevent England from joining Austria in war against France. However, the growing radical nature of the French Revolution made it impossible for him to secure a peace with England. The decision of the French government to execute Louis XVI made it impossible for Talleyrand, a noble, to return to France. However, because of his connection with the French government, England expelled him for being a spy. Talleyrand then went to live in the United States, where he befriended Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
After the execution of Robespierre, Talleyrand returned to France and became the Foreign Minister of the Directory government. During this time, he began to work closely with Napoleon. He helped Napoleon seize power by overthrowing the Directory in 1799. Once Napoleon took power, Talleyrand began to negotiate a series of peace treaties with the other countries of Europe that temporarily ended the fighting across Europe. By this point, Talleyrand could have been considered the second most powerful person in France. However, as Napoleon began to again fight wars across Europe, Talleyrand began to fear that these wars would bring ruin to France. In 1807, he resigned his position as Foreign Minister.
While he no longer had an official position, Napoleon continued to use Talleyrand as a source of advice on dealing with the other countries of Europe. Talleyrand took advantage of this position and began to secretly work with Austria and Russia against Napoleon's goals.
After Napoleon was defeated, Talleyrand organized a new government and, when the monarchy was restored, he became Louis XVIII Foreign Minister. In this position, he represented France at the Congress of Vienna, the peace conference to rebuild Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. At the Congress of Vienna, Talleyrand did very well for France by keeping the other nations from taking French territory or forcing France to pay reparations, or war damages. After this, Talleyrand resigned as Foreign Minister because many of Louis XVIII advisers did not trust him due to his work with the Revolutionary government and then Napoleon. When Louis Philippe became king in 1830, Talleyrand became Ambassador to England for four years. He died in 1838 at age 84.
Biography - Jacques-Louis David, Painter of the French Revolution & Napoleon
Jacques-Louis David was born to a wealthy family in 1748, in Paris, France. After his father was killed in a duel when David was 9 years old, he was raised by two uncles. As a child, David showed a great interest in painting and his uncles send him to study art with a family friend who was a prominent artist. When he was eighteen, David enrolled in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1774, he won the Prix de Rome, a government scholarship that ensured well-paid commissions in France and a chance to study art in Italy. He spend five years in Italy where he studied the art of ancient Rome.
When he returned to Paris in 1780, he became a leading figure in the cultural life of the city, and of all of France. His work exhibited in the official Paris Salon of 1781 and he became a member of the Royal Academy in 1884. His major works during this time were paintings that showed the crisis in ancient Rome as the Roman Republic collapsed into the Roman Empire. In David's paintings, the heroes were the historical figures who scarified themselves to save the Republic. Members of the royal court opposed David's work and had the paintings banned from public display. However, the public protested and the royal court allowed the paintings to be shown. These paintings became a political statement as France moved toward revolution.
When the French Revolution began, David became a member of the radical Jacobins and he did paintings that glorified the revolution, such as The Tennis Court Oath. In 1792, he was elected to the National Convention and voted for the execution of both Louis XVI and Marie Antionette. David became more radical as the Revolution intensified. He became a member of the Committee for Public Safety and signed arrest warrants for 300 people. After the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, David painted The Death of Marat, which portrayed Marat in a classical Roman pose as a martyr having died in the service of the French Republic. By this point, because of his association with the Jacobins, David basically took the position of being the dictator of art in France. In this position, he abolished the Royal Academy. However, when Robespierre was arrested and executed, and the Jacobins were suppressed, David was arrested and held in prison for a year, until 1795.
After his release from prison, David turned to teaching art and became the official painter of Napoleon Bonaparte. David had long admired Napoleon. In 1801, David painted "Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard" (also known as "Napoleon Crossing the Alps"). Then in 1806, he painted Napoleon's coronation in Notre Dame cathedral, showing Napoleon crowning himself Emperor of France. Napoleon made David an officer of the Legion of Honor. However, after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, David began to decline as an artist.
