THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
BACKGROUND
• Absolute monarch (Louis XVI)
• Social Structure (Three Estates)
– 1st Estate – Clergy
– 2nd Estate – Nobility
– 3rd Estate – Bourgeoisie (wage earners &
peasants
• This was called the “Old Regime”
CAUSES
• Enlightenment ideals – personal freedoms,
equality
• Financial crisis – national debt, food
shortages
• Poor leadership – indecisive and
unpopular king
KEY PEOPLE
• Louis XVI – King of France, a weak ruler with no
understanding of the French people’s plight
• Marie Antoinette – wife of Louis XVI, who was
blamed by the French people for most of their
problems
• Maximilien Robespierre – leader of the
Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of
Terror
• Jean-Paul Marat – leader of the people
(revolutionaries) who published a radical journal
THREE PHASES
• FIRST – destruction of the Old Regime
– Meeting of Estates-General, formation of National Assembly
and the Tennis Court Oath (June 17-20, 1789)
– Declaration of the Rights of man and the Citizen (Aug 26, 1789)
– Women’s march on Versailles (Oct 5, 1789)
– Constitution of 1791 (establishing a constitutional monarchy
• SECOND – Radical phase (Reign of Terror)
– Execution of the king (Jan 21, 1793)
– Formation of the Committee of Public Safety (Robespierre
takes over) (Spring of 1793)
– Robespierre executed by National Convention (July 28,
1794)
Continued:
• THIRD – Directory (Aug 1795)
– Five directors rule France under a new
constitution
– Dependence on military to maintain control
– Widespread corruption among the Directors
and their bureaucracy
RESULTS
• End of Absolutism
• Improved economic and legal systems in
France
• Increased democratic ideals and the
principles of the revolution
• Gave rise to the empire of Napoleon