Listen up Children, because God himself has allowed me to reflect back on my old life as a human to educate you on what was happening during the French Revolution. Now, everything up until the point of my death by guillotine I lived through, and everything after I watched over - and believe you me this was not a time you wanted to live through. France was a very dangerous place and the French revolution was among one of the most violent in the world, so keep reading for the specifics and turn the page for the beginning.
For the first time in many years the king called a meeting of the estate general which is when all three estates met so that each one could be represented in government. The three estates, or orders, were the clergy- which is where I belong- being the first, the Nobility being the second, and commoners being the third. The third estate was the largest estate which included everybody that was not in the clergy or not a nobility- like myself. Not everybody in the third estate was poor, so long as you were not nobility or in the clergy you are in the third estate. We couldn't all agree how to vote. The third estate wanted to to vote by head but the first and second estate wanted to vote by order - which means each estate gets one vote, and because we were the most wealthy of estates we
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The commoners heard a rumor that King Louis XVI was sending an army to attack the new parliament. On July 14, 1789 the commoners were preparing to fight back the supposed army and they couldn't find any gun powder for all of their guns. They knew that a pile of gunpowder was stashed away at the Bastille so they went to go attack it. The Bastille is a huge prison that was a symbol of the King's absolute power. When King Louis XVI heard of the news that the commoners attacked the Bastille he asked his adviser,"Is this a revolt?" he was answered,"No majesty, this is a
Even though the Third Estate made up the majority of the population, they only got one vote. As seen in the chart based off of the three estates in France during 1789, 97%of the citizens created the Third Estate (Doc 2). One vote for 97% of the population was unequal, and no one’s voice was heard separately. The Third Estate had only one vote, the First and Second Estate were able to pass anything that pleased them. According to the English Bill of Rights written by the English Parliament, “That the pretended power of suspending of the laws or the execution of law is regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal…” (Doc 8) The English had the same issue and solved it earlier. France should have inferred that the issues would appear and used the English’s struggles and solutions for their own good. The First and Second Estates did everything in their power for the Third Estate to have very minimal
Do know in the late 1700s if someone disobeyed you they head got chopped off.the french revolution began in 1789 as an attempt to form a new government in france.it was a revolution that did not follow a simple path .one broadside from the time read ”unity ,indivisibility of republican liberty equality fraternity or death” .it is the last word of course that is troubling. The reign of terror was justified because the the threats to them, the method for punishment and the reasons behind the revolution The reign of terror was unjustified because of all the threats they received from inside and outside enemies. In document c it speaks of all the outside threats. ”in august 1792 an 80,000-man army marched into france.nearly half the force was prussian ,and the other half austria.austria and prussia were
The states-general advised the king on difficult decision, but no French king has called the states general in 179 years. The states-general voted as a class. The first class was the clergy and the second was the nobility. A third class was made up of the "middle class," a group shopkeepers and craftsmen who were neither rich nor poor. Usually, the clergy and the nobility voted to support whatever the king wanted, so the vote of the middle class did not matter. The middle class argued that voting should be "by head" rather than by class, because they had more representatives than the first two estates combined. Louis agreed, and the "National Assembly"
Even though French patriots revere the storming of the Bastille as a heroic uprising against oppression, the prison itself was an obsolete relic. Practically empty of political prisoners, the fortress expressed power only symbolically. This symbol, though hollow, inspired a revolution after a Parisian crowd attacked it on July 14, 1789; the mob contained members of diverse socio-economic backgrounds, but they united in their opposition to the status quo: popular suffering and a lack of governmental relief. Although absolutist tyranny contributed to popular anger, the crowd stormed the Bastille in a protest primarily against spiking food prices because the revolutionaries feared starvation and military repression. The Bastille,
This lead to kings being unfair or making poor decisions that negatively influence everyone. Examples of this include king starting wars or people being killed or imprisoned without committing crimes. The Estates-General was also unfair because the groups were not representative of the populations each group represented. Also, when they said "In order to assure the third estate the influence it deserves because of its numbers…its votes in the assembly should be taken by head… (Document 8)," the king rejected it. This and other similar things the king said caused social issues between the three estates in the
The french revolution was very different from the American Revolution. In Fact the French lend money to the U.S.A during the American Revolution. That was sorta the spark of the French the Revolution. That's not the only thing that is strange about the french revolution. Some people were killed in guillotine for no reason. A guillotine is those things that you put someone's head in, then you pull a string and the blade slices their head off. Actually that is how the King of France was killed. Along with his queen Marie Antoinette. Let’s head right into the Topic of the French Revolution.
