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THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION:

AS THE EVENTS UNFOLD

Zara Dash
History 101: World History
December 8, 2016
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Liberty, equality and freedom. While these ideas are taken for granted today, the French

Revolution is a period of time that attests to the struggle that came along with the attainment of

these ideas. The French Revolution is considered to be one of the most significant events in

history for it altered the face of France, prompting the expansion of key concepts of democracy

and nationalism. While this change was fueled by an economic crisis, it was a chain of political

and social reform to eliminate monarchy and develop a Government elected by the citizens of the

town. According to Franois-Claude-Amour marquis de Bouill, a French aristocrat and

supporter of the king, offers his views on the French Revolution in his memoirs by saying, The

turning point was 1789. It was in that year that the Revolution, already apparent in the minds,

customs and way of life of the French nation, began to take effect in government.1 In this paper,

we will discuss how the French Revolution was caused by the worsening condition of the French

monarchy, economic depression, and the growing Middle class, and the Revolution

eventually resulted in radical social, economic, and political change throughout France. We will

be exploring the causes of the French Revolution and different aspects of it in depth.

The society and institutions of France before 1789, termed as the Old Regime, was

branched into three distinct sections, or estates. The members of the first two estates, namely the

clergy and nobility were privileged by birth. Exempted from paying taxes to the state, they

further enjoyed feudal privileges. As Eric Hazans A Peoples History of the French Revolution

notes, the nobility did not form a class, nor even a genuine order: it was a set of disparate castes,

often mutually hostile.2

1 Franois-Claude-Amour marquis de Bouill, Memoirs Relating to the French Revolution (Cadell and Davies, 1797),
45.
2 Eric Hazan, A Peoples History of the French Revolution, London: Verso, 2014.
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The third estate comprised of peasants, commoners and the large, reasonable wealthy

middle class that included traders and businessmen. The countrys tax revenue was paid mainly

by this section of society. They paid a direct tax called the taile and several indirect taxes that

were associated to the consumption of everyday products like tobacco and salt. In addition, the

Church extracted its share of taxes called tithes, from the third estate.

Peasants made for about 90% of the population, but only a small amount of them owned the land

they worked on. Alexis de Tocqueville, in her book The Ancien Rgime and the French

Revolution, expounds on the condition of peasants:

In order to purchase [land], he is bound, in the first place, to pay a tax, not to the

government, but to some neighbors of his, who have no more authority, and no

more to do with public business than he. Still he buys, and puts his heart into his

land with his seed. The idea that this little corner of the vast universe belongs to

him alone fills him with pride and independence. But the same neighbors pass

along and compel him to work on their land without wages. If he tries to protect

his harvest from the game, they prevent him. He can not cross the river without

paying them toll. He can not take his produce to market and sell it till he has

bought leave to do so from them; and when, on his return home, he wants to

consume in his family the surplus of his producesown by his hands and grown

under his eyeshe finds he must first send his grain to their mill to be ground,

and to their oven to be cooked. The largest part of the income of his little estate
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goes to the same parties in the shape of rents, which can not be redeemed or got

rid of in any way.3

In the early 18th century, France was an absolute monarchy under the rule of the Bourbon

dynasty. They claimed the throne by divine right, which as defined by Darius Von Gs French

Revolution is defined as, a political doctrine of royal legitimacy which maintains that a

monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of

God.4 Upon the ascension of Louis XVI in 1774, the king found an empty treasury. Long years

of war like the Seven Years War from 1756-63 had drained the financial resources of France.

From the beginning of his reign, the king pursued policies that serves to rebuild

confidence in the monarchy. He took to the advice of his ministers, but lacked a sense of

persistence when it came to facing a firm opposition to his ideas. His inconsistencies often made

him look indecisive. Supporting the American colonists financially in their rebellion again

Britain, their success did lead to an impression of restoration of Frances position in Europe. This

provided no major benefits to France. However, the loans that financed the war continued to add

to the existing debt that France was under. Marquis de Bouill asserts in his memoir that, The

most striking of the countrys troubles was the chaos in its finances, the result of years of

extravagance intensified by the expense of the American War of Independence, which had cost

the state over twelve hundred million livres. No one could think of a remedy but a search for

fresh funds, as the old ones were exhausted.5 A summary of the French royal spending in 1789

3 Alexis de Tocqueville, The Ancien Rgime and the French Revolution, London: Penguin 2008, p. 48.
4 Darius Von Gttner, The French Revolution, Austalia: Nelson Cengage Learning 2015, p. 16.

5 de Bouill, Memoirs Relating to the French Revolution, p. 45.

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unveiled a documented account of 227, 983, 716 livres. Lenders now began to charge a 10% interest

on loans. The French Government was now coerced to spend a significant amount of its budget

on interest payments. To meet its regular expenses, the state was forced to increase taxes.

Chancellor Maupeou, a minster of the Bourbon monarchy put together a set of measures:

increased taxes, reduction of interest rates on national debt, forced loans, cutting of pensions paid

by the state, etc. This measure would not have been effective for long, as only one section of

society paid taxes.

Jean-Marie Roland de la Platiere, a wealthy French businessman and

minister attempted to shed light on the domestic problems of the economy. He

said, I have seen eighty, ninety, a hundred pieces of cotton or woolen stuff cut

up, and completely destroyed. I have witnessed similar scenes every week for a

number of years. I have seen manufactured goods confiscated; heavy fines laid on

the manufacturers; some pieces of fabric were burnt in public places, and at the

hours of market: others were fixed to the pillory, with the name of the

manufacturer inscribed upon them, and he himself was threatened with the pillory,

in case of a second offence. All this was done under my eyes, at Rouen, in

conformity with existing regulations, or ministerial orders. What crime deserved

so cruel a punishment? Some defects in the materials employed, or in the texture

of the fabric, or even in some of the threads of the warp.6

Another aspect of this situation which further exacerbated the existing and further

declining condition of France was its subsistence crisis. From 1715 to 1789, the population of

6 Jean-Marie Roland de la Platire, De la Libert du Travail, (Paris, 1830), Vol. II, pp. 353-4.
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France rose. This inevitably led to a rapid increase in the demand for food grains. Charles

Alexandre de Calonne, made controller-general in 1783, suppressed all regulation on grain trade.

