History

Many times in history, inequality has led to people taking action to bring forth change. The British colonists in the thirteen colonies were being oppressed in many ways by England. As a result, they rebelled and created the Age of Revolutions: a series of revolutions across the entire world, with the next in line being in France (1789-99). In the years leading up to 1789, France had been suffering economically, politically, and socially. In terms of money, France was essentially bankrupt after spending all of their money on wars: the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolutionary War. In terms of politics, King Louis XVI was the reigning monarch alongside his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The way that France was ruled was called the Ancien Régime, which translates to “Old Order”; it was a political and social system based on a monarchy having absolute power, or absolutism. As many Enlightenment thinkers began to realize, having one to two people in charge of millions does not always turn out to be a great idea. This research paper will go over these different causes of the French Revolution.