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Causes of the revolution:
-Economic crisis (Bad harvests)
-Financial Crisis (Lack of money)
-Enlightenment
-Military and financial aid for USA
-Poor social structure -
During the Revolution, the French Government also provided the Americans with loans, eventually totaling over two million dollars.
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The French crown's financial crisis fueled resentment toward the Court. Louis XVI, unable to get help from a declining nobility, called the Estates-General. This allowed the discontented Third Estate to voice their grievances, leading to the rejection of the King's authority and the start of the Revolution. -
During the reign of King Louis XVI of France, there were 3 states.
- The first was the clergy.
- The second nobility.
- And the third was everyone else.
The first two states enjoyed a greater degree of privilege than the third, however the third state represents the 90% of the population and pays all the taxes, something that the first two states don't do, they don't pay taxes. -
1793-1794 The Jacobins were the most radical bourgeois sector; they represented the demands of the common people.
These people are going to be the most extremist. -
In this first period of the french revolution, it was demanded a constitution and a new voting system where every epresentative had one vote. The king refused and the members from the third state declared themselves the representatives.
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The Tennis Court Oath was a pledge taken by the third Estate deputies to the Estates General.It was sworn in a Versailles tennis court on June 20th 1789. -
Louis XVI was about to arrest France’s newly constituted National Assembly led a crowd of Parisians to successfully besiege the Bastille, an old fortress that had been used since 1659 as a state prison. As a victory by ordinary Parisians over a prominent representation of the king’s coercive power, the event quickly became a symbol of revolutionary struggle. -
IIn late August, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a statement of democratic principles grounded in the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. -
By 1789, France was deeply indebted from supporting the American Revolution. King Louis XVI attempted reforms and called for local democracy, but all efforts failed, leading France to be declared bankrupt. That coincided with hailstorms that ruin year's harvest, therefore raising food prices, this made people angry, because France people love to eat.
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Legislative assembly (1791/92)
New Constitution: end of privileges, guilds...
The members sat according at their ideology:
Moderates on the center
Radical Revolutionaries on the left
Royalists on the right
The king had the right of veto -
In this period, it was elected a new legislative assembly. There where two groups: the Girodins and the Jacobins. Lous XVI refused to the legislative assembly and asked for support to Austria.
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In December 1792, the former king, now referred to as Citizen Louis Capet, was tried and found guilty of numerous crimes that amounted to high treason, and he was sentenced to death by guillotine. -
The Terror was the culmination of years of fear and paranoia, feelings which had long existed as undercurrents to the Revolution. -
In this period it was established the directory. And the middle class took the control of the country. The goverment was composed by 5 members.