ABSTRACT
bound bundle of wooden rods, the fasces, lie just behind the scroll. The French Revolution began in 1789 with the assertion of political rights by the Third Estate and hopes for a constitutional settlement to benefit the whole nation. Through 1789 to 1795 the revolutionary ideals were challenged, refined, altered and rejected. The Constitution of 1795 resembled more its predecessor enacted in 1791 than the Constitution of 1793. In 1795, it was impossible to predict that power would be seized in 1799 by one of the republican generals, Napoleon Bonaparte. The freedoms heralded in 1789 formed the foundation of the enduring concept of rights: French citizens have the right to do ‘all that is not forbidden by the law’. The 1789 demands for a constitution were the expression of a need for a written legislative instrument to delineate the relationship between the government and the citizens. The revolution reshaped France’s administrative structures according to the principles of rationality, uniformity and efficiency.
