You can access the homework sheet here.
Unit Essay - The question for the unit essay is "What are the Challenges to Building a Democracy?"
Biography - Marie Antoinette, the Last Queen of France
Marie Antoinette was born in Austria in 1755, the fourth daughter in the Austrian royal family. When she was fourteen, she was married to the Prince of France, Louis Auguste, at the Palace of Versailles. Her mother married her to the prince to improve relations between France and Austria. Four years later, Marie Antoinette became queen of France when her husband, Louis Auguste, became Louis XVI, the king of France.
Marie Antoinette enjoyed the party-filled life at Versailles and she spent a lot of money on expensive dresses. She was also the target of gossip among the nobles who spread rumors that she partied too much, lost huge amounts of money gambling and had many affairs. While Marie Antoinette did lead a privileged life, it wasn't that much more extravagant than that of other European monarchs.
When the French Revolution began, Marie Antoinette refused to negotiate with the revolutionaries and she was often the target of public anger toward the monarchy. In October of 1789, a mob of Parisian women marched to Versailles and forced the royal family to move to Paris. Two years later, when France became a constitutional monarchy, the royal family tried to escape from France and get to Austria, where Marie Antoinette’s brother was emperor. However, before they could get out of France, they were arrested and brought back to Paris.
When France went to war against Austria in 1792, many in France accused Marie Antoinette of being an enemy of the country and the revolution. People accused her of ordering Louis XVI to not work with the revolutionary government. When the Austrian army invaded France, the royal family was locked in prison and the monarchy was abolished (destroyed). In 1793, Marie Antoinette’s husband, Louis XVI, was executed by the Revolutionary government. After this, Marie Antoinette fought bravely to stay alive and have the lives of her children spared. However, many of the leaders in the Revolutionary government did not like her and in 1793 she was put on trial for treason. Even though she put up a strong defense, it did not matter because the Revolutionary government had already decided that she would be found guilty. Marie Antoinette was publicly executed by guillotine in the center of Paris in 1793.
Source # 1 - Video on the Estates General, the storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of Rights of Man - click here
Source # 2 - Division of population in France and percent of income paid in taxes by members of each Estate
Source # 3 - Literacy Rates in France in 1789
Source # 4 - Style of Dress for the Nobles and the Revolutionaries
Source # 5 - Picture of the Meeting of the Estates General
Source # 6 - Pictures of the Tennis Court Oath (1789)
Source # 7 - This is the preamble to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789)
“The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all.
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Source # 9 - Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes from a pamphlet "What is the Third Estate" published in 1789 before the meeting of the Estates General.
"What is necessary that a nation should subsist and prosper?…
The pretended utility [usefulness] of a privileged order for the public service is nothing more than a chimera… All that which is burdensome in this service is performed by the Third Estate… Who then shall dare to say that the Third Estate has not within itself all that is necessary for the formation of a complete nation? It is the strong and robust man who has one arm still shackled.
If the privileged order [the nobility] should be abolished, the nation would be nothing less, but something more. Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an everything free and flourishing. Nothing can succeed without it, everything would be infinitely better without the others…
What is a nation? A body of associates, living under a common law, and represented by the same legislature, etc. Is it not evident that the noble order has privileges and expenditures which it dares to call its rights, but which are apart from the rights of the great body of citizens? It departs there from the common law. So its civil rights make of it an isolated people in the midst of the great nation. This is truly imperium in imperia [one state within another]…
The Third Estate embraces all that which belongs to the nation; and all that which is not the Third Estate, cannot be regarded as being of the nation.
What is the Third Estate? It is the whole."
Source # 10 - From the diary of Adrien Duquesnoy, a delegate to the Estates General, in January 1790
"January 16th 1790 …Putting aside priests, nobility, magistrates and financiers, it is clear that all the rest of the kingdom reaps infinite benefits from the revolution. And indeed, amongst those citizens whom I have just listed there are a great number who should judge it advantageous to them, because in truth it is. Thus the clergy of second degree and almost all provincial noblemen, who were recently oppressed by bishops and court nobles, should consider themselves fortunate to be relieved of this aristocracy.
Moreover, anyone who can for an instant put aside all private interest, cannot but bless this revolution. When one thinks of the great abuses of all kinds which burdened this poor kingdom, it seems obvious that only an upheaval of such intensity could achieve such an end. In any case, one thing is certain — it would be difficult for things to be worse than they were under the former regime.
I often hear people around me asking a very strange question: they enquire, ‘What has the assembly been doing for the last six months?’ I only know of one reply to this question: ‘Look, and observe: clergy and nobility abolished, provincial privileges gone, ecclesiastical property nationalized. Could you have achieved so much in ten years?"
