PowerPoint on The French Revolution for Grade 9 View via Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QSSlLjv8FrktifGbsr4sKu6FWsFtKJhvvUUwXUcSuK0/edit?usp=sharing Hope it is helpful!

1. The French Revolution
© Designed to help Schoolbell Education’s Online Classes

2. Key Questions
1. What or where was it?
2. What was it like?
3. Why was it like this?
4. How had it changed?
5. What had been the effects of the
change?
6. What do you think and feel about it?

3. The Estates
First estate:
● Made up 1% of the
population
● Paid 2% of their income
in taxes
● Comprised of clergys
(Head of religious
institutions)
Second estate:
● Made up of 2% of the
population
● Paid 0% of their income
in taxes
● Comprised of Royal
families and other
nobelities
Third estate:
● Made up 97% of the
population
● Paid 50% of their income
in taxes
● Comprised of Middle
class, urban workers and
peasants
Old Regime : The social and political system of
France’s three estates

4. Third Estate
● Bourgeoisie (middle class) made up of
bankers, factory owners, merchants,
professionals, and skilled artisans.
They paid very high taxes and lacked
privileges.
● Urban workers made up of
tradespeople, apprentices, laborers
and domestic servants.
● Peasants made up the largest group
within the Third Estate. They paid very
high taxes.

5. Why it started
● France followed a system of Monarchy.
● King Louis XVI had inherited many debts,
was supporting the American Revolution
and was indulging in many luxuries. He
never paid heed to his financial advisors.
● He posed heavy taxes on the Third
Estate.
● When the third estate weren’t able to pay
the taxes due to crop failures or other
reasons, the king took away their land.
● When he didn’t get enough money, he
collected taxes from the first and second
estates also.

6. They revoltedOnly the third estate paid taxes Were very poor

7. Members of the third estate were inspired by
the success of the American Revolution
The French enlightenment idea “Liberty,
Equality and Democracy” was inspired from
the American idea “Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity”

8. Voltaire and Rousseau
Voltaire was a French historian and
philosopher.
● He discarded the views of the Roman
Catholic church
● He advocated for freedom of religion
● He believed that the church and
government shouldn’t function together
Rousseau was a French philosopher.
● He believed in democracy
● He believed that nobody should be
exploited
● He believed that the poor should not be
oppressed by the above two estates
● He saw the societal need for equal
laws

9. King Louis XVI and Queen Marie
Antoinette
● Indecisive
● Allowed matters to drift
● Never listened to financial
advisors
● Was unable to introduce a
proper form of governing
● Had been unpopular from the
beginning because she was a
part of Austria’s royal family -
France’s enemy for a long time
● She spent a lot of money on
gowns, jewels, gifts, and
gambling

10. When France had gone into debt, rather than
cutting expenses, the king’s solution was to
impose taxes on the First and Second Estate
also. However, the Second Estate forced him to
call a meeting of the Estates- General: an
assembly of representatives which took place on
1789. The clergy and the nobles had dominated
the Estate - Generals throughout the Middle Ages
and had expected to do the same in 1789’s
meeting. Each estate’s delegates met in a
separate hall to vote, and each estate had only
one vote regardless of their population. So, the
two privileged estates could always outvote the
third.

11. When the monarch knew that the Third Estate
would vote to end monarchy in France, he had
locked them out of the room. Angrily, the third
estate broke into a tennis court and took an oath
that until they frame the constitution, they would
not leave the tennis court.
Constitution is a
set of laws, rules
and regulations.

12. When the king observed the people gathering and
saw their determination to overthrow the
monarchy, in fear, he started placing troops
outside his palace. This created a panic in the
society because they thought the king was going
to attack them. So the third estate stormed into
Bastille for arms and ammunition in case they
was going to be attacked. When the prison
guards tried to negotiate, they beheaded him,
carried his head on a pitchfork and marched
around the palace.
Bastille was a
prison in Paris,
France.

