CLASS IX - HISTORY(2024-2025)

CH1:FRENCH REVOLUTION
(Recapitulation)

IMPORTANT TERMS -
Livre- Unit of currency in France which was discontinued in 1794.
Clergy– Churchmen
Tithe- A tax levied by the church, which comprises one-tenth of the agricultural produce.
Taille- Tax which is to be paid directly to the state.
Subsistence crisis- An extreme situation where the basic means of livelihood are
endangered.
Anonymous- One whose name remains unknown.
Chateau- Castle or residence belonging to a king or a nobleman.
Manor- An estate consisting of the lord’s lands and his mansion.
Active citizens- Men above 25 years of age who all paid taxes equal to at least 3 days of
labourer’s wage were given this title and enjoyed the right to vote.

POINTERS
 Before the French revolution the French territories and society was like an ancient
regime. They had feudal lords who had taken over the political system of the country.
The French society was divided into three Estates.
 They were the clergy, the nobility and the peasants/workers. The upper two
estates were closer to the royals and hence received favours easily. The others had
to pay multiple taxes and had a life of suffering.
● A group of several hundred people marched towards the eastern part of the city and
stormed the fortress-prison, the Bastille, where they hoped to find hoarded
ammunition.
● In the armed fight that followed, the commander of the Bastille was killed and the
prisoners released though there were only seven of them.
● The Bastille was hated by all, because it stood for the despotic power of the king.
● In 1774, Louis XVI of the Bourbon family of kings ascended the throne of France.
● He was 20 years old and married to the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette. Upon
his accession the new king found an empty treasury.
● Long years of war had drained the financial resources of France. Added to this was
the cost of maintaining an extravagant court at the immense palace of Versailles.
● Under Louis XVI, France helped the thirteen American colonies to gain their
independence from the common enemy, Britain.
● The war added more than a billion livres to a debt that had already risen to more than
2 billion livres. Lenders who gave the state credit, now began to charge 10 percent
interest on loans.
● The French government was obliged to spend an increasing percentage of its budget
on interest payments alone.
● To meet its regular expenses, such as the cost of maintaining an army, the court,
running government offices or universities, the state was forced to increase taxes.
● The society of estates was part of the feudal system that dated back to the middle
ages.

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● The term Old Regime is usually used to describe the society and institutions of
France before 1789.
● Peasants made up about 90 per cent of the population. However, only a small
number of them owned the land they cultivated. About 60 per cent of the land was
owned by nobles, the Church and other richer members of the third estate.
● The members of the first two estates, that is, the clergy and the nobility, enjoyed
certain privileges by birth. The most important of these was exemption from paying
taxes to the state.
● The nobles further enjoyed feudal privileges.
● These included a direct tax, called taille, and a number of indirect taxes which were
levied on articles of everyday consumption like salt or tobacco. The burden of
financing activities of the state through taxes was borne by the third estate alone.

FIRST ESTATE - CLERGY

SECOND ESTATE -NOBILITY

THIRD ESTATE - BIG

STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE – SUBSISTENCE CRISIS

● The population of France rose from about 23 million in 1715 to 28 million in 1789.
● This led to a rapid increase in the demand for foodgrains.
● Production of grains could not keep pace with the demand.
● So the price of bread which was the staple diet of the majority rose rapidly.
● Most workers were employed as labourers in workshops whose owner fixed their
wages. But wages did not keep pace with the rise in prices.
● The gap between the poor and the rich widened.
● Things became worse whenever drought or hail reduced the harvest.
● This led to a subsistence crisis, something that occurred frequently in France
during the Old Regime.

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GROWING MIDDLE CLASS

● The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of social groups, termed the
middle class, who earned their wealth through an expanding overseas trade and
from the manufacture of goods such as woollen and silk textiles that were either
exported or bought by the richer members of society.
● In addition to merchants and manufacturers, the third estate included professions
such as lawyers or administrative officials.
● All of these were educated and believed that no group in society should be privileged
by birth.
● In his Two Treatises of Government, Locke sought to refute the doctrine of the
divine and absolute right of Monarch.
● Rousseau carried the idea forward, proposing a form of government based on a
social contract between people and their representatives.
● In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu proposed a division of power within the
government between the legislative, the executive and the judiciary.
● This model of government was put into force in the USA, after the thirteen colonies
declared their independence from Britain.
● The American constitution and its guarantee of individual rights was an
important example for political thinkers in France.

