1. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

2. OBJECTIVES What caused this era of revolution?
What were the ideas and objectives of men and women who rose up violently to undo the established system?
What were the gains and losses for the privileged groups and ordinary people in a generation of war and upheaval?

3. THEMES LIBERALISM AND NATIONALISM “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”
NAPOLEON
Paradox – “The God of War and the Promoter of Peace”

4. FOUR STAGES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE MODERATE STAGE ( )
THE RADICAL STAGE ( )
THE REACTIONARY STAGE ( )
THE NAPOLEONIC STAGE ( )

5. Underlying Causes SOCIAL ?? POLITICAL ?? RELIGIOUS ?? INTELLECTUAL ??
TECHNOLOGICAL ??
ECONOMIC ??

6. SOCIAL
French Estate System

7. SOCIAL - First Estate Clergy  RCC leaders
130,000 total (0.5% of population)
Own 10% of land
No mandatory tax
“Voluntary gift” every 5 years
Taxed residents on
their land
Collected TITHES

8. SOCIAL – Second Estate Nobility 400,000 total (1.5% of population)
Own 25% of land
Taxed VERY minimally
Had “optional” taxes
Had manorial rights
Would tax residents on their land

9. SOCIAL – Third Estate EVERYONE ELSE
25 million total (97% of population)
HEAVILY TAXED
3 Subgroups
BOURGEOISIE
Doctors, lawyers, professionals, etc.
WORKERS
Artisans, skilled laborers
PEASANTS
21 million people

10. SOCIAL – Third Estate Problems in 3rd Estate Bourgeoisie want:
End of mercantilist restrictions
Fairer distribution of taxes
A GREATER VOICE IN GOVERNMENT
Peasants want:
Freedom from serfdom
Freedom from HIGH TAXES
Gabelle – salt tax
Taille – land tax
BOTH SEEK REVOLT

11. SOCIAL – Third Estate Abbe Sieyes – 1789:
“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.”

12. SOCIAL Unpopular Court Nobility
Tension between bourgeoisie and nobility
Resentment of noble privileges
Nobles resistant to taxes
Population increase million 18th century

13. POLITICAL Bourbon monarchs Louis XIV, XV, & XVI BIG SPENDERS
Increasingly ineffective
DEBT
Rule by divine right
Lettres de Cachet – individuals could be sentence without trial

14. POLITICAL Louis XVI (r. 1774-1791) Indecisive – “the locksmith”
Estates General dismissed for 175 years
Nobles want to limit power
Marie Antoinette – 1770 political marriage
Young, frivolous

15. Marie Antoinette’s “Peasant” House

16. Marie Antoinette’s “Peasant’s Hut”

17. Marie Antoinette’s “Peasant’s Hut”

18. RELIGIOUS
James Gillray (1793) “The Zenith of French Glory –The Pinnacle of Liberty, Religion, Justice, Loyalty, and all the bugbears of Unenlightened Minds , Farewell!”

19. INTELLECTUAL ENLIGHTENMENT Montesquieu Voltaire Rousseau Locke Diderot
Printing Press

20. INTELLECTUAL NEW INFLUENTIAL IDEAS Liberty Individual human rights
Freedom of speech, religion, press, etc.
Equality
Right to vote, run for office, participate in government
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
Only applied to MEN
“Liberté, égalité, fraternité”

21. TECHNOLGICAL PRINTING PRESS GUILLOTINE Commoners – Hanged
Aristocracy – beheaded
“SYMBOL OF EQUALITY”
Joseph Guillotin ( )
Antoine Lewis (1723 – 1792)
Used from

23. ECONOMIC Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) Wars of Louis XIV Versailles
American Revolution
UNLIMITED PERSONAL EXPENSES
ALL = GREAT

24. ECONOMIC INEFFECTIVE TAX SYSTEM Dismissal of several finance ministers
Problems with Parlement of Paris
Continually refused to register new taxes
$$$ of bread ↑
Caused by poor harvests, ↑ in populations, and harsh winters

25. ECONOMIC CAUSE
Jacques Turgot ( ) – controller general of finances – cut gov’t spending – 20 months after he was appointed 1774 he was dismissed
Jacques Necker ( ) – dismissed in 1781 and then recalled in 1788
July 1788 – Louis XVI - to win support for new taxes called into session the Estates General