Culture
Awakening of the Third Estate
With the Bastille being destroyed in the background, a member of the Third Estate breaks his shackles. Here, the clergy and nobility recoil in fear, thereby emphasizing the conflict between the estates during the French Revolution.
Reunion
This piece of crockery further demonstrates the sentiments of social unity so prevalent at the 1790 Festival of Federation celebrating the French Revolution. The crossed sword, pike, clerical staff, and bonnet symbolize the union of the nobility, peasants, clergy, and workers, respectively.
Through Me You Are All Brothers
Reflecting the sentiments of the French Revolution, this image shows the three orders unified by religion. The Virgin standing at right in a cloud holds a cross from which rays emanate to three figures representing the clergy, nobility, and Third Estate.
General Federation of the French
This image provides a visual overview of the Festival of Federation of 14 July 1790.
Source Collection: Social Causes of the French Revolution
Instead of bringing unity and a quick, political resolution to the questions of 1789, as intended by its originators, the Revolution was producing further conflicts. What had happened? Had the revolutionaries expected too much?
The Joyous Accord
This allegorical image represents the sentiments of social unity that the National Assembly sought to promote through the Festival of the Federation of 14 July 1790 during the French Revolution.
Tension between Rich and Poor
The Marquis de Mirabeau, a well–educated nobleman, worried about the migration of French nobles to the cities and the passing of lands into the hands of "new men," wealthy commoners without a sense of paternal obligation toward the peasants on that land.
Scandal at the Church: José de Alfaro Accuses Doña Theresa Bravo and Others of Insulting and Beating His Castiza Wife, Joséfa Cadena (Mexico, 1782)
Systems of honor in colonial Mexico meant that insults were more than just Swords. Utterances that defamed men and women of good reputation had to be answered or the slight to their personal status within the community would be permanent.
Beaumarchais’s Understandings of Inequality
Like his predecessors of earlier generations, playwright Pierre–Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais—who became an important figure of the late Enlightenment because of the controversy surrounding his work The Marriage of Figaro [1784]—believed that a truly rational society would not tolerate