Citizen's Rights In The French Revolution

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“By educating people, you will gain freedom, and you should not listen to the bad governments” - Robespierre The French Revolution changed the French citizen’s rights and responsibilities, which also affected today’s politics and governments. The French Revolution was from 1789 to 1799. Rights are things that the citizens can do in that country, and responsibilities are things that people should keep in order to not get in trouble. At France, their politics were absolute monarchy, so the third estate didn’t have much power. The third estate didn’t have freedom to vote, and they had to pay most of the taxes, which weren’t fair. There were 3 estates in France before the Revolution. The First estate(Clergy), the Second estate(Nobles), and…show more content…
J.Locke thought that government should protect 3 rights for the citizens, which are life, liberty, and property, and they were just rights that everyone had naturally. Montesquieu thought that there should be a separation of powers of governments, which are the executive, legislative, and judicial. Rousseau thought that there should be a social contract in between the government and the citizens. Voltaire thought that the church and the states should be separated, because he saw that there were some disadvantages to French citizens when Church and the government were mixed together, like paying taxes to the Church.These ideas helped us to make a society today, like social contract with the government. Robespierre, one of the most important leader of the revolutionary, was a leader of the Jacobin Club, and was elected for the national assembly and Public safety. Then, he started to gain power, and revolted and encouraged people to execute many people from the first and second estate. This was called the reign of terror, and he killed about 17,000 people who were against the revolution. Also, these ideas came up to the idea of Sovereignty (Having a power as an authority, and the inalienable rights (rights that the government can’t take away from you) that influenced people to revolt.These ideas started to develop, but also started to make the French citizens and…show more content…
Before the revolution, the 1st and 2nd estate tried not to listen to the 3rd estate, and even the 3rd estates voted to reform, they were mostly outvoted by 2:1. Then, the 3rd estate formed the ‘National Assembly’ to go against the other 2 estates. Then, they had a war between them, which was called “Storming of Bastille”, which is also known as the start of the revolution. It was on the 14th of July, 1789. Bastille was the prison where many of the people who tried to revolt (3rd estate) were captured, so it was a risk for the 3rd estates to attack the Bastille, going against the government of France. Also, because there was a famine in France and the price of bread was increasingly high, the women started to march to where the king Louis XVI lived, and by that, the king Louis XVI moved back to Paris. However, after the revolution has ended, most of the people from the 1st and 2nd estates were executed, which was the reign of terror. Of course, the king Louis XVI also got executed. When we connect the Storming of Bastille and the Bread March, I think people wanted freedom and their own rights to have a fair condition with all other estates. Or it could be just that they thought that the other 2 estates were too cruel and wanted to overthrow and replace them so that they have a good condition of living, like having enough bread to eat or not paying too much taxes.
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