This is an extract from dissertation on Napoleon and French Revolution:
Napoleon played a major part in not only France’s history, but all of Europe’s as well. Napoleon was a child of the Enlightenment and the Revolution. Napoleon affected Europe during and after his short reign. Though Napoleon had a short reign, it was a successful one. Many things contributed to his rise and fall to power. Europe wouldn’t be what it is now, if it wasn’t for Napoleon and the French Revolution.
The rise of Napoleon is very complicated. There were many things that played a part in his rise. If the French Revolution wouldn’t have occurred, then he wouldn’t have had a reign. The Revolution happened because the people were not happy with the Old Regime. The Old Regime used the feudalism system left from the Middle Ages. France had three major social classes also known as estates. The First Estate was made up of Church officials, the Second Estate was made up of nobles and wealthy land owners, and the Third (and largest) Estate was made up of three groups: the bourgeoisie (merchants and artisans), laborers (cooks, servants, and others), and the peasants (serfs). The Old Regime had a major problem; they were making the Third Estate very mad. They would allow the church officials to be exempt from taxes and make the nobles and wealthy land owners pay little taxes and then they made the Third Estate pay high taxes. This made the Third Estate very upset and what even made it worse was that France was in major debt.
France’s King Louis XV left France in major debt. The next king, Louis XVI, ignored the debt and still spent major money that France didn’t have. Louis XVI’s wife, Marie Antoinette, didn’t help France either. Not only was she Austrian, of whom was enemies with the French, but she too spent a lot of money. This caused even higher taxes on the Third Estate. Once France faced bankruptcy, Louis tried to tax the aristocrats. The Second Estate then called a meeting of the Estates General. All Estates were represented at this meeting. It was the first of its kind in 175 years. The meeting was on May 5, 1789 and the proposal to tax the aristocrats failed because the fist two estates could always outvote the third.
Finally the Third Estate was tired of getting pushed around. They came together and voted to establish the National Assembly on June 17, 1789. The National Assembly passed laws and reforms in the name of the French people. Since the Third Estate made up 88 percent of the population of France, they could do this. They went to meet three days later and found themselves locked out of their meeting place. They were locked out for fear of what they could do. This didn’t stop them however. They went to a nearby tennis court and made an oath. This was known as the Tennis Court Oath, they pledged to not leave until a new constitution was drawn up for France. This made King Louis XVI very nervous.
King Louis XVI tried to make peace with the National Assembly. He made the other two estates join the National Convention and he met the demands of the National Assembly. Louis still felt that there was trouble, so he stationed his Swiss guards in Paris. He did this because he did not trust the loyalty of the French soldiers because most of them were from the Third Estate. Once Louis did this, rumors started about how the foreign troops were going to massacre French civilians, so the French got very uneasy. People gathered weapons to defend Paris against the foreign troops. On July 14, 1789, a mob tried to get gunpowder from Bastille, which was a prison in Paris. Bastille fell in the control of the civilians and this day became a great symbolic act of the revolution. Revolution soon spread all though France.
France soon had rumors spreading everywhere about how the nobles were hiring outlaws to terrorize the peasants. This spread fear to many of the French people. This was known as the Great Fear. This fear turned the peasants into outlaws themselves. They would tear into noblemen’s houses with pit forks and stuff. This even encouraged the women to speak their peace. In October 1789, 6,000 Parisian women riot over the price of bread. The women marched all the way to Versailles and got Louis and his wife to come back to Paris. This was known as the March to Versailles.
On August 27, 1789, the National Assembly adopted a statement of revolutionary ideals called “A Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” This was known as the “Declaration of the Rights of Man. This represented the equality among the people and the right to liberty, equality, and fraternity. This became the slogan of the revolution, however, it only applied to men, and women were not included. The National Assembly however could not agree on a constitution for France. It was then thrown out and replaced by the Legislative Assembly in September of 1791.
The Legislative Assembly had the power to create laws and to approve or prevent any war the king declared on any nation. Though there was a new government where the king had very little power, France was still in debt. France was in a financial crisis and its citizens were tired of it. While all of this is going on Napoleon is fighting campaigns. He kicked Austrian butt in his Italian campaign (1796-1797). He also fought off the rebellion in Toulon and Paris when the nobles tried to fight the National Convention. The National Convention took place after the Legislative Assembly. Many of the citizens were being murdered at this time for speaking out against the government. Even King Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793. The monarchy was now completely abolished.
