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Arguments For

Page history last edited by Kyung Hoon 14 years, 11 months ago

 

The Frecnh Revolution was neessary because France's government was in financial crisis. For years, royal ministers believed that more revenues were needed if France were to maintain its position in international affairs and take care of domestic affairs. Originally the kings of France paid the costs of rule from wealth produced on their own domains, helped in emergencies from an assembly of people who granted the royal treasury tax revenues. But emergencies were now perpetual. During the Seven Years' War and during France's help for the American Revolution, the monarchy had fallen deeper in debt.

The government was taxing common people regularly and paying half of its revenues to cover debts owed to aristocrats and other lenders. Louis XVI considered extending taxation to France's two privileged orders: the nobility and the Catholic Church. With this in mind, and for other reforms (such as the elimination of internal tariff barriers) the king's government, in February 1787, convened a consultative body of nobles and clergy called the Assembly of Notables. The nobles and clergy remained opposed to paying taxes, and, in May, the Assembly of Notables was dismissed. Plans were then laid to convene a larger consultative body, the Estates General, consisting of members of the Church (the First Estate), the nobility (the Second Estate) and all others (the Third Estate). Plans for the first meeting of the Estates General since 1614 were made for early 1789.

 

In July, 1788, a hailstorm destroyed crops. France had its worst harvest in forty years, and the winter of 1788-89 was severe. Getting no relief from their hunger, people rioted. The economy declined further. In Paris, construction workers were joining the ranks of the unemployed. People were being evicted from their rented homes. With bread more scarce, its price rose. People had been in the habit of eating mainly bread, and it now took most of the wages of those still working to obtain it. The Church was handing out bread and milk, and the king's economic minister, Jacques Necker, was doing what he could. He forbade the export of grain and launched a program to import food. This was with little success. Food was in short supply in Europe in general and frozen rivers and canals were hampering transport.

 

Political Reform

The Estates General convened as scheduled, in May, 1789, at Versailles (pronounced ver-sEYE, as in the word eye), where the king and his court were established - twelve miles from Paris. Representing the Catholic Church were many ordinary parish priests. The nobles selected their representatives, many of them the kind of impoverished hereditary nobles not usually seen at court - men who enjoyed wearing their elaborate garb while marching at the head of the procession in the opening ceremony. Half of the 1,200 delegates were mostly lawyers, representing their fellow commoners – the Third Estate. Each delegate had one vote. Traditionally the Church and nobles voted together, two votes against one vote for the Third Estate. The Church and nobles were united by family ties, prosperous nobles sending their sons into the upper echelons of the Church and into the military as commissioned officers.

 

In the meeting of the Estates General, delegates of the Third Estate complained that they represented 97 percent of the nation's population and should have more influence. They rebelled, breaking away and creating their own convention, which they called the "National Assembly." It was a challenge to the other two orders and to the authority of the king. The National Assembly was presuming to speak for the nation as a whole.

 

At work was the liberalism that had grown with the Enlightenment, a liberalism reinvigorated in prestige by the American Revolution. From the Estates General, liberal-minded clergy and nobility joined the National Assembly. Amid cheering at the National Assembly, nobles announced their willingness to give up their feudal rights. Prosperous and educated commoners with liberal ideas were also represented in the National Assembly - a class that had risen with the rise of commerce. Members of the National Assembly wanted the creation of a parliamentary system similar to what the British had, and they swore not to disperse until a constitution had been written and ratified (a swearing to be known as the Tennis Court Oath).

 

Louis XVI was gentle by nature, but he mobilized his troops against the National Assembly and its supporters, ordering his army to surround Versailles and Paris. Then he vacillated, letting the first act of the revolution stand. Louis XVI was surrendering some of the power that for two hundred years had been thought of as absolute.

 The direct cause of the Revolution was the chaotic state of government finance. Director general of finances Jacques Necker vainly sought to restore public confidence. French participation in the American Revolution had increased the huge debt, and Necker's successor, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, called an Assembly of Notables (1787), hoping to avert bankruptcy by inducing the privileged classes to share in the financial burden. They refused in an effort to protect economic privileges    

The changes obtained by the French Revolution were legal abolition of the feudal dues of the peasants that had been going on for under the ancient regime, more economic and social equality and a better justice system.

The French Revolution ended unfair church ruling and gave more religious freedom to people. It allowed religious members to give up their ways and begin to work at anything. It legalized deities and the protestant and Jewish religion, allowing them freedom, migration and work choices. It stopped horrendous kidnaps by religious orders.

The French Revolution also created more economic equality among the people. First it freed millions of French serfs or sharecroppers of the feudal system. It freed ten thousand African slaves working in France and the remnants of Portuguese slaves.  It ended enclosures by the rich who used to take land for themselves from the state and from peasant. It abolished arbitrary power of the king’s court and abolished special privileges of the aristocrats. 

The French Revolution created more social equality, less division between social classes even though they still remained, and among different genders. It raised general life expectancy of the people.

It became easier for the peasants to get work and there were better opportunities for them to earn money. The division of land among cultivators was a positive change, stopped the necessity for serfs and slaves.  It ended bulling from duelists, higher class sword fighters, who used to pick on peasants who didn’t know how to fight and who couldn’t refuse to duel due to ideals of honor.

 It started female emancipation that used to be neglected in society. It allowed divorce and different marriage forms. Any peasant woman was now allowed to wear high heels. The French revolution began the first state pension. Women were now able to get better inheritances. They spent a lot of money on welfare. The life of orphans and elders also improved. Build new and better prisons and asylums. It also legalized gays and prohibited their torture.  

 

 

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