Events Leading up to the French Revolution
Storyboard Text
- Life in France (Ancient Regime)
- All these taxes, like the tithes, are really too much! And the bad harvest doesn't help either! There are more and more riots for bread!
- Yes, I agree! And thankfully we and our families are well off, being of the upper Third Estate. But our neighbors are struggling. And it's all because of King Louis XVI!
- No bread!
- Please give me money!
- I hate all these taxes! I don't have any money to buy bread for my family!
- Financial Troubles
- America and France!
- Let us be carried to our lavish dinner!
- Victory to Great Britain!
- Grievances & Estates General
- It is the traditional way! Let each Estate have one vote, King!
- No, that is unfair for the 3rd Estate! The 1st and 2nd Estates can outvote us every time!
- Paris, France, 1789; an upper Third Estate doctor by the name of the Jean-Luc Pierrot is discussing the depressing lives of the poor with his friend, Maurice Dupont, a lawyer.
- National Assembly
- What is going on? The guards have locked our meeting room!
- You're right! I know a nearby indoor tennis court where we can go and freely discuss!
- Monsieur Pierrot knows that the cause of the hunger among the 3rd Estate is due mainly to the financial troubles of France, which the King Louis XVI's is attempting to fix by taxing the poor. France's debt is increasing still more because of France helping in the American Revolution and also the King and Queen's lavish way of living.
- Tennis Court Oath
- "All members of this Assembly shall immediately take a solemn oath not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established and consolidated upon firm foundations."
- I swear on my honor!
- When Louis XVI calls a meeting of the Estates General for the first time in 175 years, M. Pierrot and M. Dupont are chosen to fight for the rights of the Third Estate. Since the King doesn't listen, the Third Estate decides to hold their own meeting and forms the National Assembly in June of 1789.
- Storming of the Bastille
- A couple of days after forming the National Assembly, the group found the hall where they were supposed to meet locked and guarded. They moved to a nearby indoor tennis court where the delegates took the famous Tennis Court Oath.
- Indeed, they have! They don't want us to meet! Well, this won't stop us!
- The delegates of the National Assembly swear to never separate and meet whenever necessary until France had a just government and there was freedom and equality for all. Even the nobles and clergy see that in order to preserve their rights, they need to join. Meanwhile, the King was not happy when he receives the news.
- With rumours about the King's troop planning to occupy Paris and stop the National Assembly spreading, M. Pierrot and M. Dupont join the angry crowd in demanding for firearms and breaking into the prison fortress. The storming of the Bastille marks the independence day of France and the start of the bloody French revolution...
- Down with the King! Up with the French people!
- Give us weapons! Let us in!
- We want gun powder to protect ourselves against the King's troops!
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