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Gildas
Statue of Gildas near the village of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys (France).
Abbot
Born	c. 500 traditionally the valley of the river Clwyd in north Wales.
Died	570 Rhuys, Brittany
Honored in	Eastern Orthodox Church; Roman Catholic Church; Anglican Communion
Major shrine	Glastonbury Abbey, now destroyed, or Rhuys Church, extant.
Feast	29 January
Attributes	monk holding a Celtic bell or writing in a book
Patronage	Welsh historians; bell founders

Gildas (c. 500 – 570) was a 6th-century British cleric. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during this period. His renowned learning and literary style earned him the designation Gildas Sapiens (Gildas the Wise). His work De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, which contains narratives of the post-Roman history of Britain, is the only substantial source for history of this period written by a near-contemporary. He was ordained in the Church and, in his works, favours the monastic ideal. Fragments of letters he wrote reveal that he composed a Rule for monastic life that was somewhat less austere than the Rule written by his contemporary, Saint David, and set suitable penances for its breach.

Life[link]

There are two Lives of Gildas: the earlier written by a monk of Rhuys in Brittany, possibly in the 9th century, the second written by Caradoc of Llancarfan, a friend and contemporary of Geoffrey of Monmouth, composed in the middle of the 12th century. Caradoc, presumably writing at Llancarfan in Wales, does not mention any connection with Brittany, and some scholars^[who?] think that Gildas of Britain and Gildas of Rhuys were distinct personages. In other details, however, the two Lives complement each other.

Rhuys Life[link]

The first Life, written at Rhuys by an unnamed scribe, says that Gildas was the son of Caunus (Caw), born in the district of Alt Clut in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking region of northern Britain. He was entrusted into the care of Saint Hildutus (Illtud) in the monastic college of Llan Illtud Fawr along with Samson of Dol and Paul Aurelian, to be educated. He later went to Iren to continue his studies. Iren is believed by most historians to mean Ireland, but Andrew Breeze argued that it is Cirencester.^[1] Having been ordained, he returned to the Hen Ogledd to preach to the unconverted. Saint Brigidda (Brigid of Kildare, died 524) asked for a token and Gildas made a bell which he sent to her. Ainmericus, High King of Ireland (Ainmuire mac Sétnai, 566-569), asked Gildas to restore church order, which he did. He went to Rome and then Ravenna. He came to Brittany and settled on the island of Rhuys,^[2] where he lived a solitary life. Later, he built a monastery there. He built an oratory on the bank of the River Blavetum (River Blavet). Ten years after leaving Britain, he wrote an epistolary book, in which he reproved five of the British kings. He died at Rhuys on 29 January, and his body, according to his wishes, was placed on a boat and allowed to drift.^[3] Three months later, on 11 May, men from Rhuys found the ship in a creek with the body of Gildas still intact. They took the body back to Rhuys and buried it there.

The spring of St. Gildas in Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, Morbihan

Llancarfan Life[link]

Caradoc of Llancarfan, influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth and his Norman patrons, and drawing on the Life of Cadoc among other sources, paints a different picture. His Life includes statements that Gildas was educated in Gaul, retired to a hermitage dedicated to the Trinity at Street near Glastonbury, and was buried at Glastonbury Abbey. Some scholars^[which?] who have studied the texts suspect the later life to be a piece of Glastonbury propaganda.

Caradoc tells a story of how Gildas intervened between King Arthur and a certain King Melwas of the 'Summer Country' (Gwlad yr Haf, Somerset) who had abducted Guinevere and brought her to his stronghold at Glastonbury, where Arthur soon arrived to besiege him. However, the peacemaking saint persuaded Melwas to release Guinevere and the two kings made peace. This is the earliest surviving appearance of the abduction of Guinevere episode common in later literature. Caradoc also says that the brothers of Gildas rose up against Arthur, refusing to acknowledge him as their lord. Arthur pursued Huail ap Caw, the eldest brother, and killed him. Gildas was preaching in Armagh in Ireland at the time, and he was grieved by the news. Huail's enmity with Arthur was apparently a popular subject: he is mentioned as an enemy of Arthur's in the Welsh prose tale Culhwch and Olwen, written around 1100.

According to the dates in the Annales Cambriae, Gildas would have been a contemporary of King Arthur. However, his work never mentions Arthur by name.

Spring of St Gildas, Magoar, Brittany

Further traditions[link]

A strongly held tradition in North Wales places the beheading of Gildas' brother Huail ap Caw at Ruthin, where what is believed to be the execution stone has been preserved in the town square. Another brother of Gildas, Celyn ap Caw, was based in the north-east corner of Anglesey.

Gildas is credited with a hymn called the Lorica, or Breastplate, a prayer for deliverance from evil, which contains specimens of Hiberno-Latin. A proverb is also attributed to Gildas mab y Gaw in the Englynion y Clyweid in Llanstephan MS. 27.

In Bonedd y Saint, Gildas is recorded as having three sons and a daughter. Gwynnog ap Gildas and Noethon ap Gildas are named in the earliest tracts, together with their sister Dolgar. Another son, Tydech, is named in a later document. Iolo Morganwg adds Saint Cenydd to the list.

The scholar David Dumville suggests that Gildas was the teacher of Vennianus of Findbarr, who in turn was the teacher of St. Columba of Iona.

[edit] De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae

Gildas' principal work, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, is a sermon in three parts condemning the acts of his contemporaries, both secular and religious. The first part consists of Gildas' explanation for his work and a brief narrative of Roman Britain from its conquest under the principate to Gildas' time. He describes the doings of the Romans and the Groans of the Britons, in which the Britons make one last request for military aid from the departed Roman military. He excoriates his fellow Britons for their sins, while at the same time lauding heroes such as Aurelius Ambrosius, whom he is the first to describe as a leader of the resistance to the Saxons. He mentions the victory at the Battle of Mons Badonicus, a feat attributed to King Arthur in later texts, though Gildas is unclear as to who led the battle.

Part two consists of a condemnation of five British kings, Constantine, Aurelius Conanus, Vortiporius, Cuneglas, and Maelgwn. As it is the only contemporary information about them, it is of particular interest to scholars of British history. Part three is a similar attack on the clergy of the time.

The works of Gildas Sapiens, including the Excidio, can be found in volume 69 of the Patrologia Latina.

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Gildas

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Gildas

• Works by Gildas at Project Gutenberg (In the English translation Mount Badon is called "Bath-hill".)
• The Life of Gildas by A Monk of Rhuys.
• The Life of Gildas by Caradoc of Llancarfan.
• Gildas and The History of the Britons commentary from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume 1, 1907–21.
• Vortigernstudies: Gildas (sources)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Gilda Susan Radner (June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989) was an American comedienne and actress, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1978.

Early life[link]

Radner was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Jewish parents Henrietta (née Dworkin), a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman.^[1][2] She grew up in Detroit with a nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, whom she called "Dibby" (and on whom she based her famous character Emily Litella),^[3] and an older brother named Michael. She attended the University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe. Radner wrote in her autobiography It's Always Something toward the end of her life, "I coped with stress by having every possible eating disorder from the time I was nine years old. I have weighed as much as 160 pounds and as little as 93. When I was a kid, I overate constantly. My weight distressed my mother and she took me to a doctor who put me on Dexedrine diet pills when I was ten years old."^[4]

Radner was close to her father, who operated Detroit's Seville Hotel, where many nightclub performers and actors stayed while performing in the city.^[5] He took her on trips to New York to see Broadway shows.^[6] As Radner wrote in It's Always Something, when she was twelve her father developed a brain tumor, and the symptoms began so suddenly that he told people his eyeglasses were too tight.^[7] Within days he was bedridden and unable to communicate, and he remained in that condition until his death two years later.^[7]

College[link]

Radner enrolled at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where she made a lifelong platonic friend of fellow student David Saltman, who wrote a biography of her after her death. Radner joined Saltman and his girlfriend on a trip to Paris in the summer of 1966. Saltman wrote that he was so affectionate with his girlfriend that they left Radner to fend for herself during much of their sightseeing.^[5] Twenty years later, when many details of Radner's eating disorder were reported in a bestselling book about Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad,^[8] Saltman realized she had been in a quandary over the French cuisine, but had no one with whom she could discuss her situation.^[5]

Career[link]

In Ann Arbor, Radner began her broadcasting career as the weather girl for college radio station WCBN, but dropped out in her senior year^[9] to follow her then-boyfriend, a Canadian sculptor named Jeffrey Rubinoff, to Toronto, Canada. In Toronto, she made her professional acting debut in the 1972 production of Godspell with future stars Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber and Martin Short. Afterward, Radner joined the Toronto Second City comedy troupe.

Radner was a featured player on the National Lampoon Radio Hour, a comedy program syndicated to some 600 U.S. radio stations from 1974 to 1975. Fellow cast members included John Belushi, Richard Belzer, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray.

[edit] Saturday Night Live

Radner gained name recognition as one of the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players", a member of the freshman group on the first season of Saturday Night Live. She was the first performer cast for the show.^[6] Between 1975 and 1980, she created such characters as Roseanne Roseannadanna, an obnoxious woman with wild black hair whose trademark complaint, "It's always something--if it ain't one thing, it's another," gave her autobiography its title, and who would tell stories about the gross habits of celebrities on the show's "Weekend Update" news segment, inspired in name and appearance by Rose Ann Scamardella, a news anchor at WABC-TV in New York City. Other SNL characters included "Baba Wawa," a spoof of Barbara Walters, and Emily Litella, an elderly hearing-impaired woman who gave angry and misinformed editorial replies on "Weekend Update" on topics such as "violins on television," the "Eagle Rights Amendment," "flea erections in China," "making Puerto Rico a steak," "busting schoolchildren," "protecting endangered feces," and, once, nothing.^[6][10] Once corrected on her misunderstanding, Litella would end her segment with a polite "Never mind," although in later episodes, she would also answer Jane Curtin's frustration with a simple "Bitch!" Radner parodied such celebrities as Lucille Ball, Patti Smith, and Olga Korbut in SNL sketches. Radner won an Emmy Award in 1978 for her work on SNL.

Radner's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Radner battled bulimia during her time on the show. She once told a reporter that she had thrown up in every toilet in Rockefeller Center.^[8] She had a relationship with SNL castmate Bill Murray, with whom she also had worked at the National Lampoon, that ended badly. Few details of their relationship or its end were made public at the time. When Radner wrote It's Always Something, this is the only reference she made to Murray in the entire book: "All the guys [in the National Lampoon group of writers and performers] liked to have me around because I would laugh at them till I peed in my pants and tears rolled out of my eyes. We worked together for a couple of years creating The National Lampoon Show, writing The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and even working on stuff for the magazine. Bill Murray joined the show and Richard Belzer ..."^[11]

In 1979, incoming NBC President Fred Silverman offered Radner her own prime time variety show, which she ultimately turned down.^[9] That year, she was one of the hosts of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly.