Louis XVIII, the restored monarch of France, offered David the opportunity to become his official painter. However, David refused and instead left France to live in Belgium. He continued to earn a good living as a painter Belgium and many artists came to study with him. In 1825, he was he was struck by a carriage as he was leaving a theater, sustaining injuries that lead to his death. Because of his participation in the execution of Louis XVI, he was not allowed to be buried in France. Instead, he was buried in Belgium - however, his heart was buried in Paris.
Source # 1 - Video on Napoleon's rule of France - click here
Source # 2 - Video on Battle of Austerlitz - click here
Source # 3 - Video on Napoleon's downfall (Spain & Russia) - click here
Source # 4 - Map of Napoleon's Empire that shows how he made his family rulers over parts of Europe
Source # 5 - Napoleon Crossing the Alps by David (1801)
Source # 6 - Napoleon's Coronation as Emperor - David (1806)
Source # 7 - Third of May, 1808, Goya (1814) - Napoleon's soldiers massacring Spanish civilians
Source # 8 - Mirand's Graphic of Napoleon's Invasion of Russia (1862)
Source # 9 -Arc de Triomphe in Paris
Source # 10 - Print by Thomas Rowlandson of Napoleon looking at Death at the Battle of Leipzig or Battle of Nations
You can access the homework sheet here
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the Challenges to Building a Democracy?"
Biography - Napoleon Bonaparte, Leader of the French Empire
Napoleon Bonaparte was born in France in 1769. Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power began when he was a young officer in the French Army during the French Revolution. Napoleon was a supporter of the Jacobins in the Revolution, which earned him promotion in the army. Napoleon was a brilliant military leader. In 1793, he successfully drove the British from the French city of Toulon, which made him a hero in France. Then in 1795, he used military force to prevent a rebellion in Paris from toppling the government. As a result, he was very popular in France and his soldiers were loyal to him. In 1799, when he was 30, Napoleon used his army to overthrow the French government. After that, he ruled with dictatorial powers. Then, in 1804, with the support of the French people, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France.As emperor, Napoleon insisted on directly controlling all parts of his empire and personally leading the French army in battle. As a result, Napoleon seldom rested. He would work twenty-hour days and often dictated his commands to several secretaries at once. He improved the lives of the French people by reforming the legal system, creating the Napoleonic Code, which made the laws the same for all people in France, regardless of their class. He also established public schools where any child could be educated and established the Bank of France with a new the currency called the franc, which was used by France until 1999. However, Napoleon never gave the French people democracy and did not allow them freedom of speech.
For most of the time Napoleon ruled France, he was at war with the other countries of Europe. He was very successful in these wars and he was able to force most of Europe to follow his rule. The only country in Europe he could not defeat was England, which was protected by its powerful navy. Because he could not defeat England with his army, Napoleon tried to destroy its economy by not allowing any country in Europe to trade with England. However, this plan backfired because England used its navy to prevent Europe from trading with the rest of the world. This hurt many European countries. Russia, however, decided to ignore Napoleon and began to trade with England.
In response to Russia trading with England, Napoleon decided to invade Russia with his 400,000 man Grand Army. This action marked the beginning of Napoleon’s downfall. Instead of fighting Napoleon, the Russians retreated deep into Russia, destroying everything that Napoleon’s army could use for support. The Russians even burned the city of Moscow after Napoleon captured it. Napoleon was unable to force the Russians to surrender and decided to retreat from Russia. However, the cold Russian winter hit and froze Napoleon’s soldiers. In addition, the Russians decided to attack Napoleon’s retreating army. During this retreat, Napoleon’s army was destroyed - only 94,000 men of the Grand Army returned from Russia, less than 1/4 of his original army. After this, the combined armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia advanced across Europe to end Napoleon’s rule in France and break-up his Empire. After two more years of constant warfare, Napoleon surrendered and was exiled to the island of Elba, in the Mediterranean Sea.
