If this is your course, you are studying one hundred years of change in French government, society and economy. You begin under Louis XV, pass through the crisis and Revolution of 1789, and finish with Napoleon’s defeat in 1815.

This is not only a French Revolution course. WJEC Unit 3 asks you to make connections across the entire century: to compare monarchy, republic and empire; to trace privilege, citizenship and social hierarchy; and to judge how far economic and political change transformed people’s lives.

This Tier 1 guide gives you that century-wide map. Tier 2 pages can later add precise evidence, comparisons and Unit 3 essay practice.

First, check that this is your course

You are on the right page if you study:

• WJEC GCE A Level History;
• Unit 3, option 5;
• France: Ancien Régime to Napoleon, c1715–1815.

This is the WJEC qualification regulated for Wales. It is not WJEC Units 2 and 4 option 6, which begin around 1774 and divide a depth study at 1792. Unit 3 option 5 begins in 1715 and tests thematic change across a century.

Your course in one view

The option contains two connected themes:

1. Society and economy in transition: Estates, privilege, taxation, peasants, Church, Enlightenment, trade and the bourgeoisie; then revolutionary citizenship, émigrés, sans-culottes, Church-state change and the social and economic effects of Napoleon.
2. Politics and government: Louis XV and absolutism, ministers, war and royal authority; Louis XVI and the crisis of monarchy; constitutional monarchy, republic and Terror; Napoleon’s government, law, religion, finance and war.

Your task is to connect developments across time. A strong answer does not treat Louis XV, the Revolution and Napoleon as three unrelated stories.

The starting world: France in 1715

Louis XIV died in 1715, leaving his five-year-old great-grandson Louis XV as king. During the regency, Philippe of Orléans governed until Louis came of age. France remained an absolute monarchy in theory: sovereign authority rested in the king. In practice, ministers, law courts called parlements, office-holders, provincial institutions, nobles and the Church could obstruct or negotiate royal power.

Society was legally divided into three Estates. Clergy formed the First Estate, nobles the Second, and everyone else the Third. The Third Estate ranged from wealthy merchants and lawyers to artisans, labourers and the peasant majority. Legal status therefore did not describe one shared economic experience.

Agriculture supported most people. Peasants faced royal taxes, Church tithes and seigneurial dues. Poor harvests could raise bread prices sharply. France also possessed manufacturing, Atlantic commerce and colonial connections, including trade built upon enslaved labour.

The Catholic Church shaped belief, education and welfare. Social hierarchy and privilege were powerful, yet they were never completely static or uncontested.

Starting-world check

1. Why did absolutism not mean unlimited practical power?
2. Why was the Third Estate economically diverse?
3. Which burdens could fall upon peasants?
4. How did agriculture and overseas commerce both shape France?

Essential vocabulary

• Ancien Régime: France’s pre-revolutionary political and social order.
• Absolutism: the claim that sovereign authority rests in the monarch.
• Parlement: a high court registering royal laws, not an elected parliament.
• Privilege: a legal advantage belonging to an Estate, institution, office or locality.
• Seigneurial dues: payments or obligations owed by peasants to landlords.
• Bourgeoisie: a broad contemporary label often applied to prosperous non-noble townspeople; it was not a single united class.
• Mercantilism: economic policy seeking state power through regulated trade and production.
• National sovereignty: the principle that authority belongs to the nation.
• Sans-culottes: politically active working people associated with direct action and economic controls.
• Émigré: a person, often a noble or royalist, who left revolutionary France.
• Terror: emergency revolutionary government and coercion, especially in 1793–94.
• Civil Code: Napoleon’s standardised body of civil law.
• Concordat: Napoleon’s 1801 agreement with the papacy.

Theme 1: society and economy in transition

1. Estates, privilege and rural France before 1789

The Estate system placed people into unequal legal categories. Clergy and nobles enjoyed exemptions and access to honours, although wealth varied within both Estates. Some nobles were rich courtiers; others lived modestly in the provinces. The Church owned land and collected tithes but also provided worship, education and poor relief.

Peasants were not passive. They negotiated dues, used courts, defended customary rights and sometimes resisted landlords or tax collectors. Their experiences varied by region, landholding and market access. Population growth increased pressure on land, while harvest failure threatened households that bought much of their food.

The royal tax system collected substantial revenue but distributed burdens unevenly and inefficiently. Tax farming and regional privilege complicated reform. This mattered because France’s fiscal crisis arose inside a society where legal status affected who could be taxed and how.

Knowledge check: old-regime society

1. Why did legal privilege not make every noble wealthy?
2. How did peasants act to defend their interests?
3. Why did regional variation matter?
4. How did social privilege contribute to fiscal weakness?