Alan Zweibel, who co-created the Roseanne Roseannadanna character and co-wrote all of Roseanne's dialogue, recalled that Radner, one of three original SNL cast members who stayed away from cocaine, chastised him for using it.^[12]

Radner had mixed emotions about the fans and strangers who recognized her in public. She sometimes became "angry when she was approached, but upset when she wasn't."^[8]

Broadway[link]

In 1979, Radner appeared on Broadway in a successful one-woman show entitled Gilda Radner - Live From New York.^[13] The show featured racier material, such as the song Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals. In 1979, shortly before Radner began her final season on Saturday Night Live, her Broadway show was filmed by Mike Nichols under the title Gilda Live!, co-starring Paul Shaffer and Don Novello, and was released to theaters nationwide in 1980 with poor results. A soundtrack album was also unsuccessful. During the production, she met her first husband, G. E. Smith, a musician who also worked on the show. They were married in a civil ceremony in 1980.^[9]

In the fall of 1980, after all original SNL cast members departed from the show, Radner starred opposite Sam Waterston in the Jean Kerr play, Lunch Hour, as a pair whose spouses are having an affair, and in response invent one of their own, consisting of trysts on their lunch hour.^[14] The show ran for over seven months.

Relationship with Gene Wilder[link]

Radner met actor Gene Wilder on the set of the Sidney Poitier film Hanky Panky, when the two appeared together. She described their first meeting as "love at first sight."^[9] She was unable to resist her attraction to Wilder as her marriage to guitarist G. E. Smith deteriorated. Radner went on to make a second film, The Woman in Red, in 1984 with Wilder and their relationship grew. The two were married on September 18, 1984, in St. Tropez.^[9] The pair made a third film together, Haunted Honeymoon, released in 1986.^[9]

Illness[link]

After experiencing severe fatigue and suffering from pain in her upper legs on the set of Haunted Honeymoon in the United Kingdom in 1985, Radner sought medical treatment. After 10 months of false diagnoses, she learned that she had ovarian cancer on October 21, 1986.^[9] She suffered extreme physical and emotional pain during chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.^[9]

Remission[link]

After Radner was told she had gone into remission, she wrote It's Always Something (a catchphrase of her character Roseanne Roseannadanna),^[9] which included many details of her struggle with the illness. Life magazine did a March 1988 cover story on her illness, entitled "Gilda Radner's Answer to Cancer: Healing the Body with Mind and Heart". In 1988, Radner guest-starred on It's Garry Shandling's Show on Showtime, to great critical acclaim. When Shandling asked her why she had not been seen for a while, she replied "Oh, I had cancer. What did you have?" Shandling's reply: "A very bad series of career moves... which, by the way, there's no cure for whatsoever." She also repeated on-camera Mark Twain's famous saying, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Radner planned to host an episode of Saturday Night Live that year, but a writers' strike caused the cancellation of the rest of the network television season.

Death[link]

In late 1988, after biopsies and a saline wash of her abdomen showed no signs of cancer, Radner was put on a maintenance chemotherapy treatment to prolong her remission, but later that same year, she learned that her cancer had returned after a routine blood test showed her levels of the tumor marker CA-125 had increased.^[15] She was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 17, 1989 for a CAT scan. Because she was fearful that she would never wake up, she was given a sedative but passed into a coma during the scan. She did not regain consciousness and died three days later from ovarian cancer at 6:20 am on May 20, 1989; Wilder was at her side.^[6]

Gene Wilder had this to say about her death:

She went in for the scan – but the people there could not keep her on the gurney. She was raving like a crazed woman – she knew they would give her morphine and was afraid she’d never regain consciousness. She kept getting off the cart as they were wheeling her out. Finally three people were holding her gently and saying, "Come on Gilda. We’re just going to go down and come back up." She kept saying, "Get me out, get me out!" She’d look at me and beg me, "Help me out of here. I’ve got to get out of here." And I’d tell her, "You’re okay honey. I know. I know." They sedated her, and when she came back, she remained unconscious for three days. I stayed at her side late into the night, sometimes sleeping over. Finally a doctor told me to go home and get some sleep. At 4 am on Saturday, I heard a pounding on my door. It was an old friend, a surgeon, who told me, "Come on. It's time to go." When I got there, a night nurse, whom I still want to thank, had washed Gilda and taken out all the tubes. She put a pretty yellow barrette in her hair. She looked like an angel. So peaceful. She was still alive, and as she lay there, I kissed her. But then her breathing became irregular, and there were long gaps and little gasps. Two hours after I arrived, Gilda was gone. While she was conscious, I never said goodbye.

Her funeral was held in Connecticut on May 24, 1989. In lieu of flowers, her family requested that donations be sent to The Wellness Community. Her gravestone reads: "Gilda Radner Wilder - Comedienne - Ballerina 1946-1989". She was interred at Long Ridge Union Cemetery in Stamford, Connecticut.^[16]

By coincidence, the news of her death broke on early Saturday afternoon (Eastern Daylight Time), while Steve Martin was rehearsing as the guest host for that night's season finale of Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live personnel, including Lorne Michaels, Mike Myers (who had, in his own words, "fallen in love" with Radner after playing her son in a BC Hydro commercial on Canadian television and considered her the reason he wanted to be on SNL)^[17] and Phil Hartman, had not known she was so close to death. They scrapped Martin's planned opening monologue and instead, Martin, in tears, introduced a video clip of a 1978 sketch in which he and Radner parodied an old Hollywood romantic couple's dance.

Legacy[link]

Wilder established the Gilda Radner Ovarian Detection Center at Cedars-Sinai to screen high-risk candidates (such as women of Ashkenazi Jewish descent) and run basic diagnostic tests. He testified before a Congressional committee that Radner's condition had been misdiagnosed and that if doctors had inquired more deeply into her family background they would have learned that her grandmother, aunt and cousin had all died of ovarian cancer, and therefore they might have attacked the disease earlier.^{[citation needed]}

Radner's death from ovarian cancer helped to raise awareness of early detection and the connection to familial epidemiology.^[18] The media attention in the two years after Radner's death led to registry of 450 families with familial ovarian cancer at the Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry, a research database registry at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. The registry was later renamed the Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry (GRFOCR).^[19] In 1996, Gene Wilder and Registry founder Steven Piver, one of Radner's medical consultants, published Gilda's Disease: Sharing Personal Experiences and a Medical Perspective on Ovarian Cancer. Through Wilder's efforts and those of others, awareness of ovarian cancer and its symptoms has continued to grow.

In 1991, Gilda's Club, a network of affiliate clubhouses where people living with cancer, their friends and families, can meet to learn how to live with cancer, was founded. The center was named for a quip from Radner, who said, "Having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I'd rather not belong to."^[9] Many Gilda's Clubs have opened across the United States and in Canada. In 2009, Gilda's Club merged with another similar institution, The Wellness Community, under the new name of Cancer Support Community, which was legally adopted in 2011.

In 2002, the ABC television network aired a television movie about her life: Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, starring Jami Gertz as Radner.

In 2007 she was featured in the film Making Trouble, a tribute to female Jewish comedians, produced by the Jewish Women’s Archive.^[20]

Awards and honors[link]

Radner won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music" for her performance on Saturday Night Live in 1977. She posthumously won a Grammy for "Best Spoken Word Or Non-Musical Recording" in 1990.

In 1992, Radner was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame for her achievements in arts and entertainment. On June 27, 2003, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.

Parts of W. Houston Street in New York City and Lombard Street in Toronto have both been renamed "Gilda Radner Way." Chester Street in White Plains, NY was also renamed Gilda Radner Way.

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

Films[link]

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Friends of Gilda

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cancer Support Community (formerly Gilda's Club)
• Gilda Radner Hereditary Cancer Program
• Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry
• Gilda Radner at the Internet Movie Database
• Gilda Radner at the Internet Broadway Database
• Gilda Radner at Find a Grave
• Jewish Women in Comedy - Gilda Radner
• Gilda Radner page at Godspell.ca

Rita Hayworth
1945
Born	Margarita Carmen Cansino (1918-10-17)October 17, 1918 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	May 14, 1987(1987-05-14) (aged 68) New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actress, dancer
Years active	1934–1972
Spouse	Edward C. Judson (1937–1942) Orson Welles (1943–1948) Prince Aly Khan (1949–1953) Dick Haymes (1953–1955) James Hill (1958–1961)
Children	Rebecca Welles (b. December 17, 1944) Yasmin Aga Khan (b. December 28, 1949)
Parents	Eduardo Cansino, Sr. Volga Hayworth
Relatives	Eduardo Cansino, Jr. (brother, deceased)
Signature

Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987) was an American dancer and film actress who garnered fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars. Appearing first as Rita Cansino, she agreed to change her name to Rita Hayworth and her hair color to dark red to attract a greater range in roles. Her appeal led to her being featured on the cover of Life magazine five times, beginning in 1940.^[1]

The first dancer featured on film as a partner of both the stars Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, Hayworth appeared in a total of 61 films over 37 years.^[2] She is listed by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 Greatest Stars of All Time.

Early life[link]

Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the oldest child of two dancers, Eduardo Cansino, Sr., from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a little town near Seville, Spain,^[3] and Volga Hayworth, an American of Irish-English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies.^[4] The Catholic couple had married in 1917. They also had two sons: Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon.^[4][5]

Margarita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress.^[6] Her paternal grandfather Antonio Cansino was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer; he popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous.^[7] Rita later recalled,

From the time I was three and a half ... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons."^[8] I didn't like it very much ... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood.^[9]

She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. She performed publicly from the age of six.^[4] In 1926 at the age of eight, she was featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros..^[4]

In 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio,^[4] where he taught such Hollywood luminaries as James Cagney and Jean Harlow.^{[citation needed]} During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments, as musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in his dancing classes waned. He partnered with his daughter to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since under California law, Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles.^[4] Due to her working, Cansino never graduated from high school; she completed ninth grade at Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

At the age of 16, Cansino took a bit part in the film Cruz Diablo (1934), which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with the Mexican actress Dolores del Río.^[4] Cansino danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the Caliente clubs. Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club and quickly arranged for Hayworth to do a screen test a week later. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract at Fox, under the name Rita Cansino, the first of name changes for her film career.

Film career[link]

Publicity photo 1940

During her time at Fox, Cansino appeared in five pictures, in non-notable roles. By the end of her six-month contract, Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Cansino, Zanuck did not renew her contract. Feeling that Cansino had screen potential, the salesman and promoter Edward C. Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures. The studio head Harry Cohn signed Cansino to a long-term contract, and cast her in small roles in Columbia features.

Often cast as the exotic foreigner, Cansino appeared in several roles in 1935: in Dante's Inferno, with Spencer Tracy; and Paddy O'Day, in which she played a Russian dancer. She was an Argentinian in Under the Pampas Moon and an Egyptian beauty in Charlie Chan in Egypt. In 1936 she took her first starring role as a "Latin type" in Human Cargo.^[4]

Cohn argued that Cansino's image was too Mediterranean, which reduced her opportunities to being cast in "exotic" roles, more limited in number. With Cohn and Judson's encouragement, Hayworth changed her hair color to dark red and her name to Rita Hayworth. She had electrolysis to raise her hairline and broaden the appearance of her forehead. By using her mother's maiden name, she led people to see her British-American ancestry and became a classic "American" pin-up.^[4]

In 1937, Hayworth appeared in five minor Columbia pictures and three minor independent movies. The following year, she appeared in five Columbia B films. In 1939, Cohn pressured director Howard Hawks to use Hayworth for a small but important role as a man-trap in the aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings, in which she played opposite Cary Grant and Jean Arthur.^[4] With this film's box-office success, fan mail for Hayworth began pouring into Columbia's publicity department. Cohn began to see Hayworth as his first and official new star. The studio never officially had stars under contract, except for Jean Arthur, who was trying to break with it.

with Fred Astaire in You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

Cohn began to build Hayworth up in 1940, in features such as Music in My Heart, The Lady in Question, and Angels Over Broadway. That year she was first featured in a Life magazine photo.^[1] He loaned Hayworth to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to appear in Susan and God, opposite Joan Crawford. While on loan to Warner Brothers, Hayworth appeared as the second female lead in The Strawberry Blonde (1941), opposite James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland.^[4] As the film was a big box-office success, Hayworth's popularity rose; she immediately became one of Hollywood's hottest properties. So impressed was Warner Brothers that they tried to buy Hayworth's contract from Columbia, but Cohn refused to release her.

