French revolution

Prelude to Revolt By the late 1780s, the French monarchy was on the brink of collapse. Its involvement in the American Revolution had left the regime of King Louis XVI bankrupt and desperate to raise funds by taxing the wealthy and the clergy. Years of bad harvests and rising prices for basic commodities led to social unrest among the rural and urban poor. Meanwhile, the growing middle class (known as the bourgeoisie) was chafing under an absolute monarchical rule and demanding political inclusion. In 1789 the king called for a meeting of the Estates-General—an advisory body of clergy, nobles, and bourgeoisie that had not convened in more than 170 years—to garner support for his financial reforms. When the representatives assembled in May of that year, they couldn't agree on how to apportion representation. After two months of bitter debate, the king ordered delegates locked out of the meeting hall. In response, they convened on June 20 on the royal tennis courts, where the bourgeoisie, with the support of many clergy and nobles, declared themselves the new governing body of the nation, the National Assembly, and vowed to write a new constitution. Although Louis XVI agreed in principle to these demands, he began plotting to undermine the Estates-General, stationing troops throughout the country. This alarmed the peasants and middle class alike, and on July 14, 1789, a mob attacked and occupied the Bastille prison in protest, touching off a wave of violent demonstrations na...

In late 1788, Jacques Necker announced that the meeting of the Estates General would be brought forward to January 1, 1789 (in reality, it didn't meet until May 5th of that year). However, this edict neither defined the form the Estates General would take nor set out how it would be chosen. Afraid that the crown would take advantage of this to 'fix' the Estates General and transform it into a servile body, the Parlement of Paris, in approving the edict, explicitly stated that the Estates General should take its form from the last time it was called: 1614. This meant the estates would meet in equal numbers, but separate chambers. Voting would be done separately, with each having a third of the vote. Bizarrely, no one who had called for the Estates General over the past years appears to have previously realized what soon became obvious: the 95% of the nation who comprised the third estate could be easily outvoted by a combination of the clergy and nobles, or 5% of the population. Recent events had set a very different voting precedent, as a provincial assembly which had been called in 1778 and 1787 had doubled the numbers of the third estate and another called in Dauphin had not only doubled the third estate but allowed for voting by head (one vote per member, not estate). However, the problem was now understood, and a clamor soon arose demanding the doubling of third estate numbers and voting by head, and the crown received over eight hundred different petitions, mainly fro...

Form and Prison A stone fortress based around eight circular towers with five foot thick walls, the Bastille was smaller than later paintings have made it look, but it was still a monolithic and imposing structure that reached to seventy-three feet in height. It was built in the fourteenth century to By the time of Louis XVI conditions in the Bastille were better than popularly portrayed. The dungeon cells, whose damp hastened illness, were no longer in use, and most prisoners were housed in the middle layers of the building, in cells sixteen feet across with rudimentary furniture, often with a window. Most prisoners were allowed to bring their own possessions, with the most famous example being the Marquis de Sade who bought a vast quantity of fixtures and fittings, as well as an entire library. Dogs and cats were also permitted, to eat any rats. The governor of the Bastille was given a fixed amount for each rank of prisoner each day, with the lowest being three livres a day for the poor (a figure still better than some Frenchmen lived on), and over five times that for high ranking prisoners. Drinking and smoking were also allowed, as were cards if you shared a cell. The Reality of Louis XVI’s Bastille This image of the Bastille during the reign of Louis XVI is now largely believed to have been an exaggeration, with a smaller number of prisoners treated better than the general public had been led to expect. While there was undoubtedly a major psychological impact to being...

The French Revolution challenged political, social and cultural norms in European society. Politically, the governmental structure of the Revolution moved from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy to a republic and finally to an oligarchy. At each stage, the question of who should hold political power was further refined. The Revolution also undercut the traditional social hierarchy of France, by reducing the privileges of the First (clergy) and Second (nobility) Estates. The Revolution had a dramatic cultural impact in terms of building nationalism. The other half of the students should be assigned key figures of the French Revolution. Have them prepare short biographies of each figure and then share them with the class. Suggested list of key figures: Abbe Emmanuel Sieyes, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Jacques Necker, Olympe de Gouges, Jean-Paul Marat, Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robbespierre, Francois-Noel Babeuf, Napoleon Bonaparte. To prepare for the mock National Assembly session, assign each student one of the following roles: Clergy member, supportive of liberal political reforms, Clergy member, unsupportive of liberal political reforms, Member of middle-class, supportive of radical political reform, Member of middle-class, supportive of liberal political reform, member of nobility, strongly against liberal political reform, peasant, member of the urban poor, influencing the Assembly by actions outside. Have the students read the documents suggest...

The French Revolution was a watershed event in world history that began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French citizens radically altered their political landscape, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as the monarchy and the feudal system. The upheaval was caused by disgust with the French aristocracy and the economic policies of King Louis XVI, who met his death by guillotine, as did his wife Marie Antoinette. Though it degenerated into a bloodbath during the Reign of Terror, the French Revolution helped to shape modern democracies by showing the power inherent in the will of the people. Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but several years of poor harvests, drought, cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest among peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy taxes—yet failed to provide any relief—by rioting, looting and striking. In the fall of 1786, Louis XVI’s controller general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, proposed a financial reform package that included a universal land tax from which the aristocratic classes would no longer be exempt. Estates General To garner support for these measures and forestall a growing aristocratic revolt, the king summoned the Estates General ( les états généraux) – an assembly representing France’s clergy, nobility and middle class – for the first time since 1614. The meeting ...

The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a period of major societal and political upheaval in France. It witnessed the collapse of the monarchy, the establishment of the First French Republic, and culminated in the rise of The Revolution of 1789, as it is sometimes called to distinguish it from later French revolutions, originated from deep-rooted problems that the government of King Ancien Régime. The Liberté, égalité, fraternité." Although initially successful in establishing a French Republic, the revolutionaries soon became embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) in which France fought against a coalition of major European powers. The Revolution quickly devolved into violent paranoia, and 20-40,000 people were killed in the Most of the causes of the French Revolution can be traced to economic & social inequalities. Most of the causes of the French Revolution can be traced to economic and social inequalities that were exacerbated by the brokenness of the Ancien Régime (“old regime”), the name retroactively given to the political and social system of the Kingdom of France in the last few centuries of its initial existence. The Ancien Régime was divided into three estates, or social orders: the clergy, nobility, and commoners. The first two estates enjoyed many social privileges, including tax exemptions, that were not granted to the commoners, a class that made up well over 90% of the population. The Third Estate was burdened with manual labor as well as payi...