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Though it may seem that the French Revolution was won at a price too high with a seemingly shattered France being weaker and morally bankrupt, France was actually already heading in this direction due to its monarchy, politics, and crop failures. This seemed liked an excellent time to start the revolution. And since France was going to end up in this situation anyway, the revolution came, and, in actuality, it cost them very little.

During the Old Regime it might be thought that Louis XVI and the people of France had a master and servant relationship. This was not true. A master should treat his servants as he would his children, providing for material, educational and spiritual needs.(1) However, this was not the case between Louis and the French people. He was slow of thought, and slow of decision,(2) making him quite an ineffective ruler. In addition to that, the social elites (nobles) were ready to rule themselves and felt that the king was not being responsive to their needs. They demanded that the State should be reformed, that the ruler should be their agent, not their master.(3) This goes back to the idea that divine right is inaccurate and the laws should come from the people and the king should only be an executer of these laws. Separation of branches of government, thought relatively new, could already be seen and working in the Americas. Therefore the nobles wanted to command this power for themselves, they had no intention of involving the majority of the nation. However, this is just where the rest of France got the idea from.

Whether through action or inaction, the monarchy directly caused the French Revolution. Probably the most basic source of the revolution was bread prices. Peasants, which constituted around seventy to eighty percent of the population, mainly ate bread, and naturally became unhappy when bread prices rose, and more likely to revolt if bread prices rose. This was due to the fact that if the peasants are already hungry and may starve they are more likely to put their life on the line due to the fact that they have less to lose.(4) Bad harvests in the years of 1787 and 1788 brought about food shortages, raising food prices and unemployment. Poverty was also on the rise. The reason being that a new train of thought came into people's heads before they gave money to beggars, this being that they were encouraging them to be lazy and possibly to turn to crime.(5) These and other social realities and problems were just not being dealt with by the crown.

Money was also a large concern for the government. Despite the ever rising income, nearly half of all money collected was used to pay the interest on debts. So even though the king did ask for new taxes, it was not strictly greed but also from necessity. Parliament denied all of the king's attempts to create new taxes because they felt that the money the king was already getting was being wasted. The king's finance minister and controller general, Chalesde Calonne, wanted a new system of government and called for the Assembly of Notables in 1787. (6) Unfortunately for him it collapsed and the government nearly did too. As a last resort, they had to call in the Estates-General. This was the first time they had been called to a session since 1614. The Estates-General consisted of three estates. The first estate was the clergy, numbering three hundred. The second estate was the nobility which numbered another three hundred. The final estate was the commons, which numbered six hundred, they were given double as many seats because they represented a majority of the population. It was also unclear as to how they were going to vote, the old way of one vote per estate or by head. As bad as the former sounds, it may not have been quite so bad if the third estate had asked for an additional vote, since normally any reform would be struck down by a two to one vote against the Third Estate. The latter would have worked wonders for a reform movement because a hand full of nobles and clergy were indeed liberal, possibly even averting a bloody revolution. Nevertheless, none of that happened, but the Estates-General were looking for a partial reform. All this practically admitted that the king needed the permission of the nation to run the country.

The third estate was looking for a reform. The problems they wanted solved were in the cahiefs de doleances, or, state grievances. They eventually evolved the document into a constitution of their own. This was the basis for the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen."(7) But this was not the only group of patriots, "Lovers of Liberty," as liberal nobles and bourgeoisie called themselves, were part of the Society of Thirty(8) which met in Parisian salons.(9) They were also influenced by the revolution but mainly the enlightment.(10) The third estate therein voted itself the National Assembly, though not without reason. Abbe Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, an obscure priest, offered an explanation saying, "First, What is the Third Estate? Everything. Second, What has it been heretofore in the political order? Nothing. Third, What does it demand? To become something therein."(11) Having done this, on June twentieth, the Third Estate found its meeting place locked. They then reconvened in a nearby tennis court and took the Tennis Court Oath, "We solemnly swear never to separate, and to assemble wherever circumstances shall require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established, and founded on a solemn basis."(12) It was clear that this was not going to be let go of easily.

The king, of course, sided with the first estate (clergy) and threatened to dissolve the Estates-General, and therefore the National Assembly, by force. The king's threats were quickly nullified by many peasant uprisings. The most famous of these is the storming of the Bastille. The Bastille not only overshadowed the capital, but it darkened the hearts of men, for it was a symbol of tyranny. What was important, about this building, was the history behind it, with the thousands of dishonored graves and its voice of destruction. Nobles and commons alike demand that it should be leveled with the ground as a sign that would be understood by all.(13) After getting weapons and continuously storming the Bastille about one hundred and thirty-seven men from the rebellion had fallen while only one man was hurt on the inside of the Bastille. Ironically, the Bastille had to surrender for numerous reasons. They were not supplied well, the king was not sending reenforcements and the killing of one hundred or one thousand rioters would not make a difference. If anything, they would get more angry at the loss of their comrades.(14) This and a few other small victories were considered to have saved the National Assembly. In response to this atrocity to the monarchy, the king established the Marquis de Lafayette, which could be compared to a national guard. In response to that action, more citizens' militias were made. Despite this, France was now open to attack by other European countries.(15)

The destruction of the Old Regime was now inevitable. The National Assembly drew up a new constitution completely abolishing relics of feudalism and revoking all aristocratic privileges. They even removed all fiscal privileges of nobles, clergy, towns, and provinces.(16) On August 26th they adapted the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," which was mainly based off the Enlightment ideals and the American Constitution. The most important aspects were: having the freedom of press, freedom of speech, and outlawing away with arbitrary arrests. Many thousands of women ended up marching on Versailles, though the women were unarmed, the king's armies refused to fire upon women wanting bread.(17) This group forced the king and his family back to Paris,(18) in effect making the king accept the constitution and move to Paris. Had this not happened, surely, France would have been in a worse state than it was after the revolution.

