Hist 250 The Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon Spring 2025                 

lofo


Jan 29—Introduction: Discontent, Optimism, Family, and Revolution

 

Unit 1: Europe in the century before the Revolution

 

Jan 31--Kings and Battles, From the Thirty Years War to the Seven Years War

Reading:
Watch this cool history graphic about the Habsburg Empire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tlWHDYKej0

and read this brief info sheet on the Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire which I use for History 143

Also, read two sections from the Wikipedia entry on the Glorious Revolution:  The Intro only.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution
AND watch this nine-minute mini-lecture on the broader origins of the French Revolution (one of the first remote films I made for classes at the beginning of the pandemic)--an outline of origins of the revolution. Sorry, it is a big file and will take a few minutes to load.

A Bit About the Origins of the French Revolution
(I may have to email this one to you. Remind me, please.


Feb 3—Absolutism--Two Models: France and England

<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The Era of the French Revolution and Napol</font> From Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (a great internet site on the Revolution) read:

https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/monarchy-embattled

Feb 5—More on Europe and the World: Peasants, Kings, and War

Read Wikipedia on The Seven Years War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years'_War
And read the Wikipedia article on George III of the UK--just the "Intro"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III

Feb 7—Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Society and Culture
For this reading, I will send a pdf to you via email.


Feb 10—The Enlightenment

From Montesquieu, On the Spirit of the Laws, 1748
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/montesquieu-spirit.asp

From Condorcet, The Future Progress of the Human Mind:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/condorcet-progress.asp

Short bio of Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot:
https://oll.libertyfund.org/person/anne-robert-jacques-turgot

From Italian Enlightenment thinker, Cesare Beccaria On Crime and Punishment, 1764:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/18beccaria.asp

Also read Baron, Folter Artzt (Torture Doctor)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/014107680710000609

Feb 12—Rousseau and Adam Smith: A Contrast
Read:
from The Social Contract, excerpts, only to and not including Chapter III: Slavery
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/rousseau-contract2.asp
and this short essay on Rousseau and his comments on man being born free.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/11/rousseau-man-born-free-social-contract
This is a good blog entry on Rousseau's ideas about motherhood and nursing infants:
https://www.invitinghistory.com/2014/06/wet-nurses-and-breastfeeding-in-17th.html
And on Adam Smith
https://worldhistoryjournal.com/2024/10/07/adam-smith-the-father-of-modern-economics-and-his-enduring-legacy/

Feb 14--The American Revolution: Liberty and War
Four Documents on Lockean thought:
See this handout from the Bill of Rights Foundation, a study comparing Locke's Second Treatise (1687) and the Declaration of Independence:
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/handout-g-comparing-the-second-treatise-of-civil-government-to-the-declaration-of-independence

Virginia Declaration of Rights: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/virginia-declaration-of-rights (read all of it if you like, but you only have to read the first three sections. Please read carefully.

Rights of Man of the Citizen:
https://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/declaration_of_the_rights_of_man_1789.pdf

Read Lynn Miller's short essay on the relationship between George Washington and Lafayette
http://francerevisited.com/2009/08/my-dear-general-the-relationship-between-lafayette-and-washington/




Feb 17--Writing instructions

Feb 19—France on the Eve of the Revolution
Begin to look over this chronology of the French Revolution which I made for Hist 143: 
Hist 143 Overview of the French Revolution

The Memoirs of Elizabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun
https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/lebrun/memoirs/memoirs.html#I
Please read from the beginning through Chapter 3)

And a letter from Marie Antoinette:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1773marieantonette.html

Feb 21--Orleans Family Values

And this piece I wrote some years ago for presentation at a conference:
about the Duke of Orleans, who changed his name to Philippe Egalité (Philip Equality)

and look carefully at the first part of this chronology I made for Hist 143. Study the chronology through 1790




Unit 2—The French Revolution, From Outbreak to Napoleon

Feb 24—Estates General, Bastille, and the Work of the Early Revolution: From Locke to Rousseau
From the Liberty, Equality, Fraternity website:
https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/monarchy-falls


Feb 26—From Constitutional Monarchy to a Nation at War

Read the preface and chapter one of Lynn Hunt's great 2013 book, The Family Romance of the French Revolution:

https://books.google.com/books?id=TQAiA-46BnsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=family+romance+french+lynn&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwmOOt-7jyAhVQG80KHV1hA5sQ6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=family%20romance%20french%20lynn&f=false

And on the The levée en masse:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1793levee.asp


Feb 28—The Terror: One Big Happy Family

About the Guillotine
ppt without sound. Give it a moment to load.
Robespierre on state terror:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/robespierre-terror.asp

Documentary Project is due at 11:59pm via Turnitin.com on Feb 28.


