A History Teacher Reacts | Oversimplified - French Revolution (Part 1)

pay you to mr. Terry back here once again for another history teacher reacts video today we are watching oversimplified video of the French Revolution which had just come out when I are just a few days ago before this video that you're seeing right now and when it came out immediately got a whole bunch of requests in the comment sections about doing this of course I'm gonna do it it's oversimplified they make such great videos and it's a French Revolution one of the most popular topics that gets discussed in history as what people really determine is a very important moment historically for the causes and most importantly the effects of the French Revolution will have not only on France but across the the Western world so we're gonna make sure to check this out today now they did two parts on this the video you're watching right now is going to be part one and we'll do a part two later I'm gonna leave a link to the original video down below in the description so that you can check that out give them a view like subscribe because they do such great work and it's important that these original content creators get the respect that they deserve so again that'll be down in the description below if you like the video be sure you check that out all right with out further ado let's go ahead and get started on oversimplified zat the French Revolution so I said to the Marquis de Lafayette what do you think I am some dirty peasant that Marie Antoinette sure is pretty sure is wouldn't want to be Prince Louisa that's gonna be a lot of responsibility when he becomes king especially since France is in financial ruin quite thank you one and all for attending the royal marriage of my grandson the future King of France to the Archduchess of Austria now for the very awkward yet historically accurate part of the ceremony where we all watch them get into get together awkward just watch them sit in the bed alright now that's out of the way let's leave the royal couple to it you better give us an air you fat ill-bred boy nighty-night Francis ruin you fat ill-bred boy quite that's gonna be a lot of responsibility Francis oh great he's a freaking weirdo great yeah France you know at this point is riding high and power and influence but they have massive massive problems that go generations back and it's not to be honest a good time to be the King of France especially someone is probably as ill-equipped as Louis the sixteenth is like they were kind of saying there yeah he was known as this kind of just slob --is-- awkward kid and this is a lot of you know being put on his plate there and I'm sure they'll go into that about all the the social problems the economic problems political problems that were happening all thrown into this dudes lap and he's going to have to deal with it and answer for all of these problems so again not the time you want to be the king of France France the most prosperous cultured and beautiful nation in the world as it had been for centuries an exquisite social culture with the king in the upper classes throwing crazy parties every night enjoying high living and fine dining who cares that they were only able to do so off the backs of the hard-working starving poor what are they gonna do revolt there are only 80 percent of the population no life in France that numbers way lower than ever ever you want to go to war with Britain and increase your middle buddy you do you now you're in severe financial debt we have no money what do we do should we stop partying heck no party harder that's okay I've talked about the seven years before war before in other video especially the American Revolution one of it goes oh it gets over glossed over how important the effects of that war were right France versus England the two biggest powers in the West in the mid 18th century and they fought each other all of the early it was basically a world war and the major effect of that being England won that war right and they took French possessions all over the place they're now going to be in direct control or the the biggest controller of places of the world like India North America they fought each other back in home and France lost and not only you know not only our war is expensive but when you lose them that makes it even worse especially if you've lost territories because those are what make you money and so you have this disastrous Wars going on and when you you get that those problems can I mean you inherit them and you can't ignore them and now they're starting to come to fruition and you already saw right away it's like well they should probably change how they spend and how they live here at the top of the toughest society here and you can see they have no plans on changing that so somebody's got to feel the the strain that's happening here and it doesn't look like the upper class here at this moment are the ones volunteering to to give up something for that the peasantry will pick up the slack they were created by God to do all the work and you were created to reap all the benefits and party hard that's just how society works and we've all just accepted it for century yeah this this right here you should definitely understand it's yeah the social hierarchy now this pyramid makes it look though as far as like the percentage breakdown this makes it look almost like it's like you know like the bottom class here is big but not like but about equal like if you like if you were to combine the first and second estates here that that would equal the Third Estate no this graph does not show it at all the first estate is of which is the clergy it's the church there's this basically marriage between the monarchy and the the church the Catholic Church and they get so many privileges they don't pay taxes they have probably about ten percent of all the land they own it and they share that don't pay taxes on it now the second estate is the nobility now Nobles the ones that have been in power for so long in French history they're the ones ooh