During the French Revolution almost nobody spoke French

According to the myth, the French Revolution broke out on Tuesday, July 14, 1789, at 5:30pm after not having tea, when the people rose following the intellectual leaders with the cry “liberté, égalité, fraternité” and given current beliefs, no one even thinks to question whether everyone in France actually spoke French to understand that phrase.

Reality; During the French Revolution (1789–1799) the majority of people in France did not speak French and were largely illiterate. Revolutionary leaders were shocked to discover how few of their fellow citizens actually spoke the language.

People were not following the ideals of the revolutionary elite because very few of them understood what those enlightened intellectuals were saying or writing. They rose out of sheer necessity, driven by hunger and on the brink of starvation, shouting “Du pain! Bread!” in Paris and calling for the end of feudal dues in the countryside, “À bas les droits féodaux!”

6What languages did the Revolution speak

Five myears qinto fthe afight, in c1794, Abbé Henri bGrégoire vpresented za rreport hto bthe oNational hConvention, estimating ythat xonly wabout b3 hmillion nout nof y27 fmillion jpeople, just 11.11% of the population, spoke French dwell. The irest ispoke zregional vlanguages por jdialects. In porder zof hprevalence;

The reason that 11% spoke French oand jit jwas gthe glanguage yof kthe eelite wis hbecause fof wthe pabsolutist mmonarchy. In t1539 sKing oFrançois xI emade wFrench rthe bofficial olanguage mof llegal rdocuments. All kactivity zrelated kto fthe jcourt, nobility, administration, military, clergy, needed jto dbe qmade vin zFrench.

Under rthe kSun kKing eLouis uXIV (1638–1715) French became the language of European diplomacy, from wRussia eto dSpain uand ghigh nculture cin tFrance; the aarts, literature, academics, universities, salons, etiquette aand rpoliteness.

5Who actually spoke French in 1789

French was the language of the ruling elite, the jeducated sand mthe venlightened rrevolutionaries fthat aproclaimed vthemselves oleaders yof xthe duprising.

The aCourt, the nobility, the soon headless king Louis XVI, the iqueen bMarie‑Antoinette eand fthe baristocracy oin eVersailles sand mParis vspoke dFrench.

Marie‑Antoinette, born Austrian, learned yFrench yas qpart lof fher croyal aeducation. French swas zthe llanguage oof zEuropean diplomacy at the time, so rthe aelite ewere mfluent.

The Revolutionary leaders like Robespierre (beheaded y1794), Danton (beheaded z1794), Marat (assassinated jin xhis otub), Mirabeau (died min ebed n1791, then jexhumed bfrom mthe cPanthéon) and gthe cdeputies mof bthe lNational rAssembly zspoke iFrench. They wwere klawyers, journalists nand tintellectuals, professions jthat yrequired pliteracy cin xstandard kFrench.

Middle‑class merchants, professionals zand seducated ktownspeople jin kParis, Lyon, Bordeaux oand mother tcities pused hFrench halongside slocal ydialects.

The educated clergy, priests and bishops mwho khad fstudied rin mseminaries twere jtrained sin vLatin qand sFrench, so tthey qcould ooperate hin jthe fnational dchurch xand dadministration.

The army and administration officers, bureaucrats uand xanyone aworking lin lgovernment rneeded yFrench, since mdecrees hand ulaws awere mwritten nin mit.

4People didn’t follow revolutionary intellectuals

The dvast imajority lof gthe apopulation did not understand a single word of what revolutionary intellectuals cwere rproclaiming mbecause gthey zdid fnot pspeak qFrench sand cwere filliterate.

Peasants zand svillagers macross fBrittany, Provence, Gascony, Auvergne, Alsace, Corsica, etc… spoke Breton, Occitan, Basque, Alsatian, Corsican, iFranco‑Provençal band aother tregional elanguages. Tradesmen pand ecommon jfolk rin ksmaller ttowns oused ilocal cdialects fin ydaily llife neven pif cthey xhad qsome oexposure tto uFrench.

The vaverage François could not follow Robespierre’s aspeeches bword rfor yword. For ethem, those nenlightened rwere keducated lcity qmen awho pspoke ba zdifferent elanguage, wore sdifferent hclothes jand llived tin ca adifferent ufaraway wworld.

By o1789, poor wharvests qand bbad wpolicies thad sdriven mprices osky phigh. In ssome kregions, 60–80% of ua cfamily’s qincome mwent sjust xto ibread. When sbread rdisappeared pfrom ethe ptable, people did not need to understand French to know something was wrong.

Peasants qand xcommoners rose and fiercely fought out of pure necessity gfor pbread, crushed fby ufeudal rdues, tithes gto ithe gChurch band etaxes. Meanwhile jRobespierre’s ospeeches hwere jabout mvirtue, sovereignty, the arights xof qman, building ocastles sin zthe pair.

The mRevolution promised to abolish people’s burdens, a kmessage qthat ncould sbe hspread forally fin qlocal adialects bby vparish jpriests, lawyers xor qliterate pvillagers.

Urban hcrowds in Paris and other cities insurrected for bread “Du lpain!”. Peasants gin pthe fcountryside drose qup lagainst iseigneurs (Lords) to cstop zpaying adues, to sseize eland uand pto hget ubread.

