French Revolution

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Causes: economical
- The Estate is bankrupted: - foreign wars (American War) - luxury spending on the court - The priviledged don't pay taxes - Third Estate: productiveclasses, taxed very heavily, subjected to feudal dues. They have to pay rents to landholders, tith to clergy and they must do the corvée (work in the lands of Lord for free ). - Subsistence farmingproduces less than neccesary - Recurrent famines
Third Estate carries the weight of Clergy and Nobility

Causes: ideological
The Enlightenment

Rousseau: popular sovereignty Voltaire attacksabsolutism and clergy Montesquieu: separation of powers

Causes: social
- Estate society is unequal. - Privileged groups aren't productive and don't pay taxes - Third estate is the only productive groupand pays the whole taxes - Bourgeoisie owns the economical power, but not political - Peasants haven't got enough lands to subsist. A million of them lives as if they were slaves
The Third Estatetaxes

The Estates-General. 1789
Parliament created in 1302 and not met since 1614. Called by king Louis XVI after the negative of the privileged to pay taxes. Each estate has a vote, so the allianceof privileged always win. Nobility: 270 members Clergy: 291 members Third Estate: 578 members In the Estates-General the members present the cahiers de doleances (list of grievances) to the king.Most of these cahiers demand political and economical reforms.

Siéyes proposes a meeting for Third Estate only, with some members of nobility and clergy. For Siéyes, the Third Estate is the Nation,because privileged are only 1% of total population. This meeting will be the National Assembly

The National Assembly
On June 17th members of Third Estate proclaim the National Assembly: “Therewhere their members are the National Assembly is” said Mounier. On June 20th, Tennis Court Oath: the Third Estate will never disband until a new Constitution is written. A week later, the king legalizes...