Causes of the French Revolution
Encyclopedia
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
in France.
Although France in 1785 faced economic
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
difficulties, mostly concerning the equitability of taxation, it was one of the richest and most powerful nations of Europe. The French people also enjoyed more political freedom
Freedom (political)
Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...
and a lower incidence of arbitrary punishment than any of their fellow Europeans. However, Louis XVI, his ministers, and the widespread French nobility had become immensely unpopular. This was a consequence of the fact that peasants and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, were burdened with ruinously high taxes levied to support wealthy aristocrats and their sumptuous, often gluttonous, lifestyles.
The fall of the ancien régime
Ancien Régime in France
The Ancien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system established in France from the 15th century to the 18th century under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties...
in France may be blamed, in part, on its own rigidity. Aristocrats were confronted by the rising ambitions of the merchants, tradesmen and prosperous farmers, who were allied with aggrieved peasants, wage-earners and intellectuals influenced by the ideas of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
philosophers. As the revolution proceeded, power devolved from the monarchy and the privileged-by-birth to more-representative political bodies, like legislative assemblies, but conflicts among the formerly allied republican groups became the source of considerable discord and bloodshed.
A growing number of the French citizenry had absorbed the ideas of "equality" and "freedom of the individual" as presented by Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....
, Turgot
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune , often referred to as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Turgot was a student of Francois Quesnay and as such belonged to the Physiocratic school of economic thought...
, and other philosophers and social theorists of the Enlightenment. The American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
demonstrated that it was plausible for Enlightenment ideas about how a government should be organized could actually be put into practice. Some American diplomats, like Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
and Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, had lived in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where they consorted freely with members of the French intellectual class. Furthermore, contact between American revolutionaries and the French troops who served as anti-British mercenaries in North America helped spread revolutionary ideals to the French people. After a time, many of the French began to attack the undemocratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
nature of their own government, push for freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, challenge the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, and decry the prerogatives of the nobles.
Revolution was not due to a single event but to a series of events, that together irreversibly changed the organization of political power, the nature of society, and the exercise of individual freedoms.
Enlightenment Ideas
Note that there is controversy about how deeply, by 1780, Enlightenment ideas had been able to penetrate the various classes of French society. There is also disagreement as to the degree to which these ideas were adopted simply as high-minded cover for bourgeois self-interest. The idea that the Revolution was a mechanism that enabled an experiment in democratic ideas is the most commonly accepted one.For example, shortly after the Revolutions of 1848
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
wrote in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Neue Rheinische Zeitung
The Neue Rheinische Zeitung - Organ der Demokratie was a German daily newspaper, published by Karl Marx in Cologne between June 1, 1848 and May 19, 1849. Its name refers to a paper earlier edited by Marx, the Rheinische Zeitung...
that in both the English Revolution of 1648
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
and in the French Revolution:
... the bourgeoisie as a class headed the movement. The proletariat
ProletariatThe proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
and the non-bourgeois strata of the middle class had either not yet evolved interests which were different from those of the bourgeoisie or they did not yet constitute independent classes or class divisions. Therefore, where they opposed the bourgeoisie, as they did in France in 1793 and 1794, (that is to say, during the Reign of TerrorReign of TerrorThe Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
) they fought only for the attainment of the aims of the bourgeoisie, albeit in a non-bourgeois manner. The entire French terrorism was just a plebeian way of dealing with the enemies of the bourgeoisie: absolutism, feudalism and philistinismPhilistinismPhilistinism is a derogatory term used to a particular attitude or set of values perceived as despising or undervaluing art, beauty, spirituality, or intellectualism. A person with this attitude is referred to as a Philistine and may also be considered materialistic, favoring conventional social...
.
Based on this evidence, the traditional view of the revolution as "Enlightenment philosophy made manifest" may be inaccurate.
