Alex Zhang
Mr. DeBruin
Honors World History 9 P0
14 January 2015
DBQ: Causes of the French Revolution Why do people get unhappy about the government and rebel? In the case of the French Revolution of 1789, there were several reasons why the French citizens weren’t happy about the government. Three of the main reasons consist of unfair taxation, unfair land distribution, and prices of bread. France during that time period had 3 estates. The first estate consisted of the clergy. The second one consisted of the nobles and the third consisted of all the peasants, merchants, and artisans. One reason the third estate was so unhappy was because the taxes on the third estate was extremely high, but taxes on the first two estates were next to nothing. Arthur Young said in document one, “In the south of France there is a taille [tax on the land and its produce]. There is injustice in levying the amount each person must pay. Lands held by the nobility are taxed very little. Lands held by commoners are taxed very heavily.” (Young, 55). Because of this, the commoners were very bitter at the nobility which would eventually lead to revolution. Another key cause of the French Revolution was the unfair land distribution. According to document two, the first two estates were three percent of the whole population, but they owned 45 percent of the land. The third estate, on the other hand, consisted of 97 percent of France’s population, yet they only owned 55 percent of the land. Obviously, this is a really unfair way to distribute the land, which is another reason the commoners disliked the nobles. The third reason of the start of the French Revolution is the extreme rise in the price of bread. In France
