Causes of the French Revolution
... and shrewd. She didn’t support her husband (whom she didn’t even like) and spent numerous amounts of money on her appearance. The lack of a strong monarchy in France did not assist the prevention of uprising. The governing body of France, the Estates General, never met regularly to address the issues that sparked revolt and was unbalanced in power. The First Estate comprised of the clergy, which parish priests, rather than Church leaders made up most of the deputies of their Estate. The Second Estate consisted of upper-class nobles and only one-third of them were liberals, the rest traditionalist and conservative. The Third Estate consisted of the middle class and the rest of the population. The Third Estate had twice as many delegates as the First and Second, but due to the policy of Louis XVI, the Third Estate was soundly outnumbered because of higher priority given to the First and Second Estates. Another cause contributing to the French Revolution was the fact of national debt. France had spent large sums of money to assist the British colonies in the American Revolution and had to find a way to raise money. The French government hired three different men to do this, but in the end, they all failed, and France seemed to be in a permanent state of fiscal crisis. Economic contributions to the French Revolution included the fact that mercantilist theories and guild regulations restricted new breakthroughs in economic innovations and hindered initiative. The French economy was at stake in the eighteenth century. Poor harvests in France resulted in a lack of food and a spike in prices, which became a burden on poor peasants and lower class, who were already overwhelmed by the taxes placed on their shoulders since the clergy, nobility, and wealthy middle class could buy their way out of paying governmental taxes. These factors contributed to a depression in the French economy shortly before revolution exploded in the country. As mentioned above, the period of the Enlightenment was also a contributing factor to the French Revolution. The ideas of individual freedoms and basic rights of Voltaire inspired many to reform the system of government and to enable basic freedoms like religious toleration, freedom of speech and press, and life, liberty, and freedom. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Social Contract” taught that a government that was distinct from the individuals over which it exercises has no validity. Rousseau’s contract counters the belief that some men were made to govern while others are to obey by teaching that citizens have a role in making the laws they have to abide by. Through his works, Rousseau was named by the French as being the “spiritual father” of the French Revolution. Social anxieties were also to blame for the French Revolution. France still had some policies of Feudalism linger...