Chapter I

The French Revolution

On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of
alarm. The king had commanded troops to move into the city. Rumours
spread that he would soon order the army to open fire upon the citizens.
Some 7,000 men and women gathered in front of the town hall and
decided to form a peoples’ militia. They broke into a number of
government buildings in search of arms.

Finally, a group of several hundred people marched towards the eastern

part of the city and stormed the fortress-prison, the Bastille, where they
hoped to find hoarded ammunition. In the armed fight that followed,

R e v o l u t i o n
the commander of the Bastille was killed and the prisoners released –
though there were only seven of them. Yet the Bastille was hated by all,
because it stood for the despotic power of the king. The fortress was
demolished and its stone fragments were sold in the markets to all
those who wished to keep a souvenir of its destruction.

The days that followed saw more rioting both in Paris and the
countryside. Most people were protesting against the high price of bread.
Much later, when historians looked back upon this time, they saw it as
the beginning of a chain of events that ultimately led to the execution
of the king in France, though most people at the time did not anticipate
this outcome. How and why did this happen?

F rR e ev o l unt i ocn h
T h T eh e French

Fig.1 – Storming of the Bastille.

Soon after the demolition of the Bastille,
artists made prints commemorating the event.

2024-25 3
 1 French Society During the Late Eighteenth Century

In 1774, Louis XVI of the Bourbon family of kings ascended the

throne of France. He was 20 years old and married to the Austrian 1st estate
princess Marie Antoinette. Upon his accession the new king found
Clergy
an empty treasury. Long years of war had drained the financial
resources of France. Added to this was the cost of maintaining an
extravagant court at the immense palace of Versailles. Under Louis 2nd estate

XVI, France helped the thirteen American colonies to gain their Nobility
independence from the common enemy, Britain. The war added more
than a billion livres to a debt that had already risen to more than 2
3rd estate
billion livres. Lenders who gave the state credit, now began to charge
10 per cent interest on loans. So the French government was obliged Big businessmen,
merchants, court
to spend an increasing percentage of its budget on interest payments officials, lawyers etc.
alone. To meet its regular expenses, such as the cost of maintaining
Peasants and
an army, the court, running government offices or universities, the artisans
state was forced to increase taxes. Yet even this measure would not
have sufficed. French society in the eighteenth century was divided Small peasants,
landless labour,
into three estates, and only members of the third estate paid taxes. servants

The society of estates was part of the feudal system that dated back to
the middle ages. The term Old Regime is usually used to describe the Fig.2 – A Society of Estates.
society and institutions of France before 1789. Note that within the Third Estate some were
rich and others poor.
Fig. 2 shows how the system of estates in French society was organised.
Peasants made up about 90 per cent of the population. However,
only a small number of them owned the land they cultivated. About
60 per cent of the land was owned by nobles, the Church and other
richer members of the third estate. The members of the first two
estates, that is, the clergy and the nobility, enjoyed certain privileges by
India and the Contemporary World

birth. The most important of these was exemption from paying taxes to
the state. The nobles further enjoyed feudal privileges. These included
feudal dues, which they extracted from the peasants. Peasants were obliged
New words
to render services to the lord – to work in his house and fields – to serve
in the army or to participate in building roads. Livre – Unit of currency in France,
discontinued in 1794
The Church too extracted its share of taxes called tithes from the peasants,
Clergy – Group of persons invested with
and finally, all members of the third estate had to pay taxes to the state.
special functions in the church
These included a direct tax, called taille, and a number of indirect taxes
Tithe – A tax levied by the church, comprising
which were levied on articles of everyday consumption like salt or tobacco.
one-tenth of the agricultural produce
The burden of financing activities of the state through taxes was borne
Taille – Tax to be paid directly to the state
by the third estate alone.

4 2024-25
 ‘This poor fellow brings everything,
grain, fruits, money, salad. The fat lord
sits there, ready to accept it all. He does
not even care to grace him with a look.’

Activity
Explain why the artist has portrayed the
nobleman as the spider and the peasant
as the fly.

‘The nobleman is the spider,

‘The more the devil has, the more he wants.’
the peasant the fly.’

