Causes: 1. International: struggle for hegemony and Empire outstrips the fiscal resources
of the state 2. Political conflict: conflict between the Monarchy and the nobility over the
“reform” of the tax system led to paralysis and bankruptcy. 3. The Enlightenment: impulse for reform intensifies political conflicts; reinforces
traditional aristocratic constitutionalism, one variant of which was laid out in Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws; introduces new notions of good government, the most radical being popular sovereignty, as in Rousseau’s Social 4. Social antagonisms between two rising groups: the aristocracy and the
bourgeoisie
5. Ineffective ruler: Louis XVI 6. Economic hardship, especially the agrarian crisis of 1788-89 generates popular
discontent and disorders caused by food shortages.
Revolutionary situation: when the government's monopoly of power is effectively challenged by some groups who no longer recognize its legitimate authority, no longer grant it loyalty, and no longer obey its commands. Dual or multiple sovereignty is the identifying feature of a revolutionary situation - the fragmentation of an existing polity into two or more blocs, each of which exercises control over some part of the government and lays claim to its exclusive control over the government. A revolutionary situation continues until a single, sovereign polity is reconstituted. The Third Estate’s Oath of the Tennis Court in June 1789 and its claim of representing the sovereignty of the nation creates a revolutionary situation in France.
Many factors led to the revolution; to some extent the old order succumbed to its own rigidity in the face of a changing world; to some extent, it fell to the ambitions of a rising bourgeoisie, allied with aggrieved peasants and wageearners and with individuals of all classes who were influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment. As the revolution proceeded and as power devolved from the monarchy to legislative bodies, the conflicting interests of these initially allied groups would become the source of conflict and bloodshed.
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Resentment of royal absolutism.
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Resentment of the seigneurial system by peasants, wage-earners, and a rising bourgeoisie.
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The rise of enlightenment ideals.
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An unmanageable national debt, both caused by and exacerbating the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation.
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Food scarcity in the years immediately before the revolution.
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Absolutism and privilege • France in 1789 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 hemmed in by the (equally resented) power and prerogatives of the nobility and the clergy, the remnants of feudalism. Similarly, the peasants covetously eyed the relatively greater prerogatives of the townspeople.
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The large and growing middle class -- and some of the nobility and of the working class -- had absorbed the ideology of equality and freedom of the individual, brought about by such philosophers as Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Turgot, and other theorists of the Enlightenment. • Furthermore, they had the example of the American Revolution showing that that it was plausible that Enlightenment ideals about governmental organization might be put into practice. They attacked the undemocratic nature of the government, pushed for freedom of speech, and challenged the Catholic Church and the prerogatives of the nobles. Economics Taxation • Unlike the trading nations, France could not rely almost solely on tariffs to generate income. 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 raise far more than the government requested. These systems led to an arbitrary and unequal collection of many of France's consumption taxes. Further royal and seigneurial taxes were collected in the form of compulsory labor (the corvée). The system also excluded the nobles and the clergy from having to pay taxes (with the exception of a modest quit rent). 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.
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American Influence 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.
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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
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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.
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Failures of Empire & Economy
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In the 17th and early 18th centuries, France was at height of its European power. The 'Sun King,' Louis XIV, had expanded French possessions eastward into Central Europe and huge swathes of North America, from Canada to Louisiana, were under French control. This empire and the wars which acquiring such expansive territory required, however, came with an enormous bill. When Louis XIV died in 1715, he left the French state wracked with massive debt. France's subsequent rulers, Louis XV and Louis XVI, not only had to contend with this state debt, but were forced to spend much of the 18th century maintaining an enormous standing military trying unsuccessfully to hang on to many of these possessions. The Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in North America) caused particular harm to the state's finances, as France participated in both European and North American theaters of the conflict and, in the end, merely lost huge amounts of territory as a result. Their subsequent participation in the successful American Revolution further drained money from the French state, while achieving little tangible results for France other than the humiliation of their chief Western European rival, Great Britain. While the French state was wracked in debt from the expenditures that came with war and empire, French fiscal restraint at court was nonexistent. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI operated the French court from thePalace of Versailles, an enormous and ostentatious palace located outside Paris and built by Louis XIV. For example, Louis XVI's wife, Marie Antoinette, had a yearly clothing allowance in the millions of dollars, despite France being unable to pay even the interest on the loans it had taken out to finance its empire.
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The People
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The money to pay for the spendthrift practices of France's rulers, both at home and abroad, had to be paid for by someone, and much of this money came from taxes. In 18th-century France, the nobility and the church were both exempt from taxation, which meant that nearly all tax money came from the incomes of the poorest - and most populous - portion of French society. To make matters worse, the French peasantry - who often owned only enough land to feed themselves and their families - were in the midst of a series of seasonal crop failures, and they could hardly afford to spare any money or resources to pay for the armies and lifestyles of their royalty. Indeed, a particularly acute crop failure took place in 1788 - an event most historians consider one of the touchstones of the ensuing popular uprising.
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