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France in Revolution c.1774-1815

  • 14 subtopics
  • 42 things to know
  • AS Unit 2 and A2 Unit 4
  • Units 2 and 4, one depth study of eight, taken in two halves

What France in Revolution c.1774-1815 covers

France in Revolution c.1774-1815 is examined in Units 2 and 4, the depth study — one of eight options, taken in two halves across the course. It covers the three estates: privilege and burden under the Ancien Régime, government, finance and the ideas of the philosophes, Turgot, Necker and Calonne: the failure of reform, the Assembly of Notables, the cahiers and the Estates General, 1789: the National Assembly, the Bastille and the Great Fear, the October Days and the reforms of the National Assembly, the Church, refractory priests and the Constitution of 1791, Varennes, the Legislative Assembly and the coming of war, the fall of the monarchy and the September Massacres, the Convention, the execution of Louis and the Vendée, the Terror: government, Robespierre and the factions, Thermidor, the Directory and the rise of Bonaparte, Napoleon's reforms as Consul and Emperor and war, the Continental System and the fall of Napoleon.

Where it is assessed

AS Unit 2 and A2 Unit 4

The depth study, one option of eight, taken in two halves across the course.

Check the WJEC specification ↗

The 14 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Name three seigneurial dues owed by peasants to their lord.

Key term

How did the harvests of 1788 make the political crisis worse?

Key term

What were the parlements?

Key term

Who made up the Assembly of Notables that met in 1787?

Numbers

Where and when did the Estates General open, and how did its ceremonial offend the Third Estate?

Key term

How did the King respond at the royal session that followed?

Key term

How was the abolition of feudalism qualified when it was put into law?

Key term

How did the Assembly's economic legislation reflect the interests of its members?

Who and when

Who were the Montagnards?

Key term

How did Dumouriez's treason in 1793 affect politics in Paris?

Key term

What was the Law of Prairial, and what did it change?

Key term

Name three terms of the Concordat.

Key term

How did Napoleon control opinion?

Key term

Name two of the Six Edicts by which Turgot tried to reform France.

Key term

Why did the Assembly believe it could reorganise the Church without consulting Rome?

Numbers

What was the Flight to Varennes?

Key term

How did the war go for France in the first months of 1792?

Key term

Name three measures of the Thermidorian reaction.

Key term

Explain the corps system.

Key term

What is meant by describing the French monarchy as absolute?

Numbers

What was the Compte rendu au roi, and why was it misleading?

Numbers

What is the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?

Key term

What was the clerical oath of 1790?

Key term

Why did the Declaration of Pillnitz have an effect its authors did not intend?

Key term

Who were the sans-culottes?

Numbers

What was the Committee of Public Safety?

Numbers

What was the consequence of abolishing the Maximum?

Numbers

Which battle is regarded as Napoleon's masterpiece, and when was it fought?

Numbers

What was meant by the Ancien Régime?

Key term

What was the right of remonstrance?

Key term

Roughly how much of royal revenue was being consumed by debt service by the late 1780s?

Key term

What was Brienne's difficulty when he took over the reform programme?

Key term

What deadlock paralysed the Estates General in its first weeks?

Key term

Name three rights guaranteed by the Declaration.

Key term

How did the French clergy divide over the oath?

Key term

Describe the political groupings in the Legislative Assembly.

Key term

What did the sans-culottes want?

Who and when

Who were the Girondins?

Numbers

What was the Revolutionary Tribunal?

Key term

What was the White Terror?

Key term

What were the Organic Articles?

Key term

Why did the Continental System fail?

Take France in Revolution c.1774-1815 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Active citizen vs Passive citizen

    Active citizen: a man over twenty-five paying direct taxes worth at least three days' labour, who alone could vote in the elections. Passive citizen: A man who held the rights set out in the Declaration but paid too little tax to vote at all.

  • Constitutional clergy vs Refractory clergy

    Constitutional clergy: priests who swore the oath demanded in 1790 and kept their official positions in the Church. Refractory clergy: Priests who refused the oath demanded in 1790, lost their official positions, and often went on ministering in secret.

  • The Great Fear vs The Terror

    The Great Fear: the panic that swept the French countryside in the summer of 1789, when peasants armed themselves, attacked châteaux and burned the records of their dues. The Terror: The emergency government of 1793 and 1794, with its revolutionary tribunal, its Law of Suspects and mass executions.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was meant by the Ancien Régime?

    Model answer

    The system of government and society in France before 1789, resting on absolute monarchy, a privileged nobility and clergy, and a Church closely bound to the state.

  2. 2

    Name the three estates into which French society was legally divided.

    Model answer

    The clergy, the nobility, and everyone else, who together made up the Third Estate.

  3. 3

    Roughly what proportion of the French population belonged to the Third Estate?

    Model answer

    Well over ninety-five per cent, since the clergy and nobility together numbered only a few hundred thousand out of some twenty-eight million people.

  4. 4

    Give three privileges enjoyed by the First Estate.

    Model answer

    Exemption from the main direct taxes, the right to collect the tithe, and its own courts and assembly.

  5. 5

    What was the don gratuit?

    Model answer

    The voluntary grant the assembly of the clergy voted to the Crown in place of taxation, fixed by the clergy themselves.

  6. 6

    Explain the difference between the higher and the lower clergy.

    Model answer

    Bishops and abbots were almost all noble, wealthy and often absent, while parish priests were commonly of humble birth and poorly paid, which is why many of them sided with the Third Estate.

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France in Revolution c.1774-1815 revision questions

What does France in Revolution c.1774-1815 cover in WJEC A-Level History?
14 subtopics: the three estates: privilege and burden under the ancien régime, government, finance and the ideas of the philosophes, turgot, necker and calonne: the failure of reform, the assembly of notables, the cahiers and the estates general, 1789: the national assembly, the bastille and the great fear, the october days and the reforms of the national assembly, the church, refractory priests and the constitution of 1791, varennes, the legislative assembly and the coming of war, the fall of the monarchy and the september massacres, the convention, the execution of louis and the vendée, the terror: government, robespierre and the factions, thermidor, the directory and the rise of bonaparte, napoleon's reforms as consul and emperor and war, the continental system and the fall of napoleon. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is France in Revolution c.1774-1815 organised?
By the WJEC 601-5817-7 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

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