The cause of the French Revolution of 1789-1799 is perhaps the most widely discussed issue when it comes to this remarkable historical period of a great social and political upheaval. Out of numerous causes which the researchers offer there are only two which deserve attention and thorough consideration.
The question of whether the French Revolution was an outcome of Enlightenment ideas or whether it was caused by social and economic conditions cannot have an exact answer because each of these factors contributed to destroying of the absolute monarchy which France was back then and altered the direction of the French nation’s development. However, though Enlightenment ideas will always remain a strong factor, the Revolution can still be proven to have been caused by poor social and economic conditions of France at the end of the 1890s when the bankruptcy of the French government, new tax code, bad harvest, and, consequently, famine, initiated public unrest and resentment.
First of all, the financial crisis in France which resulted from the bankruptcy of the government accounts for the disorders which took place in the country. It is believed to have started because of the participation of France in the American Revolution and in the Seven Years War which has devastated its budget. Although before the beginning of this crisis the government was rather short of money, its expenditures still continued to grow. In 1789 the government borrowed 300 million lives, though it already owed 600 million lives to its creditors who, in their turn, were also in debt.
It was already in 1788 that the debts constituted half of the governmental expenditures and quite soon the “total debt reached 4 billion livres (roughly $800 million)”. Regardless of the fact that Louis the XVI ascended the throne when the crisis has already begun, the population still rebelled against him, though formally, “It was not against Louis the XVI, but against the despotic principles of the government, that the nation revolted”. This revolt was initiated by the government’s inability to deal with the crisis and involving people in it instead.
This involvement consisted in introducing a new tax code with the purpose of solving the critical financial situation. The government faced increasing difficulties in raising the taxes (Magstadt, 2008) mostly because they were already too high. The matter was that taxes were paid by the population unequally and “many bourgeois did not pay taille and the road service fell only on peasants”. Clergy and nobility almost did not pay taxes at all, which means that, under the Old Regime in France, the poorer the person was, the higher taxes he/she had to pay. According to the new tax code, however, the tax was supposed to be born “equally, without distinction, by all classes of citizens and by all kinds of property, even feudal and contingent rights” (Buttrose in Dourdan Grievances Ex. Introduction). This, without any doubt, served as a powerful factor for the beginning of a revolt.
Finally, bad weather conditions which resulted in poor harvest and famine added power to the disturbances which already existed in the country. The year 1788 saw a particularly poor harvest which only exacerbated the economic crisis. Since the crops failed, the prices for bread began rising dramatically, and “by summer of 1789, much of the supply of grain stored over the winter had already been eaten, and famine threatened everywhere”. The want of bread was increasing, while the prices were so high that buying bread was beyond the resources of poor citizens.
Average workers had to spend half of their daily wages on bread, which meant that other commodities were absolutely unaffordable to them. High prices and famine resulting from them also led to unemployment in a number of industries because people simply did not have money to pay for food and services. This has also contributed to the economic downfall and the beginning of the Revolution.
In sum, though Enlightenment ideas also significantly influenced the revolt which the life of France could be marked in the 1790s, poor social and economic conditions in the country can still be named the main cause of the French Revolution. The economic crisis which began because of the government’s debts caused tax reforms, while unprecedented crops failure led to an increase in prices for bread and famine, and this altogether made the national revolt.