13. 54321

14. A new rumour about the nobelities
hiring outlaws to scare the
peasants went around. Armed
with pitchforks, the peasants
broke into the nobels’ manors and
destroyed legal papers regarding
the money due. Some also set the
manors on fire

15. The Rights of Man
Men are born equal and
remain free and equal in
rights:
- Liberty
- Property
- Security
- Resistance to
oppression
Freedom of
speech
Adopted the
expression
“Liberty,
Equality,
Democracy”
inspired by
American
Revolution
Equal
justice

16. Women
1. No one paid heed to the Third Estate
Women
- E.g. When bread prices increased, the
men increased the problem of the
women. Because of this, the women
marched all the way to the king’s
palace and convinced the king to come
with them. → The march on Versailles
was a step towards democracy. The
king however, unsuccessfully tried to
escape.
- When writer Olympe de Gouge wrote a
declaration regarding Women Rights in
the late 18th Century, her ideas were
rejected, she was declared an enemy
of the revolution and was executed.
2. They were not given a right to vote.

17. The Third Estate took over the
church’s land as they thought that
the government and church should
operate differently. They used the
money got by selling the church’s
land to close as many debts as
possible. THis offended peasants
and many of them opposed the
assembly’s reforms.

18. King Louis tried to escape
from France to Austria but
was caught on the border by
his guards, who recognized
him.

19. By 1791, the National Assembly
completed the new constitution. The
king and queen did not have
absolute power. Changes were
made to the Estates and the
Church. It created the Legislative
Assembly which had the power to
create laws and approve or reject
war declarations.

20. There were food shortages, and the
church land was not enough to cover
all debts. While handling these
problems, the legislative assembly split
into: Radicals with extreme views to
change the government and use
violence, Moderates who were affected
by neither views, and Conservatives
didn't want any changes.

21. The reforms
Émigrés: People who had left
France.
● Émigrés, nobels, and
others who had fled
France hoped to undo the
revolution and restore the
Old Regime
Sans-culottes: Parisian workers
and small shopkeepers
● Wanted even greater
changs. They didn’t have
a say in the assembly, but
they exerted their power
on the streets of Paris via
revolts
● The monarchs of other
countries were afraid that
thing s there would
change as they did in
France, so some
countries wanted France
to have absolute
monarchy again.

22. ● Dissolved Legislative
Assembly and called
for an election of a
new legislative
● Abolished monarchy
● Declared France a
republic

23. The Jacobin
Club
A Radical Political Organization
People of Interest:
● Jean-Paul Marat:
○ Edited “Les Amis du Peuple”
(translates to “The friend of the
people”) → A newspaper that
published revolutionary articles
against the government
● Georges Danton:
○ Lawyer
○ Devoted to the rights of Paris’ poor
people

24. King Louis was sentenced to
death → beheaded by
guillotine

25. French
Revolutionary
Wars
● France was already at war with Austria
and Prussia, but Great Britain, Holland
and Spain had also joined the war and
fought against France
● France was defeated continually and the
treasury was drained
● As the result of a meeting, people
between age 18 and 40, including
women, were drafted.

26. Enemies of France after
implementation of New Regime:
- Foreign armies
- Peasants
- Priests
- Rival leaders stirring up the
rebellion in the provinces.
(Leaders of other groups with
different views from the Jacobin
Club, including the moderates
and Conservatives)

27. Maximilien Robespierre
(1758-1794)
A member of the Jacobin Club
- Maximilien Robespierre,
started to gain power. He and
his supporters set out to build
a ‘republic of virtue’ by wiping
out any trace of the past.They
did not believe in any
superstition and thought
everything must have a
reason. He introduced a
calendar with 12 months of 30
days
with all Sundays removed,
because the people visited
churches every Sunday. They
also closed all churches.
Robespierre protected the
revolution from its enemies
who were tried (questioned) in
the morning and guillotined
(executed) in the late
afternoon in front of the public
to set an example to society.

28. Maximilien Robespierre
(1758-1794)
Many Jacobins did not like
Robespierre’s ideologies.
They were executed for
questioning his leadership.
Georges Danton (mentioned
previously) who was one of
the most prominent Jacobin
member also found himself in
danger as he was against
Robespierre’s radical views.
He was later executed.
Some people in the assembly
who did not support
Robespierre turned on him
and demanded his execution
via the guillotine.
- People were tired of the terror
inflicted by Robespierre
- Robespierre was executed
- The Moderates leaders took
charge and planned a new
government