The French Revolution.pdf

History

1. -S Dhiya
The

French
Revolution

2. French Society During the Late
Eighteenth Century

3. Introduction
●King Louis XVI of the Bourbon dynasty ascended the throne at the age of 20, in
1774. He was married to the Austrian princess, Marie Antoinette.
●He found the royal coffers empty, due to long years of war.
●Added expenses:
○Maintaining the immense palace of Versailles
○War against British helping American colonies gain independence. This added more than a
billion livres (previous currency of France) to a debt of more than 2 billion livres.
○Lenders began charging 10% interest
●Taxes on people were increased to meet the expenses of the state.

4. The system of estates in French Society
●French society then was divided into 3 estates, the 3rd being the only one which paid
taxes.
●The 1st estate was the Clergy, consisting those who worked in the Churches.
●The 2nd was the Nobility, being the royals, aristocrats and nobles, excluding the king.
●The 3rd estate was made up of the rest of the population, including the merchants,
lawyers, peasants and servants.
●The members of the 1st and 2nd estates enjoyed some privileges, such as extraction of
feudal dues and exemption from taxes.
●The Clergy collected taxes from the peasants in the name of the Church. These were
called tithes.
●The members of the 3rd estate had to pay taxes to the state. Including
○Taille, the direct tax
○Indirect taxes levied on items like salt & tobacco
●About 90% of the population were peasants, but about 60% of the land was not owned by
them. It was owned by the nobility, church, and richer members of 3rd estate.

5. The Spider and the Fly
●This is an anonymous etching,
portraying the problems of the peasants.
●It shows the nobleman as the spider, and
the peasant as the fly.
●The fly toils away for its food, while a
spider simply consumes the fly caught
in its web.
●This is symbolic of the fact that the
nobleman, like the spider, has trapped
the peasant into providing him with
everything. He sits there and accepts it
all like it is his due.

6. The Struggle to Survive
●The population of France increased from 23 million to 28 million between 1715 and
1789.
●There was a rapid increase in demand for foodgrains. Production could not keep up
with the demand.
●The price of bread, their staple food, increased.
●Wages did not keep pace with the rising prices, so gap between poor and the rich
widened.
●Things became worse when natural calamities reduced the harvest.
●Led to a subsistence crisis, and extreme condition where the baic means of livelihood
are at risk.

7. A Growing middle class envisages and end to
Privileges
●Peasants and workers had, in the past, revolted against increased taxes and scarcity of food. But
they did not have the means to taek full-scale steps to change the social and economic order.
●18th century saw the emergence of social groups called the middle class, who earned through
overseas trade and manufacture of goods such as woollen and silk textiles.
●Educated members of the 3rd estate believed that nobody should be privileged by birth, only by
merit.
●Ideas envisaging a free society with equal laws for all were brought forth by philosophers like
John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau. They challenged the doctrine of the monarch having
complete power, and proposed a form of governance based on the people and their
representatives.
●Montesquieu proposed division of powers between the legislature, executive, and judiciary.
●This model was enforced in the USA, and this gave inspiration to the French political thinkers.
●These philosophies spread among the people quickly.
●The news of the King planning to impose further taxes generated anger and protest.

8. The Outbreak of the Revolution

9. Meeting of the Estates General
●In those days, the monarch in France could not impose taxes by his will.
●He had to call a meeting of the Estates General, a political body with representatives from
all 3 estates. Then the proposals would be passed based on a vote.
●On 5th May 1789, Louis XIV called an assembly of the Estates General in Versailles.
●The 1st and 2nd estates sent 300 representatives each seated on the two rows by the sides.
The 600 representatives of the 3rd estate had to stand at the back.
●Peasants, artisans, and women were not allowed. Their grievances and demands were listed
in around 40,000 letters brought by the representatives.
●In the past, it was such that each estate had one vote. Louis XVI wanted to continue with
the same practice, but the members of the 3rd estate demanded that each person in the
assembly have one vote. This was one of the democratic principles put forth by
philosophers like Rosseau in his book The Social Contract.
●The king rejected this proposal, which led the members of the 3rd estate to walk out of the
assembly hall in protest.

10. The Tennis Court Oath
●The representatives of the 3rd estate saw themselves as the face of the entire French nation.
●On 20th June 1789, they assembled in an indoor tennis court in the grounds of Versailles.
●They were led by Mirabeau and Abbé Sieyès.
●Mirabeau was of a noble family, but was convinced that the society with feudal privilege
must not continue. He delivered powerful speeches to the crowds at Versailles.
●Abbé Sieyès was originally a priest. He wrote an influential pamphlet called ‘What is the
Third Estate?’
●There they declared themselves a National Assembly and swore not to disperse until they
had drafted a constitution for their country which reduced the powers of the monarch.
●This came to be known as the Tennis Court Oath.

11. Turmoil at France
●As the National Assembly drafted the constitution in Versailles, the rest of France was
in turmoil.
●They had had a severe winter which yielded a bad harvest.
●So, the price of bread rose. This was often exploited by bakers who harded supplies.
●People had to spend hours standing in long queues at the bakery to buy food.
●Fed up, crowds of angry women stormed the shops.

12. The Storming of the Bastille
●On the morning of 14th July 1789, the people of Paris were in a state of alarm.
●The king had ordered his troops to march into the city, and rumors had it that he
would soon order them to open fire upon the citizens.
●Around 7,000 citizens gathered in front of the town hall with the aim to form a
people’s militia. They broke into government buildings to obtain firearms.
●A group of several hundred people marched to the eastern part of the city. They
stormed Bastille, the fortress-prison, in hopes of finding ammunition there.
●The commander of Bastille was killed in the ensuing fight. The prisoners of Bastille,
though only seven in number, were released.
●The structure was pulled down, as it was hated by the people. They thought it
symbolised the despotic power of their ruler.
●The following days saw more rioting and protests in Paris and the countryside.

