The French Revolution: From an Absolute Monarchy to an Empire
by People have always striven to become more powerful and more acknowledged. It is in their nature after all to want to be seen and heard. In the late 18th century, the Third Estate of France, the middle-class and peasants, felt as if they were being cheated out of their money by their king, Louis XIV.
After the National Assembly was created, the Legislative Assembly was created to give more power to the people and then afterwards, the National Convention was created to give full power to the people. First, the National Convention was created in order to stop the riots that began to occur after Louis XIV had tried to flee from Paris. Also since Louis had become a figurehead of hate for all of France, the Legislative Assembly could take this to their advantage to give the people more power within the state. Once again, the Legislative Assembly had to give up their own power to give the people more rights, but in turn they were giving themselves more liberties for the future. Unfortunately, after the National Convention was created, they created the Committee of Public Safety. The Committee was just supposed to keep the threats against France low, but instead they began to kill everybody they believed to be a traitor to the country. The people had lost their right to life and they were about to lose even more than that with the Directory and afterwards Napoleon.
When the Directory and then Napoleon came about, the republic of France diminished in the presence of adamant and unchecked power. First, the Directory was a very corrupt government and took advantage of its power for five years. Unfortunately after this point, the people could not turn back and reclaim their power. For instance, women lost their freedom of speech under the Directory. Women of that time tried to make themselves equal to men, but couldn’t and ended up being executed by the guillotine. This propels the image that France had started taking away power from the people. Also, once Napoleon took over, he also took rights away from the people. He took away the rights of citizenship from women and he took away the ability for men to rule at the head of the government because he himself was the sole ruler of France. The rights and powers France’s Third Estate had fought so hard for were taken away from them in a blink of the eye. The power that the Third Estate had wanted at the beginning of the Revolution had been crushed. Finally, after Napoleon’s abdication, the Concert of Europe gave France’s throne back to the heirs of Louis, which was Louis XVIII. Once again, France was an Absolute Monarchy and the people of France had no say in it. The Third Estate had lost all of their power over the government once again. Power and influence that the Third Estate had fought so hard for was all taken away from them.
In the end, because the people had no power, the French Revolution had failed to create a government with equality. After all, the Third Estate had no right to try to gain power for themselves in the first place. They did not deserve the power that was to be given to kings, so in the end it had to be taken from them. The power of kings is inherited and cannot be taken so easily by a large group of middle class men and peasants.
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