Case In France Before The Revolution example essay topic

The French revolution overthrew the country's ancient monarchy, proclaimed Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and fought off a hostile Europe. It ushered in a new age, but at a terrible price in blood and human suffering. There were many causes of the Revolution. The French Revolution appears to have been the outcome of both long term and short term factors, which arose from the social and political conditions and conflicts of the ancien regime.

The long standing grievances of peasants, townsmen and bourgeoisie; the frustration's of rising hopes among wealthy and 'middling' bourgeoisie and peasants; the distress and breakdown of government; a real (or at least perceived) 'feudal reaction'; the stubbornness of a privileged aristocracy; the creation of radical ideas among wide sections of the people; a sharp economic and financial crisis; and the successive triggers of state bankruptcy, aristocratic revolt and popular revolution: all these factors played a part. The middle and lower class were becoming more conscious of their increased social importance and because the peasants were becoming more independent, more literate and prosperous that the old feudal freedoms and aristocratic privileges appeared all the more burdensome and intolerable for the struggling discontents of France. For more than one hundred years before the accession of Louis XVI, France was the most powerful country on the European continent. She had held this position for over 150 years, thanks to her fertile land, large population and many resources.

However, the government had under gone periodic economic crisis, resulting from long wars, royal mismanagement, losses incurred in the French and Indian War (1756-1763) and Seven Years' War (1775-1783) and increased debt arising from loans to the American colonies during the American Revolution (1775-1783). The governmental system had worked reasonably well under Louis XIV but had become impossible under his weak successors. The government was corrupt and centralized and the King's authority had been slowly extended over the country. Under the system, there was a lot of overlapping authority and a great inefficiency in the provincial governments.

The only people who could obstruct the royal government in an attempt to save the country was the Parliament of Paris. Unfortunately, its members were only concerned about their own welfare rather than the members of the country. The greatest government weakness was the lack of consistency and order. By 1788, the government was almost bankrupt. The supporters of economic, social and governmental reforms had become increasingly vocal during the reign of Louis XVI.

The greatest governmental weakness lay in the lack of order and consistency. The Administration of Justice and Finance were particularly confused and the government fell steadily behind, owed on public debt accounted for 51% off all expenditures (Going broke). 1 1- The most hated responsibilities were dues owed to the landlords. Peasants were required to pay to use the mill, bake oven, and hunting rights. The peasants soon became very discontent with these situations and were willing to listen to revolutionary theories. In 1789 a crisis over finances, resulting in a temporary weakness on the part of the royal government of France, led to the sudden and violent breakthrough of the forces of change and to the overthrow of the old regime of privilege and inequality in the most powerful state in Europe.

France having stretched its resources in the war, was left financial crippled and this was the first flames of revolution in France. It was after two years after the war that Calonne, French Financial Minister, was faced with a deficit of nearly a quarter of the nations incomes, declared the state bankrupt and called for drastic measures to overcome it. He believed it wasn't extravagance that was the problem and he believed the debts could be paid quite quickly if the privileged class paid their share in tax. His theory was that people should pay tax according to how much land they owned. Obviously, this didn't go down well with people in the first and second estates.

They were not used to paying taxes and were not about to start. Calonne's plans of reform three main elements. Firstly came the economic and administrative reforms designed to fix once and for all the structural problems troubling the royal finances. Calonne proposed to recast the tax system by abolishing the ving times (common tax) and substituting it for a permanent 'territorial subvention' or a land tax. There were to be no exemptions, such as was enjoyed by the clergy.

From this reform Calonne expected an increase in revenue or income to help pay off bad debt. Secondly, Calonne believed that the program of economic growth would increase and further the already improved tax yield that would be expected from the administrative reforms. Thus, Calonne proposed the abolishment of internal custom barriers, which never happened. Calonne had hoped to abolish the forced labor taxes for road building, substituting it for an extra tax. Thirdly, he proposed once more to relax governmental controls on the grain trade, going further than either Turgot or any of his forefathers of the 1760's in allowing free export both internally and externally. All these reforms, whether administrative or economic, could not be expected to show instant results whatever their long term benefits were expected to be.

