FRENCH REVOLUTION 1788-1789                              

1788 REVOLT OF PARLEMENT OF PARIS
          exiled parlementaires re-enter Paris
          calls for meeting of Estates-General (first  since 1614)

          conflict between privileged orders and population of 23 million:
            1st estate (clergy): 2% (100,000); 2cd estate (nobles): 8% (400,000)

     Third estate demands: 1) voting by head, not by order;
      2) "doubling the third": double # representatives of 1st & 2cd estates

Pamphlet literature: beginning of intense revolutionary debate

     Abbé  Sieyès: What is the Third Estate ? = the nation and the sovereign
             "What is the third estate?  Everything.  What has it been up to now? 
              Nothing.  What does it ask? To become something."
   Society of Thirty: aristocrats and clergy supporting the Third Estate
                         includes Lafayette, Talleyrand, Sieyès (note that all of these men survived the Revolution)

 Cahiers de doléances     lists of grievances of each estate drawn up locally along withelection
            of delegates to Estates General; source for social history of Fr. Rev
      effective end of absolute government; first official "consultation of the nation"
    Nobility: want voting by order, not by head; some willing to renounce tax
                exemption to maintain noble status; opposed to sale of noble offices
    Clergy: voting by order; no religious toleration; church censorship of books
    Merchants, bourgeoisie: voting by head; opposed to taxes on commerce; want
                        uniform tax on land; judicial and financial reform
    Peasants: voting by head; abolition of taille, corvée, military service

1789 ESTATES GENERAL
          meets in Versailles (according to regulations of 1614)
           Number of delegates: clergy 291, nobility 270, 3rd estate 578
           Issue of voting by head or by order: Necker's opening speech vote by order
           Nobility constitutes itself as separate house; Clergy splits;

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
                  3rd Estate constitutes itself as Nationall Assembly-invites Clergy
June 20   TENNIS COURT OATH --
               National Assembly vow to remain in session until constitution                                              
June 23   ROYAL SESSION -- King declares acts of 3rd Estate null & void;
                            maintains social orders, but abolish noble tax exemptions
June 27   King reverses himself; orders nobles to join Nationall Assembly
                          but also builds up troops, plan to suppress Nationall Assembly
              Up to this point revolution is legal, parliamentary, non-violent

July 14   PARISIAN REVOLT, STORMING OF BASTILLE -- armed revolt
July 17            King capitulates, goes to Paris to submit to nation, wearing the
                       TRICOLEUR: Flag = red & blue = city of Paris; white = royal flag
                        Marquis de Lafayette: commander of Parisian city guard

August 4       END OF FEUDALISM: "The feudal regime is abolished in its entirety."
August 10     DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF MAN & CITIZEN:
                              anti-feudal, social contract (influence of Rousseau's Social Contract)