The Birth of the French Revolution John- James Tesoriero, Mike Beckwith, Aroona Boodram, Samira Anantharam

The Third Estate 98% of the people belonged to the Third Estate Made up of 3 groups First Group (the bourgeoisie): – merchants and artisans well-educated; believed strongly in the ideals of liberty and equality paid high taxes and lacked privileges Second Group: – workers (cooks, servants, etc.) poorer than the first group low wages and frequently out of work (often went hungry) Third Group: – largest group (80% of France’s population) peasants paid about half their income in dues to nobles, tithes to the church, and taxes to the king’s agents

The Old Regime A "left-over" version of European feudalism. It divided the people into 3 estates. The top 2 estates were the Privileged Estates, and had the privileges of tax exemptions (mostly) and access to high offices. The clergy (1st estate) and the nobles (2nd estate) made up a little more than 2% of the population The clergy offered aid and education to the peasants and donated 2% of revenue to the government. The Privileged Estates scorned the Enlightenment and its ideals. The 3rd estate made up almost 98% of the population and consisted of 3 groups. The top group were merchants and artisans (Bourgeoisie and most Enlightenment thinkers), City workers were 2nd group and the peasants were the 3rd group and made up 80% of the entire French population (26,000,000).

Dissatisfaction with the Old Regime & The National Assembly The voices of the Third Regime were often muted by the Privileged states. In 1789, when the Estates General was called into session to authorize new taxes, the Third estate was enraged, and demanded political and social reform. The First and Second Estates, who stood much to lose by this, resisted strongly. When the Third Estate realized that they did not have as strong a voice as they would have liked, they made the drastic decision to secede from the Estate, and become the National Assembly Stormed Bastille in search of weapons Declaration of The Rights of Man and the Citizen declared that people had the rights to life, property, and security Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen Abolished the old social order and weakened importance of church Turned France into a Constitutional Monarchy

The Great Fear After the storming of Bastille, peasants rebel, broke into noble’s houses, tore up papers binding them to feudal dues. October 1789 – 6,000 Parisian women angry over the raised price of bread  stormed Versailles, forced king to move to Paris. Signifies change of power and radical reforms about to overtake France.