Economics and finances
FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1789, although it faced some difficulties, was one of the most economically capable nations of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. The French population exceeded 28 million; of Europe's 178 to 188 millions, only Imperial Russia had a greater population (37 to 41 million). France was also among the most urbanized countries of Europe, the population of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
was second only to that of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(approximately 500,000 v. 800,000), and six of Europe's thirty-five largest cities were French.
Other measures confirm France's inherent strength. France had 5.3 million of Europe's approximately thirty million male peasants. Its area under cultivation, productivity per unit area, level of industrialization, and gross national product (about 14% of the continental European product, excluding Russia, and 6–10 percent above the level elsewhere in Europe ) all placed France near the very top of the scale. In short, while it may have lagged slightly behind the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
, and possibly Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, in per capita wealth, the sheer size of the French economy made it the premier economic power of continental Europe.
Debt
It was debt that led to the long-running fiscal crisis of the French government. On the eve of the revolution, France was effectively bankrupt. Extravagant expenditures on luxuries by Louis XVILouis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
, whose rule began in 1774, were compounded by debts that were run up during the reign of his even-more-profligate predecessor, Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
(who reigned from 1715 to 1774). Heavy expenditures to conduct the losing Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...
against Britain (1756–1763), and France's spiteful attempt to poke a finger in the eye of the British by backing the Americans in their War of Independence
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
ran the tab up even further.
Louis XV and his ministers were deeply unhappy about Britain's victory in the Seven Years War, and, in the years following the Treaty of Paris
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
, they began drawing up a long-term plan that would involve constructing a larger navy and building an anti-British coalition of allies. In theory, this would eventually lead to a war of revenge and see France regain its colonies from Britain. In practice, it resulted in a mountain of debts.
Louis XV had spent liberally to establish Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
as a showplace city worthy to be the French capital, in function if not in fact. There, he built a Ministry of War, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (where the Treaty of Paris (1783)
Treaty of Paris (1783)
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on the one hand and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of...
ending the American Revolutionary War was signed), and a Ministry of the Navy.
In Louis XV's high council
Conseil du Roi
The Conseil du Roi or King's Council is a general term for the administrative and governmental apparatus around the king of France during the Ancien Régime designed to prepare his decisions and give him advice...
, the parti dévot ("devout" party), led by the Comte d'Argenson, secretary of state for war, and the parti philosophique ("philosophical" party), which supported the Enlightenment philosophy and was led by Machault d'Arnouville, controller-general of finances, vied for power.
On the advice of his mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, the king supported the policy of fiscal justice designed by d'Arnouville. In order to finance the budget deficit, which amounted to 100 million livres in 1745, Machault d'Arnouville created a tax of 5 percent on all revenues (the vingtième
Vingtième
The vingtième was an income tax of the ancien régime in France. It was abolished during the French Revolution.-First Proposition:It was first proposed by the minister of finance, Jean-Baptiste de Machault, comte d'Arnouville, in 1749. The War of the Austrian Succession had just ended, with the...
), a measure that affected the privileged classes as well as the rest of the population. Still, expenditures outpaced revenues.
Ultimately, Louis XV failed to overcome these fiscal problems, mainly because he was incapable of harmonizing the conflicting parties at court and arriving at coherent economic policies. Worse, Louis seemed to be aware of the forces of anti-monarchism threatening his family's rule, yet he failed to do anything to stop them. Louis XV's death in 1774 saw the French monarchy at its nadir, politically, morally, and financially.
Under the new king, Louis XV's grandson, Louis XVI, radical financial reforms by his ministers, Turgot and Malesherbes
Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes
Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes , often referred to as Malesherbes or Lamoignon-Malesherbes, was a French statesman, minister, and afterwards counsel for the defence of Louis XVI.-Biography:...
, angered the nobles and were blocked by the parlement
Parlement
Parlements were regional legislative bodies in Ancien Régime France.The political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and...
s who insisted that the king did not have the legal right to levy new taxes. So, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed and Malesherbes resigned. They were replaced by Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:...