Mar 3—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: the Culture War of the Revolution

Anglo-Irish thinker Edmund Burke on Marie Antoinette's execution:
https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/edmund-burke-execution-of-marie-antoinette-1793/

Also, read Wikipedia on the French Republican Calendar introduced in 1792/3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar

The violent war against Christianity:
https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2018/01/12/the-dechristianization-of-france-during-the-french-revolution/
Wikipedia on the dechristianization policies of the Revolution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_during_the_French_Revolution
Wikipedia on the Cult of the Supreme Being
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Supreme_Being


Mar 5—French Opposition to the Revolution: The Vendée 

Alpha History on the Vendee Revolt:

https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/vendee-uprising/


Mar 7—The Thermidor Uprising and the Directory
Read these two articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermidorian_Reaction
https://www.worldhistory.org/French_Directory/


Spring Break

Mar 17—Beginning of Class: Objective Quiz II on the French Revolution from 1794 to 1799
After Quiz:
Foreign Responses to the French Revolution: London, Vienna, St. Petersburg
Read this good summary of Lafayette's life from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation:
https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/marquis-de-lafayette

We will look at this map in class, but peruse it briefly before class:
https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/item/8

Mar 19—Women in the Revolution I
Read Olympe des Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of Women

Read A Vindication of the Rights of Women, by Mary Wollstonecraft

Mar 21—Lavayette Family Values
Read Constance Wright's Madame de Lafayette, the whole book, please. There will be a 4x value reading quiz:
https://archive.org/details/madamedelafayett006987mbp/page/n19/mode/2up?view=theater


 Friday Mar 21 at 5:00 pm, documentary exercise is due via Turnitin.com


Mar 24—Women and the Revolution II Read
The Memoirs of Elizabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun
;
http://www.batguano.com/vlblsmemoirs.html

Please read from Chapter 7 to the end)

And for class, we will go through this ppt (without sound) pertaining to the family of Lafayette:
Mme. Lafayette and Picpus

Mar 26--The United States and the French Revolution
reading TBA

Mar 28—Exporting the Revolution: Poland and Ireland
Read the Wikipedia entry on Tadeusz Kosciuszko, but only down to and not including "Later Life"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Ko%C5%9Bciuszko
and read the Intro only to the Wikipedia entry on the Irish Rebellion of 1798
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798


Mar 31—Exporting the Revolution: Haiti
Readings on the Haitian Revolution:
from Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/slavery-and-the-haitian-revolu
(please read the whole page and look at at least six of the graphics and read at least six of the text links to gain important insights into the Haitian Revolution as well as Revolutionary/Napoleonic attitudes toward slavery and more.)

Apr 2"Bliss was it in that dawn...” Wordsworth, Family, Romanticism, and the Revolution

Wkipedia on William Wordsworth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth
And read Wordsworth's poem  "The French Revolution"
And on Dorothy Wordsworth, from NPR:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101452310

Apr 4—From Classicism to Romanticism: David, Goethe, Beethoven, and Others
no reading




Unit 3: Napoleon  

Apr 7—Buonaparte Family Values
Read Chapter 1, Corsica, of J. M. Thompson's Napoleon Bonaparte:
https://archive.org/details/napoleonbonapart00thom/page/n11/mode/2up

Apr 9—Napoleon Comes to Power
Read

https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/item/366

and

https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/napoleonic-experience

Apr 11--Napoleon and Europe
and read about the Concordat with the Catholic Church

https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/item/363

By Wed, Apr 16, watch Master and Commander (2003)


Apr 14—The Napoleonic Wars: From Italy to Egypt and Back 
https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/item/276
And finally, some speeches of Napoleon to his troops, very early in his career (1796)
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/nap1796.html


Apr 16—Class Discussion: Britain and the Napoleonic Wars
Movie: Master and Commander (2003) Be ready for class discussion and a reading quiz over the movie.

Apr 18—Russia and Austria: Napoleon, Alexander I, and Metternich
Read Wikipedia on the Napoleonic Code, the codification of laws introduced by Napoleon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code

Also, read this brief "catechism" of allegiance to Napoleon for children:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1806catechism-napoleon.asp

Second Paper is due via Turnitin.com on Fri, Apr 18, at 11:59pm.

(By Monday, Apr 23, watch one of these movies based on Jane Austen novels:
Emma (1996) with Gwyneth Paltrow
Pride and Prejudice (2005) with Keira Knightley)

Sense and Sensibility
(1999) with Emma Thompson)



Apr 21—Jane Austen and More 
no reading, but we will discuss the three movies.


Apr 23—Warfare: From Austerlitz to the Russian Invasion: Highlighting Wellington and the Spanish Ulcer

Readings:
Listen to this moving version of the eighteenth century folk song, about enlisting in the British Army, which fought many times in Flanders, apart from the 1793 campaign involving Welsley/Wellington

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfdLJTvwBMc

And read:
the account of Charles O'Malley on the British Army's crossing of the Douro River in northern Portugal:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1809wellington.asp

Wikipedia on Goya's The Disasters of War series:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War


Apr 25--
From the Peninsular War to the Russian Invasion
On the battle of Borodino, two readings:
    Excerpt from Tolstoy's famous novel, War and Peace. It provides an insightful commentary on the nature of "coming to battle" at Borodino.

   TolstoyBorodino.html

This is a brief account of the battle from the French side, by Heinrich Brandt, fighting with one of the Polish regiments in Napoleon's army.
http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/s052.htm


And look carefully at this fascinating chart of Napoleon's losses in the 1812 invasion of Russia
https://badriadhikari.github.io/DV/week2/minards/


Apr 28--The Hundred Days and Waterloo
Read Patrick Lynch's essay on this subject at History Collection:

https://historycollection.com/napoleons-hundred-days-legendary-french-commander-met-waterloo/2/


Apr 30—
Peacemaking 1815
Read this general article on the Congress of Vienna
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/what-was-congress-vienna


May 2—The Vienna Congress: Settlement, Peace, and the Concert of Europe
Read Wikipedia articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadruple_Alliance_(1815)
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Alliance

Third Paper is due at 11:59pm on May 2, via Turnitin



May 5--Restoration Europe...And the World
no reading


May 7—The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Legacy
no reading