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1.1 Social Structure: The Three Estates

• First Estate: Clergy (Church officials).
• Enjoyed privileges by birth, including exemption from taxes.
• Owned a significant portion of land (approx. 10% of total land).
• Collected tithes (a tax levied by the Church) from peasants.
• Second Estate: Nobility (aristocrats, landowners).
• Enjoyed feudal privileges, including exemption from taxes.
• Owned about 30% of the land.
• Extracted feudal dues from peasants, who were obliged to render services to the lord.
• Third Estate: Commoners (vast majority of the population).
• Comprised of:
• Big businessmen, merchants, court officials, lawyers, etc. (the prosperous section).
• Peasants and artisans (the largest group).
• Small peasants, landless labour, servants (the poorest section).
• Paid all direct taxes (taille) and indirect taxes on daily consumption items (salt, tobacco).
• Had no political rights and were exploited by the privileged estates.

1.2 Economic Conditions

• Population Growth: From 23 million in 1715 to 28 million in 1789.
• Led to increased demand for food grains.
• Subsistence Crisis: Frequent occurrence due to:
• Rapid rise in bread prices (staple diet).
• Wages not keeping pace with rising prices.
• Bad harvests leading to scarcity and increased food prices.
• Resulted in extreme poverty, disease, and death.
• State Debt: Long years of war (e.g., American War of Independence) drained financial resources.
• France had a debt of over 2 billion livres.
• Lenders began charging 10% interest on loans.
• To meet regular expenses (army, court, government offices), the state was forced to increase taxes.

1.3 Political Conditions

• Absolute Monarchy: Ruled by King Louis XVI of the Bourbon family.
• Believed in the divine right of kings.
• Lived a lavish life at the Palace of Versailles.
• Ineffective Administration: Decisions often made without considering public welfare.
• Influence of Enlightenment Ideas: Philosophers like John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Montesquieu advocated for:
• Equality, freedom, and social contract.
• Separation of powers.
• These ideas were discussed in salons and coffee houses, spreading among the educated middle class.

1.4 Role of the Middle Class

• Emerged as educated and wealthy through overseas trade and manufacturing.
• Believed that no group should be privileged by birth.
• Advocated for a society based on merit and equal laws.
• Provided leadership and intellectual framework for the revolution.

2.1 The Estates General

• 5 May 1789: Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates General to pass proposals for new taxes.
• A political body where the three estates sent their representatives.
• Voting in the Estates General had been conducted according to the principle that each estate had one vote.
• Third Estate's Demand: Demanded that voting should be conducted by the assembly as a whole, where each member would have one vote.
• This was a democratic principle advocated by Rousseau in The Social Contract.
• King Louis XVI rejected this proposal.
• Walkout: Representatives of the Third Estate walked out in protest.

2.2 The Tennis Court Oath

• 20 June 1789: The Third Estate representatives assembled in the hall of an indoor tennis court at Versailles.
• Oath: Swore not to disperse until they had drafted a constitution for France that would limit the powers of the monarch.
• Led by Mirabeau and Abbé Sieyès.

2.3 Storming of the Bastille

• 14 July 1789: Paris was in a state of alarm due to high bread prices and rumours of troops being ordered into the city.
• A large crowd stormed the fortress-prison of Bastille.
• Symbol of the king's despotic power.
• The Bastille was demolished, and its stone fragments were sold in the markets.
• This event marked the beginning of the French Revolution.

2.4 Rural Uprisings

• Great Fear (Grande Peur): Rumours spread that lords of the manor had hired bands of brigands to destroy ripe crops.
• Peasants in the countryside attacked chateaux (castles of the nobility).
• Looted hoarded grain and burnt down documents containing records of feudal dues.
• Many nobles fled their homes.

2.5 Abolition of Feudalism

• 4 August 1789: The National Assembly passed a decree abolishing the feudal system of obligations and taxes.
• Members of the clergy were forced to give up their privileges.
• Tithes were abolished.
• Lands owned by the Church were confiscated.

2.6 Constitutional Monarchy

• 1791: The National Assembly completed the draft of a constitution.
• Main objective: limit the powers of the monarch.
• Powers were separated and assigned to the Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary.
• Citizens' Rights: The Constitution began with a Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
• Rights such as the right to life, freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, equality before law were established as 'natural and inalienable' rights.
• Voting Rights: Only active citizens (men above 25 years who paid taxes equal to at least 3 days of a labourer's wage) were given the right to vote.
• Women and non-propertied men were classified as passive citizens and had no voting rights.