Outbreak of the Revolution – Background

● The Estates General was a political body to which the three estates sent their
representatives. However, the monarch alone could decide when to call a meeting of
this body.
● On 5 May 1789, Louis XVI called together an assembly of the Estates General to
pass proposals for new taxes.
● The first and second estates sent 300 representatives each, who were seated in
rows facing each other on two sides, while the 600 members of the third estate had
to stand at the back.
● Voting in the Estates General in the past had been conducted according to the
principle that each estate had one vote. This time too Louis XVI was determined to
continue the same practice.
● But members of the third estate demanded that voting now be conducted by the
assembly as a whole.
● Each member would have one vote.
● The was one of the democratic principles put forward by philosophers like Rousseau
in his book The Social Contract.
● The king rejected this proposal, members of the third estate walked out of the
assembly in protest.
● The representatives of the third estate viewed themselves as spokesmen for the
whole French nation.
● On 20 June they assembled in the hall of an indoor tennis court in the grounds of
Versailles.
● They declared themselves a National Assembly and swore not to disperse till they
had drafted a constitution for France that would limit the powers of the monarch.
● They were led by Mirabeau and Abbé Sieyès.

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● Mirabeau was born in a noble family but was convinced of the need to do away with
a society of feudal privilege. He brought out a journal and delivered powerful
speeches to the crowds assembled at Versailles.
● While the National Assembly was busy at Versailles drafting a constitution, the rest
of France seethed with turmoil.
● A severe winter had meant a bad harvest; the price of bread rose, often bakers
exploited the situation and hoarded supplies.
● After spending hours in long queues at the bakery, crowds of angry women stormed
into the shops. At the same time, the king ordered troops to move into Paris. On 14
July, the agitated crowd stormed and destroyed the Bastille.
● In the countryside rumours spread from village to village that the lords of the manor
had hired bands of brigands who were on their way to destroy the ripe crops.
● Caught in a frenzy of fear, peasants in several districts seized hoes and pitchforks
and attacked chateaux.
● They looted hoarded grain and burnt down documents containing records of manorial
dues.
● A large number of nobles fled from their homes, many of them migrating to
neighbouring countries.
● Faced with the power of his revolting subjects, Louis XVI finally accorded recognition
to the National Assembly and accepted the principle that his powers would from now
on be checked by a constitution.
● On the night of 4 August 1789, the Assembly passed a decree abolishing the
feudal system of obligations and taxes.
● Members of the clergy too were forced to give up their privileges.
● Tithes were abolished and lands owned by the Church were confiscated.
● As a result, the government acquired assets worth at least 2 billion livres.

FRANCE BECOMES A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY

● The National Assembly completed the draft of the constitution in 1791. Its main
objective was to limit the powers of the monarch.
● These powers instead of being concentrated in the hands of one person, were now
separated and assigned to different institutions: the legislature, executive and
judiciary.
● The Constitution of 1791 vested the power to make laws in the National Assembly,
which was indirectly elected.
● That is, citizens voted for a group of electors, who in turn chose the Assembly.
● Not all citizens, however, had the right to vote. Only men above 25 years of age
who paid taxes equal to at least 3 days of a labourers wage were given the status
of active citizens, that is, they were entitled to vote.
● The remaining men and all women were classed as passive citizens.
● To qualify as an elector and then as a member of the Assembly, a man had to belong
to the highest bracket of taxpayers
● The Constitution began with a Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
● Rights such as the right to life, freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, equality
before law, were established as natural and inalienable rights, that is, they belonged
to each human being by birth and could not be taken away.
● It was the duty of the state to protect each citizen natural rights