Enlightenment French Revolution

The 1789 document the Rights of Man and Citizen was written by the National Assembly of France, which consisted of mostly wealthy bourgeoisies of the third estate. The remaining members of the third estate, the peasants and sans-culottes, therefore did not have much say in what was being addressed to the public. Enlightenment ideas such as popular sovereignty and civic equality, advocated by all three groups of the estate, is apparent in the statement. Although this was a step in the right direction for all members of the third estate, the bourgeoisies and peasants benefited more from this document than the sans-culottes. However, the sans-culottes’ need of equality and a political reorganization was addressed by the National Assembly of France. The Great Cat Massacre gives an insight to the lives of the sans-culottes in 1730s Paris, France. These apprentices were mistreated by their masters, who they wanted respect from. The sans-culottes were the poorest of the third-estate and suffered from lack of sleep, eating cat food, and undesirable living conditions. Due to the decrease of
In article six of the declaration, there was influence from the Enlightenment philosophe Rousseau with his idea of the general will. That is, in order for individuals to feel free they needed to obey the rulings of the majority . This thinking advocated the idea of a democracy, which was mentioned previously in article three: “The sources of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation; no body, no individual can exercise authority that does not proceed from it in plain terms ”. The idea of a “nation” was also from Rousseau. His ideas essentially focused on equality among the nation: if there are no estates, then there is not inequality. Or, no one estate or person could control the decisions of the country so that all individuals would be equal before the