Section I: The French Revolution Begins Notes1. What time period does the French

Revolution occur? What is the population of Paris during this time?

2. How would you define and unjust government?

3. Would you risk taking part in a revolution against your government despite the consequences failure might bring?

Answers to Lead-ins

1. 1770’s, France/26 Million People

2. One that favors one group of citizens

over another, refuses basic human

rights, harsh, repressive.

3. Maybe if it threatened your family’s

safety, or you hate to see suffering.

4 Reasons France is the

Epicenter of the Enlightenment

1. Large Population

2. Prosperous Foreign Trade

3. Center of Enlightenment

4. Wonderful Culture (Cuisine, more

opportunity)

But, success is deceiving

1. Bad harvest for a few years

2. High prices for goods and services

3. High Taxes!

4. Disturbing questions raised by Locke,

Voltaire, Rousseau

The “Old Regime”

3 Estates/ p. 652Who First Estate Second Estate Third Estate

Power/Influence

Views of

Enlightenment

Percentage of

Population

% of Income

paid in taxes

The “Old Regime”

3 EstatesWho First Estate Second

Estate

Third Estate

Power/Influence Clergy of

Roman

Catholic

Church

Rich nobles

Highest offices

in government

Included

Bourgeoise, urban

lower class, and

peasant farmers

Views of

Enlightenment

Loathe the

Enlightenment

Disagreed

about

Enlightenment

Ideas

Embraced

enlightenment

ideas, but had no

power to influence

government

Resented Wealthy

Percentage of

Population

Less than 1% 2% 97%

% of Income

paid in taxes

2 % 0 % 50%

3 Groups within the 3rd Estate1. Bourgeoisie-

– Bankers, Factory owners, merchants,

professionals.

– Well educated, believed in Liberty and Equality.

(Paid High Tax) Why would B resent nobles?

2. Urban Poor

– Trades people, laborers, servants. Tough life!

3. Peasants or farmers.

– 80% of 26M.

– ½ income to nobles, tithes, and taxes to king.

Very eager for change

Caricature de la période 1789. Le titre est : "A faut espérer q'eu jeu là

finira ben tôt" (il faut espérer que ce jeu-là finira bientôt.)

3 Economic Problems in 1780’s

1. High tax makes business profit tough

2. High tax causes inflation, cost of living

goes up!

3. Bad weather = lower crop production

(Grain) Why is this bad news?

Weak LeadershipLouis XVI Marie Antoinette

1. Indecisive, wont take action

2. Waits until France practically has

no money left. Decides to tax

nobility

1. She’s Austrian

2. Nickname “Madame Defecit”

(Jewels, Gambling, Gifts)

Spent 1.5M in gambling one year

5 Essential Questions From Yesterday’s

Notes1. Why does the second estate, along with the

third estate now hate the King? What do the

nobles do?

2. What’s the Estate’s General? Why does the

third estate get locked out of the meeting?

3. What does the third estate do?

4. What does the storming of the Bastille signal?

5. How does the Women’s Bread March make

Louis XVI a basically powerless leader?

Meeting of the Estates General

• Second Estate forces Louis to call a

meeting of the Estates General

(assembly of representatives from all 3

estates) to approve the tax –May 1789

• First meeting in 175 years. Why?

• So, vote for each estate. Who always

loses?

New Spokesman

• Sympathetic clergyman, named Emmanuel

Sieyes, urged the Third Estate delegates to form

The National Assembly.

• Change/reform laws in the name of the French

people. (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity)

• Vote to form the N.A. was a vote to end the

absolute monarchy in France. (6/17/1789)

1st deliberate act of revolution!

The Tennis Court Oath

• 3 days later, the new National Assembly

found themselves locked out of their

meeting room

• Found a nearby indoor tennis court and

broke the doors in.

• Pledged to stay until they drafted a new

constitution.

• Nobles and clergymen joined the new

National Assembly

The Tennis Court Oath

The Response and Rumors!

• Louis’ response was to call in his

mercenary Swiss Guard to surround

Versailles.

• Rumors from Paris:

1. That the Swiss Guard would execute the NA

2. That the Swiss Guard would massacre

French citizens

Complete Anarchy. Mobs of people

gathered weapons

Storming of the Bastille Prison

• Mobs of people

descended on this

prison to seize

gunpowder.

• Overtook guards and

warden and put their

heads on pikes!

(7/14/1789)

• Act is very symbolic.

Why?

• Second Act!

Bastille

Women’s Bread March– October 1789, thousands of Parisian women rioted

over the price of bread weapons towards Versailles.

