The Third Estate, Taxation, & Enlightenment
Olympe de Gouges:
Il ne prend pas d'homme pour se rendre compte que la France est mûre pour la révolution (it doesn't take a man to realize that France is ripe for revolution). Such a drastic upheaval of sociopolitical values and norms far supersedes the issue of gender and the repugnant legacy of Rousseau. No singular word can encompass the birthright of revolution--yet perhaps in our case, a phrase will suffice: les droits de l'homme (human rights). But what are rights? How could such progressive theories, mored in the scientific and intellectual developments of the past centuries, ever overcome the conservative traditions of l'Ancien Régime? Although limited in its reforms by French society's traditional interpretation of women's rights, the French Revolution was engendered by a contentious mix of Enlightenment values, chronic taxation issues, and the furious malcontents of a disillusioned Third Estate. |
On the Issue of Taxation
By 1787, the French monarchy was nearly bankrupt, partially due to its inability to tax the privileged orders and partially due to the excessive cost of supporting the American Revolution. Bringing the French treasury to a crisis point, the war costs of the past - consuming over 25% of France's annual expenditures - contributed to a monumental debt that stood at almost four billion livres.
However, this debt paled in comparison to those of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, and was no greater than the debt Louis XIV left upon France over 75 years before. The true issue at the heart of France's financial crisis was the inability of the French government's generated revenues to carry this gargantuan sum. Due to tax evasions and exemptions granted to the First and Second Estate, the government treasury was empty while the wealthiest social classes did not only escape taxes (such as the taille) that would correspond to their income, but also viewed taxation as a sign of inferior status. As a result, the common people shouldered the weighty burden of debt during a time of food shortages, agricultural crisis, and financial strain, all of which constituted contributing factors towards their revolutionary zeal come 1789.
However, this debt paled in comparison to those of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, and was no greater than the debt Louis XIV left upon France over 75 years before. The true issue at the heart of France's financial crisis was the inability of the French government's generated revenues to carry this gargantuan sum. Due to tax evasions and exemptions granted to the First and Second Estate, the government treasury was empty while the wealthiest social classes did not only escape taxes (such as the taille) that would correspond to their income, but also viewed taxation as a sign of inferior status. As a result, the common people shouldered the weighty burden of debt during a time of food shortages, agricultural crisis, and financial strain, all of which constituted contributing factors towards their revolutionary zeal come 1789.
Other Contributing Factors
Third Estate At the foundation of l'Ancien Régime endured the Three Estates, a system that legally propagated social stratification and feudalism. An historical vestige completely unsuited for the social climate of 18th century France, the estates system precipitated a clash between two burgeoning classes: the nobility (Second Estate) and the bourgeoisie (Third Estate).
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Enlightenment Ideas Besides a thirst for progress and taste for progressivism, the most important part of the Enlightenment's legacy in pre-revolutionary France was the critical spirit modeled by philosophes such as Voltaire and Rousseau. Nurtured by salons, coffeehouses, and literary arguments, a public, political debate developed the "public opinion" whose loathing towards the injustice of inherited privileges was broadcasted through pamphlets, legal cases, and open discourse.
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Meeting of the Estates General
Corinne Babineaux
"Wheat was soon at 28 livres the septier, and wine at 100 francs the pipe. It was hardly possible even for those who knew how, to find money, when there wasn't any. The number of poor people increased incredibly because the continuing rains of the previous year, 1708, had been very bad and had damaged the grain crops. . . .The poor of the countryside were destitute of any aid, no longer possessing a cabbage or a leek in their gardens, so they crowded into the cities to take part in the liberalities of the inhabitants."
--Abbé Lefeuvre, Poverty Observed: Journal of a Country Priest
Corinne, "On the Estates General," May 7, 1789
What a funny country King Louis XVI's France is--with its motley crew of privileged and poor, the bitter tug-of-war between aristos and bourgeoisie, the cooperating evils of starvation and poverty lacing nooses around the necks of the Third Estate; all to be expected in our daily torments of social stratification.
Yet somehow, sometime today among the twin guards of loss and madness, I managed to sneak out a laugh. Not a proper laugh, mind you, nor a real one: a barking, rabid, fantastic one. As my unrelenting eyes raked across the wares for the day--noting how to conceal that tear on a slip of fine needle lace, how to downplay the smudge of ash on leftover bobbin lace--a scrap of newspaper caught in the cogs of my merciless gaze, as dirty and insignificant as a morsel of literacy can be to a lacemaker. Yet as my hands turned it over, the faded colors of a familiar caricature politique (political cartoon) called out to my memory. Our reintroduction prompted a laugh, a heady surge of bitterness--the 1787 Assembly of Notables!
