How did the enlightenment influence the french revolution essay?
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The Enlightenment created many new ideas and established views of the world that had never existed before. It was a movement of intellectual thinkers in the 18th century who believed that science could explain everything in nature and society. Enlightenment thinkers at this time began to apply rational thoughts to figure out and understand nature and to guide their human existence. The Enlightenment was the great rebirth and re-creation of world-view brought about by the scientific revolution. It glorified the ability of reason and was an era of thought and intellectual accomplishment. Of all the European countries, France was the most embracing of these new ideas and philosophies and a new class emerged known as the “Philosophes” who encouraged the French public to question their society. These ideas influenced the economical, social, scientific, and political aspects of society and were a direct cause of the French Revolution.
This new idea of government and society based upon the Enlightenment ideals of democracy, citizenship, and human rights, set forward by the works of the Philosophes like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, and John Locke spread throughout France. These works changed how people viewed the government and its policies. This “public enlightenment” resulted in the French Revolution, a compound sequence of events between the years 1789 and 1799 which began when the working classes or the “Third Estate” stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, a symbol of the king’s dominance over his subjects. These revolutionaries knew that they wanted a new government based upon the ideals brought to masses by the Enlightenment thinkers. These ideals were liberty and equality based upon a government for the people, by the people. These ideals can be seen in the motto of the French Revolution: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”
Prior to the Revolution, French citizens were part of a strictly limited society with very little freedom of expression. The government or “The Estates General” was split into the three Estates: The First, the Second. The First and Second Estates were composed of nobles and the clergy who dominated the majority of society which imposed tough, excessive laws on the Third. The Third Estate made up the majority of France, which contained the working classes or the “commoners”. This estate was a mixture of rich members of the middle class, urban workers, and the mass of peasants. Whenever the Estates General met, the Third Estate was easily out-voted two to one. Because of the unfair voting system, the Third Estate felt that all voting should be done by headcount to promote fairness. This would benefit the Third Estate and better represent the general public and their overwhelming needs of the time. They wanted an even, fair government with a stable economy, and a sense of individuality. This proposal based on enlightenment ideals was flatly rejected, causing the Third Estate form the National Assembly, which was formally done during the Tennis Court Oath in 1789.
Soon after the storming of the Bastille, the National Assembly was formed, in which the “Declaration and Rights of Man and Citizen” was created, whose authors were inspired by the American Declaration of Independence and more importantly by the French Enlightenment’s philosophers like Rousseau and who championed a fairly represented government in which the Parliament was given the right to meet and the Estates General was no longer a part of French society. The freedom to worship and the freedom to thought were granted. All of these ideas that were written within this constitution had the enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality as their foundation.
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