they own probably about a quarter of all the land and land as money in this in this area right so these people and by the way their percentage is probably 2% of the population so you have this this group at the top here right these there's three different social classes first and second estate you combine them to be about 3% of the population but they probably control a third of all of the land right and in that and they don't again don't pay taxes they get all kinds of you know things things in their favor there all kinds of privileges there that means the Third Estate is just everyone else middle class lower class and it's just everybody's there and they basically have to kind of fight in a way for all of the other land and money-making opportunities plus are the ones that pay all the taxes which is tough because you have so much wealth here tied up in these first two estates that if you're in a financial ruin there is so much money that this country needs that is locked down in these first two social groups and since they don't tax them or at least don't tax them enough that's so much lost revenue there now why not just tax them well those are people you don't want to piss off you don't want to piss off the church and you do not want to piss off the nobles because they're the ones who to be honest have the power and and that sort of thing and so yeah it's it's a it's a problem catch-22 they're a bit so maybe they break this down a little bit but I don't make sure that gets that gets across please why why what why do the nobility get to be all rich and stuff just because they were born into it and the rest of our MOOCs you just have to accept that help why do we even need a king who decided that it all just seems very unfair and unequal and I for one am starting to question it wow that's very enlightened and so began the Age of Enlightenment the great philosophical thinkers across France and beyond began to question whether this beautiful nation domino effect about to happen here after all hey Prince Louie bad news your grandpa died of smallpox this morning which means good news you're now the king so just to sum up friends is in severe financial debt and the angry populace are beginning to question how necessary you are but hey I believe in you champ you got this maybe know this Louie kepe became King Louie the sixteenth inmate 1774 he was a notorious Lee weak man and he knew it he barely had the wisdom to rule a nation never mind one in crisis and he was easily manipulated by those around him one of his first acts was to try to get revenge on the British by financing their American colonies revolution which France you're good at you're getting and you're getting nothing I could help so hey I thought all that money we lent you when can we get that back nuts yeah you're a great guy I'll never forget what you've done for us real glad I could help friend but about that money you gotta go now Chum best of luck to you this is gonna be an issue France didn't have the money and resources and in really a good reason to help the Americans in the revolution it's simply getting back at a former enemy that they had lost to you know a couple decades before so they really get nothing out of helping the Americans and it's just gonna make things even worse back in France oh and now France was in even more debt Frances poor suffering under the strain of economic ruin watched as the nobility continued to live as though nothing was wrong in particular they grew increasingly disdainful of the Queen Marie Antoinette as she continued to spend all of France's money on her own luxurious lifestyle and fashion while the peasants were breaking their backs in the fields she was walking around like hey my hair is about I'm not literally that was a thing yeah that crazy that I guess the hairstyles and Marie Antoinette what would do we're just absurd and I'd seen this wannabe like look at this thing you imagine if you're starving to death you know in the the country of the countryside in France and then you have this person that looks like this talk about a different different worlds that people are living in the boat and her lavish spending earned her the nickname madam deficit and speaking of the Queen there was also a long-standing scandal around the fact that the king took a very long time to blink her and the working-classes of Paris began ridiculing the royal couple with lewd pamphlets depicting the Queen as a court thought and the king is a wuss unable to fulfill his marital duty respect for the monarchy was at an all-time low as Frances finances were spiraling out of control and the king and his aides really only had one solution to the crisis tax the poor tax the poor we could do a sexy counter shoot I mean tax the poor and so it was the poor who were already struggling to make ends meet found themselves being taxed from every direction hey I'm the Royal tax collector inside that a lot of money hey your income tax head tax by the way how many windows you got in that house here's three yep there's gonna be a tax for that that a real tack your local priest here have you paid your church tithe yet well at least this one is going to the good work of God or God I think this year God wants me to buy a new swimming pool hey private tax collector here oh and I brought some goons with me just a few quick questions how much salt did you buy this year about seven kilos I think yep okay there's gonna be a tax for that Oh what's that over there and that's extra sold I held over from last year so I wouldn't have to buy as much this year thanks for that these real taxes what are you doing with all this salt well obviously cooking mmm-hmm on the table yep and preserving fish and meat oh oh no yeah and there's a text for that hey how old is he he's nine and so he's purchased his required amount of salt for this year right what no he's nine uh sorry little Timmy looks like I'm gonna have to tax you for that yeah solty there's gonna be a tax for that that's not all a huge portion of the peasants harvest had to be given up and