However, Napoleon was not yet finished. In 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to rule France for “The Hundred Days”. The French welcomed Napoleon as a hero and he was able to quickly rebuild his army. However, the British and Prussian armies were able to defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. After Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later.
Biography - Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand - French Diplomat
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was born in 1754 to a noble French family with little money. He was born with a clubfoot which prevented him from joining the army or serving in the king's court. Instead his family decided for him to join the church. In 1770 he entered a seminary to be educated to be a priest. After completing his studies, he became a priest and in 1788, he became a bishop.
In 1789, Talleyrand attended the Estates General as a member of the First Estate (the Catholic Church). However, at the Estates General, Talleyrand turned against Church and even helped the National Assembly confiscation of Church property. This ability of Talleyrand to change his position as situations changed would become characterize much of his life. Talleyrand became a leader in the National Assembly and participated in the writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and then the new constitution of France.
The Revolutionary government then sent Talleyrand to England several times to try to prevent England from joining Austria in war against France. However, the growing radical nature of the French Revolution made it impossible for him to secure a peace with England. The decision of the French government to execute Louis XVI made it impossible for Talleyrand, a noble, to return to France. However, because of his connection with the French government, England expelled him for being a spy. Talleyrand then went to live in the United States, where he befriended Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
After the execution of Robespierre, Talleyrand returned to France and became the Foreign Minister of the Directory government. During this time, he began to work closely with Napoleon. He helped Napoleon seize power by overthrowing the Directory in 1799. Once Napoleon took power, Talleyrand began to negotiate a series of peace treaties with the other countries of Europe that temporarily ended the fighting across Europe. By this point, Talleyrand could have been considered the second most powerful person in France. However, as Napoleon began to again fight wars across Europe, Talleyrand began to fear that these wars would bring ruin to France. In 1807, he resigned his position as Foreign Minister.
While he no longer had an official position, Napoleon continued to use Talleyrand as a source of advice on dealing with the other countries of Europe. Talleyrand took advantage of this position and began to secretly work with Austria and Russia against Napoleon's goals.
After Napoleon was defeated, Talleyrand organized a new government and, when the monarchy was restored, he became Louis XVIII Foreign Minister. In this position, he represented France at the Congress of Vienna, the peace conference to rebuild Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. At the Congress of Vienna, Talleyrand did very well for France by keeping the other nations from taking French territory or forcing France to pay reparations, or war damages. After this, Talleyrand resigned as Foreign Minister because many of Louis XVIII advisers did not trust him due to his work with the Revolutionary government and then Napoleon. When Louis Philippe became king in 1830, Talleyrand became Ambassador to England for four years. He died in 1838 at age 84.
Jacques-Louis David was born to a wealthy family in 1748, in Paris, France. After his father was killed in a duel when David was 9 years old, he was raised by two uncles. As a child, David showed a great interest in painting and his uncles send him to study art with a family friend who was a prominent artist. When he was eighteen, David enrolled in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1774, he won the Prix de Rome, a government scholarship that ensured well-paid commissions in France and a chance to study art in Italy. He spend five years in Italy where he studied the art of ancient Rome.
When he returned to Paris in 1780, he became a leading figure in the cultural life of the city, and of all of France. His work exhibited in the official Paris Salon of 1781 and he became a member of the Royal Academy in 1884. His major works during this time were paintings that showed the crisis in ancient Rome as the Roman Republic collapsed into the Roman Empire. In David's paintings, the heroes were the historical figures who scarified themselves to save the Republic. Members of the royal court opposed David's work and had the paintings banned from public display. However, the public protested and the royal court allowed the paintings to be shown. These paintings became a political statement as France moved toward revolution.
When the French Revolution began, David became a member of the radical Jacobins and he did paintings that glorified the revolution, such as The Tennis Court Oath. In 1792, he was elected to the National Convention and voted for the execution of both Louis XVI and Marie Antionette. David became more radical as the Revolution intensified. He became a member of the Committee for Public Safety and signed arrest warrants for 300 people. After the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, David painted The Death of Marat, which portrayed Marat in a classical Roman pose as a martyr having died in the service of the French Republic. By this point, because of his association with the Jacobins, David basically took the position of being the dictator of art in France. In this position, he abolished the Royal Academy. However, when Robespierre was arrested and executed, and the Jacobins were suppressed, David was arrested and held in prison for a year, until 1795.
