Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted. The term can also imply that the news is of personal or trivial nature, as opposed to normal conversation.

In the last decade, gossip has been researched in terms of its evolutionary psychology origins. This has found gossip to be an important means by which people can monitor cooperative reputations and so maintain widespread indirect reciprocity. Indirect reciprocity is defined here as "I help you and somebody else helps me." Gossip has also been identified by Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary biologist, as aiding social bonding in large groups. With the advent of the internet gossip is now widespread on an instant basis, from one place in the world to another what used to take a long time to filter through is now instant.

The term is sometimes used to specifically refer to the spreading of dirt and misinformation, as (for example) through excited discussion of scandals. Some newspapers carry "gossip columns" which detail the social and personal lives of celebrities or of élite members of certain communities.

Etymology

The word is from Old English ''godsibb'', from ''god'' and ''sibb'', the term for godparents, i.e. a child's godfather or godmother. In the 16th century, the word assumed the meaning of a person, mostly a woman, one who delights in idle talk, a newsmonger, a tattler. In the early 19th century, the term was extended from the talker to the conversation of such persons. The verb ''to gossip'', meaning "to be a gossip", first appears in Shakespeare.

The term originates from the bedroom at the time of childbirth. Giving birth used to be a social (ladies only) event, in which a pregnant woman's female relatives and neighbours would gather. As with any social gathering there was chattering and this is where the term gossip came to mean talk of others.

Functions

Gossip can:

reinforce - or punish the lack of - morality and accountability;

reveal passive aggression, isolating and harming others;

serve as a process of social grooming, building a sense of community with shared interests, information, and values;

begin a courtship that helps one find their desired mate, by counseling others; or,

provide a peer-to-peer mechanism for disseminating information in organizations.

Workplace gossip

Mary Gormandy White, a human resource expert, identifies workplace gossip by factors or "signs":

Animated people become silent ("Conversations stop when you enter the room")

People begin staring at someone

Workers indulge in inappropriate topics of conversation. She suggests "five tips ... [to] handle the situation with aplomb: # Rise above the gossip # Understand what causes or fuels the gossip # Do not participate in workplace gossip # Allow for the gossip to go away on its own # If it persists, "gather facts and seek help."

Peter Vajda identifies gossip as a form of workplace violence, noting that it is "essentially a form of attack." Gossip is thought by many to "empower one person while disempowering another" (Hafen). Accordingly, many companies have formal policies in their employee handbooks against gossip. Sometimes there is room for disagreement on exactly what constitutes unacceptable gossip, since workplace gossip may take the form of offhand remarks about someone's tendencies such as "He always takes a long lunch," or "Don’t worry, that’s just how she is." TLK Healthcare cites as examples of gossip, "tattletailing to the boss without intention of furthering a solution or speaking to co-workers about something someone else has done to upset us." Corporate email can be a particularly dangerous method of gossip delivery, as the medium is semi-permanent and messages are easily forwarded to unintended recipients; accordingly, a Mass High Tech article advised employers to instruct employees against using company email networks for gossip. Low self-esteem and a desire to "fit in" are frequently cited as motivations for workplace gossip. There are five essential functions that gossip has in the workplace (according to DiFonzo & Bordia):

Helps individuals learn social information about other individuals in the organization (often without even having to meet the other individual)

Builds social networks of individuals by bonding co-workers together and affiliating people with each other.

Breaks existing bonds by ostracizing individuals within an organization.

Enhances one's social status/power/prestige within the organization.

Inform individuals as to what is considered socially acceptable behavior within the organization.

According to Kurkland and Pelled, workplace gossip can be very serious depending upon the amount of power that the gossiper has over the recipient, which will in turn affect how the gossip is interpreted. There are four types of power that are influenced by gossip:

Coercive: when a gossiper tells negative information about a person, their recipient might believe that the gossiper will also spread negative information about them. This causes the gossipers coercive power to increase.

Reward: when a gossiper tells positive information about a person, their recipient might believe that the gossiper will also spread positive information about them. This causes the gossipers reward power to increase.

Expert: when a gossiper seems to have very detailed knowledge of either the organization's values or about others in the work environment, their expert power becomes enhanced.

Referent: this power can either be reduced OR enhanced to a point. When people view gossiping as a petty activity done to waste time, a gossipers referent power can decrease along with their reputation. When a recipient is thought of as being invited into a social circle by being a recipient, the gossipers referent power can increase, but only to a high point where then the recipient begins to resent the gossiper (Kurland & Pelled).

Some negative consequences of workplace gossip may include:

Lost productivity and wasted time,

Erosion of trust and morale,

Increased anxiety among employees as rumors circulate without any clear information as to what is fact and what isn’t,

Growing divisiveness among employees as people “take sides,"

Hurt feelings and reputations,

Jeopardized chances for the gossipers' advancement as they are perceived as unprofessional, and

Attrition as good employees leave the company due to the unhealthy work atmosphere.

Turner and Weed theorize that among the three main types of responders to workplace conflict are attackers who cannot keep their feelings to themselves and express their feelings by attacking whatever they can. Attackers are further divided into up-front attackers and behind-the-back attackers. Turner and Weed note that the latter "are difficult to handle because the target person is not sure of the source of any criticism, nor even always sure that there is criticism."

It is possible however, that there may be illegal, unethical, or disobedient behavior happening at the workplace and this may be a case where reporting the behavior may be viewed as gossip. It is then left up to the authority in charge to fully investigate the matter and not simply look past the report and assume it to be workplace gossip.

Informal networks through which communication occurs in an organization are sometimes called the grapevine. In a study done by Harcourt, Richerson, and Wattier, it was found that middle managers in several different organizations believed that gathering information from the grapevine was a much better way of learning information than through formal communication with their subordinates (Harcourt, Richerson & Wattier).

Various views

Some see gossip as trivial, hurtful and socially and/or intellectually unproductive.

Some people view gossip as a lighthearted way of spreading information.

A feminist definition of gossip presents it as "a way of talking between women, intimate in style, personal and domestic in scope and setting, a female cultural event which springs from and perpetuates the restrictions of the female role, but also gives the comfort of validation." (Jones, 1990:243)

In early modern England

In Early Modern England the word "gossip" referred to companions in childbirth, not limited to the midwife. It also became a term for women-friends generally, with no necessary derogatory connotations. (OED n. definition 2. a. "A familiar acquaintance, friend, chum", supported by references from 1361 to 1873). It commonly referred to an informal local sorority or social group, who could enforce socially-acceptable behaviour through private censure or through public rituals, such as "rough music", the cucking stool and the skimmington ride.

In Thomas Harman’s ''Caveat for Common Cursitors'' 1566 a ‘walking mort’ relates how she was forced to agree to meet a man in his barn, but informed his wife. The wife arrived with her “five furious, sturdy, muffled gossips” who catch the errant husband with “his hosen about his legs” and give him a sound beating. The story clearly functions as a morality tale in which the gossips uphold the social order.

In Sir Herbert Maxwell,Bart's The Chevalier of the Splendid Crest [1900] at the end of chapter 3 the king is noted as referring to his loyal knight "Sir Thomas de Roos" in kindly terms as "my old gossip". Whilst a historical novel of that time the reference implies a continued use of the term "Gossip" as childhood friend as late as 1900.

In Judaism

Judaism considers gossip spoken without a constructive purpose (known in Hebrew as ''lashon hara'') as a sin. Speaking negatively about people, even if retelling true facts, counts as sinful, as it demeans the dignity of man — both the speaker and the subject of the gossip.

According to ''Proverbs'' 18:8: "The words of a gossip are like choice morsels: they go down to a man's innermost parts."

In Islam

Islam considers backbiting the equivalent of eating the flesh of one's dead brother. According to Muslims, backbiting harms its victims without offering them any chance of defense, just as dead people cannot defend against their flesh being eaten. Muslims are expected to treat each other like brothers, deriving from Islam's concept of brotherhood amongst its believers.

In Christianity

The Epistle to the Romans associates gossips ("backbiters") with a list of sins including sexual immorality and with murder:

:28: And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; :29: Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, :30: Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, :31: Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: :32: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:28-32)

According to Matthew 18, Jesus also taught that conflict resolution among church members ought to begin with the aggrieved party attempting to resolve their dispute with the offending party alone. Only if this did not work would the process escalate to the next step, in which another church member would become involved. After that if the person at fault still would not "hear", the matter was to be fully investigated by the church elders, but not exposed publicly.

In order to gossip, writes Phil Fox Rose, we "must harden our heart towards the 'out' person. We draw a line between ourselves and them; define them as being outside the rules of Christian charity... We create a gap between ourselves and God's Love." As we harden our heart towards more people and groups, he continues, "this negativity and feeling of separateness will grow and permeate our world, and we'll find it more difficult to access God’s love in any aspect of our lives."

But, it should be recognized that the Bible is both in favor of Group Accountability ( Ephesians 5:11; 1st Tim 5:20; James 5:16; Gal 6:1-2; 1 Cor 12:26) as well as against Gossip (Proverbs 18:8; Romans 1:29; 2 Cor 12:20; 1 Tim 5:13; 3 John 1:10).

See also

False dilemma

Gossip magazines

Libel

Misinformation

Rumor

Scandal

Word of mouth

Yenta

References

Further reading

Niko Besnier, 2009: ''Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics''. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3338-1

Niko Besnier, 1996: Gossip. In ''Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology''. David Levinson and Melvin Ember, eds. Vol. 2, pp. 544–547. New York: Henry Holt.

Niko Besnier, 1994: The Truth and Other Irrelevant Aspects of Nukulaelae Gossip. Pacific Studies 17(3):1-39.

Niko Besnier, 1989: Information Withholding as a Manipulative and Collusive Strategy in Nukulaelae Gossip. Language in Society 18:315-341.

Robert F. Goodman and Aaron Ben-Zeev, editors: ''Good Gossip''. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1993. ISBN 0-7006-0669-6

Deborah Jones, 1990: 'Gossip: notes on women's oral culture'. In: Cameron, Deborah. (editor) ''The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader''. London/New York: Routledge, 1990, pp. 242–250. ISBN 0-415-04259-3. Cited online in Rash, 1996.