Her success led to a supporting role in Blood and Sand (1941), opposite Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell, with Fox, the studio that had dropped her six years before. In one of her most notable screen roles, Hayworth played Doña Sol des Muire, the first of many screen sirens. This was another box-office hit.

She returned in triumph to Columbia Pictures and was cast in the musical You'll Never Get Rich (1941) opposite Fred Astaire, in one of the highest-budgeted films Columbia had ever made.^[4] So successful was the picture that the following year, the studio produced and released another Astaire-Hayworth picture, You Were Never Lovelier.^[4] In 1942, Hayworth also appeared in two other pictures, Tales of Manhattan and My Gal Sal.

During this period, Hayworth was featured in an August 1941 Life Magazine photo, in which she lounged seductively in a black-lace negligee.^[1] When the U.S. joined World War II in December 1941, the photo made Hayworth one of the top two "pin-up girls" of the war years; the other was the blonde Betty Grable. In 2002, the satin nightgown Hayworth wore for the photo sold for $26,888.^[10]

Peak years at Columbia[link]

In 1944, Hayworth made one of her best-known films, the Technicolor musical Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly.^[4] The film established her as Columbia's top star of the 1940s. For three consecutive years, starting in 1944, Hayworth was named one of the top movie box office attractions in the world. She was adept in ballet, tap, ballroom, and Spanish routines.

Cohn continued to showcase Hayworth's dance talents; she was the first dancer featured on film to partner with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Columbia featured her in the Technicolor films: Tonight and Every Night (1945), with Lee Bowman; and Down to Earth (1947), with Larry Parks.

Her erotic appeal was most noted in Charles Vidor's black and white film noir Gilda (1946), with Glenn Ford, which caused censors some consternation. The role, in which Hayworth in black satin performed a legendary one-glove striptease, made her into a cultural icon as a femme fatale.^[4] While her film was still in release, extensive publicity linked her to a widely covered nuclear bomb test in the South Pacific.

Numerous reporters from hundreds of papers across the country were covering preparations in 1946 at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands for testing of the first nuclear bomb after World War II. The United States had been the first nation to use nuclear bombs, against the civilian population of Japan. Reporters publicized that young scientists had put the name of "Gilda" and Hayworth's image on the bomb, alluding to her bombshell status as a film star. Coverage varied widely at the time, but the story stuck that her image had been put on the bomb, and was repeated in her 1987 obituary in The New York Times, which readers relied on as fact.^[1] Her husband Orson Welles issued a public statement at the time, saying they would be pleased only if this were the last bomb test ever.^[1] Hayworth was furious to be used in this way.

Her biographer Barbara Leaming had a later interview with Welles in which he recalled,

"... the angriest was when she found out that they’d put her on the atom bomb. Rita almost went insane, she was so angry. She was so shocked by it! Rita was the kind of person that kind of thing would hurt more than anybody. She wanted to go to Washington to hold a press conference, but Harry Cohn (president of Columbia Pictures) wouldn’t let her because it would be unpatriotic.”^[11]

Recent research documents that only the name "Gilda" was put on the bomb; no image of Hayworth was used.^[1][4]

From the trailer for Lady from Shanghai (1947)

A year later, Hayworth's performance in The Lady from Shanghai (1947), directed by her husband Orson Welles, was critically acclaimed.^[4] The film's failure at the box office was attributed in part to Welles' having had Hayworth's famous red hair cut short and dyed platinum blonde for the role. Cohn had not been consulted and was furious that Hayworth's image was changed.

Also in 1947, Hayworth was featured in a Life cover story by Winthrop Sargeant, which led to her nickname as "The "Love Goddess".^[12] This term was adopted and used later as the title of a biopic and of a biography about her. In a 1980s interview, Hayworth said, "Everybody else does nude scenes, but I don't. I never made nude movies. I didn't have to do that. I danced. I was provocative, I guess, in some things. But I was not completely exposed."^[13]

Her next film, The Loves of Carmen (1948), again with Glenn Ford, was the first film co-produced by Columbia and Hayworth's own production company, The Beckworth Corporation (named for her and Orson's daughter Rebecca); it was Columbia's biggest moneymaker for that year. She received a percentage of the profits from this and all her subsequent films until 1955, when she dissolved Beckworth to pay off debts she owed to Columbia.^{[citation needed]}

Struggles with Columbia Pictures[link]

Hayworth had a strained relationship with Columbia Pictures for many years. In 1943, she was suspended without pay for nine weeks because she refused to appear in Once Upon a Time.^[14] (During this period in Hollywood, actors did not get to choose their films; they were on salary rather than receiving a fixed amount per picture.)

In 1947, Hayworth's new contract with Columbia provided a salary of US$250,000 plus 50% of film profits.^[15] In 1951 Columbia alleged it had $800,000 invested in properties for her, including the film she walked out on that year. She left Hollywood to marry Prince Aly Khan. She was suspended for failing to report to work on the film Affair in Trinidad.

In 1952 she refused to report for work because "she objected to the script."^[16] In 1955, she sued to get out of a contract with the studio, but asked for her $150,000 salary, alleging filming failed to start when agreed.^[17] She said,

I was in Switzerland when they sent me the script for Affair in Trinidad and I threw it across the room. But I did the picture, and Pal Joey too. I came back to Columbia because I wanted to work and first, see, I had to finish that goddamn contract, which is how Harry Cohn owned me!"^[18] "Harry Cohn thought of me as one of the people he could exploit," said Hayworth, "and make a lot of money. And I did make a lot of money for him, but not much for me.^[19]

Years after her film career had ended and Cohn was dead, Hayworth still resented her treatment by him and Columbia.

I used to have to punch a time clock at Columbia ... Every day of my life. That's what it was like. I was under exclusive contract, like they owned me ... I think he had my dressing room bugged ... He was very possessive of me as a person, he didn't want me to go out with anybody, have any friends. No one can live that way. So I fought him ... You want to know what I think of Harry Cohn? He was a monster.^[20]

Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in Gilda (1946)

Hayworth resented that the studio failed to train her to sing or to encourage her to learn how to sing.^[21] Although she appeared to sing in many of her films, she was usually dubbed. As the public did not know the secret, she was embarrassed to be asked to sing by troops at USO shows.^[22] She complained that:

I wanted to study singing, but Harry Cohn kept saying, 'Who needs it?' and the studio wouldn't pay for it. They had me so intimidated that I couldn't have done it anyway. They always said, 'Oh, no, we can't let you do it. There's no time for that; it has to be done right now!' I was under contract, and that was it.^[23]

Cohn had a reputation as a taskmaster, but he had his own criticisms of Hayworth. He had invested heavily in her before she began a reckless affair with the married Aly Khan, and it could have caused a backlash against her career and Columbia's success. For instance, an article in the British The People called for a boycott of Hayworth's films. It said, "Hollywood must be told its already tarnished reputation will sink to rock bottom if it restores this reckless woman to a place among its stars."^[24] Cohn expressed his frustration with Hayworth's judgment in an interview with Time magazine.

Hayworth might be worth ten million dollars today easily! She owned 25% of the profits with her own company and had hit after hit and she had to get married and had to get out of the business and took a suspension because she fell in love again! In five years, at two pictures a year, at 25%! Think of what she could have made! But she didn't make pictures! She took two or three suspensions! She got mixed up with different characters! Unpredictable!^[25]

Later career[link]

After the collapse of her marriage to Aly Khan in 1951, Hayworth returned to the United States with great fanfare, where she starred in a string of hit films: Affair in Trinidad (1952) with favorite co-star Glenn Ford; and in 1953 had two films released: Salome, with Charles Laughton and Stewart Granger; and Miss Sadie Thompson, with José Ferrer and Aldo Ray. Her performance in the latter film won critical acclaim.

She was off the big screen for another four years, due mainly to a tumultuous marriage to the singer Dick Haymes. After making Fire Down Below (1957) with Robert Mitchum and Jack Lemmon, and her last musical Pal Joey (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak, Hayworth finally left Columbia.

She received good reviews for her acting in Separate Tables (1958), with Burt Lancaster and David Niven, and The Story on Page One (1960) with Anthony Franciosa. She continued working throughout the 1960s. In 1962, her planned Broadway debut in Step on a Crack was cancelled for undisclosed health reasons.^[26] She continued to act in films until the early 1970s. She made a well-publicized 1971 television appearance on The Carol Burnett Show. Her last film was The Wrath of God (1972).

Beauty[link]

Hayworth was a top glamour girl in the 1940s, a pin-up girl for military servicemen and a beauty icon for women. At 5'6" (168 cm) and 120 lb (55 kgs)^[27] she was tall enough for her height to be a concern for dancing partners such as Fred Astaire. Hayworth got her big motion picture break because she was willing to change her hair color, whereas other actresses were not. She reportedly changed her hair color eight times in eight movies.^[28]

In 1949 Hayworth's lips were voted best in the world by the Artists League of America.^[29] She had a modeling contract with Max Factor to promote its Tru-Color lipsticks and Pan-Stik make-up.

Barbara Leaming writes in her biography of Hayworth, If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth (1989) that, due to her fondness for alcohol and the stresses of her life, Hayworth aged before her time. Re-appearing in New York in 1956 to begin work on her first film in three years, Hayworth was described by the following: "despite the artfully applied make-up and shoulder-length red hair, there was no concealing the ravages of drink and stress. Deep lines had crept around her eyes and mouth, and she appeared worn, exhausted, older than her thirty-eight years." ^[30] Leaming wrote that during the filming of Fire Down Below, Hayworth heard a comment that she should hurry up as "no amount of time was going to make her look any younger."^{[citation needed]} In San Francisco the following year filming Pal Joey, she was signing autographs when she heard a fan say, "She looks so old."^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

In 1941 Hayworth said she was the antithesis of the characters she played. "I naturally am very shy ... and I suffer from an inferiority complex."^[31] She once complained that "[M]en fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me." In 1970 she remarked that the only films she could watch without laughing were the dance musicals she made with Fred Astaire. "I guess the only jewels of my life," Hayworth said, "were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire."^[32]

Hayworth's two younger brothers, Vernon and Eduardo Cansino, Jr., both served in World War II. Vernon left the U.S. Army in 1946 with several medals, including the Purple Heart, and later married Susan Vail, a dancer. Eduardo Cansino, Jr. followed Hayworth into acting; he was also under contract with Columbia Pictures. In 1950 he made his screen debut in Magic Carpet.

