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The French Revolution: A Tumultuous Time In French History

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History straddles the fine line in the sand between fact and interpretation. It encompasses all events that happened throughout existence, but it is not always possible to glean a clear understanding as to why those events happened. While we may be able to explain the seismological reasons for a natural disaster, analyzing history will result in a myriad of equally valid theories based on what perspective was used. This problem is compounded the further back in time we travel, notably in times where civilizations were in a great level of distress or censure, and written accounts of events become more and more scarce. A notable example of this singularity in history is the French Revolution, a tumultuous time in French History that we can all agree happened. However, when delving deeper into the events of the time, there are several contradictory theories on what motivated its inception and the reasoning at the time for the events that took place during it. Due to the time period, there is an abundance of written accounts from both France and her neighboring …show more content…

Many see the terror as the means to an end for France to live on and defeat its foreign enemy. The level of control and the swift reaction against agents within France were tools that allowed them to turn the tide of the war. A notable aspect of the Terror was that the members of the Committee of Public Safety, with the exception of Robespierre, travelled to different parts of France and enforced both the positive and negative aspects of the Terror. It was through these visits that many of the Jacobin’s social welfare ideals were initiated. Many defenders of the Terror within the context of the revolution point to these accounts as evidence of the good intentions behind the

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If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It The Bible says that God created the world in six days, and as an example to us, rested on the seventh. Whether you believe this or not, it set a good framework for the appropriate length of the week. In 1793 during the French Revolution, the National Convention tried to stray from this by creating a new calendar based on the decimal system. The year still consisted of 12 months split into thirty days, but these days were split into ten hours, and these hours split into one hundred minutes, and those minutes split into one hundred seconds.

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The high taxes, high prices on goods, and unequal distribution of wealth in France were reasons why the French Revolution started. There were three estates in France; the first estate was the clergy, the second estate were the nobles, and the third estate was made up of of three groups; average French workers, Bourgeoisie, and peasants. The French Revolution led to many wars; Louis XVI was a very weak leader, and he was executed. Napoleon Bonaparte became emperor, and the revolution came to an end. The main causes of the French Revolution were the difficult life of the peasants; the issues between the three estates; and the unfairness of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

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After many years of unhappiness with the monarchy, the French citizens started a rebellion. This rebellion, called the French Revolution, had several causes, most of which related to a society that favored the rich. The quality of life for members of the third estate in France was very low. Those who were poor were very poor.

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During the French Revolution it changed many things and as well as people. Many people from the middle class struggled as the French Revolutionaries' were plotting some changes. In the French Revolution many causes happened like many unfair conditions, the Monarchy being thrown, and the ideas from the enlightenments. A cause for the revolution to start was that middle-class people start to struggle, unfair conditions, and taxes.in document 1 it says, "the poor people seem very poor indeed." (document 1).

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During the French revolution terror spread throughout the land. Before the revolution the country was falling into chaos. The king and his wife spent so much money on themselves, and on supporting the american revolution that they put the country in an economic crisis. Until the people rose up to make a change and started the revolution. Using terror as an instrument of the french revolution was common practice and it had many advantages and disadvantages, such as the many arrests made more jobs and more money for citizens, it kept the revolution on track, the many deaths of nobles, and the overall deaths of citizens.

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The French Revolution occurred due to the curtailing of the estates’ rights under King Louis XIV, who attempted to rule as an absolute autocrat and was later executed for this. The Enlightenment made it permissible for people to speak and question the rights of the time. After the Enlightenment, social rights, religious rights, and gender rights were expanded and advanced. Document one speaks of natural rights that extends to all of humanity with natural rights being any right that doesn’t hurt another, “You have the most sacred natural right to everything that is not disputed by the rest of the species.” By being a natural right, it couldn’t be denied to anyone, no matter gender, race, or time period.