there was also the labor tax where peasants were required to work a certain number of days for their local lord without pay obviously people want to have a minimal area policy and the aggressive nature of these private tax farmers sometimes even escalated to violence in particular though the people really hated how inconsistent that taxation rules were across the nation and also the fact that the first two estates often had to pay very little if any tax they had altered and so the anger continued to grow France had a population that was just about ready to explode what could push them over the edge how about a touch of natural disaster a series of horrors time and winters left the peasants harvests in ruin meaning they had no food or money and the cost of bread skyrocketed of course the upper classes had massive stocks of grain and wheat so they were virtually untouched by this new crisis but now the poor really were starving the the French were very dependent on bread it became the staple food product I forgot the numbers of like how much bread they ate a day or a year but it was like I remember when I had heard it it was really impressive and if you become that dependent on one food source that could be a problem I mean yeah you can mass-produce it and hopefully get a cheap cost but the problem is if you don't have that supply you don't have the supplies to make that bread especially agriculturally you don't get or unable to yeah you know get flour something like that then that puts the whole thing in jeopardy and yeah a lot of these riots and stuff that it happened the bread riots because that was one of the main things plus this idea that they believe that the nobility are hoarding this stuff you know away from the people which is driving up the prices and so much speculation happening here and they began to write women took to the streets bakeries were raided and Baker's suspected of keeping bread for themselves where sometimes even Happy's daddy's just going to look for a promo code and right in the the violent time hey whoa this is really getting out of control your majesty we need some decisive action you need to step up and lead us what will you do okay okay I've got this I know I'll summon the estates-general and they'll decide what to do you really are a fat ill-bred boy the estates-general was the closest thing france had to a government apart from the king it was a purely advisory body and was rarely summoned in fact it hadn't been summoned for a hundred and seventy five years prior to this but with France in a severe crisis the king felt the time is right to call on the government to help the estates-general was made up of representatives from the states that is the clergy the nobility and everybody else okay thanks for coming everyone the first order of business is regarding the clergy and nobility you all get brand-new Porsches you get a Porsche and you get a Porsche and you get a Porsche everybody gets a Porsche and now into the second order of business France is completely out of money like it's never been this bad before anyone got any ideas how about we all get Lamborghinis next time the king decided that in order to make a decision they had to come up with a voting system okay the clergy you have a population of a hundred and thirty thousand so you'll get one vote the nobility you have a population of 350,000 so your more votes right one vote no and the Third Estate you have a population of 27 million people and make up 98% of the population very impressive you'll get obviously so you can see right here there's a major problem first off the estate's terminal has not met in what over hundred fifty years that when we talk about this in my class we talk about it like this like let's imagine in the United States Congress hadn't met since the Civil War right 150 years ago and then and then you all of a sudden are like all right we're gonna have one nobody would have any idea about how this system works or because no one's obviously you've been even close to being alive since the last one they really know how this works and then when you get there you find out that the structure that's in place is completely unfair if you talk about representation right you got yeah this the the the first class there the first estate the the the clergy who make up like 1% of the population they get a whole vote they get 1/3 of the votes and the the nobility they are about 2 percent of the of the population they get a vote so that means 3 percent is getting 2/3 of the vote which means already and people could see the writing on the wall here that if they're if it comes down to a vote the first and second estates are always going to be able to out vote the Thursday and whatever the third is day want so laws decisions whatever that needs to be made can easily a favor the first two estates which again make up a very very small percentage so you can see already here this system is flawed from the get-go be unhappy with this system because they kept on finding that this would happen we've proposed to raise taxes on the Third Estate all in favor all opposed two to one taxes will be raised on the third estate we propose a motion that says the first two estates are a bunch of cuckoo heads Oh in favor all opposed to two one it's official we are not poo poo heads the Third Estate realized that any attempt at reform would be ad voted by the two upper estates and they thought that was kind of lame so they decided that since they were 98% of the population they could go off to form their own government make their own laws and take over the running of the country and so the National Assembly was born the Third Estate was now in control and there was nothing the king could do to stop ha ha I've locked you all out of your building what are you gonna do about it we'll probably go find a different building that isn't locked Wow now the National Assembly this I don't get this like decision that's made here so the Third Estate basically protesting the estates-general are like Kay screw this we're gonna make a new