FRENCH REV AND NAPOLEON

• Long Term Causes of the Revolution


  • Monarchy and the Ancien Regime
  • Three Estates and Financial Problems
  • Taxation
  • France did not develop industrially
  • The Enlightenment
• Absolutism in France


  Government was entirely in the hands of the king and was centred at Versailles
• Government ministers and senior local officials

  • Selected from the bourgeoisie
  • The nobility was allowed to hold military posts, but was largely excluded from government
• The nobility


  • Kept occupied at Versailles in largely pointless, but showily prestigious, daily routine
  • Allowed to keep its feudal privileges and freedom from taxation
• Successful government and administrations


  • The king had to be intelligent and capable of taking decisions
  • Ministers had to be competent and efficient
  • The state had to live within its means
• The French King


  Not quite an absolute Monarch because the passage of laws was made difficult because the Parlements (regional assemblies) which had to approve legislation, were generally hostile and wanted to retain privileges
• Louis XIV had been successful during the first half of his reign, but less so from the late 1680s
• Louis XV had continued his policies and, being served by some capable ministers, had kept France afloat until the 1750s
• French participation in the Seven Years War had been disastrous. Most colonies were lost and the armed forces were heavily defeated on many occasions
• Although the French population was larger than that of most other countries in Europe and the country was potentially very wealthy, economy and society were stifled to a considerable extent by out-dated practices
• Louis XVI


  • Unsuited to absolute rule
  • Changed financial ministers regularly
  • Easily influenced by nobles and his wife Marie Antoinette
• Louis XVI was a gentle, honest family man, who enjoyed hunting and devoted a great deal of time to his collection of watches
• Marie Antoinette was very extravagant, spending 400,000 livres in 1776 on a pair of diamond bracelets
• In government, Louis XVI displayed a serious lack of judgment at key points and a failure to carry through reforms
• When the chips were down, Louis XVI almost always backed down and tended to side with the first two estates
• Louis XVI inherited a financial crisis brought on by a series of wars fought in the first half of the eighteenth century
• In 1774, the monarchy was virtually bankrupt after fighting the Seven Years War, 1756-63, against Britain
• Three Estates


  • First Estate - clergy
  • Second Estate - nobility
  • Third Estate - all else
• First Estate - clergy

  • Collected tithes (money paid to owned Church land – made up 10% of all land) – provided Church with 50 million livres each year
  • Exempt from taxation despite 100 million livres per year income
  • Had power over the people – Catholicism's influence = considerable – acted as Ministry of Information for government
• Second Estate - nobility

  • Most powerful = 4000 court nobility – those whose ancestors traced back to before 1400 – normally lived at Versailles
  • 2nd most powerful = noblesse de robe – legal and administrative nobles included 1200 magistrates of parlements
  • Remainder (majority) = land inherited by eldest son – younger sons forced to fend for themselves – many joined Church, Army or administration
  • Main source of income = land – owned between 1/3 / 1/4 of land in France
  • Had many privileges: Tried in their own courts and exempt from military service, Exempt from paying gabelle and corvee, Received feudal dues and had exclusive rights to hunting and fishing and could operate all mills, ovens, wine presses in many areas, Until 1695 – didn't pay direct tax at all – even when capitation introduced and in 1749 the vingtieme – managed to pay less than they should of
• Ways of becoming a noble

  • Direct appointment from king
  • Buying certain offices with hereditary titles (venal office)
  • 12,000 of these in service of crown
• Third Estate


  • Top end = bourgeoisie – rich merchants – not peasants or urban workers = 2.3 million towards end of 18th century
  • Peasantry = 85% of population – top end = small group of big farmers – owned land and employed labourers
  • Half of peasantry = sharecroppers
  • 1/4 = landless labourers
  • Serfdom = million serfs in east – at bottom of social structure and = poorest
  • Urban workers = remaining part of 3rd estate – sans-culottes – unskilled and poor
  • Skilled craftsmen organised into guilds – Paris 1776: 100,000 workers in guilds
• Peasants had to pay the nobility for use of their mill, oven, wine press and cider press and were prevented from killing game animals, including pigeons and rabbits, building stone walls or harvesting crops until birds had finished nesting in them
• Taxes increased between 1749 and 1783 to raise money for warfare – took between 5 – 10% of peasants income
• Standard of living decreased in 18th century – prices risen by 65% between 1726 and 1789 – wages only by 22% = mass resentment of government and monarchy
• Taxation system


  • Different taxes were due in different places
  • King had to consult council of ministers and advisers to make laws – most important of these = Controller General in charge of royal finances
  • In provinces – King's government carried out by intendants
  • Tax farming system = corrupt – collected by Farmers-General: paid state agreed sum and kept anything else for themselves – French government never received enough money to cover expenditure – frequently borrowing
• Many taxes collected by officials who obtained the position through venality (sale and purchase of jobs to be inherited by descendants) so couldn't be dismissed from office
• The major problems were the inability to tax the first two Estates and the chaotic system of collection
• People in Central and Northern France paid more tax than those in the South
• Attempts to tackle the financial crisis by Jacques Turgot


  1. Reducing the number of tax officials and introducing better accounting procedures

  2. Abolition of trade guilds to stimulate the economy

  3. Allowing free trade in grain to increase production and reduce prices

  4. Replacing all existing taxes with a single tax on land which would be levied by assemblies of landowners

  5. Abolishing the corvee (unpaid labour service on roads by peasants)
• But Turgot's proposals faced protest from Parlements and Louis XVI withdrew support, leading to Turgot leaving office
• The issue of taxation weakened the crown and caused resentment amongst the 3rd estate who bore the burden of taxation payment - one of the most important causes of the Revolution
• The most important political cause of the Revolution was the bankruptcy of the monarchy
• France did not develop industrially - internal tariffs prevented the free movement of goods, guilds enforced restrictive practices, and the nobility regarded 'trade' with disfavour
• Most other European countries were even less developed than France and yet managed to avoid revolution
• The Enlightenment


  • 18th century intellectual movement that questioned religion, nature and absolute monarchy - analysis based on reason and ration
  • Attacked the Catholic Church as wealthy, corrupt and intolerant
  • Criticised aspects of the ancien regime but were not revolutionary though did have impact on the outbreak
• The Enlightenment philosophers


  • Voltaire - critical of the Catholic Church's influence
  • Montesquieu - argued for division of powers in government
  • Diderot - compiled the 'Encyclopaedia' to 'change the way people think'
  • Rousseau - opposed the monarchy and supported democracy
• The philosophes attracted some support in France towards the end of the eighteenth century, mostly in the Third Estate which had most to gain
• The Enlightenment took a much firmer hold in other parts of Europe, with 'enlightened despots' in Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire
• Short term causes of the Revolution

  • Foreign policy - Seven Years War and American War of Independence
  • Financial Crisis