A History of the French Revolution
A History of the French Revolution
In our society, if we don’t respect the freedom of others we, most of the time, go to jail. But, in the late 1700’s ,in Europe, people were not respected and were fed-up to live in a society where only one person was responsible of the destiny of 27 million people. As you can guess I will, in the following text ,explain the reasons and the results of the French Revolution.
In the 1760’s the American revolution began. The population was asking for a new constitution and a bill of rights. They wanted to be independent, and not governed by the Great Britain anymore. The French ,eternal enemies of the British Kingdom, gave ,generously, weapons and money to the American rebels ;French officers, also helped the Washington’s army. France was maybe too generous and didn’t have any money to satisfied their own needs anymore. However, the French society sank in a big depression the peasants were paying more and more taxes , a bread (the main food) shortage began and the wages decrease. The population was very close to revolt…
Meanwhile, since the middle age the French society was devised, unequally, into three estates. The first estate ,was formed of the clergy, they owned 10 percent of the land and numbered about 130,000 people. They weren’t paying any taxes, however they agreed to pay, every five years a contribution to the state. The second estate constituted of 35,000 aristocrats ,and “noblesse de robe “.They owned 30 percent of the land and had the biggest positions in the army, the church and the government. The third estates was formed of 80 percent of the population divided in three different groups, 2.3 million of them were part of the bourgeoisie (merchants, capitalist, doctor etc.…)they owned 2o percent of the land ,21 million of them were peasants and owned 40 percent of the land, but not all of them were land owners. And the 2.5 millions other were urban poor who didn’t owned any land.
On may 5th of 1789 ,Louis XIV, king of France ,was forced to call the meeting of the Estates –general to solve the financial collapse. They started by wondering if the voting should be by order or by head (each delegate having one vote).Originally the aristocrats use to have the control by using the veto-power. However,...