Felicity Rash, 1996: "''Rauhe Männer - Zarte Frauen'': Linguistic and Stylistic Aspects of Gender Stereotyping in German Advertising Texts 1949-1959" in ''The Web Journal of Modern Language Linguistics'', Issue 1, 1996. Retrieved from http://wjmll.ncl.ac.uk/issue01/rashb.rtf on 2006-08-11

Patricia Ann Meyer Spacks. ''Gossip''. New York: Knopf, 1985. ISBN 0-394-54024-7

DiFonzo, Nicholas & Prashant Bordia. "Rumor, Gossip, & Urban Legend." ''Diogenes'' Vol. 54 (Feb 2007) pg 19-35

Hafen, Susan. "Organizational Gossip: A Revolving Door of Regulation & Resistance." ''The Southern Communication Journal'' Vol. 69, No. 3 (Spring 2004) pg 223

Harcourt, Jules, Virginia Richerson, and Mark J Wattier. "A National Study of Middle Managers' Assessment of Organizational Communication Quality." ''Journal of Business Communication'' Vol. 28, No. 4 (Fall 1991) pg 348-365

Kurland, Nancy B. & Lisa Hope Pelled. "Passing the Word: Toward a Model of Gossip & Power in the Workplace." ''The Academy of Management Review'' Vol. 25, No. 2 (April 2000) pg 428-438

External links

Ronald de Sousa (U Toronto) on Gossip

"Go Ahead. Gossip May Be Virtuous" ''New York Times'' article by Patricia Cohen 2002-08-10 (requires registration)

Emrys Westacott (Alfred U) The Ethics of Gossiping

Perspectives on Gossip The theme of gossip in three literary pieces

Robin Dunbar, Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans ''(pre-publication version)'' "Analysis of a sample of human conversations shows that about 60% of time is spent gossiping about relationships and personal experiences."

Office gossip takes a whole new turn by allowing to post anonymously at workplace using facebook.

Category:Human communication Category:Communication of falsehoods Category:Bullying

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Name	Brad Pitt
Alt	A Caucasian with light brown hair, blue eyes, and a mustache and short brown beard, in front of a turquoise background. He is wearing a white shirt and white hat.
Birth name	William Bradley Pitt
Birth date	December 18, 1963
Birth place	Shawnee, Oklahoma, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Missouri
Occupation
Spouse	(divorced)
Partner	Angelina Jolie (2005–present)
Children	6 }}

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received three Academy Award nominations and five Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one Golden Globe. He has been described as one of the world's most attractive men, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.

Pitt began his acting career with television guest appearances, including a role on the CBS prime-time soap opera ''Dallas'' in 1987. He later gained recognition as the cowboy hitchhiker who seduces Geena Davis's character in the 1991 road movie ''Thelma & Louise''. Pitt's first leading roles in big-budget productions came with ''A River Runs Through It'' (1992) and ''Interview with the Vampire'' (1994). He was cast opposite Anthony Hopkins in the 1994 drama ''Legends of the Fall'', which earned him his first Golden Globe nomination. In 1995 he gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller ''Seven'' and the science fiction film ''12 Monkeys'', the latter securing him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Four years later, in 1999, Pitt starred in the cult hit ''Fight Club''. He then starred as Rusty Ryan in the major international hit ''Ocean's Eleven'' (2001) and its sequels, ''Ocean's Twelve'' (2004) and ''Ocean's Thirteen'' (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been ''Troy'' (2004) and ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (2005). Pitt received his second Academy Award nomination for his title role performance in the 2008 film ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button''.

Following a high-profile relationship with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Pitt was married to actress Jennifer Aniston for five years. Pitt lives with actress Angelina Jolie in a relationship that has attracted wide publicity. He and Jolie have six children—Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Since beginning his relationship with Jolie, he has become increasingly involved in social issues both in the United States and internationally. Pitt owns a production company named Plan B Entertainment, whose productions include ''The Departed'' (2006), which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Early life

The son of Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a high school counselor, and William Alvin Pitt, a truck company owner, Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The family soon moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he lived together with his younger siblings, Doug (born 1966) and Julie Neal (born 1969). He was raised as Southern Baptist in a conservative household.

Pitt attended Kickapoo High School, where he was a member of the basketball, golf, tennis, wrestling and swimming teams. He participated in the school's Key and Forensics clubs, in school debates, and in musicals. Following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism, with a focus on advertising. As a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, he acted in several fraternity shows. As graduation approached, Pitt did not feel ready to settle down. He loved films—"a portal into different worlds for me"—and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided to go to where they were made. Two weeks before earning his degree, Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles, where he took acting lessons and worked odd jobs.

Career

Early work

While struggling to establish himself in Los Angeles, Pitt took lessons from acting coach Roy London.

Pitt's onscreen career began in 1987, with uncredited parts in the films ''No Way Out'', ''No Man's Land'' and ''Less Than Zero''. His television debut came in May 1987 with a two-episode role on the NBC soap opera ''Another World''. In November of the same year Pitt had a guest appearance on the ABC sitcom ''Growing Pains''. He appeared in four episodes of the CBS primetime series ''Dallas'' between December 1987 and February 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Charlie Wade (played by Shalane McCall). Pitt described his character as "an idiot boyfriend who gets caught in the hay." Speaking of his scenes with McCall, Pitt later said, "It was kind of wild, because I'd never even met her before." Later in 1988, Pitt made a guest appearance on the Fox police drama ''21 Jump Street''.

In the same year, the Yugoslavian–U.S. co-production ''The Dark Side of the Sun'' (1988) gave Pitt his first leading film role, as a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The film was shelved at the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, and was not released until 1997. Pitt made two motion picture appearances in 1989: the first in a supporting role in the comedy ''Happy Together''; the second a featured role in the horror film ''Cutting Class'', the first of Pitt's films to reach theaters. He made guest appearances on television series ''Head of the Class'', ''Freddy's Nightmares'', ''Thirtysomething'', and (for a second time) ''Growing Pains''.

Pitt was cast as Billy Canton, a drug addict who takes advantage of a young runaway (played by Juliette Lewis) in the 1990 NBC television movie ''Too Young to Die?'', the story of an abused teenager sentenced to death for a murder. Ken Tucker, television reviewer for ''Entertainment Weekly'' wrote: "Pitt is a magnificent slimeball as her hoody boyfriend; looking and sounding like a malevolent John Cougar Mellencamp, he's really scary." The same year, Pitt co-starred in six episodes of the short-lived Fox drama ''Glory Days'', and took a supporting role in the HBO television movie ''The Image''. His next appearance came in the 1991 film ''Across the Tracks''; Pitt portrayed Joe Maloney, a high school runner with a criminal brother, played by Ricky Schroder.

After years of supporting roles in movies and frequent television guest appearances, Pitt attracted wider recognition in his supporting role in the 1991 road film ''Thelma & Louise''. He played J.D., a small-time criminal who befriends Thelma (Geena Davis). His love scene with Davis has been cited as the event that defined Pitt as a sex symbol.

After ''Thelma & Louise'', Pitt starred in the 1991 film ''Johnny Suede'', a low-budget picture about an aspiring rock star, and the 1992 film ''Cool World'', although neither furthered his career, having poor reviews and box office performance.

Pitt took the role of Paul Maclean in the 1992 biographical film ''A River Runs Through It'', directed by Robert Redford. His portrayal of the character has been described as a career-making performance, proving that Pitt could be more than a "cowboy-hatted hunk." He has admitted to feeling under pressure when making the film and thought it one of his "weakest performances ... It's so weird that it ended up being the one that I got the most attention for." Pitt believed that he benefited from working with such a talented cast and crew. He compared working with Redford to playing tennis with a superior player, saying "when you play with somebody better than you, your game gets better."

In 1993, Pitt reunited with Juliette Lewis for the road film ''Kalifornia''. He played Early Grayce, a serial killer and the boyfriend of Lewis's character in a performance described by Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone'' as "outstanding, all boyish charm and then a snort that exudes pure menace." Pitt also garnered attention for a brief appearance in the cult hit ''True Romance'' as a stoner named Floyd, providing much needed comic relief to the action film. He capped the year by winning a ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow.

Critical success

1994 marked a significant turning point in Pitt's career. Starring as the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the feature film ''Interview with the Vampire'', based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name, he was part of an ensemble cast that included Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas. Despite his winning two MTV Movie Awards at the 1995 ceremony, his performance was poorly received. According to the ''Dallas Observer'', "Brad Pitt ... is a large part of the problem [in the film]. When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side ... he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."

Following the release of ''Interview with the Vampire'', Pitt starred in ''Legends of the Fall'' (1994), based on a novel by the same name by Jim Harrison, set in the American West during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Portraying Tristan Ludlow, son of Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) a Cornish immigrant, Pitt received his first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the Best Actor category. Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas co-starred as Pitt's brothers. Although the film's reception was mixed, many film critics praised Pitt's performance. Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' said, "Pitt's diffident mix of acting and attitude works to such heartthrob perfection it's a shame the film's superficiality gets in his way." The ''Deseret News'' predicted that ''Legends of the Fall'' would solidify Pitt's reputation as a lead actor.

In 1995, Pitt starred alongside Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow in the crime thriller ''Seven,'' playing a detective on the trail of a serial killer (played by Kevin Spacey). Pitt called it a great movie and declared the part would expand his acting horizons. He expressed his intent to move on from "this 'pretty boy' thing [...] and play someone with flaws." His performance was critically well received, with ''Variety'' saying that it was screen acting at its best, further remarking on Pitt's ability to turn in a "determined, energetic, creditable job" as the detective. ''Seven'' earned $327 million at the international box office.

Following the success of ''Seven'', Pitt took a supporting role as Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's 1995 science-fiction film ''12 Monkeys''. The movie received predominantly positive reviews, with Pitt praised in particular. Janet Maslin of the ''New York Times'' called ''Twelve Monkeys'' "fierce and disturbing" and remarked on Pitt's "startlingly frenzied performance", concluding that he "electrifies Jeffrey with a weird magnetism that becomes important later in the film." He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film and received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

The following year he had a role in the legal drama ''Sleepers'' (1996), based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel of the same name. The film received mixed reviews. In the 1997 movie ''The Devil's Own'' Pitt starred, opposite Harrison Ford, as the Irish Republican Army terrorist Rory Devany, a role for which he was required to learn an Irish accent. Critical opinion was divided on his accent; "Pitt finds the right tone of moral ambiguity, but at times his Irish brogue is too convincing – it's hard to understand what he's saying", wrote the ''San Francisco Chronicle.'' ''The Charleston Gazette'' opined that it had favored Pitt's accent over the movie. ''The Devil's Own'' grossed $140 million worldwide, but was a critical failure. Later that year he led as Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean-Jacques Annaud film ''Seven Years in Tibet''. Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded significant mountain climbing and trekking practice, including rock climbing in California and the European Alps with his co-star David Thewlis. The film received mostly negative reviews, and was generally considered a disappointment.

Pitt had the lead role in 1998's ''Meet Joe Black''. He portrayed a personification of death inhabiting the body of a young man to learn what it is like to be human. The film received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', Pitt was unable to "to make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity." Roger Ebert stated "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation."

