Causes
What were the three social estates in France?
Clergy, nobility, Third Estate.
What happened on July 14, 1789?
Parisians stormed the Bastille to obtain gunpowder.
Who was the king of France when the Revolution began?
Louis XVI.
What document proclaimed liberty and equality before the law?
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
In what year did the French Revolution begin?
1789.
Which estate carried much of the tax burden?
Third Estate.
What was the Bastille?
A fortress-prison and symbol of royal authority.
Who was Marie Antoinette?
The queen of Louis XVI and a target of public anger.
What privileges did the Revolution attack?
Inherited privilege and feudal obligations.
In what year was the monarchy abolished?
1792.
Name two economic problems that helped cause the Revolution.
Government debt, costly wars, unfair taxation, poor harvests/high bread prices.
Why was the storming of the Bastille important?
It demonstrated popular resistance and strengthened the Revolution.
Why did Louis XVI lose public trust in 1791?
His attempted escape weakened trust in him.
What political authority did the Revolution place at the centre?
The nation became the centre of political authority.
What happened to Louis XVI in 1793?
He was executed.
How did Enlightenment ideas contribute to the Revolution?
Enlightenment ideas challenged absolute power and promoted ideas of liberty/equality.
What was the Terror, and when did it occur?
The Terror lasted 1793–1794; opponents were arrested and thousands were executed.
Who was Robespierre, and what happened to him?
A revolutionary leader during the Terror who was executed in July 1794.
Why was equality still incomplete after the Revolution?
Women still lacked equal political rights.
How did Napoleon come to power in 1799?
Napoleon seized power in a coup.
Explain how unequal taxation, government debt, hunger, and Enlightenment ideas combined to create a political crisis.
These problems created economic hardship, resentment of privilege, and a political crisis over representation.
Explain how the Revolution changed from a challenge to monarchy into violence, repression, and eventually Napoleon's rise.
The Revolution began challenging royal power, then moved through war, rebellion and political repression before Napoleon seized power in 1799.
Compare the roles of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, and Napoleon in the revolutionary period.
Louis XVI represented the monarchy; Marie Antoinette became a symbol of royal luxury; Robespierre was associated with revolutionary repression; Napoleon seized power and later became emperor.
Was the Revolution successful in achieving liberty and equality? Give evidence for both sides.
Positive: liberty, legal equality, reduced inherited privilege, citizenship. Negative: women lacked equal rights and political freedom was restricted during the Terror.
Why can the French Revolution be judged as both a positive and negative historical event?
It brought lasting reforms and ideas about equality/citizenship, but also caused terror, war, violence and eventually authoritarian rule. Your presentation's judgement is that the reforms were valuable, but came with an enormous human cost.