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Causes And Background Of The French Revolution
Causes And Background Of The French Revolution
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AP European History
Exam Questions – Volume 5
French Revolution
Louis XV (1715-1774)
Who was the famous mistress of Louis XV?
Why is she important?
Louis XV allowed some government officials to purchase noble titles, thus making them more loyal to him. What were they called?
For what wars did Louis XV need to raise taxes?
What country was the largest in the world in 1789?
What was France’s population?
What was the official language of diplomacy in 1789?
King Louis XVI
What group composed the First Estate in the French Estates General?
What percentage of the population was the Clergy?
How much did the clergy pay in taxes?
What group composed the second estate?
What percentage of the population was the nobility?
What manorial rights did the nobility have that
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Which estate bore the vast majority of the tax burden?
What was the name of the land tax?
What was the name of the church tax equivalent to 10% of annual income?
What was the name of the salt tax?
Peasants were obligated to work for nobles several days a year. What was that obligation called?
How many votes did each estate get in the Estates General?
Why was that unfair to the Third Estate?
What did the bourgeoisie demand regarding votes in the Estates General, prior to the revolution?
What documents allowed the king to imprison anyone without charges or trial?
Causes of the French Revolution
Which revolution influenced the French Revolution?
How did the French learn from the American Revolution?
How did French aid to the Americas contribute to the French Revolution?
Why was the French government so in debt?
What other problems were facing France in 1789?
Why couldn’t France deal with their debt?
Whom did Louis XVI hire as director of finance to raise taxes on the nobility?
When the nobles refused to pay the taxes, what happened to Jacques Necker?
Whom was Louis XVI forced to call upon to raise
Louis had a controller of general finances named Colbert, and he “reduced the annual treasury deficit by economies and more equitable, efficient taxation, although tax exemptions for the nobility, clergy, and some members of the bourgeoisie continued. Louis led many military attacks and wars to expand his territory and build up his economy. He started to tax the people and use this money to build palaces and other architectural structures. Louis added nobles to his army so they would not think that their power was declining. This also helped to strengthen his army and thus he led several military attacks to build his state. In the War of “Devolution (1667-1668) he claimed that those provinces had "devolved" by succession to his Spanish wife rather than to her half brother Charles II, who had inherited the Spanish crown.” By doing this, he received some valuable towns, and this helped to expand his territory. But Louis did not always win battles, there were a few times where his army was defeated. In 1683, Colbert died and several disasters happened thereafter. After several defeats, Louis XIV decided to settle down to a more “sedate
One of the most notable of which would be his decision to completely reconstruct a new palace at Versailles. Such a great expenditure is blatantly criticized in Doc 7 where the Duc de Saint-Simon states, “the foundations and groves have buried more money than could ever appear”. Such expenditures, undoubtedly funded by taxpayer dollars expose Louis’ extremely self-serving distribution of funds when it came to matters of his own comfort. However, it is important to realize that Doc 7, written by a noble, must also be read with a watchful eye. The Duc de Saint-Simon’s assertions could possibly, though construction of a new palace would likely cost a tremendous amount of capital, be riddled by bias as a result of the absolutist King’s extreme suppression of nobility perks and privileges. The idea that Louis acted in his own interest in terms of capital distribution may be explained away by such bias had it not been for the evidence presented in Doc 4. Though on the surface it seems to show the public’s appreciation for the King, one must acknowledge the fact that an ‘inscription on a ceremonial arch of great architectural importance in Tournai’ was most likely commissioned by the King, and again funded by taxpayer dollars. Such a commission would expose the fact that the words stated in the inscription is not the point of view of the French people, but rather the desired
In order to gain the power he desired as an absolute monarch, Louis used a few key techniques that were very successful. His first and most necessary step to get all control was to take all of the nobles’ power, and make it so they were completely under his control. He first did this by taking the nobles’ positions of power, and either getting rid of them by doing it himself, or giving the jobs to loyal middleclass or some nobles who were completely loyal and under his control. Louis had very simple reasoning for doing this, which was that if the nobles had any power or control, they would have a better chance of overthrowing him, and that since there can only be so much total power, the more they had, the less ...
At the beginning of the 17th century, France was a place of internal strife and bickering bureaucrats. The king, Louis XIII, had come to the throne in 1610 at the age of nine, leaving the running of the kingdom to his mother, Marie de Medici. One of her court favorites, Armand de Plessis de Richelieu, rose through the ranks, eventually gaining the title of Cardinal and becoming one of Louis’ key advisors and minister. His political manifesto, Political Testament, was a treatise for King Louis XIII that offered him advice mainly concerned with the management and subtle subjugation of the nobles and the behavior of a prince. Beneath all of the obeisant rhetoric, Richelieu was essentially writing a handbook for Louis XIII on how to survive as a king in a political landscape increasingly dominated by the aristocracy. Richelieu’s ideology shows a pragmatic attitude reminiscent of The Prince, a political work by 15th century Florentine politician Niccoló Machiavelli.
