The French RevolutionIt begins with privilege and excess…

The Breakdown of French Estates

Everybody else…(60-70% of the land)

• Bourgeoisie – middle class of France; controlled most of the

wealth• Sans-Culottes – Urban workers and

traders/artisans • Peasants – worked on farms for the

nobles, struggled to survive

Nobility of France(1.5% of the population

controlled 20-30% of the land)

Roman Catholic Clergy(.5% of the population

10% of the land)

Louis XVI

Married Marie Antoinette at 15

Bored with affairs of state, preferred physical activities, like hunting

King at 20

Wanted to improve the lives of the common people Gave up at little resistance

Marie Antoinette

Symbol of excess

Promised to Louis XVI to cement ties between Austria and France Frivolous at a young age Hated being at the French

court

Queen at 19 Loved to spend money and

gamble

Jacques-Pierre Brissot

Leader of Girondins – moderate bourgeois faction that opposed the Jacobins

Clerk in lawyer’ offices at Chartes, then Paris Wanted to write

Member: third estate

Argued for the maintaining the monarchy Opposition: Robespierre

Marquis de Lafayette Major role in American Revolution

Served Washington Fled France during the revolution

but was important in rebuilding afterward

Member: 2nd estate

Advocated for a governing body representing the three social classes Helped draft the Declaration of the

Rights of Man and of Citizen

Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes

Churchman and constitutional theorist Popular sovereignty – rule

by the majority of the people

Member: First estate

Wrote “What is the Third Estate?” Only the Third Estate had

the right to draft a new constitution because they were the backbone of France

Olympe de Gouges

Active in political and social issues Divorce, maternity hospitals, and the

rights of orphaned children and unmarried mothers

Famous work, “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the [Female] Citizen”

Moderate Girondin

Citizens to chose their government

Jean-Paul Marat

Hated aristocracy

Radical Jacobin party who was hated by the Girondin

Assassinated by the Girondin Charlotte Corday Martyr for his cause,

solidifying the radical views he supported on the Jacobin side

Maximilien Robespierre

Radical Jacobin

Leader of the Committee of Public Safety

Wanted a public role, became a follower of Rousseau “The Incorruptible”

Helped to write Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen

Georges Danton

Chief force in the overthrow of the monarchy and establishment of the First French Republic

Member of the Committee of Public Safety Started to lose support because

he wanted to stabilize the government

Disapproved of Robespierre’s Great Terror