The French Revolution

The French Revolution started around the 18th century. The French Revolution, was also
called Revolution of 1789, the revolutionary movement that shook France between 1787 and
1799 and reached its first climax there in 1789. The French Revolution started under the rule of
Louis XVI. Louis was still in the debt left to him by his grandfather Louis XV.
The conditions in France in the late 1780s were terrible. French participation in the
American Revolution had driven the government to the brink of bankruptcy. France was the
most populous country in Europe, and crop failures in much of the country in 1788, coming on
top of a long period of economic difficulties, compounded existing restlessness. the French
monarchy, no longer seen as divinely ordained, was unable to adapt to the political and societal
pressures that were being exerted on it. There was still the the revolt the third escort had against
the first and second. It became a battle between the first and second escorts versus the third. The
third was by far the biggest of the 3 with over 90% of the population in that escort. Demanding a
new declaration , the third was to be declared the National Assembly. To accomplish this they
threatened to continue without the other escorts.
The first escort was made up of priest. They barely paid any taxes. This was the smallest
with about one percent. The second was made up of rich nobles. The paid minimum taxes. About
2 percent of the population made up the second escort. While the third was made up of the
common to the poor. They paid high taxes to live. They made up of at least 97% of the
population.
One of the many revolutionaries was Benedict de Spinoza. works lie at the foundation of
modern philosophical. Another revolutionist was Georges Danton. Georges Jacques Danton was

a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the
Committee of Public Safety.
The fall of Bastille started when the first and second escorts excluded the third out of the
building in Versailles. The third escort occupied the kings tennis court they would not leave until
a new constitution was written for France. The king reluctantly let the nobles join the peasants on
the field to make the constitution while at the same time gathering up his soldiers to take down
the rebels. After ignoring their duties the maintenance of the food, it was running low. The kings
solution, to overthrow the third estate. In doing this it lead to the Great Fear of July 1789. The
Great Fear of July 1789 lead the peasants to rise against the lords. The nobles and the bourgeois
now took fright. The National Constituent Assembly could see only one way to check the
peasants; on the night of August 4, 1789, it decreed the terminating the feudal regime and of the
third. Then on August 26 it introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,
proclaiming liberty, equality, the inviolability of property, and the right to resist oppression. The
decrees of August 4 and the declaration were such ideas that the king refused to approve them.
The Parisians rose again and on October 5 marched to Versailles. The next day they brought the
royal family back to Paris. The National Constituent Assembly followed the court, and in Paris it
continued to work on the new constitution. The French population participated actively in the
new political exposure created thanks to the revolution.
Opposition was broken down thanks to the Reign of Terror. Which had arrested about
300,000 people who about 17,000 were killed or executed. Perhaps about 10,000 died in a prison
cell or died without having a trial. The Reign of Terror was lead by several people which
includes Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Maximilien Robespierre Bertrand, Barre Jean-Marie
Collot d'Herbois.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, French Declaration des Droits de
lHomme et du Citoyen, one of the basic charters of human liberties, containing the principles
that inspired the French Revolution. Its 17 articles, adopted between August 20 and August 26,
1789, by Frances National Assembly, served as the preamble to the Constitution of 1791.
Similar documents served as the preamble to the Constitution of 1793 (retitled simply
Declaration of the Rights of Man) and to the Constitution of 1795 (retitled Declaration of the
Rights and Duties of Man and the Citizen).
Versailles had a place for the king and queen of France. In 1789 the palace was attacked
by women. In this raid they only had brooms pitchforks, and, torches, and etcetera. They killed
the guards and took prisoner King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette. These women took
the royal family and took them all the way back to Paris to write a new constitution and put King
Louis XVI under house arrest.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence
during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Revolutionary
Wars.Napoleon asked for leave and in September joined Paolis group. But Paoli had no
sympathy for the young man, whose father had deserted his cause and whom he considered to be
a foreigner. Disappointed, Napoleon returned to France, and in April 1791 he was appointed first
lieutenant to the 4th regiment of artillery, garrisoned at Valence. Through his lineage Napoleon
was promoted to captain but did not rejoin his squadron. Napoleon was an artillery genius. He
barely lost a battle. If he did lose a battle he was able to just let what information he wanted out.