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Causes of the French Revolution
Last Name, First Name
Abstract---Ever since the beginning of global history, there have
been major political, economic, social, and cultural revolutions.
A revolution is the overthrowing if a government or ruler by the
governed and then substituting another. This paper examines
the issues which can lead to a revolution, and illustrates how
these issues were prevailing in France prior to the outbreak of
the revolution. The paper outlines the social, economic and
political problems in France in the years preceding the
revolution which resulted in a change of the whole government
perspective in France. The French Revolution (1789–1799) was
a period of political and social upheaval in the political history
of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French
governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with
feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy,
underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment
principles of nationalism, citizenship, and inalienable rights.
The French Revolution brought about great long term changes
in the society and government. Throughout global history, the
revolutions have had complex causes and left long lasting
impacts on people’s lives as well as the nation in general. French
Revolution was one of them.
Index Terms---Revolution; Ancien regime; Parlement; Danton;
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen; Estates-
General; Montagnards; National Assembly; the Republic.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE significance of this paper is that it attempts to
highlight the causes that led to the French Revolution.
The French Revolution of 1789-1799 was one of the most
important events in the history of the world. The Revolution
led to many changes in France, which at the time of the
Revolution, was the most powerful state in Europe. The
Revolution led to the development of new political forces
such as democracy and nationalism. It questioned the
authority of kings, priests, and nobles. The Revolution also
gave new meanings and new ideas to the political ideas of the
people.
By examining the social, political, environmental, and
economic factors that led to the French Revolution, the reader
will develop an understanding of how major political change
occurs. As the revolution proceeded and as power devolved
from the monarchy to legislative bodies, the conflicting
interests of the initially allied groups became the source of
conflict and bloodshed.
The first part of this paper describes the three different
Estates which were present in France. The primary cause of
the revolution was the disputes over the peoples' differing
ideas of reform. Before the beginning of the Revolution, only
moderate reforms were wanted by the people. An example of
why they wanted this was because of King Louis XIV's
actions. At the end of the seventeenth century, King Louis
XIV's wars began decreasing the royal finances dramatically.
This worsened during the eighteenth century. The use of the
money by Louis XIV angered the people and they wanted a
new system of government. The writings of the philosophes
such as Voltaire and Diderot were critical of the government.
They said that not one official in power was corrupt, but that
the whole system of government needed some change.
Eventually, when the royal finances were expended in the
1780’s there began a time of greater criticism. This sparked
the peasants’ notion of wanting change.
The second part of this paper describes the social and
political factors, many of which involved resentments and
aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals.
The Economics which had been greatly disturbed by the
misruling of Louis XIV and his advisors have been discussed
in the third part. Various aristocratic and bourgeois reform
movements spun out of control. The movements coincided
with popular movements of the new wage-earning classes and
the provincial peasantry, and any alliance between classes
was contingent and incidental.
Various other factors like Material Conditions which
include widespread famine and malnutrition etc. have been
discussed in the last part of this paper. Finally, perhaps, above
all, was the almost total failure of Louis XVI and his advisors
to deal effectively with any of these problems.
II. THE ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The statement citing the essential cause of the French
Revolution as the "collision between a powerful, rising
bourgeoisie and an entrenched aristocracy defending its
privileges" has great pertinence in summarizing the conflict
of 1789. The causes of the French Revolution are
complicated, so complicated that a debate still rages among
historians regarding origins, causes and results. In general,
the real causes of the Revolution must be located in the rigid
social structure of French society during the Ancien regime.
As it had been for centuries, French society was divided into
three Estates or Orders. The First Estate consisted of the
clergy and the Second Estate the nobility. Together, these two
Estates accounted for approximately 500,000 individuals. At
the bottom of this hierarchy was the vast Third Estate which
basically meant everybody else, or about 25 million people.
This social structure was based on custom and tradition, but
more important, it was also based on inequalities which were
sanctioned by the force of law. So, we must have a look at
these three Estates more carefully.
A. The First Estate

Fig.1. This figure shows some of the major events which occurred during the
French Revolution.
The First Estate was the Church. During the Ancien
regime, the church was equal in terms of its social, economic,
and spiritual power. The First Estate owned nearly 10 per
cent of all land in France. It paid no taxes but, to support
church activities such as school running and caring for the
poor, they collected a tithe, or a tax on income. About one-
third of the entire clergy in France served as parish priests.
Also included in this estate were the nobles. Some of the
nobles lived in luxury in major cities in France, such as
Versailles or Paris. Parish priests usually lived a hardworking
life. This Estate was the minority of the people in France,
having approximately 1 to 2 per cent of the population. The
French Catholic Church maintained a wide scope of powers;
it literally constituted a state within a state and it had
sustained this position for more than 800 years. The clergy
was divided into the lower and upper clergy. Members of the
lower clergy were usually humble, poorly-paid and
overworked village priests. As a group, they resented the
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wealth and arrogance of the upper clergy. The bishops and
abbots filled the ranks of the upper clergy, men who regarded
their office as a way of securing a larger income and the
landed property that went with it. Most of the upper clergy
sold their offices to subordinates, kept the revenue, and lived
a luxurious life. Their responsibilities included the
registration of births, marriages and deaths; they censored
books; served as moral police; operated schools and hospitals;
and distributed relief to the poor. They also owned 10-15% of
all the land in France. This land, of course, was all held tax-
free.
B. The Second Estate
The Second Estate in French life was the nobility. They
enjoyed extensive rights and privileges. They made up less
than 2 percent of the population. They, like the First Estate,
paid hardly any taxes. Economically, the nobility was
characterized by great land wealth. Nobles were generally the
richest members of the society. Typical sources of income
were rents and dues for the use of their farms or estates. The
First and Second Estates were grouped together because they
had similar political beliefs.
The nobility held the highest positions in the Church, the
army and the government. As an order, they were virtually
exempt from paying taxes of any kind. They collected rent
from the peasant population who lived on their lands. They
also collected an extraordinary amount of customary dues
from the peasantry. There were labor dues (the corvée), as
well as dues on salt, cloth, bread, wine and the use mills,
granaries, presses and ovens. Collectively, the nobility owned
about 30% of the land. By the 18th century, they were also
becoming involved in banking, finance, shipping, insurance
and manufacturing. They were also the leading patrons of the
arts. It is interesting that the nobility would offer their homes
and their salons to the likes of Voltaire, Gibbon, Diderot and
Rousseau. After all, these were the men who would end up
criticizing the Second Estate. Of course, it must also be that
the philosophes could not have existed without their
aristocratic patrons.
There were, like the clergy, two levels of the nobility (350,
000 individuals in total). The Nobility of the Sword carried
the most prestige. The served their King at his court in
Versailles. Many members of this order were of ancient
lineage - their family history could be traced back hundreds
of years. But there were also members of this estate who were
relative newcomers. The Nobility of the Robe also had
prestige but much less than did the Nobility of the Sword.
Numerous members of the Nobility of the Robe had been
created by the monarchy in the past. French kings needed
money so it seemed logical to offer position and status to
those men who were willing to pay enough money for it. But
more important, perhaps, was that by giving these men royal
positions, the king could keep an eye on their behavior. In
many ways, this is one reason why Louis XIV built Versailles
in the first place. Originally a vast hunting lodge, Louis built
up Versailles in order to house his generals, ministers and
other court suck-ups.
Some of the lesser nobility were partial to the philosophes
of the Enlightenment and during the early days of the

Fig.2. This graph shows the percentage of the total population, total land
owned and income paid in taxes by the Three Estates in France in 1789.
Revolution would be considered "liberal nobles." They
wished to see an end to royal absolutism but not necessarily
the end of the monarchy. These liberal nobles tended to look
to France's traditional enemy, England, as a model for what
France ought to become, a limited or constitutional monarchy.
C. The Third Estate
The Third Estate consisted of the commoners. It included
the bourgeoisie, peasants and city workers. The bourgeoisie,
or the middle class, were by far, the wealthiest. In the
bourgeoisie, there were the merchants and manufacturers,
lawyers, doctors and others similar to those types of
professions. Peasants made up the largest group within the
Third Estate. They were forced to pay hefty taxes, tithes to
the church, and rents to their landlords for the land that they
lived on. The last group within the Third Estate was the city
workers. They were servants, apprentices, and household
maids.
As a class, the bourgeoisie - merchants, manufacturers,
bankers, doctors, lawyers, intellectuals - had wealth; in some
cases, enormous wealth. But, wealth in the Ancien regime did
not mean status or privilege and it should be clear by now
that "success" in 18th century France meant status and
privilege. Wealth was nothing without status. The bourgeoisie
were influenced by the nobility and tried to imitate them
whenever possible. So, they tried to improve their status by
becoming land owners themselves. By 1789, the bourgeoisie
controlled 20% of all the land. They were upwardly mobile,
but they felt frustrated and blocked by the aristocracy, an
aristocracy whose only interest was that everyone maintain
their place in society.
By 1789, the bourgeoisie had numerous grievances they
wished addressed. They wanted all Church, army and
government positions open to men of talent and merit. They
sought a Parlement that would make all the laws for the
nation. They desired a constitution that would limit the king's
powers. They also desired fair trials, religious toleration and
vast administrative reforms. These are all liberal ideas that
would certainly emerge after the summer of 1789.
The peasantry consisted of at least twenty-one million
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individuals during the 18th century. Their standard of living
was perhaps better than the European peasantry in general.
