The French Revolution :: essays research papers

The French Revolution was an unstable, blood-filled clip. With 20,000 sent to theguillotine and an equal human action to prison, it is not hard to find importance but rather tofind meaning. The most crucial thing to look for in the novelty is justification, reasonsthat excuse or bring significance to the deaths of many. John Locke, a philosophe of thetime, may get under ones skin argued that a leader who does not provide his people with inalienablerights is grounds for dismissal in the form of regicide1. On the other hand ThomasHobbes, also a philosopher, may have taken a different argument. It was his belief thatman is a brute, therefore he needs a dictator to keep the peace. John Lockes idealisticview point if practiced properly could have provided the lower class of France withequality, something the were desperately in need of. The Thomas Hobbes approachwhich advocates control, could not have provided the people with such liberation, but intheory should be able to maintain t he peace among the people, the peace that seemed solacking during the French Revolution. The French Revolution was a disaster for thefollowing reasons it happened as well as fast, it went too far, and it achieved too little.Thomas Paine a radical thinker of the era once said Time makes more convertsthan reason. With this quote we can see why revolution was successful in England, butnot France. England slowly used the Magna Carta (1213), Petition of Rights (1628), andthe Habeas Corpus Act (1679) to limit its monarch. It was a long road that was by nomeans perfect. With monarchs who paid little attention to the act(s) in place during theirreign and parliament, like James (1603-1625) and Charles I (1625-1649) it was hard tosee progress quickly. These acts vie a vital role in Britains journey to democracy,through them came proper representation of the people, equality, and what is now knownas the Glorious Revolution. France seemed to be on its way to a similar fate. In 1789, the Estat es-General2had now received a promise of a head count from Louis XVI. Prior to this time the verylarge third estate of the realm3 (26 million) had the same number of representatives in theEstates-General as the first estate4 (100,000) and the second estate5 (400,000) combined. Once the Estates-General had been renamed the National Assembly by the third estate aconstitution was in the works. During this time the people of France became restless,food shortages plagued the country side. It also appeared that Louis XVI might dissolve