, who supported the American Revolution and proceeded with a policy of taking out large international loans instead of raising taxes.
Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau
Marshal of France Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau was a French nobleman and general who participated in the American Revolutionary War as the commander-in-chief of the French Expeditionary Force which came to help the American Continental Army...
, Lafayette and de Grasse, along with large land and naval forces, to help the Americans. French aid proved decisive in forcing the main British army to surrender at the Battle of Yorktown
Siege of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, Battle of Yorktown, or Surrender of Yorktown in 1781 was a decisive victory by a combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis...
in 1781. The Americans gained their independence, and the war ministry rebuilt the French army. However, the British sank the main French fleet
Battle of the Saintes
The Battle of the Saintes took place over 4 days, 9 April 1782 – 12 April 1782, during the American War of Independence, and was a victory of a British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney over a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse forcing the French and Spanish to abandon a planned...
in 1782, and France gained little, except for the colonies of Tobago
Tobago
Tobago is the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in the southern Caribbean, northeast of the island of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada. The island lies outside the hurricane belt...
and Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, from the Treaty of Paris (1783)
Treaty of Paris (1783)
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on the one hand and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of...
that concluded the war. The war cost 1,066 million livres, a huge sum, that was financed by new loans at high interest rates, but no new taxes were imposed. Necker concealed the crisis from the public by explaining only that ordinary revenues exceeded ordinary expenses, and by not mentioning the loans at all.
When Necker's tax policy failed miserably, Louis dismissed him, and replaced him, in 1783, with Charles Alexandre de Calonne
Charles Alexandre de Calonne
Charles Alexandre, vicomte de Calonne was a French statesman, best known for his involvement in the French Revolution.-Rise to prominence:...
, who increased public spending in an attempt to "buy" the country's way out of debt. This policy also failed, therefore Louis convened the Assembly of Notables
Assembly of Notables
The Assembly of Notables was a group of notables invited by the King of France to consult on matters of state.-History:Assemblies of Notables had met in 1583, 1596–97, 1617, 1626, 1787, and 1788. Like the Estates General, they served a consultative purpose only...
in 1787 to discuss a revolutionary new fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were told the extent of the debt, they were shocked. However, the shock did not motivate them to rally behind the plan but to reject it. This negative turn of events signaled to Louis that he had lost the ability to rule as an absolute monarch, and he fell into depression.
Britain too was heavily indebted as a result of these conflicts, but Britain had far more advanced fiscal institutions in place to deal with it. France was a wealthier country than Britain, and its national debt was no greater than the British one. In each country the servicing of the debt accounted for about one-half the government's annual expenditure. Where they differed was in the effective rates of interest. In France, the debt was financed at almost twice the interest rate as the debt across the Channel. This demanded a much higher level of taxation and less flexibility in raising money to deal with unforeseen emergencies. (See also Eden Agreement
Eden Agreement
The Eden Treaty was a treaty signed between Great Britain and France in 1786, named after the British negotiator William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland . It effectively ended, for a brief time, the economic war between France and the British and set up a system to reduce tariffs on goods from either...
.)
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, no friend of the revolution, wrote in 1790: "the public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large." Because the nobles successfully defended their privileges, the King of France lacked the means to impose a "just and proportioned" tax. The desire to do so led directly to the decision in 1788 to call the Estates-General
Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the nobility, the Church, and the common people...
into session.
The financial strain of servicing old debt and the excesses of the current royal court caused dissatisfaction with the monarchy, contributed to national unrest, and culminated in the French Revolution of 1789.
Taxation
Since it was one of the major trading nations, France needed to raise most of its tax revenue internally, rather than through customs tariffs. Taxes on commerce consisted of internal tariffs among the regions of France. This set up an arbitrary tax-barrier (sometimes, as in Paris, in physical form) at every regional boundary, and these barriers prevented France from developing as a unified market. Collections of taxes, such as the extremely unpopular salt tax, the gabelleGabelle
The gabelle was a very unpopular tax on salt in France before 1790. The term gabelle derives from the Italian gabella , itself from the Arabic qabala....
