HIS109Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Marie Antoinette, Bourgeoisie, Montesquieu
Document Summary
This will be our last meeting of 2016. It is only appropriate that we will let the good times and a few heads roll with the french revolution and the reign of terror. The first stage of the revolution consisted in demolishing the traditions of the ancient regime. Establishing the privileges of the nobility and the clergy. The national assembly did its job extraordinarily well. It was animated by the ideals of the enlightenment. Declarations of the rights of man and the citizen promulgated. This was initially to serve as a kind of preamble to the forthcoming constitution. Its purpose was to delineate the fundamental principles of that constitution. It sounded like it was written by a philosophe: certain human rights are sacred. Men are born free and remain free and equal in right. The principle of all sovereignty resides in the people.