assembly that is going to be the true representatives of the people and they didn't put it in there but then the National Assembly the the people Thursday they invited the first couple of states or members in the first a couple of states to join them of course you know the representation would be as biased as it is in the actual estates-general but so and some of if I remember right some of the more reform-minded nobles and clergymen actually ended up joining so when you see something like this it looks unstoppable and the king is he can't really do anything about it's gonna make him look really really bad if he tries to you know not do that so this story is just it's pretty classic here I don't know who thought this was a good idea if it was the king himself it's like right here's what I gonna do these guys met down the street or whatever from where the estates-general met and they're gonna meet and then when they leave for the day or whatever we're gonna lock the door chain it up or whatever and then when they come back it's like it's like the King thinks they're gonna come back and go oh crap like we don't have any where we can meet I guess we can't be in assembly and I guess we can't make a new constitution or anything like that like thinking that would actually work and you already see on the screen they're like oh the doors locked alright we'll just find another building to meet and which is just making the the King looked even worse here because it's obvious that he doesn't support this thing and he's not going to be with them and whatever they come up with is not gonna be something that benefits the king which is true I mean anything the National Assembly is gonna come up with is not going to help the power of the King and being someone that's probably fearful of losing that power you know you have these attempts are trying to slow it down or whatever and it's it's just not happening and really just shooting yourself in the foot it really is what the king is doing here that isn't locked oh no the National Assembly did find another unlocked building just down the road an indoor tennis court we're on the 20th of June 1789 they all took the tennis court oath pledging to continue meeting patriotic finally gave in to their demand for forestry and economic reform this new National Assembly included many of the most educated members of the Third Estate including two young lawyers by the names of maximilien robespierre and George Don thumpin and some members of the first two estates even joined their cause some of these men formed a radical new political party called the Jacobin Club and quickly became leading figures while many members of the Third Estate simply wanted more equality a growing number in this Jacobin faction would begin calling for something even crazier the removal of the king entirely still minority of here began cold with such a actually health situation developing everyone was afraid of something the King feared his position was under threat and he called in the military to take position around Paris the Third Estate heard rumor of the gathering military force and they feared the king was planning to round them up and arrest them maybe he did even execute them it also didn't help that the king had justice miss Frances popular finance minister who had been trying to make reforms himself it seemed the king was done negotiating fear left unchecked often boils over into anger and anger detonates with violence the angry people of Paris after centuries of cruel inequality harsh oppression even starvation fearful of having their new movement for reform demolished so soon decided that it was now or never to take action screw reform they decided they'd do one better how about revolution the people of Paris believing the French military was preparing to attack decided they should armed themselves the National Assembly announced the creation of a bourgeois militia the National Guard and immediately many troops from the French military defected over to the revolutionary side in the early hours of July 14th 1789 a large crowd stormed and raided the hotel they own Valley be a military hospital where they were able to secure a large number of rifles the bad news was they weren't able to find any gunpowder for them weapon ition the good news was they knew exactly where to get what you haven't played world of warships yet so it's a time of hysteria right we'll just posit on the angry baby here but yeah you have this time of hysteria where it looks like or the people are making they feel like they're making this progress with the National Assembly right coming up with laws coming up with with things like that or ideas we should say at this time and even at this point it's still a pretty it's a very radical opinion even at this time of somebody actually wanting to remove the king that would be a very radical opinion what simple but some people might be saying though is they want to become a constitutional monarchy like England is for example where you have a limiting of a power right that the king can have they are accountable to a constitution but it's just it's getting the hysteria is getting more and more with you see with each reaction the king makes everyone is is every every step he makes make it look like he's hurting his case more and more that he can actually be a tool of the people and you see this with the militarizing paris there and then the people are now looking to have to defend themselves right they're having to go storm to get weapons and now they need ammunition and it's just it's getting worse and they're the two sides are just seeing themselves further and further day by day a prison fortress and a symbol of royalty ranee towering over paris the Bastille mid-morning there the crowd gathered around the Bastille and demanded that the man in charge governor de Launay surrendered the prison and hand over the gunpowder obviously governor de l'année was like no way so he stoled for time by inviting a few members of the crowd in for negotiations the crowd still waiting