Important Questions (2 mark): The French Revolution

• The idea of the "estates" is important to the social structure of the Middle Ages. Feudal society was traditionally divided into three "estates" (roughly equivalent to social classes).
• The "First Estate" was the Church (clergy = those who prayed). The "Second Estate" was the Nobility (those who fought = knights)

• Bastille was hated by all, because it stood for the despotic power of the king.
• The fortress was demolished and its stone fragments were sold in the markets to all those who wished to keep a souvenir of its destruction.

• Marseillaise was a patriotic song composed by poet Roget de L’ Isle.
• Although Louis XVI signed the constitution, he entered into secret negotiations with the King of Prussia. Rulers of the other neighbouring countries too were worried by the developments in France and made plans to send troops to put down the events that had been taking place there since the summer of 1789.
• Before this could happen, the National Assembly voted in April 1792, and declared war against Prussia and Austria.
• Thousands of volunteers thronged from the provinces to join the army. They saw this as a war of the people against kings and aristocracies all over Europe.
• So Marseillaise was sung for the first time by the volunteers from Marseilles as they marched into Paris and so got its name. The Marseillaise is now the national anthem of France.

• It is the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the
• Crown in exchange for military service and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.

On 26 August 1789, the French National Constituent Assembly issued the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen) which defined individual and collective rights at the time of the French Revolution.

Louis XVI of France was sentenced to death on the charge of treason as he secretly held a meeting with the king of Austria and Prussia to attack on France. This is because to stop the revolt that was going in France at that time.

The members of the first two estates, that is, the clergy and the nobility, enjoyed certain privileges by birth. The most important of these was exemption from paying taxes to the state. 

• The population of France rose from about 23 million in 1715 to 28 million in 1789. This led to a rapid increase in the demand for food grains.
• The production of grains could not keep pace with the demand. So the price of bread which was the staple diet of the majority rose rapidly.

Directory, group of five men who held the executive power in France according to the constitution of the year III (1795) of the French Revolution . They were chosen by the new legislature, by the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients; each year one director, chosen by lot, was to be replaced.

The nobles and the clergy were largely excluded from taxation while the commoners paid disproportionately high direct taxes.

• The term Old Regime is usually used to describe the society and institutions of France before 1789. 
• The term Old Regime used to describe the Political and social system of France prior to the French Revolution.
• Under the regime, everyone was a subject of the king of France as well as a member of an estate and province.

The national flag of France features three vertical bands with the color of blue, white and red representing the ideals of the French Revolution liberty, equality and fraternity.

• The third estate has no privileges. The privileges were only enjoyed by first estate i.e. Clergy and second estate i.e. nobility by birth.
• They had to pay all the taxes.
• The third estate included peasants ,artisans ,middle class and common people.

• Flour War – occurred in 1775, this was an uprising caused by the excessive price of bread in France before the French Revolution.
• The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread.

• A broken chain stands for the act of becoming free. The symbol of broken chain represents Freedom.
• It signifies freedom from slavery. In terms of the French Revolution, the broken chain signified freedom for the peasants and the third estate i.e. normal people as opposed to the aristocracy.