After his release from prison, David turned to teaching art and became the official painter of Napoleon Bonaparte. David had long admired Napoleon. In 1801, David painted "Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard" (also known as "Napoleon Crossing the Alps"). Then in 1806, he painted Napoleon's coronation in Notre Dame cathedral, showing Napoleon crowning himself Emperor of France. Napoleon made David an officer of the Legion of Honor. However, after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, David began to decline as an artist.
Louis XVIII, the restored monarch of France, offered David the opportunity to become his official painter. However, David refused and instead left France to live in Belgium. He continued to earn a good living as a painter Belgium and many artists came to study with him. In 1825, he was he was struck by a carriage as he was leaving a theater, sustaining injuries that lead to his death. Because of his participation in the execution of Louis XVI, he was not allowed to be buried in France. Instead, he was buried in Belgium - however, his heart was buried in Paris.
Source # 1 - Video on Napoleon's rule of France - click here
Source # 2 - Video on Battle of Austerlitz - click here
Source # 3 - Video on Napoleon's downfall (Spain & Russia) - click here
Source # 4 - Map of Napoleon's Empire that shows how he made his family rulers over parts of Europe
Source # 5 - Napoleon Crossing the Alps by David (1801)
Source # 6 - Napoleon's Coronation as Emperor - David (1806)
Source # 7 - Third of May, 1808, Goya (1814) - Napoleon's soldiers massacring Spanish civilians
Source # 8 - Mirand's Graphic of Napoleon's Invasion of Russia (1862)
Source # 9 -Arc de Triomphe in Paris
Source # 10 - Print by Thomas Rowlandson of Napoleon looking at Death at the Battle of Leipzig or Battle of Nations
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
October 7, 2015 - Liberal and Conservative Positions
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class.
You can access the homework sheet here.
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to building a democracy?"
Source # 1 - Video on Edmund Burke and the Conservative position - click here
Source # 2 - Excerpt from Edmund Burke's Reflection on the Revolution in France (1791)
You will observe that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties, from a long line of ancestors....
...You [in France-Ed.] might, if you pleased, have profited of our example, and have given to your recovered freedom a correspondent dignity. Your privileges, though discontinued, were not lost to memory. Your constitution, it is true, whilst you were out of possession, suffered waste and dilapidation; but you possessed in some parts the walls, and, in all, the foundations, of a noble and venerable castle. You might have repaired those walls; you might have built on those old foundations. Your constitution was suspended before it was perfected; but you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be wished. In your old states you possessed that variety of parts corresponding with the various descriptions of which your community was happily composed; you had all that combination, and all that opposition of interests, you had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe. These opposed and conflicting interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in our present constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate resolutions. They render deliberation a matter not of choice, but of necessity; they make all change a subject of compromise, which naturally begets moderation; they produce temperaments preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations; and rendering all the headlong exertions of arbitrary power, in the few or in the many, for ever impracticable. Through that diversity of members and interests, general liberty had as many securities as there were separate views in the several orders; whilst by pressing down the whole by the weight of a real monarchy, the separate parts would have been prevented from warping, and starting from their allotted places.
You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew. You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you.
Source # 3 - Video on John Stuart Mill and the Liberal position - click here
Source # 4 - Except from John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859)
The aim, therefore, of patriots was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe; and which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks, by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation, the ruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit. It was not so with the second; and, to attain this, or when already in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely, became everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master, on condition of being guaranteed more or less efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations beyond this point.
A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last generation of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which it still apparently predominates. . . .
... "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulg-arly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant--society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it--its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with indiv-idual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
You can access the homework sheet here.
