1. Source N.1
1st. What is the third estate? Everything.
2nd. What has it been heretofore in the political
order? Nothing.
3rd. What does it demand? To become
something therein.
Abb?Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789)
2. 98% of the French population was part of the
third state. However they did not owned any
kind of relevant political participation: they
did not have a voice, and this was entirely
unfair as they were a significant majority in
the society. I think it is reliable and usefull as
well because it was taken from a published
book that explained what the third estate
was.
3. Source N.2
18th century philosophy taught the Frenchman to find his
condition wretched, unjust and illogical and made him
disinclined to the patient resignation to his troubles that had
long characterized his ancestors . . . . The propaganda of
the philosophes perhaps more than any other factor
accounted for the fulfillment of the preliminary condition of
the French Revolution, namely discontent with the existing
state of things. (Henri Peyre, "The Influence of Eighteenth
Century Ideas on the French Revolution," Journal of the
History of Ideasvol. 10, No. 1 (January 1949).
4. This source is about, French in the 18th
century and the people how realized they
did not want to live like their ancestors had:
under and unfair conditions. They all lived in
poverty and had to pay really high to the
aristocracy, the king, the church and the
lords.
The propaganda was one of the
philosophers main factors, that prepared
them to the French revolution, which means
the general discontent with the existence
state of mind.
5. Source N.3
Those Europeans who dreamed about the dawn of a New Jerusalem
were fascinated by the American political experiment. The thirteen
colonies began with a defensive revolution against tyrannical
oppression and they were victorious. The Americans showed how
rational men could assemble together to exercise control over their
own lives by choosing their own form of government, a government
sanctified by the force of a written constitution. With this in
mind, liberty, equality, private property and representative
government began to make more sense to European observers. If
anything, the American Revolution gave proof to that great
Enlightenment idea - the idea that a better world was possible if it
was created by men using Reason. As R. R. Palmer put it in 1959
(The Age of Democratic Revolution: The Challenge)
6. This source is about, how the American
revolution and the Enlightenment influenced
in the French revolution. Both gave the idea
of freedom and that God was not the
explanation for everything. The Americans
showed that a man could thought, and that it
had rights to choose their own goverment,
with written laws. After this the Europeans
started to questioned the power of the King.
They started to use Reason.
This source was written by an American
historian, this could mean that the source is
not reliable because the writer could be in
favour of his country, but this book was
awarded and was his best work, so I believe
is reliable and we can trust it. I think is
useful because is one of the causes of the
7. Source N.4
Alas, much more lies sick than poor Louis: not the French King only,
but the French Kingship; this too, after long rough tear and wear, is
breaking down. The world is all so changed; so much that seemed
vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is beginning to be!-
-Borne over the Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis, King by the
Grace of God, what sounds are these; muffled ominous, new in our
centuries? Boston Harbour is black with unexpected Tea: behold a
Pennsylvanian Congress gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill,
DEMOCRACY announcing, in rifle-volleys death-winged, under her
Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she is born, and,
whirlwind-like, will envelope the whole world!
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution (1837)
s
8. I think this source it is not reliable because it
was contemporary to the French Revolution.
Thomas Carlyle, the person who wrote it
could not analise it in hindsight.
The source makes reference to the end of
the absolutism, the power in excess of the
monarchs, and the beginnig of a new form of
organisation called Democracy. The fact
that every person in the country including
the poorest peasants could have a voice and
an active participation in their country was
totally new. The sources describe this
different new world which nobody was used
to it, yet.