French Revolution Begins
Social inequalities,
enlightenment ideas &
economic conditions
lead to a new political
order
THE OLD REGIME
Old Regime (Ancien Régime ) - social and political system in France
since the Middle Ages
Estates - three social classes of France's Old Regime
Monarchy is not part of the estate system
First Estate: Catholic clergy
• 1% population
• owned 10% of land, paid few taxes, received
tithes
• used money for charitable purposes and
grand lifestyles
• lower clergy (parish priests) resented
practices of higher clergy (bishops); socially
part of Third Estate
Second Estate: Wealthy nobles; aristocrats
• 2% population
• owned 20% of land
• held high posts in government and military;
some lived at Versailles
• got money and crops (feudal dues) from
peasants who farmed their lands
French satire on inequality of
taxation: caricature of overtaxed peasant carrying a
nobleman and a cleric on his
back. Engraving, 1789.
Third Estate: Everyone else
• 97% of people are peasants, urban
workers, middle class (bourgeoisie)
• doctors, lawyers, merchants made up
bourgeoisie; many well-educated;
owned 20% of land
• artisans from Paris' slums were part of
Third Estate
• peasants lived in rural areas; owned
40% of land but poor because of
payments to other Estates: tithe, feudal
dues, fees & fines to nobles, land tax to
king
• few privileges, pay heavy taxes, want
change, no voice in gov’t
An Englishman traveling in France saw this growing
unrest reflected in a conversation he had with a
peasant woman:
Walking up a long hill. . . I was joined by a poor
woman who complained of the times, and
that it was a sad country; . . . she said her husband
had but a morsel of land, one cow, and a
poor little horse, yet they had 42 pounds of wheat
and three chickens to pay as rent to one lord, and
four pounds of oats, one chicken and one shilling to
pay to another; besides very heavy tailles and other
taxes. (from Arthur Young, Travels, 1789).
THE FORCES OF CHANGE
1. Social inequalities (i.e., estate system)
2. Enlightenment ideas of Rousseau and Voltaire influenced some in
Third Estate (esp. bourgeoisie). People began questioning longstanding ideas about gov’t and spoke of equality and liberty. Also
inspired by the success of the American Revolution of 1776.
Years later, in prison, Louis XVI saw the works of Rousseau and Voltaire,
and said: “Those two men have destroyed France!”
Many shared the beliefs of a friend of Rousseau:
The Third Estate is the People and the People is the
foundation of the State; it is in fact the State itself; the
other orders are merely political categories while by the
immutable laws of nature the People is everything.
Everything should be subordinated to it . . . . It is in the
People that all national power resides and for the People
that all states exist. (Comte d'Antraigues).
THE FORCES OF CHANGE
1. Social inequalities
2. Enlightenment ideas
3. Economic conditions
High taxes and rising costs led to an economic crisis by 1780s
• The 1700s had begun with debts from the wars waged by Louis XIV
• The opulent court of Louis XV had further increased this debt
• King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette known for extravagance
• Support for the American Revolution had further increased the debt
• Louis XVI doubles nation's debt; banks refuse to lend more money
• Crop failures caused bread shortages in 1788 and 1789.
Louis had married his wife, Marie Antoinette, when he was 15 and she
was 14. Because Marie was a member of the royal family of Austria,
France's long-time enemy, she became unpopular as soon as she set foot
in France. As queen, Marie spent so much money on gowns, jewels, and
gifts that she became known as Madame Deficit.
In her defense, Marie never said "Let them eat cake" when she
was told that the French people had no bread to eat.
Marie Antoinette "I WANT CANDY"
A Weak Leader
Louis' poor decisions and lack of patience
added to France's problems.
• He spent his time hunting and tinkering
with locks.
• When he finally tried to tax the privileged
Estates, they forced him to call a meeting
of the Estates-General (meeting of
delegates from all three estates) for
approval.
• The Estates-General had not met since
1614.
DAWN OF THE REVOLUTION
The National Assembly
Third Estate had little power under old rules (each Estate had
one vote, so privileged Estates would always outvote the Third
Estate).
Third Estate delegates called for a mass meeting of the three
estates, with each delegate voting as an individual. This would
give the Third Estate a majority vote.
Abbé Sieyès, a clergy member who supported the Third Estate, argued:
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. Nothing can succeed
without it, everything would be infinitely better without the others.
Louis XVI refused the Third Estate's request for a mass meeting and
insisted the estates meet separately according to the medieval rules.
June 17, 1789: the Third Estate delegates vote to set up a National
Assembly, a new legislature to make reforms and draft a constitution (in
effect ending absolute monarchy and beginning representative gov’t).
This was the first deliberate act of revolution.
June 20, 1789: delegates locked out of meeting room; broke into nearby
tennis court building and pledged to remain until they had written a new
constitution. This pledge is the Tennis Court Oath.
Painting by Jacques-Louis
David of the National
Assembly making the
Tennis Court Oath
The king recognized the power of the National Assembly
and saw the danger of letting the Third Estate alone draw
up a constitution.
He ordered the first two estates to join the Third Estate in
the National Assembly.
Fearing trouble, he also called for troops to concentrate in
areas around Paris (used Swiss mercenaries, since he no
longer trusted French soldiers).
Storming the Bastille
Rumors fly in Paris that Louis
wants to suppress National
Assembly and that foreign troops
are coming to massacre French
citizens.
July 14, 1789: Mob attacked and
seized the Bastille (a Paris
prison) to steal weapons needed
to defend the National Assembly.
While the prison only had 7
prisoners at the time, the fall of
the Bastille became a symbolic
act of revolution, and is now a
French national holiday.
The Bastille had long been a symbol of
royal tyranny.
Ninety-eight attackers and one
defender had died in the actual
fighting.
The governor of the Batille, de Launay,
was seized and dragged towards the
Hotel de Ville in a storm of abuse.
Outside the Hotel a discussion as to
his fate began. The badly beaten de
Launay shouted "Enough! Let me die!"
De Launay was then stabbed
repeatedly and fell, and his head was
sawed off and fixed on a pike to be
carried through the streets.
Conquerors of the Bastille before the Hotel de Ville. Painting
(1839), Paul Delaroche.
Storming of the Bastille
released a wave of violence in
France called the Great Fear.
When rumors spread wildly that
nobles had hired outlaws to kill
peasants and seize their
property, the peasants took
action.
Fear fanned the peasants'
anxiety into violence. Peasants
broke into manor houses,
robbed granaries, and
destroyed feudal records
showing the duties they owed.
Swearing never again to pay
feudal dues, they drove some
landlords off their property.
Burning chateaux as the peasants riot
in the countryside
October 1789: Parisian women revolted over rising price of
bread. They (and many men) broke into the palace at
Versailles and killed two guards. They demanded action
and forced Louis to leave Versailles for Paris to be nearer to
the people. The king agreed, and he and his family were
“imprisoned” at Tuileries Palace.
The first wave of the French Revolution had struck.
To Versailles, to
Versailles. Women of
Paris march to Versailles
to bring back Louis XVI.
Final scene of Marie Antoinette film