Tuesday, December 11, 2012


The French Revolution
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Louis XVI was King of France in 1789 and as he was raised to be a king, he had a little knowledge about the common people. Louis supported America in their revolution as a result France was in bankrupt. The King hired Jacques Necker, a finance administrator who urged Louis to call a meeting of the traditional representative body of the kingdom, the estates general.

According to David Jordan from the University of Illinois, Chicago “The estates general were classified as the following, the first class was the clergy, the second was the nobility and the third class was everyone else”. By being these the majority, some considered unfair that the third class had just one third of the assembly but on May 4th 1789 a young politician who also was a lawyer and an eloquent speaker appeared in Versailles to defend the rights of the people he represented.

His name was Maximilian Robespierre, he and the third class demanded that the clergy and the nobility pay taxes but Louis denied what they were asking for, a plot was made but the third class noticed it and swore that they would not stop meeting until they had a new constitution. On July the 14th 1789 the Bastille was taken and brought down brick per brick by the people of France. Afterwards there was no estate ever again everyone was equal and that is how the declaration of right of man was born which consists in writing the laws that they wanted to live by.

At that time there was a paper that circled called “The Peoples Friend” in order to create a stronger voice for the people of France written by Jean Paul Marat who was a physician, political theorist, and scientist. After these incidents King Louis and his family wanted to escape from France after advising and sending letters to the troops from Austria. This was seen as treason and the King was put on trial on January the 21 of 1793 and executed so was Marie Antoinette nine months latter was tried and executed on October the 14 of 1973. From June 27 of 1973 to July 27 of 1794 was known as the Region of Terror which consists on killing anyone who was against the French Revolution.

This region of terror killed approximately from 16,000 to 40,000 enemies of the revolution and royalist all by the new invention called the guillotine also known as the national razor. This ended when Maximilian Robespierre was killed and destined to be one of the guillotine´s final victims on July 27 of 1794. Five years past before power was again consolidated into Napoleon Bonaparte. The French Revolution changed the course of France and had an impact in the entire world; it was defined as the end of the enlightenment period and had a profound influence on politics, art, philosophy and literature. 

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