Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to history at the Oak National Academy.

My name is Mr. Arscott, and hopefully you recognise me because this is our third lesson looking at the French Revolution.

If you remember, our inquiry is was the French Revolution enlightened? We're looking at whether the ideas from the enlightenment thinkers, these ideas like people should have religious freedom, that the state's be limited, whether these be ideas which were influential during the French Revolution, whether they shaped what happened during the French Revolution.

Now, last lesson, we looked at the events of 1789.

The year that I said was the most important year in history.

And that was a year where sort of hopeful and exciting things happened, and it looked like France was making progress to a better form of government.

Now, in today's lesson, we're going to look an event called the Reign of Terror, and we're going to find out that some of the idealism, some of the hope of the early French Revolution got in some way undermined or betrayed during this year.

So, let's find out a bit more about it whilst I am ahead of the way.

So today, we're going to learn a story which can help us answer our inquiry question that we started a couple lessons ago.

Was the French Revolution enlightened? Now, as you no doubt remember, the enlightenment was about using reason to discover new knowledge, and this new knowledge led to some new, exciting ideas about how governments should rule.

These ideas included giving everyone equal rights, and tolerating people of different religions.

And we saw those ideas having effect in the American Revolution.

As we found out in our last lesson, in 1789, these ideas were also put into practise in France.

They did that through the creation of Parliament, which is called the National Assembly, and that ended the king's absolute control of France.

So, France was no longer an absolute monarchy after 1789.

Now, today we're going to find out about how the revolution ended in huge numbers being executed.

And this, as you can see, included the king himself.

So, this picture on the right shows the execution of Louis XVI.

Now, it's worth bearing in mind from what we looked at the American Revolution, a revolution is not just one moment.

It's a process.

So, things are going to change, and from what we looked in 1789 is going to change, so we look at what happened today.

So, before we look into today's story, let's recap our story so far.

So, please read through the following sentences, and then on your piece of paper I want you to write down a to e in the margin.

One for each line.

Then next to each letter I want you to write down whether you think the sentence which is on the screen is whether they are true or false.

So, please pause the video now, whilst you do that.

Welcome back.

Let's find out if you were right.

So, well done if you put false for the first one.

So, by 1789, Louis XVI faced a crisis because France had large debts, not small debts.

So, you might want to take a note to correct that now, that France had very large debts before 1789, and that was the cause of the crisis.

For b, well done if you put true.

Representatives from the Three Estates did meet at the Estates General.

For c, well done again, if you put false.

At the Tennis Court oath, the Tennis Court , the king asked members.

The king did not ask members of the Third Estate to form a National Assembly.

The members of the Third Estate chose to do it despite of the king.

So, they forced the king's hand.

For d, again, well done if you put false.

The sans culottes did storm the Bastille, but they did not do it to protect the king, they get it to protect the new National Assembly that had been created after the Tennis Court oath.

And for e, well done if you put e.

The Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizen did abolish the unequal estates system.

And we can see a painting which records the Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizen on the right.

And this document was full of enlightenment thought, which is going to go on to affect France.

Now, that story from last week of 1789 was actually quite a positive story.

Unfortunately, today's story is a bit more of a sad one.

We're going to find out how the hopeful events of 1789 led to bloody violence and thousands of deaths.

So, on the left, we see the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen.

The document, which made all French men equal and protected their rights.

On the right of the screen we see a cartoon which gives an impression of the revolution in 1794.

So, it happened in those five years.

Now, if you look at it carefully, you're going to see there's two people, and they seem to be celebrating.

And in between those two people, there's a machine, and that machine is called a guillotine.

And during the French Revolution, this machine was used to execute people by beheading them.

And if you look really carefully at the cartoon, you might see some specks of blood.

Might see it on the blade at the top, the axe blade, and also on the wood itself.

So, then it's worth thinking, who do we think the two people are meant to be? The two people that's celebrating.

Who are they meant to be? Well, they're meant to represent the sans culottes.

The ordinary people of Paris.

So, by 1794, the revolution had become more extreme because the sans culottes had more power, and because violence had become an accepted method of pushing the revolution forwards.

Now, a useful way to describe this is to say the revolution had become more radical.

