MB Civic

this is Frances A. Chiu ..

More striking still are the parallels between ideas for reform now and then, as recorded in the cahiers de doléances of spring 1789, an early government survey of public grievances. If laborers and shopkeepers demanded more stringent trade regulations, peasants exhorted nobles to control the dirty effluent flowing from their mines. Many resented being treated “like slaves.” In turn, the middling orders desired “careers open to talents,” encouragement of enterprise, and an end to noble privileges. As for the nobility, they predictably sought a reinforcement of privileges and tax exemptions .. Altogether, 18th-century France was a world where “the distance which separates the rich from other citizens is growing daily. Hatred grows more bitter and the state is divided into two classes: the greedy and insensitive, and murmuring malcontents.”

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