French Revolution: Part 1

I know ALOT of people missed the first part of the French Revolution, so here it is and I'll upload the rest when we're done.
~Claire


The French Revolution – Evolution of the French State
Three Stages
1. Age of Montesquieu (Checks and Balances)
a. Constitutional Monarchy
b. 1789-1792
i. National Assembly (1789-1791)
ii. Tennis Court Oath
iii. Storming of the Bastille
iv. Declaration of the Rights of man
v. 1791-1792 à Legislative assembly
vi. Two Factions à Jacobin vs. Girodin
2. Age of Rousseau (Age of the Republic) – you can’t have a constitutional monarchy if you cut off the monarch’s head
a. Committee of Public Safety (aka Stasi) à Reign of Terror
i. National Convention (1792-1795)
ii. Oligarchy “Directory” (1795-1799)
3. Age of Voltaire
a. Napoleonic Enlightened Despot (1799-1815)
Louis XIV dies à Louis XV (1715-1774)
- Nobility gains power and influence under Louis XV
- He’s not that interested in running the country (ministers and mistresses have influence e.g. Mme. Pompadour – advised him on foreign policy and who to appoint)
- Parlement is reinstated à High Court
o Power to approve or disprove royal decrees
o Made up of nobles of the robe, not sword (gentry)
- Seven Years War and the War of Austrian Succession
o Wanted to raise taxes, Parlement said no
- 1768 à appoints Rene de Maupeou, chancellor to subdue the judicial opposition
o He abolished Parlement and exiles its members
o Creates new one made of royal officials (who do what the King wants…)
o Outrage in the Philosophes
1774 – Louis XVI becomes king
- Reverses Maupeou’s moves – dissolves new Parlement and reinstates the old one
- Old one is troubles by infighting
Overview of France 1789
- Largest country in the world
- Most advanced, wealthiest, but not per capita (America of it’s day)
- Most exports
- Culture dominated
- Science at the forefront
- Society divided into three medieval factions
Three Estates
1. Clergy – Catholic (exempt from taxes, 1% of the population, 20% of the land)
a. Church men often involved in politics because the king appoints bishops à who appoint lower clergy
2. Nobility – (exempt from taxes, 2-4%, 25% of the land)
a. Retained medieval right to tax their peasants (who also encountered the royal tax as well)
3. Everybody else(Bourgeoisie, Middle class, peasants), owned about 40% of the land and still obligated to their local Corvéeà had to put in so many days a year working for their noble masters and nobles also held the hunting rights on their land (that of the peasants)
a. Church tax
b. Taille (land tax per capita)
c. Income tax
d. Poll tax
e. Salt tax
***Trigger of the Revolution***
- The Middle Class had economic power and they wanted political power to go with it
Americaà fighting a foreign power, France, fighting a domestic power
Everybody had to pay taxes, no exceptions, so nobody had a reason to be upset in that respect of inequality
Letters of cachet – they could grab you and put you in prison without a warrant
Causes of the Revolution
o Middle Class wanted a say, challenged power, fallout from the American Revolution (of they can, so can we)
o French Nobility/ Government helped that Americans (from the 3rd estates pocket) to get one back against the British
1. Ideas – The Enlightenment – social contract, John Locke, Adam Smith, Rousseau
2. Distortion of the three estates
a. Not real representation (5% control everybody)
b. Was there really a huge rift between the middle class and the nobility? (you could buy titles, marriage etc. )
c. Aristocrats came back from America and advocated it in France
3. ***Financial Mismanagement*** (France it Bankrupt, colonial wars w/ England, etc.)
a. The Government couldn’t declare bankruptcy because the money was on the people who weren’t in the government
b. Had no way to create additional income except to raise taxes…and that didn’t go over too well….SOOOOOOO
c. REVOLUTION (!!!)

- Inflation (1730-1780)
o Prices of goods go up by 65% but wages only go up 22%
o Increased taxes ONLY on the lower class
§ Necker tried to get Louis XVI to raise taxes on nobility, he got fired…
- 1787 – Assembly of Notables (Louis XVI)
o Parlement is trying to stop him from increasing taxes
o Notables refuse to give up they exemptions
o Assembly controls finances (controlled by the nobles) Louis Refuses
o Everything controlled by the Estates General
§ Louis refuses, everything is controlled by decree (including income tax)
o Nobles block taxes through Parlement
o Louis tried to exile judges
§ Calls the Estates General into session (1788) and it meets in 1789
§ Louis doubles the number of representatives for the 3rd estate
§ Estates General will vote by estate, therefore the middle class vote will be diluted because they will still only have one vote.
France is currently experiencing the worst depression in Centuries
- 3rd estate refuse to vote
o Declares itself in June to be a national assembly à Louis XVI locks them out of the General Assembly so they go to a tennis court, take the oath where they swear to stay together until they have a constitution
o Louis brings in troops à king +nobles vs. 3rd estate
July 14thm 1789 à storming of the Bastille, not to free prisoners but to get mentions, but their weren’t as many as they thought
Lafayette was the leader
The storming of the Bastille saved the National Assembly
The Great Fear – did not remain contained to Paris
- Lower classes attacked manor homes
- No taxes paid
- Got rid of feudalism
- Everybody is taxes
- Ended things like the special hunting rights
- Peasants became a force for stability
August 1789 – Declaration of the right of Man and Citizen (influenced by America)
- Liberty, property, security, resistance to oppression, freedom, and equality, freedom of religion and expression
- Freedom = anything that doesn’t harm anybody else
- Separation of power
- Citizenship for ALL (including women, surfs, etc.)
- National Assembly started to fall apart due to infighting
Bourgeois Phase (1789-1792) – aka The Age of Montesquieu
Crane Brinton – Anatomy of a revolution – modern historians see some value in what he wrote, but modern revolutions tend to work a little differently now
- He borrowed his terms from pathology (revolution is like a disease that spreads)
- Symptoms of a revolution, proceeds to a crisis stage, which ends when the fever breaks
- After the break there is a period of convalescence, sometimes interrupted by a relapse or two before full recovery
Basic Principles
- Only if people from all social classes are discontented
- People feel held down
- People are hopeful about the future but are forces to accept less than what they hoped for
- Growing bitterness between classes
- Social classes closest to one another ten to be the most hostile
- Intellectuals and thinkers give up on society
- Government does not respond to society
- Rulers begin to doubt themselves
- Government unable to support itself or get support from another groups to save themselves
- Government cannot organize its finances correctly
Main reason for revolution: breaded prices went from 50% of their income to 80% of their income in ONE year
Rich people can borrow money…poor can’t
Under all previous Louis’, they never spent even 100% of their budget…under Louis XVI government spending skyrocketed to 160% of their income (!!!)




And for the first time, it's acutally retained some of my outline form... nice