The Beginning of the French Revolution

A. The Old Regime

B. The Estates General

C. The Storming of the Bastille

D. The March on Versailles

A. The Old Regime• This was the government before the Revolution

began

• It was ruled by King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette

• King Louis ruled from his palace of Versailles (12 miles west of Paris)

• During the Old regime French society was divided into three classes that were called estates

• 1st Estate – The Clergy (priests)

• 2nd Estate – The Nobility (upper class: you are born into it)– They spend 6 months of every year living at Versailles

with the King and Queen

• 3rd Estate –Everyone else (middle and lower class) – 97-98% of the population

Population of France by Estate, 1787

97%

2%

1%

Third Estate

Second Estate

First Estate

Percent of Income Paid in Taxes

50

0

2

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Third Estate

Second Estate

First Estate

• The 3rd estate paid almost all the taxes, but they had almost NO money.

B. The Estates General• French government

ran into debt by 1789• Mainly because of

wars & life at Versailles

• King Louis called a meeting of ALL of the estates to figure out a solution to the debt

• Called the Estates General

• May 5, 1789

• At this meeting, representatives of the 1st and 2nd estates refused to meet with the representatives of the 3rd estate

• The 3rd estate wanted to make changes in the government

• They wanted ALL estates to pay taxes based on their wealth

• They were locked out of their meeting room and ordered to leave

• Representatives of the 3rd estate refused to leave

• They broke into a tennis court to meet to figure out a solution

• Declared they would not leave until France had a constitution

• Called this decision “The Tennis Court Oath”

•This was the beginning of the REVOLUTION

• They would eventually write a Constitution to create a limit on Louis’ power

• More importantly they also wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1791)

• Adopted the principles of liberty, equality, and democracy

•This will inspire the rest of the ENTIRE revolution

C. The Storming of the Bastille• July 14, 1789 – Parisian citizens were worried about

the king’s soldiers coming into Paris.

• Parisians stormed the Bastille looking for weapons and gunpowder.

• Symbolic beginning of the revolution.

D. The March on Versailles

• Things were getting worse in Paris (the capital)

• The people could not afford to buy food

• The women of Paris marched to Versailles in October 1789

• Forced the King and Queen to move to Paris and killed several guards