Economic Distress On France 's Regressive Taxation System

The high costs of maintaining the army and navy exacerbated the situation, along with the lavish lifestyle of King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie-Antoinette. Louis appointed Charles de Calonne as comptroller-general to solve France’s financial crisis. Calonne knew that the only way to get France out of debt was to fairly distribute the tax burden among the three estates. Of course, this did sit well with the nobility and Calonne was dismissed after giving his presentation at the Assembly of Notables. In a desperate act, Louis called the Estates General. The Estates General was an ancient practice that had not been called since 1614. Events there would prove to be the beginning of the revolution proper. France suffered under years of inept and self-serving monarchs. Louis XVI was preceded by his grandfather, Louis XV. It was his loss of public opinion and war spending that put his grandson in such a precarious position in the years after his reign. The rule of Louis XVI would prove to be a doomed one. He was ousted after a comparatively short 17 years. The outdated political system gave way to a constitutional monarchy, and when that failed, the French Republic. This Republic however would not prove to last. Feudalism was the whole of existence for rural commoners in the time before the revolution. Farmers had no right to the land they worked and lived on. Serfs were beholden to their manor lord

The nobility had to pay little taxes, but nothing compare to what peasants had to pay. The commoners were really the foundation of France. According to the DBQ, document six it states, “The Third Estate is the People and the People is the foundation of the State; it is in fact the State itself.” The commoners lived poorly because of all the taxes they were giving directly to people who were above them. According to the DBQ, Document one, it states, “Lands held by the nobility are taxed very little. Lands held by commoners are taxed very heavily.” So by this information I believe the peasants were poor because of paying high taxes. They didn’t have much food, no freedom nor money, raggedy clothes, they had to work extremely hard, they had poor living conditions, and mistreatment of the monarchy, the clergy, and the nobility. The peasants were beginning to feel frustrated and outraged by the Monarchy’s inability to adhere, to the change of life that the peasants were demanding

Before the revolution France was ruled under the Ancien Regime system, meaning the country and all its people were under the reign of an absolute monarch. This was a tradition that had been upheld through the years and the Royal family had enjoyed a life funded by the people of France, the royal family’s lifestyle unaffected by the situation outside their palace. The Palace, Versailles, was built by king Louis XIV and the expenses for building this “village” was very high, and in later years the cost for its upkeep would play a significant role in Frances financial difficulties. In order for these difficulties to be overcome France needed a tax reform. The government had a very high tax rate on the poorest of their people, the Third Estate, and they were still not getting enough money to get out of their

King Louis XVI controlled France during 1754-1793; the population was unevenly divided; the 3rd estate makes up about 97% of the entire population. The 3rd estate was very poor, they rarely could pay of rent or even pay for their food. Due to the huge debt king Lois owes from joining a war to help the Americans hoping avenge his grandfather’s losses to Britain he raised taxes.(Roberts) It made the people more angry; winter also came and created a drought which raised the cost of food. The majority of people

The two predecessors of Louis XVI, his father and grandfather, Louis XV and Louis XIV, left him great debts because of excessive spending. The country of France was close to being bankrupt. Though the nobles and clergy were very wealthy, Louis couldn't tax them because they were wealthy. Then the First and Second Estates did not accept a land taxed proposed by Louis, which would cover some of the debt. By the year 1789 the country of France was in great debt and financial crisis. Other unfortunate events happened the year leading up to the storming of the Bastille. During the beginning of 1789 the bad weather had reduced the grain crops by almost one-quarter the normal yield. The cold winter made for frozen rivers, which also halted the transport and milling of flour in many parts of the nation. This then raised the price of bread in Paris from

To make matters worse, for the past decade, the French populace had been suffering from famine because of bad harvesting and sky-high price of even bare necessities. The demand for manufactured goods plummeted, causing many workers, farmers, and traders to be without work. The laws of the land were becoming increasingly burdensome to the Third Estate, while excusing the clergy and nobility from paying taxes. Since they already had to pay tax on land (taille), tax on food and drink (aides), tax for the upkeep of the clergy (tithes), tax on salt (gabelle), and many more, the common people were understandably angry with the entire burden falling on them while the other two Estates remained exempt from taxation. Clearly, “Laws themselves [were] nothing but instruments at the hands of the rich, to oppress the

