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Was The French Revolution A Success Or Failure Essay

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18th century France was in turmoil. Weak monarchs, poor harvest, and a crippling debt plagued the middle and lower class. Robespierre and other revolutionaries fought for rights of the individual and creating a more equal and just society. However, bloodshed and violence soon corrupted these men and caused them to execute and imprison those who used the individual rights that the revolution fought for. The French Revolution of 1789 failed because of three reasons, The Reign of Terror under Robespierre failed to establish order set forth in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, Napoleon limited individual rights in Napoleonic Code and France reverted back to system and ideas that were fought against in the revolution twenty years later. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, drafted and approved by the National Assembly in 1789, captured the idea that all men are endowed …show more content…

What they neglect is that in 1814, Napoleon was defeated and the monarchy was reestablished, the very idea that French had tried abolished during the Revolution. The French people welcomed a strong leader with absolute power during the disorder after Napoleon’s defeat. The balance of power shifted back to the monarch after so many lives had been sacrificed in hope that men would all be equal. In The Constitution of 1814, the king gained the ability to propose laws, absolute power and was the judge in cases of execution as shown in Document F. The idea that after bloody conflict and revolution for the rights of the people to be followed by the seizing of absolute power by a tyrant then a monarch only furthers the point that Revolution’s failure to establish the goals that it had set out to accomplish. It would not be until two more revolutions that France would finally become a republic in which men would be treated as equals and individual rights would be

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