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France AOS1 Could someone mark my practice response?

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JaidynLuke:
This is a practice exam response for French Revolution AOS1. Could someone give me feedback in any possible form on how I went. I haven't really done any practice responses yet, so I want to see how I've been going. Thanks!

Evaluate the Enlightenment as a cause of the revolution, using other views to support your own. (10 marks)

The Enlightenment did not by any means cause the French Revolution, it was merely the beginning of revolutionary ideas. That being said, these ideas did have some influence on the development of a revolution in the 1780's. Michelet believed that the Enlightenment influenced attempts to advance the government and the French society. Philosophe Voltaire's 'Letters on England' praised England's constitutional monarchy, indirectly criticising France for its absolute monarchy. This caused the perspectives of people to think in a new way, contributing to the ideas of revolution. Rousseau's 'The Social Contract' indicated that the French people had a duty to obey their king, but if the king did not take account of their wellbeing the obligation ceased. Ideas such as this spread through the salons of France, reaching mainly those who were literate, contributing to the development of ideas that supported the decentralisation of the monarchy. The Enlightenment Ideas gave people a vocabulary of descent.

However, the Enlightenment was not the immediate cause of the French Revolution, as supported by Lefebrve, who claimed that the cause of the revolution was at the Estates General, "the rise of the bourgeois". It was not the Enlightenment that encouraged their actions in May 1789, but Abbe Sieye's 'What is the Third Estate?', a political pamphlet challenging the authority of the king and the privilege of the Second and First Estates. It gave the Third Estate confirmation that they deserved to be represented by their numbers rather than 'by order', providing them with legitimacy for their challenging of the King's authority in creating the National Assembly in June 1789.

It can also be said that prior to the conflict of the Estates General, national debt and economic difficulties were the major cause of the revolution. Blanning agrees that the American War of Independence was the initial cause of revolution. France had provided 8000 troops and 1.3 billion livres in support to America against Britain in 1778, placing pressure on France's inefficient tax system. This ultimately forced Calonne to plan for fiscal reform, although his attempts at reform were blocked by the Parlements in 1787. Furet believed that "the absolute monarchy ded in theory and in practice" at the Assembly of Notables. The Aristocratic revolt was (Feb-Nov 1787) was the first significant political defiance of the king, and this one of the major causes of the revolution of 1787. Louis' despotic response to Parlements resistance to reform, such as exiling the Parlements to Troyes and arresting three magistrates, prompted popular support for the Parlements calls for publicizing the royal finances and push for greater popular sovereignty, as demonstrated by the Day of Tiles in June 1788.

The economic crisis that resulted from national debt ultimately sparked the revolution. For instance, the poor harvests of 1788-89 caused major food shortages. Bread prices had increased to 14.5 sous, and thousands of peasants were starving. Bread prices were one of the significant grievances in the Cahiers, which went ignored by the king. This, in turn, triggered the October Days uprising of 1789, where 7000 working women of Paris marched to Versailles demanding bread. The king agreed to provide grain, and was taken by the crowd back to Paris, becoming subordinate to the law.

The Enlightenment only played a minor role in the revolution. As it was spread mainly between educated salon-dwellers, it did not reach the majority of France's population. Other factors were much more significant.

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