The origins of the French Revolution
The ideas of the enlightenment and how they challenged the social order of France:
- The enlightenment philosophes sought to establish how a state should be justly
governed, how people should live, and how societal wealth should be distributed. As
their primary interest was in political institutions and they questioned traditional ideas
such as absolute monarchy and the church, they challenged the Ancien Régime.
- Montesquieu argued in separation of powers, challenging the absolute monarch. Diff.
people make laws, enforce, and apply. However, still supported nobility and privilege.
- Voltaire defended freedom of speech as well as toleration and the right to a fair trial.
- Rousseau believed that government was a contract between the people and their
rulers. Governments rule but their decisions are based on the general will of the
people and the ‘people’ had the right to overthrow unfit governments.
- Diderot rejected religion and encouraged science and technology.
- The philosophes attacked the church due to its corruption and ideas of social
hierarchy being ordained by god. Tying into this, the philosophes criticised a king’s
‘Divine Right’ and excessive and absolute power of the monarch.
- The estates system was also criticised and the privileges of the clergy, nobility etc
were attacked, as well as unjust legal systems such as unwritten law codes.
- The traditional economic system of mercantilism was attacked too.
- Salons of influential society women (salonnieres) were a major source for the spread
of enlightenment ideas, as both bourgeois and nobility would met to discuss (entry
was based on intellect, not class). Enlightenment thinking was mainly amongst the
educated but did reach the lower classes through plays, journals and popular political
pamphlets. Often these pamphlets criticised the Ancien Régime, particularly Marie
Antoinette.
- The American War of Independence also drew on the values of the enlightenment.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence included Montesquieu’s separation of powers
and things like equality before law and liberty of the citizen were in their constitution.
- This is significant because the French provided aid to the American revolutionaries.
The French secretly helped the Americans from 1776 and once it seemed the
revolutionaries had a good chance of winning against the British, France allied with
them openly in 1778. The campaign was morale boosting but an economic disaster
for France.
The reasons for France’s economic problems in the 1780s:
- In the early to mid-1700s, France had a thriving economy:
1. A large population of 27 million and a united and political stable country
2. France had lots of land suitable for agriculture.
3. 1730s onwards saw improvement in agricultural techniques, like crop rotation.
4. French trade was second only to Great Britain
5. Trade with colonies quadrupled, e.g. Nantes with the West Indies.
6. Transport improved due to the corvée royale.
7. Industrial production improved.
8. Paris became France’s centre of banking.
- However, France also had economic problems that worsened in the 1770s and
1780s:
, 1. Economy relied on agriculture which was generally very traditional and not
efficient.
2. Food production could not keep up with population growth.
3. There was strict regulation on internal economy.
4. There was huge variation in weights and measures across the country.
5. There was a lack of rivers and canals to transport goods like grain.
6. A decline in the French textile industry due to British improved techniques.
7. The French banking system was not advanced.
8. 1770s, poor harvests, failure of vineyards and a hail storm that destroyed all
crops.
9. The 1770s downturn led to a trade slump.
- Government was financed by direct and indirect tax, supplemented by loans to
supplement difference between income and expenditure. Main direct tax was the
taille but others had been introduced to pay for wars.
- There was widespread corruption, compounded by the lack of accounting
procedures.
- No central treasury meant ministers couldn’t anticipate income and therefore budget.
- The Government relied on loans, interest had to be paid and huge royal debt built up.
- The French economy was in crisis when Louis XVI came to the throne, following the
War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War, which all multiplied debt
massively. It was worsened by French involvement in the war of independence, after
which France was in 3.3 billion livres of debt. The Treaty of Paris with the American
colonists gave France no rewards and they decided to keep trading with Britain.
Attempts made by finance ministers to resolve the economic issues and how they failed:
- He appointed the physiocrat, Turgot, as his first Controller-General (finance minister).
- Effective things Turgot did included producing a detailed budget regularly, cut royal
expenses, demanding gov. dep. had to submit their expenses to him so he could find
ways to reduce their spending, reduction in number of pensions and some reform of
the tax system to be more efficient. His measures did help to reduce the deficit.
- Less effective things Turgot did included trying to replace indirect taxes with a
property tax, opposed by 2nd estate as they would actually have to pay tax, trying to
establish free trade in grain and abolish price controls (had to be abandoned after
poor harvest of 1774). Finally his 1776, ‘Six Edicts’. The preamble expressed the
desire to abolish privilege and tax all, the 5th edict aimed to supress guilds and the
sixth to abolish the corvée royale and replace it with a tax. Turgot forced to resign in
1776.
- Turgot was replaced by Necker, a wealthy Swiss banker in 1777. He continued
Turgot’s policy of reducing royal expenses. Necker wanted to reduce corruption and
attacked venality. He appointed paid officials to run the royal estates, as well as
replacing accountants and tax-farmers with salaried officials who had to show their
reports to Necker. Great, but this caused another issue as traditionally venal officials
lent money to the crown – with his policies, these finances were lost.
- Necker removed vingtieme tax and restructured financial admin, e.g. reducing
caisses.
