Clilstore Facebook WA Linkedin Email
Login

This is a Clilstore unit. You can link all words to dictionaries.

THE CRISIS OF THE OLD REGIME AND PRE-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE

 

 

THE CRISIS OF THE OLD REGIME

 

1-Which do you think is the meaning of Old Regime?, How people lived in the 18th century?, They lived in the countryside or in cities?, who held the highest political power?,  Do you think people participated in government?

Arrange yourselves into groups of five and decide which of the following terms refers to the old regime, and why:  rationalism, freedom of thinking, absolute power, secularism, dogmatism, privileges

2-Now go to audio presentation, click on flash cards, select "Start with Both Sides" and try to listen to the audio and read the text at the same time.

3-Have you understood the core of the audio ?  Could you identify the bases of the Old Regime? 

4-Now, go to the text below to re-read it, and look for the meaning of unfamiliar words.

 

TRANSCRIPTION

a.People focused on the past more than the future due to a desire to restore rights they felt had been lost in recent times.
b.Hierarchy and Privilege:
1Traditional hierarchy was very much intact.
2.Individual rights did not exist, your rights were based on your community and they could vary.

a.Made up only 5% of European population.
b.They enjoyed privilege well out of relevance to this %.

a. preserve their exclusiveness making it more difficult to become a noble

b. upper ranks in military and church just for nobility

c. use aristocratically owned institutions against monarchies (parlements)

d. improve financial positions (no taxes)

a-Had to pay feudal dues to landowners and perform corvée (forced labor) a certain amount of days per year.
b.-.Had to rent mill and oven time.

 

5-Now in pairs summarize the main ideas. Write a sentence of no more than 30 words with the lesson keys , in order to make a common list for the whole class.

 

ASSESSMENT

Go to Multiple choice test and check what you know. 

 

FALL OF THE OLD REGIME. ENLIGHTENMENT IDEAS. PRE-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE  

 

1-Now that you know the main features of the Old Regime, we will delve into the causes and consequences of the crash.Think words that could define the Old Regime.

2-click on the text, read it and then complete the writing frame.

This text is related to ..................  I have learned that......................I think it is especially interesting that...........   This is important to me because.............   I have learned that the term Enlightenment describes............and in one sense it is............ The injustices visible everywhere in the world are seen as................The passion of the Enlightenment for the improvement and reform of society makes it an important element of................Educational theories.................The passion of the Enlightenment for the improvement and reform of society makes it............

Now in small groups (2 or 5 participants)  analyze and discuss the main differences between Medieval ideas and Enlightened. Which are your conclussions?

3-Read this brief introduction about the book Arthur Young’s Travels in France during the years 1787, 1788, 1789.

“Arthur Young was an 18thC pioneer in the detailed observation of economic conditions in the countryside and the collection of statistical data relating to agriculture. He was extraordinarily lucky in being in France on the eve of and during the early part of the French Revolution. In his dairies he gives close observations of the social, political and economic conditions of the French countryside as it was convulsed by violent revolution. “

Now watch and listen to the video What was life in pre-Revolutionary France. It is based on the book where the English writer reflects his impressions. 

4-Read the transcription of the video below and search for the words you do not know.

“The town at the line is flourishing, the buildings are in good repair. The place on the whole is cheerful and the environs pleasing”. That’s Arthur Young believed. Not very revealing, no clues there is to why France would erupt in Revolt. But he headed out into the countryside and pretty soon he put his finger on the problems of pre-revolutionary France.” I had imagined that nobody but farmers and labourers lived in the country, but I was wrong. My first journey showed me a score of country states, they were furnished with great expense, it all around of pitiful scenes: miserable housing, peasants like walking downhills. From my splendid luxury to misery in mud cabins”
It's a pretty grim image, was it true?
Well, it is a fact eighty percent of people in pre-revolutionary France were peasants. A few of they owned land, most of other people had to pay half what they produced to the local landowner. After the taxes paid to the state and to the church, there wasn't much left.
Meanwhile the nobles in their castles didn’t pay taxes at all, that was their privilege. The theory was they fought for the king in times of war and they paid their tax in blood. By the 1780s that old idea was out-of-date, and anyway the honor system was corrupt. If you had money you could buy lands and titles, you could buy privilege. So the rich got richer and the poor got poorer literally.
In the fifty years before 1789 prices and rents rose by a half, wages went up just a quarter. People were hungry. Some was starving.
Young thought this was a disgrace. He was a farmer; he was familiar with the latest farming techniques used in England to increase food production, but is in the French nobility not knowing their responsibilities.
The great lords loved too much their forests, their woods, their hunts. Think they will be bothered to manage their farms properly, look after the peasants, defined fields wasted.
Whole State was no better than a desert. “If I were the King of France for a day I would made these Lords jump”.
And then there was the Church. The Church too was immensely rich, and like the nobility, members at the church were privileged, they didn't pay taxes either.
This is Saint Germain ,was the richest Abbey in France. The Abbot earned 300.000 pounds a year, a fortune in those days.
Arthur Young came here to admire the pillars of African marble, and the extravagance he witnessed stuck in his throat.
“I lose my patience at the abusive of such wealth, just a quarter of this would establish a noble farm. What turnips! what cabbages! and are not these things better than a fat priest?”
Privilege and poverty, that's how Young sums it up.
This print makes the same point, the nobility and the clergy riding on the backs of the peasantry. And Young could feel the rising tide resentment, the call for a full heroism. A current of men amongst all ranks of men all together for change. But, how would change come? With no Parliament, no elections. Who had the power to push the reform?

 

Now listen to the video again (you are allowed to read the transcription at the same time), and then complete the sentences with the right word from the list: soon, At all, clues, taxes, tide, poorer,pleasant, his, on, peasants, got, change, hungry

Arthur Young believed that life in France was........There were no........why France would erupt in Revolt. Pretty........he put......finger.....the problems of pre-revolutionary France. Eighty percent of people in pre-revolutionary France were.......... They had to pay........ to the state and to the church. Nobles didn’t pay taxes.........The rich.......richer and the poor got........People were......... Young could feel the rising...... resentment. How would......  come?

5-Taking into account what you have learned in the module, write a collaborative text with your predictions about what may happen in France. Try to answer these questions: Imagine you are a french peasant, what would you do to defend your rights, do you think someone could help you? Do you think philosophers thought that the social situation was fair? , There were no Parliament, but did Nobility and clergy meet somewhere?

 

ASSESSMENT

Answer the following questions in complete sentences:

 1-Why is the Enlightenment also known as the Age of Reason?

2-Interpret the statement, “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” How does this capture the spirit of the times?

 

 

Clilstore AUDIO PRESENTATIONMULTIPLE CHOICE TESTTEXTVIDEO

Short url:   https://clilstore.eu/cs/4064