Now, the word radical is useful, is a useful one for us to know when we're exploring the French Revolution.

Now, slightly annoyingly, it can be used as both a noun and an adjective.

So, I've put both definitions on the screen now, so please, can you pause the video and copy them both down, and then un-pause it when you're done? So, let's put this word into a couple of sentences so we can see the different uses.

So, if I personally had extreme beliefs, we could say, "Mr. Arscott is a radical." And in that sentence, we're using the word as a noun.

If however, we thought that a government was changing things too quickly, we could say the government is being radical, and in that sentence we're using it as an adjective.

So, let's just see how we can use it a bit more.

So you might remember these two historians that we met last week, Davidson and Schama.

If you remember, they both disagreed on the question of was the French Revolution enlightened? So, let's see how our two historians might use the word.

So, Davidson disagreed on whether the French Revolution was enlightened, and he actually thought, and Davidson's the one on the left, he thought that the revolution was enlightened.

He thought there was enlightenment ideas in it.

So, he could say, "Yes, the enlightenment "provided the revolution with the radical ideas "they used to create a new society." So, in that sentence, he's using the word radical to describe enlightenment ideas.

He thinks those new ideas that came from the enlightenment are themselves radical.

They're extreme, they're exciting, and they could allow people to imagine a new society.

Schama, on the right, by contrast, might say, "No, the revolution was carried out by radicals "who used violence rather than enlightenment reason." So, here, he's described the sans culottes as radicals because they were willing to use violence.

So, with that background, let's find out how the revolution became more radical between 1789 and 1794.

So, how it changed to become more extreme.

During 1789, France had become a constitutional monarchy where the king shared power with the new revolutionary parliament.

But this government was unstable.

The aristocracy were concerned that the revolution was becoming too radical.

They feared they were losing power to the bourgeoisie.

So, some aristocrats starts to hope that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette might turn against the revolution.

Now, Marie Antoinette, who we can see on the right, was actually Austrian by birth, and her brother was the Austrian emperor.

So, the aristocrats hoped she would persuade her brother, the emperor of Austria to provide her with an army which could be used to reestablish Louis' absolute control, and therefore turn back the revolution.

Right, let's check that we are all paying attention.

So, Marie Antoinette, her brother was the ruler of which country? Please pause the video now and read through the options, and then un-pause it when you've made your decision.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you selected option three.

Her brother Marie Antoinette's brother was the ruler of Austria.

He was the Austrian emperor.

So, by 1791, Marie Antoinette and Louis decided the revolution was becoming too radical.

They were very unhappy about what was happening.

Many aristocrats had already left France, and they're waiting for Louis to lead an army to crush the revolution.

So, what Louis and Marie Antoinette did was something quite sneaky.

They dressed up in bourgeois clothes, and with their children, they left Paris in the middle of the night, and they hoped to get all the way to the French border, and then form an army made up of Austrian troops and French aristocrats.

However, for them, disaster struck.

On the way to the border they were spotted in a town called Varennes.

Now, this painting, the one on the left, shows the moment they were spotted.

They were quickly arrested, and they were forced to return to Paris.

And the picture on the right shows the humiliating return.

Their carriage was surrounded by French troops who are forcing them to come back to Paris.

Now, after the attempted escape, many French people lost all trust in their king and queen, and there were violent clashes between the sans culottes and other revolutionaries who supported a constitutional monarchy.

The sans culottes had become one of the most radical groups, and they thought that France should change.

In fact, the sans culottes, they wanted a new radical type of government.

A republic with no monarch.

Now, eventually, France did become a republic, but not straightaway.

And the immediate consequence of the king and queen's attempted escape was that it showed the revolutionaries were no longer united.

So, those who cared about the revolution were no longer united and didn't all agree on how the revolution should proceed.

Soon, the revolutionaries started to disagree on everything.

Let's quickly make sure we have some good notes on the story so far.

So, on the left, there are three sentence starters, and on the right, there are three sentence endings.

Unfortunately, I've jumbled up the sentence endings.

So, what I'm going to ask you to do is pause the video and work out which is the correct ending for each sentence starter.

