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what were causes of french revolution 1789

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  Posted by kashifrasheed (U2078553) on Sunday, 18th September 2005

  why revolution broke out in france not in any other europeon country same problems were rife in other europeon countries so why france

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  Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Monday, 19th September 2005

  this is only a short soundbite answer as I don't have time for an indepth one
  
  But for me the final catalyst for this in France was quite simply a weak monarch.
  
  The French system needed a strong center. With Louis XIV you had a strong king, with some able ministers and between them they were able to keep control of both the aristocracy and the estates general.
  
  Under Louis XVI you didn't have this. Neither strong king nor able ministers. Also by this point Versailles was backfiring. Created to keep the aristocrates in check, it also removed the king from the Paris mob which was always a good weather indicator for good/bad policies.
  
  As for why the other euro nations didn't follow suit, it is most likely that either the "volcanno" wasn't ready or that the rulers having seen France, acted before matters came to a head.

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Monday, 19th September 2005

  This is all from memory, so apologies for any errors. The French Revolution is one of the most complicated Revolutions to study. One of the main causes was that France was in grave danger of becoming bankrupt. When a parliament was called, with the intention of reforming the inherently corrupt tax collection system, the so-called "Third estate", i.e the majority of people who would actually have to pay the taxes, realised that they held the balance of power. The monarchy was, indeed weak, the Church was reviled for its greed, and the Third Estate was able to push for reforms and a greater say in how the country was run, to the extent of forcing new laws or repealing old ones. Interestingly, those initially behind this belonged to the "bourgeois" classes. However, one thing led to another, with more radical factions gaining a voice and the realisation that "people power" could change the way policy was made. Attempts by the authorities to quell disturbances (and sometimes it was "people's" government which was the authorities) were often violent, which just fostered the sense of injustice.
  
  Rousseau's ideas of a government by all for the benefit of all (except those who disagreed) were dredged up and interpreted in the most extreme way possible. Th emore extreme factions rose to power, leading to the Terror and the seizure of property from the wealthy by the mob and, ultimately, to the guillotine for many.
  
  It was a most bizarre sequence of events. I did a brief study of the Revolution a while ago and remember being distinctly confused as to what actually caused it. It was a bit like a snowball rolling downhill that gathered momentum and size as it went.
  
  Most bizarrely, when Napoleon seized power, he proclaimed that he had done so in the name of the Revolution and that the Revolution had now succeeded in its aims (although he was a bit vague on what those aims were).
  

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