, were contracted to private collectors ("tax farmers
Ferme générale
The Ferme générale was, in ancien régime France, essentially an outsourced customs and excise operation which collected duties on behalf of the king, under six-year contracts...
"), who, like all farmers, preoccupied themselves with making their holdings grow. So, they collected, quite legitimately, far more than required, remitted the tax to the State, and pocketed the remainder. These unwieldy systems led to arbitrary and unequal collection of France's consumption tax
Consumption tax
A consumption tax is a tax on spending on goods and services. The tax base of such a tax is the money spent on consumption. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value added tax...
es. (See also Wall of the Farmers-General
Wall of the Farmers-General
The Wall of the Farmers-General was built between 1784 and 1791 by the Ferme générale, the corporation of tax farmers. It was one of the several city walls of Paris built between the early Middle Ages to the mid 19th century. It was 24 kilometers long and roughly followed the route now occupied by...
, Jean Chouan
Jean Chouan
Jean Chouan was the nom de guerre of the Frenchman, Jean Cottereau, who was born at Saint-Berthevin, near Laval, in the department of Mayenne on 30 October 1757 and died 18 July 1794 at Olivet, also in Mayenne...
, Octroi
Octroi
Octroi is a local tax collected on various articles brought into a district for consumption.-Antiquity:Octroi taxes have a respectable antiquity, being known in Roman times as vectigalia...
, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, and the Indian salt tax
History of the British salt tax in India
Taxation of salt has occurred in India since the earliest times. However, this tax was greatly increased when the British East India Company began to establish its rule over provinces in India. In 1835, special taxes were imposed on Indian salt to facilitate its import. This paid huge dividends for...
.)
Tithe
A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
), a land tax to the state (the taille
Taille
The taille was a direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles in Ancien Régime France. The tax was imposed on each household and based on how much land it held.-History:Originally only an "exceptional" tax The taille was a direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles in Ancien...
), a 5% property tax (the vingtième
Vingtième
The vingtième was an income tax of the ancien régime in France. It was abolished during the French Revolution.-First Proposition:It was first proposed by the minister of finance, Jean-Baptiste de Machault, comte d'Arnouville, in 1749. The War of the Austrian Succession had just ended, with the...
), and a tax on the number of people in the family (capitation
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
). Further royal and seigneurial obligations
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
might be paid in several ways: in labor (the corvée), in kind, or, rarely, in coin. Peasants were also obligated to their landlords for: rent in cash (the cens), a payment related to their amount of annual production (the champart
Champart
Champart was a tax in Medieval France levied by landowners on tenants. Paid as a share of the harvest, the amount due varied between one sixth and one twelfth, and typically one eighth of the cereal crop....
), and taxes on the use of the nobles' mills, wine-presses, and bakeries (the banalités). In good times, the taxes were burdensome; in harsh times, they were devastating. After a less-than-fulsome harvest, people would starve to death during the winter.
Many tax collectors and other public officials bought their positions from the king, sometimes on an annual basis, sometimes in perpetuity. Often an additional fee was paid to upgrade their position to one that could be passed along as an inheritance. Naturally, holders of these offices tried to reimburse themselves by milking taxpayers as hard as possible. For instance, in a civil lawsuit, judges required that both parties pay a bribe (called, with tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek is a phrase used as a figure of speech to imply that a statement or other production is humorously intended and it should not be taken at face value. The facial expression typically indicates that one is joking or making a mental effort. In the past, it may also have indicated...
, the épices, the spices); this, effectively, put justice out of the reach of all but the wealthy.
The system also exempted the nobles and the clergy from taxes (with the exception of a modest quit-rent
Quit-rent
Quit rent , Quit-rent, or quitrent, in practically all cases, is now effectively but not formally a tax or land tax imposed on freehold or leased land by a higher landowning authority, usually a government or its assigns....
