WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
The Causes of the French Revolution
Essential Question: What were the two most important causes of the French
Revolution? Explain how these causes led to the French Revolution.
Examine each document carefully, and answer the questions that follow. Then write a
4-5 paragraph essay in response to the Essential Question. Be sure to use historical
background information from class as well as at least 3 of the following documents in
your essay.
PART A – Examine each document and answer the questions that follow.
Document 1
This excerpt is adapted from Travels in France by Arthur Young, who traveled through
France from 1787 to 1789. (Time: During the French Revolution)
1. List three observations this traveler made about the life of the peasant in France
between 1787 and 1789.
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WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
People are being over taxed (third estate)
Poor children are terribly ragged and not taken care of.
Lack of food (third estate)
Injustice in levying taxes
3rd Estate pays too much money for land
Document 2
This diagram illustrates the three estates in 1789 and the land each held during the Old
Regime.
2. What conclusions can you draw about the relationship between the percentage of
the population in each estate and the percentage of land owned by that estate?
3. What unfair conditions existed in pre-revolutionary France?
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WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
Document 3
These are excerpts from the cahiers (list of grievances about the king, taxing, and
voting in the Estates General) brought to the Estates General.
*Lettres de cachet were letters signed by the king of France and stamped with the royal seal (cachet).
They contained orders from the king, often to enforce actions and judgments that count not be appealed.
[from Wikipedia]
4. What three changes did the third estate demand be made in the French
government?
Document 4
In The French Revolution, historian Albert Mathiez claims that leadership fell to the
middle class.
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WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
5. What could the middle class have read about that would led to an understanding of
their inferior legal position?
Document 5
Lord Acton, a British political thinker and historian, suggested another point of view.
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WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
6. What did Lord Acton think caused the French Revolution?
Document 6
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WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
King Louis XVI
Queen Marie Antoinette
Descriptions of Louis and Marie -Antoinette by an American Ambassador in France.
On Louis…
He is an honest man and wishes to do good, but he has not either genius or education…
On Marie-Antoinette…
Louis has a queen who controls his weak mind. Her ..extravagance has been a major cause of
exhausting the government’s finances.
7. Describe how King Louis and Marie Antoinette look in the pictures. How does their
appearance/lifestyle differ from that of the 3rd estate?
8. What were some of the problems with the leadership of King Louis and Marie Antoinette?
Document 7
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WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
The People Should Have Power, Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1775
(A pamphlet, banned by the French government in 1775)
Man is born free. No man has any natural authority over others; force does not give
anyone that right. The power to make laws belongs to the people and only to the
people.
9. What does Rousseau say in this quotation?
10. How did the Enlightenment influence the 3rd estate to rebel?
PART B
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WORLD HISTORY Document-Based Question
Write a 4-5 paragraph essay in response to the Essential Question. Be sure to use
historical background information from class as well as at least 3 of the documents in
your essay.
Essential Question: What were the two most important causes of the French
Revolution? Explain how these causes led to the French Revolution.
Reach: In your justification explain why your two causes are more significant than other
causes.
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