The Three Estate Revolts: Causes Of The French Revolution

There are very few members in the first and second estates, yet they owned the most land, while the third estate made up most of the population, yet owned very little land. “First: Clergy - 1% of the people owned 10% of the land. Second Estate: Nobles - 2% of the people owned 35% of the land. Third Estate - Middle class, peasants, city workers 97% of the people owned 55% of the land.” (Document 2) There were high prices, high taxes, and people were listening to enlightenment ideas. Louis XVI decided to tax the Second Estate. They called a meeting of the Estates-General - an assembly of representatives from all three estates. (ROI) In addition, as a political cause, the third estate had no privileges or say in the government,while both the clergy and nobles did. As mentioned before, the inequality of taxes proved another gap in the social classes. “The Revolution had been accomplished in the minds of men long before it was translated into fact.... The middle class...was sensitive to their inferior legal position. The Revolution came from them-the middle class. The working classes were incapable of starting or controlling the Revolution. They were just beginning to learn to read.” (Document 4) Estates- General was the first such meeting in 175 years. Met on May 5th,1789 in Versailles. In the Estate- General each estate had one vote. (ROI)

First, one primary factor of the French Revolution was the Enlightenment. Specifically, the Enlightenment was an age of “scientific and philosophical thought” in the 18th century (An Analysis 1). The ideas that came from this age were natural rights, the sovereignty of citizens, and equal rights for everybody under the law along with questioning the divine right of the king (An Analysis 1). The Enlightenment was one primary factor because it provided ideas that the commoners wanted as it placed them at a fair and basic level in comparison to the other classes alongside questioning the validity of the monarchy. Another example was it inspired the American Revolution, where the colonists fought and won the right to govern themselves from England (An Analysis 1). This proved that a winning a

In France there were three estates/classes. The first and highest class was the church(clergy and kings), the second class was the nobility(nobles) and the third class and lowest rank was the commoners( peasants, bourgeois and city workers). There is a bar graph showing how unequal the tax structure is and how there is a huge population of poor people. It shows that the third estate is paying most of the taxes and they owned very little land, Doc 2. There is another photograph displaying two men labeled first and second estate standing on top of a rock labeled taxes all on top of a man labeled third estate, Doc 7. This picture is trying to explain how the top estates are all depending on the the third estate because they pay all the taxes and work on the

The citizens of the 3rd estate and some citizens in the 2nd estate in France during 1789, were not happy at all. They were getting heavily taxed by Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, and the Catholic Church. When they didn’t have the money to pay the taxes that was forced upon them. After all of the hard work they put in to growing crops, the crops were taken

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.

The 3 main causes if the French revolution are social classes , Enlightenment Ideas, and a financial crisis in France. Social classes and Enlightenment Ideas caused the French Revolution because it was the 1st and 2nd estate controlling everything. They owned all the land and put it on the 3rd estate like taxes. Enlightenment Ideas helped cause the French Revolution because the 3rd estate got ideas from England and America revolting against their leaders in government and making a new government. These 3 causes gave the people of France ideas to have basic human rights.

One of the most important causes of the French Revolution was the French system of taxation. According to document one, there was an “injustice in levying the amount each person must pay. Lands held by the nobility were taxed very little. Lands held by commoners were taxed heavily.” This means that the third estate was responsible for paying most of the country’s taxes, while the first and second estates, were responsible for very little. Since the third estate was responsible to pay the most in taxes, they began to suffer the most. The taxes caused them to not be able to afford simple necessities in life, such as bread. This injustice caused the people to want to reform their economic situation by finding a way to avoid strangling taxes and make the first two estates contribute to a failing economy.

Under the rule of king Louis XVI, in the 18 century, France fell into a political, social, and economic destruction. One result being the exaggeration of taxes on the 3rd Estate. Enlightenment ideas brought ways to think about society and the ideas of questioning higher authority. French soldier returning from the American Revolution, introduced ideas of freedom of speech, religion, and press.

