Revolution
...in France, and the French sector of the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. While France would oscillate among republic, empire, and monarchy for 75 years after the First Republic fell to a coup d'état by Napoleon Bonaparte, the revolution nonetheless spelled a definitive end to the Ancien Régime. It eclipses the subsequent revolutions of 1830 and 1848 in the popular imagination. It is widely seen as a major turning point in continental European history, from the age of absolutism to that of the citizenry, and even of the masses, as the dominant political force.
3.A number of factors led to the revolution. To some extent, the old order succumbed to its own rigidity in the face of a changing world. To some extent, it fell to the ambitions of a rising bourgeoisie, allied with aggrieved peasants, wage-earners, and individuals of all classes who had come under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment. As the revolution proceeded, and as power devolved from the monarchy to legislative bodies, the conflicting interests of these initially allied groups would become the source of conflict and bloodshed.
Causes of the French Revolution include the following:
A bad economic situation, as well as an unmanageable national debt, were both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation and France's funding of the American Revolution.
A resentment of royal absolutism.
An aspiration for liberty and republicanism
A resentment of Manorialism (seigneurialism) by peasants, wage-earners, and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie
The rise of enlightenment ideals.
Food scarcity in the months immediately before the revolution.
High unemployment and high bread prices resulting in the inability to purchase food.
A resentment of...
View Full Essay
