Essay On 18th Century France

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France today is one of the most magnificent countries on earth. But it’s reputation was not an overnight success. France used to be a horrible county full of rich snobs disrespecting the poor. It all changed after the Revolution. The French revolution began because poor people were getting taxed heavily on salt, the royal family was taking their grain, and the enlightenment got many rioters together to fight for their rights. royal the royal family to lose its authority. Living as a peasant in eighteenth century france is already hard enough. You have to survive with very little food, money, and resources. The only way the poor made money was by working for small employers, Farming necessary crops that they need more for food than money, and by wiping the royalties ass. Turgot, one of Louis XVI’s chancellor, stated in his “Iron Law of Wages”,“A worker’s wage can not exceed the very lowest level necessary for his maintenance and reproduction”(Steel,20). Barely having enough resources to survive, workers were also forced to pay the king’s taxes that were placed on essentials to life. What angered them even more was that there was a tax being placed on salt, discharging it out of the poor’s budget. “Then there was the salt tax, known as the ‘gabelle’. The gabelle put the price beyond the poor, leading to smuggling, and then to salt-tax agents, who would lurk behind hedges spying on anyone suspected of buying illegal salt”(Steel, 18). The gabelle isn’t making the king more money. Its causing the sales of salt to go down and the tension to build between the working class and the royal family. If the poor didn’t want to buy overpriced salt, they would get it from a private party. The king had salt-tax agents spy on people where were buying it from a different source. If a peasant was suspected of buying untaxed salt, they would barge into their home armed with sabers, beat up anyone that was in the house, and then proceeded to steal anything they wanted from your home. Citizens found this obscure, building pressure between the poor and royalty. Time went on, Paris has worked its way into a famine by riots. …show more content…
There was little to no food left in the city. The king realized that he needed to find a way of feeding his people. So he had to come up with a new plan. The king was now taking all the farmer’s food that they grew in order to feed their household. But they didn’t give it up easy, “farmers hoarded grain to sell on the black market at a higher price”(Steel,199). In Order to stop the hoarders, new laws are passed such as “the Terror”. This law provoked violence between the working class and the government, stated to take harsh measures against those suspected of being enemies of the Revolution. Allowing armies to order troops to any farmer that was suspected of hoarding grain, and forcing them to hand it over. If hoarders, priests, and nobles didn’t obey, it would result in mass decapitations to anyone who didn’t obligate the higher power. Lastly, another reason why the french revolution started was because during the enlightenment period, people started questioning the royal courts legitimacy. “Until a King is dragged to Tyburn with no more pomp than the meanest criminal, the people will

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