Cambridge International AS Level History Modern Europe, 1750–1921
Before you start • • • •
Research the human and physical geography of France in the late 18th century. Was it a rich or a poor country? Why was France seen as the centre of European culture? Look at the countries ountries surrounding France in 1789. What sort of relationship did France have with them? Was it always peaceful?
local community – work they were not paid for. Landlords had the right to hunt on the peasants’ land. The peasants were also forced to use their landlords’ wine presses and flour mills, at a high price.
The Ancien Régime: problems and policies of Louis XVI
There were only three good harvests between 1770 and 1789, and this resulted in rural poverty and hunger. The economy was simply unable to provide an adequate living for those who lived in the countryside, so many peasants were forced to move to the towns. This growing urban population, poor and unskilled, found there was little or no chance of quality employment. Unlike Britain, France had few factories making textiles, for example, to absorb this migration of workers. Meanwhile, the existing urban working class saw their wages decline as food prices rose. Bread usually formed about 75% of the French workingclass diet. In normal times, a family would spend between 35 and 50% of its income on bread. After a bad harvest, when prices soared, fear of starvation took hold, and there was no money for heating and clothing. Increasing poverty, worsened by a decline in real wages, led to growing urban unrest, including bread riots. The police force had only limited numbers and found it difficult to maintain order.
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1.1 What were the causes and immediate outcomes of the 1789 revolution?
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KEY TERMS
Ancien Régime: Literally ‘the old system of government’, this describes how France was governed before 1789. It not only covers the government and administration, but also the structure of society and the role of the Church as well. Absolute monarch: A king or queen who has complete power in a state. They can make laws and there are no constitutional limits to their power.
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France in the late 18th century was ruled by an absolute monarch, Louis XVI. It was, however, a difficult country to govern. It had a population of about 27 million. lion. There was significant regional difference across the country, along with a strong tradition for each part of France to deal with local issues in its own way. There were also different legal systems, which dated back for centuries. The regions had different systems of taxation and there were also customs barriers between some parts of France, meaning that trade could not move freely around the country. These conditions meant that, in practice, the king’s orders were often ignored or proved too difficult to carry out.
Real wages: Wages measured in terms of what they enable workers to buy, rather than the actual money received.
Social divisions in France The vast majority – 80% – of the French population at this time were poor peasants. Agriculture was not highly developed and was inefficient. Peasants farmed tiny plots of land and their main aim was to grow enough food to survive. At the same time, they were heavily taxed by the government, their landlords and the Church. In addition, they had to maintain the roads for their landlords and their
A hungry, highly taxed lower class who were not represented by politicians, in both town and countryside, was an important factor in the events that followed. The distance between the rich and the poor was growing. The poor saw those they paid taxes to – the aristocracy and the Church in particular – enjoying lives of luxury, but peasants had no means of redressing their grievances. The legal system worked against them, and was, in fact, another means of control. In French towns, the middle class was growing. Increasingly, these people were well educated and rich. By 1780, they owned around 20% of the land in France. They were involved in either commerce or industry, or in professions such as law and medicine. The vast majority of France’s future revolutionary leaders came from this middle class; many of them had been lawyers. Some
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