Impact Of The Early French Revolution

The ideas of Enlightenment philosophers rippled throughout the globe, however, they seemed to have the most interesting effect on France. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a major contributor to Frances political and social structure post-French revolution. These ideas weren’t the only triggers for the French Revolution. A combination of strangling taxes, economic disparity, and an impotent ruler led to the development of an intense need for reform in France. “France spent an enormous amount of money during the American war which put them on the verge of bankruptcy” (McKay et al., pg. 662). To make up for this immense national debt, taxes were raised which put more pressure on the already struggling working class in France. The privileged classes

← Doyle, William. The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. 2001

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 The middle class made gains that would never be rescinded, but do revolutions always end in tyranny?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

While the French Revolution surely marked a time known for a great deal of bloodshed alongside an substantial shift in political and social attitudes, behavior, and policy, the origins of this pivotal event are highly contested even in modern historical contexts. This time period ranging from the years 1789 to 1799 had a number of social, political, and economic causes, but many historians of this era seek to answer whether the French revolution was primarily a social revolution with political consequences or that of a political revolution with social consequences. According to Harvard educated political scientist, Dr. Theda Skocpol, “Social revolutions are rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures, and they are accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below.” In consequence, the following thesis is one such answer to this long-held debate using this definition as a base reference. The social unrest created by remnants still remaining from the feudal system, compounded with economic pressures caused by a political system unable to properly respond to crisis, resulted in a fervent spirit of revolt that pervaded through the whole of the third state only to turn to more political issues upon the realizations of class diversity within the Third Estate itself.

This paper will explore the social structure of France prior to the Revolution, and how a group of poor women expressed their concerns in a “Petition of Women of the Third Estate to the King ”. Pre-revolutionary France had a social class system based around three “Estates;” the First consisted of clergy, the Second of nobility, and the Third of commoners. Although these Estates were subordinate to the king, he had little direct control over them . Compounding this weakness was vulnerability to rebellion from the Third Estate . The power of the monarchy rested upon its ability to garner the support of its subjects, rather than its ability to force compliance to its edicts . After the loss of essential colonial revenue sources in previous wars, the king had to convince members of the Third Estate to agree to bear a heavier tax burden .

In the centuries preceding the French revolution, France was an absolute monarchy renowned for its power, wealth and efficiency. The French kings maintained this power by establishing the Estates General, an assembly composed of representatives from the French nobility, church and mercantile classes. All three classes served a key role, in exchange for a complete tax emption the French nobility provided professional soldiers to protect France’s vulnerable borders while the Catholic Church administered the legal system and the lower class merchants financed the government with their tax money. By cooperating with these groups, the French monarchs ensured that their power was never is jeopardy (Fields, O’Neil and Share 155-156). However, by the fifteenth century the French monarchy had grown increasingly centralized, allowing the king to expand France’s borders significantly while greatly boosting his own popularity and influence. As a result, the French monarchs where able to

France under the rule of Louis XVI was an absolute monarchy. The country had remained wealthy, but was beginning to crumble under its many financial issues. Both Louis XVI and his predecessor Louis XV had not adopted a financial system that would benefit all the classes of the ancien régime as well as the nation. This in turn, resulted in an uproar among the estates. Moreover, the social classes were divided into three sections, the First Estate, which was the clergy, the Second Estate, which was the nobility, and the Third Estate, which were the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and, town residents. Due to the fact that the ancien régime had stayed stagnant in changing their financial predicament many issues began to develop, such as the disagreement between the estates and the profound hate towards the king. All these events resulted in the rise of the Third Estate and the end of the Old Regime. This paper will focus on the issues that helped elevate the Third Estate and how they brought about a new form of government.

The French Revolution was a result of the system of “Estates” instated by the monarchy leaving the common people, or Third Estate, in terrible living conditions. The system was designed so that aristocrats, the clergy, and the monarch were guaranteed two-thirds of all votes in their favour, meaning that commoners were left without a way to achieve change. The nobility lived in blissful ignorance, enjoying sumptuous feasts and privileges such as the rights to hunt, wear swords, and own fiefs. Meanwhile,

Beginning in the late 18th century controversy struck France; arguments over royal legitimacy, starvation of the people, and lack of equality among the kingdom sparked what is known as the French Revolution. The Estate System angered the people as it created significant inequality for the working class and peasants. While many believed the third estate to be the foundation of the country, absolutist ruler, Louis XVI, favored the first and second estates. As a result, the French Revolution prioritized the fight for national equality. Napoleon, the “son of the revolution,” built his empire on liberty and equality forever: “liberte, egalite, fraternite.”

In the latter years of the eighteenth century, France was an aristocratic bureaucracy, presided over by sovereign monarch Louis XVI. France was ruled under the Ancien Régime; a social and political system established by the French in the early renaissance period of the fifteenth century, until the late eighteenth century where it was violently overturned in the French Revolution. ‘ Under the Ancien Régime the richer a man was, the less he paid.’1 The French Revolution, beginning in 1789 was an era of social and political upheaval that saw the collapse of the absolute monarchy and its prejudice class system. Before the French Revolution of 1789, France was subject to a social division dictated by ones circumstance of birth and wealth. The

The French Revolution became an exceedingly prominent aspect of the way the citizens of France viewed their ruling powers and helped aid the shift on how the government distinctly ruled over the people of the country. This empowering Revolution used the ideologies of the Enlightenment Era to help fuel their reasons for rebellion. In contribution to the Enlightenment and the various ideas that were created throughout its spread were the concepts that were formed by English philosopher John Locke. His ideology of the issue that all men were entitled to their “natural rights”, life, liberty and property, resonated throughout the minds of the French people who desperately needed a change in the way their monarchy ruled and who their ruler

France, in the 1700s, was not in good standing with its own people, or it’s surrounding countries. The people were split into three socials estates. The First Estate consisted of wealthy clergymen. The Second estate was built up of established noblemen who were the major landowners, but they were slightly less wealthy than the clergy. The Third Estate was composed of poor people, whom were split into two distinct groups, the Bourgeoisie and the peasants. The Bourgeoisie were wealthy however, because they were born into the Third Estate, they were stuck. The Bourgeoisie were treated badly, even though they were economically equal to the upper classes, they were socially restricted. Many weights of the country fell upon the Third Estate, resulting in much contention during this time.

“The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being.” (Goldman, Declaration of the rights of man) This shows that the revolution led to people mainly the commoners gaining their rights as citizens in France and the rights still remain today. Today in France the government cannot indefinitely overlook the will of people and mood. Neither can they underestimate the dedication of the middle class for a change. The

France, as we know it today, is so much different from the France of yesteryear. About the fifteenth century, the political system in France, gave rise to a socially stratified society which comprised three different ranks of people, referred to as the Estates. The first Estate at the top was made up of the clergy, the Second consisted of the nobility; with the commoners at the bottom rank, or Third Estate. Within each rank were sub-ranks, and “each rank distinguished itself through conventions, dress, duties, and etiquette”. The Third Estate, for example, included the artisans, doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, the urban poor and peasants. Under this Old Regime, those in the First and Second “Estates” had more economic and social power than

Before the Revolution, the Estates General–France’s legislature–consisted of the First Estate and the Second Estate representing the upper class and the Third Estate representing the lower and middle classes. Consequently, the First and Second Estates always outvoted the Third Estate in which prevented any reform for the lower class’ poor quality of life; this imbalance of power