Causes of the French Revolution

The causes of the French Revolution can be attributed to several intertwining factors: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 causes of the French Revolution can be attributed to several intertwining factors: All these factors created a revolutionary atmosphere and a tricky situation for Louis XVI. In order to resolve the crisis, the king summoned the Estates-General in May 1789 and, as it came to an impasse, the representatives of the Third Estates formed a National Assembly, against the wishes of the king, signaling the outbreak of the French Revolution. The essence of the revolutionary situation which existed in France in the 1780s was the bankruptcy of the king, and hence the state. This economic crisis was due to the rapidly increasing costs of government and to the overwhelming costs incurred by fighting two major wars: the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War. These costs could not be met from the usual sources of state revenue. Since the 1770s, several attempts by different ministers to introduce financial stability had failed. The taxation system was burdensome upon the middle class and the more prosperous peasants, given that the nobles were largely able to exempt themselves from it. As a result, there was 'an insistent demand' for reform of these abuses of privilege, for an equitable means of taxation and for improved government processes. David Thomson argued that the bourgeoisie and peasantry had 'something to lose, not merely something to gain' in their demands for a fairer society and this fear too was a major factor in the revolutionary situation. A growing number of the French citizenry had absorbed the ideas of 'equality' and 'freedom of the individual' as presented by Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot and other philosophers and social theorists of the Age of Enlightenment. The American Revolution demonstrated that it was plausible for Enlightenment ideas about how a government should be organized to actually be put into practice. Some American diplomats, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, had lived in Paris, where they consorted freely with members of the French intellectual class. Furthermore, contact between American revolutionaries and the French troops who served in North America helped spread revolutionary ideas to the French people. The population of France in the 1780s was about 26 million, of whom 21 million were workers in arable and pastoral agriculture. Few of these owned enough land to support a family and most were forced to take on extra work as they were poorly paid laborers on larger farms. There were regional differences but, by and large, French peasants were generally better off than those in countries like Russia or Poland. Even so, hunger was a daily problem which became critical in years of poor harvest and the condition of most French peasants was poor. The fundamental issue of poverty was aggravated by social inequality as all the third estate were liable to pay taxes, from which the nobility could claim immunity, and feudal dues payable to a local seigneur or lord. Similarly, the destination of tithes which the peasants were obliged to pay to their local churches was a cause of grievance as it was known that the majority of parish priests were poor and the contribution was being paid to an aristocratic, and usually absentee, abbot. The clergy numbered about 100,000 and yet they owned 10% of the land. The Catholic Church maintained a rigid hierarchy as abbots and bishops were all members of the nobility and canons were all members of wealthy bourgeois families. As an institution, it was both rich and powerful. As with the nobility, it paid no taxes and merely contributed a grant to the state every five years, the amount of which was self-determined. The upper echelons of the clergy had considerable influence over government policy. Dislike of the nobility was especially intense. Successive French kings and their ministers had tried with limited success to suppress the power of the nobles but, in the last quarter of the 18th century, 'the aristocracy were beginning once again to tighten their hold on the machinery of government'. France in 1787, although it faced some difficulties, was one of the most economically capable nations of Europe. The French population exceeded 28 million; of Europe's 178 to 188 millions, only Imperial Russia had a greater population (37 to 41 million). France was also among the most urbanized countries of Europe, the population of Paris was second only to that of London (approximately 500,000 vs. 800,000), and six of Europe's 35 larger cities were French. Other measures confirm France's inherent strength. France had 5.3 million of Europe's approximately 30 million male peasants. Its area under cultivation, productivity per unit area, level of industrialization, and gross national product (about 14% of the continental European product, excluding Russia, and 6% to 10% above the level elsewhere in Europe ) all placed France near the very top of the scale. In short, while it may have lagged slightly behind the Low Countries, and possibly Switzerland, in per capita wealth, the sheer size of the French economy made it the premier economic power of continental Europe.