The French Revolution occurred from 1789 to 1799. A major issue during this time period in France was social classes, which included the First, Second, and Third Estate. The First and Second Estate had freedom, rights, and equality while the Third Estate had almost nothing. Third Estate got no recognition for their work, while the French Church had problems with voting, and salaries. The Third Estate formed the National Assembly to write The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. They wrote them to help fix the problems that caused the revolution. The causes of the French revolution are the French Church, the inequality of the Estates, and the minimal freedom and rights that the Third Estate has.

​The French revolution was caused by many political reasons. The main political reason was that the members of the third estate occupied 97% of Frances population yet they had little to no political power. They had no control over their own government, rules, and regulations. One person, King Louis XVI, had all the power. On top of the third estate having little to no power at all, they barely had any land to live on. The third estate was 97% of France’s population yet they only owned 55% of the land. Based on that statistic, it’s pretty obvious that the third estate lived in cramped and uncomfortable conditions (Document 2). The monarchy played a huge role in the start of the revolution. King Louis XVI was allowed to

During their political and social system, Old regime, there was inequality in France. The 3rd estate did not receive as much of importance as the other 2 estates did. The members of the 3rd estate were very angry on the decisions taken account without their propositions for the government, so they decided to create one of their own. There were 3 main factors that led to the revolution. The enlightment period brought the ideas of equality; members of the 3rd estate liked this because they didn’t receive equality of their own. The French economy was failing, high taxes kept profits low and there was shortage of food supplies. They also were under the rule of Louis XVI, which was a weak leader with a wife that liked to spend money. Many worst things happened after the revolution, one of them was the Reign of

First of all, let me start from the information given in document 1, which tells us that the prices of bread have been raised above the ability of peasants to pay. The poor people had no money to buy their food and their children were terribly ragged. There were many instances of riots in the market places for food and the military was called to stop these riots and disturbances. The bad weather lead to bad harvest which in turn led to unemployment and people had to starve. People were not happy with French government because of the heavy taxes and feudal dues laid on the common man leading to poverty and food problems which were effecting the working class. The injustice of unequal distribution of taxes among the nobility and common man was so obviously seen, leading to dissatisfaction among the common man. Also from the information in document 2, we see that the third estate consisting of 98% of population owned

It began when the French monarchy formed from The Seven Year war. During this time, the French were in debt due to their support of the American Revolution. Therefore, France restricted free trade with other nations and kept the country and most of its people in a state of poverty. The French people were still organized in three different feudal class divisions of estates. The first estate, the Clergy, consisted of those employed by the Catholic Church. They greatly influenced France by controlling vast amounts of land (they were also freed from paying taxes). The second estate, the Nobility, were also exempt from most taxes. They held the best and highest paid jobs in the army, church, and legal professions. The third estate, consisted of all the other people not assigned to a higher class. The third estate composed of much of the population and held the greatest economic and social diversity (the peasants). They were starved and ragged and bore the brunt of the ever-increasing taxes. They were demanded to pay fees for land ownership every

In France, before the French Revolution, the governing body was called the Old Regime. Under Louis XIV and his queen Marie Antoinette, the French society was divided up into three groups. These groups were called the three estates. In this system, the first two estates lived very well while the third estate was very impoverished. This paired with the lack of a strong leader (Louis XIV) caused rising tensions in the third estate. This eventually led to revolution. The main cause of this was the layout of the Old Regime. The Old Regime was made up of three estates that were very different in their governmental abilities and their amount of money.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité was the cry of freedom that countless people used to propel them through, and to the end of the French Revolution. This long period of social, political and economic change in France lasted 10 years, starting in 1798 and ended with Napoleon Bonaparte. The French Revolution greatly affected all of Europe at the time and continues to represent the embodiment of revolution to this day. This constant struggle between the heavily taxed, burdened, and unrepresented third estate and those higher created an environment of monumental change for everyone. In the years leading up to the French Revolution, new beliefs and ideas were reaching every corner of Europe creating the thought that men should live free of oppression. However, in France the leader Louis XVI lead like a tyrant leaving the people impoverish and angry. Through the analysation of numerous circumstance present during the Ancien Régime, such as an inferior fiscal leadership, massive debt, and the forthcoming of new ideas during the Enlightened period, it can be concluded that the means for this revolution were justified as it is in our essence to revolt for a change.