2. Commerce, ideas and social change

France expanded manufacturing, internal trade and Atlantic commerce during the eighteenth century. Ports such as Bordeaux and Nantes benefited from colonial trade, including the trafficking and exploitation of enslaved Africans. Economic growth was real but unequal and vulnerable to war.

Prosperous merchants, lawyers and office-holders gained wealth and education. The term bourgeoisie can help identify parts of this urban middle world, but these people did not share one political programme. Some purchased offices or noble status and participated in the existing order.

Enlightenment writers criticised intolerance, arbitrary authority and inherited assumptions. Salons, academies, print and growing literacy widened discussion. Ideas did not mechanically cause revolution, but they provided language through which people questioned government and privilege.

Economic policies shifted between regulation and experiments in freer trade. Attempts to liberalise the grain trade could raise fears about bread and subsistence. The tension between market reform and popular expectations continued into the Revolution.

Knowledge check: economic and intellectual change

1. Who benefited from Atlantic commerce, and who suffered exploitation?
2. Why was the bourgeoisie not a single revolutionary class?
3. How did Enlightenment ideas affect political debate?
4. Why could grain policy provoke popular resistance?

3. Revolution and the remaking of society

The August Decrees of 1789 attacked privilege and seigneurialism. The Declaration of the Rights of Man proclaimed legal equality and national sovereignty. Church lands were nationalised, guilds were abolished and administration was reorganised.

Implementation was uneven. Peasants pressed for the complete removal of dues. Women participated in protests, political societies and markets but did not gain equal national political rights. Enslaved people and free people of colour in the colonies pursued their own struggles; slavery was abolished in 1794 after revolt and war had transformed imperial politics.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy required an oath and split clergy and communities. Émigrés left France, while purchasers acquired former Church and noble lands. Sans-culottes demanded price controls and action against enemies. Revolutionary society contained competing ideas of property, equality and citizenship.

War, requisition, inflation and price controls shaped daily life. The Revolution removed legal privilege more decisively than it removed economic inequality.

Knowledge check: revolutionary society

1. Which legal structures changed after 1789?
2. Why was revolutionary citizenship unequal?
3. How did religious reform reshape communities?
4. Why did legal equality not create economic equality?

You can pause here. You now understand the first large comparison: old-regime privilege was dismantled, but hierarchy, property and unequal power survived in new forms.

4. Society and economy under Napoleon

Napoleon preserved the property settlement and equality before law for men. The Civil Code standardised law and protected ownership, while strengthening paternal authority and reducing women’s legal independence. Careers in government and the army could reward talent and service, though wealth and connections remained important.

The Concordat reconciled the state with Catholic worship without restoring the Church’s former lands or independence. State-directed education trained officials and officers, mainly from male elites. The Legion of Honour and an imperial nobility created new hierarchy based partly on service.

The Bank of France, tax reform and administrative stability strengthened state finance. Roads, commerce and some industries benefited, but the Continental System disrupted trade. Conscription, taxation and warfare placed heavy burdens on households.

Napoleon therefore consolidated important revolutionary changes while restricting political freedom and reinforcing social authority within families and the state.

Knowledge check: Napoleonic society

1. Which revolutionary social changes survived?
2. How did the Civil Code affect women and families?
3. Why was Napoleon’s elite not simply the old nobility restored?
4. How did warfare limit economic gains?

Theme 2: politics and government

5. Louis XV, ministers and international pressure

Louis XV’s long reign included the ministry of Cardinal Fleury, disputes with parlements and the Church, and costly warfare. Royal government relied on councils, ministers, intendants and office-holders. Versailles helped organise access and patronage, but provincial diversity constrained uniform rule.

France fought in the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War. The latter brought colonial losses and exposed military and financial weakness. Rivalry with Britain linked overseas competition to the condition of the state at home.

Later ministers sought reform, but opposition from privileged institutions and uncertainty at court limited durable change. Maupeou’s attack on the parlements in 1771 showed that the crown could act forcefully, but Louis XVI reversed it in 1774, restoring bodies that later obstructed reform.

Knowledge check: Louis XV

1. Through which institutions did the monarchy govern?
2. Why did provincial diversity limit central authority?
3. How did war weaken the monarchy?
4. Why did conflict with the parlements remain unresolved?

6. Louis XVI and the collapse of monarchy

Participation in the American War of Independence increased debt. Turgot, Necker and Calonne proposed different reforms, but Louis struggled to sustain them against court and institutional opposition. Poor harvests and high food prices intensified hardship.

The Assembly of Notables refused Calonne’s programme. The Estates-General met in 1789, but conflict over voting led Third Estate deputies to form the National Assembly. The Bastille, Great Fear and October Days demonstrated that popular action drove events alongside elite politics.

