French Revolution

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A merry band of typing history scholars filled the French Revolution review document with information today after school in S109.  This major event has so many well-documented events, names, and developments associated with it that even more could be added.  The eager learners also put the events in order for the last four columns!  Despite what some have heard, historians don't usually blame a random, twenty-first century American teenager for the twenty-six years of revolution and war.  They do, however, often divide the Revolution into three phases followed by the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Revolutionary calendar, topped with Liberty

One important theme that did not emerge in today's discussion was the types of social and political change pursued in the radical revolution.  Radical means more than violent.  There was violence in all of the phases of the revolution, although the Reign of Terror was a key aspect of the radical phase.  The radicals also attempted to fundamentally alter French society with De-Christianization, republican government, price controls, and total war against Austria and Prussia. Under Robespierre the National Convention ended slavery in the French colonies.  The earlier moderate revolution had instituted liberal changes to France.  The National Assembly ended noble privileges, restrained the King and the church, protected property rights and individual rights, and enfranchised propertied men.  Free-response questions on the French Revolution and Napoleonic period often ask students to analyze revolutionary action or participation in specific ways.  For instance, in 2012 many students wrote on this question:

Analyze various ways in which government policies during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era contributed to a greater sense of French national identity in the period 1789 to 1815.

Answering this question well requires students to apply examples that relate to the emerging notion of national identity.  Which examples could be used to answer this question?  How would you analyze them?