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The events of May to July 1789 transformed France with breathtaking speed. In barely ten weeks, France moved from a traditional meeting of the Estates-General to the storming of a royal fortress. The key question for A-Level is: was the Revolution the work of the bourgeoisie, the Parisian crowd, or an unplanned cascade of events?
Key Definition: The Estates-General was a representative assembly of the three estates of France. It had not met since 1614 and had no fixed constitution or rules of procedure.
Louis XVI agreed to summon the Estates-General for 5 May 1789 at Versailles. The calling of elections generated an explosion of political debate. Over 60,000 cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances) were compiled across France.
Necker persuaded Louis to grant the Third Estate double representation (600 deputies vs. 300 each for the clergy and nobility). However, the crucial question of voting procedure was left unresolved: would votes be cast by estate (guaranteeing the privileged orders a 2-to-1 majority) or by head (giving the doubled Third Estate a chance of victory)?
A-Level Analysis: The failure to resolve the voting question before the Estates-General opened was a catastrophic miscalculation. It ensured that procedural dispute, not reform, dominated the opening weeks.
When the Third Estate's deputies arrived at Versailles on 5 May, they found themselves marginalised. The king's opening speech offered no commitment to voting by head.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 5 May 1789 | Estates-General opens; Louis XVI's speech disappoints reformers |
| 17 June 1789 | Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly — a revolutionary act claiming to represent the nation |
| 20 June 1789 | Locked out of their meeting hall, deputies gather at the nearby tennis court and swear not to disperse until they have given France a constitution |
| 23 June 1789 | Louis orders the estates to meet separately; Mirabeau reportedly declares: "We are here by the will of the people, and we shall not leave except at the point of bayonets" |
| 27 June 1789 | Louis capitulates; orders the clergy and nobility to join the National Assembly |
Key Figure: The Abbé Sieyès had published What is the Third Estate? (January 1789), arguing that the Third Estate was the nation and the privileged orders were parasites. This pamphlet provided the intellectual justification for the Third Estate's revolutionary claim.
Louis XVI had appeared to accept the National Assembly, but by early July he was concentrating 20,000 troops around Paris and Versailles. On 11 July, he dismissed Necker, the minister most popular with the Third Estate.
Paris erupted. The city's population — suffering from soaring bread prices and fearful of a royal military coup — armed themselves. On 14 July, a crowd of approximately 8,000 people marched on the Bastille, a medieval fortress and state prison in eastern Paris.
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Why the Bastille? | It held gunpowder needed to arm the citizens' militia; it symbolised royal tyranny and arbitrary imprisonment |
| The garrison | ~82 invalides (veteran soldiers) and 32 Swiss guards under Governor de Launay |
| The assault | Negotiations broke down; the crowd stormed the fortress after heavy fighting; ~98 attackers killed |
| Aftermath | De Launay was murdered; his head paraded on a pike; the fortress was subsequently demolished |
The fall of the Bastille was the moment when popular violence became a revolutionary force. It demonstrated that the Parisian crowd could determine political outcomes.
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