6.3.1


 * Europe** [[image:button_era_6.png align="right" link="WHG Era 6"]]

Challenging The Ancien Régime
When France started to industrialize, it was still under a feudal society. This is basically where people who owned land were the only ones who had a say in the government in ways such as voting. This particular system was called the Ancien Régime. Under this order, France was divided into three social classes. These classes are called the First Estate, the Second Estate, and the Third Estate. The First Estate was made up of the clergy, a group of religious leaders. They were wealthy, owned about 10 percent of the land, and didn't have to pay any direct taxes. The Second Estate was made up of nobilities. They held top jobs in the government, army, courts, and Church. The Third Estate was pretty much everyone else, which was the majority of the population. There was the bourgeoisie, which was in the Third Estate, and was the middle class of society. The bourgeoisie were made up of the people who had jobs such as merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and professors. The majority of the Third Estate, however, however, were rural peasants. Basically, the Third Estate was the working class. And this is where the problem begins.

Now, just because you were in the Third Estate, it didn't mean you were poor. People in the Third Estate had a specific trade that they would be good at. So they would get paid for providing their services. Those people could save up their money and start to become very wealthy. In society, the more money you have, the more of a chance you can involve yourself in the government.

During the Enlightenment, people started to question the Ancien Régime for it's unfairness. The Third Estate was burdened with paying all the taxes, while the First and Second Estates had the freedom of not paying taxes. However, the Second Estate hated absolutism. They were afraid they would lose privileges such as being free from paying taxes. Also, the bourgeoisie were able to buy political office, but the best jobs were held for the Second Estate. While the bourgeoisie were prosperous in the Third Estate, the urban workers were paid with horrible wages. Some of the urban workers also had to provide their services for free like the corvée, which was unpaid labor to repair roads and bridges. The Third Estate thought that the other classes should have to pay their share.

France's Economic Problems
Turns out we already talked about this in an earlier page... Go ahead and look on page 6.1.4. This will deal with France's economic development, which I'm sure you can tell by the title of this topic, wasn't very good.

Revolutionary Ideas
A big thing that was going on right before the French Revolution was the Enlightenment. During this time, people were looking deeper into the idea of having a different government. You've seen one example of this, above under Challenging The Ancien Regime. The lower people in society who had pretty much no say in the government wanted that to change. They started to see how unfair the current system really was. When Louis XVI called together the Estates- General there were delegates from the Third Estate wanted to reform the government. They were aware of the writings of philosophers such as Voltaire and Rousseau (you can learn more about the philosopher's ideas on page 6.1.1). The Third Estate wanted to propose reforms for the government, but the voting system was preventing them from doing that. In the Estates voting system, each Estate votes separately, each with one vote. With this system the Third Estate could always get outvoted two to one.

Since the Third Estate pretty much had no chance of passing their reforms in the Estates- General, they decided to make the National Assembly in June of 1789, claiming to represent the people of France. A few days afterwords, they were prevented from getting into their meeting hall. They wound up meeting in an indoor tennis court. They took the Tennis Court Oath, in which they swore "never to separate and to meet wherever the circumstances might require until we have established a sound and just constitution." When the people from the clergy and the nobles who also wanted reform joined the National Assembly, Louis XVI reluctantly accepted it. After the storming of the Bastille in Paris and peasant uprisings, the National Assembly decided that they needed to kick it into gear. The nobles decided to give up their special privileges. The constitution also declared that all men had equal rights. Even with these conditions, the king would not accept the National Assembly's constitution. Since this was the case, the nobles still had their special rights, which continued to cause uprisings from the Third Class.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Soon after King Louis XVI was executed, Napoleon rose to power. Even though he pretty much put himself in power, he was still strongly supported by the French. Also, he had a popular vote by ballot which, theoretically, gave the people a say in the government. Even if this was the case, Napoleon still had absolute power. He was able to fix the economic problems by controlling prices, encouraging new industry, and building roads and canals. He also went about making peace with the different social classes. Napoleon didn't hold up the social reforms from the revolution. He had made peace with the Catholic Church with the Concordat of 1801. The Concordat made sure that the Church was under state rule, but he had recognized the religious freedom of Catholics. Napoleon did this to make sure he had more power over the Church. The Church was fine with this, as long as they had their religious freedom. He also allowed émigrés, people who leave their country for political reasons, to return as long as they took an oath of loyalty. Napoleon had also recognized the peasant's right to land they had bought from the Church and nobles during the revolution. He gained support from the middle class from the economic reforms and the restoration of order. He had also opened jobs to everyone, based on talent. Napoleon used ideas from the Enlightenment to make his Napoleonic Code, like equality before the law, religious toleration, and the abolition of feudalism.

Because of the French Revolution, the Ancien Régime was removed, the monarchy was overthrown, and the Church was brought under state control. Also, because of all the fighting, France gained a feeling of pride for their country. This is known as nationalism.



When Napoleon took over, he greatly expanded France. Countries he annexed, or added to his empire, were the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Italy and Germany. He ruled these countries by forceful diplomacy. One of the ways he did this was placing friends and close relatives on the thrones of the taken over countries.