The French Revolution: A Document Collection [1 ed.] 0669417807, 9780669417807

Citation preview

Revolution Laura Masor^ Tracey Rizzo

A Document Collection

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A Document Collection Laura Mason University of Georgia

Tracey Rizzo University of North Carolina at Asheville

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Editor in Chief: Jean L. Woy Assistant Editor: Leah Strauss Senior Project Editor: Christina M. Horn Associate Production/Design Coordinator: Jodi O’Rourke Manufacturing Coordinator: Andrea Wagner Senior Marketing Manager: Sandra McGuire Cover Image: Lesur (Les Freres), Le cri frangais. Art Resource, NY. Cover Design: Minko T. Dimov, Minkolmages.

Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. With the exception of nonprofit transcription in Braille, Houghton Mifflin is not authorized to grant permission for further uses of copyrighted selections reprinted in this text without the permission of their owners. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as iden¬ tified herein. Address requests for permission to make copies of Houghton Mifflin mater¬ ial to College Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 222 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA 02116-3764. Printed in the U.S.A. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-72059 ISBN: 0-669-41780-7

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About the Authors

Laura Mason

Associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, Laura Mason holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. A specialist in the French Revolution and cultural history, she is the author of Singing the French Revolution: Popular

Culture and Politics, 1787-1799, as well as articles in French cultural history and in history and film. Tracey Rizzo

Tracey Rizzo is assistant professor of history and interim director of women’s studies at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, where she specialized in eighteenth-century France and European women’s history. She has written and spoken widely on women in the French Revolution and Old Regime France and Haiti and is cur¬ rently revising her manuscript on pre-Revolutionary court cases for publication.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/frenchrevolutionOOmaso

Contents

Preface

xv

Chronology

xvii

Introduction

i

PART ONE

From Old Regime to Revolution (1610-1789) 7

chapter 1:

The Pre-Revolution

16

1. Charles Loyseau, A Treatise on Orders (1610) 2. The Parlement of Paris

A.

16

24

Lit de Justice to Register the Edict of November 1770 (December 7, 1770)

24

B. Parlementary Remonstrance Against the Edict Suppressing Guilds and Communities of Arts and Trades (March 2-4, 1776)

27

3. Jacques Necker, Preface to the King's Accounts (1781)

29

4. Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, “In What Manner the Laws of Civil Slavery Relate to the Nature of the Climate,” The Spirit of Laws (WAS) 32 5. Isabelle de Charriere, The Nobleman (1763)

36

6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)

38

7. Nicolas Toussaint le Moyne des Essarts, “The Noailles Affair (1786) 42 8. Louis Sebastien Mercier, Paris Scenes (1782-1788)

chapter 2:

46

From Estates General to National Assembly

9. Letter from the King for the Convocation of the Estates General at Versailles (January 24, 1789)

49

10. Abbe Sieyes, What Is the Third Estate? (January 1789) 11. Cahiers de Doleances 54 A. Cahier of the Parish of St.

51

Germain d’Airan, Written This First Day of

March 1789, According to the Kings Wishes

55

' B. List of Grievances for the Town of Vire (February 26, 1789)

12. The Declaration of the National Assembly (June 17, 1789) • •

VII

56

58

49

•«•

Contents

VIII

13. The Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789)

60

14. Louis XVI at the Royal Session of the Estates General (June 23, 1789) 15. Abbe Sieyes, Speech After the Royal Session (June 23, 1789)

chapter 3:

61

65

The Emergence of Popular Revolution

67

16. Rural Unrest 67 A. Letter from the Commissioners of the Estates of Dauphine to the Committee of Twelve (July 31, 1789)

67

B. Letter from La Breaudiere of Segondigny (Poitou) to the Committee of Twelve (July 24, 1789)

69

17. M. the Due d’Aiguillon, “Motion Concerning Individual Privileges and Feudal and Seigneurial Rights” (August 4, 1789) 73 18. The Debate over the King’s Veto 75 A. Abbe Henri Gregoire, “Opinion ... on the Royal Veto,” at the Session of the National Assembly (September 4, 1789)

B. Jean-Joseph

76

Mounier, Speech on the Royal Sanction (September 5, 1789)

79

19. Women’s March to Versailles 83 A. The Woman Cheret, The Event of Paris and Versailles, by One of the Ladies Who Had the Honor to Be in the Deputation to the General Assembly (1789)

B.

84

Testimony of Master Jean-Louis Brousse des Faucherets (1790)

86

PART TWO

From Liberal to Republican Revolution (1789-1792) 89

chapter 4:

Legislating an Enlightened Regime

98

20. National Assembly, Debate on Religious Freedom (August 23, 1789) 98 21. “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” (August 26, 1789)

101

22. Petition by the Jews Settled in France to the National Assembly Concerning the Postponement of December 24, 1789 (January 28, 1790) 105 23. The National Assembly Decrees the Enfranchisement of Free Men of Color (May 15, 1791) 108 24. Olympe de Gouges, “Declaration of the Rights of Woman” (September 14, 1791) 109 25. Maximilien Robespierre, “On the Abolition of the Death Penalty” (May 30, 1791) 114

ix

Contents

26. Discussion of the Le Chapelier Law (June 13, 1791)

117

27. “Insurrection of the Blacks in Our Colonies,” Paris Revolutions (October 29 to November 5, 1791) 120 28. Pierre Fran