The French Revolution

France in 1789 was a country that was undergoing a major Revolution. The French Revolution had many contributing long term causes. Many French citizens were discontent with the social, political and economical conditions. At the time of the Revolution France was a monarchy but the ideas of the enlightenment brought new views on government and society. The signing of the American Declaration of Independence also influenced the French Revolution.

The conditions of France led to many citizens being very discontent. Members of the third estate had the worst conditions of any citizens. The author Arthur Young traveled through France from 1787 to 1789. He wrote a book called Travels in France, in his book Young states "The lack of bread is terrible...The price of bread has risen above the people's ability to pay. This causes great misery". This shows how bad the conditions were in France. Many people could not afford food so they starved. Many members of the third class were not able to afford food because they were the people who needed to pay taxes. The taxes during this time were also very high so most of the time the citizens of the third estate were left with little or no money. These conditions led the people of the third estate to many riots the most famous was when they attacked the King's castle this showed that change was needed in France.

There were many political problems with France. A major problem was the government; the King had absolute power and used his power for himself instead of for the good of the country. In the diagram about land versus population it shows that the third estate had the most population but an unproportional amount of land. This made people of the third estate angry because people in the first and second estate lived in luxurious castles while the people of the third estate lived in cramped conditions. Many people also had a problem with how the King paid no regard to his estates general. They have not been called for a meeting in over one hundred and seventy five years. When the estates general were finally called for a meeting they had a list of grievances for the King Louis XVI, these grievances were many of the problems with France. The King did not change anything; he completely disregarded the grievances of the people therefore making his people angrier. Eventually many people got so disgusted with the King that they took the Tennis Court Oath, this was the oath that many citizens of France took in order to get the King to sign a constitution. This led to a French constitution but King Louis XVI did not abide by it due to the fact that he thought he had power given to him from God and he should not have to listen to anyone other then God since he was an absolute ruler.

The economy in France was terrible and led to extremely high taxes that fell upon the third estate. Taxes were so high because France fought in many wars against the British and this cost them a lot of money. The King of France also was a lavish spender and always had big expensive parties; he used the money collected from taxes to pay for these parties. When the King realized how poor the economy of France was he tried to impose a tax on the second estate but they refused to pay. Eventually King Louis XVI had to raise taxes on the third estate and this got the citizens even more angry because they had no money for themselves.

There were also many other causes that led to the outbreak of the French Revolution. In the book The French Revolution by Albert Mathiez he says "The Revolution came from them - the middle class". This means that it was the middle class that made the Revolution happen since they were able to read, write, and understand the ideas of the enlightenment thinkers. The enlightenment thinkers promoted the general ideas of how a society should be run and this was another influencing cause of the Revolutions of Europe. Another point of view provided by Lord Acton was "The American example caused the Revolution to break out". This was another influencing factor for the French citizens. The saw the American example and how they over threw the British, becoming their own country; therefore, the French believed they could do it too and have a better life. Lord Acton believed that if the Americans did not beat the British then the French Revolution would not have occurred since the people had tolerated suffering before and they had gotten through bad times. Lord Acton said the Declaration of Independence was a spark that showed the French they would succeed if they started a Revolution.

The French Revolution was a very rough time period in France. Many citizens died from starvation or were killed by troops that were loyal to the King. But the citizens were successful they were able to overthrow the monarchy and form a Republic. When the Revolution was over the citizens were able to fix many of the problems that existed in the French society.