Causes Of The French Revolution

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The French Revolution brought an end to monarchy in France during 1789 to 1799. The goals of the French Revolution were to improve the political and financial structure of the nation and create a constitutional monarchy. Soon, the French Revolution developed into a move to establish a republic by overthrowing the King. This short essay will try to evaluate the important events that sparked the revolution. It will be argued that the France’s economic factor caused the French Revolution.

Before the time of the French Revolution, France was divided into three estates, the clergy, nobility and commoners. The Ancient Regime system was based on the concentration of economical, social and political power held by these three estates that France was divided into. The first estate consists of clergies. This included archbishops, bishops, abbots, parish priests, monks and nuns. Leaders of the clergy lived like nobles; they did not have to pay taxes and were all wealthy. They also tended to support Louis due to the privileges they had. The rest of the clergy, which were the parish priests, lived like ordinary people who paid no taxes. Nobles made up the second estate. They were landowners and were also nobles by birth. Most of them were wealthy and held some power. However, in some parts of the country, nobles were not particularly rich. Nobles did not have to pay taxes even though most of them were wealthy. Some of the nobles thought that the King and his ministers were running the country badly. Everybody else in France, which is called the commoners, made up the third estate. They were middle-class people, such as bankers, merchants and doctors. The middle-class people were quite wealthy but they held no power at all. They also needed to ...

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... the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. King Louis never took much notice of the will of the people. The result was to exempt the nobles from taxes, which was a major factor that led to the French Revolution. Louis XVI attempted to improve some of the corrupt administrative practices he had inherited when he succeeded to the throne in 1774. This included the way gunpowder that was often as not supplied to the army and the navy. “Like the tax system, this was corrupt and inefficient.” (John Gribbin)

In conclusion, all these political, economical and social factors played a significant part in the French Revolution. As the revolution proceeded and as the power evolved to legislative bodies from monarchy. The initially allied groups or estates became the real source of conflict and bloodshed. Without these factors, the French Revolution would never have happened.

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