Causes of the French rev

Enlightenment

Economic problems

American war of independence

Louis XVI poor king

  • America was another source of ideas challenging the Ancien regime
  • 1778 V Britain
  • Soldiers sympathetic to American colonists pursuit of freedom (liberty) and democracy
  • Lafayette already enlisted
  • Lafayette and 8,000 troops returned home and brought with them the renewed ideas of liberty and democracy and the example and experience of how an existing P authority could be overthrown and a new order built in its place
  • cost in war worsened the already weak financial situation of the crown

Wars:

  • 7 years war (1.8 billion livres)
  • War of Austrian succession (1 billion livres)

ST the crown borrowed from international banks but this just made things worse. The American CW aided this poor financial situation

Inefficient tax system

  • nobility and clergy exempt
  • tax collection chaotic and incomplete due to regional differences

Marie Antoinette's spending

  • Trianon Palace 1774 = 50,000 francs
  • The Diamond Necklace affair 1785 - Rohan

Bad harvests

Social discontent

  • unfair tax = resentment
  • Complaints about the church - Cures didn't receive entire tithe. = problems of absenteeism and pluralism
  • Summoning of Estates general = weakness and desperation
  • financial spending
  • awkward, indecisive and uncommunicative However... king, and religiously devout
  • Louis met advisors individually not collectively - created problem of ministers and court factions working against each other = problems with govt

1788 and 1789 = food prices increased to a high point 14th July 1789 = Storming of the Bastille - first Journee of the revolution

  • intellectual movement in 18th C which challenged the views on religion, nature and the absolute monarchy
  • Montesquieu criticised royal absolutism
  • Voltaire criticised catholic church
  • Rousseau went the furthest - he argued that a sceptic monarch could be overthrown by their subjects and that sovereignty resided in the people, rather than just in the person of the king

Failure by the controller generals (finance ministers)

Their failure highlighted the weakness of the crown and opened the king and queen to accusations of extravagance


They also led to attempts to involve the nation in reforms in France, first by calling the assembly of Notables in 1787 and the estates generals in 1789 = REV