Conflict, Crisis, and Reaction in the Late 18th Century unit test

Hundred Days and Waterloo (1815)

Causes of the French Revolution

Olympe de Gouges

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Invasion of Russia

Napoleon Bonaparte

Concordat of 1801

Reign of Terror

Active vs passive citizens

Sans-culottes

Parlements and the pre-revolution

Levée en masse

DOCUMENT-BASED QUESTION. Evaluate whether or not the French government upheld the ideals of the Revolution during the period 1789 to 1794. The seven documents, summarized: Document 1 — Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, ratified by the National Assembly, August 1789: proclaims that men are born and remain free and equal in rights; that political association exists to preserve natural rights (liberty, property, security, resistance to oppression); that persons are innocent until declared guilty; that no one shall be harassed for opinions, including religious views; and that free communication of ideas — speech, writing, printing — is among the most precious rights. Document 2 — Olympe de Gouges, political activist, Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, September 1791: she calls on women to wake up and discover their rights, charges that man, having become free, has become unjust to woman — the Revolution has brought women only "a more pronounced scorn" — and urges women to free themselves by their own energy whatever barriers confront them. Document 3 — The French Constitution of September 1791: guarantees that all citizens are admissible to offices without distinction except virtue and talent; that taxes fall equally in proportion to resources; that like crimes receive like penalties regardless of person; and guarantees freedom of movement, worship, and peaceable assembly, barring the legislature from making laws that infringe these natural and civil rights. Document 4 — Berr Isaac Berr, Jewish-French merchant, "Letter of a Citizen to His Fellow Jews," October 1791: he rejoices that the veil of humiliation is lifted and that Jews, deprived of rights for eighteen centuries, are now "not only Men and Citizens, but... Frenchmen"; he urges fellow Jews to fulfill the duties of active citizenship, appear as individuals guided by patriotism, and risk life and fortune for the country. Document 5 — Pierre Vergniaud, Girondin leader (a faction opposed to the Jacobins), speech to the legislature, March 1793: he warns that a strange system of liberty has developed — "you are free; but think with us... or we will denounce you to the vengeance of the people" — and fears that the revolution "will devour all its children" and end in despotism. Document 6 — Charlotte Corday, political activist, manifesto written before her assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, July 1793: addressing "the French, the friends of law and of peace," she denounces factious men who put ambition over the general good, says the Jacobins "triumph by crime and oppression" while civil war inflames half the state, and presents killing Marat as the prompt means of extinguishing the fire. Document 7 — Anonymous French artist, print titled "All Mortals are Equal; it is not Birth but Virtue that Makes the Difference," created in response to the abolition of slavery in the French colonies, 1794: the central female figure represents Reason, Nature stands to the left, and to the right an African man holds a copy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. In your response you should: state a historically defensible thesis; describe broader historical context; support an argument using at least four documents; use at least one additional piece of specific evidence beyond the documents; for at least two documents explain how point of view, purpose, situation, or audience is relevant; and demonstrate complex understanding.