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Europe in the Age of Absolutism and Revolution c.1682-1815

The structure of the French state: crown, finance and Church

  • 3 things to know
  • AS Unit 1

Overview

Three estates of the realm in France, gabelle and why was it hated and corvée royale.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What were the three estates of the realm in France?

Key term

Roughly what proportion of the French population belonged to the privileged orders?

Key term

What was the gabelle and why was it hated?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What were the three estates of the realm in France?

    Model answer

    The clergy as the first estate, the nobility as the second, and everyone else from wealthy merchants to landless labourers as the third.

  2. 2

    Roughly what proportion of the French population belonged to the privileged orders?

    Model answer

    Well under two per cent, the clergy and nobility together numbering a few hundred thousand out of some twenty-seven million people.

  3. 3

    What was the taille?

    Model answer

    The chief direct tax on land or income, from which nobles and clergy were largely exempt, so that it fell overwhelmingly on the peasantry.

  4. 4

    What was the gabelle and why was it hated?

    Model answer

    The salt tax, which forced households in many provinces to buy a fixed quantity at a fixed price, and which varied so much between regions that smuggling was endemic.

  5. 5

    What was the vingtième?

    Model answer

    A tax of a twentieth on income introduced to fund war, intended to fall on all landowners but eroded by exemptions and negotiated settlements.

  6. 6

    What was the corvée royale?

    Model answer

    Unpaid compulsory labour owed by peasants for building and repairing roads, commutable for a money payment in some provinces.

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AUniversal male suffrage was kept.
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Wilhelm II succeeded in 1888 and dismissed Bismarck in 1890.
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