What would cause YOU to bring about a Revolution? (What would upset you enough to cause you to revolt?)

1
. Understand and discuss the various reasons that revolution may be justified and apply that to the class discussion about the causes of the
French Revolution
2. Recall the makeup of the Three Estates in
French society and why they created conflict
3. Analyze the specific reasons and events that lead to the French Revolution

• Estates:
– Privileged Estates
• 1 st =clergy
• 2 nd =nobility
– Third Estate
• 3 rd =the other 97%
– Bourgeoisie (middle class)
– Urban workers
– Peasants
Little to no taxes
NO Enlightenment ideas
TAXES!!!
ENLIGHTENMENT

WEAK LEADERSHIP
• Louis XVI in SERIOUS debt because…
• Handed down
• American Revolution
• His wife
• Marie Antoinette
(“Madame Deficit”) NOT liked by the people AT ALL
• Louis XVI was indecisive
• Estates General

CAHIER OF THE THIRD ESTATE OF PARIS
• Electoral meetings
(village & neighborhood) to determine representatives
• Cahier=report (of grievances & expectations)
• Created largely by lawyers and businessmen

1. What view of the Monarchy is expressed in the
Cahier? What kind of government does the Cahier envision for France?
2. What views are expressed in the Cahier about the position of the nobility and clergy in the French society?
3. What solutions does the cahier offer for the government's fiscal crisis?
4. What should be the primary purpose of legislation
(law)?
5. What changes did they wish to accomplish with the criminal justice system?

1. The American Revolution
2. Enlightenment Ideas
(progress, liberty, freedom of the individual)
3. Social Inequality
(plus wanting equal say in government)
4. Poor Leadership
5. Economics and Finances
(debt & taxation)

What do you think is happening in this picture?
How does it relate to what we learned about last class?

Read pgs. 649-653
Storming of the Bastille: Great Fear:
Jacobins: Robespierre:

1
. Understand the unfair treatment of the Third
Estate during the Estates General meeting
2. Analyze the reasons behind the members of the Third Estate breaking away from the Estates
General
3. Understand and recall the importance of the
Tennis Court Oath

• Take A Stand
• Three Estates
– Examples?
• Louis XVI & Marie
Antoinette
• Debt
• Estates General
• Five Main Causes

• Proposals for the King:
– Voting by head or by estate?
– Higher taxes on WHAT and/or WHO?
– Where to reduce expenses?

“I swear an oath to God and nation never to be separated until we have formed a solid and equitable
Constitution as our constituents have asked us to.”

• Louis XVI and Necker (financial advisor) originally wanted an overhaul of the tax system
– First Estate responsible for education
– Second Estate responsible for land
– AKA: they thought they should be exempt because they didn’t want to lose their power
& wealth
• Pressured to side with them (didn’t want to lose his power), which leads to…

• First meeting in 175 years
– Agreed to let Third Estate have double representatives
• Medieval rules:
– 1 vote per estate
– Estates must meet in separate hall to vote
– First & Second Estates always worked together to outvote the Third!!!
– King Louis XVI decides to keep it this way

• Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès
– Clergyman sympathetic to Third Estate cause
– “What Is The Third Estate?”
• National Assembly
– Pass laws and reforms in the name of all
French people
– Majority vote to establish National Assembly
• AKA: goodbye absolute monarchy, HELLO representative government!

• 3 days later  Louis XVI locks their meeting hall
• Broke down the door to an indoor tennis court
• Resolved to continue meeting until a Constitution was written
• Members of other Estates began to join them

A revolution has begun, but you have nothing but shovels to arm yourselves. Where would you go to find weapons and supplies?

• Estates Meeting Simulation
• Louis XVI’s original plan
– Refuted because?
• Medieval rules
– How did Louis trick them???
• Sieyès
• National Assembly
• Tennis Court Oath

A revolution has begun, but you have nothing but shovels to arm yourselves. Where would you go to find weapons and supplies?

• Louis XVI stations Swiss guards around Versailles
– People of Paris flip out…think they need to defend the city against attack
• July 14, 1789 Storming of the
Bastille
– Attack Paris prison
– Searching for gunpowder and arms
– Similar to what in U.S.???

• Rumors nobles are hiring outlaws to terrorize peasants
• Peasants attack nobles’ manor houses
– Destroy legal feudal dues papers
– Burned them down
• Women riot at Versailles in
October 1789 over rising bread prices

• Night of August 4 th , 1789
– Noblemen made grand speeches…liberty and equality!
– Old Regime dead
• National Assembly adopts “Declaration on the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen”
– Influenced by Declaration of Independence

Rights of Man vs. Rights of Woman
• Similarities:
– Rights of people (liberty, security, property, resist oppression)
– Criminal justice
– Freedom of speech
• Differences:
– Women should have the right to speak up about issues
– Women deserve equality in employment, offices, honors
– Property belongs to both women AND men
• Olympe (Rights of Woman)—enemy of the revolution and executed!!!

• Took over Church lands and sold them to pay off national debt
• Church officials and priests should be elected and paid as sate officials
• This upsets the peasants
– Start opposing Assembly’s reforms
• Louis XVI (and family) tries to flee and is caught

• September 1791, Louis XVI forced to accept
• Limited constitutional monarchy
• Legislative Assembly
– Create laws & approve/reject declarations of war
– King still enforces laws
– Factions
• Émigrés
• Sans-culottes