The Age of Revolutions July is still celebrated as Bastille Day or the French National Day in France. National Assembly The fall of Bastille emboldened the National Assembly to abolish feudalism in the country. Shaken by the turn of events, the king also accepted the formation of a national assembly. The Church was asked to forego its privileges and abolish the tithe.
In , the National Assembly drafted the constitution by which the powers of the king were limited. It also proposed to have three different organs: executive, legislative and judiciary. The members of the National Assembly were indirectly elected by a group of electors. The electors were voted by the male citizens, who were above years of age and who paid taxes.
Thus the majority of the citizens did not get voting rights. Constitution Making The National Constituent Assembly prepared the constitution. On August the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was adopted. It subordinated the monarchy to the rule of law and defined individual and collective rights.
It maintained that no person shall be accused, arrested or imprisoned except in those cases established by the law (clause ); and insisted that taxation could only be raised by common consent (clause ). Thomas Jefferson’s influence is clearly discernible in clause , which declares that, ‘Men are born and remain free and equal in rights’. Women played a significant role in the French revolution. Women from the poorer areas of Paris marched on Versailles supported by , armed men.
They broke into the palace and forced the king to return with them to Paris, where he was kept under public surveillance. Many women were politically active. Olympe de Gouges was dissatisfied with the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, as it excluded women. She wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen, arguing for equality for women.
Women’s March on Versailles War against Austria and Prussia While the king agreed to the constitutional monarchy on one hand, on the other he was