Case Study: The Causes of the French Revolution
Reading: For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 19 Background to Revolution (Pgs. 558 - 560) & The American Revolutionary Era (Pgs. 561 - 566) and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
French Society in 1789 - Historians working on the French Revolution have a problem. All of our attempts to find an explanation in terms of social groups or classes, or particular segments of society becoming powerfully activated, have fallen short. As one expert aptly expressed it: “the truth is we have no agreed general theory of why the French Revolution came about and what it was—and no prospect of one.” This gaping, causal void is certainly not due to lack of investigation into the Revolution’s background and origins. If class conflict in the Marxist sense has been jettisoned, other ways of attributing the Revolution to social change have been explored with unrelenting rigor. Of course, every historian agrees society was slowly changing and that along with the steady expansion of trade and the cities, and the apparatus of the state and armed forces, more (and more professional) lawyers, engineers, administrators, officers, medical staff, architects, and naval personnel were increasingly infusing and diversifying the existing order. Yet, no major, new socioeconomic pressures of a kind apt to cause sudden, dramatic change have been identified. The result, even some keen revisionists admit, is a “somewhat painful void.”
Most historians today claim there was not one big cause but instead numerous small contributory impulses. One historian, stressing the absence of any identifiable overriding cause, likened the Revolution’s origins to a “multi-colored tapestry of interwoven causal factors.” Social and economic historians embracing the “new social interpretation” identify a variety of difficulties that might have rendered eighteenth-century French society, at least in some respects, more fraught and vulnerable than earlier. Yet these factors, all marginal when taken individually, hardly suffice to fill the explanatory gap left by the collapse of every general argument, such as the Marxist thesis of class struggle or the once widely held view that impoverishment and falling real wages created a severe subsistence crisis with deteriorating living standards for most. The latter contention, if correct, would assuredly provide a concrete, compelling argumentation, a comprehensive explanation of why a generalized revolt occurred and possibly why so many major changes were subsequently introduced. There would be a clear logic to accepting that the Revolution was a response to misery and deprivation caused by receding living standards. But the evidence shows that no such crisis occurred. Per capita income in France actually grew over the eighteenth century as towns expanded, along with commerce and industry, shipping, and overseas trade. Agriculture prospered. What then moved the French urban affluent, and the urban poor and peasants, usually considered the main active agents of the Revolution?
Key Concept:
Reading: For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 19 Background to Revolution (Pgs. 558 - 560) & The American Revolutionary Era (Pgs. 561 - 566) and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
French Society in 1789 - Historians working on the French Revolution have a problem. All of our attempts to find an explanation in terms of social groups or classes, or particular segments of society becoming powerfully activated, have fallen short. As one expert aptly expressed it: “the truth is we have no agreed general theory of why the French Revolution came about and what it was—and no prospect of one.” This gaping, causal void is certainly not due to lack of investigation into the Revolution’s background and origins. If class conflict in the Marxist sense has been jettisoned, other ways of attributing the Revolution to social change have been explored with unrelenting rigor. Of course, every historian agrees society was slowly changing and that along with the steady expansion of trade and the cities, and the apparatus of the state and armed forces, more (and more professional) lawyers, engineers, administrators, officers, medical staff, architects, and naval personnel were increasingly infusing and diversifying the existing order. Yet, no major, new socioeconomic pressures of a kind apt to cause sudden, dramatic change have been identified. The result, even some keen revisionists admit, is a “somewhat painful void.”
Most historians today claim there was not one big cause but instead numerous small contributory impulses. One historian, stressing the absence of any identifiable overriding cause, likened the Revolution’s origins to a “multi-colored tapestry of interwoven causal factors.” Social and economic historians embracing the “new social interpretation” identify a variety of difficulties that might have rendered eighteenth-century French society, at least in some respects, more fraught and vulnerable than earlier. Yet these factors, all marginal when taken individually, hardly suffice to fill the explanatory gap left by the collapse of every general argument, such as the Marxist thesis of class struggle or the once widely held view that impoverishment and falling real wages created a severe subsistence crisis with deteriorating living standards for most. The latter contention, if correct, would assuredly provide a concrete, compelling argumentation, a comprehensive explanation of why a generalized revolt occurred and possibly why so many major changes were subsequently introduced. There would be a clear logic to accepting that the Revolution was a response to misery and deprivation caused by receding living standards. But the evidence shows that no such crisis occurred. Per capita income in France actually grew over the eighteenth century as towns expanded, along with commerce and industry, shipping, and overseas trade. Agriculture prospered. What then moved the French urban affluent, and the urban poor and peasants, usually considered the main active agents of the Revolution?
Key Concept:
- The French Revolution posed a fundamental challenge to Europe’s existing political and social order.
- The French Revolution resulted from a combination of long-term social and political causes, as well as Enlightenment ideas, exacerbated by short-term fiscal and economic crises
- Explain why the French Revolution happened when it did by focusing on the 10 most fundamental & important causes of the French Revolution.
This will be done in an essay format.
Causes of the French Revolution A-Z
Direction: Read each the sources provide and categorize it into a social, political, economic, or intellectual causes of the French Revolution.
Direction: Read each the sources provide and categorize it into a social, political, economic, or intellectual causes of the French Revolution.