Marriage and family[link]

Hayworth was married and divorced five times. She said, "Basically, I am a good, gentle person, but I am attracted to mean personalities."^[33]

• Edward Charles Judson (1937–1942): When Hayworth was 18, she married Edward Judson in 1937, an oilman turned promoter who was more than twice her age. They eloped in Las Vegas. He had played a major role in launching her acting career. A shrewd businessman, he was domineering and became her manager for months before he proposed. "He helped me with my career," Hayworth conceded after they divorced, "and helped himself to my money." She alleged Judson compelled her to transfer considerable property to him and promise to pay him $12,000 under threats that he would do her "great bodily harm."^[34] She filed for divorce from him on February 24, 1942, with the complaint of cruelty. She noted to the press that his work took him to Oklahoma and Texas, while she lived and worked in Hollywood. Judson was as old as her father, who was enraged by the marriage, which caused a rift between Hayworth and her parents until the divorce. Judson had failed to tell Hayworth before they married that he had previously been twice married.^[35] When she left him, she literally had no money. She asked her friend, Hermes Pan, if she could eat at his home.

• Orson Welles (1943–1948): Hayworth married Orson Welles on September 7, 1943. None of her colleagues knew about the planned marriage (before a judge) until she announced it the day before they got married. For the civil ceremony, she wore a beige suit, ruffled white blouse, and a veil. A few hours after they got married, they returned to work at the studio. They had a daughter, Rebecca (1944–2004). They struggled in their marriage. Hayworth said that Welles did not want to be tied down:

During the entire period of our marriage he showed no interest in establishing a home. When I suggested purchasing a home, he told me he didn't want the responsibility. Mr. Welles told me he never should have married in the first place; that it interfered with his freedom in his way of life.^[36]

• Prince Aly Khan (1949–1953): In 1948 she left her film career to marry Prince Aly Khan a son of Sultan Mahommed Shah, Aga Khan III, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. They were married on May 27, 1949. Her bridal trousseau was Dior's New Look.

Aly Khan and his family were heavily involved in horse racing, owning and racing horses. Hayworth had no interest in the sport but became a member of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. Her filly Double Rose won several races in France and notably finished second in the 1949 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.^[37]

In 1951, while still married to Hayworth, Khan was spotted dancing with the actress Joan Fontaine in the nightclub where he and his wife had met. Hayworth threatened to divorce him in Reno, Nevada. In early May she moved to Nevada to establish legal residence to qualify for a divorce. She stayed at Lake Tahoe with their daughter, saying there was a threat that the child would be kidnapped. Hayworth filed for divorce from Khan on September 2, 1951, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature."^[38]

Hayworth once said she might convert to Islam but did not. During the custody fight over their daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, the Prince said he wanted her raised as a Muslim; Hayworth (who had been raised a Roman Catholic) wanted the child to be a Christian.^[39]

Hayworth rejected his offer of $1,000,000 if she would rear Yasmin as a Muslim from age seven and allow her to go to Europe to visit with him for two or three months each year.

"Nothing will make me give up Yasmin's chance to live here in America among our precious freedoms and habits," declared Hayworth. "While I respect the Muslim faith and all other faiths it is my earnest wish that my daughter be raised as a normal, healthy American girl in the Christian faith. There isn't any amount of money in the entire world for which it is worth sacrificing this child's privilege of living as a normal Christian girl here in the United States. There just isn't anything else in the world that can compare with her sacred chance to do that. And I'm going to give it to Yasmin regardless of what it costs."^[40]

• Dick Haymes (1953–1955): When Hayworth and Haymes first met, he was still married and his singing career was waning. When she showed up at the clubs, he got a larger audience. Haymes was desperate for money, as two of his former wives were taking legal action against him for unpaid child support. His financial problems were so bad he could not return to California without being arrested.^[41] On July 7, 1954, his ex-wife Nora Haymes got a bench warrant for his arrest, because he owed her $3,800 in alimony. Less than a week prior, his other ex-wife, Joanne Dru, also got a bench warrant because she said he owed $4,800 in support payments for their three children.^[42] Hayworth ended up paying most of Haymes's debts.

Haymes was born in Argentina, and did not have solid proof of American citizenship. Not long after he met Hayworth, US officials initiated proceedings to have him deported to Argentina for being an illegal alien. He hoped Hayworth could influence the government and keep him in the United States. When she assumed responsibility for his citizenship, a bond was formed that led to marriage. The two were married on September 24, 1953 at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, and their wedding procession went through the casino.

From the start of their marriage, Haymes was deeply indebted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). When Hayworth took time off from attending his comeback performances in Philadelphia, the audiences sharply declined. Haymes's $5000 weekly salary was attached by the IRS to pay a $100,000 bill, and he was unable to pay his pianist. Haymes' ex-wives demanded money while Hayworth publicly bemoaned her own lack of alimony from Aly Khan. At one point, the couple was effectively imprisoned in a hotel room for 24 hours in Manhattan at the Hotel Madison as sheriff's deputies waited outside threatening to arrest Haymes for outstanding debts. At the same time, Hayworth was fighting a severe custody battle with Khan, during which she reported death threats against their children. While living in New York, Hayworth sent the children to live with their nanny in Westchester County. They were found and photographed by a reporter from Confidential magazine.

After a tumultuous two years together, Haymes struck Hayworth in the face in 1955 in public at the Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles. Hayworth packed her bags, walked out, and never returned. The assault and crisis shook her, and her doctor ordered her to remain in bed for several days.^[43]

Hayworth was short of money after her marriage to Haymes. She had failed to gain child support from Aly Khan. She sued Orson Welles for back payment of child support which she claimed had never been paid. This effort was unsuccessful and added to her stress.

• James Hill (1958–1961): Hayworth began a relationship with film producer James Hill, whom she went on to marry on February 2, 1958. He put her in one of her last major films, Separate Tables. On September 1, 1961, Hayworth filed for divorce, alleging extreme mental cruelty. He later wrote Rita Hayworth: A Memoir, in which he suggested their marriage collapsed because he wanted Hayworth to continue making movies, while she wanted them both to retire from Hollywood.

In his book, In the Arena, Charlton Heston writes about Hayworth's brief marriage to Hill. One night Heston and his wife Lydia joined the couple for dinner at a restaurant in Spain, with the director George Marshall and the actor Rex Harrison, Hayworth's co-star in The Happy Thieves. Heston wrote that the occasion "turned into the single most embarrassing evening of my life", describing how Hill heaped "obscene abuse" on Hayworth until she was "reduced to a helpless flood of tears, her face buried in her hands". Heston writes how the others sat stunned, witnesses to a "marital massacre" and, though he was "strongly tempted to slug him" (Hill), Heston left with his wife Lydia after she stood up, almost in tears. Heston wrote, "I'm ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth's humiliation. I never saw her again."^[44]

Health problems[link]

Hayworth struggled with alcohol throughout her life. Her daughter Yasmin Aga Khan said,

"I remember as a child that she had a drinking problem. She had difficulty coping with the ups and downs of the business ... As a child, I thought, 'She has a drinking problem and she's an alcoholic.' That was very clear and I thought, 'Well, there's not much I can do. I can just, sort of, stand by and watch.' It's very difficult, seeing your mother, going through her emotional problems and drinking and then behaving in that manner ... Her condition became quite bad. It worsened and she did have an alcoholic breakdown and landed in the hospital."^[45]

In 1972, Hayworth was 54 years old and wanted to retire from acting, but she needed money so signed up for The Wrath of God. The experience exposed her poor health and worsening mental state. As she could not remember lines, they filmed her scenes one line at a time.

The following year Hayworth agreed to do one more movie, Tales That Witness Madness (1973). Due to worse health, she abandoned the movie set, and returned to the United States. She never returned to acting.^[46]

In March 1974, both her brothers died within a week of each other, which caused her great sadness and led to heavy drinking. In 1976 at London's Heathrow Airport, Hayworth was removed from a TWA flight after having an angry outburst while traveling with her agent. "Miss Hayworth had been drinking when she boarded the plane," revealed a TWA flight attendant, "and had several free drinks during the flight." The event attracted much negative publicity; a disturbing photograph was published in newspapers.^[47]

Hayworth's alcoholism hid symptoms of what was eventually understood to be Alzheimer's disease. "For several years in the 1970s, she had been misdiagnosed as an alcoholic."^[48] "It was the outbursts," said her daughter, "She'd fly into a rage. I can't tell you. I thought it was alcoholism-alcoholic dementia. We all thought that. The papers picked that up, of course. You can't imagine the relief just in getting a diagnosis. We had a name at last, Alzheimer's! Of course, that didn't really come until the last seven or eight years. She wasn't diagnosed as having Alzheimer's until 1980. There were two decades of hell before that."^[49]

In July 1981, Hayworth's health had deteriorated to the point where a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that she should be placed under the care of her daughter, Princess Yasmin Khan of New York City.^[50] Hayworth lived in an apartment at The San Remo on Central Park West next to her daughter, who arranged for care for her mother through her final years.

Death[link]

Hayworth's grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California

Rita Hayworth lapsed into a semicoma in February 1987. She died at age 68 from Alzheimer's disease a few months later on May 14, 1987. A funeral service was held on May 19, 1987, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.^[51] Pallbearers included actors Ricardo Montalbán, Glenn Ford, Don Ameche and the choreographer Hermes Pan. She was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Her headstone includes the inscription: "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion."

"Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars", said President Ronald Reagan, who had been an actor at the same time as Hayworth.

"Glamorous and talented, she gave us many wonderful moments on stage and screen and delighted audiences from the time she was a young girl. In her later years, Rita became known for her struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Her courage and candor, and that of her family, were a great public service in bringing worldwide attention to a disease which we all hope will soon be cured. Nancy and I are saddened by Rita's death. She was a friend who we will miss. We extend our deep sympathy to her family."^[52]

Awards[link]

Hayworth receives National Screen Heritage Award in 1977

• Nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama in Circus World (1964) (U.K. title: Magnificent Showman), which also featured John Wayne.^{[citation needed]}
• 1977, National Screen Heritage Award.
• Hayworth is included as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time.

Legacy[link]

• A fund raiser for the Alzheimer's Association is named in her honor by her daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, who has been the hostess for these events and a major sponsor of Alzheimer's Disease charities and awareness programs.
• The film I Remember Better When I Paint (2009) describes how Hayworth took up painting while struggling with Alzheimer's and produced art.^[53]

In popular culture[link]

• Lynda Carter portrayed Hayworth in the television movie Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess (1983).
• Actress Veronica Watt portrayed her in the film Hollywoodland (2006).

