Nikolas Burts
Mr.Crouse
Advanced World History, Period: 6
10/14/17
The French revolution, occured due to people wanting a change based on enlightenment ideas , however, the revolution did not utilize these enlightenment ideas to the extent people wanted. At first under the National Assembly they were successful in utilizing enlightenment ideas and giving people the rights they longed for which were based of the enlightenment. After, the National Assembly was taken over by the Radical Revolution they took away the rights and ideas the people of France had hoped for and failed at incorporating enlightenment ideas. Lastly, after the collapse of the Radicals, Napoleon came to power and was able to achieve little success in implementing enlightenment
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The revolution was led by Maximilien Robespierre who was one a liberal thinker but after awhile he became a radical thinker and when he took control of France he was ineffective incorporating enlightenment ideas. This is shown when Robespierre tried to justify terror as being an effective way to lead a nation. The idea of terror goes against enlightenment ideas because it takes away the freedoms and power the people of society have and give most of their rights back to the leader and allows him to do what he thinks is right and gets rid of what the law states. The radical revolution went against ideas of Locke and other philosophers who believed in a democracy which would allow the citizens under the government to have equality and power in the government. Secondly, the radical revolution failed at utilizing enlightenment ideas because they took away people's rights which goes against the idea of giving people more rights. The radical revolution took away people's right to speech and press. If anyone spoke against the radicals through speech or press they would be guillotined. The idea of taking peoples rights goes against enlightenment ideas of Rousseau. Lastly, the radical revolution failed in incorporating enlightenment ideas because they killed anyone who talked badly about the radicals and …show more content…
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