However, the French peasant continued to live in utmost
poverty. Collectively, the peasantry owned 30-40% of the
available land but mostly in small, semi-feudal plots. Most
peasants did not own their land but rented it from those
peasants who were wealthier or from the nobility. They tried
to supplement their income by hiring themselves out as day
laborers, textile workers or manual laborers. Peasants were
victimized by heavy taxation - taxes were necessary to pay
for the costs of war, something that had already consumed the
French government for an entire century. So, the peasants
paid taxes to the king, taxes to the church, taxes and dues to
the lord of the manor, as well as numerous indirect taxes on
wine, salt, and bread. Furthermore, the peasants also owed
their lord a labor obligation. And throughout the 18th century,
the price of rent was always increasing, as did the duties
levied on goods sold in markets and fairs. By 1789, the plight
of the French peasant was obvious. Taxes were increased as
was rent. Peasants continued to use antiquated methods of
agriculture. The price of bread soared and overall, prices
continued to rise at a quicker rate than wages. To make
matters worse, there was the poor harvest of 1788/89. The
urban workers or artisans, as a group, consisted of all
journeymen, factory workers and wage earners. The urban
poor also lived in poverty, a poverty that was intensified by
1789. By that time, wages had increased by 22% while the
cost of living increased 62%. The major cause of the
Revolution was the differences these three groups had.
However, there was another important factor during these
times. France suffered from harsh economic problems. Poor
farm harvests by farmers hurt the economy, and trade rules
from the Middle Ages still survived, making trade difficult.
However, the most serious problem was the problem facing
the government during this time. The French government
borrowed much money to pay for the wars of Louis XIV.
Louis still borrowed money to fight wars and to keep French
power alive in Europe. These costs greatly increased the
national debt, which was, at the time, already too high.
Political disorder:
Politics itself was another major cause of the revolution.
The political institutions were so bound up with social and
fiscal privilege that reform was a dangerous enterprise likely
to arouse fierce opposition. A divided political elite whose
factional maneuvers undermined reform, was closely
identified with the monarchy. The king and queen badly
mismanaged the situation, along with their ministers. The
Parlements resisted reform on the grounds that it was a
despotic extension of central government, and the Paris
Parlement blocked loans that might have seen the monarchy
through without major reform. Once reform was attempted
from 1787, the political crisis snowballed, until cries for the
Estates General to meet, as the only body competent to do
root and branch reform, were too loud to resist. The ministry
had no choice but to capitulate to these calls as the financial
crisis was so severe that there was no further room for
maneuver. The electoral process in early 1789 certainly
helped to politicize the lower orders, if only in an elemental

sense that change was about to occur; a more sophisticated
politicization occurred among the better off, who also had
access to the hundreds of political pamphlets published each
month. In this context of evolving opinion, the failure by the
monarchy to seize the initiative in the early days of the
Estates, in May, was disastrous. An exasperating deadlock
developed between the two privileged orders: the nobility and
clergy, on the one hand, and the Third Estate with its
numerous lawyers, on the other. Although the Third Estate
was equal in numbers to the other two orders combined, it
feared much-needed reforms of fiscal privilege would be
blocked by their having two votes against one. Exasperation
led to radicalism, to the declaration of national sovereignty by
the Third Estate on 17 June, and after the failure of a royal
compromise on 23 June, to an enforced union of the orders
into the National Assembly at the end of June. As the country
fell into disorder with food riots and increasing peasant
attacks on châteaux, a conservative reaction was prevented by
popular support which led to the fall of the Bastille on 14
July. In the context of growing internal disorder, the king
could not prevent revolution, for such was the force of
popular revolution that his officials became powerless and
counter-measures became impossible. In this situation, the
triumph of the Third Estate led to the almost complete failure
of royal power: a political revolution occurred in July 1789.
When King Louis XVI came into power, he realized that
these problems existed. At first he did not know what to do,
until he found a man by the name of Robert Turgot. He eased
the financial crisis of France, but he had difficulties when he
tried to introduce a major reform, that of taxing the nobles.
He had such difficulties because the king could not tax the
nobles unless the Parliament approved of the new tax laws.
The people in the courts that voted on these laws were the
nobles, called nobles of the robe, and therefore rejected
Turgot's reform. After Turgot was rejected, the king fired him
from his office. This led Louis XVI to summon the Estates
General in 1789.
The Estates General was the place where representatives
from each social class could be represented. Here, many
issues would be discussed, and at this time in French history,
it would be centered on the economic crisis. When the Estates
General met in 1789, the deputies, or representatives, from
the Third Estate demanded that the three estates meet
together, with each deputy having an equal vote. That way,
the First and Second Estates could outvote the Third Estate.
