Absolutism And The French Revolution

The French revolution originated as a result of philosophical ideas and periods like the Reformation, Absolutism, and the Enlightenment. During the eighteenth century, France went through a period of turmoil. The French people 8much of the money and power, while they were left to suffer in poverty. A combination of ideas and changes were necessary to achieving a revolution. The Reformation movement was created when Martin Luther published his 95 Theses, debating how the church was run. Absolutism was created when money was being managed so badly that peasants were completely fed up. The Enlightenment was a great period of philosophic development when the French people wanted to progress and make new achievements.
During the Reformation, the
The period began when Isaac Newton published his Principia. This introduced the fundamental ideas of gravity. A fundamental new idea was that, “Nothing was to be accepted on faith; everything was to be submitted to rationalism, a secular, critical way of thinking” (Reading 11). A key example of this is how science’s view of the solar system changed. Using logic, and not observation, Newton determined that the sun couldn’t possibly orbit the earth. He got rid of the old terra-centric view of the world. The heliocentric model was created, and the fact that there were elliptical orbits was announced. Denis Diderot produced the first mass-printed bible. This was significant for several reasons. The first such reason is that prior to the Enlightenment, almost all bibles were held by the clergy, or by very rich people. But, now that bibles were easier to obtain, the middle class could have access to the sacred text, which allowed them to question God and to question religion. Next, and perhaps more importantly, the ability to read had also been something that was only held by the clergy or upper class. But, now that there was a new wave of middle-class people that educated their children in the way that they imaged the nobles did. Pierre Bayle produced the first mass produced Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia was crucial to easily disseminating knowledge. As people could read, they began to question. Lending libraries helped people learn, and question even more. The Edict of Nance, which had been laid out by Prince Henry, protected religious freedom. However, Louis XIV, the king of the day, wanted to remove the Edict of Nance. Bayle was a Huguenot. He had a well-publicized feud with Louis XIV. Louis XIV was Catholic but persecuted Huguenots. Using one of the new concepts of the day, pure logic and reason, Bayle said that it