Hi I'm Fred the French bulldog and I'll help you understand the *ruff* details of the French revolution.

Long ago in the 1700s France was struggling to the point of collapse. There wasn't enough food for people to eat and living conditions were not very good. France had just spent a lot of money and resources helping support the american revolution and constant fights with Britain. Many french people were beginning to think that if things didn't change it would be time to have a revolution of their own. 

During the 18th century many educated philosophers started to spread new ideas about how a country should be run and the rights that people should have. This was called the enlightenment movement and its philosophies spread across Europe and the new world like wildfire. This is one of the major reasons that the Americans decided to fight against the British and set up a government that reflected the ideas of the enlightenment. this caused french people of the third estate to want a revolution just like the Americans.

Ideas

The enlightenment ideas mainly appealed to the middle class of France because they would gain power while the nobles would lose their power.

On May 5th, 1789, the Estates General, or French Parliament, decided to meet for the first time in 175 years to discuss the debt of France. They had put too much money into supporting the troops, which cost them a lot.

                          3rd                     2nd

1st

The third estate were the peasants and some middle class, they made up over 96% of France.

The 3rd estate had enough of the mistreatment, and while at a tennis court, they decided to separate from the Estates-General and create the National Assembly, a governing body of France that acted as a body that would represent the needs of the french people.

We leavin

Good luck with that

Grr

The revolution was picking up speed except that there was just one big problem. They didn't have weapons or gunpowder. So they decided to attack the Bastille which was a storehouse and prison which represented the power of the monarchy. On July 14th 1789 members of the third estates raided the bastille and tore it down brick by brick.

Get the weapons!

The defeat at the Bastille represented the start of the French Revolution

On August 26th 1789 the French national assembly published a document called the the declaration of the rights of man and citizen. This document stated that all men were born with equal natural rights that couldn't be taken away. These rights were liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression.

we have rights!

You're Welcome

Equality

After losing to the National Assembly, King Louis XVI tried a last ditch attempt at fleeing his country of France, but was inevitably caught and sent to be be beheaded on the guillotine. The guillotine was a device that would slice a person's head clean off their body. 

Imagine

Yuck!

Louis also had a wife named Marie Antoinette, and after the execution of her husband, people began to speculate that she was spending too much money while France was still in debt, which made her a hated figure.

Y'all just mad because you're poor

Marie Antoinette was an Austrian princess and their marriage represented a hope in an alliance between Austria and France

You just mad cause you're dead

The committee of public safety was founded by Maxamillion Robespierre who was a scholar that helped the revolution overthrow the monarchy. The committee of public safety was the ruling power that replaced the National Assembly. It was the power that started the reign of terror.

I'm in charge now!

Uh-oh

That's not good

The reign of terror was a time when the committee sent over 17,000 people to the guillotine to be executed for suspected treason. They wanted to make sure that no one would go against the revolution's ideas but in doing so killed thousands of innocents.

17,000 People! How is that even paw-sible?