What a title, what a failure. Resurrected from the dead to remind the French that Louis' efforts, at any time and in any situation, are futile. Not more than two days ago, that cursed, crowned imbecile called yet another meeting; that crétin, in all of his supreme, divinely-appointed ignorance, called the Estates General! And for what? Posterity? Legitimacy? How our immaculate roi remains clueless to the hard reality that no rational member of the Second or First Estate will ever surrender his privileges of tax evasion and gluttony! Perhaps he's got a trick up his embroidered sleeve, though; perhaps I'm underestimating how low he will stoop and grovel and--if we pauvres are lucky enough--beg, maybe even beg, to escape this scaffold he is mounting!
What a pretty picture that would be, the king begging! Our God, in his infinite mercy, may have provided us with retribution following that appalling hat fiasco! How the Third Estate boils and bubbles with resentment following that episode of ultimate offense, stewing in the virtual collapse of the Estates General and the sting of France's sumptuary laws. If anything, this new development emphasizes that France is not a nation--no, far from it--but rather a collection of privileged and not-so-privileged groups. As we teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, and only 25% of the French budget goes to service the public works, everyone feels an obligation only to themselves. There is no national spirit or unity among us--the First and Second Estates want to fill their own pockets, and the Third Estate wants to fill its own dinner pots.
Obviously, this is all to be blamed on our cornichon (means "pickle," is an offensive term in French) of a king, Louis! Weak and indecisive, this schmuck of a man treats his country like his Autrichienne wife. As a result, the detested aristocracy has experienced a resurgence in power--vraiment, c'est des conneries, non (really, isn't this all bullpoop)? In the old days of Louis XIV, power was consolidated and the aristocrats were never a problem. The Third Estate may not have loved the monarchy, but we appreciated the crucial role of a strong monarch in maintaining peace following events like Le Fronde. Louis XVI, however, is not a strong monarch. He is weak and indecisive, malleable to the opinions of others, and completely out of touch, especially to the one fact that all of France knows: the institutions of this most "advanced" of European nations is outdated. OUTDATED, I say! France is already shifting away from a society based on stratification and artificial social distinction and drifting towards a meritocratic society based on wealth and education as opposed to the estates system, a deteriorating vestige of the l'Ancien Régime governance model. As a result, France is on a collision course between the new and the old--the Third Estates clamoring for progressivism, and the First and Second Estates clinging to their ancient social "rights" to save their own asses!
However, the most horrific part of this entire tragic tale of our French "nation" is that our most marvelous of rulers, cher Louis dieudonné (dearest Louis, gift from God), is reliant upon a governmental institution that has been hibernating for 175 years--ever since 1614, the year my great-great-great-grandmother was born--to fix France's budget deficit! In the meantime since 1614, the bourgeois have risen to clash with the nobility, Europe has become enlightened by the ideas of liberty and equality, and Abbé Sieyès has published a revolutionary pamphlet that makes me dream a dream I had forgotten, a dream birthed when hope was high and life worth living (Les Mis!). The Third Estate is the lifeblood of this country. Some of us may be illiterate, dishonorable, or denied of even the slightest scrap of respect from anyone else, but nonetheless we are what drives the economy and social unrest and are the subject of intellectual debate! Yet under the current system in the Estates General, 3% of the population can be granted a majority while the political opinions of the Third Estate are tossed to the roadside. If only I could laugh at this most ironic of turns. If only my heart had enough ironic acerbity to dispel yet another barking, rabid, fantastic laugh. However, I take comfort in the fact that France is on the eve of revolution. I take comfort in the fact that for once, God will hold us, the impoverished and hopeless, in his favor.
What a funny country King Louis XVI's France is--with its motley crew of privileged and poor, the bitter tug-of-war between aristos and bourgeoisie, the cooperating evils of starvation and poverty lacing nooses around the necks of the Third Estate; all to be expected in our daily torments of social stratification.
Yet somehow, sometime today among the twin guards of loss and madness, I managed to sneak out a laugh. Not a proper laugh, mind you, nor a real one: a barking, rabid, fantastic one. As my unrelenting eyes raked across the wares for the day--noting how to conceal that tear on a slip of fine needle lace, how to downplay the smudge of ash on leftover bobbin lace--a scrap of newspaper caught in the cogs of my merciless gaze, as dirty and insignificant as a morsel of literacy can be to a lacemaker. Yet as my hands turned it over, the faded colors of a familiar caricature politique (political cartoon) called out to my memory. Our reintroduction prompted a laugh, a heady surge of bitterness--the 1787 Assembly of Notables!
