(^132) › STEP 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
II. The vote to abolish the monarchy in September 1792 is evidence of a radical phase
because the abolition of the French monarchy was not a goal of the original, moderate
leaders of the Revolution, who wanted only to curb the absolutist tendencies of the king
and his government.
III. One explanation for the shift to a radical phase is the rise of the sans-culottes, the working
people (bakers, shopkeepers, artisans, and manual laborers) of Paris. They helped to cause
the radical phase because they had the willingness and the numerical strength to violently
impose the more radical agenda of Convention members like Robespierre.
Rapid Review
When Louis XVI was forced by financial difficulties to call the seldom-used Estates General
into session in 1789, the bourgeois representatives of the Third Estate launched a revolu-
tion aimed at curbing the power and privilege of the nobility and the clergy, and they
attempted to turn France into a constitutional monarchy. Supported by the Paris crowd, the
leaders of the newly formed National Assembly nearly succeeded, but foreign intervention,
persistent resistance from the nobility, the indecisiveness of Louis XVI, and the develop-
ment of factions within the Assembly allowed new, more radical leaders to win over the
sans-culottes who now made up the Parisian crowd and set the Revolution on a more radi-
cal course. Besieged by a coalition of European powers and beset with factional strife, the
radicals resorted to a Reign of Terror, which eventually consumed them.
By 1794, the propertied bourgeoisie reasserted itself and concentrated on restoring
order and repealing the gains made by the radicals. In 1799, their executive organ, known
as the Directory, was overthrown by a military general, Napoleon Bonaparte. He gradually
assumed dictatorial powers and attempted to create a Europe-wide French Empire. Upon
his defeat in 1815 by coalition forces, the French monarchy was restored, and the Kingdom
of France was restored to its pre-Revolutionary boundaries.KEY IDEA16_Bartolini_Ch16_119-132.indd 132 27/04/18 1:55 PM