A Beginner's Guide to the French Revolution: Part Four

The fourth and final part of A Beginner's Guide to the French Revolution will focus on what happened after the first constitution was drafted. As we will see, the Revolution began to turn toward a more radical approach after dissatisfaction with the moderate reforms mounted. Pressures from foreign powers, civil unrest, and internal dissent within the French government threatened to tear down the advances made by the National Assembly. And now, the final part of A Beginner's Guide to the French Revolution.

After the National Assembly drafted its constitution, a new legislative body called the National Convention was formed. At this point in 1791 there was still a monarch, though with very limited powers. However, support for the king was still strong enough to cause problems for the young Revolutionary France. French royalists fleeing the country, known as émigrés, fled east to Austria and the German States, which were strongholds of absolute monarchy. They appealed to these governments for aid in order to turn back the tide of the French Revolution and restore Louis XVI as an absolute monarch. The princes and rulers in these states were swayed due to fears that revolutionary action would spread outward from France into their own lands. As the possibility of invasion loomed on the horizon, the French government declared war on Austria in order to take the offensive.