Causes of the French Revolution
Camilo Henao
Martin Research Journal, James Martin High School
Abstract
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.
Political and Social Causes
Ancien Régime
Before the start of the French Revolution in 1789, France was a monarchy, specifically, an absolute monarchy. This means that the monarchs hold absolute power over the government and all of the French people are their subjects (Rees, 2019, p. 2; The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2023). The society during the Ancien Régime was divided into three sections, or estates (Rees, 2019, p. 10). The Ancien Régime was a major cause of the revolution, it included the weak monarchy and social classes that caused discontent to the French people, further pushing them to revolt.
To expand, as Rees (2019, p.7) explains, Absolutism implies that the reigning monarch should have a strong character that can firmly respond to the demands of millions. This held true for Louis XIV, he was a strong-willed ruler known as the Sun King who brought France to the peak of its power before the time of Napoleon (Erlanger, 2024). However, as Earlnager explained, during Louis’ reign, he put all of the weight of running such a large monarchy on himself, proving to be a great burden (2024). Years later, King Louis XVI repeatedly showed that the burden was too much to handle. He was indecisive and was unable to fix the economic problems of France in time (Rees, 2019, p. 8-9). A man by the name of l’Abbe de Veri wrote about King Louis XVI in his private diary in 1780. He stated, “Louis XVI … has common sense, simple tastes, an honest heart, and a sound conscience … On the other hand he has a tendency to indecision, he possesses a rather weak will and he is incapable of ruling effectively. He also lacks an ability to fully appreciate the significance of what is occurring around him.” (Rees, 2019, p. 8) In other words, in Absolutism, the country is only as strong as its leader. A strong leader like Louis XIV will catapult it to success and expansion, but a weak one like Louis XVI, will lead it to destruction.
Secondly, the Ancien Régime also included French society; a system divided into three classes known as Estates. The First Estate included the clergy of France, about 135,000 people, which accounted for less than 1% of the population at the time (Janis et al., 2019, p. 286; Rees, 2019, p. 10). This Estate had certain privileges such as being exempt from paying taxes and instead paid an annual payment called a “don gratuit” which translates to free donation (Rees, 2019, p. 11). This payment was about 5% of the total income made in a year. Additionally, the First Estate was in charge of keeping track of things like births, deaths, and marriages, much like the National Center for Health Statistics in the United States. (National Academy of Sciences, 2009; Rees, 2019, p. 11) They were also able to censor things such as books that went against Catholicism and attacked their beliefs; this was implemented in places like schools. (Rees, 2019, p. 11) The fact that they were exempt from taxes, the censorship, and the vast amount of wealth that the First Estate had were all factors that bound the people of France to feel injustice.
The Second Estate consisted of the nobility, estimated at anywhere from 110,000-350,000 people, making up about 1% of the French population (Janis et al., 2019, p. 286; Rees, 2019, p. 11) Like the First Estate, this Estate also had its own privileges that made them shine over the Third Estate. For example as Rees (2019, p. 12) explains, Nobles would be tried in their own courts, did not have to serve in the military, paid little to no taxes, could not be put into forced labor, and oftentimes had the monopoly right for mills and wine presses. Even with these exclusive privileges, there actually were ways that one could join the nobility. One could buy their way into it by buying an office that came with the title of a noble. Another way would be to be given the title of a noble by the king himself. Still, the number of people that could become nobles was low as the Third Estate was heavily taxed.
The Third Estate was everyone else in France that was not a part of the First or Second Estates. It contained over twenty-four million people and made up about 97% of the French population (Janis et al., 2019, p. 286; Rees, 2019, p. 10). As the only state without any special privileges, they were taxed. This estate was split into different classes too: the bourgeoisie and the peasants. The bourgeoisie were the richer class and were educated. Members of the bourgeoisie were merchants, doctors, and lawyers among other professions. (Rees, 2019, p. 14) Since the bourgeoisie was a part of the taxed Third Estate, they made up a good amount of the money given to France via taxes. As a result, they thought that they should hold some political power, but they were not allowed to (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2024a).This pushed the desire for change, which could–and was–brought through a revolution. Rees (2019, p. 13-15) explains that the peasantry of the Third Estate made up over half of the total population of France. Some of the peasantry owned their own farming lands and had some employees, while some were sharecroppers and others were serfs. The serfs were forced to work on the land of their lord and pay taxes to them. The last group of the Third Estate were urban workers, they could either be skilled or unskilled and were poor (Rees, 2019, p. 13-15). The main resentment of this Estate came from the tax collecting system. The peasants of the Third Estate had to pay taxes to the Church, taxes to France itself, and taxes to the lord on whose land they lived. This huge taxation burden caused the peasants to feel resentment towards the Ancién Regime, which was a main cause of the French Revolution.
Overall, the Ancién Regime was such a big cause of the revolution because of the political and social problems that it caused. Politically, the weak leadership of an absolutist monarch spiraled the country into debts and problems that were never fixed. Socially, the three Estates of the social classes created resentments against the Ancién Regime that with time became part of the gunpowder that would start the French Revolution.
The American Revolutionary War
In the years 1775-1783, the United States’ War for Independence was fought against the British (Wallace, 2024). Wallenfeldt (2022) explains how this was caused because after decades of salutary neglect towards the colonies, the British came back and began to enforce their laws. He continues by stating that a possible reason for this change was because Great Britain wanted to regain some of the money they lost in the Seven Years’ War. In order to obtain money from the colonists, the British began imposing taxes on the thirteen colonies via acts such as the Stamp Act and Sugar Act. Additionally, even though the colonies were subject to the British laws, they had no representation in Parliament. This gave way to the popular phrase, “No taxation without representation”.
