1. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE ROMANTICISM UNIT 5

2. ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION The Renaissance and Humanism bring with them the spread of new ideas. In the late 1700s in France, Enlightenment ideas (Humanism) about civil rights and religion tolerance, urged in thinkers and philosophers the believed in justice and freedom.

3. ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION In England, John Locke, an empiricist philosopher argued that people are born with natural and inalienable rights and that they have the right to get rid of any government that takes way these rights. This thought was well received and influential in three philosophers of France: Voltaire (François Marie Arouet), Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Montesquieu (Charles Louis de Secondat).

4. ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION Voltaire was the wittiest and most popular of the philosophers, we was a great advocate of freedom and used satire and humor during social meetings to make his points against the Church and Monarchy. Rosseau was radical, instead, he claimed and complained in streets, meetings and plazas that people are born free and the rulers were taking that freedom off them. Montesquieu was noble but had a great critique towards the governement saying that there most be a balance of its power and be limited by a Parlament that represented the people.

5. ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION These 3 philosophers and other intellectual people from France found the ideas on Enlightenment very appealing. They like the idea of having a voice in government, something that had never been with the absolute monarchy in ruled. Books were printed outdoors and smuggled back to France secretly from censor officials. In 1780s people believed that the best way to ensure their right was either to create reforms or limit the king’s power.

6. ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION Voltaire was influenced by English Rights when he visited England in 1726. He found promising how a Parliament had passed a Bill of Rights where the king had to share power with it. This was possible due to a bloody civil war and a Glorious Revolution in the 1600s which limited the monarchy. Voltaire, Montesquieu and other Frenchmen believed France should go through the same to have a better system as English.

7. ROOTS OF THE REVOLUTION The ideas of Enlightenment also reached America. The colonies conquered by England were influenced by the English civil war and Glorious Revolution, allowing to go to battle without delay and therefore going through an Independence Revolution in 1776. the Marquis of Lafayette was an aristocrat who was in favor of the ideas of liberty set by the Enlightenment, and volunteered with French troops to help America’s struggle for freedom from England. With this he became hero in America, and well-known in France as a promoter of liberty.

8. THE THREE ESTATES There were three social classes in France. Peasants were poor and mostly starving. They occupied the bottom of a social ladder that came since the Middle Ages, called as the ancient regime. Even if there were lots of changes as the Middles Ages finished, in France the division of society in three groups still existed. There were the Churchman or Clergy, the Nobleman and the Peasant.

9. THE THREE ESTATES These 3 social classes were known as the THREE ESTATES. The first estate was the clergy, which remained almost the same as in Middle Ages but there was a big gap between the rich and poor clergymen. Poor clergymen lived almost in misery, while rich clergymen lived like princes in extravagance. As the Catholic Church was the official and only allowed church in France and had great power, and as the people had to pay tithe all the wealth of the clergy came from this 10 th % of people income. So, by the 1700s the clergy was less than 1% of population but owned about 10% of the land in France.

10. THE THREE ESTATES The second estate was the nobility or aristocracy, and they did changed. Before this class used to be warrior, so army officers were nobles but there were no longer armored knights. Nobles owned 20% of the land. Some of them were poor, but most of them were wealthy, but few were rich. They had the privilege of having Church, government and military offices. They didn’t need to pay taxes unless during war.

11. THE THREE ESTATES Both first and second estates had a common interest of holding up the power and wealth for them. But expected the king to granted them more political power, but they wanted the Three States to remain the same. On the other hand, the third estate had the most change since Feudalism. They were peasants and any other that didn’t belong to the other two estates: doctors, lawyers, business people, merchants and so on. They were the 98% of the people in France. They had to pay taxes and some of them work for the other Three States.

12. THE THREE ESTATES Of all the estates, they had all the reasons to need a change in the ancient regime. They believed they had enough with the absolute monarchy so they needed to change it. Among the wealthiest group in the third estate there were the bourgeoisies. They were “aristocrats” inside the Third Estate, because some were rich as nobles. But no matter how much they own they were not to claim any privilege as nobility. This brought a big resentment towards aristocracy, monarchy and monarchy.

13. THE THREE ESTATES The urban working class of the third state were as poor as peasants: butchers, weavers, servants, blacksmiths, and others; were poorly paid living in misery. So with too much differences in the social classes, the intellectual from the 3 rd estate, and some aristocrats of the 2 nd estates, started pressing on the Monarchy of Louis XIV for changes and reforms to be made in order to avoid the start of a revolution.