Once you worked it out, write out the four sentences, and then un-pause the video when you're done.

Right, let's check how many you got right.

So, here we can see the correct matches.

So, well done if you managed to get them all right.

If you didn't, don't worry.

Just un-pause the video and write out the correct sentences.

If you have managed to get it right, then don't un-pause it and we'll continue.

So, once the revolutionaries were disagreeing about what to do with the king, and whether French should be a republic or not, they started having lots of arguments.

So, one example of this was the inspiring example of Olympe de Gouges.

Now, she questioned whether the revolution had lived up to its enlightenment slogan of liberty, equality, fraternity.

Now she, like the revolutionaries of 1789, really cared about enlightenment thought.

And she reasoned that according to the slogan, all the French should be equal, but she pointed out women were not given the same rights as men.

So, she published a radical document named the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen, and in that document she argued that women should be able to vote just like men.

Unfortunately, this caused a big debate and lots of other revolutionaries did not agree with her, and her ideas weren't accepted.

Now, another major disagreement was based on religion.

Now, in 1789 at the beginning of the revolution, the revolutionaries had feared the clergy, so the priests and the monks, they may not be loyal to the revolutionary changes.

So, the priests were all forced to swear an oath called the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and in this oath they promised to be loyal to France, and not loyal to the Catholic Church.

But this for many priests was a big question of religion, and so lots of them refused to swear this new oath.

Now, also in 1789, the revolution had introduced the enlightenment idea of tolerating all religions, but by 1791, some of the more radical revolutionaries believed the powerful Catholic Church was becoming an enemy of the revolution.

This was partly because some of the priests had refused to swear the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, but they also felt the church was preaching anti-revolutionary messages.

So, these radicals began to say the Catholic Church should not be tolerated, and France should be de-Christianized.

Now, de-Christianization would involve things like destroying Christian symbols, and even attempting to close churches.

Now, this seemed to completely go against the enlightenment idea of religious toleration, but some radicals thought that it was the right response to the Catholic priests refusing to agree to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.

Okay, let's briefly recap.

So, how did the revolutionaries try to make sure the clergy supported the revolution? When you think about this question I want you to think about in the early stages in 1789.

So, read through the four options and then make your choice.

Okay, well done if you selected option two.

They did make the priest swear an oath of loyalty.

Interestingly though, options one to four are all the things that did happen to the church during the revolution.

So, at the very early stages of the revolution, church lands were confiscated because it seems unfair that the church owned so much land and the peasants owned so little.

Options one and three are also things that happened in the later stages of the revolution, in the period known as the Terror.

Now, as we've said, after 1791, the revolutionaries started to disagree about the future of the revolution.

So, what could they do to deal with their disagreements? How could the revolutionaries try to deal with these disagreements? Now, before we try to answer this question, it's worth thinking about what we do today if we disagree.

So, for example, if we disagree, we might talk through our differences.

Maybe if it's a large group of people we might decide the best way to make a decision after a disagreement is to have a vote.

Let's find out what the French revolutionaries did.

Now, tragically, during the revolution, they used terror to deal with disagreements.

Now, this involved the use of violence and executions to force the French to accept the revolution.

Now, this period involved thousands of French people dying, and it became known as the Reign of Terror.

Now, it was a frightening time to be alive.

This picture shows what was the official way that an execution would be carried out.

People were beheaded in public using a guillotine.

Now, surprisingly, the use of the guillotine was meant to be enlightened.

The guillotine was believed to provide a painless, quick death.

However, the number of people killed during the reign of the terror was definitely not enlightened.

Most, almost all enlightenment thinkers would've been horrified by the number of people that were killed.

So, some deaths were carried out officially like in the picture we saw above.

Unfortunately, lots of orders were carried out unofficially.

Now, anyone who is accused of being an enemy of the revolution could be killed.

And at first, those who are accused tended to be aristocrats, or sometimes disloyal members of the clergy who refused to swear their oath of loyalty.

Now, these pictures show sans culottes breaking into the prisons in Paris and killing all aristocrats they could find.

And they killed the aristocrats because it was assumed that as aristocrats, they were working against the revolution.

So, let's add to your notes by answering this question.

