Life in France
Life was much harder back in the 1700’s, especially that of women. Women had no say in politics, barely left the house, were not allowed to have a job. Women were meant to merely provide food and care for the family, and nursed the wounded in times of war.
Before the French Revolution, the people loved France’s monarchy. Marie Antoinette described the people of France as …show more content…
The First Estate was the clergy, or the church, the Second Estate was the nobility, anyone with a title, and last was the Third Estate, making up 98 percent of the population. Most of the population of France was poor, due to the fact that the Third Estate was taxed heavily and had to pay tribute to the lord of the land and whichever church a Frenchman attended. No excuses were accepted, even in times of poor harvest.
One idea most everyone could agree on was the idea that the King could not be trusted with the people’s freedom, even described by Jean-Paul Marat to want to “...return the people to its chains.” The people felt as if on the brink of enslavement and also believed the King would not uphold the constitution just yet to be created.
Believe it or not, the French Revolution was far worse than only the possible removal of an entire people’s rights. All over France, the people were brought to be executed by the guillotine. In the capital alone, two thousand eight hundred people were brought down using the guillotine. About fourteen thousand were killed in all of France by this horrific device. The bodies were carted through the streets, dismembered and free to be viewed by the public. Today, the public would never see such terrible sights, nor would the guillotine be an acceptable punishment.
Seeds of the …show more content…
When crop failures hit France, the price of bread went up and the people of the Third Estate couldn’t afford the price of bread anymore. The French Revolution began for a few reasons. France was in the middle of a financial crisis, in part caused by the French intervention into the American Revolution. New land taxes were imposed on the people of France by the Estates General to solve the financial crisis, but the people of the Third Estate created the National Assembly to better represent the population. The National Assembly demanded a new constitution be created to limit the power of the government. Extraordinary crop failure lead to a food shortage. This was the last straw. The Bastille, a prison and fortress, was stormed by the people of France, marking the beginning of the revolution.
On top of this, rumors surfaced that there had been a royal banquet and hoarding of flour, surely enraging the people of France. According to some rumors, drunken soldiers had disrespected the Revolution by throwing tricolour cockades on the ground, stomping, and urinating onto these symbols of the Revolution, only unsettling the civilians further. At this time, the people of France were in a mood to later be described as “critical