Intro to the French Revolution

* Louis XIV’s destructive legacy

- absolutist monarchy

-> king’s unrestricted power makes monarchy unbending

-> no outlet for pressure unless king chooses

-> the costs of gaining power had been extreme

=> buying off the nobles to gain their power created a

leach class

+> a large group of worthless expensive “playboys”

+> monopoly on power positions by nobles unpopular

-> the country was centralized and well-ruled, but at a huge

cost

- tax structure was destructive

-> Nobles untaxed

-> poor pay most taxes

=> lots of evasion and inequality

=> simply not enough cash eventually

- war debts threaten bankruptcy

-> Louis XIV’s expansionary foreign policy was expensive

- religious intolerance expensive

-> revoking Edict of Nantes and loss of Huguenots hurt

French economy

* Immediate Lead-up to the Revolution

- class issues

-> vestiges of feudalism

=> nobles had rights to labor over peasants and pushed

them

=> peasant rights of forage, water, and pasture

increasingly restricted by nobles

+> running insurrections in the countryside

-> wealth and taxes were extremely unequal (GRAPH 1)

-> bourgeoisie was becoming more wealthy

=> wanted power and prestige

-> some nobles turning bourgeois and getting tired of

old-school nobles

=> division in the ranks

=> old-school nobles getting poorer and more angry

- money problems

-> wartime debt of US Revolution bankrupted government

=> French fleet and army had defeated Britain and made US

independent, but a pyrrhic victory

-> government running a 20% budget deficit (GRAPH 2)

-> inflation running out of control (GRAPH 3)

=> the poor are beginning to starve

- environmental causes

-> 1787-88 harvest was poor for wheat

=> bread at four times normal cost

-> 1787-88 wine harvest excellent

=> oversupply brought down profits and farm wages