Was the French revolution over
"When Louis XVI accepted the final version of the completed constitution in September 1791, a young and still obscure provincial lawyer and member of the National Assembly named Maximilian Robespiere evaluated the work of two years and concluded,'The Revolution is over.'" (McKay, p. 752) In his statement, Robespiere is both right and wrong. He was correct in that the first phase of the French Revolution with the old intentions of liberty, equality, and representative government had ideally accomplished it's goal. However, the Revolution did not end there, and the second phase gave birth to new intentions that were of the far left of the political spectrum, leading to the Committee ofPublic Safety's reign of terror which led to the need for change once more. The first phase of the French Revolution began as the bourgeoisie's wants of equality with the nobility. "The French bourgeoisie eventually rose up to lead the entire third estate in a great social revolution, a revolution that destroyed feudal privileges and established a capitalist order based on individualism and a market economy." (McKay, p. 746) When excluded from the Estates General and sent to the tennis courts, this third class took the Oath
A paradigm shift had occurred, and the people of the Revolution experienced a change in ideas. A new legislative body had been formed, the Legislative Assembly. It's members were younger and less cautious than their predecessors. "The representatives to the Legislative Assembly were passionately committed to liberal revolution." (McKay, p. 753) This reign of terror had the intentions of ending the lives of counter revolutionaries as to achieve a true revolution. The power and the control the Committee of Public Safety had over the people can cause one to question their attempt to achieve true revolution. They had complete control. The reign of terror had killed 40,000, imprisoned ten thousands of people, and drafted 800,000 peasants to fight the war against Europe. How this was to lead to a true revolution was questionable, and eventually, others began to realize this as well and rose against Robespiere and he was guillotined in July of 1794. With his death, the Committee of Public Safety came to an end, as so their treacherous reign. During the year of 1789, many key points of the first phase had taken place. Several hundred people had stormed the Bastille in search of gunpowder. Great fear of peasant revolts had risen in the first and second estate. Thirdly, the National Assembly had issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It stated, "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights." This was the philosophical basi
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Approximate Word count = 973
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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