EIGHT of the following will appear on the midterm exam.

You will be expected to IDENTIFY, EXPLAIN and DISCUSS 
the HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE of FIVE of the eight.
 

• confraternities
• Jean Bodin & his views on slavery
• compagnonnage
• salons
• putting-out system
• John Law and his banking system
• Jansenism
• wetnursing
• Seven Years War
• rococo
• Turgot's reforms
• social contract
• guilds
• vingtième
• the Damiens Affair

One of the following essays will appear on the exam.

What's one of the crucial ingredients of a good essay? Repeat after me: O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N (and, of course, content mastery). Remember, ANALYSIS goes much further than simple descriptive narrative and staying focused on what the call of the question is very important.
 

The ancien régime witnessed the expansion of French cities. What factors differentiated cities and towns from villages in ancien régime France? To what extent, if any, and for what reasons did the following factors influence the growth and functioning of urban France:

• economic transformations
• cultural influences
• the growth of the absolutist state 
• declining relevance of the nobility


Although faced with formidable tests during the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the French monarchy managed to emerge absolute. However, historians note a desacralization (loss of sacred aura) of the monarchy during the 18^th century. What was the impact, if any, of the following on the diminution of royal authority in 18^th century France:

• royal finances
• Enlightenment ideas on political authority
• relations between the monarchy and Parlement
• popular perspectives on Louis XV


Historian Joan Landes argues that French women were much better off during the ancien régime than during the French Revolution. Assess the position of women in ancien régime France with respect to the following issues:

• the status of independent women
• women in the salons
• eighteenth-century philosophic ideas on women
• conventional attitudes towards female sexuality


The ancien régime was characterized by tension between, on the one hand, an intensification of intrusions into matters of private life and belief, and, on the other hand, new sensibilities regarding freedom and individuality.

• what was the relationship between these intrusions and political and religious authorities?
• how were these intrusions manifested?
• in what respects were traditional relationships being challenged?
• to what extent did the growth of cities encourage greater freedom and liberalism?