French Revolution - Episode 2
- Overview of entire revolution:
- Estate General:
- Estate General was a parliament consisting of members from all estates. Thus can be called as "Super Parliament".
- This parliament was formed on April 10, 1302, to discuss a conflict between French King Phipil IV and Pope Boniface VIII.
- The meeting was called in estate general only when it was necessary to the king.
- After 1302, other few meetings were also called in estate general. But the meeting of the estate general started getting rare because the king was not happy to call a meeting because the power of king used to get distributed among estate general representatives when the meeting was called.
- Thus, the meeting of the estate general was called on 5th May 1789 after 175 years because the country was in a huge financial crisis because of American Revolution.
- The agenda of the estate general was to manage the financial crisis by raising taxes.
- The representatives of Estate general were following in numbers:
- First estate: 300
- Second estate: 300
- Third estate: 600
- Total representatives: 1200
- The topic of the meeting of estate general: Whether to raise tax or not?
- The voting point was in the following manner:
- All representative of the First estate were counted as 1, i.e. 300 votes from 300 representatives of the first estate = 1 point
- All representative of the Second estate were counted as 1, i.e. 300 votes from 300 representatives of the second estate = 1 point
- All representative of the Third estate were counted as 1, i.e. 600 votes from 600 representatives of the third estate = 1 point
- It was sure that the first and second estates were in favor of raising the tax. Thus their votes were sure to get 2 points and 2 points out of 3 points in the estate general meant the majority in estate general was always in favor of first and second estates.
- The third estate started raising voices for this discriminatory voting idea and they started raising voices against this voting technique in estate general which lasted for few days.
- After few days of getting no response from King Louis XVI, the deputies of the Third Estate declared themselves a National Assembly to exclude the privileged classes. (समाजमा तेस्रो वर्ग मानिएका वर्गहरुको केही प्रतिनिधिहरुले विशेषाधिकार पाएका वर्गलाई हटाउनको लागि एक नेशनल एसेम्ब्ली बनाए।)
- Louis XVI locked that "National Assembly" from the main hall.
- All those members of the third estate were now locked in the main hall.
- June:
- 20th June 1789: Those members, who were locked inside the main hall, went to the tennis court which was inside the hall and all of them took the "Tennis Court Oath" not to disband the "National Assembly" until a constitution is made.
- Few first estate and second estate members, who had progressive thinking and used to understand the happiness and sorrow of the third estate, had also joined them.
- After some days, this news spread all over the country and many farmers started revolutions against their feudal lords.
- Farmers started looting granaries and chateaus and they burnt land-related papers of their feudal lords. This was called "The Great Fear" in the sense that Feudal Lords were in great fear of losing their lands because of the Farmer's revolution.
- Many people in Paris started supporting the revolution and were in support of the assembly. They were also against King's action.
- Law and order became useless. Revolution reached a climax.
- King Louis XI ordered military and armies to assemble in Paris and outside Versailles.
- July:
- 14th July 1789: People destroyed Fort of Bastille, this incident is called "Storming of the Bastille"
- This was a very old fort that was used as a prison during that time.
- People used to think of this Fort as a Sample of the King's Autocracy because the king used to imprison anyone whoever he doesn't like in that prison.
- People also released prisoners.
- The fort was also used to keep weapons by militaries. Thus another purpose to destroy the fort was to loot weapons.
- This day is still celebrated in France as a "Bastille Day Celebration".
- October:
- 5th October 1789: Women's march on Versailles
- All women were very disappointed with the government of France because the economy had completely fallen down in France.
- Food shortage was in the climax.
- Meanwhile, a rumor spread all over the country that the "Palace of Versailles had a huge stock of food and people inside the palace were having a party".
- Huge numbers of women gathered and started marching towards the palace to collect food.
- But they did not get any food there, however the crowd somehow managed to meet the king.
- They met the King and asked the royal family to move to Paris to make the king understand the way of living of his citizens and the troubles that his citizens were facing.
- The king had to agree with the request of the crowd due to the huge pressure of revolutionary women around him and the royal family shifted to Paris.
References:
1. Study IQ education. (2017c, May 11). French Revolution - फ्रांस की क्रांति - World History - विश्व इतिहास - UPSC/IAS [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHF0vuj1Dz8
2. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020, May 6). Estates-General | Definition, Meeting, & History. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Estates-General
3. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Constitution of 1791". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 May. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Constitution-of-1791-French-history. Accessed 29 May 2021.
4. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.toppr.com/ask/en-pk/question/highlight-the-features-of-active-and-passive-citizens-of-france/> [Accessed 29 May 2021].
5. En.wikipedia.org. 2021. French Revolutionary Wars - Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Wars> [Accessed 30 May 2021].
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