Based off of documents 3, 4 and 12, one can understand how the taxes impacted a family’s ability to buy basic necessities. Due to such heavy taxes, many people were poor or were forced to become beggars. Documents 10 and 15 describes how the workingman spends most of his money on basic items to survive and taxes but goes over his budget while the king spends a lot of money on personal desires and goes over his budget as well. This contributes to the financial crisis that France was in because the nobility and the commoners were spending more money than they already

The citizens of the 3rd estate and some citizens in the 2nd estate in France during 1789, were not happy at all. They were getting heavily taxed by Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, and the Catholic Church. When they didn’t have the money to pay the taxes that was forced upon them. After all of the hard work they put in to growing crops, the crops were taken

The wars of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI all led to an increasing amount of anger from the people as there were unfair taxes for the Third Estate to pay the war debts. The Third Estate were already devastated

The French Revolution had many contributions to its cause. One of these many causes was financial crisis and economic conflicts. There was an injustice in the amount each person must pay (document 1). The people of nobility were taxed very little and the commoners were taxed heavily. Also, the poor people were extremely poor.

Another important cause of the Democratic Revolutions of the seventeen-seventy's and the eighteen-ten was economic because the working people had to pay taxes. During the French Revolution, France became poor due to the financial situation of France that grew to become poor due to the foreign wars of Louis XIV that were high-priced wars from. As well during the ruling of King Louis XVI, his wife Marie Antoinette wasted money on unnecessary expensive. To get rid off this situation, King Louis XVI chose Turgot to be his Finance Minister. Turgot tried to lower the outgoings of the royal court so very class citizen can to pay taxes However, King Louis XVI ended up disagreeing with Turgot and go a new finance minister, Callone. Callone put the policy of

According to document one, King Louis XVI felt that he had the power to spend people’s money the way he felt like it needed to be spend. He would levy taxes to unorthodox prices to hurt the poor. King Louis XVI lived in a huge palace, and the people were not seeing where their money was going , so they assumed (which they probably was right) that he was taking their money and spending it on himself. According to document three, as time progress the poor just got poorer. The writer says, “The children are terribly ragged,” and that there was a huge lack of bread.

The First and Second Estates were free from taxes, which led to the Third Estate, primarily peasantry, being heavily tax. Due to King Louis XIV’s Palace of Versaille, and his extreme deficit spending, an extreme overspending of the government’s money leading to debt, taxes became heavier and heavier. This was an extremely heavy burden on the Third Estate considering that they had low income to begin with, while the first two estates were swimming in money. When peasants couldn't afford to make bread because of taxes, then bread prices inflated (Doc. 1). The prices were more than the peasants could afford, so this led to riots and disturbances, which were the roots to the beginning of a revolution (Doc.

During the reign of Louis XIV, France's stability and success was threatened by the power of the nobility. When Louis looked back at the Fronde, a nobility revolt that occurred during his childhood, he realized the thirst for power the nobility held, and as a result limited their power. To begin with, Louis forced the nobles to move to Versailles where they could cause less trouble, and Louis could keep a close eye on them. Louis achieved this by threatening to deny them their pensions if they didn't move. Louis also instituted heavy taxing for the nobles, in the form of a 10% income tax as well as a head tax. These measures prevented a Noble uprising during Louis' reign as king, and allowed France to develop positively as a country.

However, there was another important factor during these times. France suffered from harsh economic problems. Poor farm harvests by farmers hurt the economy, and trade rules from the Middle Ages still survived, making trade difficult. However, the most serious problem was the problem facing the government during this time. The French government borrowed much money to pay for the wars of Louis XIV. Louis still borrowed money to fight wars and to keep French power alive in Europe. These costs greatly increased the national debt, which was, at the time, already too high.<br><br>When King Louis XVI came into power, he realized that these problems existed. At first he did not know what to do, until he found a man by the name of Robert Turgot. He eased the financial crisis of France, but he had difficulties when he tried to introduce a major reform, that of taxing the nobles. He had such difficulties because the king could not tax the nobles unless the Parliament approved of the new tax laws. The people in the courts that voted on these laws were the nobles, called nobles of the robe, and therefore rejected Turgot's reform. After Turgot was rejected, the king fired him from his office. This led Louis XVI to summon the Estates General in 1789. The Estates General was the place where representatives from each social class could be represented. Here, many issues would be discussed, and at this time in