The Outbreak of the Revolution

People interpreted the deployment of royal troops around Paris as preparation to suppress the National Assembly and the public by force. It heightened fear, rumours and tension, and encouraged people to search for weapons, helping create the background to the attack on the Bastille. Bread shortages caused anger too, but troops did not lower bread prices. Exam tip: Link the troop deployment in July 1789 with fear of royal repression.

Rising bread prices worsened the hardship of poor and working people, while the presence of troops around Paris created fear that the monarchy would suppress the people. Hunger and fear together intensified popular anger and created a revolutionary situation; in this tense atmosphere, the Bastille was attacked on 14 July 1789. Rather than increasing support for the king, these conditions deepened distrust of him. Exam tip: In the French Revolution, the bread crisis was both an economic hardship and a cause of political unrest.

People were searching for weapon material. But the symbolic meaning of Bastille was equally important.

The Bastille was a fortress-prison in Paris, and only a small number of prisoners were released when it was captured on 14 July 1789. Its historical importance therefore cannot be measured simply by the number of inmates. The fortress represented the king’s arbitrary authority, because imprisonment there could be associated with royal orders rather than a transparent legal process. Its fall showed that ordinary people could challenge and defeat a visible instrument of absolutism. Option A captures this symbolic and political significance. The National Convention belonged to a later phase, so B is anachronistic. C and D have no historical connection with the Bastille.

Keeping or selling pieces of the Bastille as souvenirs shows that its fall on 14 July 1789 was not seen merely as the demolition of a prison. It became a powerful public symbol of the people’s victory over absolute monarchy and of the French Revolution. Option B is the closest opposite idea: souvenirs preserve remembrance rather than show that an event was forgotten. Exam tip: link the fall of the Bastille with popular revolt against absolutist monarchy.

State legitimacy depends on whether people accept the authority of political institutions and rulers as rightful. In 1789, the Bastille stood in the public imagination for arbitrary royal imprisonment and the coercive power of the Old Regime. Its capture was therefore more than a military incident: it demonstrated that Parisian crowds no longer accepted the unquestioned authority of the monarchy and were prepared to act politically themselves. Option A best expresses this link between popular action and weakened legitimacy. Option B is false because the attack was not ordered by the king. Option C misidentifies the building, while D incorrectly denies its relationship with royal authority.

Rumours turned fear into action. In rural society this was political energy against feudal power.

Peasants burned feudal records because these documents recorded the nobles' rights to collect dues, demand unpaid labour, and enforce other obligations. Destroying them directly challenged feudal dues and noble privileges. Church prayer books, by contrast, were religious texts rather than legal evidence of feudal claims. Exam tip: link peasant revolts during the French Revolution with opposition to the feudal system.

On 14 July 1789, Parisians attacked the Bastille partly because they feared that royal troops would suppress revolutionary activity; they also sought arms and gunpowder. During the Great Fear, rural people reacted to rumours of brigands or an aristocratic conspiracy by attacking manor houses and burning feudal records. Thus, fear prompted popular direct action in both events. Option B is incorrect because neither event was organised on the king's orders; both were popular reactions. Exam tip: remember the Bastille as urban popular action and the Great Fear as rural peasant action.

During the summer of 1789, rural unrest spread through the countryside. Peasants attacked manor houses, resisted feudal payments and destroyed documents recording dues and obligations. This pressure made it difficult for the National Assembly to preserve the old feudal order. On the night of 4 August, the Assembly formally announced the abolition of many feudal privileges and obligations, converting popular pressure into an institutional decision. Option A is correct because it identifies both the pressure and the legislative response. Option B is unrelated, while C reverses the role of the Assembly and Church. D is impossible because the measures weakened feudal monarchy rather than creating a new one.

Feudal privileges were linked with social and economic inequality in villages. Their end changed the balance of power.

Both events were against the old privilege society. One was social reform and the other ideological declaration.

In estate society, the First and Second Estates enjoyed privileges by birth, while the Third Estate bore a heavier tax burden. The Declaration’s principle of equality before the law challenged these birth-based privileges, making it dangerous to the old estate system. The divine right of kings supported monarchy rather than equality. Exam tip: In the French Revolution, link equality with the abolition of privileges and equality before the law.

The women’s march to Versailles began with a serious daily problem: the shortage and high price of bread. However, the women did not keep this demand separate from politics. By marching to Versailles, they brought their complaint directly before the king and demanded action from the royal government. Their movement therefore connected household hardship with questions of authority and public responsibility.

Option A expresses this connection accurately. The women were not merely spectators, and the bread crisis was not outside politics; food supply depended greatly on government decisions and royal power. The king also did not organize the march. The event shows that ordinary social and economic problems could develop into direct political struggle during the Revolution.

Versailles was the royal centre, physically and politically separated from the people of Paris. Bringing Louis XVI and his family to Paris after the October 1789 events reduced that distance. The king was now nearer to crowds, revolutionary authorities and the institutions developing in the capital. This did not mean that the people automatically controlled every royal decision, but it made public pressure and observation much stronger. The event therefore symbolised the decline of royal independence and the rising influence of the people of Paris. Option A gives this meaning.

The question asks for a political symbol, not simply a change of residence. A move from Versailles to Paris placed the monarchy in the capital where popular demonstrations and revolutionary politics were concentrated. It showed that the king could no longer remain apart from the forces demanding change. Options B, C and D either reverse the event or introduce claims not represented by it. Thus the correct conclusion is that royal authority came closer to popular scrutiny and pressure.

The women’s march to Versailles in October 1789 was triggered by the shortage and high price of bread, so food was an important immediate concern. Nevertheless, the march developed into a political action. Thousands of women travelled to Versailles, demanded bread and accountability, and forced the king and royal family to return to Paris. Their action brought the monarchy physically closer to the people and increased public control over it. Option A is correct because it connects an everyday economic grievance with pressure on political authority. The march did not elect the National Convention or begin the 1792 war.

These institutions showed the political and security role of urban citizens. Link them with local power.

The National Guard was a citizen militia and Lafayette was its major face. See it between revolution and control.

The attack on the Bastille and the destruction of feudal records represent different forms of revolutionary action. In Paris, an urban crowd attacked a fortress associated with royal authority and sought arms and political security. In the countryside, peasants targeted documents that recorded feudal dues and obligations, expressing opposition to landlord privileges. Taken together, these events show that the Revolution was not confined to debates among court officials or educated representatives. It involved both city crowds and rural communities, although their immediate aims differed. Option A is therefore correct. B and D deny urban politics, while C ignores the important role of peasants in challenging feudalism.

France certainly faced a serious fiscal crisis in 1789. War debts, an inefficient tax system and the privileged classes’ resistance to taxation weakened the monarchy’s finances. However, financial difficulty alone does not explain the breadth and intensity of the Revolution. The calling of the Estates-General raised questions about representation and political sovereignty; high bread prices and unemployment created popular anger; rural fear encouraged attacks on feudal records; and Enlightenment ideas challenged inherited privilege. Option A is correct because it presents this connected set of causes. B denies a real crisis, while C and D contradict the political structure and chronology of France in 1789.