Due to what reason did french revolution take place? Related: Short Answer Questions - The French Revolution?

Question

Due to what reason did french revolution take place? Related:  Short Answer Questions - The French Revolution?

Answer

1) The people revolted against the cruel regime of monarchy.
2)This revolution put forward the ideas of liberty, fraternity, and equality.
3(The revolution began on 14th July, 1789 with the storming of the fortress-prison, the Bastille.
4)The Bastille was hated by all, because it stood for the despotic power of the king.

Answer

CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
1. Political Causes:
(a) The political structure of the French state was highly unpopular with the people who were burdened with heavy taxes and insecure conditions of life and property.
(b) Divine rights of the kings, despotism and tyranny of the French monarchs topped by the extravagance and inefficiency of the Bourbon Kings.
(c) Louis XV indulged in a life of ease and pleasure, was not interested in administrative reforms or the welfare of the people.
(d) Louis XVI though good natured was completely under the influence of incompetent and corrupt ministers and a domineering queen of Austria, Marie Antoinette.
(e) Absence of any representative body to voice the need of the people. Local bodies called Parliament were courts of justice rather than voices of people.

2. Social Forces:
(a) The unfair division of French society and its feudal nature were also responsible for the revolution.

Fig: Clergy and Nobles suppress commoners

(b) The first two estates enjoyed all the privileges and benefits in the society. The third estate was fraught with inequalities and discriminations. Most of the burden of taxation was borne by the least privileged and most impoverished third estate.
(c) Middle class was most receptive to new ideas and values as they were educated and has a broader outlook , denied the whole ideas, rights and privileged existence where the main qualification is that of birth and instead favored the criteria of merit.

3. Economic Unrest:
(a) In the 18th century the condition of common man had become pathetic, problem of subsistence due to failure of crops, increase in the prices of food grains
(b) In the second half of the 18th century the French economy had started expanding, but its financial impact was uneven, hardest hit were the Third Estate
(c) Between 1689 and 1783 French fought several long and exhausting wars which proved to be disastrous both in terms of French Manpower and finances, not only led to mounting debts but interest on these debts also multiplied.
(d) To meet its mounting costs the government increased taxes. Peasantry was the hardest hit who owned the minimum land and paid the maximum taxes.
(e) Taxes were Taille the direct land tax, salt tax known as Gabelle, feudal dues or payments were taken by nobility and taxes know as Tithe was taken by the Church.

4. A growing middle class envisages an end to Privileges:
(a) The French Revolution drew its strength from the ideas of philosophers and thinkers of the time, groups of intellectuals classified by scholars according to their thinking,
(b) Physiocrats, Philosophers and some others were grouped as liberals depending on their ideologies.
(c) Greatest thinkers were Francois Marie, Arouet de Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Charles Louis Montesquieu, John Locke and Diderot to name a few.

Fig: Jean Jacques Rousseau

(d) Through their teachings and writings they stirred the people to action, revolutionized the minds of the people and prepared them for the great changes ahead.

5. Contribution of the thinkers:
(a) Charles Montesquieu: A nobleman by birth, he become a lawyer and a judge. He preferred constitutional monarchy in France, he popularized the theory of powers within the government between the legislative , the executive and the judiciary in his book “The Spirit of the Laws”
(b) Francis Aronet Voltaire: He was another outstanding philosopher of the revolution. He wanted the people to think about their material life on earth and forget about heaven. He condemned the Church which supported the ignored the poor.
(c) Jean Jacques Rousseau: He is regarded as the architect of the French Revolution In the famous book “The Social Contract”, he proved that the government was the result of a social contract between the people on one hand and ruler on the other. So if the ruler didn’t fulfill the contract, the people had the right to withdraw their loyalty to him and bring down the tyranny of the ruler by revolting against him.
(d) John Locke: He was a great political thinker. He wrote “Two Treatises of Government “in which he sought to refute the doctrine of the divine and absolute right of monarch.

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