The Third Estate
This estate made up approximately 97% of the French population.
What is the Third Estate?
The Bastille was originally built to serve this function.
What is a prison?
This food staple was crucial to the diet of the Third Estate.
What is bread?
This was the name of the social and political system in France before the Revolution.
What is the Old Regime?
This intellectual movement inspired the idea that all people should be equal.
What is the Enlightenment?
The wealthiest members of the Third Estate, including merchants and factory owners, were known by this French term.
What is the bourgeoisie?
The main reason Parisians stormed the Bastille was to obtain this.
What is gunpowder?
During hard economic times, purchasing bread could cost up to this percentage of a worker’s wages.
What is 50%?
The First Estate was made up of members from this powerful institution.
What is the Roman Catholic Church?
The success of this overseas revolution encouraged the Third Estate to challenge their own government.
What is the American Revolution?
Despite their economic success, members of the bourgeoisie still lacked these two privileges.
What are political power and tax exemptions?
This event occurred on July 14, 1789, marking the start of the French Revolution.
What is the Storming of the Bastille?
In 1789, high bread prices led to this women-led march demanding action from King Louis XVI.
What is the Women’s March on Versailles?
Although they made up only about 2% of the population, the First and Second Estates owned this percentage of the land.
What is 20%?
The Estates-General had not been called for this many years before King Louis XVI summoned it in 1789.
What is 175 years?
This Enlightenment thinker influenced the Third Estate by stating that all power resides in the people.
Who is Rousseau?
The fear that King Louis XVI would use foreign troops to suppress the people caused this reaction among Parisians.
What is gathering weapons to defend the city?
The women of Paris referred to King Louis XVI as this when they marched him back to Paris.
What is "the baker"?
The Third Estate resented the First and Second Estates because of this financial inequality.
What is paying most of the taxes while the rich paid almost none?
Members of the Third Estate took this oath after being locked out of their meeting hall, vowing not to leave until they created a new constitution.
What is the Tennis Court Oath?
The bourgeoisie were sometimes as wealthy as nobles, yet they paid these high financial obligations.
What are taxes?
After taking control of the Bastille, the revolutionaries committed this gruesome act to the prison commander.
What is beheading him and parading his head on a pike?
The financial struggles of the Third Estate worsened due to these two major causes.
What are high taxes and food shortages?
This economic factor contributed to the growing dissatisfaction of the Third Estate.
What is France’s massive debt?
This term describes the widespread panic and peasant uprisings against the nobility in response to rumors of noble retribution.
What is the Great Fear?