French Revolution L&C III

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SOCIAL CAUSES

THE RIGID SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Before the revolution the social system in France was divided into three levels or estates.

The First Estate: The Clergy

It was established as a privileged Estate. The French Catholic Church maintained power for morethan 800 years.

Lower Clergy: They were usually humble, poorly paid and overworked village priests.They resented the wealth and arrogance of the upper clergy. Members of this clergy were wellknown among the citizens because they distributed relief to the poor people.

Upper Clergy: It was formed by Bishops and Abbots .

Characteristics of the Clergy:The responsibilities of this Estate were: The registration of births, marriages and deaths.The collected the TITHE, that was usually the 10 %.They could censored books.They served as moral police.


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They operated schools and hospitals.

The First Estate consisted of about the 0.6 % of the population of France.They owned between the 10 and 15 % of all the land in France, which was

rented to peasants in return for a proportion of crops produced.

They did not pay taxes on their lands because of the Churchs role in

healthcare and education; instead they paid a voluntary gift called TheDon Gratuit to the monarchy.

The Church paid this gift annually, they could decide how much theywould pay, the amount of money could change depending on the power ofthe king and the mood of the church.

The voluntary gift was usually about the 5% .


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The Second Estate: The French Aristocracy, the Nobility.

They had the highest positions in the Church, the army ad the government.Originally, the French Nobles had been the feudal lords who fought for the king and protected

the peasants families who lived on their lands.However, by the 18 th Century most members of the nobility were living in opulent splendor at

Versailles. Instead of brandishing swords and suits of armor, they paraded about in high hellsand powdered wigs.

Characteristics of the Nobility:

They owned about the 30% of the land in France.

They were tax free

As most of them were landowners, they collected rent from the peasant population.

They could impose taxes on peasants for fishing and hunting, and to add insult the peasantscould also be taxed for baking bread or pressing grapes into wine .

There was nothing that the peasants could do about it. By the 18 th Century the Nobles were alsobecoming involved in banking, shipping, insurance and manufacturing.

LEADING PATRONS: The Nobles were known as the leading patrons of the arts. They offeredtheir homes and salons to the likes of Voltaire, Gibbon, Diderot and Rousseau. ThePhilosophers could not have existed without their aristocratic patrons.


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The Second Estate was divided into two levels:

The Nobility of the Sword: carried the most prestige. They served their king

at his court in Versailles.

The Nobility of the Robe: carried out less privilege , they were partial to thePhilosophers of the Enlightenment.

They were called

Liberal Nobles

. They wished to see an end to the royal

absolutism but not necessarily the end of the monarchy.

These liberal nobles tended to look to France

s traditional enemy, England, asa model for what France ought to become, a limited or constitutionalmonarchy.


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Louis XIV built up Versailles in order to house his Generals,Ministers and other court members .


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The Third Estate

It was originally formed by peasants and unskilled workers.However as trade expanded and learning flourished during the European Renaissance

( XV to XVI Century), a new class of educated merchants emerged. They were called

Bourgeoisie.

Characteristics of the Third EstateIt was formed approximately by 25 million souls ( manufacturers, doctors, lawyers,

peasants and urban artisans).

Wealth was nothing without status, so the Bourgeoisie, who was influenced by theNobility, tried to imitate them whenever it was possible.

They tried to improve their status by becoming landowners themselves.

By 1789, the Bourgeoisie controlled more than the 20% of all the land in France.

This Estate was badly overtaxed by the Monarch.This overtaxing was one of the major causes of the French Revolution.

Members of the Third Estate were educated in the ideas of the Enlightenment, mostimportantly by Rousseau, who wrote on his book the social contact, that he supporteda direct democracy and that he was against nobles titles, so he demanded equalityamong the citizens of the nation.


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Royal Absolutis


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Louis XVI King of France from 1774 to 1792

State + Church Oppression

Louis was a weak leader


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Louis was married to Marie Antoinette

They had four children, conceived after 7 marriage

They lived very well


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Waste of money


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Treason He was accused of treason because1. he refused to send troops to Austria2. he tried to cross the border and go to

wifes country, and later, with the helpAustria, attack France.


