how did democratic ideals give by french revolution
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Explanation:
French Revolution brought about great changes in the society and government of France. The revolution, which lasted from 1789 to 1799, also had far-reaching effects on the rest of Europe. It introduced democratic ideals to France but did not make the nation a democracy. However, it ended supreme rule by French kings and strengthened the middle class. After the revolution began, no European kings, nobles, or other privileged groups could ever again take their powers for granted or ignore the ideals of liberty and equality.
The revolution began with a government financial crisis but quickly became a movement of reform and violent change. In one of the early events, a crowd in Paris captured the Bastille, a royal fortress and hated symbol of oppression. A series of elected legislatures then took control of the government. King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were executed. Thousands of others met the same fate in a period called the Reign of Terror. The revolution ended when Napoleon Bonaparte, a French general, took over the government.
Various social, political, and economic conditions led to the revolution. These conditions included dissatisfaction among the lower and middle classes, interest in new ideas about government, and financial problems caused by the costs of wars.
Legal divisions among social groups that had existed for hundreds of years created much discontent. According to law, French society consisted of three groups called estates. Members of the clergy made up the first estate, nobles the second, and the rest of the people the third. The peasants formed the largest group in the third estate. Many of them earned so little that they could barely feed their families. The third estate also included the working people of the cities and a large and prosperous middle class made up chiefly of merchants, lawyers, and government officials.
The third estate resented certain advantages of the first two estates. The clergy and nobles did not have to pay most taxes. The third estate, especially the peasants, had to provide almost all the country's tax revenue. Many members of the middle class were also troubled by their social status. They were among the most important people in French society but were not recognized as such because they belonged to the third estate.
The new ideas about government challenged France's absolute monarchy. Under this system, the king had almost unlimited authority. He governed by divine right--that is, the monarch's right to rule was thought to come from God. There were checks on the king, but these came mainly from a few groups of aristocrats in the parlements (high courts). During the 1700's, French writers called philosophes and philosophers from other countries raised new ideas about freedom. Some of these thinkers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, suggested that the right to govern came from the people.
The financial crisis developed because the nation had gone deeply into debt to finance fighting in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) and the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783). By 1788, the government was almost bankrupt. The Parlement of Paris insisted that King Louis XVI could borrow more money or raise taxes only by calling a meeting of the Estates-General. This body was made up of representatives of the three estates, and had last met in 1614. Unwillingly, the king called the meeting.
The Estates-General opened on May 5, 1789, at Versailles, near Paris. Most members of the first two estates wanted each of the three estates to take up matters and vote on them separately by estate. The third estate had as many representatives as the other two estates combined. It insisted that all the estates be merged into one national assembly and that each representative have one vote. The third estate also wanted the Estates-General to write a constitution.
The king and the first two estates refused the demands of the third estate. In June 1789, the representatives of the third estate declared themselves the National Assembly of France. They gathered at a tennis court and pledged not to disband until they had written a constitution. This vow became known as the Oath of the Tennis Court. Louis XVI then allowed the three estates to join together as the National Assembly. But he began to gather troops to break up the Assembly.
Meanwhile, the masses of France also took action. On July 14, 1789, a huge crowd of Parisians rushed to the Bastille. They believed they would find arms and ammunition there for use in defending themselves against the king's army. The people captured the Bastille and began to tear it down. At the same time, leaders in Paris formed a revolutionary city government. Massive peasant uprisings against nobles also broke out in the countryside. A few nobles decided to flee France, and many more followed in the next five years. These people were called emigres because they emigrated. The uprisings