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to building a democracy?"
Source # 1 - Video on Edmund Burke and the Conservative position - click here
Source # 2 - Excerpt from Edmund Burke's Reflection on the Revolution in France (1791)
You will observe that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties, from a long line of ancestors....
...You [in France-Ed.] might, if you pleased, have profited of our example, and have given to your recovered freedom a correspondent dignity. Your privileges, though discontinued, were not lost to memory. Your constitution, it is true, whilst you were out of possession, suffered waste and dilapidation; but you possessed in some parts the walls, and, in all, the foundations, of a noble and venerable castle. You might have repaired those walls; you might have built on those old foundations. Your constitution was suspended before it was perfected; but you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be wished. In your old states you possessed that variety of parts corresponding with the various descriptions of which your community was happily composed; you had all that combination, and all that opposition of interests, you had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe. These opposed and conflicting interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in our present constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate resolutions. They render deliberation a matter not of choice, but of necessity; they make all change a subject of compromise, which naturally begets moderation; they produce temperaments preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations; and rendering all the headlong exertions of arbitrary power, in the few or in the many, for ever impracticable. Through that diversity of members and interests, general liberty had as many securities as there were separate views in the several orders; whilst by pressing down the whole by the weight of a real monarchy, the separate parts would have been prevented from warping, and starting from their allotted places.
You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew. You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you.
Source # 3 - Video on John Stuart Mill and the Liberal position - click here
Source # 4 - Except from John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859)
The aim, therefore, of patriots was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe; and which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks, by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation, the ruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit. It was not so with the second; and, to attain this, or when already in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely, became everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master, on condition of being guaranteed more or less efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations beyond this point.
A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last generation of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which it still apparently predominates. . . .
... "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulg-arly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant--society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it--its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with indiv-idual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
Friday, October 2, 2015
October 2, 2015 - Battle for Direction in the French Revolution
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class.
You can access the homework sheet here.
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to Building a Democracy?"
Biography - Marquis de Lafayette, a Revolutionary Hero in France
Lafayette was born in France to a noble family. He was educated at the Versailles Academy for Military Training and joined the army in 1771. He was inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment and, in 1777, he traveled secretly to America to help fight in the American Revolution. He became a general in the Continental Army and a close friend to George Washington. Lafayette played an important role in winning French support for the American Revolution that was crucial to the Americans winning the war.
After the American Revolution, Lafayette returned to France and was welcomed as a hero by Louis XVI. However, he supported the Enlightenment ideas of the French Revolution and was part of the group that helped to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man. He then became the commander of the National Guard, the army of the Revolutionary government. When a mob of Parisian women marched to Versailles, Lafayette rescued the royal family and protected them as they were brought back to Paris. This put Lafayette into a difficult situation of being both a supporter of the revolution, while at the same time being a noble who wanted to protect the royal family. After the royal family’s failed escape from France, many revolutionaries turned against Lafayette, calling him a “traitor”.
In 1792 when Robespierre came to power, Lafayette fled France before he could be arrested and executed. However, he was captured by the Austrians, who accused him of being a radical revolutionary. The Austrians held him in prison for five years. At that point, the Austrians were defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte and Lafayette was freed and returned to France. In 1830, Lafayette supported Louis Philippe as the new King of France. In the last years of his life, Lafayette was the first person given honorary citizenship to United States.
Biography - Maximilian Robespierre, Leader of the Reign of Terror
Robespierre was born in France in 1758. By 21 years old, he was an outstanding student and lawyer. In his work as a lawyer, he was inspired by the Enlightenment thinkers and worked to defend the rights of poor people. He was elected to be a representative of the Third Estate at the meeting of the Estates General, where he gained influence and participated in writing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. He was given the nickname “the incorruptible” because people believed he was so moral he could never be corrupted.
