Great Fear
What was the Great Fear in the French Revolution?
What factors contributed to the Great Fear?
What actions did the National Constituent Assembly take in response to the Great Fear?
Great Fear, (1789) in the French Revolution, a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumors of an “aristocratic conspiracy” by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate. To check the peasants, the National Constituent Assembly decreed the abolition of the feudal regime and introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Background and start of the Great Fear
For many years leading up to the revolutionary period, France had been plagued by poor harvests and food shortages. This situation became even worse after the Icelandic volcano Laki erupted catastrophically in 1783–84, affecting climatic conditions all over Europe. Food shortages were particularly acute in the spring of 1789. The countryside saw a notable increase in displaced and hungry people, many of them unemployed agricultural workers.
Rumors became another generator of fear. Political events in Paris in 1788–89 raised hopes in the countryside while also stoking apprehensions. News of King Louis XVI’s willingness to accept reforms, as well as the calling of the Estates-General and the formation of the National Constituent Assembly, contributed to a spirit of optimism in France’s rural areas. At the same time, by midsummer 1789, other events—namely the king’s dismissal of popular finance minister Jacques Necker, the storming of the Bastille, and the mobilization of troops—made the peasants fear a harsh aristocratic reaction. Rumors spread that the king or his nobles were planning to use foreign troops or hired gangs to reimpose order in rural France.
Panic and resolution
In July and August local militias were raised in the countryside in expectation of attacks by the authorities, and in some locations riots broke out. Gangs ransacked and burned the homes of the nobility, although few nobles were killed or otherwise physically harmed. An important part of the violence was the destruction of feudal records. These documents recorded the privileges of the nobles and the obligations of the peasants; destroying them was seen as a way to render the feudal system unworkable.
The unrest in the countryside provoked alarm in the National Constituent Assembly in Paris. On the evening of August 4 and well into the next morning, the deputies of the assembly abolished the feudal system literally overnight. In the following days this abolition was codified in the “August Decrees,” a series of 19 measures that stripped away privileges of the nobility and the church. The crowning event of the month was the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which was passed between August 20 and August 26.