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The Ancien Regime: The French Revolution

Decent Essays

Unlike the American Revolution which is considered to be a relatively good thing, the French Revolution is often seen as a brutally bloody period in history and its sacrifices were not worth the outcomes. -Ended in an authoritarian regime, just as it began. -Although, its ideals changed history forever.

France in the 18th century was a rich and populace country, but it had a systemic problem collecting taxes because of the way the society was structured. They had a system with kings and nobles we now call the “Ancien Regime”. For the majority of the society, the system of government was unfair and damaging because the clergy never paid taxes, the third party did all of the work while the rich would bathe in their riches.

By 1789, France …show more content…

But the Revolutionaries saw this as a provication, so they responded by seizing the Bastille prison on July 14th which coincidentally, is also Bastille Day. The Bastille was stormed distensively to free prisoners, although there were only seven in jail at the time, but mostly to get guns. But the really radical move in the National Assembly came on August 4th when they abolished most of the Ancien Regime. Feudal Rights, tides, privileges for nobles, unequal taxation, all abolished in the name of writing a new constitution. Then, on August 26th, the National Assembly proclaimed The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. This document laid out a system of rights that applied to every citizen and made those rights integral to the new …show more content…

Then, in October of 1789, a rumor started that Marie Antoinette was hoarding grain somewhere inside the palace. And with what became known as the Women’s March, a bunch of armed peasant women stormed the palace and demanded that Louis and Marie move from Versailles to Paris, which they did. This was a nice reminder that to many people at the time, the French Revolution was not primarily fancy Enlightenment ideas, it was mostly about lack of food and a political system that made economic tractions hardest on the poor.

A good argument can be made that this first phase of the Revolution wasn’t all that “revolutionary”. The National Assembly wanted to create a constitutional monarchy, they believed that the King was necessary for a functioning state and they were mainly concerned that voters and officeholders be men of property. Only the most radical wing, the Jacobins, called for the creation of a republic. But things started to get much more revolutionary, and also worse for

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