The Republican Stage or First Republic It comprises from September 21, 1792 to November 9, 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte staged the coup of the 18th Brumaire and established the Consulate for his benefit. The government of the consulate, with Napoleon as the absolute owner of France, was, properly speaking, a transition stage between the republican stage and the empire, which lasted until 1804.
The convention (1792-1795)
After Valmy's victory, the legislative assembly was dissolved and another called the National Convention was formed. . This assembly, which remained constituted for only three years, had to face an extremely difficult situation that arose precisely as a result of the bloody civil struggle that shook France and, above all, because of the wars that the revolutionary government had to fight with foreign powers. However, the convention was triumphant and thus managed to save France and the Republic.
The main acts of the Convention were:
- Decreed the abolition of the monarchy and proclaimed the establishment of the republican era (September 21, 1792).
- I sanction universal suffrage, by granting the right to vote to every citizen over 21 years of age.
- Louis XVI tried and sentenced to death, accused of conspiring against the revolution in complicity with foreign powers. On January 21, 1792, Louis XVI was executed.
Execution of Louis XVI
The first radical measure adopted by the convention was to define the fate of the king. Indeed, on January 20, 1793, and after a process that lasted only five weeks, Louis XVI, simply called the “citizen Louis Capet ”, was found guilty of conspiracy against the freedom of the nation and of attack against the security of the state; he being, by virtue of it, sentenced to death. The scant majority of one vote was what decided the fate of the sovereign:361 votes against 360. The vote of the Duke of Orleans, cousin of Louis XVI, was decisive.
The age of terror
The revolutionary government
The execution of Louis XVI, which greatly shocked Europe, further accentuated the crisis that Revolutionary France was going through. Well, not only did it originate the uprising of 100,000 peasants from the Vendée region, fervent Catholics and convinced monarchists, but, as we said before, it had to face the First Coalition, an alliance, which skillfully led by England, was made up of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Italy, Holland and Spain.
On the other hand, from the internal point of view, the outbreak of the bloody civil war that convulsed the country contributed to aggravate this situation, that is, the internal struggles that arose between the political parties themselves, preferably between Girondins and Montagnards (Jacobins), that stained the territory of France with blood, putting, in turn, the stability of the Republic in serious danger.
So, given the seriousness of the circumstances and in order to put an end to this time of true anarchy, the Convention he was faced with the urgent need to adopt radical measures. A revolutionary government was formed that established a bloody era also known as the era of terror in France under the government of Maximiliano Robespierre, made torrents of blood flow from the guilty and innocent, by sending many people to the guillotine, including their own co-religionists such as Danton; but it was Robespierre himself who also succumbed to the forces of the Convention itself.
The Revolutionary Government was formed by the following courts:
The Public Salvation Committee
He was in charge of the internal and external defense of France. He gave orders to generals and ministers. Of its twelve members, the following stood out:Robespierre and Dantón , as well as Carnot, creator of the revolutionary army .
The public salvation committee was the one that had in its hands the direction of the Revolutionary Government.
The general security committee
Its main mission was to monitor the behavior of the inhabitants and look for suspects, in compliance with the so-called law of suspects . This law declared guilty of high treason against the country those who, having done nothing against freedom, would have done nothing for it; many convicts marched to the guillotine.
The Revolutionary Tribunal
He was charged with judging and sentencing the accused. Their decisions will be unappealable, after a quick trial.
Government of Terror
We distinguish the following moments during the government of terror in France:
Fall of the Girondins
The rivalry between Girondins and Montagnards ended on June 2, 1793, when 80,000 supporters of the latter, led by the Paris Commune, surrounded the Convention and demanded the removal and arrest of 29 leading Girondist deputies. Although at first the Assembly tried to resist, it had to give in to strong popular pressure. Then their main leader Vergeniaud was arrested. and 28 of his colleagues, who shortly after, were guillotined. The mountaineers were henceforth masters of the Assembly and the fate of France.