From 1999 to 2003

In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden, an uncompromising and charismatic individual, in ''Fight Club'', a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher. Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his front teeth which were restored when filming ended. While promoting ''Fight Club'', Pitt said that the film explored not taking one's aggressions out on someone else but to "have an experience, take a punch more and see how you come out on the other end." ''Fight Club'' premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival. Despite divided critical opinion on the film as a whole, Pitt's performance was widely praised. Paul Clinton of CNN noted the risky yet successful nature of the film, while ''Variety'' remarked upon Pitt's ability to be "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than [...] his breakthrough role in ''Thelma and Louise''". In spite of a worse-than-expected box office performance, ''Fight Club'' became a cult classic after its DVD release in 2000.

Following ''Fight Club'', Pitt was cast as an Irish Gypsy boxer with a barely intelligible accent in Guy Ritchie's 2000 gangster film ''Snatch''. Several reviewers were critical of ''Snatch''; however, most praised Pitt. Mick LaSalle of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' said Pitt was "ideally cast as an Irishman whose accent is so thick even Brits can't understand him", going on to say that, before ''Snatch'', Pitt had been "shackled by roles that called for brooding introspection, but recently he has found his calling in black comic outrageousness and flashy extroversion;" while Amy Taubin of ''The Village Voice'' claimed that "Pitt gets maximum comic mileage out of a one-joke role".

The following year Pitt starred opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy ''The Mexican'', a film that garnered a range of reviews but enjoyed box office success. Pitt's next role, in 2001's $143 million-grossing Cold War thriller ''Spy Game'', was as Tom Bishop, an operative of the CIA's Special Activities Division, mentored by Robert Redford's character. Mark Holcomb of Salon.com enjoyed the film, although he noted that neither Pitt nor Redford provided "much of an emotional connection for the audience". On November 22, 2001, Pitt made a guest appearance in the eighth season of the television series ''Friends'', playing a man with a grudge against Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, to whom Pitt was married at the time. For this performance he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. In December 2001, Pitt had the role of Rusty Ryan in the heist film ''Ocean's Eleven'', a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack original. He joined an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy García, and Julia Roberts. Well-received by critics, ''Ocean's Eleven'' was successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide.

Pitt appeared in two episodes of MTV's reality series ''Jackass'' in February 2002, first running through the streets of Los Angeles with several cast members in gorilla suits, and participating in his own staged abduction in another episode. In the same year, Pitt had a cameo role in George Clooney's directorial debut ''Confessions of a Dangerous Mind''. He took on his first voice-acting roles in 2003, speaking as the titular character of the DreamWorks animated film ''Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas'' and playing Boomhauer's brother, Patch, in an episode of the animated television series ''King of the Hill''.

After 2003

Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in ''Troy'', and making a second appearance as Rusty Ryan, in the sequel ''Ocean's Twelve''. He spent six months sword training before the filming of ''Troy'', based on the ''Iliad''. An on-set injury to his Achilles tendon delayed production on the picture for several weeks. With a total worldwide gross of $497 million, ''Troy'' remains Pitt's most commercially successful picture to date. The film earned $364 million outside the U.S. and $133 million domestically. Stephen Hunter of ''The Washington Times'' stated that Pitt excelled at such a demanding role. ''Ocean's Twelve'' earned $362 million worldwide, and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described (by CNN's Paul Clinton) as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford."

In 2005, Pitt starred in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'', in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife Jane Smith. The ''Star Tribune'' noted that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry." ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005.

For his next feature film, Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama ''Babel'' (2006). Pitt's performance was critically well-received, and the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' said that he was credible and gave the film visibility. Pitt later said he regarded taking the part as one of the best decisions of his career. The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was later featured at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. ''Babel'' received seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations, winning the Best Drama Golden Globe, and earned Pitt a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe.

Reprising his role as Rusty Ryan in a third picture, Pitt starred in 2007's ''Ocean's Thirteen''. While less lucrative than the first two films, this sequel earned $311 million at the international box office. Pitt's next film role was as American outlaw Jesse James in the 2007 Western drama ''The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'', adapted from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name. Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of ''Film Journal International'', and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. Although Pitt attended the festival to promote the film, he left early after being attacked by a fan who pushed through his bodyguards. He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival.

Pitt's next appearance was in the 2008 black comedy ''Burn After Reading'', his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film received a positive reception from critics, with ''The Guardian'' calling it "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy", noting that Pitt's performance was one of the funniest. He was later cast as Benjamin Button, the lead in David Fincher's 2008 film ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'', a loosely adapted version of a 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story follows a man who is born an octogenarian and ages in reverse, with Pitt's "sensitive" performance making ''Benjamin Button'' a "timeless masterpiece," according to Michael Sragow of ''The Baltimore Sun''. The performance earned Pitt his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well as a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination, all in the category for Best Actor. The film received thirteen Academy Award nominations in total, and grossed $329 million at the box office worldwide.

Since 2008, Pitt's work has included a leading role in Quentin Tarantino's ''Inglourious Basterds'', released in August 2009 at a special presentation at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France. The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide, and garnered generally favorable reviews. The film received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations and seven MTV Movie Award nominations, including Best Male Performance for Pitt. He voiced the superhero character Metro Man in the 2010 animated feature ''Megamind''. Pitt appeared in Terrence Malick's drama ''The Tree of Life'', co-starring Sean Penn, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. He has signed on to appear as a British explorer searching for a mysterious Amazonian civilization in ''The Lost City of Z'', based on David Grann's 2009 book of the same name. In a performance that attracted strong praise, he portrayed the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the drama ''Moneyball'', which is based on the 2003 book of the same name written by Michael Lewis. ''Moneyball'' received six Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Pitt.

Other projects

Film and television work

Along with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures, Pitt founded the film production company Plan B Entertainment in 2002, although Aniston and Grey withdrew in 2005. The company has produced several films, including ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' starring Johnny Depp in 2005, as well as 2007's ''The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'' and ''A Mighty Heart'', starring Angelina Jolie. Plan B was also involved in producing ''The Departed'', the winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Picture. Pitt was credited onscreen as a producer; however, only Graham King was ruled eligible for the Oscar win. Pitt has been reluctant to discuss the production company in interviews.

Pitt has appeared in several television commercials: one for the U.S. market, a Heineken commercial aired during the 2005 Super Bowl; it was directed by David Fincher, who had directed Pitt in ''Seven'', ''Fight Club'' and ''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button''. Other commercial appearances came in television spots designed for Asian markets, advertising such products as the Acura Integra, in which he was featured opposite Russian model Tatiana Sorokko, as well as SoftBank and Edwin Jeans.

Humanitarian causes

Pitt supports the ONE Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world. He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series ''Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge'', which discusses current global health issues and traveled to Pakistan in November 2005 with Angelina Jolie to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean. In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region. Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of "Not On Our Watch", an organization that tries to focus global attention and resources to stop and prevent genocides such as that in Darfur.

Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture and has narrated ''Design e2'', a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design. He founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2006, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services. Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations. The first six homes were completed in October 2008, and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated. Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of ''green housing'' as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.

In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world. The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders, followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl. According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006 and $3.4 million in 2007. In June 2009 the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants. In January 2010 the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.

In the media

Pitt's sex appeal has been picked up by many sources including ''Empire'', who named him one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history in 1995. The same year, Pitt won ''People'''s Sexiest Man Alive, an accolade he won again in 2000. Pitt appeared on ''Forbes'''s annual Celebrity 100 list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in 2006, 2007, and 2008, at No. 20, No. 5, and No. 10 respectively. In 2007 he was listed among the Time 100, a compilation of the 100 most influential people in the world, as selected annually by ''TIME''. The magazine credited Pitt with using "his star power to get people to look [to where] cameras don't usually catch". Pitt was again included in the Time 100 in 2009, this time in the Builders and Titans list.

Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, in which he supported John Kerry. Later in October he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find," he said. In support of this he endorsed Proposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide federal government funding for stem-cell research.

Starting in 2005, Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After confirming that Jolie was pregnant in early 2006, the unprecedented media hype surrounding the couple reached what Reuters, in a story titled "The Brangelina fever," called "the point of insanity". To avoid media attention the couple flew to Namibia for the birth of their daughter Shiloh, "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ." Similarly intense media interest greeted the announcement two years later of Jolie's second pregnancy; for the two weeks Jolie spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.

In September 2008 Pitt donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage. Pitt stated his reasons for the stance: "Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8."

Personal life

Relationships

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pitt was involved in successive relationships with several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens (''Head of the Class''), Jill Schoelen (''Cutting Class''), and Juliette Lewis (''Too Young to Die?'' and ''Kalifornia''), who, at the age of 16, was ten years his junior when they started dating. In addition, Pitt had a much-publicized romance and engagement to his ''Seven'' co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, whom he dated from 1994 to 1997.

Pitt met ''Friends'' actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. For years their marriage was considered a rare Hollywood success; however, in January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced that they had decided formally to separate after seven years together. Two months later Aniston filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Pitt and Aniston's divorce was finalized by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 2, 2005, legally ending their marriage. Despite media reports that Pitt and Aniston have an acrimonious relationship, Pitt said in a February 2009 interview that he and Aniston "check in with each other", adding that they were both big parts of each others' lives.

During Pitt's divorce from Aniston, his involvement with his ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' co-star Angelina Jolie attracted vigorous media attention. While Pitt denied claims of adultery, he admitted that he "fell in love" with Jolie on the set. In April 2005, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazzi photographs emerged showing Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya; the pictures were construed in the press as evidence of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie. During the summer of 2005, the two were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina". On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to ''People'' that she was pregnant with Pitt's child, thereby publicly acknowledging their relationship for the first time.

In an October 2006 interview with ''Esquire'', Pitt said that he and Jolie would marry when everyone in America is legally able to marry. He reaffirmed his stance to ''Parade'' in August 2009, and again to ''People'' in July 2011. In February 2010, Pitt and Jolie successfully sued British tabloid ''News of the World'' for falsely reporting that they were separating, a story that had been widely picked up by credible media outlets.

Children

In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she adopted her second child, six-month-old Zahara Marley, a decision which Jolie later stated she and Pitt had made together. Pitt's publicist announced in December 2005 that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children, Zahara and Cambodia-born Maddox Chivan. On January 19, 2006, a California judge granted Jolie's request to change the children's surnames from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt". The adoptions were finalized soon after.

Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh Nouvel in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would have a Namibian passport. The couple sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images; the North American rights were purchased by ''People'' for over $4.1 million, while ''Hello!'' obtained the British rights for approximately $3.5 million. The proceeds from the sale were donated to charities serving African children. Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it marked the first time an infant was recreated in wax by Madame Tussauds.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted three-year-old Pax Thien from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Since Vietnam does not allow unmarried couples to adopt, Jolie adopted Pax as a single parent. In April 2007, Jolie filed a request to legally change her son's surname from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt", which was approved on May 31, 2007. The rights for the first post-adoption images of Pax were sold to ''People'' for a reported $2 million, as well as to ''Hello!'' for an undisclosed amount. Pitt adopted Pax in the United States on February 21, 2008.

At the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins. She gave birth to son Knox Léon and daughter Vivienne Marcheline on July 12, 2008 in Nice, France. The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to ''People'' and ''Hello!'' for $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The couple donated the proceeds to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Religion

In an October 2007 interview, Pitt revealed that he is no longer a Christian and does not believe in an afterlife. "There's peace in understanding that I have only one life, here and now, and I'm responsible." In a July 2009 interview he said that he did not believe in God, and that he was "probably 20 percent atheist and 80 percent agnostic."

Filmography

+ Actor
! Year	! Film	! Role	Notes
1987		Officer at party
1987		Waiter
1987		Partygoer
1987		Chris	Appeared on the May 14 and 15, 1987 episodes
1987	''Growing Pains''	Jeff	Episodes: "List of Growing Pains episodes#Season 3: 1987-1988
1987–88		Randy	4 episodes
1988	''[[21 Jump Street''	Peter	Episode: "Best Years of Your Life"
1987		Brian
1987	''Cutting Class''	Dwight Ingalls
1987	''Head of the Class''	Chuck	Episode: "Partners"
1987	''Freddy's Nightmares''	Rick Austin	Episode: "Black Tickets"
1990	''''	Cameraman	TV movie
1990	''Too Young to Die?''	Billy Canton	TV movie
1990	''Glory Days''	Walker Lovejoy	6 episodes
1991	''Across the Tracks''	Joe Maloney
1991	''Thelma & Louise''	J.D.
1991	''Johnny Suede''	Johnny Suede
1992	''Contact''	Cox
1992	''Cool World''	Detective Frank Harris
1992	''''	Paul Maclean
1993	''Kalifornia''	Early Grayce
1993	''True Romance''	Floyd
1994	''''	Elliott Fowler
1994		Louis de Pointe du Lac	MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - MaleMTV Movie Award for Most Desirable MaleNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Tom CruiseNominated–Saturn Award for Best Actor
1994	''Legends of the Fall''	Tristan Ludlow	Nominated–Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1995		David Mills	MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable MaleNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Morgan FreemanNominated–MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
1995	''12 Monkeys''	Jeffrey Goines
1996		Michael Sullivan
1997	''''	Francis "Frankie" Austin McQuire/Rory Devaney
1997		Heinrich Harrer
1997	''''	Rick
1998	''Meet Joe Black''	Joe Black/Man in the Coffee Shop
1999	''Fight Club''
1999	''Being John Malkovich''	Himself	Cameo
2000		Mickey O'Neil	Nominated–Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
2001	''''	Jerry Welbach
2001	''Spy Game''	Tom Bishop
2001	''''	Rusty Ryan
2001	''Friends''	Will Colbert
2002		Himself
2002	''Confessions of a Dangerous Mind''	Brad, Bachelor No.1
2003	''Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas''		Voice
2003		Himself	Cameo
2004		Achilles
2004	''''	Rusty Ryan	Nominated–Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
2005		John Smith
2006		Richard
2007	''''	Rusty Ryan
2007	''''	Jesse James
2008	''Burn After Reading''	Chad Feldheimer
2008	''''	Benjamin Button
2009	''Inglourious Basterds''	Lt. Aldo Raine
2010	''Megamind''	Metro Man	Voice
2011	''''	Mr. O'Brien
2011		Billy Beane
2011	''Happy Feet Two''	Will the Krill	Nominated – Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Actor of the Year
2012	''Cogan's Trade''	Jack Cogan	Post-production
2012		Gerry Lane	Post-production

+ Producer
! Year	! Film	Notes
2006	''God Grew Tired of Us''	Executive producer
2006	''''	Nominated–BAFTA Award for Best Film
2006
2007	''''	Executive producer
2007		Executive producer
2007	''''	Nominated–Independent Spirit Award for Best Film
2007	''''
2008	''Pretty/Handsome''	Executive producer (TV)
2009	''''	Executive producer
2009	''''	Executive producer
2010
2010	''Eat Pray Love''
2011	''''	Palme d'Or
2011		Pending–Academy Award for Best Picture
2012	''Cogan's Trade''
2012

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Not On Our Watch – Founded by: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jerry Weintraub

Category:1963 births Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Oklahoma Category:American agnostics Category:American film actors Category:American film producers Category:American television actors Category:American vegans Category:American voice actors Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Former Baptists Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma Category:University of Missouri alumni

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{{infobox historical event |event name

The French Revolution |Image_Name Prise de la Bastille.jpg |Image_Caption The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 |Participants French society |Location France |Date 1789–1799 |Result Abolition and replacement of the French monarchy with a radical democratic republic. Radical social change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights. Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte Armed conflicts with other European countries }}

The French Revolution (; 1789–1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from left-wing political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights.

The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution saw members of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and a right-wing monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed the next year. External threats also played a dominant role in the development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had defied previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins and virtual dictatorship by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed. After the fall of the Jacobins and the execution of Robespierre, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.

The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies and the invention of total war all mark their birth during the Revolution. Subsequent events that can be traced to the Revolution include the Napoleonic Wars, two separate restorations of the monarchy and two additional revolutions as modern France took shape. In the following century, France would be governed at one point or another as a republic, constitutional monarchy and two different empires (the First and Second).

Causes

Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the ''Ancien Régime'' as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included hunger and malnutrition in the most destitute segments of the population, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a four-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789), after several years of poor grain harvests. Bad harvests (caused in part by extreme weather from El Niño along with volcanic activity at Laki and Grímsvötn), rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system that hindered the shipment of bulk foods from rural areas to large population centers contributed greatly to the destabilization of French society in the years leading up to the Revolution.

Another cause was the state's effective bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of previous wars, particularly the financial strain caused by French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The national debt amounted to some 1,000–2,000 million livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the loss of France's colonial possessions in North America and the growing commercial dominance of Great Britain. France's inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both partially caused and exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation. To obtain new money to head off default on the government's loans, the king called an Assembly of Notables in 1787.

Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was seen as being isolated from, and indifferent to, the hardships of the lower classes. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms. Those who were opposed to Louis' policies further undermined royal authority by distributing pamphlets (often reporting false or exaggerated information) that criticized the government and its officials, stirring up public opinion against the monarchy.

Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by peasants, laborers and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Church's influence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom of religion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy; aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger toward the King for firing finance minister Jacques Necker, among others, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.

Pre-revolution

Financial crisis

Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the state was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income. This was because of France’s financial obligations stemming from involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American Revolutionary War. In May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after he failed to enact reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Comptroller-General of Finance. He could not be made an official minister because he was a Protestant. Necker realized that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden, while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy. He argued that the country could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed restricting the power of the ''parlements''. This was not received well by the King's ministers and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister. The King refused, Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Comptrollership. Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial situation and proposed a new tax code. The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the parlements, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables. But the Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through its criticism. In response, the King announced the calling of the Estates-General for May 1789, the first time the body had been summoned since 1614. This was a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.

Estates-General of 1789

The Estates-General was organized into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France. On the last occasion that the Estates-General had met, in 1614, each estate held one vote, and any two could override the third. The ''Parlement'' of Paris feared the government would attempt to gerrymander an assembly to rig the results. Thus, they required that the Estates be arranged as in 1614. The 1614 rules differed from practices of local assemblies, where each member had one vote and third estate membership was doubled. For example, in the Dauphiné the provincial assembly agreed to double the number of members of the third estate, hold membership elections, and allow one vote per member, rather than one vote per estate. The "Committee of Thirty," a body of liberal Parisians, began to agitate against voting by estate. This group, largely composed of the wealthy, argued for the Estates-General to assume the voting mechanisms of Dauphiné. They argued that ancient precedent was not sufficient, because "the people were sovereign." Necker convened a Second Assembly of Notables, which rejected the notion of double representation by a vote of 111 to 333. The King, however, agreed to the proposition on 27 December; but he left discussion of the weight of each vote to the Estates-General itself.

Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males only, at least 25 years of age, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes.

''Pour être électeur du tiers état, il faut avoir 25 ans, être français ou naturalisé, être domicilié au lieu de vote et compris au rôle des impositions.''

Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including: "291 nobles, 300 clergy, and 610 members of the Third Estate." To lead delegates, "Books of grievances" (''cahiers de doléances'') were compiled to list problems. The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare. Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship. The Abbé Sieyès, a theorist and Catholic clergyman, argued the paramount importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet ''Qu'est-ce que le tiers état?'' ("What is the Third Estate?"), published in January 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want to be? Something." The Estates-General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three-hour speech by Necker. The Third Estate demanded that the verification of deputies' credentials should be undertaken in common by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members internally; negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this. The commoners appealed to the clergy who replied they required more time. Necker asserted that each estate verify credentials and "the king was to act as arbitrator." Negotiations with the other two estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful.

National Assembly (1789)

On 10 June 1789, Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the ''Communes'' (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June. Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People." They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.

In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor real tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.

National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)

Storming of the Bastille

By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his overt manipulation of public opinion. Marie Antoinette, the King's younger brother the Comte d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's privy council urged him to dismiss Necker as financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker published an inaccurate account of the government's debts and made it available to the public, the King fired him, and completely restructured the finance ministry at the same time.

Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be aimed against the Assembly and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly. The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to prevent another eviction from their meeting place. Paris was soon consumed by riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of some of the French Guard, who were armed and trained soldiers. On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol of royal power. After several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a cease fire, which prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis Bernard de Launay was beaten, stabbed and decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behavior, and a murder suspect), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the ''Ancien Régime''. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the ''prévôt des marchands'' (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery and butchered him.

The King, alarmed by the violence, backed down, at least for the time being. The Marquis de la Fayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the ''commune''. The King visited Paris, where, on 17 July he accepted a tricolore cockade, to cries of ''Vive la Nation'' ("Long live the Nation") and ''Vive le Roi'' ("Long live the King").

Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour.

As civil authority rapidly deteriorated, with random acts of violence and theft breaking out across the country, members of the nobility, fearing for their safety, fled to neighboring countries; many of these ''émigrés'', as they were called, funded counter-revolutionary causes within France and urged foreign monarchs to offer military support to a counter-revolution.

