French Revolution

Because the government spent a lot of money, taxes were high. The tax system was unjust. The.
             nobles and the clergy hardly paid any taxes. The Church owned one-tenth of the land in France and it did not pay taxes. (Censer, Jack R.). The peasants paid most of the taxes and they were the people least able to afford them.
             In the 18th century, France was a feudal country with class division. People were divided into three estates or classes. The First Estate consisted of the clergy. The Second consisted of the nobility, and the Third included the bourgeoisie, the city workers and the peasants. The estate to which someone belonged, decided a person's power and rights. The clergy enjoyed enormous wealth and privilege. They collected tithes and paid no direct taxes to the state. The nobles (second estate) were titled as The Nobility of French Society. Often these were knights and people who owned land or had jobs high up in the government. The Third Estate was made up of many people. About 98% of the population was made up of this class. (Ellis and Esler pg. 481). About nine out of ten of those in the Third Estate were peasants and the other ten percent were lawyers, city workers and journeyman. .
             With these problems at hand, the revolution began. The Third Estate formed themselves into the National Assembly and were then locked out of its meeting place. They then took the famous Tennis Court Oath. They took an oath at the tennis courts saying that they would not disband until they had a constitution for France. Continuing issues led to food shortages and also from a bad harvest in 1788. Rumors spread that at the Bastille, a place used as a prison, the commander was storing gunpowder and weapons there. On July 14, Parisians gathered outside the Bastille and demanded to be given the supplies. The commander of the Bastille did not open the gates and that resulted in much anger from the crowd.