13. The Great Fear
●Rumors started in the countryside that the lords
of the manor had hired people to destroy ripe
crops. They spread rapidly from village to
village.
●Caught in a frenzy of fear, peasants in many
districts attacked chateaux, which were castles or
stately residences belonging to the king or a
nobleman.
●They looted hoarded grain, and burnt down the
documents containing records of the dues they
had to pay to the manor.
●Many nobles fled their homes, most migrating to
neighbouring countries.
Spread of the Great Fear

14. The National Assembly
●Faced with mounting revolts from his subjects, King Louis XVI finally recognized
the National Assembly (refer the Tennis Court Oath), and accepted the principle that
the monarch’s powers would be limited by a constitution.
●On the night of August 4th, 1789, the Assembly passed a decree abolishing the feudal
tax and obligatory systems.
●The Clergy too were forced to give up their privileges.
●Tithes was abolished.
●Lands owned by the Church were confisticated.
●This resulted in the government acquiring assets worth atleast 2 billion livres.

15. France becomes a Constitutional Monarchy
●The draft of the constitution was completed by the National Assembly in 1791.
●Its main objective was to limit the monarch’s powers.
●Powers were separated into the Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary.
●This system made France a ‘constitutional monarchy’. While there was a
monarch, his powers would by checked by the constitution.

16. The Election Process
●Once the French Constitution was written, the system of elections came into effect.
●However, not all citizens were allowed to vote. The people were classified into ‘active citizens’
and ‘passive citizens’.
●‘Active citizens’ consisted of men above the age of 25, who paid taxes equal to a minimum of
3 days of a labourer’s wage. Only they were allowed to vote. This group contained about
two-thirds of adult male citizens.
●‘Passive citizens’ were the remaining men and all the women of the country. They did not have
the power to vote.
●The National Assembly, made of 745 members, were indirectly elected by the active citizens.
●The active citizens, about 4 million of them in a total population of 28 million, elected 50,000
men known as electors. These electors voted to select the National Assembly.
●To qualify as an elector and then as a member of the Assembly, one had to be among the
highest bracket of taxpayers.
●The active citizens aso elect the Judge.
●The monarch, coming under the executive, retained a few powers. He could choose the
ministers under him, and had a ‘veto power’ over the decisions of the National Assembly. This
meant that he could refuse to approve a law or bill, therefore preventing its execution.

17. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
●The Constitution began with a ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen’.
●The rights listed here were established as ‘natural and inalienable’ rights. That is,they
belonged to all humans from birth and could not be taken away.
●It was the state’s duty to protect each citizen’s natural rights.
●Listed below are the rights:
1.Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based
only on common utility.
2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and
resistance to oppression.
3.The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation. No body and no
individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation.
4.Liberty consists in the ability to do whatever does not harm another; hence the
exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other limits than those which assure
to other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only
be determined by the law.

18. 5. The law only has the right to prohibit those actions which are injurious to society. No hindrance should be
put in the way of anything not prohibited by the law, nor may any one be forced to do what the law does not
require.
6. The law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, in person or by their
representatives, in its formation. It must be the same for everyone whether it protects or penalizes. All citizens
being equal in its eyes are equally admissible to all public dignities, offices, and employments, according to
their ability, and with no other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.
7. No man may be indicted, arrested, or detained except in cases determined by the law and according to the
forms which it has prescribed. Those who seek, expedite, execute, or cause to be executed arbitrary orders
should be punished; but citizens summoned or seized by virtue of the law should obey instantly, and render
themselves guilty by resistance.
8. Only strictly and obviously necessary punishments may be established by the law, and no one may be
punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated before the time of the offense, and legally
applied.
9. Every man being presumed innocent until judged guilty, if it is deemed indispensable to arrest him, all rigor
unnecessary to securing his person should be severely repressed by the law.
10. No one should be disturbed for his opinions, even in religion, provided that their manifestation does not
trouble public order as established by law.
11. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every
citizen may therefore speak, write, and print freely, if he accepts his own responsibility for any abuse of this
liberty in the cases set by the law.

19. 12. The safeguard of the rights of man and the citizen requires public powers. These
powers are therefore instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the private benefit of
those to whom they are entrusted.
13. For maintenance of public authority and for expenses of administration, common
taxation is indispensable. It should be apportioned equally among all the citizens according
to their capacity to pay.
14. All citizens have the right, by themselves or through their representatives, to have
demonstrated to them the necessity of public taxes, to consent to them freely, to follow the
use made of the proceeds, and to determine the means of apportionment, assessment, and
collection, and the duration of them.
15. Society has the right to hold accountable every public agent of the administration.
16. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the separation of powers
not settled has no constitution.
17. Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one may be deprived of it except
when public necessity, certified by law, obviously requires it, and on the condition of a just
compensation in advance.

20. Most of the people in 18th Century France could not read or write. Hence, images and symbols
were frequently use to communicate important ideas.
Political Symbols
The broken chain: Freedom The eye within a triangle
radiating light: Knowledge
The bundle of rods or fasces:
Strength lies in unity

21. Sceptre: Symbol of royal
power
Snake biting its tail to form a
ring: Symbol for Eternity
Blue-white-red: The National
colours of France
The winged woman:
Personification of the Law
The law tablet: The law is the
same for all, and all are equal
before it
Red Phrygian cap: Cap worn
by a freed slave

22. THANK
YOU!