f France’s Old Regime. The Old Regime is a set of governing laws that were established in favor of the nobles and the clergy. For every problem, each estate would vote and then count and then their overall vote would count as one vote. Each estate had one vote, therefore, the third estate would always lose in a vote that the nobles and the clergy didn’t like. The third estate had more members than the first two combined, so the third estate demanded a vote where everyone in the each estate counted as a vote. The third estate basically took over the entire Estates-General, changed their name to the National Assembly, and forced them to vote in this way. The National Assembly won almost every vote and completely demolished the Old Regime, and almost every taxing law in France. On July 14, 1789, the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille Fortress. The people were armed with a few guns and some tools, but the soldiers in the fortress had cannons. The citizens were being slaughtered, but then many of Paris’ soldiers felt sympathy for the people and went to help. They took over Bastille, and gained artillery and ammunition. King Louis XVI was planning on hiring Swedish mercenaries to regain his power and bring peace back to France, but now that the people controlled Bastille, this was impossible. Since King Louis XVI could no longer trust the loyalty of his troops, he fled to the border. He was almost there, when he was recognized by a soldier and brought back to Versailles. He was thrown in jail. The National Assembly stepped down from power now that peace had been achieved. A new group, The National Convention took power and attempted to establish a democracy. This time in history, between September of 1793 and July of 1794, is known as the Reign of Terror. The National Convention was basically ruled by two men, Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre. Robespierre slowly gained more control than Danton...