By late July, the spirit of popular sovereignty had spread throughout France. In rural areas, many commoners began to form militias and arm themselves against a foreign invasion: some attacked the châteaux of the nobility as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as ''"la Grande Peur"'' ("the Great Fear"). In addition, wild rumours and paranoia caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances that contributed to the collapse of law and order.

Working toward a constitution

On 4 August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism (although at that point there had been sufficient peasant revolts to almost end feudalism already), in what is known as the August Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies and cities lost their special privileges.

On 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.

Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the people. The bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would have a single, unicameral assembly. The King retained only a "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the historic provinces with 83 ''départements,'' uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and population.

Amid the Assembly's preoccupation with constitutional affairs, the financial crisis had continued largely unaddressed, and the deficit had only increased. Honoré Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.

Women's March on Versailles

Fueled by rumors of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789 at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns. The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.

Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards. La Fayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.

On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimizing the National Assembly.

Revolution and the Church

The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Roman Catholic Church to the state. Under the ''Ancien Régime'', the Church had been the largest single landowner in the country, owning about 10% of the land in the kingdom. The Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, while it levied a tithe—a 10% tax on income, often collected in the form of crops—on the general population, which it then redistributed to the poor. The power and wealth of the Church was highly resented by some groups. A small minority of Protestants living in France, such as the Huguenots, wanted an anti-Catholic regime and revenge against the clergy who discriminated against them. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire helped fuel this resentment by denigrating the Catholic Church and destabilizing the French monarchy. As historian John McManners argues, "In eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence."

This resentment toward the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May 1789. The Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate, the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates General as a governing body. The National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe. In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was "at the disposal of the nation." They used this property to back a new currency, the assignats. Thus, the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy, caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned. In December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by 25% in two years. In autumn 1789, legislation abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved. Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small percentage did eventually marry.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because it effectively denied the authority of the Pope in Rome over the French Church. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy. This led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who remained loyal to the Pope. Overall, 24% of the clergy nationwide took the oath. Widespread refusal led to legislation against the clergy, "forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly, or executing them as traitors." Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France. During the Reign of Terror, extreme efforts of de-Christianization ensued, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones. The establishment of the Cult of Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianization. These events led to a widespread disillusionment with the Revolution and to counter-rebellions across France. Locals often resisted de-Christianization by attacking revolutionary agents and hiding members of the clergy who were being hunted. Eventually, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety were forced to denounce the campaign, replacing the Cult of Reason with the deist but still non-Christian Cult of the Supreme Being. The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. The persecution of the Church led to a counter-revolution known as the Revolt in the Vendée, whose suppression is considered by some to be the first modern genocide.

Intrigues and radicalism

Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès and the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led what would become known as the right wing, the opposition to revolution (this party sat on the right-hand side of the Assembly). The "Royalist democrats" or ''monarchiens'', allied with Necker, inclined toward organising France along lines similar to the British constitutional model; they included Jean Joseph Mounier, the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, the comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de Virieu.

The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly; while Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more extreme views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for some time between the political centre and the left. In Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under La Fayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other self-generated assemblies. The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the ''Ancien Régime''— armorial bearings, liveries, etc. – which further alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the ''émigrés''. On 14 July 1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with the ''Fête de la Fédération''; Talleyrand performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king"; the King and the royal family actively participated.

The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General to serve for a single year. However, by the terms of the Tennis Court Oath, the ''communes'' had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election, but Mirabeau prevailed, asserting that the status of the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should take place before completing the constitution.

In late 1790, the French army was in considerable disarray. The military officer corps was largely composed of noblemen, who found it increasingly difficult to maintain order within the ranks. In some cases, soldiers (drawn from the lower classes) had turned against their aristocratic commanders and attacked them. At Nancy, General Bouillé successfully put down one such rebellion, only to be accused of being anti-revolutionary for doing so. This and other such incidents spurred a mass desertion as more and more officers defected to other countries, leaving a dearth of experienced leadership within the army.

This period also saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics. Foremost among these was the Jacobin Club; 152 members had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790. The Jacobin Society began as a broad, general organization for political debate, but as it grew in members, various factions developed with widely differing views. Several of these fractions broke off to form their own clubs, such as the Club of '89.

Meanwhile, the Assembly continued to work on developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne. The legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes became illegal.

In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time, legislation against the ''émigrés''. The debate pitted the safety of the Revolution against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau prevailed against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco". But Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791 and, before the end of the year, the new Legislative Assembly adopted this draconian measure.

Royal flight to Varennes

Louis XVI, egged on by Marie Antoinette and other members of his family, opposed the course of the Revolution, but rejected the potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe. He cast his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy. On the night of 20 June 1791, the royal family fled the Tuileries Palace dressed as servants, while their servants dressed as nobles.

However, late the next day, the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes (in the Meuse ''département''). He and his family were brought back to Paris under guard, still dressed as servants. Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them. From this time, Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal family. When they returned to Paris, the crowd greeted them in silence. The Assembly provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen Marie Antoinette remained held under guard.

Completing the constitution

As most of the Assembly still favoured a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead: he was forced to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to abdication.

However, Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve public order". The National Guard under La Fayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people.

In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul Marat's ''L'Ami du Peuple''. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.

Meanwhile, a new threat arose from abroad: Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the King's brother Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his absolute liberty and implied an invasion of France on his behalf if the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions. The French people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the threat of force merely hastened their militarisation.

Even before the "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed them, the Legislative Assembly. They now gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, showed remarkable strength in choosing not to use this as an occasion for major revisions, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. With this capstone, the National Constituent Assembly adjourned in a final session on 30 September 1791.

Mignet argued that the "constitution of 1791... was the work of the middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised none."

Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)

Failure of the constitutional monarchy

Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy. The King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, but he still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers. The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, and degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and successful riot." The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (constitutional monarchists) on the right, about 330 Girondists (liberal republicans) and Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with either faction. Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the ''émigrés'' with death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, such disagreements would lead to a constitutional crisis.

Constitutional crisis

On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents and popular militias, supported by the revolutionary Paris Commune, assailed the Tuileries Palace and massacred the Swiss Guards who were assigned for the protection of the king. The royal family ended up prisoners and a rump session of the Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins.

What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent gangs into the prisons to try arbitrarily and butcher 1400 victims, and addressed a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example. The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted until the Convention, elected by universal male suffrage and charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new ''de facto'' government of France. The next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. This date was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Republican Calendar.

War and Counter-Revolution (1792–1797)

The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies. The King, many of the Feuillants and the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution within France. The forces opposing war were much weaker. Barnave and his supporters among the Feuillants feared a war they thought France had little chance to win and which they feared might lead to greater radicalization of the revolution. On the other end of the political spectrum, Robespierre opposed war, preferring to consolidate and expand the Revolution at home. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792. France preemptively declared war on Austria (20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later. The invading Prussian army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792), and forced to withdraw.

The new-born Republic followed up on this success with a series of victories in Belgium and the Rhineland in the fall of 1792. The French armies defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November, and had soon taken over most of the Austrian Netherlands. This brought them into conflict with Britain and the Dutch Republic, which wished to preserve the independence of the southern Netherlands from France. After the king's execution in January 1793, these powers, along with Spain and most other European states, joined the war against France. Almost immediately, French forces faced defeat on many fronts, and were driven out of their newly conquered territories in the spring of 1793. At the same time, the republican regime was forced to deal with rebellions against its authority in much of western and southern France. But the allies failed to take advantage of French disunity, and by the autumn of 1793 the republican regime had defeated most of the internal rebellions and halted the allied advance into France itself.

The stalemate was broken in the summer of 1794 with dramatic French victories. They defeated the allied army at the Battle of Fleurus, leading to a full Allied withdrawal from the Austrian Netherlands. They followed up by a campaign which swept the allies to the east bank of the Rhine and left the French, by the beginning of 1795, conquering Holland itself. The House of Orange was expelled and replaced by the Batavian Republic, a French satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the coalition against France. Prussia, having effectively abandoned the coalition in the fall of 1794, made peace with revolutionary France at Basel in April 1795, and soon thereafter Spain, too, made peace with France. Of the major powers, only Britain and Austria remained at war with France. It was during this time, that ''La Marseillaise'', originally ''Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin'' ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine"), was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792 and adopted in 1795 as the nation's first anthem.

National Convention (1792–1795)

Execution of Louis XVI

In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. This made Louis appear to be conspiring with the enemies of France. 17 January 1793 saw Louis condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288 voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a variety of delaying conditions. The former Louis XVI, now simply named ''Citoyen Louis Capet'' (Citizen Louis Capet), was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 on the ''Place de la Révolution'', former ''Place Louis XV'', now called the Place de la Concorde. Royalty across Europe was horrified and many heretofore neutral countries soon joined the war against revolutionary France.

Economy

When war went badly, prices rose and the ''sans-culottes'' — poor labourers and radical Jacobins – rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a parliamentary ''coup'', backed up by force effected by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian ''sans-culottes''. An alliance of Jacobin and ''sans-culottes'' elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy became considerably more radical, as "The Law of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of offenders. This policy of price control was coeval with the Committee of Public Safety's rise to power and the Reign of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products but, by September 1793, it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods. Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"

Reign of Terror

The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–1794). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. A number of historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.

On 2 June 1793, Paris sections — encouraged by the ''enragés'' ("enraged ones") Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert – took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to ''sans-culottes'' alone. With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to persuade the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the ''revolutionary dictatorship''. On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat — a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric — by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the King, undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.

Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I. It was progressive and radical in several respects, in particular by establishing universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.

War in the Vendée

In Vendée, peasants revolted against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. They resented the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the Revolutionary government's military conscription. This became a guerrilla war, known as the War in the Vendée. North of the Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels).

After the defeat at Savenay, when regular warfare in the Vendée was at an end, the French general Francois Joseph Westermann penned a letter to the Committee of Public Safety stating

"There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all. The roads are sown with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop... Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."''

However, some historians doubt the authenticity of this document and others point out that the claims in it were patently false — there were in fact thousands of (living) Vendean prisoners, the revolt had been far from crushed, and the Convention had explicitly decreed that women, children and unarmed men were to be treated humanely. It has been hypothesized that if the letter is authentic, that may have been Westermann's attempt to exaggerate the intensity of his actions and his success, because he was eager to avoid being purged for his incompetent military leadership and for his opposition to ''sans-culotte'' generals (he failed to avoid that, since he was guillotined together with Danton's group).

The revolt and its suppression (including both combat casualties and massacres and executions on both sides) are thought to have taken between 117,000 and 250,000 lives (170,000 according to the latest estimates). Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, certain historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide". This description has become popular in the mass media, but it has attracted much criticism in academia as being unrealistic and biased.

Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general conscription, the ''levée en masse'', which mobilized all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.