, an ad valorem tax on land). The tax burden, therefore, devolved to the peasants, wage-earners, and the professional and business classes, also known as the third estate. Further, people from less-privileged walks of life were blocked from acquiring even petty positions of power in the regime. This caused further resentment.
Failure of reforms
During the reigns of Louis XVLouis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
(1715–1774) and Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
(1774–1792), several ministers, most notably Turgot
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune , often referred to as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Turgot was a student of Francois Quesnay and as such belonged to the Physiocratic school of economic thought...
and Necker
Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:...
, proposed revisions to the French tax system so as to include the nobles as taxpayers, but these proposals were not adopted because of resistance from the parlement
Parlement
Parlements were regional legislative bodies in Ancien Régime France.The political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and...
s (provincial courts of appeal). Members of these courts bought their positions from the king, as well as the right to transfer their positions hereditarily through payment of an annual fee, the paulette. Membership in such courts, or appointment to other public positions, often led to elevation to the nobility (the so-called Nobles of the Robe
Nobles of the Robe
Under the Old Regime, the Nobles of the Robe or Nobles of the Gown were French aristocrats who owed their rank to judicial or administrative posts — often bought outright for high sums. As a rule, these positions did not grant the holder with a title , but were honorary positions almost always...
, as distinguished from the nobility of ancestral military origin, the Nobles of the Sword
Nobles of the Sword
The Nobles of the Sword refers to the class of traditional or old nobility in France during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern periods. This class was heir to a militaristic ideology of professional chivalry...
.) While these two categories of nobles were often at odds, they both sought to retain their privileges.
Because the need to raise taxes placed the king at odds with the nobles and the upper bourgeoisie, he appointed as his finance ministers, "rising men" (to use François Mignet
François Mignet
François Auguste Marie Mignet was a French journalist and historian.-Biography:He was born in Aix-en-Provence , France. His father was a locksmith from the Vendée, who enthusiastically accepted the principles of the French Revolution and encouraged liberal ideas in his son...
's insightful term), usually of non-noble origin. These commoners, Turgot, Chrétien de Malesherbes
Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes
Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes , often referred to as Malesherbes or Lamoignon-Malesherbes, was a French statesman, minister, and afterwards counsel for the defence of Louis XVI.-Biography:...
, and Jacques Necker lobbied for reforms in taxation and other moves toward moderation, such as Necker's attempts to reduce the lavishness of the king's court. Each one failed. Instead, the "Parkinson's law
Parkinson's law
Parkinson's law is the adage first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as the first sentence of a humorous essay published in The Economist in 1955:...
" of bureaucratic overextended waste prevailed, to the detriment of the gentry and other non-seigneurial classes.
In contrast, Charles Alexandre de Calonne
Charles Alexandre de Calonne
Charles Alexandre, vicomte de Calonne was a French statesman, best known for his involvement in the French Revolution.-Rise to prominence:...
, appointed finance minister in 1783, restored lavish spending reminiscent of the age of Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
. By the time Calonne brought together the Assembly of Notables
Assembly of Notables
The Assembly of Notables was a group of notables invited by the King of France to consult on matters of state.-History:Assemblies of Notables had met in 1583, 1596–97, 1617, 1626, 1787, and 1788. Like the Estates General, they served a consultative purpose only...
on 22 February 1787 to address the financial situation, France had reached a state of virtual bankruptcy; no one would lend the king money sufficient to meet the expenses of the royal court and the government. According to Mignet, the loans amounted to 1.64 billion livres, and the annual deficit was 140 millions. Calonne was succeeded by his chief critic, Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne
Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne
Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne was a French churchman, politician and finance minister of Louis XVI.-Life:...