What a title, what a failure. Resurrected from the dead to remind the French that Louis' efforts, at any time and in any situation, are futile. Not more than two days ago, that cursed, crowned imbecile called yet another meeting; that crétin, in all of his supreme, divinely-appointed ignorance, called the Estates General! And for what? Posterity? Legitimacy? How our immaculate roi remains clueless to the hard reality that no rational member of the Second or First Estate will ever surrender his privileges of tax evasion and gluttony! Perhaps he's got a trick up his embroidered sleeve, though; perhaps I'm underestimating how low he will stoop and grovel and--if we pauvres are lucky enough--beg, maybe even beg, to escape this scaffold he is mounting!
What a pretty picture that would be, the king begging! Our God, in his infinite mercy, may have provided us with retribution following that appalling hat fiasco! How the Third Estate boils and bubbles with resentment following that episode of ultimate offense, stewing in the virtual collapse of the Estates General and the sting of France's sumptuary laws. If anything, this new development emphasizes that France is not a nation--no, far from it--but rather a collection of privileged and not-so-privileged groups. As we teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, and only 25% of the French budget goes to service the public works, everyone feels an obligation only to themselves. There is no national spirit or unity among us--the First and Second Estates want to fill their own pockets, and the Third Estate wants to fill its own dinner pots.
Obviously, this is all to be blamed on our cornichon (means "pickle," is an offensive term in French) of a king, Louis! Weak and indecisive, this schmuck of a man treats his country like his Autrichienne wife. As a result, the detested aristocracy has experienced a resurgence in power--vraiment, c'est des conneries, non (really, isn't this all bullpoop)? In the old days of Louis XIV, power was consolidated and the aristocrats were never a problem. The Third Estate may not have loved the monarchy, but we appreciated the crucial role of a strong monarch in maintaining peace following events like Le Fronde. Louis XVI, however, is not a strong monarch. He is weak and indecisive, malleable to the opinions of others, and completely out of touch, especially to the one fact that all of France knows: the institutions of this most "advanced" of European nations is outdated. OUTDATED, I say! France is already shifting away from a society based on stratification and artificial social distinction and drifting towards a meritocratic society based on wealth and education as opposed to the estates system, a deteriorating vestige of the l'Ancien Régime governance model. As a result, France is on a collision course between the new and the old--the Third Estates clamoring for progressivism, and the First and Second Estates clinging to their ancient social "rights" to save their own asses!
However, the most horrific part of this entire tragic tale of our French "nation" is that our most marvelous of rulers, cher Louis dieudonné (dearest Louis, gift from God), is reliant upon a governmental institution that has been hibernating for 175 years--ever since 1614, the year my great-great-great-grandmother was born--to fix France's budget deficit! In the meantime since 1614, the bourgeois have risen to clash with the nobility, Europe has become enlightened by the ideas of liberty and equality, and Abbé Sieyès has published a revolutionary pamphlet that makes me dream a dream I had forgotten, a dream birthed when hope was high and life worth living (Les Mis!). The Third Estate is the lifeblood of this country. Some of us may be illiterate, dishonorable, or denied of even the slightest scrap of respect from anyone else, but nonetheless we are what drives the economy and social unrest and are the subject of intellectual debate! Yet under the current system in the Estates General, 3% of the population can be granted a majority while the political opinions of the Third Estate are tossed to the roadside. If only I could laugh at this most ironic of turns. If only my heart had enough ironic acerbity to dispel yet another barking, rabid, fantastic laugh. However, I take comfort in the fact that France is on the eve of revolution. I take comfort in the fact that for once, God will hold us, the impoverished and hopeless, in his favor.
The Song of the Illiterate: La Carmagnole
La Carmagnole Lyrics: also the name of a popular dance of the time, La Carmagnole gave voice to the common people's vehement disdain of la reine, Marie Antoinette, utilizing one of her cleaner nicknames throughout the song, Madame Veto (another name, l'Autrichienne, was a play on French words ("chienne" meaning female dog) that used Marie Antoinette's mother country to call her an Austrian b****). Heaping scorn upon Madame Veto and all of her fawning aristocrat posse, La Carmagnole utilized a simple tune that even illiterate people, like Corinne Babineaux, could memorize and use to proclaim their support of the Revolution.
