Chapter 3:

The French Revolution

French Society in the 17th Century

• French society had been a hierarchy since the middle ages – Pyramid.

• Top – King, Middle – aristocrats, Bottom – serfs

• The Peasants

• Farmers owned small plots of land, worked hard, but had little to show for it – brutal life.

• Victims of epidemics and famine.

• Were forced to work on lord’s property.

• No education, couldn’t read

City Life• Paris was the biggest city in France – 600,000.

• Many come from the countryside for work.

• Most spent half of earnings on food.

• Many were poor and lived in slums – many beggars, vagrants, and thieves.

• Prosperous merchants and aristocrats displayed their wealth without embarrassment.

• The influx of cash into the cities caused inflation

• This made flour very expensive – staple diet

The Bourgeoisie• Middle class – important because they invested

in new business.

• Laws & regs made it difficult to make profits.

• Monopolies – guilds (shops) held special privileges by the king to control how goods were produced and cost.

• Many tariffs (tax) and tolls (charge to use a road or bridge).

• France also lacked infrastructure – roads and canals and gov’t did little about it.

There were two kinds of titles used by French nobles: some were personal ranks, other were titles linked to the fiefs owned, called fiefs de dignité.

Titles: • Duc: possessor of a duchy (duché) and recognized as duke

by the king.• Marquis: possessor of a marquesate (marquisat) or merely

assumed by ambitious families.• Comte: possessor of a county (comté) or merely assumed

by ambitious families.• Vicomte: possessor of a viscounty (vicomté).• Baron: possessor of a barony (baronnie).• Prince: possessor of a lordship styled principality

(principauté), a title which was only semi-official and never gave his possessor precedence at the court. Not to be confused with the rank of Prince.

• Seigneur: meaning lord as possessor of a lordship, can be the title of non-nobles. Generally referred to by sieur i.e. sir, followed by the name of the fief, as in sieur de Crenne.

Ranks: • Fils de France: son of a king.• Petit-fils de France: grandson of a king.• Prince du Sang (prince of the blood): any legitimate

male-line descendant of a king of France[4].• Prince étranger (Foreign Prince): members of foreign

royal or princely families naturalized at the French court, such as the Clèves, Rohan, La Tour d'Auvergne, and Lorraine.

• Chevalier: rank assumed only by the most noble families and the possessors of certain high dignities in the court. Member of the orders of chivalry had a title of chevalier, but not a rank of chevalier, which can be confusing.

• Écuyer: rank of the vast majority of the nobles. Also called valet or noble homme in certain regions.

• The term gentilhomme (gentleman), was used for any noble, from the king to the last écuyer without any title.

Louis XIV: Sun King

• Ruled extravagantly for 72 years.

• Took Absolute Monarchy to a new level. How?

• How was France pushed to the brink of disaster?

• Dutch wars depleted treasury

• Palace of Versailles ruined the economy

• Persecution of Huguenots (protestants) were business people and entrepreneurs

Poor Louis (XVI)

• Louis XVI, king of France, arrived in the wrong historical place at the wrong time and soon found himself overwhelmed by events beyond his control.

• Ascending the throne in 1774, Louis inherited a realm driven nearly bankrupt through the opulence (luxuries) of his predecessors Louis XIV and XV.

• After donning the crown, things only got worse. The economy spiraled downward (unemployment in Paris in 1788 is estimated at 50%), crops failed, the price of bread and other food soared.

• The people were not happy. • To top it off, Louis had the misfortune to marry

a foreigner, the Austrian Marie Antoinette. • The anger of the French people, fueled by xenophobia (an intense fear or dislike of foreign people), targeted Marie as a prime source of their problems.