outside quickly became impatient and before long they stormed the fortress taking on the French troops and inside your majesty we've received word that the people have surrounded the best deal governor de l'année will hold them off no need to worry actually your majesty over it appears the crowd is now headed away from the Bastille you see what did I tell you clearly governor de l'année has defeated them and has them on the run no need to worry your majesty isn't that governor delauneys head on a pike well yep clearly governor de l'année has taken on the form of a bodyless pike head baby people are so enamored with him they're parading him around the city no need to worry at Wembley heard of the storming of the Bastille as it's called here is a huge moment and in French history they're storming this place because it's it's it's it's his fortress right and it has a bad history amongst the public in in France this thing has been used I mean as originally made as a fort in medieval times and then it had been used like as a prison especially like a political prison from what I understand for people that were dissenters against the the monarchy and things like that and then in its current form was used I mean somewhat as a prison I think there were only a couple people even being in prison there but also as an Arsenal a place where weapons will be stored specifically remember these people are looking for gunpowder and they think that it is there so they go there demand to get let in fight ensues and they capture all the soldiers there I think I'm trying to remember the number of Parisians that were there nine hundred maybe a thousand or something correct me if I'm wrong there but this is a further try remember off the top of my head and they are able to take the place over they capture the guards and stuff there and basically begin beating the commander there and from I understand he was basically just like just just kill me and they obliged for sure yeah they kill the guy and yeah started they never I started here but definitely helped begin the great tradition of the French Revolution which is cutting people's heads off and they did that put it around a pike paraded around the Paris and just in Paris in this triumphant movement ironic story the idea again was to get gunpowder from the Bastille and there was none there was nothing but that is not going to stop the achievement that they they have made here and that is they have taken out this like symbol of tyranny which is what the Bastille was and after they actually started ripping it down they were taking bricks and ripping it apart almost like a Berlin wall kind of thing like ripping down this symbol and today Bastille Day is kind of the patriotic day you know for for French history here in July as well so this moment is very big and kind of seen as a symbol of the revolution and more importantly maybe a symbol to hopefully the end of tyranny and that's what they kind of rally around about behind Bastille Day about the violence that had taken place they had two options either one they denounce it and try to carry on the revolution using peaceful means or two they say damn you stuck his head on a pike that's pretty hardcore and we love her and she been due they went with option number two some historians believe this reaction paved the way for the utter violence and bloodshed that would become the legacy of the French Revolution with widespread acceptance of violence during the revolution is also largely crappy to condone around certain jean-paul Marat and men of science with a horrible skin condition that kept him confined to die so that he began writing a radical newspaper he affectionately named the friend of the people interesting citizens of France character be very afraid given the chance the king and the nobility won't hesitate to Massacre us all the solution is simple execute them kill every last one of them cut off a thousand heads and if that's not enough cut off a thousand more oh hey mr. squeaky what are you doing down there you're so cute oh I love you too mr. squeaky mmm now where was I Oh execute them kill them all it became one of the most popular publications in Paris during the Revolution I mean what an interesting dude here it's like this dude has the skin condition think of it it's like this super villain almost although it depends on which side of this conflict you're on if he's a pill or not dude as a skin condition and basically has to stay in a medicated baths like all the tire does it all the time so you have this guy writing up these vicious letters you know against the monarchy is dude sitting in a bath and they think he even lived and I want to say like underground even like and almost like sewers and stuff like this and this guy is the editor editor here for this very powerful revolutionary newsletter it's such an interesting story is I almost out of a movie with this guy's condition and everything and just the vitriol that's gonna come out and things that he puts him to pen they're just like put into action and you know if somebody needs to die you can put it out there and it gets carried out and very influential guy killed them all it became one of the most popular publications in Paris during the Revolution and succeeded in spreading ever increasing fear and anger among the people in August leaders of the National Assembly with help from a certain Thomas Jefferson adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the citizen of an incredible document that guaranteed Liberty in equal rights to all men and they bring in Jefferson because a lot of the wording and a lot of the things they're going to be asking for in this declaration were things that happen in the American in America revolution are to the declaration independence that Thomas Jefferson was the the lead author on so there's a lot of influence of the Declaration of Independence into the Declaration of the Rights of Man so you can see the American Revolution is is influencing this french revolution in different ways first it was the money France