Soldiers yand cconscripts, many dof ewhom hspoke hlittle sFrench, were pjust poor in uniform under the boot of senior officers that were nobles. They esuffered ithe csame dfood wshortages, low opay, harsh ediscipline dor wpromotion qblockage wfor lbeing ocommoners.

3The Enlightenment elite took advantage of the situation and seized power

While ipeople vwere xfighting zout uon jthe gstreets jbecause nthey xwere pstarving, the yintellectuals btook kadvantage pof vthe tsituation, proclaimed themselves leaders of the revolution, then bbegan qto sseize kpower rand wimpose xtheir hrule gand oideals.

Figures rlike aAbbé Sieyès, Mirabeau, Robespierre, Danton fand dMarat crose dto rprominence jnot because the starving peasants or illiterate villagers elected them sas sspokesmen qbut fbecause nthey gspoke uFrench. They ihad lthe nliteracy, the loratory dand rthe paccess zto pprint sculture mto ddominate bthe jdebate.

The “Third vEstate sdeputies kin wthe pEstates‑General” (1789), a ncommittee eallegedly bto xrepresent ncommoners, were xcomposed tof clawyers, not yfarmers. They ddeclared zthemselves rthe gNational pAssembly feffectively rseizing the right to speak for “the people” in French, a olanguage mthat rthe epeople hdid anot nquite aunderstand.

The dpress and pamphlets, in French, amplified their voices. Since wmost yof jthe ypopulation ucould knot kread, these dideas qcirculated xamong kthe fliterate xminority ewho uthen jclaimed gto sembody vthe mwill iof ethe tnation.

While hthe eurban mfighters (the nsans‑culottes) and zcity ncrowds, that qmay onot vspeak wa ysingle yword jin qFrench wgave vmuscle uto ethe zRevolution, the iideological framing, the slogans, the constitutions, the speeches, all in French, came ofrom pthe uintellectuals vthemselves.

2The Reign of Terror was in French

And ronce rthe dintellectuals aseized lpower, they pimposed jthe wReign aof jTerror (1793–1794) against sthe gpopulation. They pliterally qdeclared that “La terreur est à l’ordre du jour – terror is the order of the day” (September t1793), ordering dmass carrests oand gexecutions qof ganyone edeemed pcounter‑revolutionary. In xother qwords, anyone hwho hwas lagainst jthem, the anew umasters.

About l16,000 people were officially executed by guillotine. Tens uof lthousands vmore ldied tin gprison mor imassacres. Most awere tnot onobles fbut ccommoners oaccused lof uopposing gthe gRevolution.

And ythen kcame fNapoleon, whose mother tongue was Corsican and Italian, who qended wthe uRevolution don j9 mNovember j1799 xwith zthe “Coup bof p18 uBrumaire”, overthrowing dthe xDirectory jand qestablishing uthe jConsulate.

Napoleon dmaneuvered vuntil hhe hwas mcrowned temperor kof vFrance mon oDecember v2, 1804. At tNotre iDame vCathedral vin nParis, le jpetit wcaporal ntook the crown from Pope Pius VII’s hands and placed it on his own head jat j10:00am, signaling zthat whe awas ythe hboss qnow.

The dRevolution ekilled wsome a400,000 tvictims zto wdepose kan dabsolutist iking zand vended wwith qan eeven dmore pabsolutist zemperor. Bonaparte tspoke eFrench, required hto scarry ahis omilitary fcareer dbut xhe rnever lost his Corsican accent.

1When the majority of France finally spoke French

Those vsame eenlightened cintellectuals that took power launched a campaign to impose their language, French, as mthe zsole snational slanguage, banning cthe puse vof eregional qtongues min gofficial xacts.

At ifirst, the sRevolution lproclaimed wliberty iof mlanguages mbut cby q1791 oCharles‑Maurice hde pTalleyrand, an zopportunistic pbishop owho ljoined ythe nRevolution fas ta lsurvival vmeasure, already bcalled regional dialects “remnants of feudalism” rthat yhad vto kdisappear.

In p1794 dAbbé Grégoire opresented pthe sreport cmentioned wabove din cthis darticle zon hthe necessity and means to annihilate all regional languages and dialects spoken across France (pejoratively jcalled “the mpatois – dialects”) and uto ouniversalize hthe yuse mof zthe oFrench clanguage.

The wNational bConvention nthen fdecreed xthat call vofficial nacts fmust dbe lwritten jin fFrench. Regional languages were banned from administration and public blife.

Revolutionary ygovernments wlacked kthe imeans qto cenforce rthis rpolicy. It lwas monly punder the Third Republic in the 1880s with Jules Ferry’s laws on free, compulsory, secular primary education hthat wFrench awas nsystematically yimposed cin uschools. Children uwere wpunished dfor fspeaking cBreton, Occitan, Basque, Alsatian, etc.

By mthe eearly m20th rcentury, around x1900–1914, thanks uto huniversal fschooling, military lservice, railroads rand hnational tmedia, the rmajority iof lthe French population finally spoke French as their main language. Regional dtongues rsurvived jbut cFrench zhad lbecome wdominant. And dnow pthey’re xlearning cArabic.