The French Revolution

The Ancien Regime

In the 1770s, the social and political system in France, the Old Regime remained in place.

Under this system, the people of France were divided into three large social classes, called estates.

This was a legal system.

The Three Estates

The First Estate:The Clergy

The Roman Catholic Clergy owned 10% of the land in France

It provided education and relief services to the poor

It contributed about 2% of its income to the government

It had privileges, including access to high offices and exemptions from paying taxes

The Second Estate:The Nobility

They accounted for just 2% of the population

The owned 20% of the land

Once occupied top jobs in government, the army, the courts, and the Church

They paid almost no taxes

They were able to keep their feudal rights in place: peasants had to pay them feudal dues; the nobles also enjoyed hunting rights

They hated absolutism and resented the royal bureaucracy that employed middle class men in positions once reserved for them.

The majority of the clergy and nobility scorned Enlightenment ideas as radical notions that threatened their status and power as privileged persons

The Third Estate

They Third Estate was everyone else in France that didn’t belong to the First and Second Estates

They made up about 97% of the population

The three groups that made up this estate differed greatly in their economic conditions

1) The bourgeoisie, or middle class – were bankers, factory owners, merchants, professionals, and skilled artisans

- well educated; believed strongly in Enlightenment

ideals of liberty and equality

- some were as rich as nobles, but paid high taxes and lacked the

legal privileges that could lead to social and political power

2) Workers of France – the poorest group within the Third Estate

- urban workers that included tradespeople, laborers,

apprentices, and domestic servants

- they were paid low wages and were frequently

without work

- often hungry

3) Peasants formed the largest group within the Third Estate – more than 80% of France’s 26 million people

- they paid half of their income in dues to nobles,

tithes to the Church, and taxes to the king

- peasants and the urban poor resented the clergy and

the nobles for their privileges and special treatment

The heavily taxed and discontented Third Estate was eager

for change.

The Forces of Change

1) Resentment among the lower classes

2) Enlightenment Ideas

- new views about power and authority in government

were spreading among the Third Estate

- they were inspired by the American Revolution

- they began to demand equality, liberty, and

democracy

3) Economic Troubles

- By 1780s, France’s once prosperous economy was in

decline causing alarm among merchants, factory

owners, and bankers of the Third Estate

- production and trade expanding

- heavy burden of taxes made it impossible to conduct business

- Inflation was causing the cost of living to rise

- Bad weather caused crop failure and a severe

shortage of grain; price of bread doubled in 1789

- France’s government deeply in debt: bankrupt

a) inherited debt

b) extravagant spending of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

c) borrowed heavily to pay for involvement in American Revolution

d) bankers refused to lend government any more

money

4) A Weak Leader

- Louis XVI was indecisive

- Paid little attention to government advisers

- Wife was unpopular among the people of France – known as “Madame Deficit”

The Failure of Economic Reform

To solve the financial crisis in France, the government would have to increase taxes, reduce expenses, or both.

However, the nobles and clergy fought fiercely in resisting any attempt to end their exemption from taxes.

Louis XVI chose Jacques Necker as his financial advisor.

Necker urged the king to reduce extravagant court spending, reform government, and abolish burdensome tariffs on internal trade

When he proposed taxing the First and Second Estates, the king dismissed him.

Calling of the Estates General

The Second Estate forced the king to call the Estates General for the first time in 175 years, in fear of having to pay any taxes.

That meeting was held on May 5, 1789 at Versailles.

The clergy and nobles had dominated the Estates-General throughout the Middle Ages and had expected to do so in 1789.

Under the assembly’s medieval rules, each estate’s delegates met in a separate hall to vote, and each estate had one vote.

This meant that the two privileged classes could always outvote the Third Estate.

Cahiers de doleances

Before the Estates-General was to meet the king had the three estates prepare a list of their grievances.

These lists were called cahiers.

Many cahiers called for reforms such as fairer taxes, freedom of the press, or regular meetings of the Estates General.

The cahiers were proof of boiling class resentments.

Disagreement over Voting

From the minute the Estates-General was called in May of 1789, the delegates were deadlocked over the issue of voting.

The Third Estate wanted all three estates to meet in a single body, with votes counted “by head”, not estate.

The stalemate went on for weeks.

Siding with the nobles, the king ordered the Estates-General to follow medieval rules.

The delegates of the Third Estate became more determined to wield power and they chose a spokesperson to represent their view.

Abbe Sieyes

Clergyman

Sympathetic to the cause of the Third Estate

What is the Third Estate?

The National Assembly

The delegates of the Third Estate agree with Sieyes and his ideas by an overwhelming majority.

On June 17, 1789, they voted to establish the National Assembly, in effect proclaiming the end of absolute monarchy and the beginning of representative government.

The vote was the first deliberate act of revolution.

The Tennis Court Oath

Three days later, the Third Estate found themselves locked out of their meeting room.

They broke down a door to an indoor tennis court, pledging to stay until they had drawn up a new constitution.

This pledge became known as the Tennis Court Oath.

Soon after, reform-minded nobles and members of the clergy joined the Third Estate.

Storming the Bastille

In response to the events in the creation of the National Assembly and the Tennis Court Oath, Louis stationed his mercenary army of Swiss Guards around Versailles.

In Paris, rumors flew. Some people suggested that Louis was intent on using military force to dismiss the National Assembly or that foreign troops were coming to Paris to massacre French citizens.

People began to gather weapons in order to defend the city against attack.

July 14, 1789: a mob searching for gunpowder and arms stormed the Bastille, a Paris prison.

They overwhelmed the guard and seized control of the building. The attacked killed the commander and several guards and then paraded their heads through the streets on pikes.

The fall of the Bastille became a great symbolic act of revolution to the French people

The Great Fear

Rebellion spread from Paris to the countryside.

Wild rumors circulated that the nobles were hiring outlaws to terrorize the peasants.

A wave of senseless panic, known as the Great Fear ensued.

Peasants soon became outlaws themselves – armed with pitchforks and other farm tools, they broke into manor houses and destroyed old legal papers that bound them to feudal dues

Women’s March to Versailles

October, 1789: thousands of Parisian women rioted over the rising cost of bread.

Armed they marched on Versailles.

Demanded National Assembly take action to provide bread.

Turned their anger on the king and queen.

Broke into the palace, killed some guards, demanded that Louis and Marie Antoinette return to Paris.

Louis agreed. The royal family took residence in the Tuileries.