![Page 1: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Political Revolutions
The French Revolution
![Page 2: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Causes of the French Revolution
• “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.”
• Alexis de Tocqueville
![Page 3: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Causes
• Social Tensions of the Ancien Regime (Old Order)• Conditions of French Society prior to 1789• Inequalities enshrined into law
• First Estate• Second Estate• Third Estate
![Page 4: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Causes
• Economic Struggles• Rising prices throughout 18th century• Poor harvests in late 1780s
![Page 5: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Causes
• The new political ideas of the Enlightenment
• Political powerlessness of the bourgeoisie
![Page 6: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Causes
• Growth of a popular press• Marie Antoinette
• Weakness of the monarchy• Louis XV – “Après moi, le deluge.”• Louis XVI
![Page 7: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Short-term Cause
• Virtual collapse of the government’s finances
• Calling of the Estates-general in 1789
![Page 8: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
First Stage
• Calling of Estates-general led to a series of problems and events that eventually spiraled out of control of the King• Rising expectations of various groups• Issue of voting procedures
• Third Estate to National Assembly (June 17th)
• Tennis Court Oath
![Page 9: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
First Stage
• Destruction of Royal Authority and Old Order• Parisian mob storms the Bastille (July 14,
1789)• Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen• Church land is seized
![Page 10: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
End of First Stage
• King flees in June of 1791 and is captured• European leaders fear direction of
revolution• War and invasion leads to radical stage
![Page 11: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Second Stage
• Girondins v. Jacobins• Committee of Public Safety• Reign of Terror
• Guillotine and the execution of the King and his family
• Universal mobilization
![Page 12: Political Revolutions The French Revolution. Causes of the French Revolution “Never was any such event so inevitable yet so completely unforeseen.” Alexis](https://reader036.vdocuments.mx/reader036/viewer/2022082712/56649f265503460f94c3d69e/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Third Stage
• Radical nature of the second stage leads to a period of reaction
• Establishment of the Directory• Period of economic collapse, political
corruption and intrigue by Royalists• Ends with coup d'état by Napoleon