French Revolution Dbq

French Revolution
By Angus M.D. Callen
The French Revolution was a turning point in history.

“Let them eat cake” is a famous quote from a french princess once she found out that the peasants had no food, this quote was said to have been what started the 10 year French Revolution. The French Revolution, from 1789 to 1799, was a turning point in history and created enormous change. France, for centuries, had been divided into three classes; churchmen, nobility and Peasants. The nobles and churchmen had huge wealth while ordinary people were very poor. The Monarchy did not do enough to help ordinary people and this class of people became increasingly angry with their circumstances. This eventually led to an uprising by ordinary people against

In addition, drought and bad harvests for many years had led to food shortages and many poor people were starving while the wealthy continued to live extravagant and wasteful lives. When Marie-Antoinette was told that the peasants had no bread she said “let them eat cake” which showed that she didn’t care about them at all. Ordinary people became increasingly fed up with the inequality between the classes. On 14 July 1789, an angry mob of French peasants broke into the Bastille Prison and freed the prisoners and collected all the stored weapons and gunpowder. This building was symbolic as it was a place where many people had been imprisoned over the years by the Royal Family. The storming of Bastille is considered to be a turning point in history and the start of the French

The worst period of the Revolution occurred from 1793 to 1794 during the ‘Reign of Terror’. This was led by a man called Maximilien Robespierre and he was one of the most powerful men in the Revolution. He organised for the law to be changed so that anyone suspected of being opposed to the revolution could be killed. Approximately 40,000 people were executed or died in prison during this time. By July 1794, Robespierre was executed as people would not longer tolerate his extreme cruelty. The revolutionary government was eventually overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte on 9 November 1799. Despite this, the principles of equality, freedom and democracy which the revolutionists fought for, and many lost their lives for, have