Causes & Outcomes of the 1789 French Revolution PDF

1.1 What were the causes and immediate outcomes of the 1789 revolution? The Ancien Régime: problems and policies of Louis XVI France in the late 18th century was ruled by an absolute monarch, Louis XVI. It was, however, a difficult country to govern. It had a population of about 27 million....

1.1 What were the causes and immediate outcomes of the 1789 revolution? The Ancien Régime: problems and policies of Louis XVI France in the late 18th century was ruled by an absolute monarch, Louis XVI. It was, however, a difficult country to govern. It had a population of about 27 million. There was significant regional difference across the country, along with a strong tradition for each part of France to deal with local issues in its own way. There were also different legal systems, which dated back for centuries. The regions had different systems of taxation and there were also customs barriers between some parts of France, meaning that trade could not move freely around the country. These conditions meant that, in practice, the king’s orders were often ignored or proved too difficult to carry out. Social divisions in France The vast majority – 80% – of the French population at this time were poor peasants. Agriculture was not highly developed and was inefficient. Peasants farmed tiny plots of land and their main aim was to grow enough food to survive. At the same time, they were heavily taxed by the government, their landlords and the Church. In addition, they had to maintain the roads for their landlords and their local community – work they were not paid for. Landlords had the right to hunt on the peasants’ land. The peasants were also forced to use their landlords’ wine presses and flour mills, at a high price. There were only three good harvests between 1770 and 1789, and this resulted in rural poverty and hunger. The economy was simply unable to provide an adequate living for those who lived in the countryside, so many peasants were forced to move to the towns. This growing urban population, poor and unskilled, found there was little or no chance of quality employment. Unlike Britain, France had few factories making textiles, for example, to absorb this migration of workers. Meanwhile, the existing urban working class saw their wages decline as food prices rose. Bread usually formed about 75% of the French working-class diet. In normal times, a family would spend between 35 and 50% of its income on bread. After a bad harvest, when prices soared, fear of starvation took hold, and there was no money for heating and clothing. Increasing poverty, worsened by a decline in real wages, led to growing urban unrest, including bread riots. The police force had only limited numbers and found it difficult to maintain order. A hungry, highly taxed lower class who were not represented by politicians, in both town and countryside, was an important factor in the events that followed. The distance between the rich and the poor was growing. The poor saw those they paid taxes to – the aristocracy and the Church in particular– enjoying lives of luxury, but peasants had no means of redressing their grievances. The legal system worked against them, and was, in fact, another means of control. In French towns, the middle class was growing. Increasingly, these people were well educated and rich. By 1780, they owned around 20% of the land in France. They were involved in either commerce or industry, or in professions such as law and medicine. The vast majority of France’s future revolutionary leaders came from this middle class; many of them had been lawyers. Some were increasingly involved in aspects of local government and administration, but became frustrated by their powerlessness. In addition to having no political power, it was not possible for them to join the top levels of government, the military and the judiciary system. Only the higher nobility could expect to take up those jobs. While people in the middle class were not as heavily taxed as the peasantry, they did pay some taxes, and naturally resented a system where they had no say in how their money was spent. Many traditional middle-class career posts such as judges and tax collectors, began to be passed from father to son, or could be bought for cash. Jobs were no longer decided by ability. As a result, money influenced local administration and the law. These educated and increasingly angry members of the middle class were to play a decisive role in the coming events. The Church and the aristocracy The Roman Catholic Church, with over 130 000 clergy, monks and nuns, was a very wealthy organisation. It owned 10% of the land across the country and paid no taxes. It controlled most of the education in France and also approved (or not) all publications. The Church was determined to maintain its control over as many aspects of French life as possible, and to keep hold of its wealth and benefits. The most senior posts in the Church invariably went to members of the aristocracy, often totally inexperienced young men with little interest in performing their religious duties. As a result, many of the ordinary clergy from the lower classes – often hardworking and devout men determined to help their parishioners – could not progress to senior roles where they would be able to direct the Church towards carrying out what they considered to be its proper duties. Although the Church did not pay taxes, it did pay a contribution to the government. This contribution was paid, however, by the lower clergy and not the wealthy bishops. These factors led to a growing division between rich and poor within the clergy, the aristocrat and the commoner. This was one of the reasons why the Church was not able to present a united front to the revolutionary forces that later set out to destroy it. The aristocracy dominated France. A tiny minority of the population owned around 30% of the land and most of the wealth. There were about 300 000 members of this elite group. They paid virtually no taxes. They were also exempt from things