Madame Veto has promised (repeat)
To cut everyone's throat in Paris (repeat)
But she failed to do this,
Thanks to our cannons.
Refrain:
Let us dance the Carmagnole
Long live the sound (repeat)
Let us dance the Carmagnole
Long live the sound of the cannons.
II
Mr. Veto had promised (repeat)
To be loyal to his country; (repeat)
But he failed to be,
Let's not do quarters.
Refrain
III
Antoinette had decided (repeat)
To drop us on our asses; (repeat)
But the plan was foiled
And she fell on her face.
Refrain
IV
Her husband, believing himself a conqueror, (repeat)
Knowing little our value, (repeat)
Go, Louis, big crybaby,
From the the Temple into the tower.
Refrain
V
The Swiss had promised, (repeat)
That they would fire our friends, (repeat)
But how they have jumped!
How they have all danced!
Refrain
VI
When Antoinette sees the tower, (repeat)
She wishes to make a half turn, (repeat)
She is sick at heart
To see herself without honor.
Refrain (3x)
Madame Veto has promised (repeat)
To cut everyone's throat in Paris (repeat)
But she failed to do this,
Thanks to our cannons.
Refrain:
Let us dance the Carmagnole
Long live the sound (repeat)
Let us dance the Carmagnole
Long live the sound of the cannons.
II
Mr. Veto had promised (repeat)
To be loyal to his country; (repeat)
But he failed to be,
Let's not do quarters.
Refrain
III
Antoinette had decided (repeat)
To drop us on our asses; (repeat)
But the plan was foiled
And she fell on her face.
Refrain
IV
Her husband, believing himself a conqueror, (repeat)
Knowing little our value, (repeat)
Go, Louis, big crybaby,
From the the Temple into the tower.
Refrain
V
The Swiss had promised, (repeat)
That they would fire our friends, (repeat)
But how they have jumped!
How they have all danced!
Refrain
VI
When Antoinette sees the tower, (repeat)
She wishes to make a half turn, (repeat)
She is sick at heart
To see herself without honor.
Refrain (3x)
Olympe de Gouges
"The revolutionaries have violated the principle of equality of rights, in depriving half of the human race...Either no individual of the human race has genuine rights, or else all have the same; and he who votes against the right of another, whatever the religion, color, or sex of that other, has henceforth injured his own."
--Marquis de Condorcet
Olympe de Gouges, "What A Time to be Alive," June 20, 1789
What a time to be alive! How my soul leaps with joy at these newfound strides, how my heart wells with a mother's fondness at the birth of liberty from the death of tyranny, how my very being trembles with anticipation at the prospect of social equality. With the formal declaration of a National Assembly, one could declare that France is saved! What is this political reform if not a beacon, symbolizing the fulfillment of the ideas of our philosophes, to the rest of Europe?
In the back of my mind, I had always fostered--against my better judgement--an inkling of hope for a constitutional monarchy. Its deep roots flourish within my writings and thoughts, my speech and my actions. It's a seed that has just recovered from a long winter, finally able to bloom since the first rays of sunshine hit it following the 1788 Parlement of Paris. Never before had I been so drunk on discussion, enamored by the frenzied interactions of my own opinions with those of the rest of society. I found myself tinkering around with ideas, honing my skills, nurturing my passion, fueling my boundless intellect, like my idol Emilie du Chatelet had tinkered with beakers and chemicals. I found a second home in the vast realm of public opinion, where it wasn't my gender that mattered, but my mind.
What a time to be alive! How my soul leaps with joy at these newfound strides, how my heart wells with a mother's fondness at the birth of liberty from the death of tyranny, how my very being trembles with anticipation at the prospect of social equality. With the formal declaration of a National Assembly, one could declare that France is saved! What is this political reform if not a beacon, symbolizing the fulfillment of the ideas of our philosophes, to the rest of Europe?
In the back of my mind, I had always fostered--against my better judgement--an inkling of hope for a constitutional monarchy. Its deep roots flourish within my writings and thoughts, my speech and my actions. It's a seed that has just recovered from a long winter, finally able to bloom since the first rays of sunshine hit it following the 1788 Parlement of Paris. Never before had I been so drunk on discussion, enamored by the frenzied interactions of my own opinions with those of the rest of society. I found myself tinkering around with ideas, honing my skills, nurturing my passion, fueling my boundless intellect, like my idol Emilie du Chatelet had tinkered with beakers and chemicals. I found a second home in the vast realm of public opinion, where it wasn't my gender that mattered, but my mind.
