Source+C

__**Source C**__

**Preliminary** //**cahier**// **(list of grievances)** **of** **the parish of Boisse in France in 1788.**

"The Third Estate desires that instead of all the taxes which it is forced to pay, they should be reduced to one, which the Third Estate desires shall be paid equally by Lords, Churchmen and the Third Estate according to the possessions of each.... They beg also that the King should regard his people with pity and liberate them from this miserable scourge of the //gabelle*// which, by its name alone, makes the universe tremble ... The Third Estate also beg His Majesty to lift from us the //banalite////#// of ovens and mills; in doing this, Sire, you would liberate your people from a great scourge, because it does happen that, thanks to the //banalite,// a miller can rob a subject, and he dares not object.

 * a tax on salt # the use-for-payment of the lord's mill to grind grain and his oven to bake bread"

From Source C, one can see that the deteriorating economic conditions, especially that of the Third Estate, was indeed a huge factor in the general public dissent towards their monarchy and their clergy. Much of this dissent went on to cause the French Revolution. The Third Estate were crippled by “the taxes which it [was] forced to pay”, wishing for “[liberation]...from this miserable scourge of the //gabelle// ” and the //banalite//, both of which were taxes that only the Third Estate had to pay. From my contextual knowledge, the Third Estate was by far the poorest, though the biggest, Estate, and had barely enough money to eat, much less to pay the hefty taxes. The monumentally richer Second and First Estate, however, had no taxes to pay, though the wealth concentrated on the top 2% of the nation could have supported the entire country beyond the throes of poverty. The fact that the King would not budge from his position on taxes, despite the “begging” of the Third Estate, that he stood by while “a miller [robbed] a subject, [who dared] not object”, would not doubt lead to indignance and rage amongst the Third Estate. Thus, the poverty and horrible economic conditions of the Third Estate, coupled together with the crippling taxes enforced on them, was definitely a huge cause of the French Revolution. - Anne Ng, 1

Source C supports the view that the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions were a large contributing factor to the French Revolution. The source tells us of the immense poverty the people were facing, largely due to the many taxes imposed on them. We can see here how desperate the people were to be "liberate[d]" from the "miserable scourge" of the gabelle and the banalite, that they would come up with a cahier of their own, "beg[ging]" the king to regard them with "pity". The Third Estate was staggering under the burden of having to pay heavy taxes on everything, from the use of salt, to the everyday use of machinery such as mills and ovens. Coupled with the fact that most of them did not earn enough to even scrape by each day, we can see how this led to a struggle to survive on their part. What worsened this problem, however, was the outright injustice of taxation laws in pre-revolution France, that immensely wealthy First and Second Estate were exempt from such taxations that they could easily afford. Thus, the small and select groups of these estates lived in extravagant luxury, while the poverty-stricken Third Estate, constituting over 98% of the population, bore all of the taxes. According to my contextual knowledge, the then King of France was too cowardly and indecisive to pass laws mandating that all citizens contributing taxes according to their possessions, resulting in the sustained "rob[bing]" of the members of the Third Estate. Naturally, they were incensed at the King's unwillingness to lift a finger to relieve them of the unnecessary oppression they faced, especially when they were already facing such immense financial difficulty, leaving them with no choice but to revolt in order to improve their dire conditions. Thus, we can see how the terrible financial and economic conditions of France at that time brought about the French Revolution. -Sandra Chong [5]

Source C supports the statement. From this source I can infer that the people of the third estate are hit badly by the taxes and are therefore appealing to the government for the people of other estates to pay taxes according to the amount of possessions they have as well. We can see this from “ shall be paid equally by Lords, Churchmen and the Third Estate according to the possessions of each “This shows that they also want all men to be treated equally. I can also infer that the people are hungry and suffering as they are unable to afford the taxes on salt and bread and are begging the King to lift the taxes from these items so that they could afford them and consume them. We can see this from “ They beg also that the King should regard his people with pity and liberate them from this miserable scourge “ and “also beg His Majesty to lift from us the // banalite# //of ovens and mills; in doing this, Sire, you would liberate your people from a great scourge” Not only that, I can infer that the third estate people are extremely poor as they cannot afford simple food because of taxes and also because they are too poor to afford food they have to steal food. We can see this from “rob a subject” The tone of this source is more like a appeal to the government. Therefore from these inferences, we can tell that the third estate had bad economic conditions as they were too poor, could not afford taxes and things were too expensive for them to afford. From contextual knowledge, I know that the third estate had the largest population. Therefore, since the majority of the population was suffering due to the deteriorating economic conditions. This supports the statement that the French revolution was due to deteriorating economic conditions. This source is useful as it tells us how the bad economy had affected the people and how badly it has affected them and these factors ultimately could lead to the French Revolution. Not only that this source is reliable as from contextual knowledge, I can tell that the points that had been covered about the third estate is true. Therefore, this source supports the statement. - M. Sharni (18)

====Source C supports the view that the French revolution was due to deteriorating economic conditions. This can be seen from the fact that the Third Estate was forced to pay the taxes for different purposes, which the First and Second Estate did not have to pay. They lived in extreme poverty and they were desperate in begging the King to reduce the tax they have to pay and impose the taxes equally onto all three estates. They barely have money to buy the necessities like food, let alone money to pay the heavily-imposed taxes. From ==== ====“ instead of all the taxes which it is forced to pay, they should be reduced to one, which the Third Estate desires shall be paid equally by Lords, Churchmen and the Third Estate according to the possessions of each…” we can tell that the Third Estate was heavily imposed with taxes and they were the only estate that had to pay. This caused a big contrast in level of wealth in the different estates; only the First Estate and Second Estate were wealthy, however the Third Estate which was poor made up a total of 25 million people of the population. This shows that majority of the population in France were poor and the taxes are straining them. This caused them to “beg [also] that the King should regard his people with pity and liberate them from this miserable scourge of the //gabelle*”.// From this we can tell that the taxes were a heavy burden to the Third Estate and the people could hardly survive if that continued. Cross referencing from Source D, we know that the price of wheat, which is a necessity, was at its peak in 1789. This further proves the fact that the population was strained by economic problems when they had to pay taxes and could hardly afford any food. From contextual knowledge, the economic problems and inefficiency of only taxing the lower estates was shown in the Government’s budgets. The government had large debts and eventually went bankrupted. This also proves that not only the taxing of the Third Estate was causing economic problems on the Third Estate and the unhappiness in people; it was causing the government to have large debts too. This source is useful in showing the poor economic conditions of the Third Estate which made up of the majority of the population and it is reliable upon cross referencing with the other sources and contextual knowledge. Hence this source proves that the French revolution was due to deteriorating economic conditions. ====

Tsai Min Yi (28)