When the king heard of this, he demanded that the three
estates meet separately. This caused anger within the Third
Estate. The deputies from the Third Estate declared
themselves the National Assembly. Louis XVI quickly
rejected these deputies from the meeting hall. After a while,
Louis XVI decided that it would be best if the three estates
met together. He ordered the other two estates to join the
Third Estate in the National Assembly.
Although now the three estates met together, there were
divisions among them. Some wanted to protect their rights,
while others wanted to establish a limited, constitutional
monarchy. This sparked some change in the French people.
Immediately after the National Assembly secretly began
working on a constitution, the peasants and workers expected
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relief from taxes and other dues that they paid. Little
happened, and they still faced their same problems of
unemployment and inflation. Then there were reports that
Louis XVI was bringing troops to Paris. This increased the
peoples’ fears.
When Louis brought troops to Versailles, many citizens
feared that he wanted to get rid of the National Assembly. As
a result, they stormed the Bastille. Other disturbances also
broke out. People were caught up in what was called the
"Great Fear". Rumors passed from village to village that
robbers were destroying homes all over France. When no
robbers showed up, the peasants turned to their landlords.
They destroyed grain towers, and destroyed tax records,
showing that they will never pay any taxes, fines or dues ever
again.
These events forced Louis to summon the National
Assembly on August 4th. They people discussed possible
reforms. On this day, the National Assembly ended serfdom.
Towards the end of August, the National Assembly adopted
the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It stated that
democratic principles would be the basis for French
government. The job of turning these ideas into a constitution
still remained. While the constitution was in the process of
being made, an angry crowd in Paris rioted, forcing the
National Assembly to recognize their demands. Some of these
rioters were women. They were angry about food prices.
They also thought that the king and queen were going against
the National Assembly. They demanded that Louis return to
Paris where they could watch him. To prevent any further
uprisings, he agreed.
Throughout France, all ancient customs were thrown away
by the revolution. The National Assembly called for freedom
of worship and abolished all special activities and privileges
of the Catholic Church. To raise money that was needed, the
government began selling off church lands, which angered
many Catholics.
In 1791, the National Assembly brought forward a new
constitution. It made France a limited monarchy and
established a system of separation of powers. Under the
constitution, the old distinctions between the clergy, nobles,
and commoners disappeared. Few people were satisfied with
the constitutional monarchy. Louis XVI was frightened at the
actions of the National Assembly. He fled the country with
his wife, but he was later arrested and brought back to accept
the constitution. After this action by the king, moderate
revolutionaries still wanted to preserve the constitutional
monarchy, while the radicals distrusted the king and wanted a
republic. These were the causes of the French Revolution.
Many peoples' lives were changed during this time. Peoples'
ideas also changed.
These are the social and political causes that acted as a
breeding ground for the grievances and passions the
Revolution would unleash. But there are a few other causes,
equally important, that are also worth our attention.
III. ROYAL ABSOLUTISM AND PRIVILEGE
By the early 18th century, French kings had nearly
succeeded in wresting all power from the nobility. France had

no Parlement. France did have an Estates General which was
a semi-representative institution in that it was composed of
representatives from each of the Three Estates. The last time
the Estates General had been convened was in 1614. So, was
the Estates General a truly representative body? The answer
is: Hardly. The way the French administered the country was
through a distended bureaucracy of officials. By 1750, the
bureaucracy had overgrown itself - it was large, corrupt and
inefficient. Too many officials had bought and sold their
offices over the years. Furthermore, despite the efforts of
Charlemagne (742-814) in the 9th century, France had no
single, unified system of law. Each region determined its own
laws based on the rule of the local Parlement. France in 1787
was, at least in theory, an absolute monarchy, an increasingly
unpopular form of government at the time. In practice, the
king's ability to act on his theoretically absolute power was
curtailed by the (equally resented) powers and prerogatives of
the nobility and clergy, remnants of feudalism. Similarly, the
peasants covetously eyed the relatively greater privileges
enjoyed by townspeople. The Absolutist regime was suffering
because of a combination of external and internal crises.
Externally, France was seen as a weak and ineffectual power
by the late 1780s, despite its successful support of American
independence. The country was losing diplomatic influence
rapidly in central and Eastern Europe, having already lost its
major overseas territories in North America and India a
generation earlier. All this provoked a sense of crisis among
the elites, and widely differing views on how to improve the
state of the country arose. The key issue was finance.
France’s complex and inefficient systems of taxation could
not support the burdens that previous wars had placed on
them, and by the 1780s the treasury was spiraling into
uncontrollable debt, threatening the literal bankruptcy of the
kingdom. It was the irreconcilable differences between the
most influential organizations in the country over the possible
resolution of this crisis that propelled France into a more
thoroughgoing political collapse.
