Today’s Learning Goals:
 Identify the social, economic, and political
causes of the French Revolution.
 Describe what happened during the
revolution.
 Explain what happened after the French
people got fed up with the king and nobles.
T.Chan, October 2011
T.Chan, October 2011
Division (p.72)
 France was almost
bankrupt
 Many French people rioted
 The Royal Court was split
into two groups
 One that supported the
king and changes to the
economy
 One that supported Marie
Antoinette and the nobles
 The middle class and the
working class demanded
some kind of democracy
T.Chan, October 2011
Backwards France
 Republican Government versus Absolute
Monarchy
 American Declaration of Independence of 1776
was democratic in its views and protected the
freedoms of the individual
 England had constitutional monarchy (Bill of
Rights was drafted in 1689).
 Appeared to be more advanced than the
government run in France
T.Chan, October 2011
France’s Problems
 Series of famines resulted
in the abandonment of
approximately 40,000
children
 Unemployment
 Britain’s Industrial
Revolution was putting
French people out of work
 Machines to do the work of
humans
 Poor people were starving,
unhappy, and demanded
for change
T.Chan, October 2011
Louis XVI’s response (p.73)
 Imprisoned or killed critics of the government
 Disappointed many people, even his own supporters.
 With Jacques Necker’s help, Louis formed the ESTATES
GENERAL to try to find solutions to France’s problems
T.Chan, October 2011
The Estates General (p.74)
 Met in Versailles in 1789
 Consisted of representatives from the three social levels of
France
 First Estate – the clergy
 Second Estate – the aristocrats
 Third Estate – the bourgeosis
 Each estate voted as a bloc, implicating that the privileged
classes had twice as much voting power as the middle
class despite the huge discrepancy in numbers
T.Chan, October 2011
No, No, Louis
 Louis realized that the Estates General
would want some say in government, but
he wasn’t willing to surrender his absolute
power
 He gave them insignificant responsibilities
such as fixing the tax system, but the
Estates General refused
T.Chan, October 2011
The National Assembly (p.74-75)
 After six weeks of little progress, The Third Estate broke
away from the other estates
 The leader, Count Mirabeau, and his followers declared
that they would form a new government called the
National Assembly
 Real goal was a new constitution for France
 King Louis tried to stop the National Assembly from
meeting, but they changed the site of their meeting places
and vowed to continue meeting until France had a new
form of government
T.Chan, October 2011
The Revolution (p.75)
 Riots, mainly over the
price of bread, broke out
in major cities, including
Paris
 Mobs even tried to break
into prisons to free
political prisoners
 Louis responded by
sending foreign
mercenaries into Paris
and Versailles to control
the crowds
T.Chan, October 2011
The Fall of Bastille
T.Chan, October 2011
The Bastille
 The Bastille, a royal prison and fortress, was a symbol of the
king’s power
 Past prisoners included Voltaire and The Man in the Iron Mask
 Revolutionists armed themselves and on July 14, 1789, a mob
stormed The Bastille
 Troops sent to disperse the mob ended up joining them and
took down the Bastille
 The seven prisoners (forgers, lunatics, and one noble) held at
Bastille were released and the governor of Bastille was
beheaded
T.Chan, October 2011
The Great Fear (p.76)
 News of the revolutions in Versailles and Paris reached the
countryside where the peasants believed that the king’s
soldiers and aristocrats would stop the revolution
 What did the peasants do?
 attacked and burned the chateaux of the aristocrats and
killed many people
 Invaded offices and burned the paperwork that recorded
their obligations to the lords
 People in the regions of rich agricultural farming did not
support the Great Fear’s waves of violence
T.Chan, October 2011
The Role of the Women
 Women and children suffered the most during the food
shortage crisis
 Crowds of women meeting in Paris decided to march to
Versailles to meet the king and they were eventually
joined by Marquis de Lafayette (an American Revolution
hero) and the National Guard
 The women attacked the National Assembly, stormed the
palace to force King Louis and Marie Antoinette to go to
Paris, and when they weren’t there, ransacked the palace
T.Chan, October 2011
The National Assembly
 The National Assembly met in Versailles on August 4, 1789
 What they wanted:
 All feudal rights and privileges and serfdom were abolished
 All people are declared equal
T.Chan, October 2011
The Declaration of the Rights
of Man and the Citizen (p.77)
 Passed in August of 1789
 Basic human rights
 Contains ideas of the
philosophes
 Guaranteed freedom of
thought, speech,
religion, security, and
property
 Puts limits on the powers
of the government and
the Church
T.Chan, October 2011
So, what happened to the
rest?
 Aristocrats were emigrating to other countries in
hopes of restoring the old system of government.
 Louis and Marie Antoinette (and two of their four
children) tried to escape in 1791, but was found,
arrested, and imprisoned.
 A Legislative Assembly was formed to carry out
the ideals of the Declaration of Rights, but it was
doomed to fail because too many groups were
struggling for power.
T.Chan, October 2011
Can we…
 identify the causes of the French
Revolution?
 describe how people reacted during the
revolution?
 explain what happened after the French
people got fed up with the king and nobles?
 SO WHAT?
T.Chan, October 2011
Works Cited
 Cranny, Michael. Crossroads: A Meeting of Nations. Prentice-Hall:
Toronto. 1998.
 Images taken from:
 http://www.pbase.com/terryballard/image/70117827
 http://teachnet.eu/tobrien/about/revolutions/the-frenchrevolution/estates-general/
 http://www.mrbigben.com/food/bread.html
 http://www.historywiz.com/galleries/stormingbastille.html
 http://www.truebluewomen.org/Default.aspx?pageId=319083
 http://badgerdown.blogspot.ca/2011/09/thoughs-on-documentdeclaration-of.html
T.Chan, October 2011