It is July 14, 1789, in Paris, in the most famous prison in the country. The rebellious crowd confronts the king's soldiers. The walls of the Bastille are stormed, guards are executed, and the rioters, after a day of fighting, seize the rifles and gunpowder reserves. Versailles, where the government is located, is a complete surprise. How could the local authorities have left a state prison defenseless against the insurgents? In any case, Louis Saez and his ministers have no idea that this is not a simple riot, but rather the beginning of a national uprising. And if the kingdom enters a period of turmoil, how will Louis Saez react? Will he choose repression, or on the contrary, will he try to resolve the crisis without firing a single shot? In this video, we will attempt to explain the reasons and origins of the events of 1789 and why they led to the greatest upheavals in French history. The end of Royal Absolutism and the Beginning of the French Revolution Spring 1789 in the streets of Versailles, life here seems to follow its course. The avenues are crowded, full of people crossing paths and jostling each other. In the Saint-Louis district, it's market day. You can find everything: meat, fish, oil, pepper, city clothes, ceremonial or work clothes, sugar or coffee—so many products displayed alongside weavers, blacksmiths, and fortune tellers. Everything seems so vibrant and picturesque in Versailles. And yet, in 1789, something quite unusual will intrude upon the daily life of the city. From one day to the next, some bakeries close their doors, provoking anger and incomprehension among the inhabitants. Bread has become increasingly scarce and expensive. For several years, the pitiful state of the harvests has driven up its price, which has gone from 12 to 40 livres, while wages have remained unchanged. The situation quickly becomes dire. Unbearable in 1789, and throughout France, cities revolted before the protests spread to the countryside. Those responsible for these misfortunes were quickly identified: Louis Saez, his administration, his power. After all, he was the guarantor of his subjects' food security. If the people were hungry, it was because they were failing in their duty. He and his representatives then became the target of protests. But who, in an era of absolute royal power, would dare defy public authority? Who could be foolish enough to organize a revolt without fear of imprisonment? In reality, the food crisis alone would be insufficient to explain the origins of the impending revolution. The lack of bread certainly provoked riots, but a greater, more powerful frustration was needed to shake the power structure. And this profound frustration was nurtured and amplified by the writings of philosophers like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu. Indeed, their writings, later called the Enlightenment, had been circulating for several years. The country calling for reform in France had liberated the economy and politics, but Louis Saez remained deaf and inflexible, which only intensified the resentment directed against him. Thus, in 1789, the ingredients seemed to be in place for a general revolt to erupt. A single spark would be enough to set everything off. But who, intentionally or unintentionally, could ignite the powder keg? Was it the rioters? Was it the Enlightenment thinkers and their defenders? Or was it the king himself who, carelessly, would provide a unique opportunity in 1789 for all those who opposed his regime to gather in one place at the same time in Versailles? At the dawn of 1789, Louis Saez, seeking guidance in times of crisis, called upon the Estates-General, an assembly of representatives elected from across the kingdom. But initially, he did not do so to discuss the food crisis gripping the country, and even less so to discuss the Enlightenment's potential reforms to his administration. These concerns are indeed quite different; France's finances are in dire straits. The public debt threatens to trigger an even more serious economic crisis, as Jacques Necker, the king's minister and advisor, reminds us: the state has been living on credit for far too long. Its expenditures in sovereign sectors, such as the army, but also the arts, are being neglected. And, as was common at the time, the court at Versailles is financed by bonds issued by the king and the French bourgeoisie until the mid- 18th century. This method of financing was still valid because France possessed a vast colonial empire, ensuring regular income. The kingdom was then the world's leading power, but an alliance between Prussia and England would surprisingly bring down this hegemony. The English sent the royal navy to its knees, while the Prussians, for their part, brought the French army to its knees. In less than ten years, the country lost its status as a dominant power, and the effect was quickly felt on public finances: the debt exploded, revenues dried up, and Louis Saez had no choice but to raise taxes, but as we have said, the country was already experiencing famine. The intellectuals of the kingdom, enlightened by the Enlightenment, were increasingly distrustful of the sovereign. The idea, it is true, was therefore quite bad to increase levies in such a turbulent period, or at least to do so without reaching an agreement with the representatives of the nation. It was in this spirit that Louis Saez and his minister, Necker, made the solemn decision to convene the Estates-General. Thus, at the beginning of 1789, in the towns and villages of France, people rushed, jostled, and busied themselves to write in the grievance notebooks concerning the demands of the people. And unsurprisingly, these were far removed from Louis Saez's financial concerns. They were demanding bread, wine, liberties, equality, and justice. In short, when the elected representatives arrived in Versailles in May, they did not bring only good advice, including transportation. Suitcases, they also come with the desire for profound, lasting, and immediate change. May 5, 1789, in Versailles, during the inauguration of the Estates-General, Louis Saez addresses the deputies and sets the tone for the debates: discuss the crisis, find solutions, save the kingdom's finances. There's no question of discussing anything else because, as the elected officials are discovering, the public treasury is on the verge of bankruptcy. Everyone is then saying, "Help the king!" Everyone, but not just any way. Indeed, the way the Estates- General functioned at the time meant that the assembly was divided into three groups: first, the order of the nobility and officers, dukes, princes, and natural heirs; second, the order of the clergy, high-ranking representatives of the Church. These two orders formed a class C: privileges, little or no tax, access to public