French Revolution

The French Revolution was a social and political conflict, with various periods of violence, which convulsed France and, by extension of its implications, other nations of Europe that faced supporters and opponents of the system known as the Old Regime. It began with the self-proclamation of the Third State as a National Assembly in 1789 and ended with the coup d'état of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799.

Although, after the First Republic fell after the coup d'état of Napoleon Bonaparte, the political organization of France during the nineteenth century oscillated between republic, empire and constitutional monarchy, the truth is that the revolution marked the final end of feudalism and of absolutism in that country, 1 and gave birth to a new regime where the bourgeoisie, supported sometimes by the popular masses, became the dominant political force in the country. The revolution undermined the bases of the monarchical system as such, beyond its death throes, to the extent that it overthrew it with a discourse and initiatives capable of rendering it illegitimate.

According to classical historiography, the French Revolution marks the beginning of the Contemporary Age by laying the foundations of modern democracy, which places it at the heart of the 19th century. It opened new political horizons based on the principle of popular sovereignty, which will be the engine of the revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1871.

The causes of the French Revolution were:the deep economic and social crisis, where famine prevails, and equally where the social classes prevail over the inferior ones, unleashing this social conflict for the dissolution of the regime.

In short, this Revolution, which took place in 1789, is the event that, according to some authors, inaugurates the so-called Contemporary Age. The historians of the nineteenth century, who made the dividing line of history, attributed to this event the character of a dividing frame between the Modern and Contemporary Ages, by the political radicalization that characterized it, it must be remembered that in the Contemporary age also the industrial revolution. To understand the French Revolution it is necessary to know a little about the economic and social situation of eighteenth-century France.

Until the eighteenth century, France was a state in which he commanded the model of monarchical absolutism. The then French king, Louis XVI, personified the State, gathering in his person the legislative, executive and judicial powers.

The French then were not citizens of a Constitutional Democratic State, as today is common throughout the Western world, but were subjects of the king, The king personified the State.

this as a consequence was the lever that led France from the feudal to the capitalist stage. it installed the separation of powers and the Constitution, a legacy left for several nations of the world.

In 1799, the upper bourgeoisie joined forces with General Napoleon Bonaparte, who was invited to join the government. Its mission was to recover the order and stability of the country, protect the wealth of the bourgeoisie and save them from popular demonstrations. Around 1803 the Napoleonic Wars began, revolutionary conflicts imbued with the ideals of the Revolution that had Napoleon Bonaparte as protagonist. It was one of the most important wars in history.