-+Ho+Soo's+Notes+(France+21-25)+09.03.10

=Awesome Part=

Internet problem...

=The Estates General= - The nobles and clergy welcomed the king's decision to call an Estates General. - They wanted to block his plans to tax them. - They thought they can do this, because they used voting system.

- The Estates General met whenever the king wanted to consult it. - The last time it had met was in 1614. - It had been made up of around 750 members, about 250 from each of the three estates. - They met in three different rooms, each estate had just one vote. - The third estate thought the voting system was unfair. - If used again in 1789, the nobles and clergy would be able to out-vote the third estate to one. - They asked the king to double their numbers in the Estates General. - They wanted each member on vote each. - In December 1788, the king reluctantly agreed to the first of these demands. - By now, his government was bankrupt. - It could not pay all the interest it owed on its debts. - A new finance minister (Jacques Necker) advised him to double the third estate. - He hoped that the Estate General itself would decide to give every member one vote each, and then vote for new taxes.
 * The voting system**

- Mass hunger was also a big problem - The crisis was caused by freak weather. - On 13 July 1788, a massive hailstorm had destroyed cornfields, vegetable plots, orchards and vineyards all over central France. - This was followed by a drought. - The harvest in 1788 was very poor. - The weather did not go back to its usual. - The drought was followed by the coldest winter in living memory. (rivers froze over, stopping watermills from rinding flour, blocked roads prevented food from reaching markets.) - Snow suddenly thawed in the spring, floods ruined huge areas of farmland. - The awful weather rose prices of products. - Poor families were now spending nearly all their earnings just on bread. - Poor people stopped buying things like clothes, shoes, candles and fuel. - Factories lost business, and many workers lost their jobs. - Unemployment, added to hunger, led to riots and strikes in many parts of the country.
 * The Food Crisis**

- During the great famine, elections for the Estates General were held in spring 1789. - Voters were asked to draw up lists of changes that they wanted the Estates General to discuss with the king. - Millions of French people wanted major changes. e.g. Complaints list of St Germain sous Caily District of Rouen. 1. We want an end to all taxes and tolls at town gates and their replacement by a single tax. 2. We want tax-free salt. 3. The suppression of begging. Each parish should pray for the relief of poor people's suffering - Drawing up the lists of complaints created great excitement everywhere in France. - The Estates General finally met at Versailles in May 1789, people were very excited. - It seemed too many people that the king was interested in their problems and that he was going t take action to solve them.
 * The Complaints lists**

- The first meeting of the Estates General took place on 5 May 1789. (over a thousand deputies met in the largest hall in Versailles) - The three estates were told to split up and carry on the meeting in separate halls. - The third estate was unhappy, they thought they could be outvoted by the other two estates. - They refused to discuss anything as a separate group. - They said they would take part in the Estates General only if the nobles and clergy joined them in a single 'National Assembly'. - The nobles and clergy refused to do so. - The third estate claimed, if, at the end of the week, the nobles and clergy had not joined them, they would start the work of the Estates General by themselves. - Louis got very angry. - Louis ordered a Royal session of the Estates General. - He intended to warn the third estate not to defy him any further. - On 19 June, the clergy decided to join the third estate.
 * The Estates Meet**

- The feared that Louis was going to break up their assembly by force feared the third estate. - With rain falling, they took shelter in the nearest empty building they could find, a tennis court nearby. - Packed inside the court, they took and oath to carry on meeting until they had changed the way France was governed. - King held his Royal Session on 23 June, and ordered to meet in their separate estates, but they refused to do so. ' We shall only leave at the point of bayonets' - Louis gave in. - On 27 June he ordered the the nobles and clergy to join them in a single assembly. - The National Assembly became France's legal parliament. The crowds went wild. - Many people thought this was a revolution. An Englishmen then wrote ,'the whole business now seems over and the revolution complete.' - In fact, It had only begun.
 * The Tennis Courth Oath**

The financial and the food crisis was destroying the French government. Then the three Estates meet each other, in fact, as time goes by, the third estate didn't want separate elections. In the end, the three estates took elections in one place and made the National Assembly.
 * Summary**

Why didn't Louis XVI didn't use use power (military) to take over the thrid estate?
 * Qustions**