Socially, France was undergoing changes and increased
tensions during the eighteenth century. Paradoxically, as
social mobility and moveable wealth expanded, privilege was
on the increase and there were more, and perhaps more often
embittering, divisions in society. Those without the relatively
easily acquired privileges of offices or nobility felt slighted,
and new nobles resented the older nobility’s attempt to
remain more exclusive. The bourgeoisie was beginning to feel
more self-confident in their own privileges and merits.
Artisans resented exclusive and restrictive guild practices,
however, while the rural poor displayed mounting anti-
seigniorial attitudes and behavior. No doubt all this tension
was not enough to cause a revolution, but it did shape the
choices people made in 1789.
IV. ENLIGHTENMENT IDEOLOGY
Spread of new ideas at the upper levels of French society
created new expectations and possibilities. It provided the
intellectual shift away from absolutism. The large and
growing middle class, and some of the nobility and of the
working class, had absorbed the ideology of equality and
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freedom of the individual, brought about by such philosophes
as Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Turgot, and other philosophes of
the Enlightenment. The example of the American Revolution
showed them that it was plausible that Enlightenment ideals
about governmental organization could be put into practice.
Some of the American revolutionaries, such as Benjamin
Franklin, had stayed in Paris, where they were in frequent
contact with the French intellectuals; furthermore, contact
between the American revolutionaries and the French troops
who had assisted them resulted in the spread of revolutionary
ideals to the French. Many in France attacked the
undemocratic nature of the government, pushed for freedom
of speech, and challenged the Roman Catholic Church and
the prerogatives of the nobles.
There is controversy over exactly how deeply ideals
penetrated the various classes, and over the degree to which
these ideals were simply cover for bourgeois self-interest. For
example, Karl Marx writing in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
shortly after the Revolutions of 1848 wrote that in both the
English Revolution of 1648 and in the French Revolution
“the bourgeoisie was the class that really headed the
movement. The proletariat and the non-bourgeois strata of the
middle class had either not yet evolved interests which were
different from those of the bourgeoisie or they did not yet
constitute independent classes or class divisions. Therefore,
where they opposed the bourgeoisie, as they did in France in
1793 and 1794, (that is to say, during the Reign of Terror)
they fought only for the attainment of the aims of the
bourgeoisie, albeit in a non-bourgeois manner. The entire
French terrorism was just a plebeian way of dealing with the
enemies of the bourgeoisie: absolutism, feudalism and
philistinism.”
The effect of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution
has created a debate which will not soon be resolved. But, in
general, it can be said that there is no causal relationship
between the philosophes of the Enlightenment and the
outbreak of the French Revolution. Few philosophes, if any,
advocated revolution and the reason is fairly clear. No
philosophe advocated the violent overthrow of the existing
order of things because violence was contrary to human
reason. But because the philosophes of the Enlightenment
attacked the established order together with authority of any
kind, their ideas helped to produce what can only be called a
revolutionary mentality. One modern historian has correctly
observed that:
18th century philosophy taught the Frenchman to find his
condition wretched, unjust and illogical and made him
disinclined to the patient resignation to his troubles that had
long characterized his ancestors . . . . The propaganda of the
philosophes perhaps more than any other factor accounted
for the fulfillment of the preliminary condition of the French
Revolution, namely discontent with the existing state of
things. (Henri Peyre, "The Influence of Eighteenth Century
Ideas on the French Revolution," Journal of the History of
Ideas vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1949).
The Enlightenment’s critique of society and institutions,
especially of despotism and the Church, laid the foundations
for a new order. Historians of differing political persuasion
and different ideas of the nature of the revolution have

Fig.3. The picture shows some of the major works and their authors during
the Enlightenment. Their works sent a new wave of ideology among the
masses.
singled out several aspects of the eighteenth century
ideologies. Ideas of liberty, equality, the fellowship of man
against oppression, democracy as an idealized solution, have
all been accorded an important role, undermining respect for
the traditional elites and order of things. A major issue has
been how far such ideas remained those of narrow elite or
permeated down the social scale to those artisans and
peasants.
Culturally, France was undergoing significant changes
especially from mid-century onwards. The luxury trades and
the availability of commodities from the New World, such as
coffee and tea, drunk in cafés that were meeting places, led to
a new degree of consumerism. A more commercial culture
was developing. The availability of periodicals, what has
been termed a ‘reading revolution’, the famous art exhibitions
in the Louver from 1737 onwards, the parterre of the theatre,
the critical subtexts to paintings and plays, promenades with
newsmongers, clandestine pamphleteering, – all were helping
to create a public sphere in which discussion took place.
Religious controversies over Jansenism also led to a more
politically aware Parisian bourgeoisie, and famous trials
became a vehicle for public discussion of government and
social injustice. Combined with notions of patriotism and
citizenship, these changes prepared sections of the population
to make new choices when the opportunity arose in 1788–89.
V. ECONOMICS
The French monarchy had always had such problems, but
the eighteenth century saw a great rise in the cost of warfare.
