WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -the Enlightenment ideas of natural rights and the social contract appealed to the third estate. The revolution began when the government voted for more taxes. This was unfair to the third estate b/c they had little voting power. They withdrew from the government and started a new one called the National Assembly.

Detailed explanation-2: -Impact. The ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789 and emphasized the rights of common men as opposed to the exclusive rights of the elites. As such, they laid the foundation for modern, rational, democratic societies.

Detailed explanation-3: -The philosophes (French for ‘philosophers’) were writers, intellectuals and scientists who shaped the French Enlightenment during the 18th century. The best known philosophes were Baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot.

Detailed explanation-4: -Due to a variety of factors, including poor harvests, in 1789 itself there was a 25% fall in real wages and an 88% increase in the price of bread. This resulted in anger at the establishment, that is the aristocracy and the King, who were perceived as being to blame for the economic crisis.

Detailed explanation-5: -The French who had direct contact with the Americans were able to successfully implement Enlightenment ideas into a new political system. The National Assembly in France even used the American Declaration of Independence as a model when drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789.

Detailed explanation-6: -The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as natural law, liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.