The result was a policy through which the state used violent repression to crush resistance to the government. Under control of the effectively dictatorial Committee, the Convention quickly enacted more legislation. On 9 September, the Convention established ''sans-culottes'' paramilitary forces, the ''revolutionary armies'', to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the ''Law of Suspects'' was passed, which authorized the charging of counter-revolutionaries with vaguely defined crimes against liberty. On 29 September, the Convention extended price-fixing from grain and bread to other household goods and declared the right to set a limit on wages.

The guillotine as a symbol

The guillotine became the symbol of a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, Barnave, Bailly, Brissot and other leading Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.

At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process. Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). In the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the ''Noyades'' ("drownings") he organized in Nantes; his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.

Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Republican Calendar on 24 October 1793. Against Robespierre's concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hébert's (and Chaumette's) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign to dechristianize society. The climax was reached with the celebration of the flame of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November. The Reign of Terror enabled the revolutionary government to avoid military defeat. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with younger soldiers who had demonstrated their ability and patriotism. The Republican army was able to throw back the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy.

In the spring of 1794, both extremist ''enragés'' such as Hébert and moderate Montagnard ''indulgents'' such as Danton were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, tried and guillotined. On 7 June Robespierre, who had previously condemned the ''Cult of Reason'', advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".

Thermidorian Reaction

On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and other leading Jacobins. The new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the White Terror.

In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved the new "Constitution of the Year III" on 22 August 1795. A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against. The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.

The Constitutional Republic: The Directory (1795–1799)

The new constitution created the ''Directoire'' () and the first bicameral legislature in French history. The parliament consisted of two houses: the ''Conseil des Cinq-Cents'' (Council of the Five Hundred), with 500 representatives, and the ''Conseil des Anciens'' (Council of Elders), with 250 senators. Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the ''Conseil des Anciens'' from a list submitted by the ''Conseil des Cinq-Cents''. Furthermore, the universal suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property.

With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Those who wished to restore the monarchy and the ''Ancien Régime'' by putting Louis XVIII on the throne, and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the First Coalition. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance. However, many French citizens distrusted the Directory, and the directors could achieve their purposes only by extraordinary means. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, even when the elections that they rigged went against them, the directors routinely used draconian police measures to quell dissent. Moreover, to prolong their power the directors were driven to rely on the military, which desired war and grew less and less civic-minded.

Other reasons influenced them in the direction of war. State finances during the earlier phases of the Revolution had been so thoroughly ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.

The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination toward the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value.

The new régime met opposition from remaining Jacobins and the royalists. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and its successful general, Napoleon Bonaparte eventually gained total power.

On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon Bonaparte staged the ''coup of 18 Brumaire'' which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to Bonaparte's dictatorship and eventually (in 1804) to his proclamation as ''Empereur'' (emperor), which brought to a close the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.

Symbolism in the French Revolution

The French Revolution was a time of upheaval, especially towards traditional ideology, in almost every sense: the current monarch, King Louis XVI, was executed; the Catholic Church was all but abolished; a new calendar was created; and a new Republican government was established. In order to effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instill in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.

Fasces

Fasces, likes many other symbols of the French Revolution, are Roman in origin. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. In Roman times, the fasces symbolized the power of magistrates who could order the beating of a criminal, representing union and accord with the Roman Republic. The French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity. During the French Revolution the fasces image is seen in conjunction with many other symbols. This is seen with many emblems of the French Revolution. Though seen throughout the French Revolution, perhaps the most well known French reincarnation of the fasces is the Fasces surmounted by a Phrygian cap. This image has no display of an axe or a strong central state; rather, it symbolizes the power of the liberated people by placing the Liberty Cap on top of the classical symbol of power.

Liberty cap

The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. The cap was originally worn by ancient Romans and Greeks. The cap implies ennobling effects, as seen in its association with Homer’s Ulysses and the mythical twins, Castor and Pollux. The emblem’s popularity during the French Revolution is due in part to its importance in ancient Rome: its use alludes to the Roman ritual of manumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty. The Roman tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus incited the slaves to insurrection by displaying a pileus as if it were a standard. The pileus cap is often red in color. This type of cap was worn by revolutionaries at the fall of the Bastille. According to the Revolutions de Paris, it became "the symbol of the liberation from all servitudes, the sign for unification of all the enemies of despotism." The pileus competed with the Phrygian cap, a similar cap that covered the ears and the nape of the neck, for popularity. The Phrygian cap eventually supplanted the pileus and usurped its symbolism, becoming synonymous with republican liberty.

Liberty Tree

The Liberty Tree, officially adopted in 1792, is a symbol of the everlasting Republic, national freedom, and political revolution. It has historic roots in revolutionary France as well as America, as a symbol that was shared by the two nascent republics. The tree was chosen as a symbol of the French Revolution because it is a symbol of fertility in French folklore, which provided a simple transition from revering it for one reason to another. The American colonies also used the idea of a Liberty Tree to celebrate their own acts of insurrection against the British, starting with the Stamp Act riot in 1765. The riot culminated in the hanging in effigy of two Stamp Act politicians on a large elm tree. The elm tree began to be celebrated as a symbol of Liberty in the American colonies. It was adopted as a symbol that needed to be living and growing, along with the Republic. To that end, the tree is portrayed as a sapling, usually of an oak tree in French interpretation. The Liberty Tree serves as a constant celebration of the spirit of political freedom.

Hercules

The symbol of Hercules was first adopted by the Old Regime to represent the monarchy. Hercules was an ancient Greek hero who symbolized strength and power. The symbol was used to represent the sovereign authority of the King over France during the reign of the Bourbon monarchs. However, the monarchy was not the only ruling power in French history to use the symbol of Hercules to declare its power.

During the Revolution, the symbol of Hercules was revived to represent nascent revolutionary ideals. The first use of Hercules as a revolutionary symbol was during a festival celebrating the National Assembly’s victory over federalism on 10 August 1793. This Festival of Unity consisted of four stations around Paris which featured symbols representing major events of the Revolution which embodied revolutionary ideals of liberty, unity, and power. The statue of Hercules, placed at the station commemorating the fall of Louis XVI, symbolized the power of the French people over their former oppressors. The statue’s foot was placed on the throat of the Hydra, which represented the tyranny of federalism which the new Republic had vanquished. In one hand, the statue grasped a club, a symbol of power, while in the other grasping the fasces which symbolized the unity of the French people. The image of Hercules assisted the new Republic in establishing its new Republican moral system. Hercules thus evolved from a symbol of the sovereignty of the monarch into a symbol of the new sovereign authority in France: the French people. This transition was made easily for two reasons. First, because Hercules was a famous mythological figure, and had previously been used by the monarchy, he was easily recognized by educated French observers. It was not necessary for the revolutionary government to educate the French people on the background of the symbol. Additionally, Hercules recalled the classical age of the Greeks and the Romans, a period which the revolutionaries identified with republican and democratic ideals. These connotations made Hercules an easy choice to represent the powerful new sovereign people of France.

During the more radical phase of the Revolution from 1793 to 1794, the usage and depiction of Hercules changed. These changes to the symbol were due to revolutionary leaders believing the symbol was inciting violence among the common citizens. The triumphant battles of Hercules and the overcoming of enemies of the Republic became less prominent. In discussions over what symbol to use for the Seal of the Republic, the image of Hercules was considered but eventually ruled out in favor of Marianne. Hercules was on the coin of the Republic. However, this Hercules was not the same image as that of the pre-Terror phases of the Revolution. The new image of Hercules was more domesticated. He appeared more paternal, older, and wiser, rather than the warrior-like images in the early stages of the French Revolution. Unlike his 24 foot statue in the Festival of the Supreme Being, he was now the same size as Liberty and Equality. Also the language on the coin with Hercules was far different than the rhetoric of pre-revolutionary depictions. On the coins the words, "uniting Liberty and Equality" were used. This is opposed to the forceful language of early Revolutionary rhetoric and rhetoric of the Bourbon monarchy. By 1798, the Council of Ancients had discussed the "inevitable" change from the problematic image of Hercules, and Hercules was eventually phased out in favor of an even more docile image.

Role of women

Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they couldn’t vote or hold any political office. They were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them in the government. It was the men who defined these categories, and women were forced to accept male domination in the political sphere. The ''Encyclopédie'', published by a group of philosophers over the years 1751–1777, summarized French male beliefs of women. A woman was a "failed man," the fetus not fully developed in the womb. "Women’s testimony is in general light and subject to variation; this is why it is taken more seriously than that of men" as opposed to men, upon whom "Nature seems to have conferred… the right to govern." In general, "men are more capable than women of ably governing particular matters". Instead, women were taught to be committed to their husbands and "all his interests… [to show] attention and care… [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation." A woman’s education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens.

When the Revolution opened, some women struck forcefully, using the volatile political climate to assert their active natures. In the time of the Revolution, women could not be kept out of the political sphere; they swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship." Throughout the Revolution, women such as Pauline Léon and her Society of Revolutionary Republican Women fought for the right to bear arms, used armed force and rioted.

Even before Léon, some liberals had advocated equal rights for women including women's suffrage. Nicolas de Condorcet was especially noted for his advocacy, in his articles published in the ''Journal de la Société de 1789'', and by publishing ''De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité'' ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women") in 1790.

Feminist agitation

The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated for full citizenship for women. Women were, nonetheless, "denied political rights of ‘active citizenship’ (1791) and democratic citizenship (1793)."

Pauline Léon, on 6 March 1792, submitted a petition signed by 319 women to the National Assembly requesting permission to form a garde national in order to defend Paris in case of military invasion. Léon requested permission be granted to women to arm themselves with pikes, pistols, sabers and rifles, as well as the privilege of drilling under the French Guards. Her request was denied. Later in 1792, Théroigne de Méricourt made a call for the creation of "legions of amazons" in order to protect the revolution. As part of her call, she claimed that the right to bear arm would transform women into citizens.

On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuilleries Gardens, and then through the King’s residence." Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793. As part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered as well as a shirt stained with Marat’s blood.

The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, which was founded by Léon and her colleague, Claire Lacombe on 10 May 1793. The goal of the club was "to deliberate on the means of frustrating the projects of the enemies of the Republic." Up to 180 women attended the meetings of the Society. Of special interest to the Society was "combating hoarding [of grain and other staples] and inflation."

Later, on 20 May 1793, women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793." When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."

Most of these outwardly activist women were punished for their actions. The kind of punishment received during the Revolution included public denouncement, arrest, execution, or exile. Théroigne de Méricourt was arrested, publicly flogged and then spent the rest of her life sentenced to an insane asylum. Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe were arrested, later released, and continued to receive ridicule and abuse for their activism. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".

