How Did The Enlightenment Influence The French Revolution

The French revolution was greatly influenced by the ideas set forth in the Enlightenment these ideas of a representative government, or a popular sovereignty, where people would choose and elect who they wanted to lead them in government. This would do away with an absolute monarch who inherited their throne via divine right. The Enlightenment set forth the idea of all men being equal, and as all men are equal are deserving of the same natural rights. They referred to these rights as ‘natural’ emphasizing that no matter where or in what oppressive state you lived these rights should be granted to everybody. It was rights such as to live in safety or live free from oppression. These enlightenment ideas, the British political system of a constitutional

There were three estates, the first: The Nobles; the second: The Clergy and the third: the common man. The third estate was by far the largest and the ones with least rights and privileges; they were composed of mainly well-educated lawyers and craftsmen, the bourgeoisie, and technically represented all commoners. They were called together by King Louis XVI, already a sign of the revolution as summoning the estates only happened in times of crisis, they had no legislative power and it showed that by needing this advice the absolute monarchs power was not as absolute as perceived. There are many complex reasons that historians to this day discuss and dispute about, but the final straw was this assembling of the estates. They sat for several weeks in May but came to an impasse almost straight away over how they would vote, whether it would be the traditional way which was by estate which gave the first two estates an advantage as they generally outvoted the third estate and what it wanted, or by head which gave the third estate an advantage as it was by far the largest. It was brought to an end when the third estate decided to meet on its own and started calling itself the National Assembly, an assembly of the people not of the estates and set out to form a constitution, they were joined by peasants and gradually people of the other