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The French Revolution : The Revolution

Decent Essays

Tyler Bredl
M. Mackey
HIS 102-003
26 October 2015

The French Revolution The French Revolution, beginning in 1789, is a prime example of uprising by the bourgeoisie against centuries-old Absolutist and feudal systems. The Revolution was fueled by Enlightenment concepts, such as collective sovereignty for the people and inviolable human rights. The Revolution was stricken by setbacks and France ultimately ended up in the hands of a revolutionary monarch, Napoleon Bonaparte (late 1790s). Furthermore, like the American Revolution, it allowed the world to recognize the power behind the working class. The French Revolution collapsed the “old order”; by spreading democratic ideals, political changes took place and opened the door for a new sovereign authority in Europe.

Prelude to Revolution/The Third Estate Led by a weak monarch and the economy in shambles, peasantry became weary of the old, autocratic regime. The Revolution took a radical turn in when Parisian rebels broke into the Bastille, in hopes of obtaining weaponry to fight royalist troops. Word of the revolution began to reverberate throughout France. Tax collectors, landowners, and upper class citizens were terrorized by menacing, angry mobs which came to be known as the Great Fear. A strictly rural episode of insurrection which sped up the exodus of elite from the country and inspired the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism in August 4, 1789, signing what G. Lefebvre later called the “death

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