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Execution of Louis xvi and Marie A Louis xvi was executed on the 21 of January, 1

Marie Antoinette was executed 9 months later,

accused of treason.


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Economic Causes

Food Scarcity

In the XVIII Century most people in France depended heavily on agriculture andfarming.

1787-1789 there was terrible weather, heavy rain, hard winters and too hotsummers that led to three very bad harvests in France.

As a consequence of the bad harvests, peasants and farmers had smaller incomes,while food prices rose sharply.

The poor conditions in the countryside had forced rural residents to move intoParis.

The city was overcrowded by hungry and unemployed people.

Poor people were starving, they could not afford food and couldnt find a job.

Meanwhile the Nobility, the Clergy and King Louis and his family, keep on living in the lap of luxury in their palaces and chateaux's.


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American Influen The American Revolution had a tremendo

Europe.

It demonstrated that ideas of enlightenememore than mere utterances of intellectuals

Three major events had great impact on Fr


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The formation of the UConstitution

Completly finished in 1781


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These three factors were seen by french revo

who decided to create their own slogan and rights they deserved


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Taxation

Taxation relied on a system of internal tariffs separating the regions of France,which pretended a unified market from developing in the country.

Taxes such as the extremely unpopular Gabelle, were given to private collectorswho could raise the price far more than what was requested by the government.This system led to and arbitrary and unequal collection of taxes in France.This system excluded the Nobles and the Clergy from having to pay taxes.As a consequence of this, the tax burden was paid by the third Estate, specially

by the peasants, wage earners , professional and business classes.

FinancesBy 1789 France was bankrupt. Kings had managed their fiscal affairs by increasing the burden of the ancient and unequal system of taxes, by borrowing money andsometimes by selling Noble titles and other privileges.

The country could no longer pay its debts, some of them were a consequence ofdifferent wars.By 1789, France was still paying off debts incurred by the wars of Louis XIV ( late

XVII century and early XVIII Century)Furthermore, there was a number of social groups and institutions that did not

pay taxes of any kind.And of course, it was simply brilliant, planning to continue to tax the peasants,

who having nothing to contribute were forced to contribute even more.


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The rise of EnlightenIdeas


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Before the Enlightenment


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Human Reason com ignorance, supersti and tyranny


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Main targets of Enlightene

Religion Aristocracy


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Most prominent french thinkers


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Palace of Versailles - History-

Versailles was the royal residence of France for little more than a century (from 1682 until 1789)when the French Revolution began.Louis XIII built a hunting lodge at the village of Versailles outside of Paris in 1624. The small

structure became the base on which was constructed one of the most costly and extravagantbuildings in the world. It became the palace of Louis XIV, the "Sun King", who boasted of himself,"L'Etat c'est moi" or "I am the state." Louis XV and Louis XVI used to called Versailles home.

The court at Versailles


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The men in charge of the project were Louis Le Vau, architect; Charles Le Brun, painter anddecorator; and Andre Le Notre, landscape architect. About 37,000 acres of land were cleared tomake room for tree-lined terraces, walkways, and thousands of flowering plants. There were

1,400 fountains and 400 pieces of sculpture.In 1676 another architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, was put in charge of redesigning and

enlarging the palace. Starting with Le Vau's plans, Hardouin-Mansart added a second story andbuilt the magnificent Hall of Mirrors and the north and south wings.

There was much activity at Versailles between the years 1678 and 1684. Mansart directed abuilding campaign which included the transformation of the marble court, the construction of

the Ministers' Wings, the Southern wing and the Hall of Mirrors which was decorated with anexquisite set of silver furnishings.

The construction of the Palace of Versailles was finally completed near the end of Louis XIV'slife. The chapel was built in 1708.

Louis XV moved the court back to Versailles (from Paris) in June of 1722. He married the daughter of theexiled King of Poland, Marie Leczinska, and after the birth of three daughters, Marie finally gave birth tothe Dauphin, or Crown Prince, in 1729 at the Palace of Versailles.


