French Revolution Research Paper

During the late 1700’s, France was in a major crisis. Both socially and economically, France was having a very hard time. This all started with King Louis XVI. He wanted money. His financial problem forced the French monarch to unwillingly gather the Estates General in order to build a new land tax that would hopefully solve this dilemma (The Beginning of the French Revolution, 1789). But a lot of other things happened, and a lot of people wanted change, thus the starting of the French Revolution. However, The French Revolution was not successful.

The old regime or the “ancient regime” was a social/political system created back in the 18th century. Back then France was ruled as an Absolute Monarch. The system consisted of 3 groups, clergy,

They wanted voting rights by population and not by Status. But the First Estate and the Second Estate wouldn’t let it happen. So in secret, on June 17 1789, the Third Estate met in a tennis court and prepared a legal document, called the Tennis Court Oath (“serment du jeu de paume”). And from that day the Third Estate also became known as the National Assembly. The Tennis Court Oath is a document that says the Third Estate vows not to quit and disperse until a new constitution is found in France. Meaning they won’t stop until they get what they demanded, which is equal rights. Later on, people stormed into the Bastille Fortress for guns and supplies, Marking the start of the French Revolution (“History.com Staff, French

On September 21, 1792, the Republic of France is founded! One of the many things the National Convention did was the order of the execution of King Louis XVI. He was put in trial and found guilty of High treason and was executed at the guillotine on January 21, 1973. His wife, Marie-Antoinette, was also tried and executed on the guillotine except it was 9 months later on October 16, 1973. This might seem like a success but, weeks later a lot of things start to happen. A lot of internal and external wars were happening. Weeks after the King were executed. The Prussians and Austrians were fighting extremely against the French. Since the National Convention, led by a group of people called the Girodins, could not make up an army of untrained people, such as peasants. The National Convention was getting really worried about this. Even the peasants were protesting. So then came in Maximilien Robespierre, the leader of The Jacobins. He took control and Created a new constitution called the “Constitution of 1793”. He made a lot of changes to the constitution. Some of these changes actually benefitted France. He and his partner Georges Danton started the committee of public Safety. But, he started a movement called “The Reign of Terror”. The purpose of this is that whoever Robespierre thought was not a part of French Nationalism, they would have been executed. During the 9 months of this, somewhere from 15,000 to