The French Historiography Thread!

[mchouse911]

Declaration of National Assembly 17 June 1789

McPhee
•   “Louis’ acquiescence in the nobility’s demand for voting to be in three separate orders galvanized the outrage of the bourgeois deputies.”

Doyle
•   “What turned them from reformers to radicals was not the experience of the old regime but… that of the months of May, June and July 1789.”
•   “It was the founding act of the French Revolution. If the nation was sovereign, the king no longer was.”

Schama
•   “It was in the church, that the separation between rich and poor was most bitterly articulated.”

[mchouse911]

Tennis Court Oath 20 June 1789

Schama
•   “Wherever they gathered, was to be the National Assembly.”
•   “The Estate-General meets in a nearby royal tennis court and affirmed their right to represent the country. They adopted the Roman posture of having the right arm outstretched as they swore an oath "to God and the Patrie never to be separated until we have formed a solid and equitable Constitution as our constituents have asked us to.”

Doyle
•   “It was one more assertion that they were subject to no other power in France.”

[mchouse911]

Royal Session 23 June 1789

Doyle
•   “The King had thrown away his authority almost as soon as he had tried to reassert it.”

Furet
•   “From then on, the resistance of the privileged was broken down by successive defections.”

Sutherland
•   “The royal program was nonetheless important because it represented the transformation of absolute to constitutional monarchy.”
•   “The King offered nothing which would flaunt the desires of the privileged.”

Fenwick & Anderson
•   “The decision marked the beginnings of the real revolution and it was largely as a result of the indecision of Louis XVI”

[mchouse911]

Fall of Bastille 14 July 1789

Schama
•   “The Bastille was more important in its afterlife. It gave shape and an image to all the vices against which the Revolution defined itself” 
•   Witnesses, participants were bringers of light into the citadel of darkness
•   Violence was at the heart of the Revolution from the first and journalists encouraged it with their horrific prose.
•   “Substantial enough to perform its twin duties of facing down any further attempt at military repression, and if necessary, punishing unlawful violence.”
•   “It gave a shape and image to all the vices against which the Revolution define itself. Transfigured from a nearly empty, thinly manned anachronism into the seat of the Beast Despotism, it incorporated all those rejoicing at its capture as the members of the new community of the nation.”

McPhee
•   The Parisian crowd saw itself as having saved the Revolution and protected the NA, saved and legitimized the shift in power to the National Assembly
•   Control of Paris by bourgeois members of the 3rd estate matched by bourgeois civil militia commanded by Lafayette
•   Louis accepted what was happening by withdrawal of troops and recalling Necker
•   Killing of de Launay and 6 of his troops - was it retribution, understandable act of vengeance or a regrettable moment of violence or inexcusable act of barbarity?

Rude
•   “Revolutionary temper was given leadership”

Furet
•   [The military concentration in Paris helped] unite the fears of both the Parisian mob and the deputies of Versailles.”

Doyle
•   Louis could no longer enforce his will. It was the end of his royal authority and he had to accept the National Assembly, claiming sovereignty in the name of the nation and a mission to give France a constitution.
•   “The people of Paris [were] convinced that they alone had saved the National Assembly”  “The climax of the popular movement.” People of Paris saw themselves as guardians of liberty.

[mchouse911]

The Great Fear 20 July - 6 August 1789

Schama
•   “Politics of paranoia that would eventually engulf the whole revolution.”
•   “The real significance of the Great Fear was the vacuum of authority it exposed at the heart of the French government. Although it created by default, a France of a myriad of communes, this armed decentralization was not as all what most people wanted.”
•   “The effect of this prolonged state of anxiety was to create the politics of paranoia that would eventually engulf the entire Revolution.”
•   “No longer should it be implied that the realm [France] was a kind of property.”

McPhee
•   “Like the menu peuple of Paris, peasants adopted the language of bourgeois revolt to their own ends.”

Doyle
•   “Hunger, hope and fear were the main ingredients of the rural crisis of 1789.”

Lefebvre
•   “Allowed the peasants to realise their strength.”

[Menang]

Hey mchouse911.

This is some great material (aside from the repeated stuff )
But you might want to think about making one very long post, or maybe putting it on a word document and uploading it in the notes section, or even as an attachment in a post.

The multiple postings in a row is slightly spammy.

[mchouse911]

Yeah i considered word documenting it. I'll do it some time during the holidays along with the AOS 2 quotes.