like conscription for the army and responsibility for road repairs. Instead, they enjoyed a range of benefits, often created centuries earlier, such as being able to hunt wherever they wished. They dominated all the key posts at court and in the government, the Church, the judiciary and the army. One of the reasons why the French army often performed badly was because the officers were noblemen and promotion came through noble rank rather than through ability or experience. French aristocrats tended to be hostile to those involved in trade and commerce. Unlike the British aristocracy during the same period, who were deeply involved in innovation in agriculture, industry and commerce, and who usually accepted their sons marrying the rich daughters of middle-class industrialists, the French aristocracy tended to remain a group apart. Generally, they did not wish to associate with the lower classes in such matters as industry and commerce. As in the clergy, there was a division between the ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ aristocracy. The highest levels of this social class lived at Versailles, the court of the king of France near Paris. Here, in this vast and splendid palace, they had access to power, influence, and the top jobs and pensions awarded by the king. They lived in an isolated and privileged environment and were determined to keep it. A talent for court politics and intrigue was the key to the top jobs, and administrative ability often had little to do with success. The ‘poorer’ or ‘lower’ nobility, while anxious to retain their privileges, often resented the power and wealth of the ‘higher’ nobility at Versailles. The lower nobility, like the case of the lower clergy, were a reason why the nobility did not act together to defend their power during the years of the revolution. King Louis XVI and the parlements The king was at the top of the social hierarchy. Louis XVI had been crowned in 1775, when he was young and inexperienced. He had a great sense of duty and many good intentions of ruling well. He inherited a system in which the king had absolute power, however, and he would have liked not just to keep, but to increase this power. His courtiers and ministers (they were usually the same thing) tended to be divided on the issue of the role of the monarch. Some wished to create an even more absolute monarch, in control of every part of French life, and to end the ability of local parlements to block orders from Versailles and any local autonomy. Traditionally, laws made by the king could not be carried out unless they were published by the parlements, so these courts were in a position to delay or prevent the implementation of royal wishes. Only lawyers of noble rank could be members, and they were usually more interested in preserving their own privileges than anything else. Some wished to go back to a system in which the king had to consult the aristocracy on matters of policy and administration, thus reducing his power. A few, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment (see ‘Pressures for change’) wanted to reform the whole system and make it both more efficient and more inclusive, eliminating its most obvious failings. For example, the king appointed intendants to administer the localities, called departments, in France. The intendants were royal agents and their job was to carry out royal wishes in their departments. They were often hated by local parlements, however, who did their best to ignore and resist them. The divisions at court and within the aristocracy and clergy were often reflected when it came to local administration. There were bitter local rivalries, which made France a very difficult country to govern, and obviously in need of reform. These fundamental differences in outlook among the king’s inner circle of courtiers made it difficult to find common ground when major decisions needed to be taken. LOUIS XVI (1754–93) King Louis XVI was deeply religious and was determined to rule well. He was, however, weak and indecisive, and reluctant to accept the reality of the situation he found himself in. His resistance to reform after 1789 and his obvious lack of sympathy for the changes of 1789–90 ultimately led to his execution in 1793 Pressures for change (social, economic and political, including the Enlightenment) The Enlightenment In the 18th century France was home to some of the greatest thinkers and writers of the period. They became part of an intellectual and philosophical movement known as the ‘Enlightenment’, and they had a major influence on the whole revolutionary process in France. It can be difficult to assess the importance of abstract ideas on actual events, but it is known that many of the later revolutionary leaders, and Napoleon Bonaparte himself, were very well read and were influenced by the ideas of these thinkers. Many of these writers did not just criticise what they saw happening in France; they also supported practical improvements. Some of the most important figures of the Enlightenment were: Voltaire, who was very critical of the role, wealth and influence of the Church, and attacked religious intolerance. He was also critical of the entire French legal system and its frequent miscarriages of justice. Montesquieu, who was critical of despotism and autocratic power. He wanted a system of checks and balances, where one part of a system of government, for example an elected parliament, could check the actions of ministers and the king. He was impressed by the British system, where parliament controlled law-making and could check the government. Montesquieu advocated the rule of law: that everyone should be equal before the law and subject to the law of the land. Diderot, author of an encyclopaedia of ‘sciences, arts and crafts’, who was determined to advance knowledge. He was a great advocate of independent thinking, and was anxious to promote a critical and questioning attitude to everything. Rousseau, who argued for more education, was a great thinker who wrote about power and liberty. He proposed many ideas