The Role Of Rationalism In The Age Of Enlightenment

Thus, Philosophes like Voltaire, Rousseau, John Locke and Montesquieu, created new ideas about the different types of possible governments and societies, such as human rights, citizenship, & democracy. Eventually, these ideas began spreading throughout France. Similarities between the French and Haitian Revolution: In France, the Enlightenment helped influence the French Revolution because the third estate, noticed that their basic right wasn’t being met. Specifically, the bourgeoisie, which was the growing merchant/professional class were well educated and familiar with the writings of philosophes like Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.

It protected the people's right from the government. These new ideas influenced in the French Revolution just like other revolutions did too. In 1776 the American revolution took place and inspired the French people. The British colonies in the America’s declared their independence from the English Court and the lower class in France saw the possibility of throwing down the French

Claims The French Revolution was a success and failures in many ways more than one, but most of it was a success. It achieves a lot of goals ranging from the government to the lower class of France. The first few years of the revolution starts to change the power ranking from the upper class to the lower class that began to revolt. They made themselves noticeable.

One of the major reasons to the French Revolution to happen was the absolute monarchism. Absolute monarchism is a king and queen system and they had absolute power. France in 1789 had a absolute monarchy system ruled by queen Marie Antoinette and king Louis the sixteenth. Absolute monarchism was bad to France because they have just a little connection with the citizens of France and the government and that is the opposite of social contract. Other reason to the Russian Revolution to happen is the state system.

During the 17th century in Europe, there was major social and political disgruntlement among the people, because of this many European experienced revolutions. Two countries who gained the most traction in their revolutions and saw major change was France and what is now known as Germany. France experienced revolutions in both 1830 and 1848, while Germany experienced a revolution in 1848. I will be focusing on both of Frances revolutions as they were both caused due to corrupt governments and the goal of both was similar, a more republican nation. The reason France had a revolution in 1830 was because the royalist believed the kings had too much power, in 1815 the Congress of Vienna had put a Bourbon Monarch into power names Louis XVIII

On the other hand, in France, members of the Third Estate led a revolt against the monarchy in hopes that by overthrowing the monarchy, they would be granted a constitution and a new assembly would be created with delegates of the Third Estate. Although the radicals were successful and a National Assembly was created, there were still problems. The worsening economic issues had not been solved and many citizens did not gain any rights. When the Revolution took a radical turn in 1792, the French Republic was formed. Finally, in 1799, after the end of the Reign of Terror in which the monarchy and its allies were executed, the French Revolution came to an end, with Napoleon gaining power over France.

The French Revolution, which lasted from 1789 to 1799, was primarily a response to the poor leadership of King Louis XVI who had been ruling France at the time. A number of commoners took to the streets of Paris to protest against the monarchy after years of alienation and paying abundance of tax and fees. The bourgeoisie was also out of touch with the rigid social structure orchestrated by the regime as they were often excluded from law-making decisions and other political rights that were given exclusively to noblemen. Shortly after the monarchy had been abolished, the church became victimized at the hands of the revolutionaries who recognized the institution as a chunk of the Ancien Regime that needed to be destroyed. On that note, the French

Nearly at the end of the French Revolution, a new regime was created, the directory. this regime lasted for almost five years until Napoleon Bonaparte came to power. There were many problems that contributed to the rise of Napoleon, but the most important problems were the division of French citizens, wars against foreign enemies, and economic growth problems. One of the most important problems that contributed to the rise of Napoleon was the division if French citizens.

This aspect of military might became the key piece for centralizing power in France, controlling the army meant collecting taxes without the consent of the Estates General, therefore diminishing the power of Estates. This is the reason why the Military Revolution went hand-in-hand with the emergence of absolutism. Hatton describes “the term ‘absolutism’ denotes a form of power which is unrestrained; more specifically it implies that no external agency can suspend or delay the action of the sovereign power” (Hatton, 1976, p.18) Absolutism was also a product of power struggle between the King and the Estates, for example in France the Crown won, establishing monarchical

Nobles lost their advantaged position in French society causing, among other things, loss of life, a perceived forced emigration to other lands, loss of property, and the end of seigneurial rights and income. Some of these advantages were subsequently recovered during Emperor Napoleon’s reign but many pre-Revolutionary rights were forever

The intellectuals of the Enlightenment were called philosophes, but they were not all philosophers, they could be any literary person. Charles de Secondat was a philosophe from the French nobility, and wrote many books. His biggest contribution to this time was his The Spirit of the Laws which used the scientific method to create “natural laws” about social and political relationships between people; but the most important parts of this book were his distinguishment of the three basic types of government, republics, monarchies, and despotism, and the mentions of the importance of separation of power. He would use England as an example of a successful system with separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, this would not only be a major contribution to the Enlightenment, but also be critical in the creation of the United States Constitution in the future. François-Marie Arouet is considered one of the greatest figures of the Enlightenment due to his contributions toward religious toleration.

The Enlightenment before it had brought forth the idea that man had a right to control his or her own destiny. This idea started a fire that would carry across Europe, and would eventually set off the gunpowder that had existed in France for many years. The French people were tired of struggling to live while their despotic rulers, the aristocracy, lived in splendor and lavishness. Because of the Enlightenment, according to historian and thinker William Doyle, “no distinction was now drawn between despotism, tyranny, and absolute monarchy” (Doyle 67). The people of France made this their opportunity to subject “him and all other officials to a constitution”, and “replace the rule of arbitrariness by the rule of the law”, i.e. the law created by the general will (Doyle 67).

The enlightenment definitely played a pivotal role in the revolution, the ideas and works of well known enlightenment identities like Voltaire, rosseau, locke, and monstesque were highly influential during the era of the French revolution. Ideas that were developed during the period of the enlightenment led the lower class to become upset by the way they were being treated under the government. Correspondent to the ideas of enlightenment john locke philosophy, the boruqoosi essentially wanted life, liberty and property. The liberal ideas continued to influence the events of the revolution. The bourgeiosi created the national assembly which published the declaration of the rights of man and citizen.

Another important similarity between the two revolutions in France and America was their emphasis on Enlightenment thought. The first of these ideas is the idea of popular sovereignty. This is the idea that governments were only legitimate if they got their powers from the consent of the people. It also holds that the people should have the ultimate power over their government. Both the French and American Revolutions were based in large part on the desire to take power away from aristocratic elites and give that power to the people.

People created change by revolting against the power who enslaved them. The Haitians created change by rising against their captors based on the text. With that revolution, the French had lost money from the war that they were fighting and had to make some tough decisions. According to the text, the Haitians revolted against the French, and because of that, the French lost money because Haiti was the wealthiest colony of the French.