French Revolution
King Louis XVI and his wife were spending lots of money and France was in debt. The American revolution put ideas in the French people heads and they were starving to death. It was because of the high price of bread caused by inflation and Frances debt. so no one could afford the bread and everyone was starving to death, thousands died. There were unemployment issues and people were unhappy, so they wanted a big change. Also some new ideas came out from 3 men. One of them came up with something called “Natural Law”. This law was created by Jean Jacques Rousseau and it was that citizens would vote on laws and they would follow the laws that the majority wanted. Another was created by Voltaire, who was against the church and believed that absolute monarchy was good for society. And the last one was Montesquieu who believed that a monarch should work with an elected parliament. Now the country had a power system in the shape of a pyramid. The king was on top and then the first estate, which is made up of clerics, then the second estate which is made up of clerics and nobles, and finally the third estate which was pretty much everyone else. Because the country was in debt, the king got the 1st, 2nd and third estate generals together to help solve the financial crisis. The church was the first estate which was 5% of the population and the rich nobles were the second estate which made up 1.5% of the population and third estate was the rest of the population. Then the 3rd estate became the national assembly because they made up 98% of the population and the king didn't like that so locked them out of their meeting place. Also the 3rd estate was paying almost all off the taxes, while the rest of the estates were paying barely any, and the 1st and 2nd estates had equal voting power to the third estate. Then the National Assembly went into a royal tennis court and made the tennis court oath. The tennis court oath is basically saying they wouldn't split up until they had a parliament. Later a guy named Robespierre, one of the revolution generals, started something called the reign of terror. He started off against the death penalty but later started abuse it. Anyone who was not openly fond of the revolution were beheaded. In the end he got beheaded by the Guilition for killing so many people, and for hindering the revolution. If the french revolution never happened, we wouldn't have a lot of the rights we do today.
By: Ben Thomas
By: Ben Thomas
- Interactive Resource Click Module 3
- Username: laketrail
- Password: humanities9
- Simple Wikepedia
- Khan Academy Video
- http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/
- Crash Course on the French Revolution(YouTube)
- Cranny, M. (1998). Crossroads: A meeting of nations. (pp. 56, 59 - 78). Toronto, Canada: Pearson Education Canada INC.
Images From
http://ashleylab.blogspot.ca/2013/11/hello-again-this-is-short-movie-i.html
http://www.oneworldofnations.com/2013_09_08_archive.html