on how there could be both authority and freedom for men in the same society. Quesnay, who wrote on economics and argued against the constraints on the free production and movement of goods which existed at the time in France. These men challenged established ideas, institutions and social structures. They encouraged argument and debate on a wide range of major public issues. They argued that there could be improvement in all areas of public life. The writers wrote at a time when confidence in the French government was low. There was often famine and this led to riots. France in 1763 had just been humiliated in a major war with Britain and had lost most of its overseas empire, including Canada, to the victors. There was also little confidence in the young king crowned in 1775, and his Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette, was hated. Many of the future leaders who emerged during the revolution had read, thought about and debated the ideas of these great writers of the Enlightenment. When the Ancien Régime collapsed after 1789, it was these thinkers who provided ideas that led the way forward for the new governors of France. The reaction of Louis XVI to attempts at reform Political and economic factors Social and ideological factors played a major part in the start of the revolution in 1789, but politics and economics also played a key role. In 1778, the decision was made to form an alliance with the colonists in America who were fighting for independence from Frances’s old enemy, Britain. France declared war against Britain, determined to regain not only the colonies that it had lost to Britain in 1763, such as Canada, but also the prestige lost as a result of the many military defeats it had suffered in the war. A-R-J Turgot, an admirer of François Quesnay, was the finance minister when Louis became king in 1775. He warned against any more involvement in wars, arguing that ‘the first gunshot will drive the state to bankruptcy’, but he was ignored. The king took advice instead from the Comte de Vergennes, his foreign minister, who was interested in France’s (and his own) prestige, and did not worry about such matters as cost. The cautious Turgot was dismissed in 1776. He predicted correctly that the war would do little harm to Britain, and instead would prevent the vital financial reforms that France needed so badly, with the risk of national bankruptcy. In 1777, a new finance minister was appointed. This was Jacques Necker. He was an unusual choice, as he was not a French aristocrat, but a middle-class banker of Swiss origin and also a Protestant. Naturally, this meant that many people at Louis’s court disliked him, notably the queen. The appointment of an outsider like Necker indicates that there was a growing awareness that French state finances were in a dreadful state. JACQUES NECKER (1732–1804) Necker was born in Switzerland and trained as a banker, and was finance minister three times: 1777–81, 1788–89 and 1789–90. Some historians argue that in his first tenure he caused many of the problems which faced France in later years. However, when he was recalled to office in 1788, he was seen as the man able to solve France’s economic problems. He was, however, unable to provide either an accurate picture of the royal finances or solutions to the financial problems facing France. In 1789, he fatefully advised the king to call the Estates General.  Necker promised to reform the financial system. Many people, unwisely as it turned out, had great confidence in him. He investigated and analysed France’s finances, but he did not deliver reform. He funded the expensive war with Britain through borrowing at increasingly high interest rates. In 1781, he published – for the first time in France – a public account of the royal finances. However, in this report he claimed that these finances were in a good condition. They were not. He also hid the huge cost of the war with Britain. He was dismissed four months after the report was published. Government borrowing at high interest rates continued to increase. The war with Britain came to an end in 1783. The United States became independent, but France gained nothing from the war except deeper national debt. There was now, however, an opportunity for financial reform and stability. With growing concern about the state of royal finances, another new finance minister, Charles de Calonne, was appointed in 1783. Initially, he declined to cut royal spending and simply borrowed more money to keep the government running, but he did start to plan important changes. He was aware that without change France would go bankrupt. Figure 1.1: France’s economic problems before the revolution In 1786, with the cost of servicing the state’s debts becoming too high, Calonne submitted a series of needed reforms to the king. He made three main proposals:  Reform the system of taxation by increasing taxes for the wealthy.  Stimulate the economy generally and encourage commerce and industry.   Create confidence in France and its economy so it could borrow more money at lower rates of interest. The king, prepared from time to time to take an interest in matters of finance, approved the plans. The decision was taken, in the light of growing public concern and interest in the economy, to submit these proposals to the Assembly of Notables in the hope of gaining support for the measures. This body, made up of nobles and clergy (only 10 of the 144 members were not nobles) then met for the first time since 1626. Calonne was in an impossible position. He was disliked by the vast majority of the Notables. He had little serious support from the king and the rest of the government. Many of those in a position of influence chose to believe Necker’s earlier statement that all was well with the royal finances. In addition, the expensive war was over, so they thought the crisis was also over. Calonne had no idea how to manage the Notables, and, in fact, there was no clarity on what the Notables’ role was. Was it just consultative? Was the Assembly there just to support