France was a nation ruled by an absolute monarch who had power beyond the grasp of any peasant, and just out of the reach of the aristocracy. King Louis XIV (1774 - 1791) of France was not willing to give up his monopoly that had existed for seventeen years. It was the perfect situation for his absolute government, and may have remained that way if he had been able to manage France’s finances successfully. More money had been spent on roads' canals and wars then were being collected through taxes. In addition the government lost control over the bourgeois class. The bourgeois (working class merchants) gained control by using the disorganized peasant class, members of the Third Estate, who presented their grievances in cahiers to the …show more content…
It is impossible for a government to run a nation without a healthy economy. Expenses were set down in March of 1788 at 629,000,000 livres and revenues at 503,000,000, leaving a deficit of 126,000,000, or 20 per cent of expenses. It was proposed that the difference should be made up by borrowing, but this action only paid off older loans and had no positive effect on the economy of France. The answer to this problem was to increase old taxes and introduce new ones. Louis XVI tried to decree new taxes to ease financial strain but parliament refused; Louis did not have the power to institute new taxes. Needing funds to carry out the day to day activities of France, King Louis XVI’s minister of finance, Jacques Necker, was called upon to solve the problem. He informed Louis XVI to call the Estates General to assembly in hopes that it would agree to an increase in taxation in return for limited royal reforms. This meeting was the last method Louis XVI had at his disposal to refill the treasury and when it failed, the absolute government he had grown accustomed to was in danger of becoming extinct. The Aristocracy maintained great power in the government when they refused to relinquish their privilege of paying a minimal amount in taxes. The government needed this money to help stabilize the dwindling economic conditions. They called a meeting of Notables to try to persuade the aristocracy to help the French
The French Revolution was a time of turmoil in which an uprising for equality turned into a massacre. The poor became poorer, King Louis XVI lost power, and hundreds of thousands of people would end up losing their lives. Over the course of the revolution, there were two phases of the government that occurred that each had different causes. The economic and ideological cause of the liberal phase of the government was due to the disputes over inequality among the estates and dismantling of the old regime, while the cause of the radical phase of the government was based off of the belief that the revolution did not meet the original revolutionary beliefs.
First of all, France’s poor leadership caused the French Revolution because issues were not properly dealt with and the leaders were corrupt. To begin, France had an indecisive and shy king, Louis XVI. Louis failed to address problems such as France’s crumbling financial budget, the numerous revolts, and the starvation of his people. Moreover, not only was France’s king ineffective, but the Estates also failed the people of France. To elaborate, the First Estate, which consisted of the clergy, and the Second Estate, which included nobles, excluded the Third Estate by counting votes by order, where they would have an advantage. Despite the Third Estate making up the majority of France’s population, the lower class, it didn’t have as much of a say as the higher estates. Consequently, the majority of the population, the lower class, didn’t get the proper representation and attention to their issues. France’s poor leadership hindered its ability to care for the issues of the lower classes, which led to the Revolution.
In the late 1780's, France was in a difficult time period. They were heavily in debt and the king, Louis XVI and Antoinette went bankrupt because they spent all of the money on themselves instead of trying to help the people in the town. Since there wasn't that much money, people had to pay more taxes. Only we, the commoners, had to pay the taxes and not the wealthy people, making the poor poorer and the rich richer.
The French Revolution was an iconic piece of history that help shape the world. It was a time were great battles occurred. Blood sheds happen almost every day. The streets were red by the blood of bodies that were dragged from being beheaded. The economy was in bad shape. But before all of this the French had a few goals but there was one goal that they all wanted and that was to get rid of the monarchy. This idea did not arrive out of nowhere, the commoners were influence by the enlighten idea. Before the revolution, there was three estates the first estate was the clergy, Second the aristocrats and third the commoners. The commoners were the normal, or you could say the hard working common people. The clergy were mostly religious people, like priests and were protected by the nobility, they were rich and had a lot of privileges, some of the privileges that the first and second estate had over the third estate was the exempt to pay any taxes, but the commoners had to pay taxes. So, the poorest people had to pay all of the taxes, while the rich people were not worry about getting taxed and getting even richer. The nobility were rich because they were born into wealthy and powerful families. This was unfair for the commoners because while they struggle to pay taxes and had no privilege. This was only a piece of what they truly wanted. They wanted to make France a republic country instead of a monarchy. They also wanted to have a voice in their
By the 1780s, Frances excellent economy was in a major decline. The France was in need of a revolution. The French Revolution had many causes. Bad weather caused crop failure to sweep over the area, resulting in a shortage of grain. Food shortages lead to starvation and higher prices. When the cost of bread would rise, the starving third estate would steal from bread shops. Taxation was a major cause of the French Revolution. Louis nearly doubled the governments debt. To solve the debt problem, Louis decided to impose taxes to get out of debt. They called a meeting of the Estates General to approve this new tax. The heavy taxes made it almost impossible to run a successful business.The cost of living rose. The failure of having a great and
Before the Revolution, France’s government, entitled the Ancien Régime, consisted of an absolute monarchy. Under this system, no person had any rights. The people of France were not citizens, but rather subjects of the King, at the mercy of his will. The King held all of the power with no legal protections in place for the French people. For example, the First Estate, consisting of the clergy, and the Second Estate, consisting of the nobility, paid no direct taxes. This provision existed because Louis XIV had implemented a tax system that exempted these two estates. Therefore, the entire tax burden of the country fell on the Third Estate, the common people. This unjust and disproportionate system existed because the King’s word was the law, with no legal means to appeal his decisions.
