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"These principles, universally accepted by the nation, prove:

1. That sovereign power in his kingdom belongs to the king alone;

2. That he is accountable only to God for the exercise of supreme power;

3. That the link that unites the king and the nation is by nature indissoluble."

- King Louis' minister, Chretien Francois de Lamoignon (1787)

Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette:

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A 1789 engraving. Each character represents one of the Three Estates: can you guess which is which?

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"Man is born free. No man has any natural authority over others; force does not give anyone that right. The power to make laws belongs to the people and only to the people."

This quote comes from a 1775 pamphlet written by Jean Jacques Rousseau. It was banned by the French government.

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A 1789 cartoon. Did you know that, even though they were the richest, the first and second estates were exempt from paying most taxes?

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A 1789 painting. Each character represents one of the Three Estates: can you guess which is which? And what does the globe with a crown on top represent?

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Income and expenses of the French Royal Court in 1786. What did the king spend the most money on? What did the king spend the least money on?

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Archbishop of Paris: 50,000 livres

Marquis de Mainvillette: 20,000 livres

Prince de Conti: 14,000 livres

A Paris priest: 10,000 livres

A village priest: 750 livres

A master carpenter: 200 livres

A 6 livre coin is shown below. For reference, in 1750 a good pair of shoes cost 100 livres. Meanwhile, it cost Marie Antoinette 150,000 livres to renovate her garden.

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Marie Antoinette was the daughter of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. people didn't like her because she was Austrian, because she didn't behave like a proper queen, and because she spent lavishly.  Anti-Marie propoganda described her as faithless to her husband, cruel to her people, consumed by lust, and devoured by greed.

She purchased 300 new dresses each year, all for different parties and social gatherings

She hired a party planner who was paid 50,000 livres a year

She gave presents to her court favorites, to their spouses, lovers, parents, aunts and uncles, and friends (for instance, 800,000 livres for her employee's daughter’s wedding)

She gambled often and would lose 400,000 livres in a game of cards in one night

She built a small mock-village for herself in the grounds of Versailles in 1786

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Marie Antoinette - Shopping Scene (Sofia Coppola, 2006)

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France’s food supplies were affected by poor harvests in 1769, 1770, 1775 and 1776. In June 1783, the Laki volcano in Iceland began erupting and spewing ash, dust, and sulphur into the atmosphere. This eruption lasted months, clogging the skies over Europe and causing significant drops in temperature. France’s harvests in 1783 and 1784 were consequently poor, as were harvests across most of Europe. Then in 1785 and 1788, droughts caused more poor harvests. The winter that followed was the coldest in decades: northern France suffered constant freezing temperatures, ice and snow. Due to shortages and rising grain costs, poor laborers in 1789 had to spend 70-90 percent of their daily earnings on bread.

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Portrait of the Royal Family of France, 1782 (anonymous artist).

Marie Antoinette holds her son as her husband, Louis XVI, gazes into her eyes.

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"The present period in France is critical. The want of bread is terrible: accounts arrive every moment from the provinces of riots and disturbances and calling in the military to preserve the peace of the markets. The prices reported are the same as I found at Abbeville and Amiens – five sous a pound for white bread, and three-and-a-half to four sous for the common sort eaten by the poor. These rates are beyond their ability to pay and cause great misery."
- Arthur Young

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“The French country is a heap of ashes. Grass is scarcely to be seen and all sorts of grain is short, thin, pale and feeble, while the flax is quite dead… I pity this people from my soul… No green peas, no salad, no vegetables to be had upon the road, and the sky is still as clear, dry and cold as ever. The flocks of sheep and herds of cattle stalk about the fields like droves of walking skeletons.”

- John Adams, US diplomat visiting France, 1775

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"I was joined by a poor woman who complained of the times. Her husband had only a morsel of land, one cow and a poor horse. But they

had to pay 20kg of wheat and three chickens as feudal dues to one lord, and 60kg of oats, one chicken and five pence to another, along with very heavy taxes to the king’s tax

collectors: “The taxes and feudal dues are crushing us.”'

From the book "Travels in France" by Arthur Young, published in 1792 but written during 1787-1790.

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A painting by Louis-Léopold Boilly from 1787 showing a well-off family from the Bourgeoisie (the middle class). Although some of the bourgeoisie were as rich as nobles, they paid high taxes and, like the rest of the Third Estate, lacked privileges.

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A painting by Etienne Aubry from 1775 showing a family of town workers. About 2 million people worked in towns – for example, shopkeepers, traders, craftsmen, builders and laborers.

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"Who then shall dare to say that the Third Estate has not within itself all that is necessary for the formation of a complete nation? ... If the the nobility should be abolished, the nation would be nothing less, but something more. Therefore, what is the Third Estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an everything free and flourishing."

Abbe Sieyes, 1789