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Anges-Jacques Gabriel, whose father had been the King's First Architect, became the OfficialArchitect for Louis XV in 1742. Gabriel supervised new additions of the Palace, including theSalon of Hercules, the Opera House and the Petit Trianon. In 1755 he redecorated the King'sCouncil Chamber. Gabriel's designs signaled the break from heavy ornamented Rococodecoration to the lighter Neoclassical style.

The construction of the palace went on through the next century. More than 36,000 workerswere involved in the project, and when the building was completed it could accommodate up to5,000 people, including servants.

About 14,000 soldiers and servants were quartered in annexes and in the nearby town.During the Seven Year's War France lost most of its overseas treasure and assets to Great

Britain. The resulting economic damage almost destroyed the monarchy. Much of the damage

was repaired by the 1760's by the policies of Finance Minister duc de Choiseul. However, LouisXV left his successor, his grandson Louis XVI, a debt of 4000 million livres when he died in 1774. Despite the kingdom's shaky finances, Louis XVI immediately had the gardens replanted at Versailles

upon his succession and had a new library built in his private apartments by Anges-Jacques Gabriel.His wife, Marie Antoinette constantly had her private apartments changed and rearranged at Versailles.

She also made use of the workshop of the Menus Plaisirs, the shops at Versailles that created specialinteriors, sets, and even funeral monuments. They were constantly creating new portable party pavilionsthat the young Queen could use to entertain her group of friends.

In 1788 the French government went bankrupt. Louis XVI was forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General, a representative body of the government that had not met in 175 years.

They met in the town of Versailles at the Jeu de Paume, a forerunner to a modern tennis court, whichbecame the backdrop for the French Revolution.


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Marie Antoinette's bedroom as it stands today.


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By morning of October 6, 1789 a mob of angry Parisians, mostly women, marched to the Palacedemanding bread. They stormed the Palace, ran up the Queen's Staircase and broke into theGuard's Room, then into the Antechambre. Marie Antoinette ran from her bedchamber into herprivate apartments towards the King's Suite to find her husband and son.

In an effort to quell public discontent the King moved his court to Paris.Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's chambers remain as they were in 1789.After the fall of the monarchy, the Palace of Versailles was put into the hands of the new

government.In 1792 parts of the Royal furniture were sold and many works of art from the Palace were

taken to the Louvre in Paris.Napoleon Bonaparte later took an interest in the Palace and commissioned restoration work,

which was later continued by the reinstated monarchy in 1814 by Louis XVI's brother, LouisXVIII.

In the 1830's Louis-Phillippe decided to make the Palace into a museum of French history,which was inaugurated in 1837. The Palace continued to have an important role in Europeanhistory: in 1871 the Hall of Mirrors was the setting for the Proclamation of the German Empireand in 1919 the Hall was the place were the Treaty of Versailles was signed which put and endto World War I.

In 1962, a decree was issued ordering all of the objects belonging to the Palace and preserved in

French Collections throughout France to be brought back to Versailles.The restoration of the Palace is still ongoing today. In 1986 the apartments on the ground floor,once occupied by the Dauphin and Dauphine, or prince and princess, were opened to the public.


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More than 80 rooms were involved in the largest single restoration in Versailles history.

Parts of the palace that had been damaged or rebuilt after the French Revolution were restored totheir original design.

Some of the original furniture was recovered, paintings were returned, and wall coverings were

replaced.

Today, the Palace of Versailles is one of France's many national monuments.

The building is so large that only a small portion of it is open to the public. Many of the rooms aregovernment offices. Visitors may tour the sections of the north and south wings closest to the centeras well as the central section itself.


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The Hall of Mirrors.


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The ApolloFountain

Louis XIV decorated the

fountain with gilded lead

representing Apollo on hischariot. The work was

inspired by the legend of

Apollo, the Greek god of

Sun.

Tuby created thismonumental fountain

between 1668 and 1670 at

the Manufacture des

Gobelins. It was then

transported to Versaillesand decorated the

following year .


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French Revolution L&C III