Previously, farmers were obliged to take grain to the market. Now they were allowed to sell it

directly. The basic idea was that better prices would be obtained for the producers. However, the

harvest of 1788 was disastrous, because of drought followed by hail. The price of bread, the

staple diet of the majority of people, rose rapidly. Wages could no long keep pace with the

change in prices. The gap between the poor and rich widened.

While economic issues were commonplace in France, the 18th century also witnessed the

emergence of social groups called the middle class. They believed that no group in society

should be privileged by birth, and that social status should depend on merit. The Enlightenment

Era brought along with it, a new sense of rational thinking and a constant flow of ideas. France

was influenced by the ideas of philosophers and thinkers like Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire

Montesquieu and John Locke. Through his political essay, Rousseau explains his idea of the

social contract,

Man is born free, and yet is everywhere in fetters [chains]. He is governed,

obliged to obey laws. What is it that legitimises this subjection to government? I

think I can solve the problem. The problem with which men are confronted in

these circumstances may be put thus: To find a form of association that defends

and protects, with all the common force, the person and property of each partner,

and by which each partner, uniting himself with all the rest, nevertheless obeys

only himself, and remains as free as heretofore. To this problem the social

contract affords a solution.7

7 Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Hafner Publishing Company, 1960.
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Montesquieu published his views on the three types of government in his book The Spirit

of the Laws, When in a republic, the whole people possesses sovereign power, it is a democracy.

When this power is in the hands of only a part of the people, it is an aristocracy. In a democracy

the people, in certain respects, are the monarch; in others, they are the subject. It cannot reign

except by its votes, and the laws which establish the right of voting are therefore fundamental in

this form of government.8 The ideas of these philosophers were discussed intensively and

spread among people through books and newspapers. The news that Louis XVI planned to

impose further taxes to be able to meet the expenses of the state generated anger and protest

against the system of privileges.

On 5 May 1789, Louis XVI called together an assembly of the Estates General in

Versailles to pass proposals for new taxes. The first and second estates sent 300 representatives

each, who were seated in rows facing each other on two sides, and 600 members of the third

estate had to stand at the back. Artisans, peasant and women were denied entry. Till then, voting

in the Estates General had been conducted in a manner that each estate had one vote. The

members of the third estate demanded that voting now be conducted by the assembly as a whole,

where each member would have one vote. This was one of the ideas put forward by philosophers

like Rousseau in his book The Social Contract. When the king rejected this proposal, members of

the third estate walked out of the assembly in protest. On 20 June, they assembled in an indoor

tennis court on the grounds of Versailles. They declared that they were a National Assembly.

They were led by Mirabeau and Abb Sieys. Mirabeau was born in a noble family but was

convinced of the need to do away with a society of feudal privilege.

8 Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, United States: University of California Press, 1977.
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While the National Assembly was busy at Versailles drafting a constitution, the rest of

France was drowning in chaos. A bad harvest lead to a rapid rise in food prices. On 14 July, the

agitated crowd stormed and destroyed the Bastille. Peasants seized hoes and pitchforks and

attacked chateaux. They looted grain and burnt down documents containing records of feudal

dues. After the storming of the Bastille, the British Ambassador Lord Dorset remarked, the

greatest Revolution that we know anything of has been effected with, comparatively speaking

if the magnitude of the event is consideredthe loss of very few lives. From this moment we

may consider France as a free country; the king a very limited monarch, and the nobility as

reduced to a level with the rest of the nation.9

Facing his revolting subjects, Louis XVI supplied recognition to the National Assembly

and accepted that his powers would from now on be checked by a constitution. The Assembly

passed a decree abolishing the feudal system of obligations and taxes. Members of the clergy too

were forced to give up their privileges. Tithes were abolished and lands owned by the Church

were confiscated.

In conclusion, this paper observes the most notable causes that brought about the French

Revolution. While the first instinct of the Revolution was sparked by economic hardships, there

were several factors that played a role into the outbreak of the revolution. The French

Government was inefficient in their governance and Louis XVI proved to be a weak ruler. Debt

9 John Hall Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution, (New York: Macmillan,
1951), pp. 105-6.
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pulled France into an economic crisis. Increase in taxation lead to a more pronounced distinction

between the rich and the poor. As food prices rose rapidly in reference to the demand, the people

of France struggled for survival. A rising middle class, and a flow of idea from political thinkers

bolstered the possibility of a Revolution. Hence, the French Revolution was born.

Works Cited

Alexis de Tocqueville. The Ancien Rgime and the French Revolution. London: Penguin, 2008.
Charles de Secondat Montesquieu. The Spirit of the Laws. United States: University of California
Press, 1977.
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Darius Von Gttner. The French Revolution. Austalia: Nelson Cengage Learning, 2015.
Eric Hazan. A Peoples History of the French Revolution. Translated by David Fernbach.
London: Verso, 2014.
Franois-Claude-Amour marquis de Bouill. Memoirs Relating to the French Revolution.
London: Cadell and Davies, 1797.
Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract. Hafner Publishing Company, 1960.
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platire. De la Libert du Travail, Vol II, Paris, 1830.

John Hall Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (New York: Macmillan,
1951), pp. 105-6.