- Finally, Necker published the first ever ‘budget-statement’ of royal finances in 1781 –
the Compte Rendu au Roi. Necker falsified the statement to make France appear to
be in a strong financial position, suggesting France had a surplus not, deficit. He was
The ideas of the enlightenment and how they challenged the social order of France:
- The enlightenment philosophes sought to establish how a state should be justly
governed, how people should live, and how societal wealth should be distributed. As
their primary interest was in political institutions and they questioned traditional ideas
such as absolute monarchy and the church, they challenged the Ancien Régime.
- Montesquieu argued in separation of powers, challenging the absolute monarch. Diff.
people make laws, enforce, and apply. However, still supported nobility and privilege.
- Voltaire defended freedom of speech as well as toleration and the right to a fair trial.
- Rousseau believed that government was a contract between the people and their
rulers. Governments rule but their decisions are based on the general will of the
people and the ‘people’ had the right to overthrow unfit governments.
- Diderot rejected religion and encouraged science and technology.
- The philosophes attacked the church due to its corruption and ideas of social
hierarchy being ordained by god. Tying into this, the philosophes criticised a king’s
‘Divine Right’ and excessive and absolute power of the monarch.
- The estates system was also criticised and the privileges of the clergy, nobility etc
were attacked, as well as unjust legal systems such as unwritten law codes.
- The traditional economic system of mercantilism was attacked too.
- Salons of influential society women (salonnieres) were a major source for the spread
of enlightenment ideas, as both bourgeois and nobility would met to discuss (entry
was based on intellect, not class). Enlightenment thinking was mainly amongst the
educated but did reach the lower classes through plays, journals and popular political
pamphlets. Often these pamphlets criticised the Ancien Régime, particularly Marie
Antoinette.
- The American War of Independence also drew on the values of the enlightenment.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence included Montesquieu’s separation of powers
and things like equality before law and liberty of the citizen were in their constitution.
- This is significant because the French provided aid to the American revolutionaries.
The French secretly helped the Americans from 1776 and once it seemed the
revolutionaries had a good chance of winning against the British, France allied with
them openly in 1778. The campaign was morale boosting but an economic disaster
for France.
The reasons for France’s economic problems in the 1780s:
- In the early to mid-1700s, France had a thriving economy:
1. A large population of 27 million and a united and political stable country
2. France had lots of land suitable for agriculture.
3. 1730s onwards saw improvement in agricultural techniques, like crop rotation.
4. French trade was second only to Great Britain
5. Trade with colonies quadrupled, e.g. Nantes with the West Indies.
6. Transport improved due to the corvée royale.
7. Industrial production improved.
8. Paris became France’s centre of banking.
- However, France also had economic problems that worsened in the 1770s and
1780s:
, 1. Economy relied on agriculture which was generally very traditional and not
efficient.
2. Food production could not keep up with population growth.
3. There was strict regulation on internal economy.
4. There was huge variation in weights and measures across the country.
5. There was a lack of rivers and canals to transport goods like grain.
6. A decline in the French textile industry due to British improved techniques.
7. The French banking system was not advanced.
8. 1770s, poor harvests, failure of vineyards and a hail storm that destroyed all
crops.
9. The 1770s downturn led to a trade slump.
- Government was financed by direct and indirect tax, supplemented by loans to
supplement difference between income and expenditure. Main direct tax was the
taille but others had been introduced to pay for wars.
- There was widespread corruption, compounded by the lack of accounting
procedures.
- No central treasury meant ministers couldn’t anticipate income and therefore budget.
- The Government relied on loans, interest had to be paid and huge royal debt built up.
- The French economy was in crisis when Louis XVI came to the throne, following the
War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War, which all multiplied debt
massively. It was worsened by French involvement in the war of independence, after
which France was in 3.3 billion livres of debt. The Treaty of Paris with the American
colonists gave France no rewards and they decided to keep trading with Britain.
Attempts made by finance ministers to resolve the economic issues and how they failed:
- He appointed the physiocrat, Turgot, as his first Controller-General (finance minister).
- Effective things Turgot did included producing a detailed budget regularly, cut royal
expenses, demanding gov. dep. had to submit their expenses to him so he could find
ways to reduce their spending, reduction in number of pensions and some reform of
the tax system to be more efficient. His measures did help to reduce the deficit.
- Less effective things Turgot did included trying to replace indirect taxes with a
property tax, opposed by 2nd estate as they would actually have to pay tax, trying to
establish free trade in grain and abolish price controls (had to be abandoned after
poor harvest of 1774). Finally his 1776, ‘Six Edicts’. The preamble expressed the
desire to abolish privilege and tax all, the 5th edict aimed to supress guilds and the
sixth to abolish the corvée royale and replace it with a tax. Turgot forced to resign in
1776.
- Turgot was replaced by Necker, a wealthy Swiss banker in 1777. He continued
Turgot’s policy of reducing royal expenses. Necker wanted to reduce corruption and
attacked venality. He appointed paid officials to run the royal estates, as well as
replacing accountants and tax-farmers with salaried officials who had to show their
reports to Necker. Great, but this caused another issue as traditionally venal officials
lent money to the crown – with his policies, these finances were lost.
- Necker removed vingtieme tax and restructured financial admin, e.g. reducing
caisses.
- Finally, Necker published the first ever ‘budget-statement’ of royal finances in 1781 –
the Compte Rendu au Roi. Necker falsified the statement to make France appear to
be in a strong financial position, suggesting France had a surplus not, deficit. He was