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Europe and France during the 17th to 18th century faced a multitude of challenges and improvements. As a new era allowed economic development to grow, colonies in Europe started expanding their political control to new continents. In the meantime, the French Revolution spurred many rebellions as citizens strive to adopt not only new sets of government policies, but also to establish new democratic systems. Another crucial challenge to the nations during this time was the fight for nature of citizenship. During the Enlightenment and French Revolution, the marginalization of women, slaves, and Jews from the society can be attributed to debates about gender roles, natural human rights and religious conflicts.

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The French revolution began on May 6th 1789 due to the unfair, and high taxation of the lower class. However the higher class, also known as aristocrats paid no taxes at all and lived lavishly, while the lower class could barely afford basic necessities such as food. In June of 1789 the French people decided to take matters into their own hands and they formed a national assembly, which they used to demand more rights. In this assembly they wrote “rights of man and citizen” this declaration was published during the summer of 1789. This document stated that all men were equal under the law, this was not amended to include women despite protests.

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From around the mid 1600 till the late 1700, there was a big push in Europe that began to emphasize reason over faith and science over religion. In John Locke essay concerning human understanding, Locke proposes that everyone begins life as a white paper, void of all characters, and that experiences are what make us what we are today. This was known as the “blank slate”. This completely went against the idea of the divine rights of kings. If everyone is the same when they are born, then God could not have given certain people the rights to be kings.

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The Profound Impact of the French Revolution Riddled with blood, violence, and terror, the French Revolution was a horrific event marked by the thousands of lives lost. Its end goal seemed increasingly out of reach with each passing day of destruction, death, and uncertainty. But a phoenix can only rise from its ashes, bringing a new beginning of hope and better things to come. The revolution may have been costly, but its faults cannot overshadow its profound impact. The French Revolution, through reforming the monarchical social institutions, establishing a government for the people’s will, and causing a global shift in revolutionary ideas, ushered in a new era of civil liberty and freedom, reshaping societies worldwide.

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France went from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy then to a committee called the Directory after the execution of Robespierre. Robespierre was a radical who led the Jacobins. He was mainly responsible for the Reign of Terror and the Jacobins controlled phase two of the revolution. Although they were responsible for the extreme use of the guillotine and deaths of about 40,000 people, many reforms were made by Jacobins. Because of the revolution, political parties were formed and a sense of patriotism and nationalism emerged.

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During the Eighteenth Century, France had an absolute monarchy with Louis XVI as king and Marie Antoinette as queen. In that time period, French society was based upon a system of Estates where the clergy made up the First Estate; the nobility comprised the Second Estate, and everyone else including professionals, peasants, and the bourgeoisie made up the Third Estate. The Third Estate was immensely unhappy with the old regime, the Estates General, and Louis XVI’s leadership. France was also in the midst of a fiscal crisis due to the American Revolution, Louis XVI’s lavish lifestyle, the Seven Years War, and the tax exemption of the First and Second Estate. Following the surge of new ideas and impactful philosophers from the Enlightenment,

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The Committee of Public Safety was a government that allowed France to be restructured without total anarchy. The Jacobins and Robespierre worked “to strengthen and deepen the radical ideals of the Revolution…”(E8). They wanted to change their government from feudalism. From Robespierre’s position in the Committee, the Reign of Terror began September of 1793(A1). Some important people whom were killed throughout the Reign of Terror include King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette for anti-revolutionary acts(F6, L1).

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The butterfly effect refers to the concept that small causes can have large effects that if a butterfly were to flap its wings at the right time in the right place an earthquake could occur on the other side of the world. The very same idea applies to world history that if people make a revolution, for example, at the right time and go about it the right way, it will cause an “earthquake” throughout the rest of the world. In the instance of revolutions, one revolution has caused one of the most monumental “earthquakes” in human history. The French Revolution, was a period from 1789 until 1799, which addressed social issues and instigate political upheaval throughout all of Europe, its “earthquake” took the form of Nationalism. Nationalism refers

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Opening paragraph The French Revolution was a major failure and a minor success. After all of the blood shed, the laws, civil rights, and codes did not get instituted effectively and did not represent the values that the citizens had fought for. Examples of this were the Napoleonic Code and Declaration of Rights of Man. Another reason it was a failure was because during the revolts and reforms more than 40,000 men and women died.

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