Notes taken based on this video

Declining Situation in France:

• Robespierre is an important figure

• 1770 Louis 15 is getting married at 15 - marries Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. Married arranged as a peace offering to france Marie is 14 and young and beautiful

• Louis 15 is not very interested in loving and they don’t have a child which is troubling

• Louis 15: not very social, bashful, nervous

• Versailles is distant from Paris so the king can be distant from the people

• 7 years war lost causes bankruptcy

• population growth 20 mil to 26 mil

• Hunger and anxiety

• Louis 15 dies of smallpox

• Louis 16 is crowned king and doesn’t know what to do and is not ready with the falling nation

• Robespierre as a student talks to the king in latin

• The three classes are challenged by the enlightenment

• Louis invested too much money and troops in the american revolution which adds a crucial amount of debt to the french

• Marie Antoinette is bored in the routine like castle and becomes obsessed with fashion and spends a lot of money also spends money on plays and gambling so she gets the name Madame Deficit

• Louis and marie cannot make a child so people are dissatisfied

• Louis had an issue so having children is painful but louis eventually agrees to surgery and they have a child

• The royalty eat more in a day then the peasant eat in a year

• Robespierre gets the people a voice about this since they are angry.

• Louis has 4 children

• tried to fix debt and economy but just puts more taxes on peasants and none on nobles

• 1788 worst winter france has ever seen which causes hunger

• cost of flour and bread goes up

• cost of one loaf of bread = one month of earnings

• riots break out, robberies

Connection to Enlightenment Ideas:  What would John Locke or Thomas Hobbes say about what was happening in France?  Explain your reasoning?

All of the enlightenment thinkers other than Hobbes would disagree with the old ways of France such as the class system, the poor monarchy.

Locke would say that if the people are dissatisfied with the monarchy then they should overthrow it immediately

Hobbes would tell the people to endure the monarchy because his ideas are that the monarch keeps the people’s violent state of nature in check.

Estate General/National Assembly:

• Riots and violence forced louis to hire a finance manager - Necker who is an enlightenment thinker

• Necker tells Louis to call the estates general for the first time in 170 years.

• First estate is clergy, second is nobles and third is everyone else

• Third estate thought this was unfair bc the first two estates can outvote

• Robespierre represents the third estate as a deputy and is very educated and a good speaker

• Robespierre practiced law and thought about the enlightenment with his job

• The third estate deputies goes to a next door tennis court and they make an oath to make a constitution

• They make a National Assembly which empowers the people for change

• They want the clergy and nobles to pay taxes.

Connection to Enlightenment Ideas:  Would John Locke agree with what the 3rd Estate did?  How do you know?

Locke would absolutely support the National Assembly because he believed that if the people do not like the government they have the right to overthrow it so that their natural rights can be protected.

Capture of the Bastille:

• Kings troops stationed at Paris so the assembly makes their own national guard but they don't have gunpowder

• They go to the bastille to try and steal gunpowder

• Louis fires Necker out of fear of the third estate gaining power

• they use the red and blue and white flag

• Crowd gather together and riot and head to the bastille

• They run into the bastille and attack the guards and win over the bastille

• Louis get back from hunting and hears of the revolution start

• The people tear down the bastille by hand and take pride in the bricks