The French Revolution1 7 8 9 -1 7 9 9

Contents1)Causes2)I’st Estate3)II’nd Estate4)III’rd Estate5)Economic Cause6)Political Cause7)Role of the Middle Class8)Immediate Cause9)Intellectual Cause

Causes• Social Cause One of the main factors that led to the French Revolution was the

unbalanced social structure of society during the Old Regime. • Economic Cause It was the main reason of the depletion of the treasury of the

king.• Political Cause• King was a person of Mediocre Intelligence.• Immediate Cause Formation of the Estate General.• Intellectual Cause Influence from the writers.

I Estate• The First Estate, which made up about one

percent of the total population, was divided into two groups: upper and lower.The upper clergy included archbishops, bishops, and abbots.

• Due to the power of the Roman Catholic Church, these people were exempt from most taxes. These men of high status and privilege enjoyed luxurious lives in their large palaces. Meanwhile, the lower clergy, whichincluded poorly-paid village priests, had to suffer along with the third class peasants.

II Estate• The Second Estate was composed of about 30,000 families

who belonged to the nobility ㅡ Duke and Duchess, count and countess, and marquis and marquess. Like the clergy, the nobility represented another privileged Estate.They held the highest position in the Church, the army, and the government. As well, they were exempt from paying taxes of any kind. They collected rent from the peasant population who lived on their lands. They also collected an extreme amount of customary dues, as well as dues on salt, cloth, bread, and wine. Most of the nobility was descendants from the warriors, who helped the King conquer Francein the early days. They lived a life of lordly ease and luxury and enjoyed great privileges.

III Estate About 26 million citizens, the Third Estate

consisted the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and the urban artisans. The bourgeoisie,which included merchants, manufacturers, bankers, doctors, lawyers, and intellectuals, were generally prosperous and often as wealthy as nobles

Third Estate was dominated by the middle class

Blending of aristocratic and bourgeois classes by 1789

Middle class were Big Winners Revolutionary goals of the middle class

Economic Cause In 1774, Louis XVI of the Bourbon family of kings ascended the throne of

France. He was 20 years old and married to the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette. Upon his accession the new king found an empty treasury. Long years of war had drained the financial resources of France.

Added to this was the cost of maintaining an extravagant court at the immense palace of Versailles.

Under Louis XVI, France helped the thirteen American colonies to gain their independence from the common enemy, Britain. The war added more than a billion livres to a debt that had already risen to more than 2 billion livres.

Lenders who gave the state credit, now began to charge 10 per cent interest on loans. So the French government was obliged to spend an increasing percentage of its budget on interest payments alone. To meet its regular expenses, such as the cost of maintaining an army, the court, running government offices or universities, the state was forced to increase taxes. Yet even this measure would not have sufficed.

The Church too extracted its share of taxes called tithes from the peasants, and finally, all members of the third estate had to pay taxes to the state. These included a direct tax, called taille, and a number of indirect taxes which were levied on articles of everyday consumption like salt or tobacco. The burden of financing activities of the state through taxes was borne by the third estate alone ,which angered the common People

Louis XVI attempted to tax the nobles.The nobles forced the king to call a meeting

of the Estates-General an assembly of delegates from each of the three estates.

Political Cause• Louis XVI, the king of France, was a person of mediocre

intelligence. He ruled with the help of his empty headed wife ‘Marie Antoinnette’, who appointed a number of her friends and relatives at high posts and kept some of them at pension. These people neither did any work nor they contribute to the National treasury. Instead they took salary from the Royal treasury.

• Louis XVI wanted to increase his territory. And to do so, he had to be engaged in wars which meant that he needed a large army for that purpose. Appointing so many soldiers, required money to pay salaries to them. It depleted the Royal treasury.

As a result, the king was forced to raise the taxes with the consent of the three estates . As the common people had to pay taxes, they became agitated against their monarch – Louis XVI.

Role of the Middle Class

• The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of social groups, termed the middle class, who earned their wealth through an expanding overseas trade and from the manufacture of goods such as woollen and silk textiles that were either exported or bought by the richer members of society.

• In addition to merchants and manufacturers, the third estate included professions such as lawyers or administrative officials which were educated.

• Middle Class believed that no group in society should be privileged by birth. Social position must depend on his merit.

Immediate Cause• Compelled by Financial bankruptcy, the

French Emperor Louis XVI called a meeting of Estate General in 1789. It generated much heat as the members of the 3rd Estate were determined to put forth their demand. However, the first two Estates i.e. ‘the Clergy’ and ‘ The Nobility’ refused to have a joint meeting with the Third Estate. The members of the Third Estate walked of the Assembly.

Intellectual Cause• The Middle class favoured a society based on freedom and equal laws

and opportunities for all• Jean Jacques Rousseau , in his ‘Two Treatises’ of Government, Locke

sought to refute the doctrine of the divine and absolute right of the monarch. Rousseau carried the idea forward, proposing a form of government based on a social contract between people and their representatives.

• Montesquieu in ‘The Spirit of the Laws’, Montesquieu proposed a division of power within the government between the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. This model of government was put into force in the USA, after the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Britain. The American constitution and its guarantee of individual rights was an important example for political thinkers in France.

• The ideas of these philosophers were discussed intensively in salons and coffee-houses and spread among people through books and newspapers. These were frequently read aloud in groups for the benefit of those who could not read and write. The news that Louis XVI planned to impose further taxes to be able to meet the expenses of the state generated anger and protest against the system of privileges.

Formation of National Assembly◊ Representative

government did not mean democracy or “mob rule”

◊ Estates-General became the National Assembly in June of 1789 with the power to frame a constitution

◊ Tennis Court Oath was formed due to the disagreement of the 3’rd Estate and the Monarch.

National Assembly (1789-1791)Louis XVI did not

actually want a written constitution

When news of his plan to use military force against the National Assembly reached Paris on July 14, 1789, people stormed the Bastille

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens Freedom

of religion

Freedom of

speech

Freedom of the press

Guaranteed

property rights

“Liberty, equality, fraternity

!”

Right of the

people to create laws

Right to a fair trial

Declaration of the Rights of WomanJournalist

Olympe de Gouges

argued in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman that women are

equal citizens and should

benefit from governmental reforms just as men did.

Madame Jeanne

Roland also served as a

leader in the women’s

rights movement,

and was able to heavily

influence her husband (a government

official).

Women did gain some rights during the French Revolution, but these were designed for purposes other than liberating women. • Women could inherit

property, but only because doing so weakened feudalism and reduced wealth among the upper classes.

• Divorce became easier, but only to weaken the Church’s control over marriage.

Louis XVI was beheaded on 21’st January 1793 in Paris at the Place de la Concorde along with his wife Marie Antoinette. This was the beginning of the Jacobins.

The Directory (1794-1799)

Napoleon’s Rise to Power

Establishment of the Bank of France

Reconciliation with the Catholic Church

--Concordat of 1801

Heavy Censorship Napoleon’s “Art of

War”

Role Of the Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon was martyred in the battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Death of Napoleon Bonaparte

Prepared by:

Prabhat, Apurva,

Suraj, Hritvik