Changes In The Great Cat Massacre

| * guilds were developed * it promoted trade among different societies * labor increased with growth of cities

During the 1700s, France’s government was run by a three system estate system. The First Estate was made up by the powerful clergy members, while the Second Estate was made with nobles. Peasants and working men made the Third Estate, also the largest estate. In this large estate there was a little class named the Bourgeoisie was a part of the Third Estate. Though the Bourgeoisie was highly educated and always had stable professions, they were not set aside from the peasants. The Third Estate was treated very poorly during the 1700s. Life was not suitable for the working class. The mistreatment and inequality led to the French Revolution. Inequality during this time period meant that things were not the same throughout each class. Unequal power between the estates, abuse of the Third Estate, and the taxes and price raises were the three reasons that outweighed the many political, social, and economic factors that led to the French Revolution.

One might ask if the 1789 document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen addressed the needs of all the people of the third estate like its writers claimed was its purpose. The National Assembly of France, which consisted of mostly wealthy bourgeoisies men, wrote the declaration. The remaining members of the third estate, which included the urban poor sans-culottes, therefore did not have much say in what was being addressed to the public. Enlightenment ideas such as popular sovereignty and civic equality, advocated by both the bourgeoisies and sans-culottes, is apparent in the statement. Furthermore, the National Assembly of France addressed the sans-culottes’ need of equality, employment based on talent, and desire for a political reorganization.

In the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, France was undergoing major changes. Before the French Revolution, France was experiencing political, social and economic problems. During this time period France was unstable, and wasn’t able to keep up with the new arising Enlightenment ideas. In addition, there were high taxes, unequal power distribution and social inequality. The French Revolution not only impacted the citizens of France, but people from other countries as well.

“Europe cannot conceive of life without Kings and nobles; and we cannot conceive of it with them. Europe is lavishing her blood to preserve her chains, whereas we are lavishing ours to destroy them”(Maximilien Robespierre). For centuries upon centuries, the monarchal system had dominated European life. The very nature of this method of rule incited rebellious feelings, as a definite imbalance of power was present. Understandably, people under this system had risen against authority. The glorious nation of France was no exception. The eighteenth century brought about a great deal of economic and social turmoil. By the end of this one hundred year period, rebellion had been talked about by many citizens for quite some time. However,

The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History. First Edition. Robert Darnton. New York: Basic Books, 1999 XIII + 298.

When analyzing the French Revolution, the idea of political transformation and citizen involvement play a huge role in actually understanding how the revolution altered from enlightened conversations in salons to its completion, resulting from the French “voice” uniting to halt The Terror that Paris had become. Reflecting back on this event, historians still debate on the specific moment this aristocratic revolution of 1789 turned into the blood-bath radical revolution due to the momentum and contingency that each event has on the overall Revolution. The two authors, Jeremy Popkin, and Timothy Tackett, explain their historical opinion on this period of French history, in which both share a similar

Robert Darnton’s, Peasant Tell Tales, is a wonderful first chapter that explores the French peasantry of the Old Regime, through the lens of folktales. A cultural historian, Darton tediously unpacks several folktales, revealing the harsh lives of the peasants, as well as their worldviews. As argued by Darnton, folktales must be studied as they serve as historical testimonies--examining man's experiences and desires.

The Enlightenment was a special time and important time in human history, during this time reason and individualism were emphasized rather than tradition. Great philosophers helped shape and change the world. It was considered to be a time of great change and growth, however the Enlightenment was not experienced by all. The workers and peasants of the time were unaware of these amazing things because it was not something that affected them in their daily lives. The book “The Great Cat Massacre” by Robert Darnton, gives essays that help to show how exactly the non-intellectuals were affected by the Enlightenment.

Darnton does a fantastic job about inviting the reader into to the text. This can best be described a tour of Darton’s mind and thoughts with no particular bias. Through further analysis of Darton’s The Great Cat Massacre reveals that not all subjects in the seventeenth and eighteenth century benefited from the enlightenment. These essays and short stories tell us that the peasants, described in “Peasants Tell Tales” have violent, nasty, and brutal outlooks on life based on their harsh upbringing and the stories they told and passed down. Similarly, the workers in “Workers Revolt” are not pleased with their masters considering there was a time that the masters once ate at their own table and worked along side the workers, this is their

Paper #1 (Revised) - How did people, particularly the working class, participate in the political and social revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries?

We have learned over the course of the semester the many factors that contributed to the changing social structure in Early Modern Europe; many of these changes came about as a bi-product of science, technology, capitalism, and more importantly the call for justice and equality by a people that during tumultuous times grew weary with their standing in life and the forces that they deemed as having control over them. Religious conflicts, colonization and capitalism were just some of the forces that impacted the structure of Early Modern Europe. How these forces were conducive to bringing about social justice in such turbulent times is the focus at hand. Throughout Modern Europe resistance to the ruling powers increased, as people grew tired of increased taxation imposed upon them by the clergy, even the nobles were aligning with the citizens to rebel against monasteries and churches alike.

A system is a set of interrelated parts. Systems theory assumes that a system must be understood as a whole, rather than in component parts. It is a way of looking at the world where all the objects are interrelated with one another. Many family systems are addressed in the movie Little Miss Sunshine.

The French Revolution was a period of time from 1789 to 1799 in France where there was political instability. It officially began on the 14th of July, 1789, when the Bastille, which was a symbol of the King’s harsh policies, was stormed. The King, Louis XVI, the Queen, Marie-Antoinette and about 40,000 people were all brutally murdered. But there was also a positive side, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was formally adopted on August 1789 and feudalism was abolished. This essay will address the issues of the three estates system, food shortages and the fiscal crisis. It will also be argued that the most significant cause of the French Revolution was the social inequality that stemmed from the three estates system.

Since they were the in charge of manufacturing products and finance, they were able to increase to population of cities. The increase of these cities is due to specialized laborers and skilled craftsmen which helped produce variety of goods in factories and workshops of varies towns and cities. The bourgeoisie were devoted and spent long hours to their businesses and poured much of their profit back into them or went for new ventures. Another change substantial change the bourgeoisie were able to make was cultural diffusion through trade. As goods such as “Caribbean and Brazil sugar and rum, Mexican chocolate, Virginia tobacco, North American furs, East India cotton textiles and spices and Chinese tea” (page 452) were in demand. Cultures begin to clash with one another with different types of clothes, art, food to be accepted with in different regions. One of the items that was beneficial to many of these regions when it came to trade was maps. The Dutch were successful and excelled at mapmaking which helped different places to have contact with foreign land and trade. As the expansion of maritime trade increase due to the trade, newer designs for merchant’s ships emerged which allowed a larger capacity of cargo to be held within a ship. The government as well undertook many large projects to improve better systems of water transport to allow transport of goods to sail