A Growing Middle Class Envisages an End to Privileges
Peasants and workers had participated in revolts against increased taxes and food scarcity in the past. But there was a lack of the means and programs to carry out full-scale measures that could bring social and economic changes. It was left to those groups of the third estate who had become prosperous and had access to education and hence new ideas.
The 18th century saw the emergence of a new group known as the “middle class”, who earned their wealth and position through expanding overseas trade and from the manufacturing of goods such as woolen and silk textiles. The third estate also included other professions like lawyers or administrative officials, all of which were educated and believed that not one group should get privilege based on birth; rather the position of a person depended on his merit. Ideas of freedom and equal laws and opportunities for all were put forward by scholars like John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Locke tried to refute the doctrine of the divine and absolute rights of monarchs. Rousseau carried the idea forward, proposing a form of government based on a social contract between people and their representatives. The American Constitution and its guarantee of individual rights was an important example for political thinkers in France.
These ideas of the philosophers gained huge popularity and were discussed thoroughly in the salons and coffee houses and spread among people through books and newspapers. These were regularly read out loudly for benefit of the people who couldn’t read or write. For example, the news that Louise XVI planned to impose further taxes to be able to meet the expenses of the state generated anger and protests against the system of privileges.
French Society during the late Eighteenth Century
French Society during the late Eighteenth Century: French society was divided into three classes, which were known as Estates. The first estate was known as the clergy, the second estate was known as being of the nobility, and the third estate included the rest of the population including the peasants and the middle-class professionals and merchants.
The first and second estates formed the privileged sections. They had most of the land even though they formed a minor portion of the population, all the important positions of the state were held by them and were mostly exempted from paying taxes. The third estate had received no privileges and was heavily taxed by the state and was imprisoned if the taxes were not paid on time. The peasants also had to perform compulsory unpaid services. Merchants and professionals of the middle classes were denied social parity and political rights. Hence, French society in the 18th century was characterized by extreme inequalities between those privileged and those not.
Table of Content
- French Society During the Late Eighteenth Century
- Struggle to Survive
- How a Subsistence Crisis Happens
- A Growing Middle Class Envisages an End to Privileges