HISTORY: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION - ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES / AMERICAN SPIRIT / PARLEMENT / THE DAY OF TILES

Question 1

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION:

• ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES
• 1787: 22 February - 25 May
• 1788: 6 November - 12 December
• Financial crisis becomes a political crisis

Answer 1

• Notables: council of high ranking nobles and clergymen
• NO constitutional authority
• 144 Notables in the Assembly of Notables
• Supported the principle of equality of taxation in theory: Nobody should have the privilege of not paying tax
• Calonne: sought to limit the taxation privileges of the FIRST and SECOND Estates (the new land tax)
• Calonne’s reforms: popular with most of the THIRD Estate but Rejected by the CHURCH, the NOBILITY, etc.
• The Notables also rejected Calonne’s reforms

Question 2

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION:

• THE AMERICAN SPIRIT
• The American revolution:
• HOW DID THE AR INFLUENCE THE FR?

= No taxation...
= Economic -  Both wealth with....
= Royal absolutism - Aimed to reform...
= Unequal rights - felt that specific rights were only granted to....
= Enlightenment - Key ideological...

Answer 2

• No taxation without representation
• ECONOMIC struggles
• Both dealt with a taxation system (unfair)
• ROYAL absolutism
• French: aimed to reform the absolute tule of Louis XVI
• UNEQUAL RIGHTS
• The French felt that specific rights were only granted to certain people such as the elite and the aristocrats
• ENLIGHTMENT PHILOSOPHY (Major influence)
• Enlightenment: key ideological movement

Question 3

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION:

• PARLEMENT
• Painted themselves as the champions of the people (That’s how they were perceived/labelled)

= King’s ministers proposed fiscal…
= The supreme…
= Cannot initiate…
= Rejecting the proposed fiscal…

Answer 3

• King’s ministers proposed fiscal and taxation reforms (1780s) = resisted by several institutions of the Ancient Regime - The PARLEMENTS resisted reform
• The supreme courts of law in pre-Revolutionary France
• There were 13 parlements (Courts of review)
• Cannot initiate or amend laws
• Paris Parlement: Blocked royal edicts, either as a protest against specific policies.
• Rejecting the proposed fiscal and taxation reforms = King Louis XVI exiles the parliament to Troyes

Question 4

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION:

• THE DAY OF TILES
• Remonstrance: French for ‘PROTEST’

= Were hailed as defenders….
= …. demanding their recall
= Grenoble 10th June…
= Despotism…

Answer 4

• The magistrates of the parlement(s) were hailed as defenders of the people’s rights
• Protests and demonstrations erupted demanding their recall
• Parlements were supported in many places by craftsmen, wig and lace makers, domestic servants and other common people whose livelihoods would be THREATENED if they were abolished.
• Grenoble 10th June 1788: people stood on roofs, throwing tiles on the soldiers who had come to arrest the magistrates
• The people of Grenoble = public DESPOTISM