Filmography[link]

As Rita Cansino[link]

La Fiesta (Short subject, 1926) [4] Cruz Diablo aka The Devil's Cross (Uncredited, 1934) [4] In Caliente (1935) [4] Under the Pampas Moon (1935) Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) Dante's Inferno (1935) Paddy O'Day (1935)

HumanCargo (1936) Meet Nero Wolfe (1936) Rebellion (1936) The Dancing Pirate (1936) Old Louisiana (1937) Hit the Saddle (1937) Trouble in Texas (1937)

As Rita Hayworth[link]

Criminals of the Air (1937) Girls Can Play (1937) The Game That Kills (1937) Paid to Dance (1937) The Shadow (1937) Who Killed Gail Preston? (1938) Special Inspector (1938) There's Always a Woman (1938) Convicted (1938) Juvenile Court (1938) The Renegade Ranger (1938) Homicide Bureau (1939) The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939) Only Angels Have Wings (1939) Music in My Heart (1940) Blondie on a Budget (1940) Susan and God (1940) The Lady in Question (1940) Angels Over Broadway (1940) The Strawberry Blonde (1941) Affectionately Yours (1941) Blood and Sand (1941) You'll Never Get Rich (1941) My Gal Sal (1942) Tales of Manhattan (1942) You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

Show Business at War (1943) (short subject) Cover Girl (1944) Tonight and Every Night (1945) Gilda (1946) Down to Earth (1947) The Lady from Shanghai (1947) The Loves of Carmen (1948) Champagne Safari (1952) Affair in Trinidad (1952) Salome (1953) Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) Fire Down Below (1957) Pal Joey (1957) Separate Tables (1958) They Came to Cordura (1959) The Story on Page One (1959) The Happy Thieves (1962) Circus World (1964) The Money Trap (1965) The Poppy Is Also a Flower (1966) L'Avventuriero (1967) I Bastardi (1968) The Naked Zoo (1971) Road to Salina (1971) The Wrath of God (1972)

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Bill Geerhart "Atomic Goddess, Part I", Knol, accessed 21 March 2012
2. ^ Gerald Faris (May 18, 1987). "A Screen Goddess and Hollywood Rebel Loses The Battle Against Disease". The Age. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=q3wQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dJIDAAAAIBAJ&dq=rita%20hayworth%20hollywood&pg=3397%2C4986759. Retrieved June 7, 2009. 
3. ^ Márquez Reviriego, Víctor (24 March 1984). "Del firmamento al limbo". ABC. http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/sevilla/abc.sevilla/1984/03/24/003.html. Retrieved 5 April 2012. 
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t} Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 5, Susan Ware, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University Press, p281 2004 ISBN 978-0-674-01488-6
5. ^ "Princess Born to Rita After Pre-dawn Dash to Clinic", Associated Press, December 28, 1949. Accessed June 13, 2009.
6. ^ "Rita Hayworth Delights Papa and Mama Cansino." Ellensburg Daily Record, July 13, 1944. Accessed June 7, 2009.
7. ^ "Actress Rita Hayworth's Grandfather Dies at 89." Los Angeles Times, 22 June 1954
8. ^ Patrick Agan, The Decline and Fall of the Love Goddesses, Indiana University: Pinnacle Books, 1979, p67
9. ^ Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein, Rita: The Life of Rita Hayworth, New York: Dell, 1983, p 16
10. ^ "Lot 37 Rita Hayworth Nightgown From Her Famous World War II Publicity Photos". Sotheby's. http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?sale_number=N07818&live_lot_id=37. Retrieved 2010-02-07. 
11. ^ Barbara Leaming, If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth (New York: Viking, 1989), pp. 129-130
12. ^ Winthrop Sargeant, “The Cult of the Love Goddess in America,” Life Magazine, 10 November 1947
13. ^ Morella and Epstein (1983), Rita, p. 234
14. ^ "Screen News Here and in Hollywood," New York Times, 22 March 1943.
15. ^ Hedda Hopper, "Looking at Hollywood," AP, October 22, 1947. Accessed June 4, 2009
16. ^ "Hayworth, Studio Agree Once Again," New York Times, January 9, 1952
17. ^ "Rita Hayworth Files Suit to End Film Contract", Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1955
18. ^ John Hallowell, "Rita Hayworth: Don't Put the Blame on Me, Boys", New York Times, October 25, 1970
19. ^ Nancy Anderson, "Rita Hayworth Still Ranks as Beauty," Copley News Service, 11 February 1972. Accessed June 2, 2009.
20. ^ John Hallowell, "Rita: Hollywood Still Is Her Town But No One Knows She's There", St. Petersburg Times, 23 June 1968. Accessed June 4, 2009. [1]
21. ^ John Kobal Rita Hayworth: Portrait of a Love Goddess, 1977, p. 103
22. ^ Kobal (1977), Rita Hayworth, p. 124
23. ^ Kobal (1977), Rita Hayworth, p. 104
24. ^ "Call For Boycott Of Rita Hayworth", AP, April 30, 1951
25. ^ Kobal (1977), Rita Hayworth, p. 163
26. ^ "Rita Hayworth Replaced in Play", AP, August 24, 1962.
27. ^ Jerry Mason. "Meet Rita Hayworth." The Spokesman-Review. January 3, 1942.
28. ^ John Chapman, "Red Heads", Chicago Daily Tribune, May 25, 1941
29. ^ "Presenting: Ten Most Perfect Features in the World," AP, February 17, 1949. Accessed June 13, 2009.
30. ^ Barbara Leaming (1989),If This Was Happiness: A biography of Rita Hayworth
31. ^ Louella O. Parsons, "Rita, Shy Off Set, Now Groomed for Vamp Role", St. Petersburg Times, May 25, 1941.[2] Accessed June 2, 2009.
32. ^ John Hallowell. "Rita Hayworth, "Don't Put the Blame on Me, Boys", New York Times, October 25, 1970
33. ^ "Chatter", People, July 15, 1974. Accessed June 6, 2009.
34. ^ "Rita Hayworth Tells of Threats by Ex-Mate", Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1943, A16
35. ^ John Kobal, Rita Hayworth, Berkley: 1983, p. 62.
36. ^ "Rita Hayworth Wins Divorce From Orson Welles," AP, November 10, 1947; accessed June 6, 2009
37. ^ Staff writer, "Love's Long Shot", Time October 17, 1949. Accessed May 29, 2009.
38. ^ "Rita Hayworth Files Divorce Action in Reno," Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1951
39. ^ "Prince Wants Yasmin Back", AP, October 31, 1953. Accessed June 13, 2009.
40. ^ "Rita Says No to Million", Sydney Morning Herald, September 13, 1953. Accessed June 13, 2009. [3]
41. ^ "Dick Haymes Faces Arrest Over Alimony", Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1956
42. ^ "Haymes Hears Sour Music," AP, July 7, 1954.
43. ^ "Marriage Falls Down and So Does Rita", UP, August 30, 1955.
44. ^ Heston, Charlton (1997). In the Arena: An Autobiography (1 ed.). Berkley Trade. p. 253. ISBN 1-57297-267-X. 
45. ^ Pia Lindstrom, "Alzheimer's Fight in Her Mother's Name", New York Times, February 23, 1997. [4] Accessed June 6, 2009.
46. ^ Stephanie Thames, "The Wrath of God," TCM.com. Accessed June 14, 2009
47. ^ "Actress Helped from Jet", St. Petersburg Times, January 21, 1976.
48. ^ "'Love Goddess' Rita Hayworth is Dead at 68", AP, May 16, 1987.
49. ^ Paul Hendrickson, "Alzheimer's: A Daughter's Nightmare", Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1989
50. ^ "Rita Hayworth Placed in Conservatorship" AP, July 23, 1981
51. ^ Krebs, Albin (1987-05-16). "Rita Hayworth, Movie Legend, Dies". nytimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1017.html. Retrieved 26 September 2011. 
52. ^ Krebs, Albin. "Rita Hayworth, Movie Legend, Dies", The New York Times, May 16, 1987. Accessed May 29, 2009.
53. ^ Rosalia Gitau (March 11, 2010). "Art Therapy for Alzheimer's". HuffingtonPost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosalia-gitau/art-therapy-for-alzheimer_b_495914.html. 

Sources[link]

• Kobal, John. Rita Hayworth: The Time, the Place, the Woman (1977). ISBN 0-393-07526-5
• Leaming, Barbara. If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth (New York: Viking, 1989)
• McLean, Adrienne L. Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom (2004). ISBN 0-8135-3389-9
• Morella, Joe and Epstein, Edward Z. Rita: The Life of Rita Hayworth (1983). ISBN 0-385-29265-1
• Peary, Gerald. Rita Hayworth: A Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies (1976). ISBN 0-515-04116-5
• Ringgold, Gene. The Films of Rita Hayworth: The Legend and Career of a Love Goddess (1974). ISBN 0-8065-0439-0
• Roberts-Frenzel, Caren. Rita Hayworth: A Photographic Retrospective (2001). ISBN 0-8109-1434-4

External links[link]

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Persondata
Name	Hayworth, Rita
Alternative names	Cansino, Margarita Carmen
Short description	American actress
Date of birth	1918-10-17
Place of birth	Brooklyn, New York, United States
Date of death	1987-05-14
Place of death	New York, New York, United States

The French Revolution
The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789
Participants	French society
Location	France
Date	1789–1799
Result	A cycle of royal power being limited by uneasy constitutional monarchy—then abolition and replacement of the French king, aristocracy and church with a radical, secular, democratic republic—in turn becoming more authoritarian, militaristic and property-based. Radical social change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights, as well as nationalism and democracy. Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte Armed conflicts with other European countries

The French Revolution (French: Révolution française; 1789–1799), was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France that had a major impact on France and indeed all of Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation, as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from radical left-wing political groups, masses on the streets, and peasants in the countryside.^[1] Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy – of monarchy, aristocracy and religious authority – were abruptly overthrown by new Enlightenment principles of equality, citizenship and inalienable rights.

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The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution saw members of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and a right-wing monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms.

A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed the next year. External threats also played a dominant role in the development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had defied previous French governments for centuries.

Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins and virtual dictatorship by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed.^[2] After the fall of the Jacobins and the execution of Robespierre, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.

After the Napoleonic Wars and ensuing rise and fall of Napoleon's First French Empire, a restoration of absolutist monarchy was followed by two further successful smaller revolutions (1830 and 1848). This meant the 19th century and process of modern France taking shape saw France again successively governed by a similar cycle of constitutional monarchy (1830–48), fragile republic (Second Republic) (1848–1852), and empire (Second Empire) (1852–1870). The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies and the invention of total war^[3] all mark their birth during the Revolution.

Causes[link]

The government of King Louis XVI of France faced a fiscal crisis in the 1780s.

Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included hunger and malnutrition in the most destitute segments of the population, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a four-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789),^[4] after several years of poor grain harvests. Bad harvests (caused in part by extreme weather from El Niño along with volcanic activity at Laki and Grímsvötn in 1783–1784), rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system that hindered the shipment of bulk foods from rural areas to large population centers contributed greatly to the destabilization of French society in the years leading up to the Revolution.

Another cause was the state's effective bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of previous wars, particularly the financial strain caused by French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The national debt amounted to some 1,000–2,000 million^{[citation needed]} livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the loss of France's colonial possessions in North America and the growing commercial dominance of Great Britain. France's inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both partially caused and exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation. To obtain new money to head off default on the government's loans, the king called an Assembly of Notables in 1787.

Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was seen as being isolated from, and indifferent to, the hardships of the lower classes. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms. Those who were opposed to Louis' policies further undermined royal authority by distributing pamphlets (often reporting false or exaggerated information) that criticized the government and its officials, stirring up public opinion against the monarchy.^[5]

Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by peasants, laborers and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Church's influence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom of religion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy; aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger toward the King for firing finance minister Jacques Necker, among others, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.^[6]

Pre-revolution[link]

Financial crisis[link]

Caricature of the Third Estate carrying the First Estate (clergy) and the Second Estate (nobility) on its back.

Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the state was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income.^[7] This was because of France’s financial obligations stemming from involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American Revolutionary War.^[8] In May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after he failed to enact reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Comptroller-General of Finance. He could not be made an official minister because he was a Protestant.^[9]

Necker realized that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden,^[9] while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy.^[10] He argued that the country could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed restricting the power of the parlements.^[9]

This was not received well by the King's ministers, and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister. The King refused, Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Comptrollership.^[9] Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial situation and proposed a new tax code.^[11]

The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the parlements, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables. But the Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through its criticism. In response, the King announced the calling of the Estates-General for May 1789, the first time the body had been summoned since 1614. This was a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.^[12]

Estates-General of 1789[link]

The Estates-General was organized into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France.^[13] On the last occasion that the Estates-General had met, in 1614, each estate held one vote, and any two could override the third. The Parlement of Paris feared the government would attempt to gerrymander an assembly to rig the results. Thus, they required that the Estates be arranged as in 1614.^[14] The 1614 rules differed from practices of local assemblies, where each member had one vote and third estate membership was doubled. For example, in the Dauphiné the provincial assembly agreed to double the number of members of the third estate, hold membership elections, and allow one vote per member, rather than one vote per estate.^[15]

The "Committee of Thirty," a body of liberal Parisians, began to agitate against voting by estate. This group, largely composed of the wealthy, argued for the Estates-General to assume the voting mechanisms of Dauphiné. They argued that ancient precedent was not sufficient, because "the people were sovereign."^[16] Necker convened a Second Assembly of Notables, which rejected the notion of double representation by a vote of 111 to 333.^[16] The King, however, agreed to the proposition on 27 December; but he left discussion of the weight of each vote to the Estates-General itself.^[17]

Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males only, at least 25 years of age, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes.

Pour être électeur du tiers état, il faut avoir 25 ans, être français ou naturalisé, être domicilié au lieu de vote et compris au rôle des impositions.^[18]

Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including: "291 nobles, 300 clergy, and 610 members of the Third Estate."^[17] To lead delegates, "Books of grievances" (cahiers de doléances) were compiled to list problems.^[13] The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare.^[14][19]

Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship.^[16] The Abbé Sieyès, a theorist and Catholic clergyman, argued the paramount importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? ("What is the Third Estate?"), published in January 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want to be? Something."^[14][20]

The meeting of the Estates General on 5 May 1789 in Versailles.

The Estates-General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three-hour speech by Necker. The Third Estate demanded that the verification of deputies' credentials should be undertaken in common by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members internally; negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this.^[19] The commoners appealed to the clergy who replied they required more time. Necker asserted that each estate verify credentials and "the king was to act as arbitrator."^[21] Negotiations with the other two estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful.^[22]

National Assembly (1789)[link]

The National Assembly taking the Tennis Court Oath (sketch by Jacques-Louis David).

On 10 June 1789, Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June.^[23] Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People." They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.^[24]

In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor real tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution.^[25]

A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.^[25]

National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)[link]

Storming of the Bastille[link]

By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his overt manipulation of public opinion. Marie Antoinette, the King's younger brother the Comte d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's privy council urged him to dismiss Necker as financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker published an inaccurate account of the government's debts and made it available to the public, the King fired him, and completely restructured the finance ministry at the same time.^[26]

Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be aimed against the Assembly and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly. The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to prevent another eviction from their meeting place. Paris was soon consumed by riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of some of the French Guard, who were armed and trained soldiers.^[27]

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 26 August 1789

On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol of royal power. After several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a cease fire, which prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis Bernard de Launay was beaten, stabbed and decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behavior, and a murder suspect), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the Ancien Régime. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery and butchered him.^[28]

The King, alarmed by the violence, backed down, at least for the time being. The Marquis de la Fayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the commune. The King visited Paris, where, on 17 July he accepted a tricolore cockade, to cries of Vive la Nation ("Long live the Nation") and Vive le Roi ("Long live the King").^[29]

Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour.

As civil authority rapidly deteriorated, with random acts of violence and theft breaking out across the country, members of the nobility, fearing for their safety, fled to neighboring countries; many of these émigrés, as they were called, funded counter-revolutionary causes within France and urged foreign monarchs to offer military support to a counter-revolution.^[30]

By late July, the spirit of popular sovereignty had spread throughout France. In rural areas, many commoners began to form militias and arm themselves against a foreign invasion: some attacked the châteaux of the nobility as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande Peur" ("the Great Fear"). In addition, wild rumours and paranoia caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances that contributed to the collapse of law and order.^[31]

Working toward a constitution[link]

On 4 August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism (although at that point there had been sufficient peasant revolts to almost end feudalism already), in what is known as the August Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies and cities lost their special privileges.

On 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.

Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the people. The bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would have a single, unicameral assembly. The King retained only a "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the historic provinces with 83 départements, uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and population.

Amid the Assembly's preoccupation with constitutional affairs, the financial crisis had continued largely unaddressed, and the deficit had only increased. Honoré Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.

Women's March on Versailles[link]

Engraving of the Women's March on Versailles, 5 October 1789

Fueled by rumors of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789 at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns.^[32] The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.

Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards.^[33] La Fayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.

On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimizing the National Assembly.

Revolution and the Church[link]

In this caricature, monks and nuns enjoy their new freedom after the decree of 16 February 1790

The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Roman Catholic Church to the state. Under the Ancien Régime, the Church had been the largest single landowner in the country, owning about 10% of the land in the kingdom.^[34] The Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, while it levied a tithe—a 10% tax on income, often collected in the form of crops—on the general population, which it then redistributed to the poor.^[34] The power and wealth of the Church was highly resented by some groups. A small minority of Protestants living in France, such as the Huguenots, wanted an anti-Catholic regime and revenge against the clergy who discriminated against them. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire helped fuel this resentment by denigrating the Catholic Church and destabilizing the French monarchy.^[35] As historian John McManners argues, "In eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence."^[36]

This resentment toward the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May 1789. The Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate, the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates General as a governing body.^[37] The National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe. In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was "at the disposal of the nation."^[38] They used this property to back a new currency, the assignats. Thus, the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned.^[39] In December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by 25% in two years.^[40] In autumn 1789, legislation abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved.^[41] Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small percentage did eventually marry.^[42]

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because it effectively denied the authority of the Pope in Rome over the French Church. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy.^[42] This led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who remained loyal to the Pope. Overall, 24% of the clergy nationwide took the oath.^[43] Widespread refusal led to legislation against the clergy, "forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly, or executing them as traitors."^[40] Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France. During the Reign of Terror, extreme efforts of de-Christianization ensued, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones. The establishment of the Cult of Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianization. These events led to a widespread disillusionment with the Revolution and to counter-rebellions across France. Locals often resisted de-Christianization by attacking revolutionary agents and hiding members of the clergy who were being hunted. Eventually, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety were forced to denounce the campaign,^[44] replacing the Cult of Reason with the deist but still non-Christian Cult of the Supreme Being. The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. The persecution of the Church led to a counter-revolution known as the Revolt in the Vendée, whose suppression is considered by some to be the first modern genocide^{[citation needed]}.

Intrigues and radicalism[link]

Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès and the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led what would become known as the right wing, the opposition to revolution (this party sat on the right-hand side of the Assembly). The "Royalist democrats" or monarchiens, allied with Necker, inclined toward organising France along lines similar to the British constitutional model; they included Jean Joseph Mounier, the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, the comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de Virieu.

The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly; while Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more extreme views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for some time between the political centre and the left. In Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under La Fayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other self-generated assemblies.

The Fête de la Fédération on 14 July 1790 celebrated the establishment of the constitutional monarchy

The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the Ancien Régime— armorial bearings, liveries, etc. – which further alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the émigrés. On 14 July 1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with the Fête de la Fédération; Talleyrand performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king"; the King and the royal family actively participated.^[45]

The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General to serve for a single year. However, by the terms of the Tennis Court Oath, the communes had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election, but Mirabeau prevailed, asserting that the status of the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should take place before completing the constitution.^{[citation needed]}

In late 1790, the French army was in considerable disarray. The military officer corps was largely composed of noblemen, who found it increasingly difficult to maintain order within the ranks. In some cases, soldiers (drawn from the lower classes) had turned against their aristocratic commanders and attacked them. At Nancy, General Bouillé successfully put down one such rebellion, only to be accused of being anti-revolutionary for doing so. This and other such incidents spurred a mass desertion as more and more officers defected to other countries, leaving a dearth of experienced leadership within the army.^[46]

This period also saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics. Foremost among these was the Jacobin Club; 152 members had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790. The Jacobin Society began as a broad, general organization for political debate, but as it grew in members, various factions developed with widely differing views. Several of these fractions broke off to form their own clubs, such as the Club of '89.^[47]

Meanwhile, the Assembly continued to work on developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne. The legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes became illegal.^[48]

In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time, legislation against the émigrés. The debate pitted the safety of the Revolution against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau prevailed against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco".^[46] But Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791 and, before the end of the year, the new Legislative Assembly adopted this draconian measure.^[49]

Royal flight to Varennes[link]

The return of the royal family to Paris on 25 June 1791, after their failed flight to Varennes

Louis XVI, egged on by Marie Antoinette and other members of his family, opposed the course of the Revolution, but rejected the potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe. He cast his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy. On the night of 20 June 1791, the royal family fled the Tuileries Palace dressed as servants, while their servants dressed as nobles.

However, late the next day, the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes (in the Meuse département). He and his family were brought back to Paris under guard, still dressed as servants. Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them. From this time, Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal family. When they returned to Paris, the crowd greeted them in silence. The Assembly provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen Marie Antoinette remained held under guard.^{[50][51][52][53][54]}

Completing the constitution[link]

As most of the Assembly still favoured a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead: he was forced to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to abdication.^[55]

However, Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve public order". The National Guard under La Fayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people.^[56]

In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul Marat's L'Ami du Peuple. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.^{[citation needed]}

Meanwhile, a new threat arose from abroad: Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the King's brother Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his absolute liberty and implied an invasion of France on his behalf if the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions.^[57] The French people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the threat of force merely hastened their militarisation.^[58]

Even before the "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed them, the Legislative Assembly. They now gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, showed remarkable strength in choosing not to use this as an occasion for major revisions, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. With this capstone, the National Constituent Assembly adjourned in a final session on 30 September 1791.^[59]

Mignet argued that the "constitution of 1791... was the work of the middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised none."^[55]

Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)[link]

Failure of the constitutional monarchy[link]

Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy. The King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, but he still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers. The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, and degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and successful riot."^[60] The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (constitutional monarchists) on the right, about 330 Girondists (liberal republicans) and Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with either faction.^{[citation needed]} Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the émigrés with death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, such disagreements would lead to a constitutional crisis.^{[citation needed]}

Constitutional crisis[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

On 10 August 1792 the Paris Commune stormed the Tuileries Palace and massacred the Swiss Guards

On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents and popular militias, supported by the revolutionary Paris Commune, assailed the Tuileries Palace and massacred the Swiss Guards who were assigned for the protection of the king. The royal family ended up prisoners and a rump session of the Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins.^[61]

What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent gangs into the prisons to try arbitrarily and butcher 1400 victims, and addressed a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example. The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted until the Convention, elected by universal male suffrage and charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new de facto government of France. The next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. This date was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Republican Calendar.

War and Counter-Revolution (1792–1797)[link]

A uniform from the French Revolution period.

