French Revolution
...such as that presented by Georges Lefebvre,[1] described the revolution as the result of the clash between a feudalistic noble class and the capitalist bourgeois class. Some historians argue that the old aristocratic order of the Ancien Régime succumbed to an alliance of the rising bourgeoisie, aggrieved peasants, and urban wage-earners.
Yet another interpretation asserts that the Revolution resulted when various aristocratic and bourgeois reform movements spun out of control. According to this model, these movements coincided with popular movements of the new wage-earning classes and the provincial peasantry, but any alliance between classes was contingent and incidental.
However, adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Among the economic factors were:
• Louis XV fought numerous wars bringing France upon the verge of bankruptcy, while the support provided by Louis XVI to the colonists during the American Revolution further exacerbated the precarious financial condition of the government. The national debt amounted to almost 2 billion livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the monarchy's military failures and ineptitude, and the lack of social services for war veterans.
• An inefficient and antiquated financial system unable to manage the national debt, both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation.
• The Roman Catholic Church, the largest landowner in the country, which levied a tax on crops known as the dîme. While the dîme lessened the severity of the monarchy's tax increases, it nonetheless served to worsen the plight of the poorest who faced a daily struggle with malnutrition.
• The continued conspicuous consumption of the noble class, especially the court of Louis...
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