Taxes and prices were another battlefield for the Bourgeoisie and the Aristocracy to fight on. The tax base in France fell on the middle class who were the producers. Some of the taxes in France were: the Taille which taxed commoners, nobility exempted, the Capitation which was a poll tax on where you lived and what services you used, nobility exempted, the Vingtieme was a five per cent tax on all income, again the nobility didnít have to pay. There were also taxes on salt and a tax whenever a person passed over a provincial border, these taxes meant that a large cut of their profits from their work went to the government. This was made worse when the government found itself in major debt. Because the government supported the Aristocracy, who didnít pay taxes, the middle class was taxed even more. This created resentment for the Aristocracy because they were the ones who were getting all the money through their privileges yet it was the lower, poorer, classes who were getting taxed. This spurred an even bigger will for equality. To solve this problem their had to be an equal society where taxes were paid according to wealth or land and most importantly by everybody. To achieve this the Bourgeoisie had to be able to voice their views and opinions, thus they had to be able to hold office in government. But the privileges of the nobility stopped them from doing this. Therefor it is shown that the Bourgeoisie were fighting
During 1789, the French Revolution broke out against totalitarian rule and extreme poverty suffered by French civilians. France was under the absolute control of Louis XVI who gathered groups of nobles, clergy, and other royal families in certain cities. The corrupt French royal families in those cities were squandering nearly 75% of France’s wealth and in addition to the expense of royal classes, other wealthy classes such as landlords, local government, and churches were not taxed which made taxes on middle and lower class civilians unprecedentedly high. Under high economic pressure, the harvest was destitute, and the royal families were hoarding spare crops and allowed the lower class to suffer from the hunger that was causing their
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]
King Louis XVI had gotten into and involved in wars that he could not financially back, one of which was the American War for Independence fought against Britain. France, who was already in the thick of a financial deficit, getting involved only caused the country to go deeper into debt. Frances’ financial situation in the late 1700s was inevitable, what with the bad decisions made by the old regime, especially the parlement. Frances’ economic situation was the foundation and the beginning of a series of events that had led France to the brink of revolution and the end of the Old Regime.
The government of France was in a financial crisis. The country was deeply in debt from the financing of the wars of Louis XIV. To deal with the nation’s economic problems, Louis XVI called for a meeting of the Estates General in 1789. The Estates General was made up of
ON 9th JULY 1797 the statesman and the philosopher Edmund Burke died, after having contracted stomach cancer. He was buried in Beaconsfield Church near his Buckinghamshire home. Burke had been a distinguished Member of Parliament but never attained high office. His political career must be judged a failure.
The French Kingdom in Middle Ages era was ruled by the arbitrary monarch. Besides the king, clergy, which is the officials of the church and nobility, which is the group of aristocrats has supreme power than the society. In the way it ran, there were many problems in the social and economic section, such as poverty and taxation issues. Thus, French Revolution is one of the turning points of French public life. It popular with the slogan “liberty, legality and fraternity” that brings French to be a new revolutionary country. While many people believe that French Revolution is the effect of Enlightenment ideas emergence, I will argue that this revolution was an outcome of the social and economics disarray because of distortion of government regulation.
The French Revolution, arguably the biggest and most influential event in the history of France, was a push for equality among men and equal political representation in social classes. Prior to the revolution, political processes were handled by the top one percent of people and were made to benefit those select few. The citizens of the third estate (lower class) were restless and tired of being unfairly taken advantage of through fees such as property tax, tithe to the church and tax on everyday necessities such as the ovens used to bake bread. The poor were heavily taxed despite owning 60 percent of the land and making up 97 percent of the population. During this time, France was also in massive debt and nearing bankruptcy because of inflation
There was another important factor during that period that was economic problems. Economic condition of France was very critical. During the time the government was facing the most serious problem. To pay for the wars of LOIUS XIV, French government borrowed much money, to keep French power alive in Europe Louis still borrowed money to fight wars. These costs greatly increased the national debt, which was, at the time, already too high. The system of taxation in France was an absolute unfair and unjust. Peasants of France became oppressive by the oppressors. Members of privilege class were free from all taxes. Hence, automatically the whole burden of taxation shifted upon the weak shoulders of