Which group was most likely to be accused of being an enemy of the revolution? So, pause the video whilst you finish the sentence, and afterwards, let's check if you're right.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's check whether you're right.

So, well done if you wrote the group that was most often accused of being an enemy of the revolution was the aristocracy.

We could also call them the nobility.

Now, it'd also be correct if you'd mentioned the clergy, as well, 'cause the clergy early on, or sorry, the clergy were also often accused of being enemies of the revolution.

Now, this man Robespierre became most associated with the terror.

Interestingly, he was obsessed with the enlightenment thinker Rousseau, and he tried to use Rousseau's ideas about democracy to justify the terror.

So, under Robespierre's influence, laws were passed, which meant anyone accused of being an enemy of the revolution could be killed.

Now, after this, the terror did not just kill aristocrats, and the king and the queen.

Instead, thousands of ordinary French men and women died.

This tragically included lots of people who earlier had been in support of the revolution, but maybe have had different opinions on how the revolution should be carried on.

So, this included Olympe de Gouges, who we met earlier.

She was killed by the guillotine.

It also amazingly, included childhood friends of Robespierre who were killed by the guillotine.

And eventually, he himself was executed by guillotine.

So during the terror no one was safe.

Right, we're now in a really good position for you to have a go at answering some comprehension questions.

First, give me the normal process as for previous lessons.

I'm going to ask you to shortly, go to the next, so pause the video, go to the next page, and then read through the information.

And once done that, answer the five comprehension questions.

Beforehand, I'll just read through the questions so they are familiar.

What machine was used to execute people during the French Revolution? Two, why did aristocrats become critical of the revolution? Three, why did Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempt to leave France? Four, how did Olympe de Gouges argue that the revolution needed to change more? And finally, the challenge question, what was the Reign of Terror? How can you actually put that into a few sentences of your own? Okay, so I'm going to ask you to pause the video and then get to the next page, read through the information, then have a go at answering these questions.

Once you've done that, return to the video and we'll go through some answers.

So, please pause the video now.

Right, welcome back.

Let's go through some answers.

So, for question one, what machine was used to execute people during the French Revolution? Well, the acceptable answer is the guillotine.

A good answer would be in a full sentence, the machine that was used to execute people during the French Revolution was called the guillotine.

Now, if you didn't get that quite right, just add to your answers now.

Also, don't worry if you didn't get exactly the same wording.

Look for common language and you can still give us a tick if you've got something that seems similar.

Okay, question two.

Why did the aristocrats become critical of the revolution? So, some acceptable answers.

Things you might have said.

They disliked losing tax privileges.

They disliked losing influence, or maybe they were scared of more violence.

Now, a good answer in a full sentence.

Aristocrats became critical of the revolution because they feared they were losing power.

They lost influence of the government to the bourgeoisie, and feared sans culottes violence like the storming of the Bastille.

Question three, why did Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempt to leave France? So, acceptable answer, to get support from Marie Antoinette's brother.

A good answer, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempted to leave France to try to get support from the Austrian army.

They then hoped to crush the revolution by force, and reestablish absolute control.

Question four.

How did Olympe de Gouges argue that the French Revolution needed to change more? An acceptable answer.

To give women the vote or to give women equal rights.

A good answer in a full, meaningful set of sentences.

Olympe de Gouges argued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen did not go far enough, and it did not make all the French equal.

She said that women should be given the same political rights as men, including the right to vote.

And the challenge question is a difficult question to work out exactly how you should put it into your own words.

What was the Reign of Terror? So, an acceptable answer, a period when lots of people were executed.

A good answer, which kind of gives you a bit more understanding.

The Reign of Terror was the name given to the stage of the revolution after the death of Louis XVI.

The terror involved thousands of people being executed because they were accused of being enemies of the revolution.

The terror was a frightening time to be alive as almost anyone could be killed.

Okay, brilliant work if you managed to get those answers done.

What we're now going to move on to is our extension activity.

So, if you were running at of time and need to get on with your next lesson, then you can stop the video at this point and go on to the final quiz.

If you've still got a bit more time, it's worth having a go at this extension activity.