France had insufficient revenue to maintain its international
role as a great power, although some historians argue that its
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revenue was sufficient but that its credit mechanisms, unlike
those of Britain with its Bank of England, were deficient. (If
that is the case, then the problem was more political than
fiscal, as the reform of institutions would have been the key
to survival.) In the event, the American War of Independence
involved a costly naval war with Britain and the budgetary
problems were so great that a major reform initiative was put
before an Assembly of Notables in 1787, who rejected most
of it. Attempts to impose the reforms led to a major political
crisis in 1787–88 that developed into a revolution in 1789.
France in 1789, although facing some economic (and
especially fiscal) difficulties, was one of the richest and
strongest nations in Europe. The following all comes from
[Bairoch 1989].
France had over 28 million inhabitants. In Europe, only
Imperial Russia had more (37–41 million) and it was a poor
country. All of Europe, outside of Russia, counting France
and the British Isles, had a total of about 141–147 million. (p.
941)
France was amongst the most urbanized countries in
Europe if one considers communities over 2,000 to be urban
(and of slightly above average urbanization if one holds to a
minimum of 5,000). (p. 942)
The population of Paris was second only to London
(approximately 500,000 vs. 800,000; p. 941), and the country
had six of Europe's 35 largest cities. (p. 943)
France had 260,000 square kilometers under cultivation;
the entirety of Europe outside Russia — that qualifier will
apply unless otherwise noted — had no more than 100
million. (p. 945)
France had 5.3 million of Europe's 30 million male
peasants. (p. 945)
In 1800, the earliest date for which good statistics are
available, only the Netherlands and British Isles exceeded
France (in its 1789 borders) in agricultural productivity per
unit area. (p. 946)
France ranked roughly even with Switzerland, Belgium
and the Netherlands and significantly behind only the British
Isles in its level of industrialization. (p. 949) Because France
would have constituted about 14% of the continental
European product (again excluding Russia) at the time. He
does not believe that data is available to do a reasonable
comparison to Britain. The per capita GDP of France would
have been equivalent to about US$200–205 at the 1960 value
of the United States dollar, 6–10% above the (non-Russian)
European average of the time. (p. 959–963)
In short, while not having quite the per capita wealth of the
Low Countries and possibly Switzerland, the sheer size of the
French economy made it the premier economic power in
continental Europe.
1)Debt:
The French monarchy had operated for over a century
without resorting to a legislature. Since 1614, French kings
had managed their fiscal affairs by increasing the burden of
the ancient and unequal system of taxes, by borrowing
money, and sometimes by selling noble titles and other
privileges; however, because noble titles exempted the holder
from future taxes, the purchasers of titles were effectively

buying an annuity.
This led to the long-running fiscal crisis of the French
government. On the eve of the revolution, France was so
deeply in debt as to be effectively bankrupt. Extravagant
expenditures by Louis XVI on luxuries such as Versailles
were compounded by heavy expenditures on the Seven Years'
War and the American War of Independence.
Britain too had a great debt from these conflicts, but
Britain had a far more advanced fiscal structure to deal with
it. France was a wealthier country than Britain, and its
national debt was no greater than the British one. In each
country the servicing of the debt accounted for about half the
annual expenditure of the government. Where they differed
was in the fact that the rate of interest in France was almost
double than of across the Channel. This implied a much
higher level of taxation and less scope for any increase to
deal with a specific emergency.
Edmund Burke, no friend of the revolution, was to write in
1790, "...the public, whether represented by a monarch or by
a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can
have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and
proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large." Because
of the successful defense by the nobles of their privileges, the
king of France lacked the means to impose a "just and
proportioned" tax. The desire to do so led directly to the
decision in 1788 to call the Estates-General into session.
2)Taxation:
Disputes over taxation were common place throughout the
late 17th and entire 18th centuries. Not being one of the
major trading nations, France needed to raise most of its
government's revenues internally rather than from external
tariffs. While average tax rates were higher in Britain, the
burden on the common people was greater in France.
Taxation relied on a system of internal tariffs separating the
regions of France, which prevented a unified market from
developing in the country. Taxes such as the extremely
unpopular gabelle were contracted out to private collectors
("tax farmers") who were permitted to rise far more than the
government requested. These systems led to an arbitrary and
unequal collection of many of France's consumption taxes.
Other taxes the peasants were required to pay included a
tenth of their income or produce to the church (tithe), a
(taille) to the state, a 5% property tax (vingtième) and a tax
on the number of people in the family (capitation). Further
royal and seigniorial taxes were collected in the form of
compulsory labor (the corvée). The peasants also had
numerous obligations to their landlords - rent in cash (cens), a
payment related to their amount of produce (champari), and
taxes on the use of the nobles' mills, wine presses or bakeries
(banalités). In good times, the taxes were burdensome; in
harsh times, they were devastating.