Calonne had to also find some means to overcome the financial crisis, which had brought him to the point of proposing broader reforms in the first place. The immediate problem was to find money to pay off short-term debt falling due to redemption in between 1787 and 1797. Calonne proposed to do it by raising yet more loans, confident that these would be easy to repay in their turn from increased tax revenues later as his reform began to have an effect. The difficulty was convincing French leaders to share his confidence. He decided to call upon an Assembly of Notables (made up of first and second estates) to consider his remedies for the crisis.

However, they refused largely because their own privileges were threatened. Calonne's plan had misfired, having expected the Notables to accept that there was a crisis and to approve his proposals for dealing with it. It seems clear that if it could be proved that there was a genuine crisis, the Notables would have been prepared to take radical action to overcome it. Instead, they said that people from all estates meeting together could only agree such a tax. Louis was extremely unhappy and dismissed Calonne in 1787 and was replaced by Brienne. Brienne knew that if a tax was ever going to work he had to get an agreement of the Parliament of Paris.

This was the Paris Law Court controlled by nobles. Like Calonne, Brienne found himself in trouble. The Parliament of Paris refused to agree to the new tax and they too said that only the Estates-General could pass such a tax. Things were desperate depression and famine had set in after the bad harvest of 1788 the price of bread had risen 50% between April 1788 and March 1789. There were riots and the country was becoming impossible to run.

Louis had no choice but to call upon the Estates-General, which had not met since 1614. This was convocation representing all three estates. However, many middle class members had plans of their own. Members of the third Estate such as lawyers and teachers wanted a say in how France was governed. They demanded a constitution for equal rights and share of wealth (even the King could have to obey these rules). Many of these rules were opposed by the King and by the richest people in the First and Second Estates.

"Since the Estates-General's first meeting there has been nothing but useless argument... the three estates differ on every point. The king favored the clergy or nobility... violence may be the only way to save the monarchy". 2 When the king tried, on June 20th, 1789, to break up the meeting, the Third Estate met in a local tennis court and pledged not to go home until they had written and constitution for France. They called themselves the National Assembly. The French social pyramid was riddled with contradictions both within and between its constituent parts. Today we believe everybody is treated equally in a system of law.

This was not the case in France before the revolution. The French people belonged to one of three classes or estates. The First Estate was made up of members of the Church (the clergy) 3. It owned about one tenth of the land and some of its members, including Cardinal Fleury, played an important part in government. With the 130,000 clergy in France, the Church was very important in an age where most people believed in heaven and hell. In return for praying for the King and the people, the first estate were allowed privileges.

Its members didn't have to pay taille or main tax; they were not called for military service and if they broke the law they were tried in their own courts. The Second Estate was made up of nobles. In 1789, there were about 400,000 nobles in France in which they owned one third of land. The older noble families had served the King for centuries either in government, battle or at court. Rich or poor, the nobility was expected to serve the King in war and in return, they were given privileges, including exemption from most governmental taxes. The Third Estate comprised of most of the population, ranging from rich businessmen to poor peasants.

These members had no privileges and played no part in government and running the country. "Providence, ever watchful, well knows that this evil brood, the aristocrats, would always, in France, be like a bad seed growing on good land". 4 Most were peasants and made 80% of the population. They had a hard life and most didn't own the land they farmed on. As well as paying rent, they had to work free of charge for the local landowner on certain days of the year. They had to pay taxes to the government, like the taille and the gabelle (salt tax), and tithes to the church.

Sometimes they paid three quarters of their yearly income in taxes. They were also expected to fight whenever France went to war. Arthur Young states "poor... miserable, much arising from the minute division of their little farms among all other children... ". 5 Tocquville believes the middle class were becoming increasingly richer and more conscious of their social importance. Further more, because the peasants were becoming free, literate and prosperous the old feudal survivals and aristocratic privileges appeared more vexatious and intolerable.

