Transcript The French Revolution - David W. Butler High School

• 1. Explain the federal system of government
we have.
• 2. What is the Bill of Rights?
• 3. Why did the founding fathers throw out the
Articles of Confederation and draft a new
constitution?
What do you KNOW…..
about the French Revolution?
1. The Causes
The French Revolution
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population
land ownership
1st Estate
2nd
3rd Estate
Estate
French Revolution
Long Term Causes: Social Conditions
The 3 Estates
– 1st Estate
• clergy, exempt from tax
– 2nd Estate
• nobles, high gov’t/military positions, wanted power from
king
– 3rd Estate
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commoners, paid most taxes, least amount of land
Peasants
Craftsmen, shop keepers, wage earners
Bourgeoisie – middle class, doctors, lawyers, bankers,
etc. resented nobles but wanted to be like them
3 Estates
Short Term Cause: Financial Crisis
• Harsh winters, frozen rivers= food shortages & unemployment
• Gov’t spending on wars/luxuries
– Louis XV “apres moi le deluge”- (“After me, comes the flood”)
• left country in debt
– Marie Antoinette• Austrian teenager
• Wanted to please French aristocrats
Marie Antoinette
Check
Explain 4 causes of
the French Revolution!
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Louis XVI
From the Estates General
to the National Assembly
• Estates General – composed of representatives from each
Estate
– Met at Versailles- May 1789
– Each Estate= 1 vote
• 3rd Estate had twice as many people (1st & 2nd always out voted the 3rd)
– called for 1 representative = 1 vote
• rejected by king (sided w/ nobles)
• Influenced by Enlightenment ideas
– some nobles and clergy leave 1st and 2nd Estates and join
3rd Estate to form National Assembly and write a
constitution
Beginning of Violence
• Tennis Court Oath
– Louis XVI locks National Assembly out of meeting place
to stop constitution (June 20,1789)
– Representatives meet at tennis court, swear oath
• They will keep meeting until they write a constitution
– Anywhere they meet is the National Assembly
• King- afraid of violence, puts troops and weapons in Paris
Tennis Court Oath
Storming the Bastille
• Bastille- old prison in Paris w/ few prisoners
– Louis XVI puts weapons and cannons pointing out into the
streets
• July 14, 1789-
(Bastille Day/ French National Day)
– people afraid of soldiers,
– storm le Bastille to take away weapons
• “Great Fear”
– Sparked rebellions/violence across country (also rumors of violence)
– peasants against nobles
• Signals collapse of king’s authority
Storming the Bastille
Destruction of the Old Regime
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen:
– August 26, 1789- charter of liberties written
– Borrowed from Enlightenment thought
– questioned to include women…it didn’t
• Harsh winter- bad harvest led to starving conditions in Paris
in 1789
• Parisian women marched to Versailles
– demanding bread and royal family move to Paris
• 1791 new constitution finished
– Limited monarchy
– Legislative assembly to make laws
– Men over 25 who owned land could vote
Women’s March
Reaction of Louis XVI
• Louis XVI
– pretended to play along w/ new constitution
– Plotted to escape to Austria, raise an army and crush
Revolution
• June 1791- he and Marie Antoinette snuck out of Paris and
fled for the border
– Stopped to have lunch in Varennes, recognized, caught,
taken back to Paris and put under house arrest
Flight to Varennes
Radicalization of Revolution
• w/o support of Louis XVI, Constitution no good
• Power led by Paris Commune –
– radical/extreme group, tired of compromise, economic problems
– sans-culottes – without breeches, lower classes, not elite, common
man, patriot
– Called for universal male suffrage
• Church lands seized
– clergy elected by people,
– paid by state gov’t,
– answerable to France, not pope
• Angered many French with this move, mostly peasants
Paris Commune and Sans-Culottes