Key Individuals: Origins of the Revolution, 1774-1789

Question 1

King Louis XVI

Answer 1

King & Absolute Monarch of France 1774–1792

Question 2

Marie Antoinette

Answer 2

• Wife to King Louis XVI
• Daughter of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa
• Reputation as Madame Déficit due to her extravagant tastes
• Suspected of exerting undue influence on LXVI

Question 3

Voltaire

Answer 3

Key Philosphe:
- Free speech
- Very critical of the RCC

Question 4

Etienee-Charles de Loménie de Brienne

Answer 4

• Archbishop of Toulouse in 1763
• Led clergy’s opposition to Calonne’s reforms especially with taxing the Church in the Assembly of Notables in 1787
• Controller General of Finance 1787-August 1788

Question 5

Charles Alexandre de Calonne

Answer 5

• 1783 - April 1787: Controller General of Finances
• 1786 formed an ambitious reform plan which was rejected by the Assembly of Notables

Question 6

Diderot

Answer 6

• Key Philosophe
• Wrote ‘Encyclopedie’
• Believed the Church barred progress

Question 7

Marquis de Lafayette

Answer 7

• Volunteered for service with American colonists in 1777
• Returned to France in 1781
• Helped set up the Society of Thirty
• Elected to the Estates General in 1789 and led the liberal aristocrats (the Fayettists)
• Favoured constitutional monarchy

Question 8

Jacques Necker

Answer 8

• Director General of Finance (1776-1781)
• Attempted reforms but offened the privileges
• Compte Rendu led to his 1781 downfall
• 1787: Banished from Paris for attacking Callonne
• August 1788 recalled

Question 9

Philippe Duc d’Orleans

Answer 9

• Prince of the Blood
• LXVIs cousin
• Had liberal ideas and was an outspoken critic of the Ancien Régime in the Assembly of Notables and Paris Parlement.
• Elected as a Second Estate Deputy at the Estates General

Question 10

Thomas Paine

Answer 10

A English political writer who was a major influence on the American Revolution. He wrote “Common Sense” in 1776 which provided intellectual justification the colonists needed to break from British control.

Question 11

Rousseau

Answer 11

• Key Philosophe
• “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”
• Social contract between people and government

Question 12

Montesquieu

Answer 12

• Key Philosophe
• Magistrate and President of the Parlement of Bordeaux
• Argued for the separation of powers

Question 13

Abbé Emmanuel- Joseph Sieyès

Answer 13

• A clergyman but not a noble
• January 1789: Published “What is the Third Estate?”
• Elected as a Third Estate Representative at the Estates General

Question 14

Charles Talleyrand- Périgord

Answer 14

• The Bishop of Autun
• Archbishop of Reims
• Helped set up the Society of Thirty which encouraged members of the Third Estate to fight for their rights by printing pamphlets and holding meetings
• A representative of the clergy to the Estates-General in 1789 & quickly aligned himself with revolutionary forces.

Question 15

Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot

Answer 15

• Controller General Finance (1774-1776)
• Believed that the French economy would work more efficiently and generate more revenue if regulations, customs duties and restrictive controls were replaced by a freer system.

Question 16

Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau

Answer 16

• Member of an old noble family
• Influenced by Enlightenment her wrote essays against ‘royal depotism’ and produced Le Courrier de Provence
• Elected as a Third Estate Deputy
• Popular and succesful orator