French Revolution DBQ

They say knowledge is power. This was the case for 1789 France, where the “Enlightened” peasants, after years of autocratic dominance from the First, Second Estate and the King, decisively fought and won a revolution for civil liberties and rights, an event which would not have happened had the peasants and lower classes not been literate. But, their literacy did not come immediately. It took at least a century for the peasants to be numerously literate, and even then they were still not as educated as the privileged, wealthy nobility. In addition, different regions in France had access to different rates of schooling, which had a profound effect on how the local peasantry responded to their rulers and events. The levels of literacy in Old

Regime France increased differently between North and South France between the nobility and peasants from 1690 to 1790, despite the discouragement of the nobility and government and the encouragement of the Church and peasants themselves.
The first apparent division in the growth of literacy was the difference of literacy rates in North and South France. In 1789 the percentage of villages with schools in the North ranged from 90-98%, while in the South it only had 17-55%. (Doc. 2) Also, by 1790 the literacy rate of men in the North was at least above 40%, while in South France the rate ranged from 20-40%. (Doc. 1) This could be explained for two reasons. First, the capital city Paris was located in the North. Paris was the home of the government and therefore had highly educated officials living there, not to mention the countless numbers of artisans and middle class that also resided there and nearby. In addition, after the completion of Versailles, outside Paris, the nobility were forced to reside in the North. This proximity to educated people and culture naturally gave the Northern peasants exposure to higher education and considerably more wealth than the peasants in the South. The second reason for the difference in literacy rates was the geography of both regions. An English agricultural expert in the 1780’s reports of Northern France, “This region contains the cream of French agriculture: the soil is excellent.” Of Southern France he reports, “…the country is all hill or valley… This unimproved, poor and ugly region of the country seems to lack communication, demand and activity of all kinds: nor does it yield on the average the half of what it might.” (Doc. 4) The fertility and profitability of the North gave the peasants more wealth to educate themselves, which explains the higher rate of schools per village. Despite these advantages, the peasants of both regions were still highly uneducated compared to the nobility. From the 1680’s to 1789, the “prosperous peasants” experienced a prodigious jump of literacy from 20% to 45%, and the women from 0% to 10%. However, this progress was still overshadowed by the nobility, who maintained an extraordinary 95% literacy rate for men, and 85% for women in the same time period. (Doc. 3) This huge gap was significant, enough to be a cause in the French Revolution’s fight for equality later on. However, it is evident that the peasants did grow in literacy, and as such were more educated and critical of monarchist France as time went on.
Several factors were important in the rise of literacy, such as the discouragement of education by the nobility and government.

The nobility had constantly been opposed to the mass education of the peasants. A founder of an aristocratic women’s school wrote in 1715, “…an aristocratic young lady should receive broader instruction than a wine grower’s daughter… [A wine grower’s daughter] need only know what is absolutely essential for salvation.” (Doc.5) There is a bias of opinion here, considering that this founder was a noble and it was written in 1715, far before the education of lower class women was accepted even by the peasants themselves. Therefore, this further proves how adamant the nobles were against the education of peasants. Another French aristocrat wrote in 1763, “Today, even the lower classes want to study… [The educated peasants] frequently turn out to be a danger to society…The good of society requires that the knowledge of the people not extend farther than its occupations.” (Doc. 10) The nobles even up to the time of the French Revolution still were opposed to the peasants gaining literacy, for an important reason. The nobles felt that by relinquishing the art of literacy to the peasants they would lose some power. That is to say, the peasants would learn just how similar they were to the nobles, and how to critically assess their poor condition, and therefore would lose some reverence and respect to their aristocracy and King. The nobles were not the only ones in opposition either. The government was itself opposed to the lower classes’ education, but for different reasons. A government official in southern France states, “The…physical labors to which peasants are destined for…do not at all demand that they know how to read, and even less that they know how to write.” (Doc. 7) This official was from southern France, a region that as previously stated had much less conditions and motivations to be educated compared to the more “enlightened”

north. This difference then additionally explains why the peasants in the South had less schools compared to the North. Also, an intendant in 1782 wrote, “I have always found that it was better if there were no schools at all in the villages. A peasant who knows how to read and write leaves agriculture, which is a great evil.” (Doc. 13) This letter reveals another reason for why the government was opposed to education of the peasants. In Old Regime France, the First and Second Estate rarely if ever paid taxes to the government. So, the burden of financing the French government fell upon those worst equipped to support it: the Third Estate. The Third Estate made their money and paid their taxes through the use of agriculture. However, if a peasant were to receive higher education and literacy, then he could choose other vocations, become wealthy, and even receive nobility, thereby making him exempt from taxes. This would hurt the government financially by losing a source of revenue, and so they made an effort to keep the peasants illiterate and uneducated in order to keep procuring taxes from them.
Despite the subversive efforts of the nobility and government to keep the peasants illiterate, the Church and the peasants themselves advocated for their education. A French bishop wrote in favor of schools, writing, “The school procures immense benefits, spiritual as well as temporal… [It] equips them to engage in commerce, which is the only resource they have for pulling themselves out of poverty.” (Doc. 6) The Church’s belief in helping the poor is probably what caused them to support the growth of literacy, as this was the only way for the peasants to get out of poverty and agriculture. But there was another reason too. In Post-Reformation Europe, it was the motivation and goal for both Catholic and Protestant churches to educate their believers in the Bible. By gaining literacy, the lower classes could read and better understand the Bible, making them, as the Church hoped, better believers. This idea is affirmed in this letter of priests writing to their archbishop, “It is not possible to form true worshippers of God and faithful subjects of the king without the help of instruction. Nor is it possible for priests to instruct in the faith those coarse inhabitants of the countryside who do not know how to read.” (Doc. 11) The Church was not the only one encouraging the spread of literacy. The peasants also supported their own education. By 1789, on the brink of revolution, the peasants were already writing cahiers near Paris on the need for education, “A great part of the ill we have suffered would not have existed… if the inhabitants of the countryside had been better instructed…” (Doc. 14) Considering these peasants lived near Paris, and it was 1789, it was expected for them to be more vocal for their education, as by then at least 40% of the population could read. Thus, the peasants came out as supporters for their education, for they wanted to be able to be “hardworking and studious”, and knowledgeable about their condition.
The factors previously discussed had a profound effect on the growth and variations of literacy rates during Old Regime France. However, there are additional factors that did have an impact on the spread of literacy. During the reign of Louis XIV in the seventeenth century, the ideas and methods of the Enlightenment had not yet permeated down to the accessibility of the peasants and lower classes. However, due to the efforts of the philosophes, like illegal printing and smuggling of books into France, the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and democracy were able to be distributed and, over decades, reach the minds of the peasants. But, despite the extensive development of literacy rates up to 1789, there were still notable gaps between North and South peasants. This explains why in Paris the peasants were aggressive and stormed the Bastille while peasants in the countryside were fearful and fled during the Great Fear. Nevertheless, the impact of literacy and education was evident by 1789, when it fully manifested itself out as the French Revolution.