The French Revolution began in 1789 due to various economic and social causes including high debts, an outdated feudal system, and Enlightenment ideas promoting liberty, equality and reason. The Storming of the Bastille on July 14th, 1789 marked the start of the revolution. Key events that followed included the formation of the National Assembly, the abolition of feudal privileges, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen establishing natural rights and liberties. The revolution deeply transformed French society and government.

1. The French Revolution, 1789-1799

2. Map of Atlantic Revolutions: Where is Europe? France?

3. One approach to studying history
Causes
Process
Consequences

4. What were the causes of the
French Revolution?
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5. Causes of the French Revolution
The Enlightenment
 Ideas:
 Liberty
 Equality
 Reason
 Progress
 Philosophes:
 Locke defended private property, limited sovereignty and fair
government
 Voltaire attacked noble privileges and the Church’s authority

6. Causes (continued)
The American Revolution,
1775-1783:
 showed the ideas of
Enlightenment in action
 French soldiers (i.e.
Lafayette) who helped
came home inspired
 Put Louis XVI in deep
debt

7. Causes (continued)
French Economy was failing
 National debt: four billion
livres
 50 percent of
government’s income
went to interest on debt
 no central bank or paper
currency
 Inefficient and uneven
taxation system (varied by
region and estate)

8. Causes (continued)
Feudal system
 Estate System outdated
 posed many difficulties to
rising middle class of Third
Estate
 difficult to move upward in QuickTimeª and a
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 Less well-off commoners
resented the inequality of the
three estates

9. Causes (continued)
Louis XVI
 Good intentions
 ‘Enlightened’
 Weak-willed
 Indecisive
 Marie-Antoinette allowed “to
dispense patronage amongst
friends”

10. Causes (continued)
Peasants’ situation
unbearable
 ‘web of obligations’
 obviously unfairly overtaxed
 Noble hunting privileges
 Land-starved
 Subsistence farmers

11. Causes (continued)
Harvest failures in
1787-1788:
 less food
 higher prices
 businesses failed
 unemployment in cities QuickTimeª and a
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12. Periodization of the French
Revolution
Moderate stage: 1789–1792
Radical stage: 1792–1794
The Directory: 1794–1799
Napoleon: 1799–1815

13. Outbreak of the Revolution
THE SPARK: Fiscal crisis forced Louis XVI to
call the Estates-General, summer, 1788 (first
time since 1614)
 The three estates elected delegates:
 First Estate represented about 100,000 clergymen
 Second Estate represented about 400,000 noble men and
women
 Third Estate represented about 24.5 million people

14. Outbreak (contd.)
 Main disagreement: representation
 Should the estates vote by estate or by
individual?
 Third Estate argued that all delegates
should sit together and vote as individuals
 Third Estate demanded as many delegates
as the First and Second Estates combined:
“Doubling the Third”
 Louis opposed, then changed his
position

15. Who were the Third Estate
delegates?
Represented the
outlook of the elite
25 percent lawyers
43 percent
government officials
Strong sense of
common grievance
and common purpose
(cahiers de
doleances)

16. Outbreak (contd.)
 May 5, 1789: Estates General
convened at Versailles
 June 17, 1789: the delegates of
the Third Estate declared
themselves to be the National
Assembly

17. the Oath of the Tennis Court
(June 20, 1789)
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18. Outbreak (Contd.)
 Public attention to the events in
Paris was high
 Price of bread soared
 Rumors circulated that Louis was
about to stage a coup d’état
 Parisian workers (sans-culottes)
organized a militia of volunteers

19. Outbreak (Contd.)
 July
14, 1789: the
Storming of the Bastille
 Bastille was symbol of royal
authority
 Its fall symbolized of the people’s
role in revolutionary change

20. The Storming the Bastille
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21. Outbreak (Contd.)
 The Great Fear
 Rumors that the king’s armies were
on their way
 Peasants attacked and burned
manor houses
 Destroyed manor records

22. The Great Fear
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23. Response
August 4, 1789: National Assembly voted to
abolish all noble and other privileges
 Church tithe
 the corvée
 hunting privileges
 tax exemptions and monopolies
 Obliterated the remnants of feudalism

24. Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen (August 26, 1789; issued in Sept.)

25. The National Assembly and the
liberal revolution
 The Declaration of the Rights of Man
and Citizen
 Declared natural rights
 Private property
 Liberty, security, and resistance to
oppression
 Declared freedom of speech, religious
toleration, and liberty of the press to be
inviolable
 Equality before the law

26. The masses take the
initiative: October Days
 Brought on by economic crisis
 Parisian women marched to
Versailles (October 5) and
demanded to be heard

27. The masses take the
initiative: October Days

28. The masses take the
initiative: October Days
 Women demanded Louis and his
family return to Paris
 Women with the help of the
National Guard forced Louis
(and the National Assembly) to
move to Paris

29. Women and the revolution
o General participation in the
Revolution
o Took leading roles in mass actions
o Joined clubs, demonstrations, and debates
o Women as citizens
o Olympe de Gouges, Declaration of
the Rights of Women and the
Citizen (1791)
o Women should have the same rights as men

30. Religion and the revolution
The most divisive issue
 National Assembly confiscated church
property (November 1789)
 The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July 1790)
 Bishops and clergy subject to the laws of
the state
 Salaries to be paid from public treasury
 Church reforms polarized France
 Many resented the privileged position of
the church
 Parish church an institution of great local
importance