How Do People's Rights Change During The French Revolution

King Louis XVI was the absolute king of France, and his wife Marie Antoinette lived in luxury in their palace of Versailles, while the people of France lived in extreme poverty. In 1789 he decided to call the Estates-General, a gathering which includes three different estates, the clergy, the nobility and the third estate which consisted of poor people and the middle class. The King locked the Third Estate out of the Estates-General, so its members created the Tennis Court Oath, swearing that they would not stop until a new constitution had been agreed upon, in which caused a revolution. Shortly thereafter, the assembly released the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which established a limited, constitutional monarchy. However, peace soon ended and they established a new government known as the National Convention it first focused on declaring France a Republic. The convention tried and executed Louis XVI by beheading him, but this only made France’s enemies more angry. Therefore, Maximilien Robespierre and his followers took control. After, Robespierre was killed it then changed into a military dictatorship. During this revolution, people’s rights increased as the government changed to a constitutional
An example of this is in the Declaration of the Rights of Man were it states, “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights; social distinctions can be established only for the common benefit” (Source 1). This quote exemplifies the first stage of the French Revolution and illustrates the rights of people, in which the National Assembly wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Constitution of 1791. The main goal of the Declaration of the Rights of Man is that it gave men the right to vote for all other public offices. This relates back to the quote because it illustrates how men are free and have equal