Thoughts and Reflections on: Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens. Questions

Ben Howson
World History 2 per. 3
Thoughts and Reflections
12/5/14

How is the French Revolution and this document in particular a product of the Enlightenment?

Many of the enlightenment thinkers were from France, during the time of the French Revolution, and in a way, the French Revolution its self was an idea from the enlightenment. The document that we read, talks about the laws that were put into play during the French Revolution, and even though most of these laws weren't necessarily great, they were still the ideas of people in the enlightenment. The French Revolution was all about ideas, people standing up saying what they believed in, throwing their ideas in the air for every one to see. They didn't use all of them, but the ones in which they all agreed on came into play in their every day lives. So both the French Revolution and this document are a product of the enlightenment, because they both contain the ideas of the people, both good and bad, right and wrong, but still the ideas of the people.

    


In light of this document how can one see some of the events of the French Revolution as Shocking?

People can see some events of the French Revolution as shocking, because of the laws in which they passed during the enlightenment. The French Revolution was meant to be all about the rights of the people, and laws were meant to protect these people by giving them rights. But this didn't happen at first in the French Revolution. Instead the French government passed laws about what punishment, or death you would receive if you were to break a law. The new laws in which they made, instead of helping the people giving them their rights, they instead laid down laws of punishment, and a lot of these laws were really quite unfair. Due to these new outrageous laws, the people became outraged, putting France in a place of darkness for quite some time. Riots started, hugger came along, and basically France was in a time of death. But that was not meant to happen, the laws should have stopped the blood, but instead they just created more of it. This is why people see some parts of the French Revolution as shocking, and honestly I totally agree with them.