American & French

Revolution
• in 1763, Great Britain had become the world’s greatest colonial power.
• Britain controlled Canada and the lands east of the Mississippi.
• Britain was deeply in debt following the French and Indian war (1754-
1763)
• Once the war was won, Britain began passing laws and taxes to increase
its control over the colonies
• Colonists believed Parliament did not have the right to tax them
because the American colonies were not represented in Parliament.
• Boston Tea Party
Declaration of Independence
• July 4, 1776.
• A stirring political document, the Declaration of Independence
affirmed the Enlightenment’s natural rights of ‘‘life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness’’ and declared the colonies to be ‘‘free and in-
dependent states absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.’’
• In 1778, Treaty of Alliance with France confirmed the formal
recognition of U.S. independence. 
• The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, recognized the independence of
the American colonies by Britain
French
Revolutio
n
«Not a revolt,
it is a
revolution»
French Revolution
• Resentment of royal absolutism.
• Resentment of the seigneurial system by peasants, wage-earners, and
a rising bourgeoisie.
• The rise of enlightenment ideals.
• An unmanageable national debt, both caused by and exacerbating the
burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation.
• Food scarcity in the years immediately before the revolution
 French Revolution
• The French Revolution was a key factor in the emergence of a new world
order.
• Historians have often portrayed the eighteenth century as the final phase of
Europe’s old order, before the violent upheaval and reordering of society
associated with the French Revolution.
• The old order was largely agrarian, dominated by kings and landed
aristocrats, and grounded in privileges for nobles, clergy that had prevailed in
Europe since medieval times.
• New intellectual order based on rationalism and secularism
• Demographic, economic, social, and political patterns were beginning to
change in ways that proclaimed the emergence of a modern new order.
• In 1789, Louis XVI convoked the Estates-General (for the first
time in 175 years) as he sought financial reforms to alleviate
France’s huge debt.
• The Estates-General was the Ancien Régime’s representative
assembly, made up of three estates:
• clergy (First Estate);
• nobility (Second Estate);
• and commoners (Third Estate).
‘‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’’
• The root causes of the French Revolution must be sought in the
condition of French society.
• Its population of 27 million was divided into three orders or estates.
• The first group consisted of the clergy and numbered about 130,000
people who owned approximately 10 percent of the land.
• The second group was the nobility, composed of about 350,000
people who owned about 25 to 30 percent of the land.
• King Louis XIV - died in 1715 and left France with a huge debt (wars and palace)
• King Louis XV - was luxuriously self-indulgent
• King Louis XVI - A careless, He lived an extremely extravagant life
• 1788 - There was a series of successive crop failures, and the food prices began to double
rapidly.
• Leading to raising of taxes
• 1789 -  Louis tried to tax the nobles
• He calls the first Estates General (their congress) since 1614 
• The first and second estates dominated the talks, were given an uneven vote and advantage
• The third estate urges reform, relief for the poor, and an equal voice
• After weeks of arguing, the Third Estate leaves the talks and convenes on the King’s Tennis
court.
• Meeting of Third Social Group organized against this trouble
• But finally the third group, commoners declared itself the ‘National
Assembly’
• The commoners saved the third estate from the king’s forces
• Bastille prison dismantled brick by brick
• King Louis accepted the collapse of the royal authority
• The revolution spread to the other parts of the France
1789 January 24 Louis XVI summons the Estates General
  May 5 Estates General convenes
  June 17 National Assembly
  June 20 The “Tennis Court Oath”
  July 14 Storming of the Bastille
  August 4 Abolition of feudal (noble, clerical) rights
  August 26 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
Women's March on Versailles; Louis “kidnapped” back to
  October 5-6
Paris (Let them eat cake!)
   
1790 May 19 National Assembly abolishes the nobility
  July 12 Civil Constitution of the French Clergy
  November 27 Clergy instructed to swear allegiance to France
1791March 10 Pope Pius VI condemns the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
 June 20-21 Louis & Marie Antoinette flee; captured at Varennes
 August 27 Declaration of Pillnitz: Frederick William II of Prussia and the Habsburg Holy
Roman Emperor Leopold II who was Marie Antoinette's brother
 September New Constitution ratified (with support of Louis)
1792April 20 France declares war on Austria
 April 25 First use of guillotine
 June 13 Prussia declares war on France
 August 10 Parisians storm Tuileries palace; end of Louis XVI’s power
 September 21 French Republic proclaimed
1793January 21 Louis XVI executed
 February 1 France declares war on Britain and Netherlands
 April 6 Committee of Public Safety founded
 June 24 New Constitution proclaimed
 August 12 Mass conscription instituted
 October 5 Republican calendar adopted
 October 16 Marie Antoinette executed
1794July 28 Robespierre guillotined