What Caused The French Revolution Dbq Analysis

The Causes and Effects of The French Revolution
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.” -Jean Jacques Rousseau

Imagine being a peasant of the third estate in the French Revolution era. How would you feel being taxed a lot more than the others estates, just because of some “title”? Or being treated unfair because you couldn’t read well, or you weren’t wealthy enough? Well, that’s what life was like for the peasants. But it wasn’t long before this third estate became angry about the inequality and decided to take some action. The French Revolution began when King Louis XVI called the Estates-General to raise taxes. This is when the third estate demands that delegates get a vote, but the king rejected their demand. From this rejection

The Enlightenment was an era that challenged people to really think about government and society. Many writers, thinkers, and artists were influenced by this era. This quote from an Enlightenment thinker, John Locke, explains that all men are born equal and that freedom shouldn’t be harmed or limited; “All mankind… being all equal and independent, on one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” (Document 1) Jean Jacques Rousseau also had the same idea of a free man. He stated, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.” (Document 1) He’s proving that even though man is born free, there are restrictions and limitations to our freedom. This had to do a lot with the spread of Enlightenment ideas and how it connects to The French Revolution. The ideas of this Enlightenment era allowed people to start forming their own opinions about the government. This plays along to how the third estate felt about the first and second estates. Once the third estate realized that they should do something about the heavy taxes and inequality, that’s where the Enlightenment ideas came to play. The third estate formed their opinions about the government and decided to use their voice. These ideas resulted in an attempt to overthrow the government. It also led to individuality, separation of powers and the protection of natural rights. This quote: “Men being, by nature are free, equal,

Before the Reign of Terror and all the bad events that occurred, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were rulers of the monarchy. King Louis was only eleven years old when he began ruling. Eleven is an extremely young age for a ruler to make appropriate decisions. He was very indecisive and he had no clue as to what he was doing. At age fifteen, he married Marie Antoinette. Along with the young and naïve King Louis, Queen Antoinette was just as foolish. She admired anything ritzy or glamorous, and that’s why she was known for spending lots of money on material items. Again, these two were very young and in no way, were prepared for such duties. This made it difficult and angered many of the third estate