The French Revolution

Chapter 23

“Ancien Regime”

Old social order in France = Three Estates

1st Estate

2nd Estate3rd Estate

1st Estate: Clergy•less than 1% of population•owned 10% of land•no taxes – only “voluntary gift”

2nd Estate: Nobility • Descendents of “those who fought” in

Middle Ages• About 2% of population; owned 25% of

land• Manorial rights: privileges of lordship

which allowed them to tax peasantry for own profit

• Honorific privileges: other rights (wear sword, precedence in public occasions)

• Highest offices in gov’t

3rd Estate: Bourgeoisie (middle class), urban lower class, farmers

& commoners• 97% of population• Vastly different social

groups – united by common social status & resentment of upper classes

• Embraced ideas of the Enlightenment

Causes of the Revolution: Financial & Economic

• Economic decline- Food shortage led to high prices- Rising cost of living- High unemployment among urban poor- Unequal & heavy taxes

Price of bread doubled

• Increasing national debt- Borrowed $ to fight in wars- Extravagant spending of kings (i.e. Louis XIV, Louis XVI, queen Marie Antoinette)

Louis XIV asks “Where is the tax money?”

• What % of income did a person in 3rd Estate pay in taxes?• How does tax burden of 3rd Estate compare to that of the 2nd

Estate?• How is this taxation unfair to the 3rd Estate?

Causes of the French Revolution: Political

• Weak leader – Louis XVI indecisive & did not listen to advisors- king losing support of people

• Marie Antoinette – interfered and offered poor advice

• http://www.pbs.org/marieantoinette/life/index.html

Causes of the French Revolution: Social

• Discontentment of 3rd Estate

•Unfair privileges for top estates

Causes of the Revolution: Ideas of the

Enlightenment• Liberty- Call for individual human rights- Call for new kind of government in which the people had sovereignty“Liberty consists in being

able to do anything that does not harm another person.”

~Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Equality• Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke saw

people as born equal• However, equality not extended to women• Not equal economically – but equal chance &

opportunity

L’Hôtel de Ville, Versailles, France

Causes of the Revolution: American Revolution

• French officers served in America & were inspired by the experience

• Intellectuals were passionate about the ideas of U.S. Constitution & state constitutions

American vs. French Revolutions

• French revolution was more radical & more complex, more influential & more controversial, more loved & more hated

• French Revolution was the revolution that opened the modern era in politics

• http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/browse/songs/#

French Revolution Begins• 1st Phase = Moderate

Phase (1789-1794)• King Louis XVI needed

money- Nobles refused king’s proposed tax on landed property- Louis forced to call meeting of Estates-General in Versailles on May 5, 1789

Estates-General assembly of all three estates

• Had not met since 1614• Each estate had one vote the two

privileged estates could out-vote the 3rd estate

Two Questions: How would E-G vote? Who would lead political re-

organization?• Parlement of Paris decided estates should

sit separately• Meeting of estates deadlocked 3rd

estate refused to do business unless all estates sat in unified body

• Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès “What is the Third Estate?”

“What is the Third Estate?” ~ Sieyès

• Who then shall dare to say that the Third Estate has not within itself all that is necessary for the formation of a complete nation? It is the strong and robust man who has one arm still shackled. If the privileged order should be abolished, the nation would be nothing less, but something more. Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an everything free and flourishing. Nothing can succeed without it, everything would be infinitely better without the others.

Sieyès cont…The Third Estate embraces then

all that which belongs to the nation; and all that which is not the Third Estate, cannot be regarded as being of the nation.

What is the Third Estate?

It is the whole.

• June 17 3rd Estate declared itself the National Assembly

• June 20th delegates of 3rd Est. moved to large indoor tennis court

• Swore Tennis Court Oath pledged not to disband until a new constitution was written

• Nobles & clergy joined N.A. end of absolute monarchy

Oath of the Tennis Court• The National Assembly, considering that it has been

summoned to establish the constitution of the kingdom, to effect the regeneration of public order, and to maintain the true principles of monarchy; that nothing can prevent it from continuing its deliberations in whatever place it may be forced to establish itself; and, finally, that wheresoever its members are assembled, there is the National Assembly;

• Decrees that all members of this Assembly shall immediately take a solemn oath not to separate, and to reassembly wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established and consolidated upon firm foundations; and that, the said oath taken, all members and each one of the individually shall ratify this steadfast resolution by signature.

Storming of the Bastille• Louis XVI stationed mercenary army

of Swiss guards around Versailles • Rumors that Louis would use military

force & violence to disband N.A.

• People began to seize arms for defense

Louis XVI: “Is this a revolt?”Liancourt: “No, Sire, it is a revolution.”

• The Bastille was a medieval fortress with 8 towers, which at the time of the French Revolution housed only a few common criminals. Taken from the French word ‘bastide’, meaning fortress, the Bastille was constructed to defend the eastern wall of Paris in 1382. But because it had previously been used to house political prisoners, it had long been a symbol of royal tyranny.

• July 14, 1789 – people marched to the Bastille for weapons & gunpowder

• Poor & oppressed crowd attacked Bastille governor of prison slain & head put on pike

• Attack successful & symbolic today known as Bastille Day

The Former Bastille

Great Fear• Rebellion in Versailles spread to

countryside peasants rose in violent revolts against feudal system

• Landowners & nobility feared these outlaws & vagabonds

• Oct. 1789 Parisian women rioted over high price of bread

• Marched to Versailles and broke into palace

• Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette forced to return to Paris

• As Great Fear subsided peasants became force for order & stability