The 'Abbe Sieyes' phamplet stated the Third Estate was "everything" in the sense it was "a complete nation", which would survive without the other two orders. Meanwhile poverty and discontention spread. Communications were poor and economic life was sluggish and such improvements such as good harvest were being torn away by climatic deterioration and the rising population. Poverty was the most recognizable social problem.

With the misery of rural housing and the poor appearance of the peasantry were contributing to discontention throughout the land. "All the girls are without stockings... ". 6 Hours were long and the price rise of bread was considered the worst times for public order. 7 When jobs failed they turned to the streets for begging.

However, the important aspect was the economy couldn't provide decent living conditions for the people. Anger towards the 'well-off's spread. "Hatred grows more bitter and the state is divided into two classes: the greedy and the insensitive, and the murmuring malcontents"8 France's system of government was still the absolute system as Louis XVI had built a century before when France was a powerful and important country. Under his weak successors, the system had lost a greater deal of vigor and its ability to command the respect and loyalty of its subjects, whether privileged or not. In 1763, it had to surrender most of it's overseas Empire to Britain.

The Bourbon Family ruled France. King Louis XVI (1754-93) was a shy, awkward misfit who was a lazy monarch known for his orgy's was mostly the subject to viscous rumors around France. "Sir, another orgy... where a noble princess appeared with the heir to the throne, where an anti-cockade was flourished and where undercover conspiracy was loudly rehearsed". 9 He headed an extravagant and pleasure-loving court more than a conscientious one. France had a monarchy that carried within it decay; an aristocracy that, though privileged and mostly wealthy, was deeply resentful of its long exclusion from office; a bourgeoisie, though enjoying increasing prosperity, was denied the social status and share in government equality with its wealth; and the peasants who (in part at least) were becoming more independent and literate, yet were still regarded as a general burden who were overtaxed and despised. These tensions were becoming sharper as the century went on.

The French peasant was heavily burdened on taxation and in years of bad harvest and depression, they were intolerable. This was the problem that grew more intense (as well as violent) as the century went along. These resentments were heavily aggravated in the latter years of the ancien regime. As were the hardships of the middle class whom became more resentful of the extravagance and tyranny of the court and government to whose wealth they contributed heavily. It was nevertheless the financial crisis that led to the fall of the ancient regime. The 18th century Enlightenment may be represented as a new way of thinking about mankind and the environment.

The proponents of this intellectual movement were primarily men of letters- men like Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau. Their views stemmed from the scientific revolution of the previous century. They were convinced that all creation was similarly rational, so that it was possible for man to uncover laws which regulated society, politics, economy and even morality. These laws would teach mankind what they are but what they should do and ought to be. In France in the early 1700's and onwards 'despotism, feudalism, religion and clericalism' as well as other matters of the day become the object of their criticism and satire.

It allowed the French public freedom of speech, religious toleration, injustice, abuse of power and any other views they held against the monarch or government. Why was it allowed? Some radical ideas never did pass the censor, but views on such things, as religion and government were suprisingly allowed. 9 It is hard to access their influence after 1789, yet all the foundation documents of the Revolution- the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Constitution of 1791 clearly reveal the debt owed to Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire.

The National Assembly estimated that one in ten French person was poor. Historians believe it was more like one in five or even one in three. The number of poor depended on the state of the harvest. If the harvests failed, soaring prices meant that many urban peasants or artisans who leased small lots of land were vulnerable to a shortage of food.

In bad years like 1769, 1776, 1783 poverty spread far beyond the most vulnerable core of the destitute. On top of these cyclical depressions, came sudden catastrophe of 1787-9 which brought poor harvests and shortages and the prices of wheat doubled within two years in the north and reaching record levels 10 in the summer of 1789. The crisis hit the bulk of the peasantry both as consumers and producers: as wine growers, dairy farmers, and wheat growers. From agriculture, it spread to industry; and unemployment, already developing due to a 'free trade' treaty with Britain in 1786, reached disastrous proportions in Paris and the textile centers of Lyons and the north. The wage earners and small consumers, in both villages and towns were compelled by the rapid rise in food prices to increase their daily expenditures on bread to level far beyond their means. Thus, peasants and urban tradesmen and workers- not to mention manufacturers- were drawn together in a connection of hostility towards the government, landlords, merchants and speculators.