changes? Did it have any authority? Most Notables recognised a need for some reforms, but they wanted to make sure that they, and the class that they represented, did not suffer from those reforms. The king was faced with an uncertain situation and tried to solve the problem by sacking Calonne in April 1787. Calonne was replaced by yet another finance minister, Etienne Brienne, who, as president of the Assembly of Notables was felt to have influence over its members. The king disliked and distrusted him, however, which meant that Brienne had limited royal support. When the Notables demanded an accurate account of the royal finances, the king refused and instead dismissed the Assembly. This caused great anxiety and protest among the educated public, and marked the start of the financial and political crisis that eventually led to the revolution itself. The meeting and dismissal of the Notables showed:  just how deep France’s financial crisis was  the many failings of the king and his court and government  that the public had not been given a true picture of the state of the royal finances  that there was real opposition in the country to the king and his government  that the public demanded change and greater involvement in government. The beginnings of widespread revolt Brienne had to raise money so he increased taxes and borrowed more, but found it very difficult to persuade bankers to lend to a state which many felt was near breakdown. Attempts to gain support for increased taxes from the parlement of Paris – the most powerful of the country’s parlements – failed. The parlement refused to support tax increases until they were given an accurate picture of the royal accounts. The king refused again, seeing such demands as an attack on his royal powers, and banished the parlement members to the provinces. The people of Paris were so angry at the king’s action that both middle and lower classes, and huge crowds took to the streets in protest. This was the first sign of a potential alliance between the middle and lower classes against the king and the aristocracy. The financial and political crisis continued throughout 1787 and 1788. The king recalled the Paris parlement and met with it in November 1787. He totally mismanaged it, having no grasp of why there was so much concern about the state’s finances. The king undermined the ministers who were trying to negotiate and manage the parlement and, when the parlement refused to support the new taxes, the leaders of the ‘opposition’ were arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille, a royal fortress in Paris. The arrests resulted in countrywide protests, demonstrating the high level of public interest and support for reform. Divisions were also emerging among the nobility and clergy over whether to support any change to their privileged and untaxed status, and it was clear too that the growing middle class was becoming increasingly alienated from the classes above. The crisis worsened throughout 1788. There was widespread anger at the king’s refusal to become involved in a civil war in the Netherlands. (The French felt the area was very much their sphere of interest and there was a risk of Austria increasing its power.) There was simply no money to pay for any intervention there. The lack of money, and the incompetence of the (noble) officer corps, meant that the army was viewed as potentially unreliable, even though it was the only way of keeping order in France. Thousands of pamphlets were by now being published throughout France, demanding social, economic and political change. The Paris parlement demanded complete constitutional change and was widely supported in this demand. By August 1788, it was clear that the state was virtually bankrupt and this was publicly admitted. However, Brienne, who was aware of the scale of the problem, and had some solutions, was dismissed by the king. This further reduced any confidence in the king and his court. The tension and unrest was made worse by a series of hailstorms that summer which destroyed much of the harvest. Everyone knew that this would lead to a shortage of bread and higher prices. It would be a hard winter. The king’s solution was to recall Necker as finance minister. At his instigation, the decision was taken to summon the Estates General, which had not met since 1614, to solve France’s problems. The king’s solution was to recall Necker as finance minister. At his instigation, the decision was taken to summon the Estates General, which had not met since 1614, to solve France’s problems. Cahiers de doléances Before the Estates General met, the districts of France were asked, as was customary, to put forward a list of issues they wanted the assembly to consider when it met. These lists were known as cahiers de doléances. In March 1789, the cahier from Dourdan, in northern France, contained the following, quite typical, demands. The clergy – the First Estate – asked:  to retain all the rights and privileges of the Roman Catholic Church  to ban the practice of any other religion  to give the Church complete control of all education  to ban all publications attacking the Church and give the Church full control over all publications  to retain freedom from taxation unless it decided to contribute  that there should be a reform of the local legal system to ensure fairer justice for all  that care should be taken to ensure adequate food supplies for all  that landlords should be prevented from imposing high charges on peasants and hunting on their lands. The nobility – the Second Estate – asked that:  only the king should have power to make laws  there should be no change in the system of taxation without consent of the Estates General  the distinction between the three orders of the Estates General be strengthened  the system of voting by Estates should remain  care be taken to ensure the supply of grain  fewer restrictions be placed on agriculture and industry there should be reform of the legal system. The Third Estate – in theory the rest of the French people, but in practice the middle