was spending on this right is gonna upset a lot of people but it's kind of interesting thing because it's like it's like the French people like I guess kind of proud of what the Americans have done but like they didn't want to pay for that pay for that war another war is that the American Revolution is over and you see America getting on its feet they're starting it's almost like take influence from the American Revolution so interesting the kind of interesting different roles the American Revolution played in this which is substantial one for sure when I say men I mean men despite its glaring shortcomings in gender equality the massively influential declaration I want to inspire the struggle for liberty and equality across the planet for centuries however back in France the vast majority of the people weren't really so concerned with enlightened ideas of equality as much as they were concerned with the fact that they were still starving bread was still expensive as hell and hard to come by the people felt that one reason nothing had been done yet about the crisis was because the king simply couldn't see the problem he lived in Versailles that full 20 kilometers southwest of Paris and as a result lived in comfort separated from answers most expensive palace until a crowd of woman seven thousand strong decided that do something on get him out of their house they decided they'd remove that separation and confront the kingdom back there the woman marched all the way to the king's palace in Versailles along the way the crowd continued to grow into the tens of thousands and when they arrived they demanded an audience with the car much led by women's things outside the palace there poor people your majesty that's poor people they say they're hungry hungry then let them eat cake Wow see this is the exact BS that led to this whole mess in the first place you're so at it with me cake probably never film breaking their back to barely scrape by and they come to you demanding just the basic ability to feed themselves and you think a slice of cake will sort them out well then let them eat talk about Crunchwrap supreme Wow they're not that desperate the members of the crowd actually managed to break into the palace with the intention of killing the queen who narrowly escaped through a secret passage in her bedroom the enraged mob killed several members of the Royal Guard and raised their heads on pikes which if that's what you do right what you do right but to come out and talk to the crowd he agreed to accept his new position sharing power with the Revolutionary Government and she's a Harris with the crowd removing the separation between King and subject King Louie had a problem with people constantly raiding his palace but one thing he didn't have a problem with was people raiding his computer because he used Nord VPN I love this run so they can get their sponsor check out network with over 5,000 servers in 60 countries it allows you to surf the net anonymous and safely with no / rough time for the king here I mean he's just slowly slowly losing power he's not helping themselves or maybe you watch a certain oversimplified video that for some reason has been blocked in your country well with Nord VPN you can done a video on a lot of those you like these over and my simplified videos put your other ones get north VPN now by clicking the link below Nord VPN comm / oversimplified and get an amazing 75% off that's only $2.99 per month with an additional month free for a limited time and you'll also be helping to support my channel so again that's Nord VPN comm / over simplified ok good we'll definitely watch part 2 and see how it goes it's definitely not ending well and now if you're a betting man you're probably not thinking it's going to end well for the King here but there's you know the the revolting parts of the revolute you know bolting is in [Music] staging revolts I mean that's when you look at the big picture that's the easy part right you can revolt right you can have revolutions you can do those things you can overtop or overthrow power and topple governments but the hard part is the next step right how do you create something stable that is going to work for a country as I don't know powerful I guess in a way that that France is with so many needs and it's so large and so powerful that's gonna be hard right that the the first part that's happening now that's the easy part in a way and they still have a lot of work to do before the government is actually potentially overthrown and again even at this point you you it's still a fairly radical opinion would be a very radical opinion to take this person completely out of power you know what I mean the constitutional monarchy thing is still probably the most popular one at this time that that you have a king that is still subject to some laws and giving more power to the people but of course those attitudes I mean they're gonna start to change and you're gonna see that I'm sure in part two when it just gets fur they get further and further of the idea that on monarchy is necessary at all and that that's a opinion that evolves over the over the years of the revolution because revolution takes a long time and to me it's a good ten years so yeah there's a lot of time for for opinions to change and things to change so all right well if you liked this video again make sure you visit the original video which I'll leave a link to the link to in the description keep your heads up for the part two video that I'm going to do which I hope to get to see and we'll go ahead and wrap this up so again thanks for dropping by today if you liked this idea of me commenting a history teacher commenting over historical videos be sure to subscribe and you'll definitely be seeing more of it here in the future alright thank you have a good day

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 814,851

Rating: 4.873673 out of 5

Keywords: react, history, french revolution

Id: 1acH6Ospstw

Length: 38min 3sec (2283 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2019