What Role Did The Bourgeoisie Play In The French Revolution

The French Revolution was a crucial step towards France gaining freedom from the monarchy. Even though this event was so instrumental, the exact reason why it started has been debated by historians for years. There are parts that can be agreed upon, for example the bourgeoisie having an important role in the Revolution in either view discussed. However, the majority of the content in the theories is not the same and it is hard to imagine a situation where there can be an agreement of what really happened. The most prominent class in France was the clergy. They held leading office positions and enjoyed “political, judicial, and fiscal privileges” and were very wealthy. Their main source of monetary success was through the property they owned

Commoners and any bourgeois subdivision carried “social conflicts” between them for years and still did at the time of the revolution, but they were able to unite under hatred for the upper classes. Many of the lower bourgeoisie had been born as peasants and still felt an attachment to life in the fields.
They were also able to cooperate under the failure of grain crops in 1788, which affected those in the country and towns alike with a shortage of bread, the main food eaten by many.
The peasants’ main purpose for their participation was feudalism and feudal dues. They worked the land owned and overseen by seigneurs, to whom they owed dues. It was an old system still being endorsed by upperclassmen, even though it was generally agreed that it was not a good one. Soboul believed “feudal payments were at the heart of the economic problem and of social injustice.”
Seigneurs and feudalism were the main components of the Revolution for Soboul.
François Furet strongly disagrees. He believes that the social differences between bourgeoisie and nobles had no relevance to the Revolution. He “argues that there was no steadily growing opposition to the nobility that united all society against

Sutherland offers two, one in particular concerning Furet’s view of the unimportance of the social differences of the nobility and bourgeoisie. They could possibly hold some value if the political differences of each were based off of their different social positions than just on being separate classes. Each would have their own involvement and understanding of events. Sutherland also claims that Furet oversimplifies the origin of the revolutionary elite. Instead of patriots following “an abstract ideology,” the process was much more complicated and involved social difference, how much power the patriots and the noble party had, and conflict. Jack Goldstone points out that Furet’s explanation for the fall of the Old Regime before 1789 and the issue of absolutism is “less [than] satisfactory” and makes it seem as though the Revolution was almost an accident when he describes it as “an outcome of an unexplained ““convergence.”" As much as Furet criticizes Soboul, his own explanations are not concrete