Assignment #1: Causes of the FR Reading Response

Our next unit deals with one place that did NOT industrialize…because they were busy fighting a gigantic revolution.

Let’s rewindRemember this?

List everything you remember about French Absolutism….role of Church? Nobility?

And these guys?

Voltaire thinking about free speech

Montesquieu thinking about branches of government

Rousseau thinking about the general will

When we last left off our Enlightenment thinkers were busy thinking…..

The Enlightenment leads to the French RevolutionWords lead to action….

France’s unequal society:Three “estates” or social classes.Unlike England’s growing capitalist class, France had1. The “privileged estates” – the 1st estate: the clergy, the 2nd estate: the

nobility = no taxes2. The third estate: everyone else. That means the middle class, the

peasants, the urban poor. Everyone.

The third estate paid most of the taxes to either the crown or the nobility. The third estate was 98% of the population.

Who came after Louis XIV?

The next Louis (XV) drove the monarchy further into debt with participation in the 7 Years War (remember that?)Leaving a debt-ridden economy to his son Louis XVI – who made it worse (more on this later).

Directions

Read Critique of the Old Regime by Alexis de Tocqueville. While you read take notes on the following questions:1. According to the reading, how did the philosophes undermine the

old regime?

2. Why did de Tocqueville believe the French people were receptive to the philosophes?