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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)
