French rev - The fall of the ancien regime

Question 1

What is the ancien regime

Answer 1

A feudal social system that consisted three estates of society - the nobility, the clergy and the commoners - comrpised of absolutism

Question 2

4

The first estate summary

Answer 2

• CLERGY - comprised of the Church (monks, friars)- made up 0.5% of the population
• Responsibilities - services in churches, controlled all education and hospitals, dealt with matrimonal disputes, censorship and heresy
• Tithes paid to them - taxes paid to Church by landowners based on proportion of crops used - income was 50M livres a year, France - 7%
• Privileges - had support of king, exempt from direct taxation, highly influential to rural areas

Question 3

5

The second estate summary

Answer 3

• NOBLES - 140K in a population of 28M, owned 1-4 - 1/3 of French land
• Noblesse d’epee - hereidtary nobles who were close advisros to monarch
• Noblesse de robe - risen in royal service and gained titles they passed on
• Privileges - right to impose payments on the peasantas of their estates, to hold court and freedom from direct tax
• But some were poor, poorly educated and some relied on profits

Question 4

3

The third estate summary

Answer 4

• COMMONERS - 97% - town dwelling bourgeorisie and peasants - 19th century - 2.3M
• Bourgeorise - wealthy merchants, overseas trade, lawyers, wealthy financiers
• Seigneurial dues - banalties - annual payments for the use of critical infrastructure - flour mills, breeding fees - charged a fee on breeding becayse McSegnvir was the only personal that owned pregnant cattle

Question 5

2

Strengths of Louis XVI

Answer 5

• Intellectually curious and gifted student with a hobby for locks
• Strong and healthy

Question 6

4

Weaknesses of Louis XVI

Answer 6

• Neglected by parents so not prepared for throne with strict and conservative education
• French public hostile to marriage and alarmed he had no heirs - l’autrichienne - resentment of ‘despotic monarchy’
• Dull personality, quiet and shy, conventional and unimaginitive
• Lacked firmness and decisiveness on both domestic and foreign policies

Question 7

3

Who was Montesquieu?

Answer 7

• L’Esprit des lois - 1753
• Believed liberal constitutional monrachy was the best system of gov for people who prized freedom over king domination
• Seperation of the vbranches, power should be divided between king and Parl that represents people through the use of estates), share sov as a permanent check on anything becoming disptoic and arbitrary power

Question 8

Who was Rousseau?

Answer 8

• Freedom is ruling oneself, law that we’eve created and formed - people should keep sov in own hands, nation has control over itself

Question 9

2

Who was Voltaire?

Answer 9

• Fought for civil rights, denounced hypocrises and injustices of ancien regime, unfair balance of power as the french bourgeoise is too small and ineffecticve and aristoricacy is parisitic an corrupt
• Believed church was a static force

Question 10

Foreign policies that cost France

Answer 10

• Seven Years War - lost significant land in Amercia and money
• American War of Independence

Question 11

4

Who was Turgot 1776?

Answer 11

• Influenced by the ideas of the physiocrats, economists who beleved that free trade was the key to higher gov income because free trade would lead to economic growth from more taxes paid
• Tried to remove price controls and guilds to increase tax
• Tried to propose property tax
• Tried to get the king to stay out of the US War of Independence (cost 1.3B livres)

Question 12

How successful was Turgot?

Answer 12

Both Turgot’s reform and the way he went about them aroused great hostility from those whose interests were threatened and Louis dismissed him

Question 13

4

Who was Necker 1776-1789?

Answer 13

• Tried a different route of reducing royal expenditures and increase royal share of farmed taxes
• Abolished 48 posts of recievers - general who collected direct taxes and replaced them with 12 officials answerable to his department
• Abolished 400 ceremonial offices in the King’s kitchen
• Published account of king - ‘Compte rendu’ - based his calculations on false information

Question 14

How successful was Necker?

Answer 14

• Offending the rested interest of property owners and those who held venal offices and hostility of Marie Antoinette, both for exposing royal finances to public attention and harming the interests of her clique

Question 15

2

Who was Calonne 1783-1787?

Answer 15

• Sold officies and lavish spent
• Hoped there would be opportunities for reform in 1787 when a no. of taxes were due for renewal - 1786 no one else prepared to lend, replaced poll tax and vingtiemme with a single tax on land and stimulate economy by abandoning customs at internal borders

Question 16

2

How successful was Calonne?

Answer 16

• August 1786 told Louis XVI that the gov was the on the verge of bankruptcy - failure to raise loans and the high interest of the royal debt means that new taxes were urgently needed
• Parlement had no confidence in him - feared they would reject his reforms and say no to new taxes

Question 17

2

Who was Brienne 1787-1788?

Answer 17

• Brought forward proposals for reform, still including land taxes
• Could not solv the financial problems in 1788, the royal treasury had to suspend interest payments on loan made to the state

Question 18

2

How successful was Brienne?

Answer 18

• Assembly of Notables did not support and were dissolved, forcing Louis XVI to call the Estates-General
• Parlement reject as well - exiled them to Troyes and used a ‘lit de justice’ to force the resignation of the reforms, which provoked an ‘aristocratic reform’

Question 19

Why were there bread riots?

Answer 19

• Population of cities and towns had also grown - Paris increased from 500K to 650K people in the same period
• 50% sawdust, 4 pounds of bread a day

Question 20

Decline in french agriculture

Answer 20

• The vagaries of post-medieval farming shaped the lives of France’s lower classes
• Agriculture dominated france’s domesatic economy - 75% of all production and 70$ of land use
• France’s food supplies were affected by poor harvests in 1769-1776 - John Adams (american politican and diplomat) said ‘The country is a heap of ashes’

Question 21

3

The winter of 1788-89

Answer 21

• Winter of 1788-89 compounded the poor harvest of 1788 - norther France suffered a winter the coldest in decades - 57 straight days of frost
• Bitter winter killed of fruit frees, stpoilt stored grains and vegetables, turned barrels of wine and cider to slush, and froze rivers really hard, rendering mills and machinery inoperable
• Even when the cold snap broke and the ice and snowed thawed, it flooded fields and granaries

Question 22

3

What did Necker do about the hunger of 1789?

Answer 22

• Reappointed in 1777
• Introduced several emergency measures, banning all food exports and requiring all grain to be sold to official markets
• Importation of foreign cereal and grain, totalling around 148,000 tonnes