Robespierre joined a group of radical revolutionaries called the Jacobins, who wanted to get rid of the king and turn France into a republic. He quickly became a leader of the Jacobins. Robespierre was opposed to France's war against Austria because he believed it was more important to deal with all of the problems within France. When Austria started to win the war and invade France, Robespierre and the other Jacobins took control of the government and had their opponents in the government arrested and executed, including the King Louis XVI.
At this point, when France was being invaded and many parts of the country were rebelling, Robespierre became a leader of the Committee for Public Safety, which became the government of France. The Committee for Public Safety was a small group of leaders who were determined to save the revolution from being destroyed. Robespierre believed it was necessary to use the death penalty to force people to obey the government and to save the revolution. As leader of the Committee for Public Safety, Robespierre lead the Reign of Terror, in which people were arrested and executed without trial if they were accused of being enemies of the revolution. It is estimated that about 40,000 people died during this 15-month period. Robespierre even ordered the execution of his fellow Jacobins because they were not radical enough.
At this point, Robespierre became a dictator who ruled France through fear. Robespierre tried to use the Reign of Terror to rebuild France into a country where everybody was free and considered equal, which he called the “republic of virtue”. However, the remaining members of the government turned against Robespierre and he was arrested and sentenced to death, without a chance to defend himself. He was then executed in the center of Paris by guillotine.
Source # 1 - Video on the Fall of Louis XVI, the war with Austria and rise of Jacobins - click here
Source # 2 - Video on the Reign of Terror - click here
Source # 3 - Print of Women Marching to Versailles
Source # 4 - La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. It was composed during the French Revolution (April 24, 1792) by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a captain of the engineers and amateur musician stationed in Strasbourg in 1792. Originally entitled Chant de guerre de l'armeé du Rhin (War Song of the Army of the Rhine), the anthem became called La Marseillaise because of its popularity with volunteer army units from Marseilles.
Let us go, children of the fatherland
Our day of Glory has arrived.
Against us stands tyranny,
The bloody flag is raised,
The bloody flag is raised.
Do you hear in the countryside
The roar of these savage soldiers
They come right into our arms
To cut the throats of your sons,
your country.
To arms, citizens!
Form up your battalions
Let us march, Let us march!
That their impure blood
Should water our fields
Source # 5 - Map of the Reign of Terror
Source # 6 - Maximilian Robespierre speech "Justification on the use of the Terror" (1794)
"But, to found and consolidate democracy, to achieve the peaceable reign of the constitutional laws, we must end the war of liberty against tyranny and pass safely across the storms of the revolution: such is the aim of the revolutionary system that you have enacted. Your conduct, then, ought also to be regulated by the stormy circumstances in which the republic is placed; and the plan of your administration must result from the spirit of the revolutionary government combined with the general principles of democracy...
... The two opposing spirits that have been represented in a struggle to rule nature might be said to be fighting in this great period of human history to fix irrevocably the world's destinies, and France is the scene of this fearful combat. Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny's friends conspire; they will conspire until hope is wrested from crime. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.
If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs."
Source # 7 - From the document "What is a Sans Culotte" (1793)
A sans culotte, you rogues? He is someone who always goes about on foot, who has not got the millions you would all like to have, who has no chateaux, no valets to wait on him, and who lives simply with his wife and children, if he has any, on the fourth or fifth storey.
He is useful because he knows how to till a field; to forge iron; to use a saw; to roof a house, to make shoes, and to spill his blood to the last drop for the safety of the Republic...
...Finally, a sans culotte always has his sabre well-sharpened, ready to cut off the ears of all opponents of the Revolution: sometimes he carries his pike about with him; but as soon as the drum beats you see him leave for the Vendee, for the Army of the Alps, or for the Army of the North."