, archbishop of Sens, but the fundamental situation was unchanged: the government had no credit. To address this, the Assembly of Notables sanctioned "the establishment of provincial assemblies, regulation of the corn trade
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
, abolition of corvée
Corvée
Corvée is unfree labour, often unpaid, that is required of people of lower social standing and imposed on them by the state or a superior . The corvée was the earliest and most widespread form of taxation, which can be traced back to the beginning of civilization...
s, and a new stamp tax", but the assembly dispersed on 25 May 1787 without actually installing a longer-term program with prospects for success.
Famine
These problems were all compounded by a great scarcity of food in the 1780s. A series of crop failures caused a shortage of grain, consequently raising the price of bread. Because bread was the main source of nutrition for poor peasants, this led to starvationStarvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
. Contributing to the peasant unrest were conspiracy theories that the lack of food was a deliberate plot by the nobility
Pacte de Famine
Pacte de Famine was a conspiracy theory adopted by many living in France during the 18th century. The theory held that foods, especially grain, were purposely withheld from them, for the benefit of privileged interest groups...
. The two years previous to the revolution (1788–89) saw meager harvests and harsh winters, possibly because of a strong El Niño cycle caused by the 1783 Laki
Laki
Łąki may refer to the following places in Poland:*Łąki, Lower Silesian Voivodeship *Łąki, West Pomeranian Voivodeship *Łąki, Lublin Voivodeship...
eruption in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
.
The Little Ice Age
Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period . While not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939...
also affected farmers' choices of crops to plant; in other parts of Europe, peasant farmers had adopted the potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
as its staple crop, but the French generally refused to eat potatoes because they had stigmatized them as an exotic
Introduced species
An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...
"dirty food" or the "food of the devil". Nonetheless, during times of famine and upheaval, the potato was a wise alternative to cereal crops. Potatoes are more resistant to cold temperatures, and, as a root crop, they survive hailstorms and even scorched-earth
Scorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
warfare.
In 1789, a normal worker, a farmer or a laborer, earned anywhere from fifteen to thirty sous per day; skilled workers received thirty to forty. A family of four needed about two loaves of bread a day to survive. The price of a loaf of bread rose by 67 percent in 1789 alone, from nine sous to fifteen. Many peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s were relying on charity to survive, and they became increasingly motivated by their hunger. The "bread riots" were the first manifestations of a roots-based revolutionary sentiment. Mass urbanization
Urbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
coincided with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, and more and more people moved into French cities seeking employment. The cities became overcrowded with the hungry, destitute, and disaffected, an ideal environment for revolution.
Bakers' queues
Breadline
Breadline may refer to:* Breadline , a song by Megadeth* Soup kitchen...
became the term for the long line-ups at shops when bread was short. The phrase is quite rarely used, and it is generally only seen in references to Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
's book The French Revolution: A History. Carlyle uses the phrase at once to condemn the revolutionaries for their failure to meet basic public needs, and as synonym for the angry French public after the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
started to sour.
Transparency
H. F. Helmolt argued that the issue was not so much the debt per se, but the way the debt was refracted through the lens of Enlightenment principles and the increasing power of third-estate creditors, that is, commoners who held the government's paper.Properly speaking, the people ought to have been accustomed to the fact that the French government did not fulfill its financial obligations, for since the time of Henry IVHenry IV of FranceHenry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
, that is, within two centuries, it had failed to meet its obligations fifty-six times. In earlier days such catastrophes had not been announced and publicly discussed. Now all France, which for two generations had been worked upon by the party of rationalismRationalismIn epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
, shared the outcry against the financial situation.
The struggle with the parlements and nobles to enact reformist measures displayed the extent of the disintegration of the Ancien Régime. In short order, Protestants regained their rights, and Louis XVI was pressured to produce an annual disclosure of the state of his finances. He also pledged to reconvene the Estates-General
French States-General
In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
within five years. Despite the pretense that France operated under an absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his or her power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the...
, it became clear that the royal government could not successfully implement the changes it desired without the consent of the nobility. The financial crisis had become a political crisis as well, and the French Revolution loomed just beyond the horizon.