These are but a few examples of the militant feminism that was prevalent during the French Revolution. While little progress was made toward gender equality during the Revolution, the activism of French feminists was bold and particularly significant in Paris.

Women writers

While some women chose a militant, and often violent, path, others chose to influence events through writing, publications, and meetings. Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasized that women and men are different, but this shouldn’t stop them from equality under the law. In her "Declaration on the Rights of Woman" she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. De Gouges also expressed non-gender political views; even before the start of the terror, Olympe de Gouges addressed Robespierre using the pseudonym "Polyme" calling him the Revolution’s "infamy and shame." She warned of the Revolution’s building extremism saying that leaders were "preparing new shackles if [the French people’s liberty were to] waver." Stating that she was willing to sacrifice herself by jumping into the Seine if Robespierre were to join her, de Gouges desperately attempted to grab the attention of the French citizenry and alert them to the dangers that Robespierre embodied. In addition to these bold writings, her defense of the king was one of the factors leading to her execution. An influential figure, one of her suggestions early in the Revolution, to have a voluntary, patriotic tax, was adopted by the National Convention in 1789.

Madame Roland (aka Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. While limited by her gender, Madame Roland took it upon herself to spread Revolutionary ideology and spread word of events, as well as to assist in formulating the policies of her political allies. Though unable to directly write policies or carry them through to the government, Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote her political agenda. Roland attributed women’s lack of education to the public view that women were too weak or vain to be involved in the serious business of politics. She believed that it was this inferior education that turned them into foolish people, but women "could easily be concentrated and solidified upon objects of great significance" if given the chance. As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" Witnesses of her life and death, editors, and readers helped to finish her writings and several editions were published posthumously. While she did not focus on gender politics in her writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved they could take an intelligent active role in politics.

Though women did not gain the right to vote as a result of the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in governing. They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.

Legacy

The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have been characterized as falling along ideological lines, with liberal, conservative, communist, and anarchist scholars—among others—disagreeing over the significance and the major developments of the Revolution. Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance. Other thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order—a claim rooted in the belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate complaints. Other historians, influenced by Marxist thinking, have emphasized the importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution as a gigantic class struggle. In general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the political ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social history that analyzes the impact of the Revolution on individual lives.

Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, and the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500, is traditionally attributed to the onset of the French Revolution in 1789. The Revolution is, in fact, often seen as marking the "dawn of the modern era". Within France itself, the Revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived despite the damage they sustained. After the collapse of the First Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges earned since the Revolution, but they remembered the participatory politics that characterized the period, with one historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained firsthand experience in the political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they joined new organizations; and they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option." Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution. Outside France, the Revolution captured the imagination of the world. It had a profound impact on the Russian Revolution and its ideas were imbibed by Mao Zedong in his efforts at constructing a communist state in China.

See also

Related pages

Biens nationaux

Dual revolution

History of democracy

Jean-Nicolas Pache – Liberté, égalité, fraternité

La Révolution française (film)

List of people granted honorary French citizenship during the French Revolution

List of revolutions and rebellions

Military career of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleonic code

Rise of nationalism in Europe

Timeline of the French Revolution

Audio files

Other revolutions or rebellions in French history

Camisard Rebellion, French Huguenots (1710–1715)

Haitian Revolution, Haiti colony (1791–1804)

July Revolution (1830)

Canut revolts of the July Monarchy

French Revolution of 1848

Resistance to the coup of 1851

Paris Commune of 1871

French Army Mutinies (1917)

French Resistance during World War II

May 1968 in France, a noteworthy rebellion, though not quite a revolution

References

Works cited

Levy, Darline Gay and Harriet B. Applewhite. "Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).

Marquise de Maintenon "Instruction to the Nuns of St. Louis," in Writings by Pre-Revolutionary French Women. ed. Anne R. Larsen and Colette H Winn. (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000), 321.

Scott, Joan Wallach. "A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).

Walker, Leslie H. "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland" Eighteenth-Century Studies, French Revolutionary Culture (2001): 403–419.

"Women." The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. University of Michigan Library, n.d. Web. 10/29/09. < http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/>.

Further reading

Baker, Keith M. ed. ''The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture'' (Oxford, 1987–94) ''vol 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime,'' ed. K.M. Baker (1987); ''vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution,'' ed. C. Lucas (1988); ''vol. 3: The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848,'' eds. F. Furet & M. Ozouf (1989); ''vol. 4: The Terror,'' ed. K.M. Baker (1994). excerpt and text search vol 4

Blanning, T.C.W. ''The French Revolutionary Wars 1787–1802'' (1996).

Censer, Jack R. "Amalgamating the Social in the French Revolution." ''Journal of Social History 2003'' 37(1): 145–150. Issn: 0022-4529 Fulltext: in Project Muse and Ebsco

Doyle, William. ''The Oxford History of the French Revolution'' (1989). online complete edition; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Doyle, William. ''The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction.'' (2001), 120pp; online edition

Doyle, William. ''Origins of the French Revolution'' (3rd ed. 1999) online edition

Dunne, John. "Fifty Years of Rewriting the French Revolution: Signposts Main Landmarks and Current Directions in the Historiographical Debate," ''History Review.'' (1998) pp 8+ online edition

Englund, Steven. ''Napoleon: A Political Life.'' (2004). 575 pages; the best political biography excerpt and text search

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. ed. ''The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History'' (ABC-CLIO: 3 vol 2006)

Frey, Linda S. and Marsha L. Frey. ''The French Revolution.'' (2004) 190pp online edition

Furet, François. ''The French Revolution, 1770–1814'' (1996) excerpt and text search

Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. ''A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution'' (1989), 1120pp; long essays by scholars; conservative perspective; stress on history of ideas excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Hunt, Lynn. ''The Family Romance of the French Revolution.'' (1992)

Hunt, Lynn. "Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution." (1984)

Germani, Ian and Robin Swayles. ''Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution''. University of Regina Publications. 1998. ISBN 9780889771086

Griffith, Paddy. ''The Art of War of Revolutionary France 1789–1802,'' (1998); 304 pp; excerpt and text search

Jones, Colin. ''The Longman Companion to the French Revolution'' (1989)

Jones, Colin. ''The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon'' (2002) excerpt and text search

Kates, Gary. ''The French Revolution'' (2nd ed. 2005), 308pp; essays by scholars; excerpts and online search from Amazon.com

Lefebvre, Georges. ''The French Revolution'' (2 vol 1957) classic Marxist synthesis. complete online edition vol 1; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Neely, Sylvia. '' A Concise History of the French Revolution'' (2008)

Palmer, Robert R. ''The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800.'' (2 vol 1959), highly influential comparative history; vol 1 online

Paxton, John. ''Companion to the French Revolution'' (1987), hundreds of short entries.

Rothenberg, Gunther E. "The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon," ''Journal of Interdisciplinary History,'' Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 771–793 in JSTOR

Rude, George F. and Harvey J. Kaye. ''Revolutionary Europe, 1783–1815'' (2000), scholarly survey excerpt and text search

Schroeder, Paul. ''The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848.'' 1996; Thorough coverage of diplomatic history; hostile to Napoleon; online edition

Schwab, Gail M., and John R. Jeanneney, eds. ''The French Revolution of 1789 and Its Impact'' (1995) online edition

Scott, Samuel F. and Barry Rothaus. ''Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789–1799'' (2 vol 1984), short essays by scholars

Schama, Simon. ''Citizens. A Chronicle of the French Revolution'' (1989), highly readable narrative by scholar excerpt and text search

Sutherland, D.M.G. ''France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution'' (2nd ed. 2003, 430pp excerpts and online search from Amazon.com

External links

"French Revolution" in the ''Catholic Encyclopedia''

Open University course

Entry on Encyclopedia.com from the Columbia Encyclopedia

Primary source documents from The Internet Modern History Sourcebook

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History Project (City University of New York)

The Origins of the French Revolution, The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789–1792, and The French Revolution: The Radical Stage, 1792–1794, three essays from The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History

Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History Journal, 2008.

english.republique.de A large collection of links

Category:Republicanism in France Category:18th-century rebellions Category:18th-century revolutions

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name	Blake Lively
birth date	August 25, 1987
birth place	Los Angeles, CA, USA
occupation	Actress, model
yearsactive	1998; 2005–present }}

Blake Lively (born August 25, 1987) is an American actress and model who stars as Serena van der Woodsen in the television teen drama series, ''Gossip Girl''. She has also starred in movies, including ''Accepted'', ''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'', ''The Private Lives of Pippa Lee'', ''The Town'' and ''Green Lantern''.

Early life

Lively was born in Tarzana, Los Angeles to actors Ernie and Elaine Lively. She was raised as a Southern Baptist. The youngest of five siblings, Lively has a brother, Eric, two half-sisters, Lori and Robyn, and a half-brother, Jason. Both of her parents and all of her siblings are, or have been, in the entertainment industry. During Lively's childhood, her parents would take her with them to acting classes that they taught because they did not want to leave her with a babysitter. Lively said that watching her parents teach acting classes helped her learn the "drills" of acting and gain confidence as she got older. Lively stated that as a child, her mother would bring her to Disneyland twice a week as an opportunity "to have some extra time to bond"; Lively has stated, due to all the time she spent there, she felt that she "grew up at Disneyland."

Lively was not at all interested in acting, but during the summer between her junior and senior years, her brother, Eric, made his agent send her out on a few auditions over a period of a few months; of the few auditions, she got the role of Bridget for ''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants''. Lively filmed her scenes in ''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'' between her junior and senior years at Burbank High.

Career

Lively began her acting career at age 11, when she appeared in the 1998 film ''Sandman'', which was directed by Lively's father. Lively describes her role in the film as having been a "bit part". Lively appeared in the film adaptation of the novel of the same name, ''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'' in 2005 playing Bridget, one of the four female leads. Lively's performance in the film earned her a nomination for a Teen Choice Award for "Choice Movie Breakout - Female."

In 2006, she co-starred with Justin Long in ''Accepted'', and Lively had minor roles in the horror film, ''Simon Says''. While ''Accepted'' was not well received by critics, Lively's performance was, earning her an award from Hollywood Life, in the category of 'Breakthrough Award'. In 2007, Lively played one of the two title characters in ''Elvis and Anabelle'' as Anabelle, a bulimic girl who hoped to win a beauty pageant. Lively said of getting into character for the role that she had 'shed serious weight' for her height. Lively stated that that process was difficult for her because food is “the No. 1 love of my life.” ''MovieLine.com'' praised her performance in the film and credited it as having been her "breakthrough role".

