Anyone know a lot about the french revolution?
i know the causes of it but i have two questions: 1.) describe the effects the french rev had on society 2.) evaluate whether the changes that resulted from ir resolved the problems that causes it
What was the role of the middle class in the French Revolution?
They very much wanted a free press, and an end to censorship. They also wanted an end to aristocratic privilege in the courts, which is what they meant by equality. They saw the British parliamentary restrictions on the power of the king, and wanted the same thing for France. They promoted the scandalous and libelous literature about the royal court, and fiercely resented the tax structure. The nobility and the church didn't pay taxes. The country was virtually bankrupt, but taxation fell on the middle classes and the peasants. Their combined pressure led the King to call for a meeting of the Estates General.
If the American Revolution had not occured, would there have been the French Revolution?
Yes, the French Revolution would have occurred regardless of what happened across the Atlantic. The French Revolutionary movement may have gotten some inspiration from the Americans. (The US Constitution was being published in Parisian shops within months after it was drafted in the States), and the Marquis de Lafayette and other liberal members of the French Nobility had fought alongside the Americans and brought the Americans' ideas for democracy back to France with them. For the most part though, the French Revolution was entirely a domestic development. Just look at all the factors leading up to Storming of Bastille, which marked the start of French Revolution: 1. Grain shortage across the country was leading to widespread starvation. 2. The nation's countless wars under Louis XVI's predecessors left the nations debt at astronomical amounts, which could not be alleviated through the inefficient tax system. 3. The use of a feudal tax system, whereby the Church and the Nobility were exempt from paying taxes was still in use. 4. The conspicuous consumption of the nobility and the royal family, which fed the anti-monarchist propaganda machine. 5. The obvious resistance to change by the Royal Family and most of the nobility. (The firing by the king of his finance minister Jacques Necker, a champion for the people and tax reform) The French Revolution would still have come about regardless of the outcome across the Atlantic. No doubt if the American Revolution had ended in failure, the French people would have been more outraged that the King had thrown so much money and sent the nation into further debt fighting a war that was lost and didn't benefit the French people to begin with. Edit: The fool above my post doesn't know history at all. The French Tricolour flag is derived from the Seal of the City of Paris (Red and Blue stripes) which represents the French People, separated by the White of the French King (White was the colour of the Bourbon Monarchy)
Did any aristocrats survive the French Revolution?
Only 8% of all victims of the Reign of Terror were aristocrats. They were 1% of the Population so they felt a disproportionate impact, especially because a majority of the Pre-Revolutionary nobility actually became exiles and emigres. The former group eventually fought alongside enemy Austrian and Prussian troops to invade France and restore the King to the throne.The aristocrats who were based within Paris and the city were spared and the focus of violence was largely provincial nobility.The victims of the Reign of Terror were a diverse bunch.Statistically, and contrary to popular belief, only 8% of the victims were aristocrats (who considering they were 1% of the population did feel a disproportionate impact), 25% of the victims were bourgeois and middle-class, 28% were peasants and working-class and the rest were clergy. During the "Great Terror" after the Law of 22 Prarial, where 1000 people were executed in a single month (matching the executions in Paris the previous year), the victims became 38% Nobility, 26% Clergy, with the wealthy victims discriminated against since the law deprived them of a right to call for witnesses, legal representatives or evidence by which according to Georges Couthon (who drafted the law to the Convention), wealthier accused escaped the blade before. Ironically, the largest single mass-execution of the Revolution, 77 people in a single day happened on the day after Robespierre's execution. Over three days , the National Convention purged and executed without trial 100 people connected to Robespierre and the Paris Commune.The primary reasons people got executed had to do with war and politics rather than class persecution (at least until the Law of Prairial). Peasants were executed if they were suspected of being pro-Catholic monarchist or if they hoarded food, bourgeois and middle-class if they were speculators or federalists, priests and nuns were executed because they were priests and nuns, supported the pope and opposed the Constitutional Clergy…others executed were soldiers and generals (387 Generals most of them royalists), still others were political targets, Girondins, Royalists, Dantonists, Herbertists, and finally Robespierriests.
Why did people react negatively to the French revolution ?
The basis of it (all men are equal) was the anti-thesis of the current way of life all over Europe. You had lower class (peasants), middle class (merchants) and the high class (nobles) who were the rulers and the land owners, with the king ruling by divine right. To that higher class the idea of giving the lower classes the right to decide anything was heretical... and a threat to their own position at the top. The blood bath that followed, with the nobles being hunted and killed, only reinforced that negative reaction.
How could the British aristocracy outlast their French, German, Austrian, Italian, Russian, Ottoman, Korean, and Chinese counterparts? Were they exceptionally good at winning their people's favour?
I think the better question is how the British ancien regime as a whole survived modernity.The perfect, seamless transition of the England from a minor Medieval kingdom to a sprawling overseas empire and then to a 2nd tier regional power without a major revolution while preserving the monarchy is nothing short of amazing. This miraculous feat is really worth further scholarly examination, it's a shame there's not more interest in it.Personally, I think the secret sauce to this successful transition is the distinctively English spirit of compromise. If you compare British history to French, German or Spanish history you find that they all arrive at similar "points of decision" where things could go one of many ways. The British always seem to be able to navigate the middle path through compromise whereas their Continental European counterparts often fall to extreme courses of action. This spirit of compromise seems to have been inherited by the United States as well. Great compromises are at the core of American history and usually produce good results that have allowed the country to remain politically stable and free of many of the revolutionary forces of the 19th Century.Now, let's focus on the issue of how the British monarchy and traditional aristocracy survived the "Long 19th Century" (the period from the French Revolution to WWI).Thanks to the concessions made by English monarchs in the late Medieval period, the English monarchy was already a constitutional monarchy when the French Revolution (which, in itself is a classic case of a failure to compromise) was breaking out. Thus the new French revolutionary ideological forces which ended up overthrowing the ancien regime of France and other Continental European powers were largely powerless on the British.Then came the revolutions of 1848 which while widely unsuccessful, fatally wounded the various old monarchies of Europe. Each of these monarchies and traditional aristocracies would fall, the last straw usually being defeat at the hands of a foreign power, Napoleon III being the classic example.England was again able to dodge the bullet as the English commoner classes had already been granted substantial concessions from previous compromises.