There was a guy named Maximilien Robespierre who then acted in charge of the revolution. He had what was known as the Reign of Terror in France. Anyone that spoke out against the government was killed. No exceptions were allowed at this time. The Committee of Public Safety was what Robespierre became the leader of in 1793. The committee had to decide who the enemies of the republic were. The end of this terror came when the National Convention became scared of Robespierre gaining too much power so they called him a tyrant and killed him too by the guillotine. He lost his head on July 28, 1794. The next year the leaders of the National Convention drafted a new plan for government. This was the third since 1789. The new constitution placed the power in the hands of the upper middle class. It called for a two-house legislature and an executive body of five men. This was known as the Directory. The Directory gave Napoleon the right to command France’s armies. If all the things before the Directory wouldn’t have happened, then Napoleon might not have came to hold such a powerful position. The Directory was however corrupt and failed to come up with a new constitution and by 1799 they lost the control of the French people. After Napoleon came back from his Egyptian campaign (where he was trying to get them to stop trade with Great Britain but was defeated), Napoleon met with influential people to discuss his role in the Directory and on November 9, 1799 Napoleon was put in charge of the military and it ended the next day when his troops drove out the members of one chamber of the national legislature. The legislature voted to get rid of the Directory and put in its place a group of three consuls. Napoleon was chosen to act as first consul of the French republic. A seize of power came with the “coup d’etat”. The Second Coalition formed (Britain, Austria, and Russia) and Napoleon got all to sign a peace treaty. This gave Napoleon time to restore France.
Napoleon set up equal taxation in France along with lower inflation, less government corruption, less powerful Catholic Church, religious tolerance, and many more. Napoleon was much like an enlightened thinker. He gave France equality. With every victory and change, Napoleon brought Nationalism to France. Nationalism was becoming a major part in European culture. Every nation seemed to be gaining Nationalism. Due to this, every Nation looked at Napoleon with fear. Napoleon wanted too much power. Nations were afraid that he would get too much power and they also didn’t like his plans. Napoleon wanted Europe to be self-sufficient, but Europe didn’t want Napoleon telling them what to do. Many coalitions were formed against Napoleon and the French because of this. Napoleon does very well at fighting these countries but one day he marched into Russia and they used the scorch earth policy and burned everything so that Napoleon’s army couldn’t use it. Napoleon’s army suffered severely. They went back to France with one-fifth of their men. Napoleon had to rebuild his entire army. He tried to do it too quickly and had inexperienced people so Napoleon lost his next battle at Leipzig on October 13, 1814. Napoleon is then exiled to Elba and the Bourbon dynasty takes over the thrown.
Napoleon soon comes back after escaping from Elba with 1,000 men. France accepts him with open arms and the European Nations come together once again. Napoleon is only in power for 100 days and then defeated at the battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. The British defeat Napoleon in a hard fought battle and the Prussians will come in at the end to help finish them off. Napoleon is then exiled to St. Helena, where he dies.
Many things contribute to Napoleon’s downfall. Napoleon was a very power hungry individual, who if would of stopped, then could have been in power longer. There was also England opposition. England had many trading partners and would have lost a lot of money if Napoleon was to take over all of Europe. A couple of other things, of which have already been explained in the paper are, Napoleon’s Continental System and the rising spirit of nationalism. Every time a country disagreed with the Continental System, then Napoleon would invade and declare war. For example, the Peninsula War from 1808-1814. This occurred because Portugal wasn’t following the system and then Spain got involved because Napoleon wanted to go through Spain to get to Portugal. Napoleon put his brother on the throne of Spain and then had to fight Portugal. There was guerrilla warfare against Napoleon at this time. Spain’s people formed gorilla bands and killed 300,000 of Napoleon’s men. This makes Napoleon’s army weak and also affects his empire. Then after the invasion of Russia, there was no way Napoleon’s army could have won at Leipzig. Napoleon should have just given up on his Continental System and concentrated on helping France.
All of Europe was affected by Napoleon’s want for power. The countries were basically forced to go to war and lose people as well as invest a lot of money, just so they wouldn’t be bossed around by Napoleon. Europe’s economy went downhill and so did its population. Europe was also affected after Napoleon. No one in Europe wanted another Napoleon. Everyone was sick of wars. So after Napoleon Europe tried to gain what is known as the “Balance of Powers”, this was where no other nation was a threat to any other nation. Metternich even helped Europe get what they wanted by forming the Concert of Europe. This said that every nation would help out any nation if revolutions broke out. Everyone knew that the French Revolution caused all this trouble and they didn’t want this happening in their own country. After Napoleon, the nations of Europe built up the countries around France so that this would never happen again. They also restored to old dynasties to the thrones of the countries. This whole “Balance of Power” thing and the Concert of Europe, was all discussed at the Congress of Vienna. This brought a hundred years of peace to Europe. These hundred years were much need after the wars of Napoleon.
_________________________
This is just a sample dissertation (dissertation example) extract on Napoleon and French Revolution. If you need a high-quality custom written dissertation on Napoleon – feel free to contact our professional custom dissertation writing company which provides college and university students with custom Undergraduate, Master’s, MBA and Ph.D. dissertations, thesis papers and research proposals at an affordable cost!