employment, and a guaranteed income by law— all things that the elected officials of the last order, then called the Third Estate, do not have. Many of these are bourgeois, more or less wealthy; some are lawyers, others... Doctors, notaries, pharmacists, and writers—this last order, a heterogeneous mix, alone represents 96% of the population, while the privileged class represents only 4%. Also, from the perspective of the Third Estate representatives, before voting on any reform, it was necessary to accept that voting could be by head and not by order, because the likely alliance of the nobility and the clergy would place the burden of the new tax on the population and not on those who unjustly enjoyed privileges. Therefore, swift action was necessary. To this end, figures like Mbaye, a renowned astronomer, or Dr. Guillotin, the future inventor of the guillotine, attempted to convince nobles and intellectuals to join their cause. They targeted, in particular, enlightened elected officials such as the highly influential General Lafayette, hero of the American Revolutionary War, or the clergy of Mirabeau and Six S. Thus, through negotiations, discussions, debates, and exchanges, the Third Estate deputies, knowing they were supported by a portion of the other two orders, revolted because they were refused the right to vote by head. It constituted itself as a national assembly, and on June 20, 1789, while the king had the chamber closed, more than 300 deputies of the Third Estate met illegally in the Jeu de Paume (tennis court) at Versailles. They swore an oath that they would never again separate until they had drafted a constitution for the kingdom. In other words, it was no longer simply a matter of reducing the public deficit; the Estates- General now aimed to reform France. The symbolism was powerful, as it was a challenge to authority, but the gamble paid off. Knowing that the deputies of the Third Estate, supported by influential figures like Lafayette, accepted the Estates-General, a constituent assembly, and that its mission would encompass not only resolving the financial crisis, as he wished, but also drafting a constitution to limit the powers of the sovereign, from an outsider's perspective. The actions of the Third Estate appeared to be a coup d'état led by the bourgeoisie, but whatever the case, from that day forward, French politics... Things will never be the same again. The era of absolutism is over, buried, gone. But what about food security, the rights and freedoms of all those people who have no seat in the assembly? After the deputies' power grab, it's the turn of the entire people to get involved in the revolution taking shape in Versailles. Despite the power grab by the Third Estate deputies, the various peoples inhabiting the Kingdom of France are not certain at this moment that their social and economic conditions will improve. At the time, most of the inhabitants are simple peasants, shepherds, or the like, who rarely come to town to get information. As for the townspeople, they can be found in all kinds of jobs, often precarious manual labor. They are shoeshiners who earn very little, or butchers working in slaughterhouses. Others live off fishing, like this woman at her stall, or they are musicians who make passersby dance as much as possible in the hope of earning a living. A single coin, all these men and women, what can they possibly do to make themselves heard? For indeed, in July 1789 in Paris, the price of bread rose, rose again, and the city was on the brink of famine. Riots broke out in Paris. The Saint-Lazare convent was stormed by the crowd because the city stored grain there. Other buildings, like the furniture repository, were attacked, which convinced the city's bourgeoisie to create a militia of about fifty thousand men. These men would be adorned with a red and blue cockade as a distinctive emblem. But this militia needed weapons, and quickly, because rumors were circulating that the king's army was about to surround Paris to quell the revolt. The people and their militia then went to the Invalides. There, the garrison refused to fire on the crowd, allowing the rioters to seize rifles, but they still lacked gunpowder. And they would find it at the Bastille, the insolent one. The royal prison, looming over Paris like a threat and an insult to the liberty of its inhabitants, was besieged on July 14, 1789, at 10:00 AM, and by evening the symbol of royal absolutism had fallen into the hands of the Parisians. Throughout France, the storming of the Bastille resonated like a thunderclap, a resounding victory. The worst was feared in a country on the brink of famine, seemingly on the verge of anarchy. Would the nobles seize all the wealth and leave nothing for the peasants? Would the king resort to the army to abolish the rights so dearly won through military might, or rather, was the existing order completely destroyed? This would mean that France was at the mercy of invasions and pillaging. Fear gripped French society for various reasons, truly political and sometimes completely delusional, as in Aquitaine where rumors circulated that the English were preparing to land and plunder the region. But whatever the case may be, The result is the same everywhere: riots, attacks, fires. Nothing seems able to stop it, nothing except perhaps a dramatic action, a strong message that the deputies of the new assembly could send to Versailles. Driven by the fear of seeing the country descend into pure and simple anarchy, the deputies vote for the abolition of privileges on August 4th, then for the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. But this is not enough, because while the new text guarantees liberty and equality before the law, it is not ratified by the king and therefore has no legal value. Moreover, the food crisis is still ongoing, and the people are hungry in many cities. The riots begin again in Paris on October 5th and 6th. Thousands of women march on Versailles, accompanied by the National Guard, and force Louis Saez to ratify the laws passed in August. He is even forced to return to Paris, to the Tuileries. Equity, the opulence of Versailles— thus, in less than six months, the pressure from the bourgeoisie and the people of France has succeeded in making The fall of absolutism buried feudalism and proclaimed new rights, but what path could France take after such events? Would he accept the loss of his power, even risking his place on the throne, or would he choose violent, bloody repression? And how would the Constituent Assembly react? Would it limit itself to drafting a constitution, or would it seek to go further and change France more profoundly? If you wish to find out, you can subscribe to Battle of France, write a comment at the bottom of the video, and see you in the next episode.