| Term | Definition |
| Louis XVI | French monarch during French Revolution; he was guillotined in 1794 |
| popular sovereignty | the concept that political power is derived from the people |
| social contract theory | states that people enter into a contract with those who govern them when they elect them and that they may REVOLT if their rights are not upheld |
| John Locke | outlined social contract theory in Two Treatises on Government |
| Baron de Montesquieu | Spirit of the Laws; argued for separation of powers |
| bourgeoisie | well-educated middle class |
| 1st Estate | corporate body comprised of the clergy |
| 2nd Estate | corporate body composed of the nobility |
| 3rd Estate | corporate body composing 97% of French population |
| Estates General | body comprised of three French estates |
| cahiers de doleances | “notebooks” of complaints brought by delegates to Estates General |
| What is the Third Estate? | by Abbe Sieyes; said nobility was tiny and overprivileged
and Third Estate was truly representative of French people |
| Oath of the Tennis Court | said National Assembly would not disband until they had written a constitution |
| Bastille | prison stormed by Parisians to gain weapons |
| Declaration of the Rights of Man | passed by the National Assembly; promoted equality before the law, representative govt, individual freedoms |
| Edmund Burke | wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790); father of modern conservatism |
| Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) | pamphlet that criticized the French Revolution as too radical |
| Mountain | most radical members of the Jacobin Club |
| Jacobins | political club that supported the Revolution |
| Committee of Public Safety | created by the Mountain faction to radicalize the Revolution |
| sans-culottes | radical, left-wing members of the lower-class |
| Robespierre | leader of the Mountain faction of Jacobins; later guillotined |
| Seven Years' War | war in which Britain defeated France and thus became most powerful European nation; Britain gained Canada and parts of India |
| levee en masse | term that referred to mass conscription of French soldiers who fought for revolutionary ideas |
| Olympe de Gouges | Argued that equality before the law didn’t exist for women; wrote Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizen |
