Why Did Revolution Break out in 1789?

Why Did Revolution Break Out In 1789?

In 1789 the people of France revolted against their absolutist leader Louis XVI. The French Revolution was a key stage in history that helped to shape the way that modern Europe was formed. There were many reasons for the start of the revolution, for example; the deepening financial and economic crises, the failure of Louis XVI as a leader and the outdated system that was the Ancien Régime.

The structure of the Ancien Régime was crumbling and out of date.The absolutist society of the Ancien Régime had been perfected under the reign of Louis XIV, the government was entirely in the hands of the King and was centralised at Versailles. The Ancien Régime ran on the structure of the estate system, which divided the people of France into three groups or estates; the 1st estate was made up of the clergy, the 2nd was made up of the nobility and high ranking magistrates, the 3rd and final estate consisted of everyone who didn't fit into the first two estates. The first and second estates were very unpopular among the third estate because they got privileges that were deemed unfair by the people of the third estate. The first estate became unpopular because of many reasons however it is argues that the main reason is because of a tax, called the Tithe. The Tithe was a tax that was paid to the church by landowners and was determined on crop yield in that region, the percentage fluctuated from 25%, in Brittany, to 2%, in Dauphine. The tithe produced on average 50 million livres per year, the collections from the tithe were meant to got the the poorer members of the clergy, however the majority of the money went into the pockets of the high rank9ing bishops. The tithe was among one of the most common grievances in the chaiers of 1788. On top of collecting the with the first estate had very small taxes and had power over the people, including; censorship, schools and hospitals. The second estate had, arguably, the most privileges among the estate system; they were allowed to be tried in their own courts, they were exempt from military service, they didn’t have to pay the gabelle and the corvée, they also had many feudal dues and rights and in many areas the seconds estate had a monopoly on mills, ovens and wine presses. The third estate all had to pay for taxes and had no privileges, in terms of taxations and the legal system. Due to the unbalance in the privileges the majority of the third estate felt that the first and second estates had too much power, and that the power in the country was too disproportionate to the tax percentage, in terms of the estates. The Ancien Régime was a system that was put in place to establish and maintain and absolutist society. This regime worked for Louis XIV and was kept afloat by Louis XV, however when the first and second estates being exempt from increasing amounts of taxation and the third estate bearing the brunt of the hard taxation policies, was combined with Louis XVI’s indecisive nature, the overlapping of the parlement’s jurisdiction, the increasing extravagance of Versailles, and the increasing filth of the cities. This absolutist regime began to crumble.

One of the main reasons that the Ancien Régime collapsed was due to Louis XVI’s weakness as a monarch. When he came to the throne Louis was unprepared to be the ruler of France. Throughout his reign he showed little qualities of a responsible and reliable leader. This was a step down for the country as the previous monarchs had been powerful and assertive, Louis possessed neither of these qualities when it came to politics. He often promised reforms that would benefit the third estate, but he would always back down after the nobility pressed their grievances with the new forms. He was indecisive and reluctant to commit to change, this can be seen with the fact that from his coronation, in 1774, to the outbreak of the revolution, in 1789, he went through six finance ministers, each of them coming to the same conclusion that in order to bring France out of debt, Louis needed to introduce severe reforms to the system of taxation in the first and second estates. Due to the fact that Louis went through so many finance ministers, and each one of them thinking that they had the correct way to bring France and the crown out of the financial crisis, this landed France into severe debt, and the Crown into bankruptcy. Louis was heavily under the influence of his wife, Marie Antoinette, as well as his family and the nobles in his cabinet, this combined with his unwillingness to commit to reform and the extravagant lifestyle that he, and his family led, meant that the became increasingly unpopular within the third estate.

One of the main catalysts of the French revolution was the fact that during Louis’ reign France had a major financial crisis. This financial crisis was partly due to France’s involvement in the Seven Years War and the American Revolution, however the tipping point was the fact that there were very little good harvests between 1778-1788. This led to a grain shortage, which led to increasing prices when wages were staying the same or getting lowered. In 1774, despite the poor harvest, Turgot decided that the best way to keep the economy was to remove the controls on the pricing of grain, this angered the third estate because already rising prices of bread and grain sky rocketed, with no-one to control the prices the economy entered a downward spiral. The average peasant by 1785 spent 88% of their weekly wages on bread and grain. In 1775 people reached their tipping point and riots started in the major cities, people ransacking grain storages, bakeries and wealthy estates. It took armed troops, hundreds of arrests and two public executions to restore order, this event was named the ‘Flour War’ due tot eh fact that people had only been rioting to get the basic necessities of bread and grain.Another factor that didn’t help the growing financial crisis was the Eden treaty that France signed with England in 1786 which allowed un taxed trade between Britain and France, this meant that what little profit the peasants and workers had already been making was made even smaller. The situation was not much better in the cities, the prices by guilds were rising and employment in production was falling, this paired with the demand in the cities led to starvation and vagrancy. Due to the fact that bread made up around three quarters of the average workers diet, if they were not already destitute then they were in constant fear of being so. This created a society who had nothing to lose and everything to gain from chaos. It was the riots in major cities that eventually led to the calling of the Estates General in 1789. However the financial crisis cannot be blamed solely on the rising prices of bread and grain, the blame also falls, in part, to Louis’ finance ministers. Each finance minister, Turgot, Necker, de Fleury, Calonne and Brienne, each had their problems and each created an impact on the financial crisis. Turgot, who was very liberal, wanted to; free the trade in grain, abolish the guilds and reform the taxation in property. He did achieve the abolishment of the guilds, however the freedom of the grain trade led directly to the Flour War of 1775, and his attempts at reform antagonised those in the cabinet and Louis dismissed him. Necker, a Swiss Banker, managed to abolish four hundred ceremonial offices, however he cam etc the same conclusion as Turgot, after exhausting the option of taking out loans from other countries, that there needed to be reformed. Necker was well liked by the third estate as he didn’t raise taxes during wartime, however he was very unpopular at court and once he tried to raise the issue of reforms he was dismissed, much to the confusion of the people at Necker had published his ‘Compte Rendu du Roi’ which suggested that there was a normal annual surplus. De Fleury accomplished very little in his time as finance minster, however he did raise taxes which angered the third estate. Calonne tried to outspend the crisis, in the hopes that he would kickstart the economy. In 1785 he had to tell Louis that his policy of excessive spending had failed and that the government was on the verge of bankruptcy. Two years later he called an Assembly of Notables to discuss the possibility of reform, however his proposals, much like Turgot and Necker, were refused and Louis dismissed him. The revolving door position that was the Finance minister meant that a new economic plan was being introduced every 2-4 years meaning that the economy of France became increasingly unstable.