Abbe De Sieyes

However, when examining to what extent Machiavelli's maxims on ruler ship applied to Richelieu's own experiences, it is important to understand that a state's domestic affairs and it's international ones are mutually constitutive. It is apparent that the issue of internal security was crucial and impacted France's status in the international arena. From 1624-8, Richelieu's foreign policy was jeopardized by national concerns: the revolt of the Huguenots and inconveniences resulting from those who directly opposed him within France, specifically the noblesse and the peasantry. With increasingly power-acquiring factions, Richelieu understood that the greater part of educated, intelligent French citizens wished for a sound

Moving on to the time period of this document this document was written March 1, 1789 a couple months before the storming of the Bastille. Thus, at this time in history there was a significant amount of commotion arising from the people of the Third Estate. The people of the Third Estate were trying to voice their opinions on the oppressive political and economic situations occurring at this time in France in order to try and bring about a reform. These oppressive political and economic situations that the Third Estate were trying to reform included things such as the king heavily taxing only the Third Estate, who already did not even have the finances to survive let alone pay these high taxes. Another example is the fact that the Third Estate did not have equal representatives in the political society to represent their wants and demands in comparison to the First and Second Estates, which can be seen through out Cahier de Doleance’s, Villagers of Lion-en-Sullias, Women of Paris, Flower Sellers, and Village of Pithiviers-le-Vieil. Cahier de Doleance’s, District of Mansigne. Not only does this text help historians and the reader get a better understanding of the specific wants of the Third Estate but the rest of his documents such as Villagers of Lion-en-Sullias, Women of Paris, Flower Sellers, and

The French Revolution was a time of great social, political and economic tumult in the closing years of the Eighteenth Century. The motivators pushing French citizenry toward revolution are varied in scope and origin. They range from immediate economic woes to an antiquarian class structure. Modern historians still debate the value of the changes that the revolution brought to modern society. The middle class made gains that would never be rescinded, but do revolutions always end in tyranny? In the years before the revolution citizens were rigidly constrained by the estates of the realm. These social strata had been in place since the medieval ages. The people were divided into three groups; clergy, nobility and everyone else. The clergy

The People of France in the last part of the 18th century were experiencing severe food shortages, increasing the cost of living, and political leaders who were doing very little to fix the state of chaos in which most people found themselves. In both rural and

The French Revolution has been studied since its end in an attempt to determine and understand the causes of it and its duration. Different schools of history attempt to provide different explanations, such as Marxist schools examining whether the French Revolution amounted to a class struggle or the ‘maximalist’ school in which the cultural transformation of French society is examined, including attitudes about monarchy, privilege and religion. This essay will contend that fundamental divisions of attitudes towards privilege began the revolution, with disagreements about religion and the Catholic Church making the revolution longer in duration. Monarchy is linked to privilege as the King was part of the privileged Second Estate. Thus, the revolution as a

Between 1789 and 1799, France went through one of the most dramatic events of modern European History: the French Revolution. The French population went through economic chaos, a dictatorship, and a civil war as well as other dramatic changes. During these years, the French decided to speak up for themselves and they became enemies of the French revolution. Internal enemies included the King, Louis XVI, Monarchists and Royalists and the Churches that were run by refractory priests. External threats were caused by aristocrats who had fled the Revolution; more specifically known as “émigrés”, Austria and Prussia. The latter were the more dangerous threats to the Revolution.

The French Revolution was a time of period where social and political was a disruption in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799. This time of period affected Social Structure of France prior to the French Revolution. The factors that caused this revolution was due to having a bad government system, weak superiority, and inequality of the classes of people in France during the war. In this research, I will define and explain how Social Structure contributed to the French Revolution Resentment of royal authoritarianism. The three estates that social structure consists of are first estate which are the clergies, second estate known as the Nobleman, and third estate which are the Bourgeoisie, peasants, and workers. The Revolution did not omit sharp distinctions among the social groups, neither did it alter the distribution of wealth. This caused them to divide into these three groups called as estates.

The European economy was earlier organized under the feudal system, which depended upon agriculture. The Hundred Years’ War had a negative effect on the French farmlands, which were ravaged and ruined. Conversely, the Black Death decreased Europe’s immense population so that agriculture did not have to support as many people. The high mortality rate of the Black Death “produced a fall in production, shortages of good, and a general rise in prices”(McKay 330). A shortage of laborers resulted in the economy relying more on available workers, who could demand and expect higher working standards and conditions (Mackay). In the Wife of Martin Guerre, Artigues’ isolation, prevented the farmland from being harmed by these religious wars: “Artigues enjoyed its isolation…and actual gold accumulated in the coffers of its more prosperous families” like the Guerre family (Lewis 12). Families in Artigues were unique because unlike the typical feudal system, they did not work under a dominant noble, so they prospered from their own farms. The Guerre family’s lives and income revolved around their farm. In Artigues, the feudal system permeated deeper into the family units itself, with the heads of families, like Monsieur Guerre, maintaining control over the household and farm. The economy in France required a large interdependency among the farm workers and

First of all, the vulgus of France were not habituated with their basic human rights. Cahiers, a list of grievances about the king, taxing and voting involving the estates explains how the third estate was not provided with equal rights. The third estate owned most of the land and made up a large percent of the population, yet were not accustomed with the rights they deserved. They paid for the wealthy to live an excessive life and didn't get anything in return. This was unjust and unfair.

