Student Essay

1.   Discuss and evaluate the causes of the French Revolution.

Introduction:
French revolution is epitaph that inspired masses reeling under oppression to demand justice, liberty and nationhood.   It became instrumental in the beginning of breaking the shackles of colonialism.   It spread the message of nationalism across the Europe that later redraw its boundaries and for the first time, Europe started identifying itself as a continent of the nations.   According to Lefebvre, “French Revolution based society on the institution of private property, but also on the human rights of the average man.   It declared all people to be alike….” (George Lefebvre, page 1-2).   But what inspired French revolution that characterized the start of vary liberal ideas that has come to define the world we live in today?   As the opening sentence of Doyle’s “The origins of French Revolution” asks: Why was there a French Revolution?   Depending on their ideological inclination historians have argued on different causes of French Revolution.   This essay will prove that the French revolution was a power struggle between French monarchy, aristocracy and everyone else of the French society and it can be clearly seen through following three causes, combination of short and long term, that lead to French Revolution:
1) Political discontent and financial collapse of the French government
2) Social and economical discontent of Third Estate
3) The effect of enlighten movement
Political discontent and financial collapse of the French government:
The political discontent amongst French the nobility and the clergy began in the era of Louis XIV who ruled France from 1643 to 1715.   Louis XIV stripped the nobility and the clergy of their political influence by sidelining the feudal institutions like the parlements of Paris as well as other provincial parlements, which were dominated by the aristocrats and the clergy (Lefebvre, page 16).   The nobility and the clergy-Roman Catholic Church in...