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contemporary Paris

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we are used to a France that is dominated by Paris

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today 1 in 7 people in France live in Paris and its suburbs

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2.3 million people

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Paris was almost fully rebuilt in the middle of the 19th century

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18th century Paris

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a far more congested, medieval city of winding, narrow streets

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was much smaller

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only 1 in 40 people in France lived in Paris

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Paris didn't have the hold on France that it does today

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Paris it was not the capital

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Versailles was capital from 1722 until 1789, when a throng invaded the capital and forced the royal family to move back to Paris

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France in 18th century

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vast majority lived in villages and rural towns throughout France

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85% directly tilled the soil

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outside of European Russia, France is the largest country in Europe

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population 28 million, about half of its population today

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difficult to govern since communications were slow and difficult

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10 days for news to travel from Paris to Mediterranean coast

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towns

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average town was 400-500 people

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vulnerable

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subsistence-based

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produced many different kinds of crops

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everyone in the household helped

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markets were important

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farmers came in with excess produce

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overwhelmingly a land of manual labor

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very small work places

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e.g. master clock maker would produce for a well-to-do clientele

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manufacturing

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very little industry

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starting to experiment e.g. with Jacquard's loom

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but essentially artisan-based

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a society of orders or estates

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ancient form of social organization

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1. clergy

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2. nobility

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3. commons

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almost every community was characterized by the presence of the church

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statements of power and order structure in a physical sense through architecture

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1. power of the clergy

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cathedrals were awe-inspiring in comparison to everyday life, a physical statement of the way the world was in terms of authority and the place of the church

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2. power of the nobility

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the royal palace in Versailles was completed in 1710

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an awesome statement of the power of the kings of France

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impressed anyone who saw it and communicated a sense of power and stability

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one has to ask how a revolution was able of challenging a regime who was capable of investing itself in edifices like this

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forms of change slowly occurring

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1. growth of port cities along the coast

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Bordeaux

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doubles in size during the 18th century

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represents a new form of commercial wealth

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stock exchange, a symbol of the power of liquid wealth, a main source of change

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La Rochelle

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Nantes

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booming because slave-based plantation economy in the New World is booming

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French people are developing a taste for the commodities of the New World

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2. rural communities are beginning to produce specialized products

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e.g. Champagne

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regions around Paris producing inexhaustible need for bread for the 700,000 people of Paris

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3. across the Atlantic, British colonists had declared their independence

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there were repercussions of France's involvement in this the war of liberation from a nation by a new republic