Vocab
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Absolute monarch:
kings or queens who
held all of the power
within their states’
boundaries.
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Divine right: idea
that God created the
monarchy and that
the monarch acted as
God’s representative
on earth.
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Huguenots: French
protestants.
Intendents:
Government agents
used by Louis XIV
who collected taxes
and administered
justice.
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Edict of Nantes:
Declaration made by
Henry of Navarre of
France allowing
Huguenots freedom
to worship in France.
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Scientific Revolution:
a major change in
European thought, in
which the study of
the natural world
began to be
characterized by
careful observation
and the questioning
of accepted beliefs.
Geocentric theory:
Theory that the earth
is the center of the
universe.
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Heliocentric Theory:
Idea that the sun is at
the center of the solar
system.
Scientific method:
logical procedure for
gathering and testing
ideas.
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Enlightenment:
intellectual
movement that
stressed reason and
thought and the
power of individuals
to solve problems.
Philosophe: social
critics or
philosophers from
France.

Social contract: Idea
from Thomas Hobbes
that suggested all
humas are naturally
selfish and wicked
and must had over
their rights to a
strong ruler to
create/run their
government.
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Estate: social classes of
France. 1st Estate:
Church leaders. 2nd
estate: rich nobles. 3rd
estate: 97% of the
people.
Tennis Court Oath: a
pledge made by the
members of France’s
National Assembly in
1789, in which they
vowed to continue
meeting until they had
drawn up a new
constitution.
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National Assembly: a
French congress
established by
representatives of the
Third Estate to enact
laws and reforms in
the name of the
French people.
Estates-General:
Gathering of all
three estates of
France called by the
king.
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Great Fear: a wave of
senseless panic that
spread through the
French countryside
after the storming of
the Bastille in 1789.
Bastille: French
prison torn down in
the early days of the
French Revolution.
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Jacobins: radical
political party during
the French
Revolution
Guillotine: a machine
for beheading
people, used as a
means of execution
during the French
Revolution.

Reign of Terror:
period from 17931794 when
Maximilien
Robespierre ruled
France nearly as a
dictator and
thousands of political
figures and ordinary
citizens were
executed.
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Napoleonic Code: a
comprehensive and
uniform system of
laws established for
France by Napoleon.
Battle of Trafalgar: an
1805 naval battle in
which Napoleon’s
forces were defeated
by a British fleet
under command of
Horatio Nelson.
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Continental System:
Napoleon’s policy of
preventing trade
between Great
Britain and
continental Europe
intended to destroy
Great Britain’s
economy.

Peninsular War: a
conflict in which
Spanish rebels, with
the aid of British
forces, fought to
drive Napoleon’s
French troops out of
Spain.
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Scorched-earth
policy: the practice of
buring crops and
killing livestock
during wartime so
that the enemy
cannot live off the
land.