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Revolution in France Notes Pg.13-19

A Picture of Queen Marie Antoinette johnfenzel.typepad.com

A Picture of King Louis  jaffee89.wordpress.com

A video that has information about King Louis XVI

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The government of France

-King Louis the Sixteenth was the king and absolute ruler, had all power to himself -He governs in a palace outside France with thousands of nobles serving him and helping him -Louis's wife was Marie Antoinette, they married at 14-15 years old -At first, the public liked the two figures, but later they lost popularity

Marie Antoinette

-People hated her because she was foreign, an Austrian women -In french, the world Austrian women could be sounded like 'bitch' -She spent money on clothing, jewelry and gambling, also another reason for why people hated her -She was unfaithful to Louis, made the public hate her all the more -In 1774, Louis gave Marie a small palace and she spent tons of money building beautiful gardens around it -She spent more money on building a village that looked like it was old and rundown -She had crossed the line to a point where one of her most loyal courtiers wrote about her actions and made the public know -Her brother and some modern historians defended Marie's acts, saying she helped some families by letting them live in the 'artificial' village

Use and abuse of power

-Besides hating Marie Antoinette, the people thought that the king had too much power -The people hated the sealed letter, where a person's name is written and if the king signs that sheet of paper, then the person will be in jail for as long as the king wishes -The public hated the fact that ministers could use the sealed letters -Paris lawyers started to complain, saying that the king did not know any of the people he was putting in jail and only because the minister said so -Besides the sealed letters, the king could also had numerous ways to get what he wants whenever he wants, people started calling him a tyrant, etc.

Financial problems-the royal debt

-France has been in debt for about a hundred years because they did not receive enough taxes as the money they were spending -King Louis had to either raise taxes, lower spending amount or borrow money

An attempt at reform

-The move was to raise taxes, the biggest change would be on land, the landlords would have to pay a very big amount of taxes for the land they owned -Putting this move to action would be difficult, however the nobles and clergy would do everything they could to avoid these taxes -It could be refused by the Paris law court and that would also delay the new tax rules coming to effect -The "Assembly of Notables" who were going to approve this said they did not have the power and only the Estates General elected by all three estates had the power -Louis then tried to approve this without the Assembly of Notables and he was refused by the Paris Parlement -People started protesting about this and the protests were violent -On the "Day of Tiles" where mobs of protestors fought soldiers, 4 people died -After 6 more months or protests, Louis gave in and called for a meeting with the Estates General

Summary

This chapter is mainly about the king and his power, first we learn about King Louis the Sixteen who is an absolute ruler along with his wife, Marie Antoinette. She is a greedy queen who uses a lot of money on clothing, jewelry and gambling. Later, she decides to make a village that looks old and rundown and this process could've saved many of the actual poor villages in France. This caused her to be unpopular and have mass crowds in public to hate her. Later, we learn of the abusive power of the king and how he uses the sealed letters to put people in prison for as long as he wished. And at the end, the trouble that faced the king. How he had to deal with the debt and bankruptcy. He tried to increase the taxes but it was refused by many groups and made the public make protests against him. Later, there is also the food crisis where there are droughts, storms, floods and more terrible weather.

Questions

How did King Louis get all the power to himself? What is the reason for why the King thought increasing the taxes was the best choice when the Queen was using so much money? Why did the Queen spend money on many things and not help poor people? How does she have the right to be Queen?