In 1789, the changes in the way people thought politically were more significant than the revolutionary actions of the people.

In the dramatic events if 1789, the advances in the way that people thought about the political system were what propelled popular revolutionary action; by the same token, it could not be said that the revolution could have happened without the intervention of the people through violence and protests throughout France. As said by Simon Schama, ‘Violence was the motor of the revolution,’ and it could be said that this violence was spurred by the political ideology introduced by the events of 1789 and the bourgeoisie. Popular revolutionary action was in many ways the response of those people unable to participate in political dealings.
The drafting of the Cahiers de Doléances as preparation for the meeting of the Estates General allowed the public to share their own grievances whether it was to be direct or indirect. It was in essence an articulation of issues previously unaddressed, and its drafting created the expectation that these issues would be dealt with somehow. The Cahiers de Doléances were based on attacking basic foundations of the feudalistic society; they people wanted judicial reforms, fiscal reforms, and changes in administrative power, but perhaps most importantly, the Cahiers de Doléances attacked the rule of absolutism- a radical development in the way people thought politically. When the Estates General did finally meet, the Third Estate’s expectations of the Cahiers de Doléances were metaphorically unfulfilled, and the Third Estate met on a tennis court as a direct challenge to the King’s power, swearing not to disperse until France had been given a constitution, thus claiming the King did not, in fact, have the power to dismiss them; ‘what was at issue was the existence of the Assembly, and the Oath of the Tennis Court announced a determination to defend it against the King’ (Lefebvre). So began the slow erosion of the idea of the absolute ruler, and radicalisation began to spread across France.
In Paris, the frenzied crowds spilled on to the streets against the troops sent out by the King in response to the Third Estate’s gathering at a tennis court, finally making their way to the Bastille in search of ammunition. The Bastille had long been used to house prisoners confined as a result of the letter de cachet and was thus representative of royal absolutism. Through the fall of the Bastille by the people of France, the King’s power could be seen to not be infallible, and real power passed from the King to the elected representatives of the people. According to Lynn Hunt, the fall of the Bastille ‘did have revolutionary effects; most important, it marked the entry of the common people on the scene of organised political activity.’ Not only did it affect the bourgeoisie and the political thinkers of that time, it also intensified activity among the peasantry; throughout the peasant’s great misery and hardship, demonstrations and riots against taxes spread like wildfire across France to become what is known as The Great Fear. However little bloodshed there was, The Great Fear, in some ways similar to the storming of the Bastille, exposed ‘the vacuum of authority…at the heart of the French Government’. It also gave light to the severity of social unrest now present in France.
The August Decrees in many ways were the vocalisation of the revolutionary actions of the people. Its proposed changes went far beyond anything demanded in the Cahiers, and this ‘ruled out any possibility of compromise with the feudal aristocracy and forced the bourgeois revolution onwards’ (Soboul). The aims of the decrees, however, were entirely ambiguous and failed to satisfy the political objectives of the radical leaders. It would actually be ‘the popular movement…and their leaders, both within and outside the Assembly, who would radicalise he Revolution and the peasants in the countryside who would nurse their grievances against it’ (Fenwick and Anderson).
The political actions of the bourgeoisie during the revolution or 1789 were essential in pushing the revolution forward, but as stated by McPhee, ‘the Revolution of the bourgeois deputies had only been secured by the intervention of the working people of Paris.’