French Revolution: Secularization, Monarchy Collapse & Napoleon

Church Property and Secularization

Finally, with the aim of resolving the financial crisis, assets were expropriated: church property was declared national property (disentailment) and sold to individuals. In return, the state ensured the servicing of worship, and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy separated church and state.

Constitutional Monarchy — Policy Options

The reforms of the 1789–1791 period satisfied bourgeois groups (constitutional monarchists), by granting them political and economic freedom. But the new regime had many opponents:

• The nobility, who wanted to regain their privileges;
• The clergy, discontent with the confiscation of church property;
• The monarchy, with factions plotting to overthrow the Assembly.

Popular sectors also showed their dissatisfaction with the restriction of suffrage to those possessing goods or money and with the rising cost of living. Among the revolutionaries, the Girondins and, especially, the Jacobins and Cordeliers stood out. The latter had the support of the sans-culottes and the Paris militias, who aspired to deepen reforms and ultimately proclaimed a republic.

Opponents and Popular Discontent

The social and political tensions produced clear factional divisions. While constitutional monarchists sought to maintain a limited monarchy with liberal reforms, radical groups pressed for broader political change and expanded popular participation. These tensions shaped subsequent events and prepared the ground for the collapse of the constitutional monarchy.

Failure of the Constitutional Monarchy

The turning point for the monarchy was the royal family's attempted flight from Paris to join the Austrian army, which was believed to be preparing to invade France and restore absolutism (the Flight to Varennes, June 1791). The king, disgraced, was brought back to the capital, undermining the monarchy's position in the revolutionary process.

In April 1792 the Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria. The Austrian army reached the gates of Paris, creating a climate of panic and revolt among the sans-culottes. On 10 August 1792 the Parisian crowds attacked the royal palace, imprisoned the king, and a republic was proclaimed in September 1792.

Fall of Napoleon

Napoleonic armies often acted as conquerors: they occupied nations and favored the material interests of France above revolutionary ideals — collecting taxes, conducting business, and appropriating wealth. This provoked strong national resistance in occupied territories.

Thus, paradoxically, the ideals of freedom spread by the French Revolution became an ideological foundation for patriots in many countries who opposed the French presence. The Spanish uprising of 1808 against the invasion and the imposition of a foreign king (Joseph Bonaparte) was one of the first significant revolts marking the beginning of the Napoleonic imperial decline.

In 1814, after defeats in Russia and Spain, Napoleon abdicated and left power. Despite a fleeting return in 1815 (the Hundred Days), he was defeated at Waterloo and exiled to the island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. In France and across Europe a return to the old regime seemed inevitable.