Now, the question is, why did the French Revolution lead to the Reign of Terror? What we're going to have a go at doing is trying to work out how a historian would write that answer.

So, how would they tell this story? These two pictures kind of summarised the whole lesson of what you're actually going to have a go at writing.

We went from 1789, where we had this optimistic and very hopeful time where the enlightenment ideas have been put into practise, and people have equal rights.

And the phrase they used was equality, liberty, fraternity.

However, by 1794, the terror had killed thousands of people, and the stereotype was that the sans culottes were violent, and bloody, and wanted to kill more people, and they were enjoying the chaos.

So, how had that happened? Well, if we think about our historical interpretations, they might give slightly different answers to this.

So, if you remember, Davidson's arguing the French Revolution was an attempt to create an enlightened state.

So, he might say that at some point during the terror, the revolution was betrayed, and that from that point onwards, the enlightenment stopped having its effect.

Now, Simon Schama, by contrast, he might say that the revolution always had this popular violence as part of it.

He would say that the mob played a really important role in storming the Bastille, and the march of the women in Versailles in 1789.

So, they might give slightly different accounts, just depending on whether they want to emphasise enlightenment ideas, or the role of the mob.

Now, I think there's three sensible ways we could answer this question.

So, if we think in terms of trying to work out why did the French Revolution lead to the Reign of Terror, we might think that the terror was a consequence of disagreements over enlightenment ideas.

So, the revolutionaries couldn't agree on how they should put it into practise.

Some people might think two is correct, though.

That it was mob violence which caused the Reign of Terror.

Mob violence had already been a feature in 1789, and by the 1790s, 1793, 1794, this mob violence had been accepted by the leading revolutionaries and they allowed it to take over the entire revolution.

However, other people might say, actually, the reason why the Reign of Terror came out with the French Revolution, was a combination of both enlightenment ideas and the role of the mob.

Now, I want you to have a go at trying to write an answer to this question, which adopt the style of one of these three approaches.

So, it doesn't necessarily need to be your own opinion, but I want you to try to write in the style telling the story which emphasises one of these three things.

So, either the disagreements over enlightened ideas, or the role of the mob, or a mixture of both.

Now, let's see what I actually mean in practise before you have a go at doing it.

So here, I've written out a sample story trying to explain why the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror.

Now, I want you to have a read through it, and then went to think about how does this show the importance of mob violence? So, the violence from the sans culottes.

So, pause the video for one or two minutes as you read through it and think about why this story is, or how this story is emphasising the role of the mob.

So, please pause the video whilst you read it now.

Right, let's have a look at some of the things that I did.

So remember, when I was writing this down I was trying to emphasise the role of the mob.

So, the bits in red show passages where I've drawn attention to the mob, or maybe even chosen to use quite colourful language to describe the mob.

So, on the third line down, I described a murderous bloodbath.

So, I'm trying to paint the Reign of Terror as this terrible time.

So, have another look now with these red bits highlighted so you can see how I use language in order to tell a particular story focusing on the road of mob violence.

Okay.

Now, what do I want you to have a go at doing? So, I want you to choose one of these three approaches.

Either talk about disagreements over enlightenment ideas, or talking about the role of the mob, or a combination of both, and I want you to have a go at trying to write your own answers to this question.

Why did the revolution lead to the Reign of Terror? And I you to tell it as a story in the way that I just did in that paragraph.

So, your aim is to write a paragraph where you tell that story, and I put the first sentence of those paragraphs on the left-hand side, so one, two or three.

So, choose which one you're going to go for, write that sentence out, and then have a go at telling that story explaining why the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror.

There are some key words, on the right that you might want to include, but you don't necessarily have to.

Okay, so pause the video now.

Have a go at doing that, and once you've done it, you can stop the video and then go to the final quiz.

Okay, well done for your really hard work on today's lesson.

Really exciting to find out about the Reign of Terror and how some of the hopes and the ideals of the French Rradition maybe got betrayed, and how the French Revolution became more violent during this period known as the Terror.

Now, there's one final thing for you to do before you end the lesson, and that's to have a go at the end of lesson quiz.

So, please stop the video now and do that, and then well done for today's work.