Discontentment In The Third Estate

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Discontentment amongst the people of the Third Estate in France from 1788-1795 reached an apex, thus leading to a revolution. Ideology and actions converged within the Third Estate to form the basis of the insurgency that later took life and further entrenched the people. The French Revolution was a significant event of the Age of Revolutions that began with the American Revolution and heavily influenced by Enlightenment philosophy. Reasons for the discontent within the Third Estate include monetary issues like arduous taxation from nobility and the Church along with an inflation of prices due to immense state debt, visible divisions within the social hierarchy that limited rights of the Third Estate while giving power to the First and Second, …show more content…

France prior to the Revolution was no exception; however, the lowest class, the Third Estate, was oppressed to no end by taxes, lack of privileges, no part in government, and an unfair lifestyle even though the Third Estate provided the structure and foundation for the other Estates to thrive upon (doc. 3). This also seeded discontentment within the people of the Third Estate. In response to the social inequalities of the estate, the National Assembly, a sect broken from the Estates General, forced the king’s hand in following the Constitution of 1791: a document that instituted a limited monarchy where the Third Estate gained some power while limiting some of the king’s (doc. 4). These two documents show a cause and effect with the social inequalities endorsed by pre-Revolution France – the political pamphlet stimulated the minds of the bourgeoisie to start thinking about how they could transform French society, and the Constitution was one of the first results of such thought. Document 3 is written for the bourgeoisie – those who were educated in order to provoke their thoughts about the disparity between the lives of the Third Estate and the First and Second Estates. Therefore, mostly everything found within the excerpt is against the government or somehow belittling it. This document grants us insight into the vengeful and frustrated minds of those belonging to the Third Estate. A document that could be annexed is the view of government from a person of the First or Second Estate so that their perspectives could be

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