"Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale" (Dickens 38) One of the main causes of the French Revolution was the lack of food and the high cost of it. A normal laborer would have to pay close to 97% …show more content…
Also a cattle disease and two poor harvests proceeding that pushed the French people into starvation. Many riots broke out over high store prices on bread (Hutchinson). "Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when these breasts where dry with want" (Dickens 221). The people in France were starving and the nobles who had full stomachs did not help the tension. "So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads"(Dickens 187). In the novel A Tale of …show more content…
It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips" (Dickens 109). The nobles in France during this time were hated immensely, they were exempt from taxes, had enough food, clothes, money, and mansions while the third estate suffered. Many nobles were cruel and spent their money lavishly on luxuries, treating the common people poorly, like the Monseigneur who was so well hated and ended up being murdered. Then there were people who were related to the nobles who had all the money, those people by blood were executed for doing nothing to help the lower class while still technically being innocent ("French Revolution").The relatives of nobles like Charles Darnay were imprisoned and killed for being related to someone with money. Though many were killed for their place in society the middle class, like Dr. Manette were left alone usually because they had no quarrel with either side and actually gained wealth during the French Revolution (Dickens). By the middle and end of the revolution many people were killed and revolutionaries continued to kill people for petty crime because of the harsh laws put in place by Robespierre (Encyclopedia Britannica). "Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cast, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth" (Dickens 37).
One of the most important causes of the French Revolution was the French system of taxation. According to document one, there was an “injustice in levying the amount each person must pay. Lands held by the nobility were taxed very little. Lands held by commoners were taxed heavily.” This means that the third estate was responsible for paying most of the country’s taxes, while the first and second estates, were responsible for very little. Since the third estate was responsible to pay the most in taxes, they began to suffer the most. The taxes caused them to not be able to afford simple necessities in life, such as bread. This injustice caused the people to want to reform their economic situation by finding a way to avoid strangling taxes and make the first two estates contribute to a failing economy.
Social Classes are one of the 3 main causes of the French Revolution. The 2 upper estates paid almost no taxes and also owned most of the land. The cartoon in document 7 shown
The citizens of the 3rd estate and some citizens in the 2nd estate in France during 1789, were not happy at all. They were getting heavily taxed by Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, and the Catholic Church. When they didn’t have the money to pay the taxes that was forced upon them. After all of the hard work they put in to growing crops, the crops were taken
Innocent lives lost, brawls on the streets, and blood splattered on the ground. These are all things you would find during the Reign of Terror, a period of time during the French Revolution where the newly-created government executed large amounts of people who were suspected enemies of the Revolution. The French Revolution started in 1789 as an attempt to rid of the absolute monarchy that ruled over the French people and create a new government that fit their needs. There were three leading factors that spurred the start of the Revolution. The first was the high debt that rose during this time, primarily from King Louis XVI sending money to aid in the American Revolution.
During 1789 and decades prior, peasants toil in the fields and reap the diminishing wheat stalks. Bound by the law set by the king, they suffered paying the nobility’s and clergy’s expenses with whatever income they had. When not in desperate poverty, the Third Estate would muster any energy to exert disdain to their king, indifferent behind palace walls. With Voltaire's and Rousseau's conceptions, commoners imagined a government where the nation was in potency, not the monarch. Yet, King Louis XVI taunts this bubbling tension by claiming these privileges were well-deserved, insinuating that his people were literal breadwinners, obligated to pay tribute. With high tax rates, a radical government where the people were free of ridicule circulated
In France leading up to the revolution, there was a lot of poverty as well as national debt. The poverty was so bad in the late 1780s that the people said, "The lack of bread is terrible (Document 7). " They also said, "The price of Bread has risen above people's ability to pay (Document 7). " This shows that the people were too poor to afford bread.
