French Revolution Dbq Analysis

One of the primary causes of the French revolution was the Third Estate’s poor treatment by the King of France, the First Estate, and the Second Estate. For example, in the political cartoon titled, “The People Under the Old Regime,” three fat people are riding on the back of a skinny person (Doc A). The three fat people represent the King of France, the First Estate, and the Second Estate while the skinny person represents the Third Estate. The image demonstrates how unfair the social system of France before the French Revolution was because it shows the Third Estate as a starving, chained, and blindfolded man carrying the overweight and well-dressed upper classes of France. Moreover, In the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a document the National Assembly submitted to King Louis XVI, one of the changes that the …show more content…
This means that the National Assembly, which was mostly made up of members of the Third Estate, wanted an end to the practice of giving people rights based on their social class. Based on this, one can infer that the practice of giving people rights based on their social class was seen as unfair by members of the Third Estate, who, because of their status, had fewer rights than members of the First and Second Estates as well as the King of France. In short, the unfairness of France’s social system led to unhappiness among members of the Third Estate and was a major contributing factor to the French Revolution.The last cause of the French revolution was the heavy taxes the people had to pay. In the diagram titled “The Three Estates in Pre-Revolutionary France,” there are three pie graphs that show the population of France, the land ownership, and the taxes paid according to the three Estates. The graphs show that the Third Estate made up 98% of the population, owned 65% of