Causes

Main article: Causes of the French Revolution

The French government faced a fiscal crisis in the 1780s, and King Louis XVI was blamed for mishandling these affairs.

Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Historians until the late 20th century emphasized class conflicts from a largely Marxist perspective. Its central theme was the Revolution was caused by the rising bourgeoisie, with support from the sans-culottes, who fought to destroy the aristocracy.^[4]

By the 1990s the Marxist class interpretation had largely been abandoned among scholars. However, historians continue to emphasize the economic and fiscal crises of the Old regime. The economy was not healthy; poor harvests, rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system made food even more expensive. The sequence of events leading to the revolution included the national government’s fiscal troubles caused by an inefficient tax system and expenditure on numerous large wars. The attempt to challenge British naval and commercial power in the Seven Years’ War was a costly disaster, with the loss of France’s colonial possessions in continental North America and the destruction of the French Navy. French forces were rebuilt and performed more successfully in the American Revolutionary War, but only at massive additional cost, and with no real gains for France except the knowledge that Britain had been humbled. France’s inefficient and antiquated financial system could not finance this debt. Faced with a financial crisis, the king called an Assembly of Notables in 1787 for the first time in over a century.

Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was isolated from, and indifferent to the escalating crisis. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms. The Enlightenment had produced many writers, pamphleteers and publishers who could inform or inflame public opinion. The opposition used this resource to mobilize public opinion against the monarchy, which in turn tried to repress the underground literature.^[5]

Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by peasants, laborers and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Catholic Church’s influence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom of religion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy; aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger toward the King for dismissing ministers, including finance minister Jacques Necker, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.^[6]