French Revolution Flashcards
Marie Antoinette
From Austria
Louis XVI’s wife
Not well-liked by people of France
Executed by Guillotine
Ancien Régime
Old diet
French society before revolution
3 estates
First: clergy
Second: nobility
Third: peasants/everyone else
First estate
0.5% of population Owned 10% of land Collected tithes Paid no taxes Lived very well
Tithe
Church taxes
10% of your salary
Second estate
1.5% of population
Owned 25% of land
Received top jobs in gov, army, courts, and Church
Paid no taxes
Third estate
98% of population
Owned 65% of land
Paid taxes (only estate to do so)
Diverse: Bourgeoisie, peasant farmers, urban farmers
Bourgeoisie
Lawyers, merchants, doctors, … of third estate
Start revolution
Deficit spending
Spend more than you take in
Jacques Necker
King’s financial advisor
Proposed cutting back on Louis’ spending and taxing all 3 estates (**because of this, first and second estates demanded Louis remove Necker)
Estates General
1st gov during revolution
French parliament
Cahiers
(Grievance) notebooks
Shows boiling class resentments
Estates: first & second are very thin, third is much more thick and brings up more problems than just taxation
National Assembly
Second gov during revolution
Third estate had enough of the unfairness in the estates general so they declared themselves to be the National Assembly
Met at an indoor tennis court because meeting hall was not available
King accepted it, but his royal troops gathered around Paris
Tennis court oath
National Assembly would keep meeting until they created a Constitution
Bastille Day
July 14, 1789
800 Parisians stormed Bastille (a royal prison) looking for guns and weapons
Symbolized revolt against king’s abuses
“Great Fear”
Rumors of gov attacks on towns and seizures of crops
Peasants set fire to manor records and steal grain
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Modeled on our Declaration of Independence
All MEN “born and remain free and equal in rights”
Natural rights of France
Taxes levied according to income
“Liberty, equality, fraternity”
Natural rights of France
Liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression
“Liberty, equality, fraternity”
Slogan of the revolution
Tuileries Palace
King was forced to leave Versailles and come here under house arrest
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
Ended Pope’s control of the French Church
Bishops and priests were elected
Clergy was punished for opposing
Constitution of 1791
Established a new government
Limited monarchy created
Legislative Assembly replaced National Assembly
Revolution is not yet complete