CBSE Class 9 Social Science The French Revolution Assignment Set 01

Answer: The clergy are the members of the Church, such as priests and bishops. They formed the First Estate in French society. They did not pay taxes to the state, and the Church collected a tax called tithe from the peasants.

Teacher's Note: Clergy means the religious class.

Answer: The French Revolution began in 1789. French society was divided into three estates, and only the Third Estate (peasants, workers, middle class) paid taxes. Food was scarce, prices were high and the king was in debt after wars. When the Estates General met in 1789, the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly. On 14 July 1789 the Bastille was stormed. The monarchy was ended, France became a republic, and the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity spread across the world.

Teacher's Note: Give causes, main events and results in this order.

Answer: A subsistence crisis is a situation in which the basic means of livelihood, mainly food, are in danger. In France the population grew faster than the grain supply, so bread became costly. Wages did not rise with prices, so the poor could hardly buy bread. Bad harvests and hard winters made this worse, and many people died of hunger.

Teacher's Note: Subsistence means the bare minimum needed to stay alive.

Answer: Louis XVI of the Bourbon family.

Teacher's Note: He was executed by guillotine in 1793.

Answer: It was a document adopted by the National Assembly in 1789. It declared that men are born free and equal, and that the aims of every political group are natural rights: liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression. It said that the nation is the source of sovereignty, that law is the expression of the general will, and that all citizens are equal before the law. It also protected freedom of speech and opinion.

Teacher's Note: Remember it as the basic charter of rights of the Revolution.

Answer: Liberty means freedom to think, speak and act as one wishes, within the limits of law. One view holds that individual liberty should be as wide as possible with minimum control by the state. The other view holds that liberty needs some limits and rules set by society so that one person's freedom does not harm others.

Teacher's Note: Liberty is not the same as doing anything we like.

Answer: Olympe de Gouges was a French woman writer and political activist. She protested that the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen ignored women. In 1791 she wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen, demanding equal rights for women. She also spoke against slavery. She was arrested during the Reign of Terror and executed in 1793.

Teacher's Note: She is remembered as an early voice for women's rights.

Answer: The Bastille was a fortress prison that stood for the despotic power of the king, as people could be jailed there without trial. On 14 July 1789, several hundred people stormed it because they wanted to seize the gunpowder and weapons stored there, and because they were angry over bread prices and the king's troops gathering near Paris. The fall of the Bastille became a symbol of the Revolution.

Teacher's Note: 14 July is celebrated as the national day of France.

Answer: Women are born free and have equal rights with men. Women should have the right to vote and to hold public office. Women should have the right to speak freely and to own property. Women should be equal before the law and share the same taxes and duties as men.

Teacher's Note: The Declaration was written to claim for women what men had been given.

Answer: The French colonies in the Caribbean, such as Martinique, Guadeloupe and San Domingo, produced sugar, coffee and indigo using slave labour. The National Assembly did not take any step against slavery for a long time. In 1794 the Convention freed all slaves in the French overseas possessions, but Napoleon reintroduced slavery ten years later. It was finally abolished in French colonies in 1848.

Teacher's Note: Remember the dates: 1794, abolition; 1804, reintroduced; 1848, final abolition.

Answer: Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) was a lawyer who became a leader of the Jacobin Club. He led the Reign of Terror in 1793-94, in which enemies of the Republic were tried and guillotined. He controlled prices and ordered that peasants bring grain to the cities. In July 1794 he was arrested and guillotined.

Teacher's Note: You may choose Olympe de Gouges, Marat or Napoleon instead.

Answer: The king and the nobility lived in luxury while the poor suffered. The Third Estate paid heavy taxes (taille, tithe and others) while the clergy and nobles were exempt. The treasury was empty because of wars, including help for the American war of independence, and rising interest on loans. Food shortages and high bread prices angered people. Thinkers such as Locke, Rousseau and Montesquieu spread ideas of equality and rights, and the middle class wanted a say in power. When Louis XVI called the Estates General in 1789, the crisis led to revolution.

Teacher's Note: Link economic problems and new ideas for a full answer.

Answer: The members of the Third Estate benefited: the middle class, peasants and artisans, who got equality before law and abolition of feudal dues. The clergy, the nobles and the monarchy lost their power and privileges. Women, the poor and slaves would have been disappointed, as women were denied the vote, the poor still suffered from high prices and slaves remained unfree for years.

Teacher's Note: Answer in three groups as asked.

Answer: The ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity spread to other parts of Europe and the world. They inspired people in Europe, in the colonies and in Asia and Africa to fight for freedom and to end absolute monarchy and feudal rule. The idea of nation and the demand for democratic rights influenced movements in Germany, Italy, Russia and in India, where leaders such as Rammohan Roy referred to them.

Teacher's Note: The Revolution gave the world the language of rights.

Answer: Right to equality before law; right to freedom of speech and expression; right to freedom of the press; right to liberty and security; right to property; right to vote and take part in government; protection from arbitrary arrest. These are part of our Fundamental Rights.

Teacher's Note: Link each right to Part III of the Indian Constitution.

Answer: Yes. The Declaration spoke of universal rights, but women were denied the vote and public office, so the 'rights of man' were for men only. Slavery continued in the colonies, and under the 1791 Constitution only 'active citizens', men who paid taxes, could vote. So the message of equality was not applied to everyone.

Teacher's Note: Support your view with examples as above.

Answer: The Directory that ruled France after Robespierre was weak and corrupt and faced political instability. This created a need for a strong ruler. Napoleon Bonaparte, a successful general, won many military victories and became popular. In 1799 he overthrew the Directory and made himself First Consul, and in 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of France.

Teacher's Note: Political instability helped a strong leader to rise.

Answer: Tithe was a tax of one-tenth of the agricultural produce, paid by the peasants to the Church. Taille was a direct tax paid to the state by the peasants and members of the Third Estate.

Teacher's Note: The clergy and nobility did not pay taille.

Answer: John Locke.

Teacher's Note: Locke argued against the divine and absolute right of kings.

Answer: The middle class was a new social group that grew rich through trade and manufacture. (i) It consisted of merchants, lawyers, teachers, officials and other educated people. (ii) They were part of the Third Estate and paid taxes but had no privileges. (iii) They believed that no group should be born into privileges and that position must depend on merit, so they led the demand for change.

Teacher's Note: The middle class was the main force behind the ideas of the Revolution.