The second significant paper reform was the Deceleration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen issued on the 26th August 1789 and its policies were based on the Enlightenment thinkers who believed that France should be sovereign. It brought the basis of equality into France and consisted of rights that were demanded by the cahiers from the meeting of the Estates-General. It offered the freedom to worship, freedom of property and freedom of expression. It meant that previous documents like the lettres de cachet which unfairly arrested people, were abolished. This led to the Great Fear where many of the countryside’s hunted down the documents and set them alight and they would use violence if anybody attempted to stop them. This helped everyone, especially the Third Estate, where it brought a promise of a new system which was fair and equal. However, the Deceleration’s name “man and the citizen” shows that woman during this time did not get the same treatment as men, this shows the major flaw with it, that equality wasn’t for everyone like the Constituent Assembly has promised.
Even though the Constituent Assembly was trying to destroy feudalism, they still offered the King the power of suspensive veto on any of the laws they attempted to pass except from those related to finance, because nobody wanted to abolish the monarchy as it provided a national figure to France. King Louis XVI openly refused to accept the decrees which created a tension, however, due to the anti-revolution activities like the stamping of the tricolour, which allegedly happened at one royal party, led to the October Days and resulted in the King being forced back to Paris on the 4th October 1791. The King was then expected to abide by the new constitution and his name was changed from the “King of France” to “King of the French”, this meant that the subjects now became citizens and this thrilled many of the rural poor as they felt that justice and equality was finally happening.
By September 1789, the government was facing large debts and many deputies were considering a radical change to the Church. Both of these factors caused the Nationalisation of the Church Land in November 1789. The National Assembly seized the land and sold it in the form of assignats which became a new currency in France. The assignats were worth a total of 400 million livres. The King disagreed with this proposal and he said that he would “never consent to the spoliation of my clergy and nobility” but he would be unable to do anything as the army was no longer loyal towards him. Interestingly, 52% of the land was bought by peasants and a majority were first time land owners. With the income of the Church already halved due to tithes being abolished, privileges, like the clergy being able decide how much tax they pay and when they paid it, were then taken away, but a lot of the normal parish priests didn’t mind as they were now being paid more under the new government rather than the ancien regime. On the other hand, many Parish Priests were angry at a decree in 1789 which gave civil rights to Protestants. This brought the popularity of the Constituent Assembly down.
The assembly wanted a Church which was free from abuse, papal control and was independent from the Pope in Rome. They tried to then link the Church in with the new Government. On the 12th July 1790, the Civil Constitution of the Church was passed which decreased the amount of bishops from 135 to 83 and similar happened to other clerical posts, except parish priests. This started to anger many people from the different Estates as they believed that the Assembly was trying to change Christianity, especially when a section of the Civil Constitution said that Priests and Bishops would need to be elected into their positions. Many members of the clergy opposed the election but tried to accept it to avoid a split in the Church. However, when the Assembly told the clergy they would have to take an oath on the 27th November 1790 that said they would have to follow the new government instead of the Pope, 55% agreed which inevitably caused a split in the Church. Villagers felt betrayed by the Assembly, believing they were trying to change their religion which led to many citizens against the revolution and the Constituent Assembly.
The constituent assembly wanted to decentralise France and give it a new system based on democratic equality and to do this meant that a restructure of the government would have to take place. By February 1790 France was now split into 83 departments which were then divided further into 547 districts and then 43,360 communes and communes collected together to form cantons, which local elected governments ruled, but these councils were controlled by bourgeois landowners. For the first time in France, many people gained the right to vote. However, to be able to become an active citizen with gave people the ability to vote, 3 days worth of wages would have to be paid in taxes per year and those people would have to be male and over 25. A total of 4.4million people fell into this category and most were members of the First Estate, Second Estate and the bourgeoisie as these were the wealthiest.
Similarly, to the new system of the local governments, the Constituent Assembly wanted to reform the legal system. On the 16th August 1790 the Constituent Assembly created the new system and a feature of this was the justice of peace now being available in cantons. This was helpful towards the population of France as people were now fairly trialled for the crimes they had committed, rather than to be arrested without a hearing and had to be put before a court within 24 hours of the arrest. Likewise, the penal code became more humane as torture was abolished and the death penalty became more efficient with the introduction of the guillotine.
The Assembly also reformed the taxation of France. They had abolished indirect taxes in 1791 like the Gabelle and the corveé and reinstated one single tax of land called the contribution fonciére which was to be paid by everyone with no exemptions. It wasn’t entirely equal though because regional variations remained, an example is in Seine-et-Marne who paid five times as much as people in Ariége. However, as it took so long for the taxes to be abolished, it brought unpopularity to the Assembly because they believed it had gone against the demands that were stated in the cahiers. This new system did benefit the sans culottes and the rural poor because taxation was no longer their burden and the system was fairer than the ancient regime.
Overall, the bourgeoisie had gained the most from the National Assemblies new administration. Their ideas of equality and justice were true on paper but in reality, most of them only benefitted the richer Third Estate members. Historians argue that the First Estate lost the most during the Constituent Assembly’s reform process. D.M.G Sutherland identifies that the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy [was] one of the great crises of the Revolution” and Jacques Solé believes the “clerical deputies had many grievances against the Church and drove the reform process for their own ends.” Therefore, the loss of the Church caused a popular revolution of the rural poor and sans culottes. They used violence to express their opinions and when the King ordered 30,000 of the army around Paris after the Tennis Court Oath, many civilians were outraged and started a citizen’s milita, which then led to the Storming of the Bastille on the 14th July 1789, which was the first attack using violence. This later led to other events like the Great Fear and the October Days. Later, the King fled Paris to Austria to try and gain his power back because he was a Prisoner of the Paris Mob; it angered many people who felt like he had attempted treason which caused King Louis XVI’s arrest and execution. Fuelled by this event, the discontent of living situations and false promises from the Legislative Assembly they took the Revolution into their own hands and started to sponsor beliefs like Robespierre’s Cult of the Supreme Being which would change the landscape of France forever.
by
toyboxes (student)
