Influential Causes of the French Revolution

The French Revolution of 1789 had profound consequences and influences. The Revolution was a time of political change different from earlier revolutions in world history. France's society in the eighteenth-century was structured as a pyramid filled by the Court and aristocracy, the middle classes or bourgeoisie, and the peasants, urban tradesmen, and craftsmen. As the century went on, conflicts and tension became sharper. The French Revolution was different than everywhere else in Europe. No other countries in Europe had a decisive victory of any one social group over another, there was no weight of political authority that was transferred to the nation at large, through a transformation of the existing society. This victory and transformation only happened in France. The French Revolution was different because the people dethroned the French Monarchy, Louis XVI was executed along with thousands of other nobles and the revolutionaries replaced this strong monarchy with a new system of what they said was based on popular rule, personal liberty, and equal justice. This system actually began the Reign of Terror and rule under Napoleon Bonaparte.

Before 1789, the Revolution was set off by a chain of events that threatened the stability of the political and social order that already existed. Such conflicts like the Seven Years War in which France was disastrously defeated, hurt France financially. France had even more economic hardship when Louis XVI aided the Americans in their rebellion against the British. France was put into a dangerous system with the treasury being drained. The French Revolution had complex roots that include the condition condition of the French monarchy which was in debt, wasteful, and worst of all weak. The m...

... middle of paper ...

...transform civilization and was a battle to achieve equality. This was a triumph of democracy in the modern world as one of the few internal revolutions took place in Europe.

Works Cited

Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

Egendorf, Laura K. The French Revolution. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Print.

Greenlaw, Ralph W. The Social Origins of the French Revolution: The Debate on the Role of the

Middle Classes. Lexington: Heath, 1975. Print.

Nardo, Don. The French Revolution. Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning, 2008. Print.

Otfinoski, Steven. Triumph and Terror: The French Revolution. New York: Facts on File, 1993.

Print.

Rudé, George F. E. The French Revolution. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988. Print.

Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.