Feb. 8

Estates

• The estates general was called together for a meeting in 1789. 
• The first and second states would not meet with the third estate
• This battle went on for six weeks, during which parish priests from the first state split and go to the third state. 
• They call their own national assembly, saying that they are the true representative of the French people. 
• The first and second estates locked the third estate out of the meeting. 
• June 20, 1789- The national assembly moved to an indoor tennis court to meet. They swore to continue to meet there as the national assembly, driving a wedge between the clergy and nobility and the others. 
• They vowed to do this until a new constitution was written for France. 
• The king dismissed the third estate from the meetings of the state general. 
• Bread prices become inflated because there had been a bad harvest
• The price of bread became too high and unavailable. This was bad because it was a staple in the French diet. 
• July 14, 1789- A mob attacked the Bastille
• Nobles began to fear for their lives. The Count of Artois became the leader of the emigrates.     
• The citizens committee is constructed 
• Lafayette is put in charge of the National Guard
• August, 1789- The assembly completed  the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens  
• Basic Human Rights: Liberty, Property, Security, Resistance to oppression, Freedom of religion, Due process of law, Taxes by common consent
• Women were revolutionaries.
• Olympe de Gouge wrote The Rights of Women 
• Argued for a woman's right to education, her ability to own property within a marriage, and the right to initiate divorce
• October, 1789- Everything is culminating
• 100, 000 people, most of them women, march on Versailles. They have two demands:
• Bread, and that the royal family returns to Paris     
• The king submitted to the requests, including:
• He lost veto power over anything coming out of the assembly
• He was granted suspending power, meaning that he could hold up legislation but gave up his absolute right to make law. 
• Slavery was abolished 
• No one is left to collect taxes. 
• Louis XVI is left to seize property from the church
• Paper money was issued
• Property was sold
• Inflation increases drastically
• The king sells anything he can find, just to get money
• The church in France couldn't support itself
• 1791- The Royal Family attempted to flee, but they are not able to do so
• Influential critics of the government begin to rally for a republic
• Danton and Marat 
• The new form of government was a constitutional monarchy with one legislative branch. 
• The Declaration of Pillnitz 
• Leopold said that if necessary he would use military order to restore the government in Paris.