One of the critical moments in the history of the French Revolution came about on the night of August 4, 1789. By this point, we would have seen the transition from the Estates General to the National Assembly as well as the storming of the Bastille—this period of transformation and uncertainty greatly destabilized the Provinces.
As news of this provincial chaos reached the National Assembly, this resulted in the events of August 4. Beginning with an intention to calm tensions and restore order, the National Assembly attempted to introduce reforms into the Feudal System, but this process took on a life of its own, eventually snowballing to the point that the National Assembly proceeded to dismantle the remnants of Feudalism in their entirety. To quote historian Jeremy Popkin on the importance of this moment:
the Assembly had decided that France would henceforth be a community of legally equal citizens. The legal distinctions between clergy and laity, between social classes, and between the inhabitants of different geographic regions of the kingdom had been leveled. (A Short History of the French Revolution)
This was one of the critical moments of the French Revolution.
However, simply dismantling a political system is not in itself sufficient to create real change: that older system ultimately needs to be replaced with a new political system. This would be provided later, on August 26, with the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. This document codified the values the Revolution would profess to endorse, replacing that earlier network of privileges and obligations (which defined the Old Regime) with a society by which all citizens possessed legal equality and protection under the law. In so doing, it lay the foundations on which the future of the Revolution would rest.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is perhaps the single most important document to come out of the French Revolution. It sought to apply the principles of the Enlightenment coupled with those of revolutionary France. It incorporates many ideas from the American Declaration of Independence and from philosophers of Europe's Enlightenment. The basic idea of the document is that "all men are born and remain free and equal in rights."
The Declaration was drafted and adopted in August of 1789. It sought to abolish the privileges that the French nobility previously enjoyed at the expense of the peasant class. The unrest that had led to the French Revolution was largely based on these feelings of inequity. The Declaration sought to place all (male) citizens on an equal footing.
The articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man set out to define a citizen's rights and cover many topics. They specifically define freedom and the benefits of it. The relationship between citizen and government is defined as a mutually beneficial arrangement in which the state serves the will of the people. Religious freedom and freedom of thought and expression are guaranteed by the Declaration. The Declaration also spells out the rights of citizens accused of crimes and the proper function of the courts.
In August of 1789, France still faced a very uncertain future. The French Revolution had toppled the old system, but there were many fears and anxieties as to what would happen next. The Declaration of the Rights of Man served as a common rallying point for the French people. With this document, they had something specific to point to when defining the goals of the Revolution. It laid out a blueprint for future governments. In fact, it was adopted into the French Constitution after being updated in 1793. Today, it remains a commonly referenced document in many democratic movements worldwide.
https://constitution.laws.com/declaration-of-the-rights-of-man
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