The first source is a painting of the Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, an armed skirmish between the Parisian rebels and the French government. The Bastille was a medieval prison in Paris, it represented royal authority in France, but it was also an abuse of the monarchy. Today, the Storming of the Bastille is celebrated as Bastille Day in France to commemorate the victory of the rebels. The Storming of the Bastille was a sign of the increasing power of the Parisians. When the King learned about the skirmish, the King asked, “Is it a revolt?” the Duke replied, “No, it is a revolution.” I believe that this source is connected to nationalism because it shows the patriotism of people of France. The rebels fought back for what they believed in and succeeded as The Storming of the Bastille proves. They believe that they can overthrow France’s monarchy.
This statement shows how poorly people of the lower class were treated, and how corrupt this system of government is on the people of France. Once the French monarchy faced bankruptcy in 1787, the Estates General was called, and a new form of government was formed called the National Assembly. This government was composed of members of the third estate, because they were the only estate that had to pay taxes when they were already poor. The National Assembly was the rightful representatives of the French people, who demanded tax reform and greater political equality. In a report of the British Ambassador, the Duke
Bastille was a symbol of the king’s power, but fall of bastille by the ordinary people showed king’s inability to maintain the kingdom. It became the symbol of revolution to the French people. Since then Bastille Day has been recognized as a national holiday in France. The storming of the Bastille was the begging of the French revolution.
The calling of the Estates General by King Louis XIV surprised many people, because the last meeting that occurred was over nearly 175 years ago. The bankruptcy sparked an idea for the King to summon the estates, they could discuss their financial situation. At first, King Louis proposed the idea of imposing tax on all land to gain money, but the nobles did not agree with it. King Louis XVI was a weak king and was not strong enough to oppose the nobles so that proposition did not happen. King Louis XIV finally decided to hold a meeting in Versailles where the three estates voted if they should change the ways of taxation and the structure of the government. The First and Second Estates each had 300 members in the Estates-General while the Third
The French Revolution (1789-1814) was a period that affected the outcome of world history tremendously. This is considered a major turning point in European history which has led to dramatic changes in France and other regions of the world. Various social and political issues led to the start of the revolution. Politically, France suffered under the rule of Louis XVI, who ruled by absolute monarchy. Many people had their natural rights renounced and weren’t able to have a political voice. Socially, France had divided its population within 3 estates (classes). French citizens took it upon themselves to remodel their country 's’ political structure. The French Revolution had encountered both positive and negative effects. However, many Europeans viewed the Revolution as much more than just a bloody massacre. The French Revolution was used to demonstrate new ideology that would emphasize the principles of liberty and equality throughout Europe.
Out of desperation in 1789 King Louis XVI called together the Estates General for the first time since 1614. “The Estates General was a representative body drawn from the three ‘estates’ into which society had been theoretically divided” (Wilde). The Estates General worked through a vote system which meant that each Estate had one vote. Later this proved to become a major weakness since the First and Second Estate (who together made up 3% of the population) could overrule the Third Estate (who made up 97%) by 2:1. Another major weakness was “the inability of the three orders to agree because of conflicting interests” (Britannica). On the last meeting of the Estates General in 1789 the Third Estate knew they would be overruled by the First and Second Estates at any attempt to reform, so the Third Estate broke away and created a new body called the National Assembly, also effectively starting the French Revolution.
The monarchy tried to make an attempt to give the third estate power. The monarchy established the Estate's General. This too, was corrupted. Unlike most legislative bodies, the Estate's General did not vote by each person having a single vote. Rather, they let each estate have one vote each. Since the first two estates were always in agreement, the third estate was always out voted.
I feel that the French Revolution was a time of depression for all living in France. Countless innocent lives had been taken because of bad leadership and disagreement. Many deaths occurred during the Reign of Terror and the September Massacre. There were hundreds of thousands of lives that had been lost through all the events of the French Revolution. In the past, people didn't care if they had taken another ones life because their were less people to find out that you had committed murder.
Revolutions are a common occurrence throughout world history. With the amount of revolutions in history, there are those that get lost and those that are the most remembered or well known. One of the well known revolutions is the French Revolution which occurred in the years 1789 to 1799. Before the French Revolution, France was ruled by an absolute monarchy, this meaning that one ruler had the supreme authority and that said authority was not restricted by any written laws, legislature, or customs, a definition given by wikipedia.com and the feudal system, which was a system that said a peasant or worker would receive a piece of land in return for serving under a king, a definition given by vocabulary.com. Those who opposed the, then