The French Revolution was quite different than the American Revolution predecessor. The American Revolution expressed the tensions of a colonial relationship with a distant imperial power, the French insurrection was driven by sharp conflicts within French society. Members of the titled nobility - privileged, prestigious, and wealthy - resented and resisted the monarchy's effort to subject them to new taxes. Educated middle-class men such as doctors, lawyers, lower-level officials, and merchants were growing in numbers and sometimes in wealth and were offended by the remaining privileges of the aristocracy, from which they were excluded. Ordinary urban men and women, many of whose incomes had declined for a generation, were hit particularly hard in the late 1780s by the rapidly rising price of bread and widespread unemployment. Nowhere did the example of the French Revolution echo more loudly than in
Rich ones acted like evil people, while the poor were not very much, like people at all; for the poor were depressed. Charles shows the bad stuff happening to peasants, to show how much of a necessity the French revolution was.
The initial impulse of the French revolution was destructive. For those who lived through all, or even part, of these vast upheavals, the shock was overwhelming. Maximilien Robespierre was a proud disciple of the enlightenment and declared that no political writer had foreseen this revolution. Robespierre (1758-1794) was one of the leaders of the Committee of Public Safety, the effective governing body of France during the most radical phase of the revolution. The leaders of this revolution attempted, perhaps more than any other revolutionary leaders before or since, to totally transform human society in every way. (Supreme Being) Although Robespierre began with patriotic intent he still was the face of the Reign of Terror and was viewed as being a radical person.
The People of France in the last part of the 18th century were experiencing severe food shortages, increasing the cost of living, and political leaders who were doing very little to fix the state of chaos in which most people found themselves. In both rural and
Liberté, égalité, fraternité was the cry of freedom that countless people used to propel them through, and to the end of the French Revolution. This long period of social, political and economic change in France lasted 10 years, starting in 1798 and ended with Napoleon Bonaparte. The French Revolution greatly affected all of Europe at the time and continues to represent the embodiment of revolution to this day. This constant struggle between the heavily taxed, burdened, and unrepresented third estate and those higher created an environment of monumental change for everyone. In the years leading up to the French Revolution, new beliefs and ideas were reaching every corner of Europe creating the thought that men should live free of oppression. However, in France the leader Louis XVI lead like a tyrant leaving the people impoverish and angry. Through the analysation of numerous circumstance present during the Ancien Régime, such as an inferior fiscal leadership, massive debt, and the forthcoming of new ideas during the Enlightened period, it can be concluded that the means for this revolution were justified as it is in our essence to revolt for a change.
The French Revolution was a time of period where social and political was a disruption in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799. This time of period affected Social Structure of France prior to the French Revolution. The factors that caused this revolution was due to having a bad government system, weak superiority, and inequality of the classes of people in France during the war. In this research, I will define and explain how Social Structure contributed to the French Revolution Resentment of royal authoritarianism. The three estates that social structure consists of are first estate which are the clergies, second estate known as the Nobleman, and third estate which are the Bourgeoisie, peasants, and workers. The Revolution did not omit sharp distinctions among the social groups, neither did it alter the distribution of wealth. This caused them to divide into these three groups called as estates.
The French Revolution was a period of time from 1789 to 1799 in France where there was political instability. It officially began on the 14th of July, 1789, when the Bastille, which was a symbol of the King’s harsh policies, was stormed. The King, Louis XVI, the Queen, Marie-Antoinette and about 40,000 people were all brutally murdered. But there was also a positive side, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was formally adopted on August 1789 and feudalism was abolished. This essay will address the issues of the three estates system, food shortages and the fiscal crisis. It will also be argued that the most significant cause of the French Revolution was the social inequality that stemmed from the three estates system.
Doctor Manette’s prison account clearly demonstrates the class gap, “The speaker [the Marquis] seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to have that different order of creature [the peasant] dying there, and that it would have been better if he died in the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind” (Dickens 329). Not only is there an extreme difference in lifestyle, but the upper class also treats the lower class with extreme disdain. The treatment of the people at the hands of their “betters” and the class gap catalyzes the French Revolution.
When prices got so high that peasants and other third estate citizens couldn't afford food there was an inevitable uprising. The peasantry became a class with the ambition to counteract social inequity and put a stop to escalating food prices. This unrest caused a riot, known as the bread riot, which became a central cause to the French Revolution.