The Enlightenment's Influence On The French Revolution

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The Enlightenment was a time of new concepts and theories that caused the people to think about the condition of their society. There were many events such as the American Revolution that promoted and encouraged the French Revolution. However, the ideas of the philosophers and scholars of the enlightenment proved to have made the biggest influence on the French Revolution. The ideas of the Enlightenment revealed to the people of France the corruption of the monarchy, new political leaders, and the poverty of the commoners to bring about beneficial changes and the French Revolution. The corruption of the monarchy was a major cause of the French Revolution. Monarchy is a government in which a country is ruled and controlled by a single person, …show more content…

France consisted of three estates: the First Estate(the nobility), the Second Estate(the clergy), and finally the Third Estate(the commoners or everyone else). Before the French Revolution, the people of the First Estate suffered the most because of the burdens such as heavy taxes only put for the Third Estate. Many of them grew very tired of living in fear, hunger, and discrimination. These people thought and used the ideas of enlightenment such as the idea of equality, the right to rebel, and the natural rights by John Locke. John Locke and the people he influenced in the French Revolution believed that every man was the same and should be treated likewise. These people who were influenced by Locke despised this unfairness and used the idea of the right to rebel to overthrow the nobility and the government for taking away their “natural rights” (the rights to life, liberty, and property) which the government was actually supposed to protect for the people. These three major factors: the hopeless leader and government, the revolutionary ideas and roles of the philosophers, and the starving people of France established and applied the ideas of Enlightenment to bring forth the French Revolution. This blood stained revolution was unavoidable because, as explained in Rousseau book of The Social Contract, the legitimate power comes from the people. That being said,

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