The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies. The King, many of the Feuillants, and the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution within France. The forces opposing war were much weaker. Barnave and his supporters among the Feuillants feared a war they thought France had little chance to win and which they feared might lead to greater radicalization of the revolution. On the other end of the political spectrum Robespierre opposed a war on two grounds, fearing that it would strengthen the monarchy and military at the expense of the revolution, and that it would incur the anger of ordinary people in Austria and elsewhere. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792.^[62] France preemptively declared war on Austria (20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later. The invading Prussian army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792), and forced to withdraw.

The new-born Republic followed up on this success with a series of victories in Belgium and the Rhineland in the fall of 1792. The French armies defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November, and had soon taken over most of the Austrian Netherlands. This brought them into conflict with Britain and the Dutch Republic, which wished to preserve the independence of the southern Netherlands from France. After the king's execution in January 1793, these powers, along with Spain and most other European states, joined the war against France. Almost immediately, French forces faced defeat on many fronts, and were driven out of their newly conquered territories in the spring of 1793. At the same time, the republican regime was forced to deal with rebellions against its authority in much of western and southern France. But the allies failed to take advantage of French disunity, and by the autumn of 1793 the republican regime had defeated most of the internal rebellions and halted the allied advance into France itself.

The stalemate was broken in the summer of 1794 with dramatic French victories. They defeated the allied army at the Battle of Fleurus, leading to a full Allied withdrawal from the Austrian Netherlands. They followed up by a campaign which swept the allies to the east bank of the Rhine and left the French, by the beginning of 1795, conquering Holland itself. The House of Orange was expelled and replaced by the Batavian Republic, a French satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the coalition against France. Prussia, having effectively abandoned the coalition in the fall of 1794, made peace with revolutionary France at Basel in April 1795, and soon thereafter Spain, too, made peace with France. Of the major powers, only Britain and Austria remained at war with France.

	La Marseillaise The French national anthem La Marseillaise was written during the revolution in 1792.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

It was during this time that La Marseillaise was first sung. Originally titled Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine"), the song was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. It was adopted in 1795 as the nation's first anthem.

National Convention (1792–1795)[link]

Execution of Louis XVI[link]

Execution of Louis XVI in what is now the Place de la Concorde, facing the empty pedestal where the statue of his grandfather, Louis XV, had stood.

In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. This among other things made Louis appear to be conspiring with the enemies of France. On 17 January 1793 Louis was condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288 voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a variety of delaying conditions. The former Louis XVI, now simply named Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet), was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 on the Place de la Révolution, former Place Louis XV, now called the Place de la Concorde.^[63] Royalty across Europe was horrified and many heretofore neutral countries soon joined the war against revolutionary France.

Economy[link]

When war went badly, prices rose and the sans-culottes — poor labourers and radical Jacobins – rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a parliamentary coup, backed up by force effected by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian sans-culottes. An alliance of Jacobin and sans-culottes elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy became considerably more radical, as "The Law of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of offenders.^[64] This policy of price control was coeval with the Committee of Public Safety's rise to power and the Reign of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products but, by September 1793, it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods.^[65] Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"^[66]

Reign of Terror[link]

Satirical cartoon from England lampooning the excesses of the Revolution as symbolized through the guillotine: between 18,000 and 40,000 people were executed during the Reign of Terror

Queen Marie Antoinette on the way to the guillotine on 16 October 1793 (drawing by Jacques-Louis David)

The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–1794). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities.^[67] A number of historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.^[67][68]

On 2 June 1793, Paris sections — encouraged by the enragés ("enraged ones") Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert – took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to sans-culottes alone.^[69] With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to persuade the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the revolutionary dictatorship. On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat — a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric — by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the King, undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.^[70]

Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I. It was progressive and radical in several respects, in particular by establishing universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.^[71]

War in the Vendée[link]

The War in the Vendée was a royalist uprising that was suppressed by the republican forces in 1796

In Vendée, peasants revolted against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. They resented the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the Revolutionary government's military conscription.^[72] This became a guerrilla war, known as the War in the Vendée.^[73] North of the Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels).^[74]

After the defeat at Savenay, when regular warfare in the Vendée was at an end, the French general Francois Joseph Westermann is argued by some historians to have penned a letter (its veracity is disputed)^[75][76] to the Committee of Public Safety, stating:

"There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all. The roads are sown with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop... Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."^[77][78]

Other historians doubt the authenticity of this document and point out that the claims in it were patently false — there were in fact thousands of living Vendean prisoners, the revolt had been far from crushed, and the Convention had explicitly decreed that women, children and unarmed men were to be treated humanely.^[79] It has been hypothesized that if the letter is authentic, Westermann may have been attempting to exaggerate the intensity of his actions and his success, because he was eager to avoid being purged for his opposition to sans-culotte generals (he was later guillotined together with Danton's group).^[80]

The revolt and its suppression, including both combat casualties and massacres and executions on both sides, are thought to have taken between 117,000 and 250,000 lives (170,000 according to the latest estimates).^[81] Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, certain historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide". This description has become popular in the mass media,^[82] but has largely been rejected by mainstream scholars.^[83]

Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general conscription, the levée en masse, which mobilized all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.

The National Convention subsequently enacted more legislation, voting on 9 September to establish sans-culottes paramilitary forces, revolutionary armies, and to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which authorized the charging of counter-revolutionaries with "crimes against liberty." On 29 September, the Convention extended price limits from grain and bread to other household goods and established the Law of the Maximum, intended to prevent price gouging and supply food to the cities.^[84]

The guillotine as a symbol[link]

The guillotine became the symbol of a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, Barnave, Bailly, Brissot and other leading Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.

The Festival of the Supreme Being on 8 June 1794

At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process. Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). In the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the Noyades ("drownings") he organized in Nantes;^[85] his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.^[86]

Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Republican Calendar on 24 October 1793. Against Robespierre's concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hébert's (and Chaumette's) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign to dechristianize society. The climax was reached with the celebration of the flame of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November.^[87]

The Reign of Terror ultimately weakened the revolutionary government, while temporarily ending internal opposition. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with soldiers who had demonstrated their patriotism, if not their ability. The Republican army was able to throw back the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy. However this policy was never fully implemented.^[88]

In the spring of 1794, both extremist enragés such as Hébert and moderate Montagnard indulgents such as Danton were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, tried and guillotined. On 7 June Robespierre, who had previously condemned the Cult of Reason, advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".^[89]

Thermidorian Reaction[link]

The execution of Robespierre on 28 July 1794 marked the end of the Reign of Terror

On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and other leading Jacobins. The new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the White Terror.^[90][91]

In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved the new "Constitution of the Year III" on 22 August 1795. A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against.^[92] The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.^[92]

The Constitutional Republic: The Directory (1795–1799)[link]

The new constitution created the Directoire (English: Directory) and the first bicameral legislature in French history.^[93] The parliament consisted of two houses: the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (Council of the Five Hundred), with 500 representatives, and the Conseil des Anciens (Council of Elders), with 250 senators. Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the Conseil des Anciens from a list submitted by the Conseil des Cinq-Cents. Furthermore, the universal male suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property.^[94]

With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Those who wished to restore the monarchy and the Ancien Régime by putting Louis XVIII on the throne, and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the First Coalition. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance. However, many French citizens distrusted the Directory,^[95] and the directors could achieve their purposes only by extraordinary means. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, even when the elections that they rigged went against them, the directors routinely used draconian police measures to quell dissent. Moreover, to prolong their power the directors were driven to rely on the military, which desired war and grew less and less civic-minded.^[96]

Other reasons influenced them in the direction of war. State finances during the earlier phases of the Revolution had been so thoroughly ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.^[97]

Napoléon Bonaparte in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, which marked the end of the revolution

The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination toward the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value.^{[citation needed]}

The new régime met opposition from remaining Jacobins and the royalists. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and its successful general, Napoleon Bonaparte eventually gained total power.

On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon Bonaparte staged the coup of 18 Brumaire which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to Bonaparte's dictatorship and eventually (in 1804) to his proclamation as Empereur (emperor), which brought to a close the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.^[98]

Symbolism in the French Revolution[link]

Early depiction of the tricolour in the hands of a sans-culotte during the French Revolution

The French Revolution was a time of upheaval, especially towards traditional ideology, in almost every sense: the current monarch, King Louis XVI, was executed; the Catholic Church was all but abolished; a new calendar was created; and a new Republican government was established. In order to effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instill in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.^[99]

Fasces[link]

Fasces, likes many other symbols of the French Revolution, are Roman in origin. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. In Roman times, the fasces symbolized the power of magistrates who could order the beating of a criminal, representing union and accord with the Roman Republic.^[99] The French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity. During the French Revolution the fasces image is seen in conjunction with many other symbols. This is seen with many emblems of the French Revolution. Though seen throughout the French Revolution, perhaps the most well known French reincarnation of the fasces is the Fasces surmounted by a Phrygian cap. This image has no display of an axe or a strong central state; rather, it symbolizes the power of the liberated people by placing the Liberty Cap on top of the classical symbol of power.^[99]

Liberty cap[link]

The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. The cap was originally worn by ancient Romans and Greeks.^[100] The cap implies ennobling effects, as seen in its association with Homer’s Ulysses and the mythical twins, Castor and Pollux. The emblem’s popularity during the French Revolution is due in part to its importance in ancient Rome: its use alludes to the Roman ritual of manumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty. The Roman tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus incited the slaves to insurrection by displaying a pileus as if it were a standard.^[101] The pileus cap is often red in color. This type of cap was worn by revolutionaries at the fall of the Bastille. According to the Revolutions de Paris, it became "the symbol of the liberation from all servitudes, the sign for unification of all the enemies of despotism."^[99] The pileus competed with the Phrygian cap, a similar cap that covered the ears and the nape of the neck, for popularity. The Phrygian cap eventually supplanted the pileus and usurped its symbolism, becoming synonymous with republican liberty.^[99]

Liberty Tree[link]

The Liberty Tree, officially adopted in 1792, is a symbol of the everlasting Republic, national freedom, and political revolution.^[99] It has historic roots in revolutionary France as well as America, as a symbol that was shared by the two nascent republics.^[102] The tree was chosen as a symbol of the French Revolution because it is a symbol of fertility in French folklore,^[103] which provided a simple transition from revering it for one reason to another. The American colonies also used the idea of a Liberty Tree to celebrate their own acts of insurrection against the British, starting with the Stamp Act riot in 1765.^[104] The riot culminated in the hanging in effigy of two Stamp Act politicians on a large elm tree. The elm tree began to be celebrated as a symbol of Liberty in the American colonies.^[104] It was adopted as a symbol that needed to be living and growing, along with the Republic. To that end, the tree is portrayed as a sapling, usually of an oak tree in French interpretation.^[105] The Liberty Tree serves as a constant celebration of the spirit of political freedom.

Hercules[link]

The symbol of Hercules was first adopted by the Old Regime to represent the monarchy.^[106] Hercules was an ancient Greek hero who symbolized strength and power. The symbol was used to represent the sovereign authority of the King over France during the reign of the Bourbon monarchs.^[107] However, the monarchy was not the only ruling power in French history to use the symbol of Hercules to declare its power.

