One of the central events of the French Revolution was the abolition of feudalism, and the old rules, taxes, and privileges left over from the ancien régime. The National Constituent Assembly, after deliberating on the night of 4 August 1789, announced, "The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely." It abolished both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate (the nobility) and the tithes gathered by the First Estate (the Catholic clergy). The old judicial system, founded on the 13 regional parlements, was suspended in November 1789 and finally abolished in 1790.
Background The fall of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 was followed by a mass uproar spreading from Paris to the countryside. Noble families were attacked, and many aristocratic manors were burned. Abbeys and castles were also attacked and destroyed. The season of La Grande Peur – the Great Fear – was characterised by social hysteria and anxiety over who was going to be the next victim. In many cases, the violence was begun not by homeless people or hunger-driven peasants but by settled countrymen who took this opportunity to further their own cause. The Great Fear opened up the vulnerability of the French government – there was a lack of authority at the very center of it. The prolonged riots and massacres led to a general anxiety that things might get out of control, and they did. It was an experience that the country had never undergone before. By late July 1789, as the peasant revolt reports poured into Paris from every part of the country, the National Constituent Assembly decided to reform the social pattern of the country in order to pacify the outraged peasants and encourage them towards peace and harmony.
Debates at the time On 4 August the Duke of Aiguillon proposed in the Club Breton the abolition of feudal rights and the suppression of personal servitude. On the evening of 4 August, the Viscount de Noailles proposed to abolish the privileges of the nobility to restore calm in French provinces. Members of the First Estate were at first reluctant to enter into the patriotic fervour of the night, but eventually Anne Louis Henri de La Fare (Bishop of Nancy) and the Bishop of Chartres sacrificed their titles. Guy Le Guen de Kerangal, the Viscount de Beauharnais, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph de Lubersac, and de La Fare proposed to suppress the banalités, seigneurial jurisdictions, game-laws and ecclesiastic privileges. The discussion continued through the night of 4 August, and on the morning of 5 August the Assembly abolished the feudal system and eliminated many clerical and noble rights and privileges.
August decrees
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