The French
Monarchy in Chaos
Chapter 19:i
Louis XIV
“After us,
the deluge.”
- attributed to
Louis XV
France under King Louis XV led
Europe in culture and manners.
French philosophers
led the Enlightenment.
Europeans
slavishly
copied
French
fashions in
clothes, art,
and cooking.
The French economy was in
serious trouble
• Before long the French monarchy would be
destroyed.
France under the Ancien
Regime (Old Regime)
• king was an absolute monarch
-power was centralized in the
royal bureaucracy
• people of France were divided
by law into three estates
The clergy
formed the
First Estate
under the
Ancien
Regime.
The French
nobility
formed the
Second
Estate under
the Ancien
Regime.
The French
nobility, led by
the Nobles of
the Robe, tried
to regain the
political power
they had lost
during the
reign of Louis
XIV.
Commoners,
who formed the
Third Estate,
had many
grievances
against the
Ancien Regime.
The Third
Estate included
peasants, city
workers, and
bourgeoisie.
Over-taxed
peasants
made up the
largest group
of people
within the
Third Estate.
City workers
such as servants,
apprentices, and
day laborers
suffered, when
inflation caused
food prices to
rise faster than
wages.
The Growing
Economic Crisis
• poor harvests
• antiquated regulations limited
the expansion of trade
• guilds still monopolized certain
trades
Louis XVI was not
a very determined
or able ruler. He
preferred to spend
his days hunting or
tinkering with
puzzles, rather than
coping with the
problems of France.
Facing a
financial crisis,
Louis XVI call
the EstatesGeneral for first
time in 175
years
Tennis Court Oath
• Members of the Third Estate, along with
sympathetic members of the other Estates
refused to attend the Estates-General
• They met at a local tennis court, and agreed not
to leave until they wrote a new Constitution
• They called themselves the National Assembly
Fall of the Bastille
End of the Old Order
• In August 1789 the nobility voted to end
their privleges.
• This ended feudalism in France
• No more feudal dues
• No more noble exemption from taxes
• Allowed all male citizens to hold
government, military, or Church office
In October 1789
King Louis XVI
agrees to move
to Paris under
pressure
Political Reforms
• Catholic Church put under government
control
• Unicameral Legislature elected by tax
paying males
• Deep divide between left wing,
moderates, and the right wing
Fearing that
Austria would
help Louis
XVI reclaim
power France
attacks
Austria,
throwing
France into
upheaval