kathleen krall's List: French Revolution

• The causes of the French Revolution are complicated, so complicated that a debate still  rages among historians regarding origins, causes and results. In general, the real causes  of the Revolution must be located in the rigid social structure of French society during  the ancien regime. As it had been for centuries, French society was divided into  three Estates or Orders. The First Estate consisted of the clergy and the Second Estate  the nobility.
• he First Estate
    The Clergy From the outset, the clergy was established as a privileged Estate. The French  Catholic Church maintained a wide scope of powers - it literally constituted a state  within a state and it had sustained this position for more than 800 years. The clergy was  divided into the lower and upper clergy. Members of the lower clergy were usually humble,  poorly-paid and overworked village priests. As a group, they resented the wealth and  arrogance of the upper clergy. The bishops and abbots filled the ranks of the upper  clergy, men who regarded their office as a way of securing a larger income and the landed  property that went with it. Most of the upper clergy sold their offices to subordinates,  kept the revenue, and lived in Paris or at the seat of royal government at Versailles. Well, what did the clergy do? Or,  I suppose, a better way of framing the question is this: what were they supposed to be  doing? Their responsibilities included: the registration of births, marriages and deaths;  they collected the tithe (usually 10%); they censored books; served as moral police;  operated schools and hospitals; and distributed relief to the poor. They also owned 10-15%  of all the land in France. This land, of course, was all held tax-free.
• The Third Estate
    This estate ostensibly consisted of every one who was not a member of either the First or  Second Estates. Totaling approximately 25 million souls, the Third Estate was composed of  the bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the urban artisans. As a class, the bourgeoisie -  merchants, manufacturers, bankers, doctors, lawyers, intellectuals - had wealth. In some  cases, enormous wealth. But, wealth in the ancien regime did not mean status or  privilege and it should be clear by now that "success" in 18th century France  meant status and privilege. Wealth was nothing without status. The bourgeoisie were  influenced by the nobility and tried to imitate them whenever possible. So, they tried to  improve their status by becoming land owners themselves. By 1789, the bourgeoisie  controlled 20% of all the land. They were upwardly mobile, but they felt frustrated and  blocked by the aristocracy, an aristocracy whose only interest was that everyone maintain  their place in society.
• These, then, are the social causes that acted as a breeding ground for the grievances  and passions the Revolution would unleash. But there are a few other causes, equally  important, that are also worth our attention.
• Royal Absolutism
• Eighteenth century France was, in theory, an absolute monarchy. Royal absolutism was  produced as a result of the   Hundred  Years' War. By the early 18th century, French kings had nearly succeeded in wresting  all power from the nobility. Thanks in part to the effort of Louis XIV, absolute monarchy  was, in both theory and practice, a reality. France had no Parliament. France did have an  Estates General which was a semi-representative institution in that it was composed of  representatives from each of the Three Estates. The last time the Estates General had been  convened was in 1614! Was the Estates General a truly representative body? Hardly. The way  the French administered the country was through a bloated bureaucracy of officials. By  1750, the bureaucracy had overgrown itself - it was large, corrupt and inefficient. Too  many officials had bought and sold their offices over the years. Furthermore, despite the  efforts of Charlemagne (742-814) in  the 9th century, France had no single, unified system of law. Each region determined its  own laws based on the rule of the local Parlement
• Law
    There were thirteen distinct regions in France before 1789 and each was under the  jurisdiction of a Parlement. Each Parlement contained between fifty and 130  members. They were the local judges and legal elites. They tried cases for theft, murder,  forgery, sedition and libel. They also served as public censors and sometimes were  responsible for fixing the price of bread. They were hated by almost everyone, including  the king. Of course, the king also had his royal lackeys, the intendents. The intendents  were even more hated than the Parlement. Created to help curb the power of the  nobility, the intendents became known for their habit of arbitrary taxation and arrest of  the peasantry. Such a situation made for the inefficient operation of Europe's largest and  strongest country
• Finances
    By 1789, France was bankrupt. The country could no longer pay its debts, debts that were  all the result of war. One example says a great deal about this situation. By 1789, France  was still paying off debts incurred by the wars of Louis XIV, that is, wars of the late  17th and early 18th century. Furthermore, a number of social groups and institutions did  not pay taxes of any kind. Many universities were exempt from taxation as were the  thirteen Parlements, cites like Paris, the Church and the clergy, the aristocracy  and numerous members of the bourgeoisie. And of course, it was simply brilliant planning  to continue to tax the peasants - peasants who, having nothing to contribute were, over  the course of the century, forced to contribute even more.
• The Enlightenment
    The effect of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution has created a debate which will  not soon be resolved. But, in general, it can be said that there is no causal relationship  between the philosophes of the Enlightenment and the outbreak of the French  Revolution. Few philosophes, if any, advocated revolution and the reason is  fairly clear. No philosophe advocated the violent overthrow of the existing order  of things because violence was contrary to human reason. But because the philosophes  of the Enlightenment attacked the established order together with authority of any kind,  their ideas helped to produce what can only be called a revolutionary mentality. One  modern historian has correctly observed that:
• suppose what I mean is this: the philosophes advocated the use of Reason in  all human affairs. They knew that Reason, together with its sister, criticism, could  effect change: a change in morals, a change in human knowledge, a change in human  happiness. Voltaire, of course, was a case in  point. He had few problems with monarchy. All he wanted was an enlightened monarch. Was  Voltaire a liberal? Or a republican? Hardly. And for all his talk about representative  governments, social contracts and civil society, Rousseau had more to do with the  origins of totalitarian society than he did with democracy. Still, two people can read  Rousseau and leave with two different perspectives. And Rousseau's thought certainly led  to divergent opinions as to what really mattered. The point is this: the 18th century had  no Karl Marx (1818-1883). The 18th century  had no prophet of revolution. Why? Because the prophets of revolution, like Marx, were  made by the French Revolution. The French Revolution was not made by prophets.
• The American Revolution
    Lastly, there is little doubt that the American  Revolution of the 1770s and the formation of a republic in the 1780s served as a  profound example to all European observers. 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
• ower 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."

10 more annotations...