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2F The Sun King: Louis XIV, France and Europe, 1643–1715

French Society and Popular Unrest under Louis XIV

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  • Component 2

Overview

Recall questions on the orders of French society and the tax burden on the poor, pays d'états and pays d'élections, regional privileges, the famine of 1709, and the food riots and anti-tax revolts of the later reign.

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Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

How did regional diversity complicate royal administration in France?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How was French society formally divided under Louis XIV?

    Model answer

    Into three estates: clergy, nobility, and the Third Estate comprising everyone else from wealthy bourgeois to landless peasants.

  2. 2

    Why did the tax burden fall disproportionately on the peasantry and urban poor?

    Model answer

    Clergy and nobility retained significant exemptions from direct taxation.

  3. 3

    How did regional diversity complicate royal administration in France?

    Model answer

    Different provinces retained distinct legal systems, tax arrangements, and privileges (pays d'états versus pays d'élections).

  4. 4

    What distinguished pays d'états from pays d'élections?

    Model answer

    Pays d'états were provinces retaining their own estates (assemblies) with the right to negotiate taxation, while pays d'élections were administered directly by royal officials.

  5. 5

    Name three peripheral regions that retained strong local identities and privileges under Louis XIV.

    Model answer

    Brittany, Languedoc, and Provence.

  6. 6

    What typically triggered popular protests during Louis XIV's later reign?

    Model answer

    Increased taxation, food shortages, or military recruitment demands.

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