Preponderance of Highlanders or Jacobins
With the fall of the Girondins, France was left at the mercy of the tyranny and fury of the Jacobins, who relentlessly persecuted their political rivals and many other innocent citizens. After the so-called law of suspects comes into force , which considered traitors to the country all those who, having done nothing against freedom, would have done nothing for it They made mass arrests. Daily batches of condemned men marched to the guillotine. The cities most affected by these waves of murders were Paris and Bordeaux; In the first alone, 2,596 people were executed and 12,000 people succumbed throughout France, including Queen Marie Antoinette, the Duke of Orleans (Louis XVI's cousin), the wise Lavoisier, Madame Roland, Baylly, Vergeniaud and others. . In the revolted regions there were mass executions. Abominable cruelties were committed by Representative Carrier at Nantes; he had thousands of prisoners drowned without trial in the Loire. The number of corpses washed away by the tide in Nantes was such that the river water had been poisoned and the municipality prohibited the consumption of fish. However, not only the Girondins were victims of the terror, but also the Jacobins themselves, who had to experience the loss of one of its main leaders, the bloodthirsty Marat, who was murdered in his own home by the young Girondin Carlote. Corday. Marat through his newspaper The Friend of the People , had carried out an otherwise insidious propaganda, promoting hatred, revenge and executions without contemplation, this behavior created an atmosphere of animosity and condemnation not only among the Girondin element, but also in a large part of the town.
robespierre dictatorship
Dissipated the internal and external dangers that threatened France, and saved the revolution thanks to the relentless action of the government of terror as well as the victories achieved by the revolutionary armies that were in full offensive in foreign territories, then a nucleus of mountaineers called moderate or indulgent , led by Dantón and Demoulins, called for the creation of a clemency committee , arguing that terror no longer had a reason to exist and that the rule of law and justice should be restored . In front of them rose another mountain group, that of the rabid , who called for new terrorist measures and more guillotines. The rabid ones, whose leader was Hebert, were atheists; they wanted to de-Catholize France and implant the cult of freedom, holy equality and reason. They asked that the bell towers of the churches be demolished, because of their dominance over the other buildings they went against the principles of equality . They got it to come into force in a new calendar called revolutionary calendar .
Shortly afterwards Robespierre, in alliance with the indulgent, arrested and guillotined the rabid ones, accusing them of intending to insurrection the people of Paris against the Convention. Eager to become the strong man of France, he even ordered the arrest and execution of the indulgent or moderate, among whom were Danton and other of his colleagues. Until July 1794 and for five months, Robespierre established a dictatorship in which terror intensified and executions were numerous.
Fall of Robespierre
Robespierre's dictatorship came to an end on July 27, 1794, when a clash of his enemies in the Convention, shouting Down with the tyrant!, led to his arrest. The next day on July 28, 1794, Robespierre and 21 of his supporters were sent to the guillotine. Finally, France came out of the bloody age of terror.
The Directory (1795 – 1799)
Before closing successions, the National Convention promulgated the constitution of the year III. This constitution established a new republican government, of moderate tendency. The Directory was organized by the following powers:
Executive Power , in charge of a board of directors composed of five members called directors.
Legislative Power , formed by two councils:the council of the five hundred (kind of deputies) and the council of the elders (kind of senators).
The Government of the Directory after the disappearance of terror and dictatorship, had to face foreign armies and frequent conspiracies as well as an acute fiscal crisis.
General Napoleon Bonaparte, who achieved victories over the Austrians and the English, was the one who would later seize the government of France through a coup d'état (coup d'état of the 18 brumaire, November 9, 1799), to later establish the Consulate, government of transition to Empire.
The Consulate (1799 – 1804)
Napoleon Bonaparte, with the support of the people and the army, as well as some members of the government, staged a coup on November 9, 1799 (18 Brumaire coup ) and seized the government. Then he abolished the Directory and established the consulate.
A commission of three consuls, made up of Bonaparte, Sieyes and Roger Ducós, was commissioned to reform the constitution. The new Constitution, Constitution of the Year III, established the regime of the Consulate under a republican appearance, although it was a truly monarchical regime.
The Consulate consisted of two powers:
The Executive Branch
Formed by three consuls, the main figure being the first Consul (Napoleon) since all power was in his hands, his colleagues were nothing more than simple advisers.
The Legislative Power
It consisted of a Council of State, which proposed the laws; the Tribunate, which discussed, and the Legislative Body, made up of 300 members, or deputies, who accepted or rejected the proposed laws without discussion, and the Senate, which watched over the observance of the constitution.