Source E: Noble Roles in France
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Source F: An Englishmen’s View of the A French Peasant
I was joined by a poor woman who complained of the times. Her husband had only a morsel of land, one cow and a poor horse. But they had to pay 20kg of wheat and three chickens as feudal dues to one lord, and 60kg of oats, one chicken and five pence to another, along with very heavy taxes to the king’s tax collectors: “The taxes and feudal dues are crushing us.” (Travels in France – Arthur Young, 1792) |
Source G: Political Cartoon
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Source H: Incomes
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Source I: Rousseau
The People should have power, 1775. Man is born free. No man has any natural authority over others; force does not give anyone that right. The power to make laws belongs to the people and only to the people. (a pamphlet, banned by the French government in 1775.) Source J: Money, Money, Money By 1787, the French government was bankrupt. It was 4000 million livres in debt. France had spent a lot of money fighting costly wars, but had nothing to show for it. Many people accused the royals, especially Marie- Antoinette of spending too much money on luxuries. Others said that the tax system was corrupt. In 1787 the King asked the nobility to help him reform the tax system. King Louis XVI wanted them to start paying some of them. It is not surprising that they refused to do so. |
Source K: Bad Harvest
Most people in France depended heavily on agriculture and farming in the 1700s. In the years 1787 – 1789, terrible weather, heavy rain, hard winters and too hot summers led to three very bad harvests in France. This led to peasants and farmers having smaller incomes, while food prices rose sharply. The poor harvests also meant that many French farmers became unemployed. Many poorer people were starving, but could not afford food and could not find a job. Meanwhile, the nobility, the clergy and King Louis and his family continued to live in the lap of luxury, in their palaces and chateaux.
Most people in France depended heavily on agriculture and farming in the 1700s. In the years 1787 – 1789, terrible weather, heavy rain, hard winters and too hot summers led to three very bad harvests in France. This led to peasants and farmers having smaller incomes, while food prices rose sharply. The poor harvests also meant that many French farmers became unemployed. Many poorer people were starving, but could not afford food and could not find a job. Meanwhile, the nobility, the clergy and King Louis and his family continued to live in the lap of luxury, in their palaces and chateaux.
Source L: Estates General
In August 1788, King Louis XVI called the Estates General (a gathering of representatives from all three estates) for the first time since 1614. The Estates General met at the palace of Versailles, just Outside Paris, in May 1789. There were 1100 members, or deputies, divided into three orders. The nobles, the clergy, and the third estate, which represented millions of ordinary French people, but only contained half the deputies (including some clever lawyers). The king hoped the Estates General would approve new taxes. The nobles and the clergy hoped they would control the affairs to continue their privileged lifestyles. The middle classes hoped for an English style democracy. The peasants hoped for solutions to their problems and were asked by their representatives to draw up lists of complaints. (cahiers de doleances). The King summoned the Estates General to Versailles, where he had a body of troops…. |
Source M: A Cahier
O rich citizens be so good as to leave for a time your chateaux and palaces and be so good as to glance at those unfortunates whose muscles are only occupied in working for you. What do you see in our villages? A few weakened men, faces withered by poverty and shame, their wives having too many children, their children wearing rags… …All the peasants in our neighbourhood – Brittany – are making ready to refuse the church tax-gatherers and state that nothing will be taken without bloodshed. |
Source N: The American Revolution
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Source O: The Players, Bourgeoisie
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Source T : Unfair Estate System
1st Estate = 300 Representatives 2nd Estate = 300 Representatives 3rd Estate = 600 Representatives *Even though the 3rd Estate made up 98% of the population of France, they were only given equal representation to the first two estates, guaranteeing that the 3rd Estate could always be out voted.* |
Source U: Sieyes, What is the Third Estate? (excerpts)
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Source V: The Taxes paid by the Third Estates
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Source W: Abbé Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789) -- Poem
1st. What is the third estate? Everything. 2nd. What has it been heretofore in the political order? Nothing. 3rd. What does it demand? To become something therein. Source X: Enlightenment
18th century philosophy taught the Frenchman to find his condition wretched, unjust and illogical and made him disinclined to the patient resignation to his troubles that had long characterized his ancestors . . . . The propaganda of the philosophes perhaps more than any other factor accounted for the fulfillment of the preliminary condition of the French Revolution, namely discontent with the existing state of things. |
Source Y: The American Revolution Expanded
Hundreds of books, pamphlets and public lectures analyzed, romanticized and criticized the American rebellion against Great Britain. For instance, in 1783 the Venetian ambassador to Paris wrote that "it is reasonable to expect that, with the favourable effects of time, and of European arts and sciences, [America] will become the most formidable power in the world." American independence fired the imagination of aristocrats who were unsure of their status while at the same time giving the promise of ever greater equality to the common man. The Enlightenment preached the steady and inevitable progress of man's moral and intellectual nature. The American example served as a great lesson - tyranny could be challenged. Man did have inalienable rights. New governments could be constructed. The American example then, shed a brilliant light. As one French observer remarked in 1789, "This vast continent which the seas surround will soon change Europe and the universe."
Hundreds of books, pamphlets and public lectures analyzed, romanticized and criticized the American rebellion against Great Britain. For instance, in 1783 the Venetian ambassador to Paris wrote that "it is reasonable to expect that, with the favourable effects of time, and of European arts and sciences, [America] will become the most formidable power in the world." American independence fired the imagination of aristocrats who were unsure of their status while at the same time giving the promise of ever greater equality to the common man. The Enlightenment preached the steady and inevitable progress of man's moral and intellectual nature. The American example served as a great lesson - tyranny could be challenged. Man did have inalienable rights. New governments could be constructed. The American example then, shed a brilliant light. As one French observer remarked in 1789, "This vast continent which the seas surround will soon change Europe and the universe."
Source Z: Grandeur of Marie Antoinette
(Click to enlarge each photo)
(Click to enlarge each photo)