DO NOW

•Why do we sometimes call the Old Regime the Old World Order?

•What are the characteristics of an absolute monarch?

•Who makes up each of the 3 Estates in the Estates System? Why is this unfair?

The Enlightenment

Home Work

•Due tomorrow, Sept. 7

•Read pgs. 217- 221 in your books

•Answer Questions 2, 3, 4, 5

Essential Questions

•Who are the bourgeoisie?

•What was the Enlightenment?

•Who were the major thinkers of the Enlightenment?

•What did they believe?

•What was the relationship between French and American Revolution?

Economic Problems

• The 97% of the population in the Third Estate bore 95% of the tax burden in France

• Paid taxes on

• land

• for forced labor on roads and bridges

• tax on salt

• tithe

• feudal dues

• These taxes are more than half the amount of money a peasant makes

Who makes up that 97%

•The poor

•The bourgeoisie which are the middle class

•trade taxes

•government restrictions on manufacturing

•mercantilist regulations on life

Bourgeoisie

•Resent the restrictions on their economy

•Read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

•Want a policy known as laissez-faire

•Hands off

Philosophy•French thinkers lead the way in what is

known as the Enlightenment

•Believed that humans possessed natural rights

•Society can be improved

•Question tradition

•How could they conflict with the Old Regime?

Graphic Organizer•Make the following chart in your

notes:

Major Thinker Years Lived

Major Work Big Ideas

MontesquieuVoltaire

Diderot

Rousseau

Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Montesquieu’s Significance

•Wrote The Spirit of Laws

•Government needs to be separated into three branches

•Checks and balances

•Where do you see Montesquieu’s ideas today?

Voltaire (1694-1778)

Voltaire’s Life•A member of the bourgeois

•Exiled from France to Britain

•Wrote Letters on the English

•Praised Britain’s government and freedoms

•Attacked France’s censorship

•“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

Diderot

Diderot (1713-1784)

•Editor of the Encyclopedia

•Chronicled Old Regime abuses such as:

•Religious intolerance

•Unjust taxation

•Governmental absolutism

Historical Analysis

•Do bad conditions alone make for a revolution?

•What do you think?

Rousseau

The Influence of the British and American

Revolutions

•France looks outward and sees

•England: English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution

•America: the American Revolution

Why America?

•French Involvement: Lafayette and other French citizens fight for the Americans

•When they come back they spread the idea of how great America is

•Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are two popular diplomats to France