French Revolution and Napoleon Flashcards
Ancien Regime
France prior to the French revolution
Banalities
Fees that peasants were obligated to pay landlords for the use of the village mill, bakeshop, and winepress
Bastille
The political prison and armory stormed on Jul 14, 1789, by Partisian city workers alarmed by the king’s concentration of troops as Versailles
Cahier de doleances
List of grievances that each Estate drew up in preparation for the summoning of the Estates-General in 1789
Code Napoleon
The codification and condensation of laws assuring legal equality and uniformity in France
Committee of Public Safety
The leaders under Robespierre who organized the defenses of France, conducted foreign policy, and centralized authority during the period 1792-1795
Concordat
Napoleon’s arrangement with Pope Pius VII to heal religious division if France with a united Catholic church under bishops appointed by the government
Continental System
Napoleon’s efforts to block foreign trade with England by forbidding importation of British goods into Europe
Corvees
Roadwork; an obligation of peasants to landowners
Coup d’etat
Overthrow of those in power
Declaration of Pillnitz
Austria an Prussia agreed to intervene in France to end the revolution with the unanimous agreement of the great powers
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
Document that embodied the liberal revolutionary ideals and general principles of the philosophes’ writings
Directory
The five-man executive committee that ruled France inits own interests as a republic after Robespierre’s execution
Estates General
The French national assembly summoned in 1789 to remedy the financial crisis and correct abuses of the ancien regime
Great Fear
The panic and insecurity that struck French peasants in the summer of 1789 and led to their widespread destruction of manor houses and archives
Jacobins
The dominant group in the National Convention in 1793 who replaced the Girondist. It was headed by Robespierre
Law of the maximum
The fixing of prices on bread and other essentials under Robespierre’s rule
Levee en masse
The creation under the Jacobins of a citizen army with support from young and old, heralding the emergence of modern warfare.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Consul and later emperor of France, who established several of the reforms (Code Napoleon) of the French Revolution during his dictatorial rule
Night of August 4, 1789
Date of the declaration by liberal noblemen of the National Assembly at a secret meeting to abolish the feudal regime in France
Parlement
Law court staffed by nobles that could register or refuse to register a king’s edict
Peninsular war
Napoleon’s long, drawn out war with Spain
Robespierre
Jacobin leader during the Reign of Terror
Sans culottes
A reference to Parisian workers who wore loose-fitting trousers rather than the tight-fitting breeches worn by aristocratic men
Taille
A direct tax from which most French nobles were exempt
Tennis Court Oath
Declaration mainly by members of the Third Estate not to disband until they had drafted a constitution for France
Treaty of Tilsit
Agreement between Napoleon and Czar Alexander I in which Russia became an ally of France and Napoleon took over the lands of Prussia west of the Elbe as well as the Polish Provinces
