BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF LJUBLJANA : DR RICHARD MAJOR

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I. Basic things

1. The curriculum (you want pages 7 and 8, which the browser calls 9 and 10), and examiners' report of 2010 on this paper
2. The lesson plan for 05ix11
3. The class test on the Revolution
4. Extensive notes on the Revolution.
5.You might like these run through these Open University course notes.
6. If you dig really laid-back American teachers, then these video lectures are for you.

II. Recent questions on the French Revolution

November 2011 (paper 11): ‘His main aim was to keep himself in power.’ How far do you agree with this view of Napoleon Bonaparte from 1799 to 1815?
November 2011 (paper 12): Explain the rise and fall of the Jacobins in France during the period from 1789 to 1794.
November 2011 (paper 13): Why were attempts to reform the ancien régime in France up to 1789 unsuccessful?
June 2011 (paper 11): Why was Louis XVI executed in 1793?
June 2011 (paper 12): How far do you agree that, from 1799 to 1815, Napoleon achieved more in domestic than in foreign affairs?
June 2011 (paper 13): Did Robespierre and the Jacobins do more to save or to endanger the French Revolution?
November 2010 (paper 11 and 12): Why did the rulers of France from 1789 to 1799 fail to hold on to power?
November 2010 (paper 13): Why did the summoning of the Estates-General in 1789 not solve the problems of the ancien régime?
June 2010 (paper 13): ‘The most important problem of the French ancien régime was poor quality leadership.’ How far do you agree with this judgement?
June 2010 (paper 12): How far was France a police state under Napoleon Bonaparte from 1799 to 1814?

III. The revision assignment

Think of the five important things to know about each of the following topics:
1. The Ancien Régime: what was it, and why did it collapse?
.........Absolutism (ricketty monarchy)
.........Taxation (inefficient, oppressive)
.........Bankruptcy (wars with Britain)
.........Louis (feeble, indecisive, unpopular, awful wife)
.........Reform (hesitant; pushed and then pulled back with Necker, Council of Notables, Estates )
2. What happened in the constitutional period, from 1789 to 1791 (Bastille to Varennes)?
.........Tennis Court Oath (monarchy loses control of Assembly)
.........Bastille (monarchy loses Paris)
.........Great Fear (feudalism assaulted, August decrees)
.........Varennes (monarchy loses freedom of action)
.........Constitution (absolutism abolished, Girondins in power)
3. What happened in the radical period, from 1791 to 1794 (Varennes to Thermidor)?
.........War (with Austria and Prussia, then everyone)
.........Robespierre (Committee of Public Saftey, dictatorship, the Terror)
.........Regicide (Louis and then Marie Antoinette beheaded)
.........Nationalism (mass mobilisation
.........Civil War (against Girondins, and royalists in the Vendée )
4. What happened under the Thermidorians and the Directoire (Thermidor to Brumaire)?
5. What happened under the Consulate and Empire (Brumaire to Waterloo)? Why did the Revolution end with Napoleon?
6. What is the legacy of the Revolution?

IV. Picturing the French Revolution

1. The great cartoonist James Gillray responds to the September massacres.
2. An easy selection of images;
3. a more academic collection.
4. The bloodied pages of the newspaper galleys Marat was working on when Charlotte Corday stabbed him.
5. The fashions of the Jacobins; and of the Directory, showing the reaction, after Thermidor. Here are jeunesse d'oree, the Gilded Youth of the reaction.

V. Filming the French Revolution

1. The execution of Robespierre and his minions in 1794, and the prison massacres of September 1793:
..........................................

2. Here is a recent documentary on the Revolution - American, and rather naively pro: parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

3. But here, by way of balance, is a 1989 television mini-series dramatising Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, a novel based on Carlyle, and extremely hostile to the Revolution. (Note the cartoon by David Gillray, round the edges of this page, showing what would happen if the revolutionary French reach London.)

VI. Filming Napoleon

1. Napoleonic battles (from War and Peace): Austerlitz, 1805; the invasion of Russia and Borodino, 1812.
2. Silly romantic Hollywood stuff: Desirée (1954)
3. His coronation, from the miniseries Napoléon (2002; it cost 34 million euros, minsieries not coronation): also, a rather odd version of his meeting and discussions with Pope Pius VII, and the actual crowning. A bit later, the meeting at Tilsit with the Tsar.
4. Here's the music used at the coronation.
5. meditate on Gillray's great cartoon;
6. and watch the 1955 film about the coup of Brumaire (remembering that it is very pro-Napoleon).

VII. The shadow of Carlyle

The study of history can never be simply the study of the past. We always have to study it through the words and ideas of historians. Every historian has his own quirks and prejudices. We should never lose sight of this, especially when reading about the French Revolution - for the Revolution is the central event of modern history, and modern ideologies are defined by how they react to the Revolution. Every historian of the Revolution has his own political views, and they inevitably shape how he understands events after 1789.
.....And then there's the question of style. Most historians aim at a certain transparency and neutrality in their prose. But the greatest historian of the Revolution, Thomas Carlyle (1795 –1881), did the exact opposite. His The French Revolution: A History (1837) is bizarrely exuberant, a rush of English concocted of journalism, Old Testament prophecy, novels. He uses the first person plural, so we have the sensation of being there, witnessing the spectacle and horror of the Revolution, even committing its crimes. Carlyle may not be the greatest modern historian, but he wrote incomparably the best historical prose since Gibbon. What a stylist! What exuberance! The French Revolution is an amazingly vivid book, a joy forever; there's nothing else like it. And it is also very accomplished as scholarship. It has yet to be superseded as an account of the early years of Revolutionary France.
.....Here is an online text of Carlyle's The French Revolution, with snarky marginal comments, and a useful summary. And here are some particularly racy chapters: the royal family is captured at Varennes; Charlotte Corday assassinates the hateful Marat; the coup of Thermidor overthrows Robespierre.

VIII. Songs

by the amazing Hawaii-based historyteacherz. If you get all the allusions, you are up to speed.
Marie Antoinette (‘Viva la Vida’ by Lady Gaga),
the Revolution (‘Bad Romance’ by Lady Gaga),
and Napoleon (‘Gone Daddy Gone’ by the Violent Femmes).