Lively was cast in the CW's series ''Gossip Girl'', which premiered in September 2007. She plays Serena van der Woodsen in the teen drama. Her first magazine cover was the November 2007 issue of ''Cosmo Girl'', where she discussed her time in high school and her career prior to ''Gossip Girl''.

In 2008, Lively reprised her roles in the 2008 sequel, ''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2''. Similar to the first film, Lively was positively received by critics. As of November 2009, the film had earned over $44 million at the box office. In 2009, Lively appeared as Gabrielle DiMarco, a minor role in the romantic comedy, ''New York, I Love You'', a sequel to the 2006 film ''Paris, je t'aime''. Despite positive reception from critics, the film had a poor box office performance.

One of Lively's most acclaimed roles to date is her supporting role as playing the younger version of the title character in ''The Private Lives of Pippa Lee'' (2009). Paul Byrnes, of the ''Brisbane Times'', described Lively's performance in the film as being "sensational". In October, 2009, Lively began filming her scenes for her role as Krista Coughlin, in the 2010 film ''The Town'', based on Chuck Hogan's novel ''Prince of Thieves''. In the film, Lively's role has been described as "the sister of Jem and Doug's ex-girlfriend who has a 19-month old daughter, Shyne." The film, which also stars Ben Affleck, was released in the United States on September 17, 2010 to critical acclaim. In an interview with ''Marie Claire'', Lively stated that she wasn't relying on her career as an actress, having felt that having her own interior decorating firm would be a substitute as a back-up plan, having felt that because of her 'fascination' with "colors and textures and layering things." In January 2010, it was announced that Lively would play Carol Ferris in the superhero film ''Green Lantern'', which was released in June 2011.

Music video

Lively appeared in the music video for The Lonely Island´s "I Just Had Sex" together with Jessica Alba in January 2011.

Personal life

Lively dated actor Kelly Blatz from 2004 to 2007; the two had been friends since childhood. In late 2007, rumors circulated that Lively was dating her ''Gossip Girl'' co-star and former childhood classmate Penn Badgley. In May 2008, after ''People'' magazine published photos of the two kissing while on vacation in Mexico, the couple became more open about their relationship. Lively and Badgley ended their three-year relationship in mid-September 2010, according to a representative for the pair. She is now in a relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio. They were first spotted together in May 2011, however neither have confirmed the romance.

During the 2008 United States presidential election Lively expressed her support for Barack Obama. Lively and Badgley appeared in a pro-Obama commercial, as part of MoveOn.org's Youth Vote program. The commercial, directed by Doug Liman, aired during ''Gossip Girl'' on CW, MTV and Comedy Central.

In 2011, she was featured in the annual ''TIME'' magazine 100 influential people.

Filmography

+ List of film credits
! Year	! Film	! Role	Notes
2005	''''	Bridget Vreeland	Film debut
2006	''Accepted''	Monica Moreland	Hollywood Life's Breakthrough Award
2006		Jenny
2007	''Elvis and Anabelle''	Anabelle Leigh
2008	''''	Bridget Vreeland
2009	''New York, I Love You''	Gabrielle DiMarco
2009	''''	Young Pippa Lee
2010	''''	Krista Coughlin
2011		Carol Ferris
2011		Glenda
2012		Ophelia

+ List of television credits
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
2007–present	''Gossip Girl''	Serena van der Woodsen	Main role

Awards

+ List of awards and award nominations
! Year	! Award	! Category	! Nominated work	! Result
2005	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Breakout Female	''''
2008	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Female Hottie
2008	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama won
2008	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Breakout Star-Female	''Gossip Girl''
2008	Newport Beach Film Festival	Achievement Award-Breakout Performance	''Elvis and Anabelle''
2009	Prism Awards	Performances in a Drama Episode	''Gossip Girl''
2009	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama	''Gossip Girl''
2010	People's Choice Awards	Favorite TV Drama Actress	''Gossip Girl''
2010	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama	''Gossip Girl''
2010	Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards		''''
2010	National Board of Review		''''
2010			''''
2010	Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association		''''
2011	People's Choice Award	Favorite TV Drama Actress	''Gossip Girl''
2011	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie Actress Sci Fi/Fantasy	''Green Lantern''
2011	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama	''Gossip Girl''

References

won

External links

Blake Lively cast bio at The CW

Blake Lively at TV Guide

Blake Lively At Her Hottest — slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Category:1987 births Category:Actors from California Category:American female models Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Living people Category:People from Tarzana, Los Angeles Category:People from the San Fernando Valley

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Name	Clémence Poésy
Birthname	Clémence Guichard
Birth place	Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, Paris, France
Birth date	November 30, 1982
Occupation	Actress, model
Yearsactive	1993–present }}

Clémence Poésy (; born November 30, 1982) is a French actress and fashion model. Since starting on the stage as a child, Poésy had dramatic education, and has been active on both film and television since 1999, including some English-language productions. She is known for roles as Fleur Delacour in ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' and ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1'' and ''Part 2'', as Chloë in ''In Bruges'', and as Rana in ''127 Hours''. She is also known for her short role as Eva Coupeau on ''Gossip Girl''.

Early life

Born as Clémence Guichard in Meudon, a southwestern suburb of Paris, the daughter of actor/writer Étienne Guichard and a French teacher, Poésy took her mother's maiden name as her stage name. She was sent to an alternative school in Meudon. She was not the "popular girl" at school, and described herself as maladjusted and "a bit strange". Her father gave Poésy her first acting job when she was a child; then she had two lines at age 14. She has a younger sister, Maëlle Poésy-Guichard, who is also an actress.

Career

Since leaving ''La Source'' — the bilingual alternative school she attended at the age of 16 — Poesy has studied drama at CNSAD, the ''Atelier International de Blanche Salant et Paul Weaver'', and the University of Nanterre, where she has since appeared in a number of French film, television, and stage productions.

Her first English-speaking role was in the BBC mini-series ''Gunpowder, Treason & Plot'' (2004), for which she portrayed Mary, Queen of Scots, subsequently winning the 2005 Golden FIPA for actress in a TV Series and Serial.

In 2005, Poésy appeared in the Harry Potter franchise as Fleur Delacour in ''The Goblet of Fire'', and between 2006 and 2007 she starred in a number of film and television productions including the 2007 mini-series ''War and Peace''.

In 2008, Poesy starred in the Academy Award nominated film ''In Bruges'', where she acted alongside Colin Farrell, and reunited with ''Harry Potter'' co-stars Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson. In 2009, Poésy appears in ''Heartless'' opposite Jim Sturgess. She reprised her role as Fleur Delacour in both ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'' movies.

As a model, Poésy has been featured in magazines, including the covers of ''i-D'', twice on French magazine ''Jalouse'', Australian's ''Yen'', and ''Nylon''. Since October 2007, Poesy has been one of three spokesmodels for the self-titled fragrance by Chloé, and has modeled in Gap's 2008 fall advertising campaign.

She played Chuck Bass's new French girlfriend, Eva, in the fourth season of the CW hit show ''Gossip Girl''. In 2010, Poesy also appeared alongside James Franco in ''127 Hours'', directed by Danny Boyle. ''127 Hours'' was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010, following its premiere at the 2010 Telluride Film Festival.

In 2011, she appeared alongside Rupert Friend in ''Lullaby for Pi'', a romantic drama which is Benoit Philippon’s directorial debut. The film is about a jazz singer (Friend) who has just lost his wife and meets a mysterious woman (Poésy). Forest Whitaker also starred.

She will also be heard singing on the album ''Colour of the Trap'' by Miles Kane. She is featured on the track "Happenstance".

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%;" |- ! colspan="4" style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film |- ! style="background:#ccc;"| Year ! style="background:#ccc;"| Film ! style="background:#ccc;"| Role ! style="background:#ccc;"| Notes |- |2001 |''Petite Soeur'' |Anna | |- |2002 |''Olgas Sommer'' |Olga | |- |2003 |''Welcome to the Roses'' (''Bienvenue chez les Rozes'') |Magali Rozes | |- |2005 |''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' |Fleur Delacour | |- |2006 |''Le Grand Meaulnes'' |Yvonne de Galais |won — Swann d'or at 2007 Festival de Cabourg for Best Actress |- |rowspan="2"|2007 |''Sans moi'' |Lise | |- |''Masked Mobsters'' (''Le Dernier gang'') |Julie | |- |rowspan="3"|2008 |''Blanche'' |Chloé | |- |''In Bruges'' |Chloë Villette | |- |''La Troisième partie du monde'' |Emma | |- |2009 |''Heartless'' |Tia | |- |rowspan="3"|2010 |''Pièce montée'' |Bérengère | |- |''127 Hours'' |Rana | |- |''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1'' |Fleur Delacour | |- |rowspan="4"|2011 |''Lullaby for Pi'' |Pi | |- |''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2'' |Fleur Delacour | |- style="text-align:center;" ! colspan=4 style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Television |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background:#ccc;"| Year ! style="background:#ccc;"| Series/Film ! style="background:#ccc;"| Role ! style="background:#ccc;"| Notes |- |1999 |''Un homme en colère'' |Hélène |2 Episodes"Une femme réduite au silence""Meurtre pour deux" |- |2000 |''Les Monos'' |Julia |1 Episode"Quand ça t'arrive" |- |2001 |''Tania Boréalis ou L'étoile d'un été'' |Maguy |TV movie |- |2003 |''Life After All'' (''Carnets d'ados - La vie quand même'') |Jessica |TV movie |- |2004 |''Gunpowder, Treason & Plot'' |Mary, Queen of Scots |TV moviewon — Golden FIPA Award for actress in a TV Series and Serial |- |2005 |''Revelations'' |Exquisite Corpse |TV mini-series; 3 Episodes"Hour Three""Hour Four""Hour Six" |- |2006 |''Les Amants du Flore'' |Lumi |TV movie |- |2007 |''War and Peace'' |Natasha |TV mini-series |- |2010 |''Gossip Girl'' |Eva Coupeau |4 Episodes"Belles de Jour""Double Identity""The Undergraduates""Touch of Eva" |- |2012 |''Richard II'' |Queen Isabella |TV movie |- style="text-align:center;" ! colspan=4 style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Theatre |- style="text-align:center;" ! style="background:#ccc;"| Year ! style="background:#ccc;"| Title ! style="background:#ccc;"| Role ! style="background:#ccc;"| Notes |- |1993 |''Le dragon'' | | |- |1995 |''Mai 45 Mai 95'' | | |- |1997 |''Picasso 970'' | | |- |2003 |''Tartuffe'' | | |}

References

Bibliography

External links

Category:1982 births Category:French female models Category:French film actors Category:French television actors Category:French stage actors Category:Living people Category:People from Hauts-de-Seine

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