Fig.3 – The Spider and the Fly.

An anonymous etching.

1.1 The Struggle to Survive Revolution

The population of France rose from about 23 million in 1715 to 28

million in 1789. This led to a rapid increase in the demand for
foodgrains. Production of grains could not keep pace with the
French

demand. So the price of bread which was the staple diet of the majority
rose rapidly. Most workers were employed as labourers in workshops New words
whose owner fixed their wages. But wages did not keep pace with
Subsistence crisis – An extreme situation where
The

the rise in prices. So the gap between the poor and the rich widened.
Things became worse whenever drought or hail reduced the harvest. the basic means of livelihood are endangered
This led to a subsistence crisis, something that occurred frequently Anonymous – One whose name remains
in France during the Old Regime. unknown

2024-25 5
 1.2 How a Subsistence Crisis Happens

Bad The poorest can no

harvest longer buy bread

Disease
epidemics

Fig.4 – The course of a subsistence crisis.

Activity
Fill in the blank boxes in Fig. 4 with
appropriate terms from among the following:
1.3 A Growing Middle Class Envisages an End to Privileges
Food riots, scarcity of grain, increased
In the past, peasants and workers had participated in revolts against number of deaths, rising food prices,
increasing taxes and food scarcity. But they lacked the means and weaker bodies.
programmes to carry out full-scale measures that would bring about
a change in the social and economic order. This was left to those
groups within the third estate who had become prosperous and had
access to education and new ideas.

The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of social groups,

India and the Contemporary World

termed the middle class, who earned their wealth through an

expanding overseas trade and from the manufacture of goods such as
woollen and silk textiles that were either exported or bought by the
richer members of society. In addition to merchants and
manufacturers, the third estate included professions such as lawyers
or administrative officials. All of these were educated and believed
that no group in society should be privileged by birth. Rather, a
person’s social position must depend on his merit. These ideas
envisaging a society based on freedom and equal laws and
opportunities for all, were put forward by philosophers such as John
Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau. In his Two Treatises of Government,
Locke sought to refute the doctrine of the divine and absolute right

6 2024-25
of the monarch. Rousseau carried the idea forward, proposing a
form of government based on a social contract between people
and their representatives. In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu
proposed a division of power within the government between
the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. This model of
government was put into force in the USA, after the thirteen
colonies declared their independence from Britain. The American
constitution and its guarantee of individual rights was an important
example for political thinkers in France.

The ideas of these philosophers were discussed intensively in salons

and coffee-houses and spread among people through books and
newspapers. These were frequently read aloud in groups for the
benefit of those who could not read and write. The news that
Louis XVI planned to impose further taxes to be able to meet the
expenses of the state generated anger and protest against the system
of privileges.

Source A

Accounts of lived experiences in the Old Regime

1. Georges Danton, who later became active in revolutionary politics, wrote to a friend in
1793, looking back upon the time when he had just completed his studies:
‘I was educated in the residential college of Plessis. There I was in the company of
important men … Once my studies ended, I was left with nothing. I started looking for a
post. It was impossible to find one at the law courts in Paris. The choice of a career in the
army was not open to me as I was not a noble by birth, nor did I have a patron. The
church too could not offer me a refuge. I could not buy an office as I did not possess a
sou. My old friends turned their backs to me … the system had provided us with an
education without however offering a field where our talents could be utilised.’

2. An Englishman, Arthur Young, travelled through France during the years from 1787 to
1789 and wrote detailed descriptions of his journeys. He often commented on what he

Revolution
saw.
Source

‘He who decides to be served and waited upon by slaves, ill-treated slaves at that, must
be fully aware that by doing so he is placing his property and his life in a situation which is
very different from that he would be in, had he chosen the services of free and well-
treated men. And he who chooses to dine to the accompaniment of his victims’ groans,
should not complain if during a riot his daughter gets kidnapped or his son’s throat is slit.’
French

Activity What message is Young trying to convey here? Whom does he mean when he speaks of‘ ‘slaves’?
The

Who is he criticising? What dangers does he sense in the situation of 1787?

2024-25 7