There were many people who had a big impact of the French Revolution. The people I am researching a little more will be Rousseau, Napoleon, and King Louis XVI. We talked about Rousseau in class and talked about his ideas. He was the one who thought that the wealthy should be taxed because they had what they needed and "needed" which was more like wanted extra indulgences. Unlike the poorer people or the 3rd estate, they did not have what they needed like food. Flour was very expensive because the prices had been raised and so it was hard for people to find things to eat. Rousseau had the idea that people later attempted in hopes of success, which meant that the 3rd estate people would agree and vote for the tax on the 1st estate with the King. Napoleon was the man who supposedly "tamed" the Revolution according to our textbook. He preserved many rights including the rights of civilians, the rights to Religion, and equality rights. He also helped to establish the French Empire which tried to spread the main ideas of the revolution. Napoleon wanted to spread their ideas from the revolution to other places because he thought that they were successful and he wanted other places to be able to benefit from them like the French did. King Louis XVI, whom we talked about in class, was the King at the time. He called the Estates General to institute a law that enables them to tax the 1st estate. Then the 3rd estate forced him to sign the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. He later tried to escape and sneak out with his family to Austria but he was caught just before and was then imprisoned in Paris. That was when the people felt betrayed and that caused the relationship between the people and him to fade and fall apart. Then, it just went down hill from there for King Louis XVI.
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Why didnt people kill Louis before he ran away?The whole point of the revolution was to oppose the monarchy and the civilians went as far as to place guards of louis on pikes, so what stopped them from killing their hated King? Also did Rousseau have the beliefs he held before the famine when the price of wheat went up tremendously?
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ReplyDeleteThe famine didn't really begin until the 1780s, after Rousseau had already died in 1778. Therefore, his beliefs couldn't really have changed after the famine, because he was already dead years before the famine even began.
ReplyDeleteChronological issues aside, I would imagine that much of Rousseau's political and philosophical views stemmed out of his life experiences. France's economy had been struggling for years before the famine; they lost significant resources in the American Revolution and the Seven Years War. On top of that, their poorly designed social and political structure, plus indecisive, unsympathetic and uncaring leadership, gave the peasant class plenty of reasons to revolt. Put simply, France was already a pretty messed up country long before the famine began.
Rousseau might have looked to create a political philosophy that would solve the problems that his country faced. After all, many of his ideas helped spark the French Revolution in the first place.