Many public officials had to buy their positions from the
king, as well as the right to keep this position hereditary; they
of course tried to have these expenses repaid by making a
profit out of their appointment. For instance, in a civil
lawsuit, judges had to be paid some fees by the parties (the
épices); this put justice out of reach of everybody but the
wealthy classes.
7
The system also excluded the nobles and the clergy from
having to pay taxes (with the exception of a modest quit ren).
The tax burden was thus paid by the peasants, wage earners,
and the professional and business classes. These groups were
also cut off from most positions of power in the regime,
causing unrest.
3)Failure of reforms:
During the régimes of Louis XV and Louis XVI (reigned
1774-1792) several ministers, most notably Turgot and
Necker unsuccessfully proposed to revise the French tax
system to tax the nobles. Focus was often short sighted. The
main attention was looking for new revenue which created
greater resentment. Turgot who was appointed controller
general by Louis XVI attempted laissez-faire reforms and
was soundly defeated by guilds, merchants and nobles.
Necker created the first accounting of the French Budget and
attempted reform through increasing efficiency of the
government. The result was creation of both broad support as
well as absolute enemies.
Such measures encountered consistent resistance from the
Parlements (law courts). Members of these courts bought
their positions from the king, as well as the right to transmit
this position hereditarily (the so-called Paulette tax).
Membership in such courts, or appointment to other similar
public positions, often led to the elevation into the nobility
(the so-called noblesse de robe – "nobility of the robe", as
opposed to the nobility of ancestral military origin, the
noblesse d'épée, nobility of the sword). While these two
categories of nobles were often at odds, they both sought to
keep in place their privileges.
Because the need to raise taxes placed the king at odds
with the nobles and the high bourgeoisie, he typically
appointed as his finance ministers, (to use François Mignet's
term) "rising men", usually of non-noble origin. Turgot,
Chrétien de Malesherbes, and Jacques Necker successively
attempted to revise the system of taxation and to make other
reforms, such as Necker's attempts to reduce the lavishness of
the king's court. Each failed in turn.
In contrast, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, appointed
finance minister in 1783, restored lavish spending more
reminiscent of the age of Louis XIV. By the time Calonne
brought together the Assembly of Notables on February 22,
1787 to address the financial situation, France had reached a
state of virtual bankruptcy: no one would lend the king funds
sufficient to meet the expenses of government and court.
According to Mignet, the loans amounted to "one thousand
six hundred and forty-six millions... and... there was an
annual deficit... of a hundred and forty millions [presumably
of livres]." Calonne was succeeded by his chief critic Etienne
Charles de Loménie de Brienne, archbishop of Sens, but the
fundamental situation was unchanged: the government had no
credit. To try to address this, the assembly "sanctioned the
establishment of provincial assemblies, a regulation of the
corn trade, the abolition of corvées, and a new stamp tax; it
broke up on the 25th of May, 1787."
VI. TRANSPARENCY
 8

H.F. Helmolt argued that the issue was not so much the
debt as such, but the way the debt was refracted through the
lens of Enlightenment principles and the increasing power of
the Third Estate creditors.
Properly speaking, the people ought to have been
accustomed to the fact that the French government did not
fulfill its financial obligations, for since the time of Henry IV,
that is, within two centuries, it had failed to meet its
obligations fifty-six times. In earlier days such catastrophes
had not been announced and publicly discussed. Now all
France, which for two generations had been worked upon by
the party of rationalism, shared the outcry against the
financial situation.
The subsequent struggle with the Parlements in an
unsuccessful attempt to enact these measures displayed the
first overt signs of the disintegration of the Ancien Régime.
In the ensuing struggle, Protestants regained their rights and
Louis XVI promised an annual publication of the state of
finances, and convocation of the Estates-General within five
years.
Despite Ancien Régime France being, in theory, an
absolute monarchy, it became clear that the royal government
could not successfully effect the changes it desired without
the consent of the nobility. The financial crisis had become a
political crisis as well.
VII. FAMINE
These problems were all compounded by a great scarcity of
food in the 1780s. A series of crop failures caused a shortage
of grain, consequently raising the price of bread. Because
bread was the main source of nutrition for poor peasants, this
led to starvation. The two years previous to the revolution
(1788-89) saw bad harvests and harsh winters, possibly
because of a strong El Niño cycle caused by the 1783 Laki
eruption at Iceland. The little ice age was also affecting
agriculture: many other areas of Europe had adopted the
potato as the staple crop by this time, whereas the French
generally refused it as a dirty food or the devil's food. The
potato was more resilient to the colder temperatures during
the little ice age and also could not be easily destroyed by
scorched earth warfare. A normal worker earned anywhere
from 15 to 30 sous a day while skilled workers received 30 to
40 sous. A family of four would need about 2 loaves of bread
a day to survive. The price of bread rose by 88 percent in
1789, going from 9 sous to 14.5/15 sous. Many peasants were
relying on charity to survive. The peasantry became a class
with the ambition to counteract social inequity and put an end
to food shortages. The 'bread riot' evolved into a central cause
of the French Revolution. Mass urbanization coinciding with
the beginning of the industrial revolution led residents to
move into French cities seeking employment. French cities
became overcrowded and filled with the hungry and
disaffected. The peasantry suffered doubly from the economic
and agricultural problems.
