During the French Revolution, profound social tensions existed between the dominating classes and the peasantry. A glaring issue was the unequal distribution of land, with peasants constituting about 80%
The economic condition of France became poor due to the foreign wars of Louis XIV, the seven years War of Louis XV and other expensive wars.
The social conditions in France in late 18th century were extremely unequal and exploitative. The clergy and the nobility formed the first two Estates and were the most privileged classes in the French society.
The French Revolution was caused by social, political and economic problems. People were in discontent with the king. The first two estates were privileged and the third was very unprivileged and had to pay heavy taxes. The third estate did not get along with the first two.
There was significant social tension between the dominant classes at the time of the French Revolution. Combined with this more immediate issue was an underlying problem of the inequality of land distribution; peasants made up approximately 80% of the French population, but only owned 35% of the land.
Another inequality was that the peasants had to pay feudal dues. These dues, along with dues to the Church, were crushing the peasants. The peasants were also very limited while using the land of the nobles.
Locke's natural rights were the foundation for the primary document of the French Revolution, "the Declaration of the Rights of Man." The natural rights are life, liberty, and property.
People liked the ideas that people thought of new forms of government and also ideas such as freedom and pursuit of Hapiness, they wanted to be able to make their own choices and not have the government controlling them.
The French helped America fight in their own Revolution. Witch meant many people saw the American Revolution as a good thing. Many people that came back from America had the Revolution on their mind and winch also encourage them to have better for themselves in their own country.
The National Assembly in France even used the American Declaration of Independence as a model when drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789.
The French who had direct contact with the Americans were able to successfully implement Enlightenment ideas into a new political system.
The American Revolution didn't only affect America but it also affected France. In 1789, French citizens rebelled. Many French citizens saw the Americans as an example. They issued the declaration of the Rights of man and the Citizen, and they modeled part of the Declaration of Independence.
Influence of the of the American Revolution.
Developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The idea of natural rights also was the foundation for the declaration of independence.
Many writers and philosophers influenced the French Revolution but specifically people such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Baron de Montesquieu greatly influenced the revolutionaries in France.
The three concepts pushed by the French Revolution were liberty, equality, and eternity, all ideas of enlightenment.
The ideas of the Enlightenment inspired both the American and French Revolution. The Revolution was based on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Philosophers of the Enlightenment, known as philosophers, favored limited monarchy, freedom of speech, and equality.
Different crop failures in the 1780s caused these shortages, which of course led to high prices for bread.
People had to find alternate source of nutrition such as cider, rye bread, hard cheese, curds, and whey were staples of the diet. In other places people ate white bread, fresh butter and jam, wine, and even liqueurs that were a daily source of nourishment.
This led to peasants and farmers having smaller incomes, while food prices rose sharply. The poor harvests also meant that many French farmers became unemployed.
In the years 1787 – 1789, terrible weather, heavy rain, hard winters and too hot summers led to three very bad harvests in France.
Supposedly spoken in the 17th or 18th century by "a great princess" upon learning that the peasants had no bread. Brioche, a bread enriched with butter and eggs, was considered at the time to be a luxury food.
There was Food Scarcity by the 1780's
The average 18th-century worker spent half his daily wage on bread. But when the grain crops failed two years in a row, in 1788 and 1789, the price of bread shot up to 88 percent of his wages.
“Let them eat cake” is the most famous quote attributed to Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France during the French Revolution.
The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread.
Occurred in 1775, this was an uprising caused by the excessive price of bread in France before the French Revolution.