3.1 Political Clubs and the Rise of Jacobins

• Political Clubs: Formed by people who wished to discuss government policies and plan their own forms of action.
• Most successful: Jacobin Club.
• Named after the former convent of St Jacob in Paris.
• Jacobin Members: Mainly from the less prosperous sections of society.
• Small shopkeepers, artisans, shoemakers, pastry cooks, watch-makers, printers, as well as daily wage earners.
• Their leader was Maximilien Robespierre.
• Jacobin Dress: Wore long striped trousers, symbolising their break from the 'sans-culottes' (those without knee breeches).

3.2 The Insurrection of 1792

• Economic Hardship: Food shortages and high prices continued.
• 10 August 1792: Jacobins stormed the Palace of the Tuileries, massacred the king's guards, and held the king hostage.
• New Elections: The Assembly voted to imprison the royal family.
• Elections were held.
• All men of 21 years and above, regardless of wealth, got the right to vote.

3.3 France Becomes a Republic

• 21 September 1792: The newly elected assembly, called the Convention, abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic.
• A republic is a form of government where the people elect the government, including the head of the government.
• Execution of Louis XVI: On 21 January 1793, King Louis XVI was publicly executed at the Place de la Concorde.
• Charged with treason.
• Queen Marie Antoinette met the same fate shortly after.

3.4 The Reign of Terror (1793-1794)

• Robespierre's Rule: Period from 1793 to 1794.
• Robespierre followed a policy of severe control and punishment.
• Those he saw as 'enemies' of the republic (nobles, clergy, members of other political parties, even Jacobins who disagreed with him) were arrested, imprisoned, and then guillotined.
• Guillotine: A device consisting of two poles and a blade with which a person was beheaded.
• Robespierre's Policies:
• Issued laws placing a maximum ceiling on wages and prices.
• Peasants were forced to transport their grain to cities and sell it at fixed prices.
• Meat and bread were rationed.
• Equality was sought to be practised through forms of speech and address (e.g., 'Citoyen' and 'Citoyenne' instead of 'Monsieur' and 'Madame').
• Churches were shut down and converted into barracks or offices.
• Fall of Robespierre: Robespierre's policies were so relentless that even his supporters began to demand moderation.
• He was convicted by a court in July 1794, arrested, and guillotined the next day.

3.5 A Directory Rules France

• New Constitution: After the fall of Robespierre, a new constitution was introduced.
• Denied the vote to non-propertied sections of society.
• Provided for two elected legislative councils.
• The Directory: These councils then appointed a Directory, an executive made up of five members.
• Meant to prevent the concentration of power in one-man executive as under the Jacobins.
• Instability: Directors often clashed with the legislative councils, who then sought to dismiss them.
• This political instability paved the way for the rise of a military dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte.

4.1 Women's Active Participation

• From the very beginning, women were active participants in the events of the French Revolution.
• They hoped that their involvement would pressure the revolutionary government to introduce measures to improve their lives.
• Most women of the Third Estate had to work for a living.
• Worked as seamstresses, laundresses, sold flowers, fruits, and vegetables, or were employed as domestic servants.
• Did not have access to education or job training.
• Their wages were lower than those of men.

4.2 Women's Political Clubs

• To voice their interests, women started their own political clubs and newspapers.
• About sixty women's clubs emerged in different French cities.
• Most famous: The Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women.
• Their main demands:
• Women should enjoy the same political rights as men.
• Right to vote.
• Right to hold political office.

4.3 Revolutionary Government's Measures for Women

• In the early years, the revolutionary government did introduce some laws that improved the lives of women:
• State schools were created, and schooling was made compulsory for all girls.
• Fathers could no longer force their daughters into marriage.
• Marriage was made into a contract entered into freely and registered under civil law.
• Divorce was made legal and could be applied for by both men and women.
• Women could now train for jobs, become artists, or run small businesses.

