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Classes of People in France

First Estate

• Clergy– Most wealthy

– Personally owned 10% of the land

– Used Church land for personal profit

– Paid little taxes

Second Estate

• Nobles• 2% of population• Wealthy land

owners • Paid little or no

taxes

Third Estate

• 97% of population• Several Classes

– Bourgeoisie: merchants and artisans

– Laborers– Peasants (80% of the

Third Estate)• Paid 1/2 of their income to

taxes

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Three EstatesFirst Estate-Clergy

Second Estate-Nobles

Third Estate-Everyone Else

Louis XVI

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Marie Antoinette

“Let Them Eat Cake …..”Letter to Mom

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Condition of the treasury

• Old debt-Country Bankrupt

• American Revolution and foreign wars

• Solutions:– Tax Nobles or

– Call the Estates General

Meeting of the Estates-General

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You call this voting?Estates General (175 years ago)

• Each estate gets 1 vote

• 1st and 2nd Estate vote as block

• Third Estate (97% of population) No Power

Meet in separate rooms and each “group” gets one vote …

Vote always 2-1

Third Estate

• Wants to change rules of the Estates General

• Locked out of the Estates-General by King

• Adjourn to Indoor Tennis Court-take oath to stand together

The Tennis Court Oath• Oath to stick together

until they draw up a new constitution

• Call themselves the National Assembly

• First act of Revolution

• End of absolute monarchy

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“Yes, but ….”

• Louis 16th: • Agrees to new constitution

• One Man-One Vote -anything to get that tax money

However… Louis 16th sends Army to Paris- Assembly sees a threat.

Storming The Bastille

• Take control of the prison (few prisoners inside)

• Symbol of “people power”

• Bastille Day- July 14 (1789)

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Great Fear• Women’s March-

(the Bread March) on Versailles

• Louis 16th and family forced to move to Paris

Declaration

When in the Course of human events,

it becomes necessary

for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,

and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,

a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,

it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,

and to institute new Government.

Declaration of Rights of Man

• Signed by National Assembly (August 26)

• Natural rights are:– life, liberty, property

• Want limited constitutional monarch

• With Legislative Assembly

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The representatives of the French people,

organized as a National Assembly,

believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body,

shall remind them continually of their rights and duties;

in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions

and may thus be more respected,

and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all.

Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:

Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette

• Try to escape to Austria (June 1791)• Captured and returned to Paris

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“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”

“LA MARSEILLAISE ”Words

Split into factions:

Radicals

Sans Culottes

Jacobins

Marat

Robespierre

Danton

Moderates

Girondists

Conservatives

Emigres (returning nobles/escapees)

War

• Austria fears Radicals• Royals in dangers • Fears Revolution threat

to monarchies

“Don’t hurt our Marie Antoinette or we’ll sack Paris” says Austria!

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More War

• France v. Austria• Prussia supports

Austria (they have a king to protect)

• Later: England, Spain and Holland will side with Austria against France

France

PrussiaEngland

Spain

Holland

Austria

Government Transition• Commune takes

control …. Radical government. Elects new body:

National Convention

Primary Source

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Poor Ol’ Marat

• Newspaper editor and speech writer

• Pursued by King• Committee of Public Safety

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Charlotte Corday

• Brother death ordered by Marat

• Killed Marat in the bathtub

• David’s painting-

“The Death of Marat”

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Meet the Mob

• Riots in France• The September Massacres-1000s of “Royalists” -

murdered• Louis is tried, convicted, and beheaded

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The Guillotine

Mr. Guillotin

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Robespierre

• Wants to erase all signs of the monarchy

• Leader of Committee of Public Safety

• Reign of Terror• Mad with power

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Bye Bye Robespierre

• Beheaded by National Convention

• Wants less radical reforms

• Become the Directory ( weak and ineffective)

Changing of the guard ….

• Third Estate• Estates General• National Assembly• Commune• National Convention

– Committee of Public Safety

• Directory

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