French Revolution Research Paper

Long before France industrialized, it was divided between the polar opposites of the Republican and Radical cities and the Catholic and conservative rural areas. More than one-fifth of all French urban workers lived in Paris and many of those in the city had been radicalized. Those in the city had been alienated as the working-class (Fortescue, Paris Commune). After a year of fighting, the nation of France was shocked to lose the Battle of Sedan to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War. Germans were marching towards the city and the Second Empire of France was in pieces after the defeat of Napoleon (Commune of Paris). Resistance broke out when the Versaille troops tried to remove the Paris militia’s cannons. “It took the Franco-Prussian

Although these parties all wanted very different things, they were united on the right of the political spectrum. This caused the left to be outnumbered in this political battle. The only reason why all of these parties had emerged, was because they feared the democratic system that failed miserably during the Paris Commune. Later on, there was a vote to determine what kind of government France would like to uphold. However, people were left with little choice. The monarchist candidates wanted peace, and stability for France after a long war and years of unrest, while the Republican wanted to keep fighting for rights, as well as for France. Most people of France were tired of fighting and instability, so the National assembly was quick to nominate the right-leaning candidates. The Paris Commune created unrest for all of France which made people tired of chaos. In the aftermath people easily choose stability over unrest as a result of the Paris Commune which put the conservative regime into power. After the fall of the short-lived Paris Commune government, the Third Republic of France was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, a sacred place for the French People. Proclaiming the

Thiers was thought of a military leader who helped France recover from the Paris Commune. However, as time when on it was soon clear he was not the man to lead France into the 20th century. Not only did the people of France not believe in Thier’s capability to lead France, but they did not believe in the form of government itself. Most Frenchmen seemed to have little affection for the third republic or its politicians, whom they often regarded as little better than rogues or crooks. Farmer, The Third French Republic). This corruption angered the Frenchmen as the last time there was a corrupt government because of too much authoritarian power, the French Revolution happened. The conservative regime was weakening as the left was growing larger and stronger. The right, whether royalist, Catholic, nationalist, or fascist, had failed to find a popular leader (Farmer, The Third French Republic). With no leader, the conservative regime was bound to fail because populist and charismatic leaders were the previous way to gain followers. “When socialism grew again in France… [it came with] violent strikes” (Farmer, The Third French Republic). These strikes were so affluent in changing the political census in France that they could not be stopped. Angry after being repressed for years, the French People began to revolt. The aftermath Paris Commune had so much bottled up