FRENCH Revolution

The Background 

While the settlers at the North America were becoming free from the British rule, the people in France were going through difficult times under the tyranny of their king Louis XVI.

Before the revolution the society in France was divided into three categories called estates. The bishops and priests, who were the rich, privileged and powerful, belonged to the first estate. The nobles and the landlords belong to the second estate. They were also rich and privileged. They owned most of the land in France and led luxurious life.

The third estate comprised of the common people of France, whose condition was the worst. They were poor and led miserable life. They were forced to pay a lot of money as taxes to the landlords. They had to work very hard and very exploited by the ruling class, like they could be put behind bars without any reasons or sometime very small reason.

Paris Famine 

There was a severe famine in Paris in 1789 which led to many starvation deaths. The bishops and nobles could afford to buy food grains at a higher price and nothing was left for the toiling poor mass. The king was indifferent towards his subjects. A huge anger started to grow among the poor common mass. Besides, the French commoners had heard about the overthrowing of British in North America by the settlers. These developments led to the French Revolution.

The French Parliament 

The French political system had a parliament sort of setting called Estates General, which was supposed to be met every year regularly to discuss ways to run the country. It contained representatives of all three estates. But sadly, this Estates General had not met since the last 175 years, not even once. With this one can understand the tyranny of the ruling class in France. The growing anger of the masses and the general chaos in the country led the King Louis XVI to convene the Estates General in 1789.

When the Estates General met, it gave the common people to talk about their miseries. They asked a change in the ruling class, but they were overruled. This led to their walking out from the Estate General. They formed their own parliament called the National Assembly, comprising only of the third estate members, i.e., the poor common people.

The Storming of the Bastille 

The formation of the National Assembly gave the people confidence to fight the tyranny and a chance to change their miseries. The first sign of their struggle was the storming of the Bastille prison. The Bastille was an old prison where the king had locked up many innocent commoners. On July 14, 1789 hundreds of people in Paris assembled and stormed the Bastille prison and released the six prisoners in it. This incident in history is called ‘the storming of Bastille.’ Even today July 14 every year is celebrated as Bastille Day in France.

Liberty Equality and Fraternity 

The National Assembly took over the reins of the government from the hands of the clergymen and nobles. Louis XVI continued to be king, but with much less powers. Many of the nobles and priests were executed. The properties and privileges of all nobles and ruling class were confiscated. The National Assembly wrote down a new set of laws, the most important of them was the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It promised liberty, equality and fraternity to all the people of France, rich and poor.

Guillotine and the Reign of Terror 

Despite all these changes the anger in the commoner did not die down. They had deep hatred towards the ruling elites of the past. Soon they marched to the King’s palace in Versailles, just outside Paris and imprisoned him and the Queen. Two years later King Louis XVI and the Queen Marie Antoinette were proved guilty of abandoning the country and were killed in public hanging in front of a cheering crowd. By this time a terrible killing machine called Guillotine was invented by Dr. Guillotine to execute many hundreds of the former ruling elites. It was a quick and painless way of killing by slicing off the head of the condemned. Hundreds of former clergymen and nobles were killed by this machine every day, even if they were innocent. This incident is called ‘the reign of terror’ in history.