1. What were the causes of the French Revolution?

2. IMAGINE You are a hardworking peasant, barely surviving.
Buying food costs HALF of your income while 10% goes to the church and the rest to taxes.
You are taxed the most out of any group yet you have no voice in your government.
HOW WOULD YOU FEEL?

3. 1. The Old Regime FIRST ESTATE (1%) SECOND ESTATE (>2%)
THIRD ESTATE (97-98%)
The CLERGY
Enjoyed enormous wealth and privilege
Owned about 10 percent of land, collected tithes, and paid no taxes
Provided some social services
The NOBILITY
Owned land but had little money income
Hated absolutism
Feared losing traditional privilege, especially exemption from taxes
The BOURGEOISIE (middle class) and PEASANTS
Peasants were 90 percent of French population
Resented privilege of first and second estates
Burdened by taxes
2. DISCONTENT-Many earned miserable wages and faced hunger and even starvation
Bourgeoisie wanted more representation!
FAIR?

4. Enlightenment Ideas lead to Revolution
Philosophers like Locke, Rousseau and Voltaire critiqued divine right and government oppression.
Locke even encouraged revolution!
Inspired by these philosophers and the American revolution
Enlightenment inspires democratic thinking and urges reform of Absolutism

5. SOLVE THIS PROBLEM? TAX THE RICH!
3. Economic Trouble
Economic woes added to the social unrest and heightened tension (5 reasons for this financial crisis)
For years, the French government had engaged in deficit spending that is, a government’s spending more money than it takes in.
Louis XIV had left France deeply in debt. Recent wars, a general rise in costs in the 1700s,
The lavish court at Versailles was incredibly costly.
To bridge the gap between income and expenses, the government borrowed more and more money.
Bad harvests in the late 1780s sent food prices soaring and brought hunger to poorer peasants and city dwellers.
Failure to Reform- Louis 16th chose a smart financial advisor who advised taxing the nobles and clergy, but he refused to listen and instead fired him.
SOLVE THIS PROBLEM? TAX THE RICH!

6. The Revolution Begins- A Timeline
Liberal Phase [ ]
National Assembly
Tennis Court Oath
Storming of the Bastille
Declaration of the Rights of Man
The Radical (Reign of Terror) Phase [ ]
National Convention
Monarchy Abolished
Committee on Public Safety
Robespierre and Jacobins
The Reaction Phase [ ]
The Directory
Napoleon

7. 4. Louis XVI summons the Estates General
Wealthy and powerful insisted the King call the Estates general (had not been called in 175 years!)
The Estates General included representatives from each of the 3 estates
PROBLEM: These three estates voted as a whole group, each group received ONE vote.
Third Estate was constantly outvoted
So how should we vote?

8. 5. Tennis Court Oath
Third estate instead forms the National Assembly, disbanding the Estates general and asking members of the other estates to join.
Frustrated by the deadlock in voting, and finding themselves locked out of the meeting area, members of the third estate moved their meeting to the nearby indoor tennis courts
Tennis Court oath: members of the 3rd estate, now the National Assembly, vowed not to stop meeting until they had drawn up a constitution for France.

9. 6. Storming of the Bastille
On July 14, 1789, more than 800 Parisians gathered outside the Bastille, a medieval fortress used as a prison. They demanded weapons believed to be stored there.
The commander of the Bastille opened fire on the crowd, and a battle ensued, in which many people were killed.
7. The storming of the Bastille
quickly became a symbol of the
French Revolution,
a blow to tyranny.
Today, the French still celebrate
July 14 as Bastille Day.

10. An Account of the Storming
Veteran armies have never performed greater feats of valor than this leaderless multitude of persons belonging to every class. Workmen of all trades, who mostly ill equipped and unused to arms, boldly affronted the fire from the ramparts and seemed to mock the thunderbolts the enemy hurled at them… The fury of the crowd continued to increase and their blind wrath did not spare the Marquis de Launay…his head stuck on the point of a pike.

11. So what were the Causes?
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