Ch 17.3 The French Revolution

Bell Work- Scenario Although you are a hard worker, it seems you hardly earn enough money to survive. You earn 15 monetary units for a 12- to 16-hour workday, but food takes up almost all your paycheck; for instance, a loaf of bread costs 1 monetary unit, a pound of meat costs 3 monetary units, and a dozen eggs cost 10 monetary units. It takes you almost 5 days to earn enough money to buy a new pair of shoes. You also are forced to pay high rent to your landlord and to give one tenth of your income to the church. Although you and people like you pay the heaviest taxes of anyone in the country, you have no voice in the government.

Use your own knowledge to explain how the cartoon can be used to describe the causes of the French Revolution.

News of the American Revolution sent shock waves around the globe-initially due to the fact they defeated a major world power and secondly that they sought Enlightened reform. The Declaration of Independence was widely circulated and admired in France. French officers, like Marquis de Lafayette, who fought alongside the American colonists, returned to France with stories of the war. Such personal accounts intrigued the French populous. It also inspired a growing number of French people that were seeking reform in their own country.

97% members of the Third Estate

2% members of the Second Estate

1% members of the First Estate

0 20 40 60 80 100

Clergy of the Roman Catholic Church

Disagreed with Enlightenment Ideas

The bourgeoisie, urban lower class, farmers

Embraced Enlightenment Ideas

The richest nobles; highest government positions

Disagreed about Enlightenment Ideas

The gap between the rich and the poor in 18th century France

Marie Antoinette was a pretty, lighthearted, charming woman. However, she was unpopular with the French because of her spending time with because of her spending and her involvement in controversial court affairs. She referred to Louis as the, “poor man” and sometimes set the clock forward an hour to be rid of his prescience.

Marie refused to wear the tight fitting clothing styles of the day and introduced a loose cotton dress for women. The elderly who viewed the dress as an undergarment, thought that Marie’s clothing was scandalous. The French silk industry was equally angry.

She was in constant need of entertainment, and often would play cards. In one year she lost almost 1.5 million in gambling.

Although he was beloved at first, his indecisiveness and conservatism led some to eventually hate him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the old forms of government. Today, historians and Frenchmen in general have a more unbiased view of Louis XVI, who is seen as an honest man with good intentions, but who was probably unfit for the enormous task of reforming the monarchy, and who was used as a scapegoat by the revolutionaries

New views about power and authority in government was spreading based on the Enlightenment and the American Revolution.

Democracy

Liberty

Equality

Louis XVI was a weak leader- he was indecisive and would rather play than work. His wife was unpopular due to the amount of money she spent on clothes and jewels.

The economy was failing due to increased taxes. Increased population, and food shortages led to famine and death. The third estate was discontent.

The clergy and the nobles had dominated the Estates-General throughout the Middle Ages and expected to continue on. The Third Estates delegates, mostly members of the bourgeoisie wanted to make changes in government. They pushed to have each delegate have a vote instead of each Estate. The King sided with not reforming the law- which enraged the French people who called for the creation of the National Assembly.

Louis tried to make peace with the Third Estates and ordered the nobles and the clergy to meet with them. Louis also brought in mercenary soldiers to protect him because he began to distrust his troops. The French people feared that this army were coming to massacre them…

People gathered up weapons in order to defend Paris against the king’s foreign troops. On July 14, a mob tried to get gunpowder from the Bastille, a Parisian prison. The angry crowd overwhelmed the king’s soldiers, and the Bastille fell into the control of the citizens. The fall of the Bastille became a great symbolic act of revolution to French people.

July 14th is a national holiday in France; it is similar to July 4th here in the United States

When the women of Paris marched 12 miles in the rain to the luxurious palace at Versailles, they were infuriated. They deeply resented the extravagances of Louis and Marie Antoinette at a time when their own children were starving. After forcing the king and queen out of the palace, the women followed Louis’s family and entourage of almost 60,000 persons to Paris.

Throughout the night of August 4, 1789, nobles declared their love of liberty and equality. Although motivated by fear, many joined the Third Estates in the National Assembly in their vote to make commoners equal to clergy and aristocrats. Three weeks later on August 27th, the document the Declaration of the Rights of Man was written. Using Enlightenment ideas, it stated that all men should have, “equal rights”, and guaranteed “freedom of speech” and “freedom of religion”.

The National Assembly focused on the relationship between the church and the state. To help pay off France’s large debt, they decided to sell church lands to make a profit. Many French peasants were conservative Catholics and they disagreed with this decision. They wanted separation between the church and state.

Times were turbulent… Louis feared that he and his family may be in danger; he was advised to flee the state and seek refuge in the Austrian Netherlands. They were recognized at the French border and returned to Paris.

The National Assembly created a limited constitutional monarchy- it stripped power away from the king to make laws but he would still have to enforce them. The power to make laws would go to the Legislative Assembly. Louis was loosing power.

In an effort to help Louis, Austria and Prussia pushed for his return to the throne… this led to war between the countries. The French were angered about loosing ground in the war and captured the king and his family and imprisoned them.

• Abolished feudalism• Canceled all feudal dues.• Adopted the Dec. of the Rights of

Man.• Restructured Admin. Elected offic• Drafted the Constitution 1791

Constitution of 1791

• Provided a weak government with a limited monarchy.

• Separation of powers into legislative, executive, & Judicial.

sat on the left side of the hall; were called left-wing and said to be on the left.

opposed the king and the idea of the monarchy.

wanted sweeping changes in government and proposed that common people have full power in a republic.

Sat in the center of the hall and were called centrists.

wanted some changes in government, but not as many as the radicals.

sat on the right side of the hall; were called right wing and said to be on the right.

Upheld the idea of a limited monarchy.

wanted few changes in government