The French Revolution – Chapter 1
LONG-TERM CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Royal government
System of absolutism
Crown was not limited by any representative body (e.g. an elected parliament)
King was responsible only to God and answerable to no one else on Earth
Personality and character of the ruler determine the style of ruling
Louis XV in 1766: ‘sovereign power resides in my person alone … the power of the
legislation belongs to me alone’
Limitations to power
King was bound by the laws and customs of their kingdom
Assembly of the Clergy was part of the independent bodies being guaranteed rights and
privileges by the law => King couldn’t interfere with them
King consulted his ministers => power resided within the hands of a small group of men
Controller-General (CG) was in charge of finance + was the most important
Indendants (officials directly appointed by the Crown responsible for police, justice, finance,
public works, industry, trade) were in charge of the 34 generalites (areas FRA was divided in for
the purpose of tax collection and administrative functions)
In an absolutist system the monarch needed to be a strong figure with a dominant personality
(which Louis XVI wasn’t)
1770 – Louis married M-A; ‘Austrian whore’; supporters were labelled the ‘Austrian Party’ –
suspected of sacrificing the interests adopted by the country for those of her homeland;
purchased a bracelet for 400K livres + loved gambling + out of touch with ordinary people
June 1774 – Louis ascends to the throne
Taxation system
Tax farming system – govt agrees a tax assessment figure for an area; a company bids for the
right to collect it)
Extra-collected taxes were kept by the state; revenues were not enough => constant borrowing
High interest rates
Taxes, rights dues during the ancien regime: https://quizlet.com/gb/507208883/taxes-rights-and-
dues-during-the-ancien-regime-flash-cards/
System of venality (selling and purchasing positions) for tax collection
Officials couldn’t be dismissed
Corruption and wastages => no adequate income revenues
Much of the money paid as taxes never reached the treasury
Turgot was CG => influenced by philosophes => embarked a reform programme
Turgot attempted to abolish trade guilds (organisations tightly controlling entries into trade and
the corvee => protests from the parlements and other parties close to the King => Turgot left
office
Issue of taxation weakened the Crown + created resentment among the 3 rd Estate
, The French Revolution – Chapter 1
French society during the ancien regime
Noble sons entered the Church because it provided large incomes;
Collection of tithes => largest single landowner in FRA (10% of the total land); tax
Salaries:
was based on the proportion of crops produced; tax varied: 1/5 in Dauphine and ¼
-cures (parish priests): 700-1000 livres annually
in Brittany; c.7% in most parts
-archbishop of Strasbourg: 400K livres annually
50 million livres worth of taxes annually
Some bishops held more than one bishopric (diocese) = plurality
Tithes were supposed to provide for parish priests, poor relief and upkeep of
Many practiced absenteeism = not visiting the dioceses => ordinary
Church buildings corruption
Resentment by the peasantry and ordinary clergy expressed in the 1788 cahiers (a
1st Estate people were dissatisfied by the fact that bishops were more
interested in wealth than in the religious/spiritual needs of the
list of grievances and suggestions drawn up by each estate and community and
people
presented to the E-G for consideration
Clergy = monks + nuns +
parish priests Religion (Catholicism) was very powerful over the people;
Tax exemption => over 100 million livres annually towards the last wide range of censorship over critical books + provided
139 bishops
years of the old regime; Church agreed to make annual don gratuity poor relief, hospitals and schools + kept lists of
payments (less than 5% of its total income => could pay more) 25,000 monks marriages/births/deaths; acted as Ministry of Information
40,000 nuns due to informing about policies and initiatives
50,000 lower clergy
Privileges
Tried in own courts, exempt from military
2nd Estate Joining the nobility:
-Inheritance as part of joining the nobility
service, exempt from the gabelle/corvee; Nobility – 350,000 -Direct appointment by the King
received feudal dues; extensive hunting and -Buying offices that carried hereditary titles
fishing rights; monopoly right (banalities) to Most powerful Estate; numbers vary between 110K-350K
(brought/sold/inherited like any other
operate mills/ovens/wine presses Owned between 1/3 and 1/4 of the total Fr land; nearly all main positions in
property)
the State were held by nobles (ministers, intendants, upper ranks in army) -Noblemen were not allowed to take part in
Didn’t pay taxes until 1695 -4K court nobility – noble ancestry before the 1400s + the richest who were able to afford industrial or commercial activities since this
Paid little of the capitation (intr. 1749) and the costs of living in Versailles would mean they would suffer derogation
vingtieme taxes; exempt from the most Noblesse de robe – legal + admin nobles + 1,2K magistrates of the parlements (loss of nobility) => many did due to a rigid
onerous tax: the taille -remaining nobles lived in a various states of prosperity; eldest son inherited everything (law enforcement of the rule
of primogeniture); youngest sons joined the Church, the army or the administration
Provincial nobles relied heavily on privileges => without them they would lose their seigneurial
rights + would face ruination
Opposed any changes threatening their positions/privileges
3rd Estate saw that the 2nd Estate avoiding the share of the tax burden borne by others
3rd Estate
Everyone else – 24,500,000 Enormous extremes of wealth within this Estate
Bourgeoisie Peasantry Urban workers
Middle-class urban dwellers who 85% of the Fr population Sans-culottes = artisans + small property
made a living through their Enormous variations of group and status owners
intellectual skills/business practices -Large farmers – owned their land and Lived in crowded insanitary housing blocks
Rich merchants, industrialists, employed labourers to produce food to (tenements)
business people sell to others Unskilled and poor
Rich commoners who were not -Labourers existed on subsistence levels Skilled craftsmen were organised into guilds
peasants or urban workers -1/2 of the peasants were sharecroppers During 1776 100K males in Paris belonged to
Wealthiest were the merchants and (didn’t own their farm, but farmed and guilds
traders (overseas trade) gave 1/2 of their crops to landlords as Fall of living standard of wage earners
Financiers, landowners, members of rent) Prices rose by 65% (1726-89) and wages by
the liberal professions (doctors and -1/4 were landless labourers (had only a 22%
writers), lawyers and civil servants house and a garden)
Many were venal office holders 1 million serfs in the east, unable to inherit
Numbered 2,3 million people personal property without paying dues to the
No real conflict with the nobility until the last lord; lived in a state of chronic uncertainty; bad
years of the regime weather could push them into the ranks of
Felt its power and wealth should in some way be vagrants, who lived by begging, stealing and
reflected in the political system as bore a occasional employment
substantial part of the tax revenue paid to the Serfdom = a system in which people were the
Crown landowner’s property
Grievances
Whole burden of taxation fell on them
Paid a tithe to the Church, dues to the lord, taxes to the State
Corvee, chapart, lods et ventes, seigneur, taille, capitation, gabelle
All these taxes increased to pay for the wars between 1749-1783 FRA was involved in
A peasant could be tried in the seigneurial court where the lord acted both as a judge and jury
Taxes took 5-10% of a peasant’s income
Heavy rents to landlords; rise of population form 22,4 million (1705) to 27,0 million (1790) =>
demands for farms increased => rents increased
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