Eric. R Wolf states the peasant revolts were defensive. It needed more than economic hardship, social discontent to make a revolution. To give unity to the discontents and hope to the widely varying social classes there had to be a body of ideas (as peasants were content in letting others start the revolution), like a 'revolutionary psychology' or game plan- the grounds were prepared for other means rather than ambitions. Wolf states that peasants were often spectators of political struggles and the peasants were slow to rise because they were too far away to understand what was happening in the 'city'. They suffer from three crisis': demographic, ecological and power and authority.

In the first instance, by writers of the Enlightenment who, as Bourke and Tocquville were quick to note, weakened the defenses of the ancien regime. The ideas of writers, such as Rousseau, were absorbed by the eager reading public. The writings let people know what was really happening with political, social and economical subjects throughout France. The da Skocpol states that social revolutions occurred in these modernizing bureaucracies, (i.e. - France) which both grieving peasantry's suffered because they didn't have the organizational skills. When the Bastille was taken over by thousands of angry Parisians on July 14, 1789, a series of elected governments took control of France. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed along with thousands of other counter revolutionaries in the Reign of Terror.

"In France under the reign of terror no one was spared, it hung above every head and struck impartially, arbitrary and swift as the blade of Death". 11 The Revolution resulted in, among other things, the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy in France and the establishment of the first republic. Although it brought, democratic ideals France didn't become a democracy. The Revolution was generated by a vast complex of causes, most important of which was the inability of the ruling classes of nobility, clergy and bourgeoisie to come to grips with the problems of state, the unstable nature of the monarch, the unreasonable taxation of the peasantry, drain of the workers, the intellectual excitement of the Age of Enlightenment, and the example of the American Revolution. Recent scholarship tends to downplay the social struggle and highlight political, cultural, ideological and personality factors in the unfolding of the conflict.

The Revolution itself produces an equally extensive amount of consequences. The Revolution was also responsible for destroying the feudal privileges of the nobles. Serfdom was abolished, feudal dues and tithes were eliminated, the large feudal estates ere broken up and the principle of equal liability to taxation was introduced. With sweeping distribution of wealth and landholdings, France became the European nation with the largest proportion of small independent landowners. Other social and economic reforms initiated during this period included eliminating imprisonment for debt, introducing the metric system and abolishing the rule of primogeniture in the inheritance of land. An additional area that the revolution played an important part was that of religion.

12 The revolution paved the way for the separation of state and church. The more fragile results of the revolution were symbolized in its slogan, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". These ideals became the policies of liberal reforms in Europe in the 19th century and remain the present day passwords for democracy. The causes of the French revolution have been endlessly debated. The French Revolution may be approved as an entire part of a permanent revolution whose origins are both economic and political.

Assessment of impact has resulted in two successive changes. The Marxist, which portrayed the revolution as bringing about the final end to the feudal system making the way for the emergence of the modern capitalist society. I believe the French Revolution shouldn't excepted as a significant historical event. Although the supreme power was transferred from king to nation and although the revolutionaries wanted to remove the obstacles to the development of a market economy, it appears that France in 1815 wasn't so very different to France in 1789. It remained essentially pre-industrial society dominated by a landed elite. It was only later that a radical social transformation occurred.

The French Revolution is one of the foundation conscious and in civil status for Jews and Protestants. Competition for power had left bitter division within the elite and expressed the ambitions and goals of other groups, stones of coexisting political culture and the modern state. The French Revolution's classic status can be a drawback, as it encourages us to think greatly about which historical research we don't support. The French Revolution, however, created tension and an intense sense of insecurity throughout France. It brought about a free society dominated by the middle class and landowners and it brought about great changes in the society and government in France.