class – asked that:  the national debt be paid off  all taxes should be shared equally  the system of compulsory work for a landlord be ended  the administration of justice be reformed the gabelle (salt tax) be abolished  the privilege of hunting be abolished  the many regulations restricting trade be abolished  there should be a school in every town  the Church be reformed  there should be local elections for local assemblies to deal with local issues The meeting of the Estates General On 5 May 1789, for the first time since 1614, members of the Estates General of France gathered at the royal palace of Versailles. There was a background of large-scale and widespread social, economic and political unrest, as well as the prospect of national bankruptcy. The Estates General was the nearest thing that France had to a national law-making and representative body, although its precise role had never been clearly determined. Louis XVI’s immediate predecessors had not called it to meet as they saw it as a threat to their absolute power. Great hopes rested on the outcomes of this meeting, both on the part of the monarch and court on one side, and by the mass of the French people on the other. There had been immense interest in choosing its members, particularly from the middle class. Problems were to arise, however, as many of the aims were very conflicting. The three Estates – the clergy, the nobility and the commoners – met in different parts of the palace, but each had an equal vote when it came to making decisions. The king and his ministers expected the First and Second Estates to support them if the Third Estate tried to make any radical changes. Figure 1.2: The opening assembly of the Estates General in Versailles, engraved by Isidore Stanislas Helman after a drawing by Charles Monnet, painter to Louis XVI. Published as part of a series of 1790 engravings titled: “Description abrégée des quinze estampes sur les principales journées de la Révolution” (Short description of fifteen prints on the main days of the Revolution). The engravings were republished as a single collection of 12 images in 1798. The opening meetings did not go well either for the king or for those who desired reform. The king’s main concern was to find a solution to his financial problems. Some of the educated middle class wanted a more extensive overhaul of government, politics, society and the economy. Some clergy and noblemen were prepared to accept a few of these major changes. Many more, unrepresented, people just wanted basic improvements to their lives, such as lower taxes, rents and bread prices. The first two Estates refused to support any of the demands for reform made by the Third Estate. They were more concerned with protecting their privileges than in dealing with the real problems the country was facing. There was also the further complication that the First and Second Estates were divided among themselves over whether or not to cooperate with the Third Estate. Some clergy and noblemen were aware that, unless there was reform, the anger boiling up from below might have dangerous consequences. There was no clear leadership from the court and king on any issue. On 17 June 1789, the Third Estate, tired of royal indecision and the selfish attitude of the other two Estates, made a decisive move. The members agreed to change their name to the ‘National Assembly’. By this action, they were saying that sovereignty, the supreme or final power within France, now lay with the people of France, represented by this Assembly. Sovereign power was no longer with the monarchy. The Assembly was, in effect, announcing that it was now in charge of France. It assumed control of the system of national taxation as an example of this newly acquired power. When the king tried to stop the Assembly by closing its meeting room, its members simply gathered in a nearby building, a covered tennis court. There, in what became known as the ‘Tennis Court Oath’, they decided to continue meeting until they had established a new, reformed constitution that would resolve their grievances. This was to be the first, critical, step on the road to revolution. Figure 1.3: ‘The Oath of the Tennis Court’, ink drawing by Jacques-Louis David, 1790. David was a friend of Robespierre and was asked by the Society of Friends of the Constitution (later known as the Jacobin Club) to commemorate the Tennis Court Oath in a large painting. David became a deputy in the National Convention in 1793. Tensions rise in France In 1789, a series of events drove the process in an even more radical direction. In the countryside and towns, there was real hunger because of the poor harvest of the previous year, creating a tense situation. Although Necker warned him to be cautious, the king made some unhelpful decisions:  He refused to give any power to the National Assembly and insisted that the Estates General continue to act in the way he expected, with the First and Second Estates outvoting the Third.  He moved troops into both Paris and Versailles. This was seen by many as an attempt to stop any reforms by force.  He dismissed Necker, whom many had felt was the one man capable of bringing in sensible reforms and solving France’s economic problems. This resulted in even previously moderate members of all three Estates beginning to see that Louis himself was the problem. He would never reform French government unless he was forced to do so. Responses to Louis XVI’s actions The Storming of the Bastille The turning point, when the reform movement became a revolution, occurred on 14 July 1789. The old royal fortress in Paris, the Bastille, was attacked by a Parisian mob who feared the reforms they hoped for were not going to happen. The Bastille was seen as a symbol of royal tyranny, although it actually contained few prisoners, troops or arms. During the attack, the Bastille was destroyed and its governor killed. The event was highly significant, demonstrating the anger of the Paris working class and their determination to achieve change. The Storming of the Bastille inspired