Chapter 17 Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes (pg. 504-507)

In 1789, Act Two in the drama of the Atlantic revolutions took place in France. It was closely connected to Act One in North America. It consisted of representatives of three "estates", or legal orders, of pre-revolutionary France: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. Representatives of the Third Estate soon organized themselves as the National Assembly, with the sole authority to make laws for the country. That revolution was quite different from its North American predecessor. Members of the titles nobility-privileged, prestigious, and wealthy-resented and resisted the monarchy's efforts to subject them to new taxes. Ordinary urban residents, many of whose incomes had declined for a generation, were particularly hard hit in the late 1780s by the rapidly rising price of bread and widespread unemployment. More radical revolutionary leaders deliberately sought to convey a sense of new beginnings. The Cathedral of Notre Dame was temporarily turned into the Temple of Reason, while a "Hymn to Liberty" combined traditional church music with the explicit message of Enlightenment.