The church was considered part of the Old Regime and therefore had to be taken care of. Much of its land was repossessed by the state and a new civil constitution for the clergy took effect. This was one of the few real mistakes that the New Regime made. This action alienated more people than it gained. The clergy and bishops were now elected by the people and were paid by the state. They were also required to take an oath of allegiance to the civil constitution. The Pope fearing that his power was being challenged forbade it. Despite this, about fifty four percent of the clergy took the oath.(19) Unfortunately for the revolution, the church now became a base for the counterrevolution. This in turn made the National Assembly consider a limited constitutional monarchy, making everything that the king did subject to review by the Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Assembly consisted of 745 people serving two year terms through an indirect national election. Granted there were restrictions as to who could vote and who could run, but it was a step in the right direction toward democracy. Consequently, France was divided into eighty-three departments all roughly equal in size and population.

The monarchy started to collapse when the king and his family tried to leave the county. They were caught at the boarder in Varennes by a guardsman who recognized the king from the pictures on French currency.(20) The National Assembly completely ignored this and started to take steps so that they could soon declare themselves a republic. The newly formed Legislative Assembly met for the first time in October of 1791. The National Assembly immediately passed a provision that representatives could not be reelected in the hopes that fresh blood would keep things moving. The life blood of this assembly was mainly lawyers and wealthy land owners.

With this overthrow of the government, other monarchies in Europe started to get worried that France would become an example and not an exception. Emperor Leopold II of Austria and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Declaration of Pillnitz to help the French monarchy, by which France was threatened with the combined action of all Europe nations unless the king was restored to a position worthy of kings.(21) This was sure to fail for many reasons though. First, it relied on the unanimous effort of the European nations, Britain was sure not to accept because there was a large opportunity for profit from the French troubles.(22) Second, the various rulers did not trust each other, no armies would be combined because most rulers would fear of an attack from a "friendly" country. Third, France felt threatened by this and declared war on Austria. Not only this, but for fear the monarchy would return to power, the king was taken captive by a mob. The Legislative Assembly was forced to call a Nation Convention. Here universal male suffrage was granted and power was passed from the assembly to the Paris Commune.(23) Their members were known as the Sans-Culottes.

Lead by Georges Danton, the Sans-Culottes wanted to incur revenge on those who had helped the king. This lead to mass arrests and massacres, the beginning of the Reign of terror, but more importantly, because of the death of their friends and citizens alike, blood was called for from the king.(24) Even though the call for punishment was nearly unanimous, the call for death was not. Only by a narrow margin, in the Nation Convention, was the king voted to be executed, and on January 21, 1793, Louis XVI, the last king of France, was executed. The commune, the central government in Paris, invaded the National Convention, and killed all who voted for the king to live. To prevent the complete fall of the National Convention, The Committee of Public Safety, led by Danton, who was quickly killed by Robespierre who succeeded him, was created. Thus continuing the Reign of Terror, where anyone that the Committee of Public Safety did not like was executed by guillotine. When that proved too slow, they started using cannons to execute the accused. The Reign of Terror was justified by saying that it was the general will and that agents of enemies of the state must be eliminated.(25)

Like the call for clerics to pledge allegiance to the state and revolution, another de-christianizing campaign spread through France, renaming churches and changing the calendar was the most it really did, but once again it made more enemies than friends.(26) Luckily Robespierre was eventually executed and the Reign of Terror ended, thus transforming France forever.

Now a republic was formed that was more like the United State's with a council that proposed laws, and a council of elders that voted on them having a separation of powers. All male taxpayers over twenty-one were allowed to vote for representatives in parliament and France was all the better and ready for the pickings.(27)

1. Sarah C. Maza, "An Anatomy of Paternalism: Masters and Servants in Eighteenth-Century French Households,"Eighteenth Century Life, 7 (Oct 1981) 1-24.

2. Hilaire Belloc, The French Revolution, (Oxford U. P., London, 1911,) 23.

3. John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution, (Macmillan, London, 1910,) 1.

4. John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe, (W. W. Norton & Co. New York, 1996,) 678.

5. Ibid., 498.

6. Jackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization, West Publishing Co. Minneapolis, 1994.

8. The Society of Thirty was a group that included liberal nobles from very old families.

9. Merriman, 503.

10. Spielvogel, 676.

11. Merriman,504.

12. John S. C. Abbott, The French Revolution of 1789, Volume 1, 2, (Jefferson P. Boston, 1887,) 94-95.

13. Dalberg-Acton, 84.

14. Abbott, 118-123.

15. This becomes more evident when the Declaration of Pillnitz is discussed.

16. Spielvogel, 682.

17. It is interesting to note that this is where Marie Antoinette was supposed to say, "Let them eat cake" when told that the peasants were starving and that was why the were marching on Versailles. Needless to say she is not a very popular character in history.

18. Abbott, 156-160.

19. Spielvogel, 683.

20. Dalberg-Acton, 174.

21. Ibid., 202.

22. Ibid.

23. The first Communist government.

24. Abbott, 290.

26. I found it interesting that France, having just completely overthrown the government and instated a more modern one, was still not ready to give up the confines of an inconsistent religion.

27. By Napoleon Bonaparte.