During the Revolution, the symbol of Hercules was revived to represent nascent revolutionary ideals. The first use of Hercules as a revolutionary symbol was during a festival celebrating the National Assembly’s victory over federalism on 10 August 1793.^[108] This Festival of Unity consisted of four stations around Paris which featured symbols representing major events of the Revolution which embodied revolutionary ideals of liberty, unity, and power.^[109] The statue of Hercules, placed at the station commemorating the fall of Louis XVI, symbolized the power of the French people over their former oppressors. The statue’s foot was placed on the throat of the Hydra, which represented the tyranny of federalism which the new Republic had vanquished.^[108] In one hand, the statue grasped a club, a symbol of power, while in the other grasping the fasces which symbolized the unity of the French people.^[110] The image of Hercules assisted the new Republic in establishing its new Republican moral system.^[109] Hercules thus evolved from a symbol of the sovereignty of the monarch into a symbol of the new sovereign authority in France: the French people.^[111] This transition was made easily for two reasons. First, because Hercules was a famous mythological figure, and had previously been used by the monarchy, he was easily recognized by educated French observers.^[107] It was not necessary for the revolutionary government to educate the French people on the background of the symbol. Additionally, Hercules recalled the classical age of the Greeks and the Romans, a period which the revolutionaries identified with republican and democratic ideals. These connotations made Hercules an easy choice to represent the powerful new sovereign people of France.

During the more radical phase of the Revolution from 1793 to 1794, the usage and depiction of Hercules changed. These changes to the symbol were due to revolutionary leaders believing the symbol was inciting violence among the common citizens.^[112] The triumphant battles of Hercules and the overcoming of enemies of the Republic became less prominent. In discussions over what symbol to use for the Seal of the Republic, the image of Hercules was considered but eventually ruled out in favor of Marianne.^[112] Hercules was on the coin of the Republic.^[112] However, this Hercules was not the same image as that of the pre-Terror phases of the Revolution. The new image of Hercules was more domesticated. He appeared more paternal, older, and wiser, rather than the warrior-like images in the early stages of the French Revolution.^[112] Unlike his 24 foot statue in the Festival of the Supreme Being, he was now the same size as Liberty and Equality.^[112] Also the language on the coin with Hercules was far different than the rhetoric of pre-revolutionary depictions. On the coins the words, "uniting Liberty and Equality" were used.^[112] This is opposed to the forceful language of early Revolutionary rhetoric and rhetoric of the Bourbon monarchy. By 1798, the Council of Ancients had discussed the "inevitable" change from the problematic image of Hercules, and Hercules was eventually phased out in favor of an even more docile image.^[112]

Role of women[link]

Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they could not vote or hold any political office. They were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them in the government. It was the men who defined these categories, and women were forced to accept male domination in the political sphere.^[113] The Encyclopédie, published by a group of philosophers over the years 1751–1777, summarized French male beliefs of women. A woman was a "failed man," the fetus not fully developed in the womb. "Women’s testimony is in general light and subject to variation; this is why it is taken more seriously than that of men" as opposed to men, upon whom "Nature seems to have conferred… the right to govern." In general, "men are more capable than women of ably governing particular matters".^[114] Instead, women were taught to be committed to their husbands and "all his interests… [to show] attention and care… [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation." A woman’s education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens.^[115]

When the Revolution opened, some women struck forcefully, using the volatile political climate to assert their active natures. In the time of the Revolution, women could not be kept out of the political sphere; they swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship." Throughout the Revolution, women such as Pauline Léon and her Society of Revolutionary Republican Women fought for the right to bear arms, used armed force and rioted.^[116]

Even before Léon, some liberals had advocated equal rights for women including women's suffrage. Nicolas de Condorcet was especially noted for his advocacy, in his articles published in the Journal de la Société de 1789, and by publishing De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women") in 1790.

Feminist agitation[link]

The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man,^[117] activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated for full citizenship for women.^[118] Women were, nonetheless, "denied political rights of ‘active citizenship’ (1791) and democratic citizenship (1793)."^[117]

Pauline Léon, on 6 March 1792, submitted a petition signed by 319 women to the National Assembly requesting permission to form a garde national in order to defend Paris in case of military invasion.^[118] Léon requested permission be granted to women to arm themselves with pikes, pistols, sabers and rifles, as well as the privilege of drilling under the French Guards. Her request was denied.^[119] Later in 1792, Théroigne de Méricourt made a call for the creation of "legions of amazons" in order to protect the revolution. As part of her call, she claimed that the right to bear arm would transform women into citizens.^[120]

On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuilleries Gardens, and then through the King’s residence."^[121] Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793. As part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered as well as a shirt stained with Marat’s blood.^[122]

The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, which was founded by Léon and her colleague, Claire Lacombe on 10 May 1793.^[123] The goal of the club was "to deliberate on the means of frustrating the projects of the enemies of the Republic." Up to 180 women attended the meetings of the Society.^[124] Of special interest to the Society was "combating hoarding [of grain and other staples] and inflation."^[125]

Later, on 20 May 1793, women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793."^[126] When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."^[127]

Most of these outwardly activist women were punished for their actions. The kind of punishment received during the Revolution included public denouncement, arrest, execution, or exile. Théroigne de Méricourt was arrested, publicly flogged and then spent the rest of her life sentenced to an insane asylum. Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe were arrested, later released, and continued to receive ridicule and abuse for their activism. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".^[128]

These are but a few examples of the militant feminism that was prevalent during the French Revolution. While little progress was made toward gender equality during the Revolution, the activism of French feminists was bold and particularly significant in Paris.^{[citation needed]}

Women writers[link]

Olympe de Gouges was the author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in 1791

While some women chose a militant, and often violent, path, others chose to influence events through writing, publications, and meetings. Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasized that women and men are different, but this shouldn’t stop them from equality under the law. In her "Declaration on the Rights of Woman" she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. De Gouges also expressed non-gender political views; even before the start of the terror, Olympe de Gouges addressed Robespierre using the pseudonym "Polyme" calling him the Revolution’s "infamy and shame." She warned of the Revolution’s building extremism saying that leaders were "preparing new shackles if [the French people’s liberty were to] waver." Stating that she was willing to sacrifice herself by jumping into the Seine if Robespierre were to join her, de Gouges desperately attempted to grab the attention of the French citizenry and alert them to the dangers that Robespierre embodied.^[129] In addition to these bold writings, her defense of the king was one of the factors leading to her execution. An influential figure, one of her suggestions early in the Revolution, to have a voluntary, patriotic tax, was adopted by the National Convention in 1789.^[130]

Madame Roland (aka Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. While limited by her gender, Madame Roland took it upon herself to spread Revolutionary ideology and spread word of events, as well as to assist in formulating the policies of her political allies. Though unable to directly write policies or carry them through to the government, Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote her political agenda. Roland attributed women’s lack of education to the public view that women were too weak or vain to be involved in the serious business of politics. She believed that it was this inferior education that turned them into foolish people, but women "could easily be concentrated and solidified upon objects of great significance" if given the chance.^[131] As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" Witnesses of her life and death, editors, and readers helped to finish her writings and several editions were published posthumously. While she did not focus on gender politics in her writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved they could take an intelligent active role in politics.^[132]

Though women did not gain the right to vote as a result of the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in governing. They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.

Counter-revolutionary women[link]

A major aspect of the French Revolution was the dechristianisation movement, a movement that many common people did not agree with. Especially for women living in rural areas of France, the demise of the Catholic Church meant a loss of normalcy. For instance, the ringing of Church bells resonating through the town called people to confession and was a symbol of unity for the community.^[133] With the onset of the dechristianisation campaign the Republic silenced these bells and sought simultaneously to silence the religious fervor of the majority Catholic population.^[133] When these revolutionary changes to the Church were implemented, it spawned a counter-revolutionary movement, particularly amongst women. Although some of these women embraced the political and social amendments of the Revolution, they opposed the dissolution of the Catholic Church and the formation of revolutionary cults like the Cult of the Supreme Being advocated by Robespierre.^[134] As Olwen Hufton argues, these women began to see themselves as the “defenders of faith”.^[135] They took it upon themselves to protect the Church from what they saw as a heretical change to their faith, enforced by revolutionaries.

Counter-revolutionary women resisted what they saw as the intrusion of the state into their lives.^[136] Economically, many peasant women refused to sell their goods for assignats because this form of currency was unstable and was backed by the sale of confiscated Church property.^[135] By far the most important issue to counter-revolutionary women was the passage and the enforcement of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790. In response to this measure, women in many areas began circulating anti-oath pamphlets and refused to attend masses held by priests who had sworn oaths of loyalty to the Republic.^[136] This diminished the social and political influence of the juring priests because they presided over smaller congregations and counter-revolutionary women did not seek them for baptisms, marriages or confession.^[137] Instead, they secretly hid nonjuring priests and attended clandestine traditional masses.^[138] These women continued to adhere to traditional practices such as Christian burials and naming their children after saints in spite of revolutionary decrees to the contrary.^[139]

It was this determined resistance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the dechristianisation campaigns that played a major role in the re-emergence of the Catholic Church as a prominent social institution. In fact, Olwen Hufton notes about the Counter-Revolutionary women: “for it is her commitment to her religion which determines in the post-Thermidorean period the re-emergence of the Catholic Church…”.^[140] Although they struggled, these women were eventually vindicated in their bid to reestablish the Church and thereby also to reestablish traditional family life and social stability.^[141] This was seen in the Concordat of 1801, which formally reinstated the Catholic Church in France.^[142] This act came after years of failed attempts at dechristianisation or state-controlled religion, which were thwarted in part due to the resistance of devout counter-revolutionary women. After the upheaval of the revolutionary period, the reestablishment of the Church was seen by many people as a welcome return to normalcy.

Legacy[link]

The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have been characterized as falling along ideological lines, with disagreement over the significance and the major developments of the Revolution.^[143] Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance.^[144] Other thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order—a claim rooted in the belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate complaints.^[145] Other historians, influenced by Marxist thinking, have emphasized the importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution as a gigantic class struggle.^[146] In general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the political ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social history that analyzes the impact of the Revolution on individual lives.^[147]

Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, and the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500, is traditionally attributed to the onset of the French Revolution in 1789.^[148] The Revolution is, in fact, often seen as marking the "dawn of the modern era".^[149] Within France itself, the Revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived despite the damage they sustained. After the collapse of the First Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges earned since the Revolution, but they remembered the participatory politics that characterized the period, with one historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained firsthand experience in the political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they joined new organizations; and they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option."^[150] Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution.^[151] The Revolution represented the most significant and dramatic challenge to political absolutism up to that point in history and, despite its failures, spread democratic ideals throughout Europe and ultimately the world.^[152] It had a profound impact on the Russian Revolution and its ideas inspired Mao Zedong in his efforts at constructing a communist state in China.^[153]

See also[link]

Audio files[link]

	Paul Wranitzky: Symphony Op. 31 "The (French) Revolution" Or "La Paix". First part of the Introduction. Porticodoro / SmartCGArt Media Productions — Classical Orchestra.
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	Paul Wranitzky: "Funeral March for the Death of the King Louis XVI" from the Symphony Op. 31 "The Revolution" or "La Paix", Mov. 2 Pt. 2. Porticodoro / SmartCGArt Media Productions — Classical Orchestra.
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Other revolutions or rebellions in French history[link]

Notes[link]