The French Revolution
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Phase One: The Dawn of the Revolution
Now that you know about the causes, you can see why many people were upset, and soon enough, a revolution occurred. Let's examine how people reacted to all of these problems, marking the start of the French Revolution.
On May 5th, 1789, The Estates-General held a meeting in Versailles with all 3 estates were representatives. Already, there was a dispute on how voting would work. The second estate wanted one vote per state which would nullify any of the 3rd estate votes. As expected, the 3rd estate was not happy with this and decided to leave and on July 17th, 1789 they formed the French National Assembly. Few days later on July 20th, they decided to meet at a tennis court and decided to make an oath to remain until they made a new constitution, this was known as the Tennis court oath.
Meanwhile, the citizens also took action. On July 14th 1789 a large group of people living in Paris decided to storm the Bastille, which mainly served as a state prison. The reason why they did that is because there were guns and other ammunition they could use to defend against the king’s army. At the same time, the people in paris decided to make a revolutionary city government. At this point, a few nobles decided to flee the country and many more fleed in the coming years.
In August 1789, The National Assembly made the Declaration of Rights and Man. This declaration guaranteed the rights of liberty, property, and security. The Assembly later made a constitution that made France a limited monarchy with a one-house legislature. The Assembly also took away the Catholic church’s land and gave it to middle class people and peasants. The money made from selling the land was then used to pay for the country’s huge debt.
This new government later posed a threat to other countries. In 1792, Austria and Prussia declared war on France in hopes to restore the old monarchy. Fortunately, the french army defeated the austrian and prussian armies. Then, later in August 1792, Louis XVI was officially removed and imprisoned in France, officially ending the monarchy. This led to a new stage in the revolution and in September 21st, 1792 the national convention opened and officially declared France as a republic. Louis XVI was put on trial and was found guilty for treason, then soon enough the king was killed with the guillotine on January 21st, 1793.