Initially, the revolution was a war between the British crown and British colonies, however it soon turned into an international war. In 1778 and 1779, France and Spain, respectively, joined the colonists against the rule of King George III (Wallace, 2024). Furthermore, the Netherlands economically helped the soon to be United States and recognized its independence (Wallace, 2024). The French in particular, played a key role in the last major battle of the Revolution; The Siege of Yorktown. Together, the French and the Continental Army were able to trap the British forces at the Yorktown Peninsula, forcing them to surrender (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2023). While this helped the creation of the United States of America; a new independent, democratic nation with rights for some of its citizens, it also helped inspire the idea of a revolution in France. As Rees (2019, p. 18) explains, the French soldiers fighting alongside the soon to be Americans picked up on some of the ideas of the colonists. An example of one of these ideas would be replacing a monarchy with a democracy. Once the soldiers returned from the war, they began to want reform in France.
The Seven Years’ War
The Seven Years’ War was essentially a colonial world war as it was fought on multiple continents from 1756 to 1763 (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2024b). In North America, the British and French were fighting for control over territories and it was called the French and Indian War. The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2024b) later explain that in Southeast Asia, the British and French were also fighting for control over India. In Europe, it was Russia, Austria, Sweden, Saxony, and France fighting against Hanover, Prussia, and Great Britain. By the end of the war, France had faced multiple defeats in India and North America. Consequently, the British won and peace was signed between France, Great Britain, and their allies in the 1763 Treaty of Paris. As a part of the treaty, France lost its territories in North America that were West of the Mississippi river, several West Indian islands, as well as territories in Indian and the East Indies. However, France gained control of some new islands in West India and the Caribbean (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2024b). The Seven Years’ War added to the growing pile of debt of the French crown. In combination with the American Revolutionary War, this debt increased by several million livres, the French currency during the Ancién Regime (Swansea University Historians, n.d.).
While the American Revolutionary War brought France a victory and a new ally, the Seven Years’ War brought defeat and territorial loss to France. Either way, both wars reeled in debt for the French. This forced them to increase the number of loans that the crown took out so as to not increase taxes, which Reels (2019, p. 19) explains is what Jacques Necker, the French finance minister, was known for.
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment era brought many new ideas to Europe regarding things such as rights, religion, and government types (Rees, 2019, p. 16). Many famous Enlightenment philosophers were French, or at least were known in France, namely Montesqieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau. Technically speaking, they did not go against the Anicén Regime itself so they were not considered to be revolutionaries (Rees, 2019, p. 17). Montesquieu wrote about how the separation of powers can get rid of power abuse from the government as well as advocating for religious tolerance (Shackleton, 2024). Volataire too believed in religious tolerance, however he believed that any religion as well as politics should be able to be questioned by reason (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). Lastly, Rousseau believed in liberty; he wrote that man was born free but the society around which he lived enslaved him in chains (Rousseau, 1762, p. 5). So while these philosophers may not have called out the Ancién Regime itself, their ideas opposed parts of the Ancién Regime such as divine right. Therefore, these philosophers influenced those who truly became revolutionaries.
Economic Causes
Taxes
Taxes are an integral part of any sovereign nation; it is how they can make money from just about anything. An effective and reasonable taxation system will develop a nation and keep its people happy. However, a taxation system that is unsuccessful in collecting taxes or is unreasonable will ruin a country and its people, typically its poorer citizens more often than not. In the Ancién Regime, the French monarchy hired a company called the Farmers-General that would collect taxes for them (Rees, 2019, p. 7). The company would go around France collecting taxes and give the government the agreed upon sum of money, but any extra money they kept for themselves. Rees (2019, p. 9) continues to explain that under the Ancién Regime, the tax collectors bought their position, meaning that they could not be fired. This of course led to corruption. Consequently, the French government struggled to receive the money it needed to cover all of its costs, which forced it to borrow money (Rees, 2019, p. 7-8). However, as the crown did not have enough money due to the poor tax collection system, their debt kept on growing. The Third Estate paid the taxes, but they were poor, so they had to give part of what little money they had to their king. What made the Third Estate angry was the corruption as they were essentially paying corrupt officials rather than their country (Rees, 2019, p. 9). This anger led them to want to rebel and revolutionize the system they lived in.
General Financial Crisis
In general, the reason that the economy was a cause of the French Revolution was the wars France was involved in and its lack of a good source of money (Rees, 2019, p. 19). The Swansea University Historians (n.d.) explained how the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolutionary War both cost France money, forcing it to take out loans they could not afford to pay back due to their lack of sufficient income. Rees (2019, p. 8-9) later explained this lack was due to the corruption in the taxation system. Consequently, the Third Estate became angry at this because they were really the only ones who paid taxes, and they were not even reaching the treasury, rather, they were being stolen.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the French Revolution had a massive impact on the world and it had a variety of causes, from philosophical, to monetary, to social. Before 1789, the Ancién Regime was the social and political system in France. It caused tension between the social classes due monetary differences, the ability to hold political power or not, and the censorship from the First Estate. The Ancién Regime also brought the system of an absolute monarchy over France. When combined with King Louis XVI ruling, it quickly spiraled France down into unpayable debts and eventual revolution. Furthermore, the wars that France fought leading up to 1789 did bring good things such as new islands and allies. However, it is important to note that more territory was lost than gained as a result of the peace treaties that ended these wars. When the French soldiers returned from war, they also brought with them new ideas that went against the current triple estate system, further provoking a desire for change. These military conflicts also proved to be a financial burden, one which could not be easily paid off due to the poor tax collection system and the corruption within it. Lastly, the Enlightenment Era also sowed seeds for the revolutionaries with ideas such as questioning authorities from Voltaire,the idea of a separation of powers from Montesquieu, and Rosseau with his ideas on society being the enslaver of man, which one could say especially applied to the peasants of the Third Estate.
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