The entire French Revolution summarised from Louis XVI to Napoleon. This covers the entire syllabus for CIE AS History (9489). It contains political, economic and social factors of the course of the revolution. It starts with the causes and immediate outcomes of 1789 the revolution, the French gove...
What were the causes and immediate outcomes of
the 1789 Revolution?
The Ancien Régime: problems and policies of Louis XVI
LONG-TERM CAUSES
● The French society in the 18th century was divided into 3 orders
○ First estate - clergy
○ Second estate - nobility
○ Third estate - everyone else
● The first two estates enjoyed many privileges
, ● After a while, the differences between the 3 estates became a long-term
cause of the revolution
The First Estate
● The 1st estate was the clergy-members of religious orders such as nuns,
monks, parish priests…
● The church was unpopular because:
○ Plurality and absenteeism
○ Tithes
○ Exemption from taxes
○ Power over the people
Plurality and absenteeism
● Plurality: the holding of more than one bishopric and parish by an individual
● Younger sons of noble families entered the church and occupied its higher
posts such as bishops and archbishops which provided large incomes (the
archbishop of Strasbourg received an annual pay of 400,000 livres, while
most parish priests earned between 700 and 1000 livres)
● Bishops who held more than one bishopric were enjoying plurality
● Many bishops never even visited these bishoprics which is called
absenteeism
● This made the church very unpopular with the people since they started
thinking that bishops were more interested in money than the religious and
spiritual needs of the people
Tithes
● Tithes: 1/10 of earnings taken as a tax for the support of the church and clergy
● The wealth of the church came from the land it owned and the tithes
● The church was the largest landowner in France, owning about 10% of the
land
● The tithe was a charge paid to the church each year by landowners and was
based on the proportion of crops produced
● The income from tithes provided the church with 50 million livres each year
● The tithes were meant to pay the parish priests, poor relief, the upkeep of
church buildings but much of it ended up going in the pockets of the bishops
and abbots
● The peasants and the ordinary clergy resented this and it ended up being one
of the most common grievances in the cahiers
Exemption from taxes
● The church didn’t have to pay taxes
● This added to the unpopularity of the church
, ● The land of the church generated about 100 million livres/year and no tax was
paid on it
● Instead of paying taxes, the church paid 5% of its income (don gratuit)
● This was much less than the church could’ve paid
Power over the people
● France used to be a very religious country, with Catholicism being the main
religion
● The church controlled a very wide range of issues in France
○ censorship over books that were critical of the church
○ provided poor relief
○ Education and health
○ Kept a list in the Parish of all births, marriages and deaths
○ They informed their people about policies and initiatives as
communication was poor
○ The wealth of the church and the resistance to new ideas made it
unpopular with many people which consisted to the long-term
causes of the revolution
The second estate
● The nobility was the most powerful estate- hundreds of thousands of
members of the nobility (between 110,000 and 350,000 in 1789)
● The most powerful was the 4000 court nobility (whose noble ancestors could
be traced back to 1400)
● Second, in importance were the noblesse de robe who were legal and
administrative nobles- 1200 magistrates of the parlements
● The remainder of the nobles lived in the country in prosperity-due to law the
eldest son inherited the landed estate, others sons had to join the army or the
church
● The main source of income of the second estate was from land (it owned a
third and a quarter of France)
● Nearly all positions were taken by the nobility such as government ministers
and the upper ranks in the army
Privileges
● Holding the top jobs in the state
● They were tried in their own court
● They were exempt from military services
● They were exempt from paying the gabelle
● They were exempt from the corvee
● They received a variety of feudal dues
● They had exclusive rights to hunting and fishing
, ● Many areas had the monopoly right to operate mills, ovens and wine presses
● The greatest privilege was the exemption from taxation
● Until 1695, they didn’t pay taxes at all (not even direct taxes)
● They had to pay the vingtieme (income tax) but they didn’t pay the taille (land
tax)
● Provincial nobles (poor nobles) were very attached to these privileges since it
represented a significant amount of their incomes
● They felt that if they’d lose these tax privileges and noble rights, they’d face
ruination
● Therefore, they opposed any reforms that threatened their positions and
undermined their privileges
● Many ordinary people saw that the 2nd estate avoided their share of paying
taxes and this contributed to the long-term causes of the revolution
The third estate
● Anyone that didn’t belong in the 1st or 2nd estate
● There were people with enormous wealth in this estate too
● 24,500,000 people belonged to this estate
The bourgeoisie
● The top end of the 3rd estate- rich merchants, industrialists and business
people
● The wealthiest of the bourgeoisie were the merchants and the traders who
made their fortunes trading overseas
● Other members included: financers, landowners, bankers, lawyers, doctors,
writers and civil servants
● Many were venal officeholders
● 2.3 million bourgeoisie
● There was no real conflict between the BRGS and the nobility but the B felt
like their power and wealth should some way be reflected in the political
system as they paid a lot in taxes
● This resentment was one of the other long-term causes of the revolution
The peasantry
● 85% of the population were peasants
● They covered a large variation in wealth and status
● At the top, there were the farmers who owned land and hired employed
labourers to produce food and sell to others
● Half of the peasants were sharecroppers who didn’t own land but farmed and
gave half of their crops to their landlords as rent
● About a quarter of peasants were landless labourers who owned nothing but
their houses and gardens
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