French revolution

French revolution

On the bottom of the triangle there are peasant farmers. Peasants are low educated and has a low income. These are the poorest people in their town. On the middle of the triangle there are shopkeepers, craftsmen, merchants, lawyers and physicians which are people who own or operates a place of business. On the top of the triangle there are the nobility. This class people born with wealth. The top of the pyramid is the first and second estate. The rest is third estate. All the taxes are being payed by the third estate. There are no elections. Chief minister is being decided by the king. The estates general is the combination of representatives of all three estates. Representatives were chosen by the estates. The first estate elects 303 representatives out of 10000. The second estate elects 291 out of 400000. And the rest elects 610 out of 1 million. 

What is censorship?  To censor means to review something and decide to remove or hide parts of it that are considered  objectionable. Before the French revolution, censorship was very strong. In book shops, certain books would be sold secretly. They kept selling stuff even thought some were even prohibited. 

The estates general met again as the government needed more taxes. At that time all the monarchies were starving of cash. The modern state become very expensive since modern armies were also very expensive. From around 1550's European armies and navies made some changes. Some of the changes were technological, and some of them were about organisation, tactics and training. The naval warfare was a technological change. 

People should be training for long time in order to understand this organisation. The new armies does not require muscular strength. Even people from peasantry can complete these drills with huge training. There used to be no such thing as barracks. They all come together in a part of the season and after the war they go back to their home. However, after the new organisation, armies have to be permanent and full time even in time of peace. The armies have to be ready at all times because this kind of training is not something that can be done in a short period. This makes the cost so high. 

The French state needed taxes since there is a special reason. This is caused by two wars. First war is S war between Great Britain and France which is placed in three different places respectively; India, North America and Europe. In Europe England does not have any army to fight but they pay Russia to fight for England against France in India.

In the 18th century France there is a movement called the enlightenment movement. This movement spreads around Europe and it is and intellectual movement.  People who are not really attached to a particular social class, start writing and publishing to earn money.