4.4 Setbacks and Continued Struggle

• During the Reign of Terror, the new government issued laws ordering the closure of women's clubs and banning their political activities.
• Many prominent women were arrested and executed.
• It was not until 1946 that women in France finally won the right to vote.
• The struggle for women's suffrage continued internationally through the international suffrage movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

5.1 The Triangular Slave Trade

• One of the most revolutionary social reforms of the Jacobin regime was the abolition of slavery in the French colonies.
• The colonies in the Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe, and San Domingo) were important suppliers of commodities like tobacco, indigo, sugar, and coffee.
• Labour Shortage: The reluctance of Europeans to go and work in distant and unfamiliar lands meant a shortage of labour on the plantations.
• Triangular Slave Trade: This led to a triangular slave trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
• French merchants sailed from Bordeaux or Nantes to the African coast.
• Bought slaves from local chieftains.
• Branded and shackled, the slaves were packed tightly into ships for the three-month voyage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
• There they were sold to plantation owners.

5.2 Debates on Slavery

• Throughout the 18th century, there was little criticism of slavery in France.
• The National Assembly held long debates about whether the rights of man should be extended to all French subjects, including those in the colonies.
• However, they did not pass any laws, fearing opposition from businessmen whose incomes depended on the slave trade.

5.3 Abolition by the Convention

• It was finally the Convention (the Jacobin government) that legislated to free all slaves in the French overseas possessions.
• This was a short-lived measure.

5.4 Reintroduction and Final Abolition

• Napoleon Bonaparte reintroduced slavery ten years later.
• Plantation owners understood their freedom as including the right to enslave African Negroes in pursuit of their economic interests.
• Slavery was finally abolished in French colonies in 1848.

6.1 Impact on Laws and Censorship

• After the storming of the Bastille in 1789, one important law that came into effect was the abolition of censorship.
• Old Regime: All written material and cultural activities (books, newspapers, plays) could be published or performed only after being approved by the censors of the king.
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen: Proclaimed freedom of speech and expression to be a natural right.
• Newspapers, pamphlets, books, and printed pictures flooded the towns of France.
• Helped to spread the ideas of liberty and equality.
• Artistic Freedom: Plays, songs, and festive processions attracted large numbers of people.
• This was a way for people to identify with ideas like liberty or justice.

6.2 Changes in Dress and Language

• Dress: The 'sans-culottes' (literally 'those without knee breeches') became a symbol of the revolution.
• Wore long striped trousers, distinct from the knee breeches of the nobility.
• The red cap worn by sans-culottes symbolised liberty.
• Language: Use of 'Citoyen' and 'Citoyenne' (citizen) instead of 'Monsieur' and 'Madame' (Sir/Madam) to promote equality.

6.3 Spread of Revolutionary Ideas

• The ideas of the French Revolution (liberty, equality, fraternity) spread to other parts of Europe.
• Inspired movements for democracy and freedom in other countries.
• Tipu Sultan and Raja Rammohan Roy are two examples of individuals who responded to the ideas coming from revolutionary France.

7.1 Rise of Napoleon

• The political instability of the Directory paved the way for the rise of a military dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte.
• 1804: Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France.
• He set out to conquer neighbouring European countries, dispossessing dynasties and creating kingdoms where he placed members of his family.

7.2 Napoleon as a Moderniser

• Napoleon saw his role as a moderniser of Europe.
• Introduced many laws such as the protection of private property.
• Introduced a uniform system of weights and measures provided by the decimal system.
• Many of his laws, like the Napoleonic Code (Civil Code of 1804), were exported to the regions under French control.
• Abolished the feudal system.
• Freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues.
• Removed guild restrictions in towns.

7.3 Initial Reception and Later Resistance

• Initially, many saw Napoleon as a liberator who would bring freedom for the people.
• However, the Napoleonic armies soon came to be viewed everywhere as an invading force.
• The administrative arrangements did not go hand in hand with political freedom.
• Increased taxation, censorship, forced conscription into the French armies all seemed to outweigh the advantages of the administrative changes.

7.4 Defeat of Napoleon

• Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815.

7.5 Legacy of the French Revolution

• The ideas of liberty and democratic rights were the most important legacy of the French Revolution.
• These spread from France to the rest of Europe during the 19th century, where feudal systems were abolished.
• Inspired colonised peoples to create sovereign nation states.
• The idea of freedom from bondage and the creation of a nation-state became movements in India and China.
• The French Revolution remains a pivotal event in world history, shaping modern political thought and movements.