concept map on French revolution
Answers
French Society during Late Eighteenth Century
The Struggle to Survive
• Increase in population.
• Increased demand for foodgrains.
• Price of bread rose.
• Low wages of workers.
How Subsistence Crisis
• Bad harvest.
• Increase in the price of bread.
• Wages did not keep pace with increase in prices.
• Widened gap between the rich & the poor.
A Growing Middle Class
• Peasants & workers participated in revolts against increasing taxes.
• Social groups emerged.
• Earnings through overseas trade, manufacture of woollen & silk textiles.
• Philosophers emerged.
→ John Locke
► Criticised the divine & absolute right of the monarch.
→ Rousseau
► Government based on social contract between people and their representatives.
→ Montesquieu
► Proposed division of power within the govt. between the legislative, the executive & the judiciary.
Outbreak of the Revolution
• Power was distributed among the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.
• Rights like right to life, freedom of speech equality before law, etc., were introduced.
France abolishes Monarchy and becomes a Republic
The Reign of Terror
• Robespierre’s rule in France was known as ‘Reign of Terror’
• Laws placing a maximum ceiling on wages & prices were issued.