It was on July 17th that the Third Estate officially declared itself the National Assembly, but how quickly things have accelerated since then! After Louis XVI--the measly little "absolutist" he is--succumbed to pressure from the nobles to bar the National Assembly from meeting, the National Assembly was ready to take a radical step. Just today, the Third Estate met and signed the Oath of the Tennis Court, affirming that they refused to disband before a new constitution was put into place. What a scene it was! Representatives, milling around in a writhing mass of babel and confusion and disparity, yet united by their solemn oath to uphold the National Assembly as a law-making body with legal authority, an act in direct defiance of our king! Their claim to sovereignty, the product of deadlock, frustration, discrimination, and the courage of revolutionary malcontents, has left Louis in a tizzy.
Oh, wishy-washy Louis--he is such a fool for choosing the Second Estate! If only he knew how passionately the bourgeoisie and peasantry would rise to support him, how profoundly loyal we are to the idea of a strong monarch, like Louis XIV! But Louis XVI is no Sun King, perhaps not even a star king, for he yields to the aristocracy with every instance of his inaction: exerting no leadership, providing no rallying symbol, failing to assuage fears of a future where the aristocracy controlled government, and offering no program until he is up to his neck in revolutionary fervor. He has failed the common people, and now there is no going back. The Third Estate fears the nobility and its influence more than ever now that the king is wrapped around their manicured finger. It is only through revolt and consolidating the power of the Third Estate that we may cripple the Second Estate, just as with Louis XIV and the frondeurs. The grievances of ages are rising to wreak their vengeance, and a new era, one where the Third Estate finally reverses this abhorrent constraint of social hierarchy, is dawning. I am sure of it, as are many of my countrymen. Now, it is Louis XVI's turn to quake and shiver and jitter in fear!
Oh, wishy-washy Louis--he is such a fool for choosing the Second Estate! If only he knew how passionately the bourgeoisie and peasantry would rise to support him, how profoundly loyal we are to the idea of a strong monarch, like Louis XIV! But Louis XVI is no Sun King, perhaps not even a star king, for he yields to the aristocracy with every instance of his inaction: exerting no leadership, providing no rallying symbol, failing to assuage fears of a future where the aristocracy controlled government, and offering no program until he is up to his neck in revolutionary fervor. He has failed the common people, and now there is no going back. The Third Estate fears the nobility and its influence more than ever now that the king is wrapped around their manicured finger. It is only through revolt and consolidating the power of the Third Estate that we may cripple the Second Estate, just as with Louis XIV and the frondeurs. The grievances of ages are rising to wreak their vengeance, and a new era, one where the Third Estate finally reverses this abhorrent constraint of social hierarchy, is dawning. I am sure of it, as are many of my countrymen. Now, it is Louis XVI's turn to quake and shiver and jitter in fear!
Ma Chanson de la Revolution (My Song of the Revolution)
Lyrics of Ca Ira: a song born from the early stirrings of disillusionment that characterized pre-Revolutionary France, Ca Ira (It'll be Okay) sported a lively tune and hopeful attitude towards future progressivism, in addition to being a relatively malleable song that could be molded to address a wide range of topical issues, such as those of women's rights.
Refrain:
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Les aristocrates à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Les aristocrates on les pendra!
Le despotisme expirera,
La liberté triomphera,
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Nous n'avons plus ni nobles, ni prêtres,
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
L'égalité partout régnera.
L'esclave autrichien le suivra,
Au diable s'envolera.
Ah! ça ira, Ah! ça ira,
Au diable s'envolera.
Refrain:
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
Hang the aristocrats from on high!
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
The aristocrats, we'll hang 'em all.
Despotism will breathe its last,
Liberty will take the day,
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
We don't have any more nobles or priests,
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
Equality will reign everywhere,
The Austrian slave will follow him,
To the Devil will they fly.
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
To the Devil will they fly.
Refrain:
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Les aristocrates à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Les aristocrates on les pendra!
Le despotisme expirera,
La liberté triomphera,
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
Nous n'avons plus ni nobles, ni prêtres,
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,
L'égalité partout régnera.
L'esclave autrichien le suivra,
Au diable s'envolera.
Ah! ça ira, Ah! ça ira,
Au diable s'envolera.
Refrain:
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
Hang the aristocrats from on high!
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
The aristocrats, we'll hang 'em all.
Despotism will breathe its last,
Liberty will take the day,
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
We don't have any more nobles or priests,
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
Equality will reign everywhere,
The Austrian slave will follow him,
To the Devil will they fly.
Oh. It'll be okay, be okay, be okay,
To the Devil will they fly.