[Music] so what ends up happening is the Estates General pretty much collapses and the Third Estate is so ticked off they decide you know we're not even going to be a part of this mess anymore and they go off and form what they declare themselves to be the National Assembly now keep in mind this is without the king's permission they just say we're the National Assembly we represent the nation of France and so we're no longer the Third Estate we don't have a label we don't have a number and you know what clergy and nobility we would like for you to join us and there are a few of the clergy and nobility that are like hey you know what I I don't like my number anyway it's not my lucky number we'll just give them up and we'll go join this National Assembly but then there are other clergy and nobility that are holding back either because they don't want to or like uh the Marquee de lafette who was just waiting for the king's permission so now you've got this National Assembly and then the first estate the second estate the people who aren't there are like well what do we do so once again confusion is raining at this meeting of the Estates General now Louie has to respond in the stupidest way possible instead of being decisive keep in mind Louis the 14th if somebody had tried this nonsense he would have put a stop to this right then but Louis the 16th three days later the delegates get uh to their chamber where they'd been meeting and got a lock on it they've been locked out this thing is closed Louis saying you better swerve but he won't just come out and say it uh so you know they're sitting there and they're thinking well what are we going to do well we're going to go somewhere else we'll show him and they go to a tennis court uh what we call a tennis court what may or may not have been quite the same thing if you want to get all technical but they go to a place where tennis or a sport like it was played and they swear an oath and the oath that they're going to swear is that they are not going to adjourn until they have given France a constitution whoa did somebody just say Constitution yes keep in mind that France was an absolute monarchy there was no Constitution so the National Assembly deciding look at this point we are going to adopt a constitution for France that is going to organize our government and set limits to the king's power and here is is jacqu Louie deid depiction of the tennis court of keep in mind he wasn't snapping a picture or anything like that D is imagining this and if you look here if you kind of listen what do you hear maybe I can imagine a DJ or something it's kind of got the atmosphere of a dance party like everybody's like whoa sort of thing here and uh then if you look here you know people are raising their hands they're swearing an oath and and there is a focal point at the front of this painting where you see these three people dressed differently and they have their arms around each other they are joining together these three people represent the three Estates the clergy the nobility and everyone else so this painting here is kind of a French memory of what this was now I imagine this was probably a little more dignified quiet than what we've got uh you know here that it looks like like hey you know we're having a dance party or something like that but keep in mind that the French have kind of a chaotic memory of their Revolution whereas if you contrast this to the Declaration of Independence everybody's all dignified we're Americans we're such dignified people and our Revolution was uh really uh yeah classy like the Ron bergundy of revolutions or something like that Stay classy America this was probably a little less dignified than it's portrayed and then this French Tennis Court Oath was probably a little bit more dignified than it was portrayed so Lou is kind of like fine whatever he doesn't really see a way out of this or at least a way that he can decisively put this down and so Louie recognizes the National Assembly as the lawmaking body and he says first second estate go and join them now while with one side of his mouth Lou saying hey everybody go to the National Assembly that's the new lawmaking body out of the other side of his mouth he's saying hey bring some troops over here we might need them now this is the worst possible decision Louie could have made because on one hand if you are going going to bring troops you better be ready to use them when I was taking concealed carry training the instructor said never pull out your firearm unless you are ready to use it so keep that in mind you're not just going to pull a gun out of parking lot and like hey you know I might use this I might not uh with an army same thing don't bring an army out unless you plan to use it so if you're going to bring the Army to Versailles don't have him just sitting there disperse this meeting but Louis is not decisive enough to do that Louie instead as these guys camped out well what's the uh National Assembly thinking well this is intended to be used on us so it is contributing to the distrust between Louie and these delegates of what's now the National Assembly meanwhile in Paris you take a look here we've got kind of like when you're looking at a pool of water and something drips into it and it spreads out so what's going on at Versailles is going to start making waves throughout France so you're going to see this ripple effect here and in Paris they find out what is going on there that the Army is at Versa and they look at the Bas steel which had been a symbol of tyranny in France before the time of the French Revolution this from back in the Middle Ages and some prisoners were kept here not a lot of prisoners and most of the people there deserved to be there I think there were less than 20 prisoners in the whole place one of them being the Marquee deade who was uh crazy and a pervert uh he wrote all kinds of uh really scandalous stuff and they were like we need to put this guy away good decision well speaking of this crazy guy the Marquees deade the people of Paris are kind of going going along their their business and they're kind of paranoid about what's happened at Versailles well the Marquee deade decides to shout out uh according to one story they're killing all the prisoners and so people out there they hear this crazy guy they don't know he's crazy they just hear somebody saying they're killing all the prisoners in here all 15 of them all of whom really deserve to be there uh the French imagined that there were a bunch of political prisoners in the Bas steel that really wasn't the case these were you know various criminals and perverts and people like that but it's enough to get things going and on July 14th 1789 this mob this Urban mob gets together and storms the Basel so 1789 is a year to remember but also July 14th not July 4th just put a one in front of it and there you have the day if we had to put a day on the French Revolution this is bastile day which is still a holiday on the French calendar when this mob goes to the Basel storms the place um finds the commander cuts his head off and puts the guy's head on a pole and starts just kind of walking around with it like oh look uh that sort of thing that's bastile day so that's what's happening in Paris well the Rippling is going on and even reverberating through the countryside where there is a grain shortage so on top of everything else there have been some bad Harvest everything's really going wrong at the same time which is the reason why this French Revolution gets as crazy as it does but there was a grain shortage well why is there a grain shortage H could it be an aristocratic plot you know the aristocrats like hey let's starve the people in the countryside that would be fun what a splendid idea she says and this causes what's known as the fear which is a massive peasant Revolt um in the French Countryside and it's like oops uh yeah the aristocrats weren't really serious about that in fact they didn't even say that this just something people were thinking and imagining and uh what happens here is this National Assembly decides that they have to respond and they respond with the decrees of August 4th which abolished the quote unquote feudal system now feudalism keep in mind is a ter term applied backwards by historians to talk about this form of government Society from the Middle Ages where Nobles got special privileges so the National Assembly abolishes several of these privileges for Nobles including feudal dues taxes that uh peasants had to pay to Nobles also abolish Noble special hunting rights there were animals that could not be killed by somebody who was not known Noble also if a nobleman was chasing a fox or something through your property if the fox runs onto your property the noble had the right to go there and uh just chase the fox even if he goes through your crops and ruins them you did not have any property rights because the nobleman's privileged to hunt Trump that and also gets rid of tax exemptions for the nobility so with these uh decrees the National Assembly says look we've abolished feudalism whatever that was and y'all can stop rioting now [Music] [Music] in the next segment we'll talk about the Declaration of the Rights of Man the citizen and the role of liberalism in these early stages of the French Revolution so stay tuned for that if you want to move on go ahead and click there or else until next time [Music]