French Revolution

The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a pivotal period in the history of French, European and Western civilization. During this time, republicanism replaced the absolute monarchy in France, and the country's Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo a radical restructuring. While France would oscillate among republic, empire, and monarchy for 75 years after the First Republic fell to a coup d'Ð"©tat, the Revolution is widely seen as a major turning point in the history of Western democracyÐ'--from the age of absolutism and aristocracy, to the age of the citizenry as the dominant political force.

Causes

Many interrelated political and socioeconomic factors contributed to the French Revolution. To some extent, the old order succumbed to its own rigidity in the face of a changing world. It fell to the ambitions of a rising bourgeoisie, allied with aggrieved peasants, wage-earners, and individuals of all classes who had come under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment. As the revolution proceeded, and as power devolved from the monarchy to legislative bodies, the conflicting interests of these two once-allied groups would become the source of conflict and bloodshed.

Causes of the French Revolution include the following

* A poor economic situation and an unmanageable national debt were both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation and France's funding of the American Revolution;

* A resentment of royal absolutism;

* An aspiration for liberty and republicanism;

* A resentment of Manorialism (seigneurialism) by peasants, wage-earners, and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie;

* The rise of enlightenment ideals;

* Food scarcity in the months immediately before the revolution;

* High unemployment and high bread prices resulting in the inability to purchase food;

* A resentment of noble privilege and dominance in public life by the ambitious professional classes;

* A resentment of religious intolerance;

* The failure of Louis XVI to deal effectively with these phenomena.

Proto-revolutionary activity started when the French king Louis XVI (reigned 1774-1792) faced a crisis in the royal finances. The French crown, which fiscally equated the French state, owed considerable debt. During the rÐ"©gimes of Louis XIV (ruled 1715-1774) and Louis XVI, several different ministers, including Turgot (Controller-General of Finances 1774-1776), and Jacques Necker (Director-General of Finances 1777-1781), unsuccessfully proposed to revise the French tax system to a more uniform system. Such measures encountered consistent resistance from the parlements (law courts), dominated by the "Robe Nobility", which saw themselves as the nation's guardians against despotism, as well as from court factions, and both ministers were ultimately dismissed. Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who became Controller-General of the Finances in 1783, pursued a strategy of conspicuous spending as a means of convincing potential creditors of the confidence and stability of France's finances.

However, Calonne, having conducted a lengthy review of France's financial situation, determined that it was not sustainable, and proposed a uniform land tax as a means of setting France's finances in order in the long term. In the short-term, he hoped that a show of support from a hand-picked Assembly of Notables would restore confidence in French finances, and allow further borrowing until the land tax began to make up the difference and allow the beginning of repayment of the debt.

Although Calonne convinced the king of the necessity of his reforms, the Assembly of Notables refused to endorse his measures, insisting that only a truly representative body, preferably the Estates-General of the Kingdom, could approve new taxes. The King, seeing that Calonne himself was now a liability, dismissed him and replaced him with Ð"‰tienne Charles de LomÐ"©nie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse, who had been a leader of the opposition in the Assembly. Brienne now adopted a thorough-going reform position, granting various civil rights (including freedom of worship to Protestants), and promising the convocation of the Estates-General within five years, but also attempted in the meantime to go ahead with Calonne's plans. When the measures were opposed in the Parlement of Paris (due in part to the King's tactlessness), Brienne went on the attack, attempting to disband the parlements entirely and collect the new taxes in spite of them. This led to massive resistance across many parts of France, including the famous "Day of the Tiles" in Grenoble. Even more importantly, the chaos across France convinced the short-term creditors on whom the French treasury depended to maintain its day-to-day operations to withdraw their loans, leading to a near-default, which forced Louis and Brienne to surrender.

The king agreed on August 8, 1788 to convene the Estates-General in May 1789, for the first time since 1614. Brienne resigned on August 25, 1788, and Necker again took charge of the nation's finances. He used his position not to propose new reforms, but only to prepare for the meeting of the nation's representatives.

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