Ideals of the French Revolution

Foremost, the French Revolution was established upon the ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality for all. Rooted in the fundamental principles of the Age of Enlightenment, the ethos of the Revolution was that the rule of law governed all and that all men were guaranteed free and equal rights. Furthermore, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the defining document of the Revolution, upheld that all men had the right to freedom of thought and religion. The ideals of the Revolution were sweeping, drastically opposite the rigid political and social structures of the Old Regime. Fundamentally, the Revolution was an expression of the abundant and natural rights of man, predicated only by the law of the land. In order to determine the extent to which Napoleon fulfilled these fundamentals, we will specifically focus on the three aspects of the Revolution's motto, liberty, fraternity, and equality.

This image depicts the Tennis Court Oath.