In document # 3, literacy in France was examined by social groups and classes; the dates compared were again 1680 and 1789, i.e. French Absolutism as opposed to the days of the French Revolution. Overall, three social groups were examined. The first groups were the nobles and professionals: interestingly enough, these two groups were on opposite sides at the time of the French Revolution. Whereas the vast majority of the powerful nobility mostly sided with the Ancien Regime, resisted attempts to reform, and defended its privileges, the highly educated bourgeoisie became revolutionary when it realized that political representation of its vested interests was not possible in Old Regime France, and political change was prevented by the First and Second Estate. Only then did the bourgeoisie desire to overthrow the French medieval state and replace it with a modern state that would truly represent the interests of the French bourgeoisie.

Emmanuel Siyès argued that the privileges of the aristocracy essentially established it as a foreign body outside of the commonwealth of France. He denounced the nobility by declaring that it had been able to reap the rewards of the working class without providing any contributions to society. Moreover, he said that the nobility was able to do away with these “act[s] of treason to the commonwealth” because it became so powerful, both politically and socially, allowing it to manipulate the government into benefitting solely itself

A glint of good news came to the now-impoverished family when the merchant heard that a ship containing his merchandise had just arrived in port. The merchant was overjoyed and went to claim his wealth, only to find that there had been a legal ordeal and he had, indeed, lost it all. Here, the author tries to illustrate the French government’s inadequacy in meeting the needs of the people. In the 1850s, great minds, including the Swiss/French political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, were writing that the authority to rule came from the people themselves. Furthermore, philosophers argued that the government’s duty was not to serve their own decadence but rather to serve the people. The French government, being an absolute monarchy, was ruled by only the word of Louis XV, and the royal Bourbon family had a history of ruling to meet their own selfish desires. The French monarchy did not uphold the intrinsic promise and duty of any government to protect, feed, and serve its people. De Beaumont symbolizes this by failing to deliver the goods to the impoverished former merchant. In other words, just like the merchant’s undelivered goods, the

The 17th century French aristocrat Michel de Montaigne lived in a tumultuous world. With the spark of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, the fire spread rapidly to France. The nation divided against itself. The rebellious protestant Huguenots and the traditional staunch Catholics both viewed the other group as idolatrous heretics in time when that crime could justify execution. Consequently, Catholic monarchs throughout Europe felt the impending threat to their reigns, too, because if they supposedly ruled through divine right, what would change concerning the support of their subjects? After the peace-making Edict of Nantes, rehashing the religious conflicts of the century was forbidden, but seeing his country—and even his own family—torn apart, how could one refrain from comment? So in his writings, Montaigne has to write around his actual subjects. This isn’t to say, however, that he conveyed none of his ideas directly. Montaigne criticizes the cultural belief in a correct way of life, opposing the idea with a more relativistic viewpoint, though the way in which he presents it, as mere musings in personal correspondence, fails to effectively convince his readers.

The nobility of the Kingdom of France has been evaluated by various scholars of history. There is something to be said, however, for those who chronicled their impressions while living them in the 17th and 18th centuries. The excerpts of Charles Loyseau’s A Treatise on Orders, written in 1610, and Isabelle de Charriere’s The Nobleman, written in 1763 provide two very different glimpses on the French nobility from differing time periods. From these two accounts, it is clear that there was a marked shift in the way some viewed the nobility and their role in the operation of the French state. While Loyseau praises the nobility nearly wholeheartedly,

The highest group was the First Estate, this was the clergy, the Second Estate was the nobility and the Third Estate was everyone else. The Third Estate included; peasants, merchants, commoners, and anybody that didn't have a family generation of nobility. In the document it says “the population of the third estate was highest and they owned the most land because they did all the works. They also had to pay every cent of the tax money while the Second and Third payed not one penny” (document 2). This type of class division was extremely unfair to the Third Estate, a woman writes “the taxes and laws are crushing us” (document 3). This shows two things, one is that she is in the 3rd estate because she pays taxes and two is that this is not only her that feels this way. So many other people in the society feel this way too. After the death of King, Napoleon was the power. In the document it says “Terror used to execute enemies of the regime” (document 4). This shows that the people feared leaving their homes because they didn't want to be killed by Napoleon. When Napoleon went around killing the “enemies” this was a time called The Reign of Terror. In the document it says “We feared to go out,in case,without realizing it, we committed some transgression...we hardly spoke to anyone, for there were spies everywhere,and we jumped at each knock at the door, fearing arrest” (document 6). So this really did