Introduction to the French Revolution

Lesson Date: April 5th, 2011

Dearest students,

It's the beginning of the new unit! And this isn't just any unit, it's all about the French Revolution! We will not only being looking at what happened during this historic event but also the political ideologies that arose from it.

Today in class we had a class discussion on the motto's of several different countries. We talked about what message these motto's are trying to send and also some of the ideas that they represent.

• Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – USA
•  Liberty, Equality and Fraternity – French Revolution
•  Peace, Order and Good Government – Canada
• Peace, Land, Bread – Russian Revolution (Bolshevik)
• Decolonization, Democratization and Development – 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal

Next we looked at the Three Estates of France prior to the French Revolution.

• First Estate: The Clergy
• 1% of pop, with 10% of land. 
• They had wealth, land, privileges and they levied a tax on the peasantry, the tithe, which generally went to some remote bishop or monastery rather than the local parish priest. 
• The First Estate was perhaps 100,000 strong. 
• But note that there were many poor clergymen in this Estate, and they were going to support the Revolution.
• Second Estate: The Nobility
• 2-5% of pop, with 20% of the land. They also had great wealth and taxed the peasantry.
• 400,000 people.
• The great division among the Nobility was between the Noblesse d'epee (nobles who family lines date back to the Middle Ages) and the Noblesse de Robe (later nobles whose titles came from their possession of public offices.)
• Third Estate: Everyone Else
• 95-97% of the pop.
• There were some few rich members, the artisans and all the peasantry. 
• These were also class divisions: 
• The Bourgeoisie - 8% of the pop, about 2.3 Million people, with 20% of Land. They often bought land and exploited the peasants on it. In Third Estate, the most important group politically was the Bourgeoisie but they had no say in running the country,
• The Peasants - They had 40% of the land and formed the vast majority of population (approximately 20 million people). The Peasants paid the most tax: aristocrats did not pay. Peasants alone paid the taille (a land tax). They alone had to give labor service to the State. They also had to pay the tithe to the clergy.
• The Urban Poor of Paris - Artisans, factory workers, journeymen. Very poor but highly literate.

 Notes adapted from: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/lect/mod10.html.

Finally we started a worksheet that compares the leadership capabilities of Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. This worksheet is based on Activities Question 1 on page 68 of the textbook. This worksheet is due next day, April 7th.