The French Revolution......... Part III

Q 17." The period from 1793 to 1794 is referred to as the Reign of Terror". Explain.
The period from 1793 to 1794 is referred to as the Reign of Terror because:- 

1. Robespierre followed a policy of severe control and punishment. All those whom he saw as being ‘enemies’ of the republic – ex-nobles and clergy, members of other political parties, even members of his own party who did not agree with his methods – were arrested, imprisoned and then tried by a revolutionary tribunal. 
2. If the court found them ‘guilty’ they were guillotined.
3. Robespierre’s government issued laws placing a maximum ceiling on wages and prices.
4. Meat and bread were rationed. 
5. Peasants were forced to transport their grain to the cities and sell it at prices fixed by the government. 
6. The use of more expensive white flour was forbidden. 
7. all citizens were required to eat the pain d’égalité (equality bread), a loaf made of whole wheat. 
8. Equality was also sought to be practised through forms of speech and address.
9. Instead of the traditional Monsieur (Sir) and Madame (Madam) all French men and women were henceforth Citoyen and Citoyenne (Citizen). 
10. Churches were shut down and their buildings converted into barracks or offices.
11. Finally,Robespierre was convicted by a court in July 1794, arrested and on the next day sent to the guillotine.

Q18. What is meant by the term 'Directory'? What was the significance of the Rule of the Directory?

1. The fall of the Jacobin government allowed the wealthier middle classes to seize power. 
2. A new constitution was introduced which denied the vote to non-propertied sections of society. 
3. It provided for two elected legislative councils. 
4. These then appointed a Directory, an executive made up of five members. 
5. This was meant as a safeguard against the concentration of power in a one-man executive as under the Jacobins. 
6. The Directors often clashed with the legislative councils, who then sought to dismiss them. 
7. The political instability of the Directory paved the way for the rise of a military dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Q 19.What was the condition of woman in France during the old Regime?

1. Most women of the third estate had to work for a living. 
2. They worked as seamstresses or laundresses, sold flowers, fruits and vegetables at the market, or were employed as domestic servants in the houses of prosperous people. 
3. Most women did not have access to education or job training. 
4. Only daughters of nobles or wealthier members of the third estate could study at a convent, after which their families arranged a marriage for them. 
5. Working women had also to care for their families, that is, cook, fetch water, queue up for bread and look after the children. 
6. Their wages were lower than those of men.

Q 20. Discuss the role of women in the French Revolution.

1. From the very beginning women were active participants in the events which brought  many important changes in French society.
2. They hoped that their involvement would pressurise the revolutionary government to introduce measures to improve their lives.
3. In order to discuss and voice their interests women started their own political clubs and newspapers. 
4. About sixty women’s clubs came up in different French cities. 
5. The Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women was the most famous of them.
6. Their main demands was that women enjoy the same political rights as men. 
7. Women were disappointed that the Constitution of 1791 reduced them to passive citizens. 
8. They demanded the right to vote, to be elected to the Assembly and to hold political office. 
9. Only then, they felt, would their interests be represented in the new government.
10. The revolutionary government did introduce laws that helped improve the lives of women.
11. With the creation of state schools, schooling was made compulsory for all girls. 
12. Their fathers could no longer force them into marriage against their will.
13. Marriage was made into a contract entered into freely and registered under civil law. 
14. Divorce was made legal, and could be applied for by both women and men. Women could now train for jobs, could become artists or run small businesses.

Q 21. What was  triangular slave trade?

1. The colonies in the Caribbean – Martinique, Guadeloupe and San Domingo – were important suppliers of commodities such as tobacco, indigo, sugar and coffee. 
2. Europeans were reluctant to go and work in distant and unfamiliar lands.As a result there was shortage of labour on the plantations.
3. This was met by a triangular slave trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas. 
4. The slave trade began in the seventeenth century.
5. French merchants sailed from the ports of Bordeaux or Nantes to the African coast, where they bought slaves from local chieftains.
6. Branded and shackled, the slaves were packed tightly into ships for the three-month long voyage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
7. There they were sold to plantation owners. 
8. The exploitation of slave labour made it possible to meet the growing demand in European markets for sugar, coffee, and indigo. 
9. Port cities like Bordeaux and Nantes flourished economically due to slave trade.

Q 22. When was slavery finally abolished in the French Colonies?

1. The National Assembly held long debates about whether the rights of man should be extended to all French subjects including those in the colonies. 
2. But it did not pass any laws, fearing opposition from businessmen whose incomes depended on the slave trade. 
3. It was finally the Convention which in 1794 legislated to free all slaves in the French overseas possessions. 
4. This turned out to be a short-term measure as ten years later, Napoleon reintroduced slavery.
5. Plantation owners thought that it was their right to enslave African Negroes in pursuit of their economic interests.
6. Slavery was finally abolished in French colonies in 1848.

Q 23.What was one important law that came into effect soon after the storming of the Bastille in the summer of 1789?

1. One important law that came into effect soon after the storming of
2. the Bastille in the summer of 1789 was the abolition of censorship. In the Old Regime all written material and cultural activities – books, newspapers, plays – could be published or performed only after they had been approved by the censors of the king. 
3. Now the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen proclaimed freedom of speech and expression to be a natural right. Newspapers, pamphlets, books and printed pictures flooded the towns of France from where they travelled rapidly into the countryside. 
4. They all described and discussed the events and changes taking place in France. 
5. Freedom of the press also meant that opposing views of events could be expressed. 
6. Each side sought to convince the others of its position through the medium of print. 
7. Plays, songs and festive processions attracted large numbers of people. 
8. This was one way they could grasp and identify with ideas such as liberty or justice that political philosophers wrote about at length in texts which only a handful of educated people could read.

Q 24. Describe the legacy of the French Revolution for the peoples of the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

1. The ideas of liberty and democratic rights were the most important legacy of the French Revolution. 
2. These spread from France to the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century, 
3. Feudal systems were abolished. 
4. Further the ideas spread to different colonies of the European nations.
5. Colonised people interpreted and moulded these ideas according to respective needs. 
6. By the mid of 20th century major part of the world adopted democracy and the French Revolution can be termed as the initiation point for this development.