Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Why was there a revolution in 1789? (Poor and dirty conditions and…
Why was there a revolution in 1789?
Financial pressures
The populations struggles
The population also went up by around 35 percent and an average working class family of five could not get by with the price of bread experiencing hyper inflation.
Factories therefore have not enough money so sack workers so just when workers need more employment the unemployment rates are at their highest
The bad harvest leads to bread prices shooting up people then spend more money on bread to stay alive and less money on factory goods e.g candles/clothes
The poor peasants carried the burden of taxes , the government allowed private companies to collect tax some of which never reached the king. Also landlords could name their rent prices with such a demand for housing
Over a period of 60 years the cost of living rose by 45 percent with the wages only rising 22 percent. So the peasants were finding it harder and harder to get by
Louis XVI and Marie Antionette went on a spending spree
Financial pressure due to many wars and high spending from higher estates
The Three Estates
Clergy-130,000 people
Together owned about 7/20 of the land in France and neither of the classes paid taxes as many of the nobles had a big influence on Louis making him sack anybody that suggested they pay taxes both also had special law treatments and could bend them into their favour quite easily
Nobility-350,000 people
Everyone else - 27,000,000 who were lawyers, peasants and factory workers
In the estates general meetings the third estate always got outvoted by the other two. Many of them disagreed with the church throughout the century thinking it was corrupt=felt the same as the dissolution of the monasteries. The third estate were liable to all the taxes and had no special rights=They paid almost all the taxes
The three estates contributed to the French revolution in a significant way as the the third estate would have felt hatred and jealousy towards the first and second estate the dissolution of the monasteries emphasised they were useless to the third estate
Enlightenment ideas/influence from America
Enlightenment ideas
Many French troops returned home encouraged by the American enlightenment ideas
These soldiers returned home inspired and prepared to fight for these ideas.
Louis sent lots of troops to aid America against Britain their enemy
Influence from America
Enlightnement philosophy
As the French population became more literate enlightenment ideas from philosophers Motesquieu ,Rousseau and Locke were able to be passed about in pamphlets which everyone could understand
People believed in freedom of speech as long as they followed the laws
People were starting to believe they had rights they should fight for and everyone had equal rights
What they did
They declared themselves as a national assembly and made a monarch for themselves executing Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
Stormed Bastille prison on 4th July
Monarchs
The king could not raise any taxes so was forced to call the Estates General in the meeting the third estate wanted major reforms but the monarch did not propose any even though they wrote 25,000 cahiers de doleances
After the upset of the Estates General many of the first and third estates joined forming a national assembly wanting to set up a constitution laying down how france should be run
The government had a 4000 million livres debt in 1788 and were bankrupt and lots of their money went to wars
The national assembly swore they would not disband until they achieved their aims. In response Louis called up troops triggering revolution.
Enlightenment ideas stated that not all the power should lie in one person=absolute monarch and that the monarch should act in the common good of people
Poor and dirty conditions and facilities in France
The seine was filthy filled with tanners mess like dog poo and animal fat. Taxes were spent to get away from this mess but people believed their rights were infringed
People had bad diet due to a lack of food
Paris was extremely filthy and dirty with toxic air and dirty water
Lack of resources for 3rd estate
3rd estate overpopulation
People had a bad sense of hygeine