Source # 8 - Jean Paul Marat was a leader of the Jacobins and also editor of a newspaper "L'Ami du Peuple" or "The Friend of the People" (1793)
"I founded the Ami du Peuple. I began it with a severe but honest tone, that of a man who wishes to tell the truth without breaking the conventions of society. I maintained that tone for two whole months. Disappointed in finding that it did not produce the entire effect that I had expected, and indignant that the boldness of the unfaithful representatives of the people and of the lying public officials was steadily increasing, I felt that it was necessary to renounce moderation and to substitute satire and irony for simple censure. The bitterness of the satire increased with the number of mismanagements, the iniquity of their projects and the public misfortunes. Strongly convinced of the absolute perversity of the supporters of the old regime and the enemies of liberty, I felt that nothing could be obtained from them except by force. Revolted by their attempts, by their ever-recurrent plots, I realized that no end would be put to these except by exterminating the ones guilty of them. Outraged at seeing the representatives of the nation in league with its deadliest enemies and the laws serving only to tyrannize over the innocent whom they ought to have protected, I recalled to the sovereign people that since they had nothing more to expect from their representatives, it behooved them to mete out justice for themselves. This was done several times.”
Source# 9 - Print of the Cult of the Supreme Being (1794)
You can access the homework sheet here.
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the challenges to Building a Democracy?"
Biography - Marquis de Lafayette, a Revolutionary Hero in France
Lafayette was born in France to a noble family. He was educated at the Versailles Academy for Military Training and joined the army in 1771. He was inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment and, in 1777, he traveled secretly to America to help fight in the American Revolution. He became a general in the Continental Army and a close friend to George Washington. Lafayette played an important role in winning French support for the American Revolution that was crucial to the Americans winning the war.After the American Revolution, Lafayette returned to France and was welcomed as a hero by Louis XVI. However, he supported the Enlightenment ideas of the French Revolution and was part of the group that helped to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man. He then became the commander of the National Guard, the army of the Revolutionary government. When a mob of Parisian women marched to Versailles, Lafayette rescued the royal family and protected them as they were brought back to Paris. This put Lafayette into a difficult situation of being both a supporter of the revolution, while at the same time being a noble who wanted to protect the royal family. After the royal family’s failed escape from France, many revolutionaries turned against Lafayette, calling him a “traitor”.
In 1792 when Robespierre came to power, Lafayette fled France before he could be arrested and executed. However, he was captured by the Austrians, who accused him of being a radical revolutionary. The Austrians held him in prison for five years. At that point, the Austrians were defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte and Lafayette was freed and returned to France. In 1830, Lafayette supported Louis Philippe as the new King of France. In the last years of his life, Lafayette was the first person given honorary citizenship to United States.
Biography - Maximilian Robespierre, Leader of the Reign of Terror
Robespierre was born in France in 1758. By 21 years old, he was an outstanding student and lawyer. In his work as a lawyer, he was inspired by the Enlightenment thinkers and worked to defend the rights of poor people. He was elected to be a representative of the Third Estate at the meeting of the Estates General, where he gained influence and participated in writing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. He was given the nickname “the incorruptible” because people believed he was so moral he could never be corrupted.Robespierre joined a group of radical revolutionaries called the Jacobins, who wanted to get rid of the king and turn France into a republic. He quickly became a leader of the Jacobins. Robespierre was opposed to France's war against Austria because he believed it was more important to deal with all of the problems within France. When Austria started to win the war and invade France, Robespierre and the other Jacobins took control of the government and had their opponents in the government arrested and executed, including the King Louis XVI.
At this point, when France was being invaded and many parts of the country were rebelling, Robespierre became a leader of the Committee for Public Safety, which became the government of France. The Committee for Public Safety was a small group of leaders who were determined to save the revolution from being destroyed. Robespierre believed it was necessary to use the death penalty to force people to obey the government and to save the revolution. As leader of the Committee for Public Safety, Robespierre lead the Reign of Terror, in which people were arrested and executed without trial if they were accused of being enemies of the revolution. It is estimated that about 40,000 people died during this 15-month period. Robespierre even ordered the execution of his fellow Jacobins because they were not radical enough.