– Louis and family left for Paris under guard of

military.

– Q. Why didn’t army take out women’s bread riot?

Section II:

TERROR

T = The National Assembly

Reforms France with….• The Declaration of Rights of Man and of

Citizens

– Men are born free, remain free and equal

with 4 major rights:

1.Liberty

2.Property

3.Equal Justice

4.Freedom of Speech

T = The National Assembly

Reforms France with….• The N.A. also takes over church lands and

sells them to pay off France’s debt.

• Catholics are upset! Why?

• In 1791, Louis XVI reluctantly approves new

constitution /New legislative power is formed

OLD Lawmaking Body NEW Lawmaking Body

E =Emerging Factions of

Government and Non-Government

Government of Legislative Assembly

Left

Radicals

Centrist

Moderates

Right

Conservatives

-Want Major

Change

Few Changes Hardly any

change

Non-Government

Emigres: (Nobles) who had fled France and restore the Old

Regime

Sans-Culottes: (Urban Working class) Wore regular trousers

unlike the knee breeches that the nobles wore

The Political Spectrum

Jacobins

Sans-Culottes Emigres

1790s:

TODAY:

Final Thought

Could you make a list of Liberals,

Moderates, and Conservatives

today? (1 min)

R= Radicals Take Control

(The Jacobins) Jacobin Meeting House

Leader is Jean Paul Marat/Editor of Newspaper “Friend of the People”

Called for the death of those who supported the king

Membership mostly middle class.

Tried Louis for treason and was sentenced to death by the guillotine

Jean-Paul Marat

R= Robespierre and the Reign of Terror

• Set out to build a “republic of

virtue”

– Sundays GONE!

– “Old fashioned, dangerous”

• 1793 -1794 was known as

the “Reign of Terror”

– Ruled like a dictator

– Enemies of CPS guillotined

– Many were people who

challenged his leadership

Robespierre

Leader of the Committee of

Public Safety

Primary Source

If the basis of popular government in time of peace is

virtue, the basis of popular government in time of

revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue without which

terror is murderous, terror without which virtue is

powerless. Terror is nothing else than swift, severe,

indomitable justice; it flows, then, from virtue.

-Robespierre, “ On the Morals and Political

Principles of Domestic Policy

• How did he justify the use of terror?

R= Robespierre and the Reign

of Terror (cont.)But who are the enemies of the CPS?

• 40,000 people were executed

• About 85 percent were peasants or members

of the urban poor or middle class (3rd estate)

Different Social Classes Executed

28%

31%

25%

8%7%

O = Off with the Absolute

Monarchs Head!

• Vote by L.A.:387 to 334 to execute

• End of an era of absolute monarchs in France

Marie Antoinette on the Way to the

Guillotine

Marie Antoinette Died in October, 1793

The “Monster” Guillotine

The last guillotine execution in France was in 1939!

The Guillotine

When executioner cranked the blade

to the top, a mechanism released

the blade and severed the victims head from the body

Doctors believed that a victim’s

head retained its hearing and

eyesight for 15 minutes after

beheading

Before each execution, bound victims traveled from the prison to execution in ½ hour processions through

the streets of Paris

Guillotine

Chopping a

Carrot

The Arrest of Robespierre

The Revolution ConsumesIts Own Children!

Danton Awaits Execution, 1793

Robespierre Lies WoundedBefore the Revolutionary

Tribunal that will order him to be guillotined, 1794.

R = Rise of Napoleon

Will become dictator in a coup d’etat

which is a takeover of the government of

France by military force.

French Revolution

Anticipation Chart Activity

Directions: For each slide do the following:

1. Write the description in detail as to

what is happening in the picture

2.Write the actual meaning or event taking

place

1

2

3

4with one stroke

severed his head

from his body. The

youngest of the

guards, who

seemed about

eighteen,

immediately seized

the head, and

showed it to the

people as he walked

around the scaffold.

At first an awful

silence prevailed, at

length some cries of

“Long Live the

Republic!” were

heard...the voices

multiplied and in less

than ten minutes this

cry, a thousand times

repeated, became the

universal shout

of the multitude, and

every hat was in the

air

5 …to the right were the

benches on which the

accused were placed

in several rows...to the

left was the jury...

...the weighty knife

was then dropped with

a heavy fall; and, with

incredible rapidity, two

executioners tossed

the body into the

basket, while another

threw the head after

it...

...the next unfortunate

soul was

placed in position...

October, 1793