In the book Travels in France by Arthur Young, he states that “There is an injustice in levying the amount each person must pay. Lands held by the nobility are taxed very little. Lands held by commoners are taxed heavily…”. This line is important because yes, it is easy to see that only the middle class but Arthur is English, not French. From the website Encyclopedia Britannica they state he is an “English writer on agriculture, politics, and economics. Besides his books on agricultural subjects, he was the author of the famous Travels in France. The book is especially valued for its vivid descriptions of the French Revolution and of the conditions that produced it”. If an English man can see that French have a financial crisis because the king is in debt, then there is a financial crisis. The clergy and the nobles were not being taxed even though they had lots of money. Even the nobility went against their own people, the website Bastille Day and The French Revolution state that “Faced with all these problems, Louis XVI needed more funds to govern is country. His financial advisers, inspired by Turgot, decided to turn to the nobility and tried to pass a law that would make them pay more taxes. The nobility opposed the king 's decision. By a clever game of persuasion, they even rallied part of the third estates at their side to denounce the power of the King”. As can be seen taxes were
duty to care for the sick, but it was not until the 1100's that it
Also, liberty was one of the people's major concerns. They were ruled by men whose only desire was power and greed, which is what led them into revolt. The treatment of the "majority", which was the lower class, had a significant role in each of these revolutions. The French revolution was considered, "the great revolution of the eighteenth century" (McKay, 705) and is a perfect example of how the "majority" was treated. Out of twenty-five million people, 100,000 were the clergy, 400,000 were noblemen (McKay, 705) and the "majority" of the population was known as the third estate.
When Louis the XIV began his rule in 1643, his actions immediately began to suggest and absolute dictatorship. Because of the misery he had previously suffered, one of the first things he did was to decrease the power of the nobility. He withdrew himself from the rich upper class, doing everything secretly. The wealth had no connection to Louis, and therefore all power they previously had was gone. He had complete control over the nobles, spying, going through mail, and a secret police force made sure that Louis had absolute power. Louis appointed all of his officials, middle class men who served him without wanting any power. Louis wanted it clear that none of his power would be shared. He wanted "people to know by the rank of the men who served him that he had no intention of sharing power with them." If Louis XIV appointed advisors from the upper classes, they would expect to gain power, and Louis was not willing to give it to them. The way Louis XIV ruled, the sole powerful leader, made him an absolute ruler. He had divine rule, and did not want to give any power to anyone other than himself. These beliefs made him an absolute ruler.
One cause of both Revolutions was that people from all social classes were discontented. Each social class in France had its own reasons for wanting a change in government. The aristocracy was upset by the king’s power while the Bourgeoisie was upset by the privileges of the aristocracy. The peasants and urban workers were upset by their burdensome existence. The rigid, unjust social structure meant that citizens were looking for change because “all social classes…had become uncomfortable and unhappy with the status quo.” (Nardo, 13) Many believed that a more just system was long overdue in France.
Both of these combined created a further debt for France. King Louis wanted to increase the taxes of the Third Estate to pay off the debts, which made the peasants even angrier, which will be talked about in the next paragraph. King Louis came into power at the age of 20, and he put most of the financial duties to Turgot, one of the best statesmen. When he finally realized the French Revolution was a big problem, all his attempts to stop it were all in vain because he didn’t know what to do since he had entrusted most of his responsibilities to the people below him.... ...
Kwass, M. (2000). Privilege and the politics of taxation in eighteenth-century france. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
...search for a way to relieve the national debt, however policies by financial ministers like Jacques Neckler and Charles Alexandre de Calonne increased the debt even more. Louis would attempt to evoke the Assembly of Notables, which consisted of nobles, and later the Estates-General, which consisted of peasants, to ease the economic burden. However, both assemblies were shocked and disgruntled with the poor economy, and revoked the power of the King, leading to the French Revolution and forever abolishing absolutism from France.
Prior to the revolution, King Louis XVI was at the top of the ancien régime, the social, economic, and political structure in France, which means he had absolute power. When he received the throne in 1774, it came along with insoluble problems. The people were split into three estates which divided social class. The first estate consisted of 100,000 tax exempt nobles who owned 20% of the land. The second estate consisted of the 300,000 tax exempt clergy who owned 10% of the land. The third estate consisted of the remaining 23.5 million French people who were 90% peasants. The third estate was the only estate that paid taxes. Their taxes ensured the financial well-being of the clergy, state, and nobles (French Revolution Overview 6).
The inflated opinion the French monarchy had about themselves and other nobles lent itself to how they contributed to and handled the economic downturn in France for centuries prior to the French Revolution. Forming the foundation of many of France’s financial issues, the monarchial system granted royals and the nobles who surrounded them the ability to feel as if they are intended to be superior to the rest of France, a mentality that would last until the French Revolution began. With this monarchial system, each king of France from 1610 to 1789 would contribute in both positive and negative ways, depending greatly on the Chief Ministers they appointed. [ADD]
Member of third estate: (Interrupts) Look what has happened because of the monarchy! France is in debt, and many are poor. The peasants work hard every day to pay heavy taxes, while the nobles spend all that money on luxuries such as jewels and clothing!