8.1 Causes and Start of the French Revolution

Notes

In 1789, France began a revolution that overthrew its absolute monarchy and spread new ideas of liberty and equality.

• Old Regime society had three estates: the First Estate (clergy), the Second Estate (nobles) and the Third Estate (everyone else, about 97 percent of the people). The first two paid few taxes.
• Causes: unfair social structure and taxes, Enlightenment ideas, the example of the American Revolution, huge government debt (from wars and luxury) and bread shortages after bad harvests.
• Louis XVI called the Estates-General in May 1789 to raise money. Each estate had one vote, so the Third Estate could be outvoted.
• The Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly and swore the Tennis Court Oath (June 1789) to write a constitution.
• On July 14, 1789, Paris crowds stormed the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison.
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1789) proclaimed that "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights."
• Olympe de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791), arguing those rights should apply to women.