Benjamin WashechekHistory 102Professor Rashmi Chilka3 March 2014Did the French Revolution follow its initial principles?The ideals of the French Revolution were liberty, fraternity and equality. These noble ideals inspired people to put aside their personal safety and join in forming a wave that would sweep away the established French government. There were, however, major differences between the ideals underlying the French Revolution and the results of the Revolution. Looking at the first principle of liberty, we see that the French Revolution was initially driven by the people's desire for individual liberties. These freedoms included: owning your own land, earning enough money to afford bread, and not having to bear the burden of taxes while nobles and others in power paid next to nothing. In this respect the revolution provided hope of freedom for the Third Estate. The ideal of equality was a huge driving force of the revolution. The people wanted equal treatment before the law for every French citizen. This meant that they wanted the high officials of the church to have a lower standard of living. They also demanded that the nobles pay taxes from which in the past the nobles were practically exempt. To this end they attacked both the nobility and the church in their quest for equality. Although this attitude generated iconoclastic actions and mass violence against the nobility, the people had nevertheless managed to reverse the course of events towards lasting equality for all French citizens. The third and final call of the revolution was brotherhood. This meant for them brotherhood among all French citizens. The people wanted everyone to be able to consider themselves equal and that everyone worked in the same way... middle of paper... shed more blood to guarantee their power. The French people wanted freedom and took steps to secure it. They trusted that the assembly would work in their best interests. The assembly could have acted in good faith towards the French people and implemented individual liberties. Instead, many of the factions blinded by greed and ambition fought to secure power. True greatness comes from selfless decisions like George Washington's when he chose to relinquish power to Congress. I believe that if all members of the assembly had put aside their own desires, the founding ideologies of the French Revolution would have become reality and the world would be a very different place today. But in the end, all the noble ideals of the French Revolution were first trampled in the rush to power, then swept away in a wave of needless bloodshed..