on luxuries even though the government had some financial
problems. One of the government's main jobs back then was
to protect their country and manage wars. In the Seven Years
War against England, France spent large sums of money on
the war effort but they still lost the war and had to give up
their colonies in North America. Many people regarded this
loss as a major humiliation.
IX. OTHER CAUSES
i. American Reforms:
France had played a deciding role in the American
Revolutionary War, (1775-1783) sending its navy and troops
to aid the rebelling colonists. During this time there was
much contact between the Americans and the French, and
revolutionary ideals spread between the groups.
ii. Food Scarcity:
These problems were all compounded by a great scarcity of
food in the 1780s. Different crop failures in the 1780s caused
these shortages, which of course led to high prices for bread.
Perhaps no cause more motivated the Paris mob that was the
engine of the revolution more than the shortage of bread.
The poor conditions in the countryside had forced rural
residents to move into Paris, and the city was overcrowded
and filled with the hungry and disaffected. The peasants
suffered doubly from the economic and agricultural problems.
X. CONCLUSION
The French Revolution fundamentally changed the society
of France in the late 18th century, impacting the lives of every
citizen as revolutionaries worked to rebuild from the old
system of tyranny and to create a society based in new
principles benefiting the common man. The goals of
revolution were taken to the extreme as nearly every aspect of
life was changed in attempts to separate the culture from the
Old Regime and to do away with a legacy of monarchies and
tyranny. The Revolution was not entirely based on the
fundamentals of equality and fraternity and did not exist
without its own legacy of violence and destruction, but it
allowed for a change and an exploration of possibilities that
had not been possible until that time. This time in French
History was important to the people of France because of the
different types of government they had. Socialism, liberalism
and nationalism all were results of the French Revolution. It
gave people the idea that if they tried, they could reorganize a
society whenever it was needed. The greatest legacy of the
French Revolution, however, was that people could change
anything that they wanted with political ideas, words and
laws.

VIII. POLITICAL DISCONTENT

King Louis XV and King Louis XVI both led extremely
extravagant lives. They spent lots of the government's money
 9

[12]J.Adolphus, Biographical Memoirs of The French Revolution,

T.Cadell, junn. And W.Davies, 1808.
[13]A.Cobben and G.Lewis, The Social Interpretation of The French
Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp 118-227
[14]F.C.Bouille, Memoirs Relating to French Revolution, Cadell and
Davies, pp 450 470.
[15]F.Feher, The French Revolution and Birth of Modernity, Net
Library, Incorporated, pp 210-219.
[16]N.Hampson, ”The Failureto Compromise”, The Social History of
the French Revolution, Rout ledge, 1963, 86-100.
[17] ‘Press and public in the French Revolution: a Parisian case-study
from 1791’, European History Quarterly, 28(1) 1998: 51–80
[18] ‘The denial of social conflict in the French Revolution: discourses
around the Champ de Mars massacre, 17 July 1791’, French
Historical Studies, 22(2) 1999: 183–209.
[19] French Society in Revolution, 1789-1799 (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1999).
[20] The French Revolution and the People (London: Hambledon &
London, 2004).
[21]‘The un virtuous king? Clerical rhetoric on the French monarchy,
1760–1774’, Journal of the History of European Ideas, 25(1-2)
1999: 55–74.
[22] The Origins of the French Revolution (Basingstoke and New
York: Palgrave, 2006).
[23]Paul Bairoch, "L'économie française dans le contexte européen à
la fin du XVIIIe siècle", Revue économique, Vol. 40, No. 6,
Révolution de 1789: Guerres et Croissance économique (Nov.,
1989), pp. 939-964
[24] Wood, C.A., 1992. "The climatic effects of the 1783 Laki eruption"
in C. R. Harrington (Ed.), The Year Without a Summer? Canadian
Museum of Nature, Ottawa, pp. 58– 77
[25]Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity: Exploring the French
Revolution [online]. Available http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/
[26]Origins of French Revolution [online], available:
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture11a.html
[27]Primary Source documents on French Revolution [online]
available: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook13.html
[28]Cobban, A. ‘Historians and the causes of the French Revolution’,
in A. Cobban, Aspects of the French Revolution (London:
Jonathan Cape, 1969).

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