The Constitution of 1791 created constitutional monarchy. Church reform, political clubs and Louis’s flight to Varennes deepened division. War beginning in 1792 produced defeat and suspicion of treason. Armed Parisians and provincial volunteers overthrew the monarchy on 10 August.

The monarchy fell through interacting financial, constitutional, religious, popular and military pressures, not a single inevitable cause.

Knowledge check: monarchy’s collapse

1. How did debt become a constitutional crisis?
2. Why did popular action matter in 1789?
3. Why did Varennes damage the king?
4. How did war intensify existing conflicts?

7. Republic, Terror and Directory

The Convention declared a republic and executed Louis XVI. Foreign invasion, the Vendée revolt, federalist resistance, food shortages and political conflict encouraged emergency government.

The Committee of Public Safety and related institutions mobilised resources and punished suspected enemies. The levée en masse helped reverse military danger. Terror varied regionally and responded to real threats, but imprisonment, requisition and execution caused severe suffering. Robespierre was influential without ruling alone.

Robespierre fell in Thermidor in July 1794. The Directory established a restricted republic with two chambers and a five-person executive. It faced royalists, neo-Jacobins, financial instability and war. By annulling elections and relying on troops, it preserved itself while weakening constitutional legitimacy.

Knowledge check: revolutionary government

1. Which pressures encouraged emergency government?
2. How did the Terror defend and coerce?
3. Why did Robespierre fall?
4. Why did the Directory depend increasingly on soldiers?

8. Napoleon: government, empire and defeat

Napoleon’s military reputation and the Directory’s weakness helped the coup of Brumaire in 1799. The Consulate concentrated executive power while plebiscites claimed popular approval. Napoleon became Emperor in 1804.

Prefects strengthened central government. Censorship, surveillance and propaganda narrowed opposition. The Civil Code, Concordat, educational institutions and financial reform made the regime durable. Napoleon combined revolutionary administration with personal and dynastic rule.

Military success depended on revolutionary mobilisation, experienced officers, Napoleon’s command and opponents’ weaknesses. French rule brought reform to parts of Europe but also taxation, conscription, occupation and resistance.

The Continental System failed to defeat Britain and strained Europe. The Peninsular War and disastrous Russian campaign weakened France. Stronger coalitions defeated Napoleon in 1814. His Hundred Days ended at Waterloo in 1815.

Across the century, France moved from Bourbon absolutism through constitutional monarchy and republic to Napoleonic empire. Central administration grew stronger, legal privilege fell, and political participation expanded then contracted. Change was substantial but neither complete nor steadily progressive.

Knowledge check: Napoleon and the century

1. How did Napoleon gain and legitimise power?
2. Which revolutionary institutions did he preserve?
3. Why did empire generate resistance?
4. Which changes across 1715–1815 were most durable?

The whole century in six anchor dates

• 1715: Louis XIV dies and Louis XV succeeds.
• 1756: the Seven Years’ War begins.
• 1789: political and social revolution destroys legal privilege.
• 1792: monarchy falls and France becomes a republic.
• 1799: Brumaire establishes the Consulate.
• 1815: Waterloo ends Napoleon’s return.

Use these dates to retell both themes, asking at each point what changed in government, society and economy.

What your WJEC Unit 3 examination asks you to do

Unit 3 lasts 1 hour 45 minutes and is worth 60 marks. It assesses essay writing rather than source or interpretations evaluation.

• One compulsory essay ranges across the whole period.
• You then answer one essay from a choice of two on a narrower part or issue.

The whole-period essay makes century-wide comparison essential. Build an argument across phases rather than writing everything you know in chronological order. Track the same criteria—for example authority, participation, privilege or economic burden—under different regimes.

The narrower essay still requires selection, explanation and a substantiated judgement. Neither question asks you to evaluate contemporary sources or extracts from historians.

A small practice task

How far did the basis of political authority change in France between 1715 and 1815?

Compare Bourbon monarchy, national sovereignty after 1789, republican government and Napoleon’s use of plebiscites and empire. Decide whether political language changed more than the concentration of power.

Your next layer of learning

You now have the connected Tier 1 foundation. Tier 2 can add:

• peasant life, regional difference and seigneurialism;
• Atlantic commerce, slavery and colonial resistance;
• Enlightenment debates and religious conflict;
• Louis XV, war and the parlements;
• royal finance and competing explanations for 1789;
• citizenship, gender and property during the Revolution;
• the changing Church-state relationship;
• Terror and regional experience;
• Napoleon’s law, administration and economic policies;
• century-wide comparison grids;
• WJEC whole-period and narrower essay practice.

You are allowed to stop here. If you can connect both themes, place the six dates and explain why this is a century-wide essay course, this guide has done its Tier 1 job.