At this point, Robespierre became a dictator who ruled France through fear. Robespierre tried to use the Reign of Terror to rebuild France into a country where everybody was free and considered equal, which he called the “republic of virtue”. However, the remaining members of the government turned against Robespierre and he was arrested and sentenced to death, without a chance to defend himself. He was then executed in the center of Paris by guillotine.
Source # 1 - Video on the Fall of Louis XVI, the war with Austria and rise of Jacobins - click here
Source # 2 - Video on the Reign of Terror - click here
Source # 3 - Print of Women Marching to Versailles
Source # 4 - La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. It was composed during the French Revolution (April 24, 1792) by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a captain of the engineers and amateur musician stationed in Strasbourg in 1792. Originally entitled Chant de guerre de l'armeé du Rhin (War Song of the Army of the Rhine), the anthem became called La Marseillaise because of its popularity with volunteer army units from Marseilles.
Let us go, children of the fatherland
Our day of Glory has arrived.
Against us stands tyranny,
The bloody flag is raised,
The bloody flag is raised.
Do you hear in the countryside
The roar of these savage soldiers
They come right into our arms
To cut the throats of your sons,
your country.
To arms, citizens!
Form up your battalions
Let us march, Let us march!
That their impure blood
Should water our fields
Source # 5 - Map of the Reign of Terror
Source # 6 - Maximilian Robespierre speech "Justification on the use of the Terror" (1794)
"But, to found and consolidate democracy, to achieve the peaceable reign of the constitutional laws, we must end the war of liberty against tyranny and pass safely across the storms of the revolution: such is the aim of the revolutionary system that you have enacted. Your conduct, then, ought also to be regulated by the stormy circumstances in which the republic is placed; and the plan of your administration must result from the spirit of the revolutionary government combined with the general principles of democracy...
... The two opposing spirits that have been represented in a struggle to rule nature might be said to be fighting in this great period of human history to fix irrevocably the world's destinies, and France is the scene of this fearful combat. Without, all the tyrants encircle you; within, all tyranny's friends conspire; they will conspire until hope is wrested from crime. We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.
If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs."
Source # 7 - From the document "What is a Sans Culotte" (1793)
A sans culotte, you rogues? He is someone who always goes about on foot, who has not got the millions you would all like to have, who has no chateaux, no valets to wait on him, and who lives simply with his wife and children, if he has any, on the fourth or fifth storey.
He is useful because he knows how to till a field; to forge iron; to use a saw; to roof a house, to make shoes, and to spill his blood to the last drop for the safety of the Republic...
...Finally, a sans culotte always has his sabre well-sharpened, ready to cut off the ears of all opponents of the Revolution: sometimes he carries his pike about with him; but as soon as the drum beats you see him leave for the Vendee, for the Army of the Alps, or for the Army of the North."
Source # 8 - Jean Paul Marat was a leader of the Jacobins and also editor of a newspaper "L'Ami du Peuple" or "The Friend of the People" (1793)
"I founded the Ami du Peuple. I began it with a severe but honest tone, that of a man who wishes to tell the truth without breaking the conventions of society. I maintained that tone for two whole months. Disappointed in finding that it did not produce the entire effect that I had expected, and indignant that the boldness of the unfaithful representatives of the people and of the lying public officials was steadily increasing, I felt that it was necessary to renounce moderation and to substitute satire and irony for simple censure. The bitterness of the satire increased with the number of mismanagements, the iniquity of their projects and the public misfortunes. Strongly convinced of the absolute perversity of the supporters of the old regime and the enemies of liberty, I felt that nothing could be obtained from them except by force. Revolted by their attempts, by their ever-recurrent plots, I realized that no end would be put to these except by exterminating the ones guilty of them. Outraged at seeing the representatives of the nation in league with its deadliest enemies and the laws serving only to tyrannize over the innocent whom they ought to have protected, I recalled to the sovereign people that since they had nothing more to expect from their representatives, it behooved them to mete out justice for themselves. This was done several times.”
Source# 9 - Print of the Cult of the Supreme Being (1794)
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