an even greater breakdown of law and order throughout France, in what became known as the ‘Great Fear’ of the summer of 1789. There was a mass refusal to pay taxes. Grain shipments were attacked and the grain stolen. The homes of noblemen were looted and their owners attacked. Town leaders who opposed reform were killed. With the king still reluctant to act decisively, and many of his courtiers fleeing the court and the country, it was again the representatives of the Third Estate at Versailles who seized the initiative and acted. Figure 1.4: Prise de la Bastille (Storming of the Bastille) by Jean-Pierre Houël, 1789. Houël was a famous painter and artist who was in Paris during the summer of 1789 The August Decrees  In what became known as the ‘August Decrees’, the Assembly did away with what was left of feudalism in France. It abolished:  all the privileges of the nobles, such as their exemption from taxes  the duties that a peasant owed to his noble landlord, such as paying taxes to him and having to work his land unpaid  the parlements and their old-fashioned legal processes  the provincial estates, which had been created in the Middle Ages and had largely fallen into disuse and radically reduced the status of the Roman Catholic Church in France The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Later in August 1789, the National Assembly passed what would come to be seen as one of the key statements of the whole revolutionary period – the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The influence of several Enlightenment thinkers can be clearly seen in this famous document. The articles of the declaration established the principles on which the new system of government would be based. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Approved by the National Assembly of France, 26 August 1789 The representatives of the French people, organised as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties … Therefore the National Assembly recognises and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen: Articles: 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. 2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. 3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. 5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law. 6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law. 7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. 8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary. 9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty. 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views. 11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.  12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted. 13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means. 14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes. 15. Society has the right to require of every public official an account of his administration. 16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all. 17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified. With these principles in mind, the Assembly then started to put its reform ideas into practice. The king and his courtiers continued to do nothing, so the Assembly acted. In October 1789, it decided on the principles on which government in France should be based. This was the Decree of the Fundamental Principles of Government and it shows the Assembly setting out their wishes for a new constitution for France. The king was unwilling to accept this radical change to the system of government and limitation of his powers, but events soon forced him to change his mind. In October 1789, food prices started to rise and there was a serious shortage of bread in Paris. Rumours spread that troops known for their loyalty to the king had arrived at Versailles and were being lavishly entertained. Fears grew that these troops would be used to restore all royal power and abolish the National Assembly. Meanwhile, many cheap and radical newspapers in Paris demanded that the king should not close the Assembly and that he make changes to the way in which France was governed. The women’s march on Versailles On the morning of 5 October, alarms sounded in Paris and crowds of women began to march from Paris to the royal palace at Versailles. Initially there were about 7000 and they had managed to obtain some weapons. They first invaded the National Assembly, which was still debating its reaction to the king’s unwillingness to accept constitutional demands. To pacify this mob the Assembly sent some deputies and a number of women nominated by the marchers to the king, and they persuaded him to accept the August Decrees. Public anger and pressure had clearly worked. This concession did not satisfy the women protesters, however, and with their numbers growing by the hour, they demanded that the king and the royal family returned with them to Paris. When the king did not reply immediately, the crowd simply broke into the palace and insisted on it. The king and his family were escorted by a crowd of 60 000 to Paris, where they remained, as one commentator said, ‘more like prisoners than princes’. Force had won out. The Parisian crowd, more radical than was the case in the rest of France, was determined that there should be revolutionary change. The king had been forcibly removed to Paris, where radical influences were very strong, and the National Assembly would follow him. The fact that the decision-maker in France, the National Assembly, met in Paris from then on was profoundly significant and had a major influence on events. Much of the royal power and authority had now gone. France had been transformed, almost overnight, from a medieval, semi-feudal state into something quite different. No one yet new how different. The Ancien Régime was no more. It was a remarkable work of destruction. A new system of government and social order now had to be created, and there were many different ideas on what forms these might take. In dealing with one problem, the Assembly had created many more, and this, in turn, led to even greater instability.