The French government was inefficient, unjust and corrupt. The French Parliament was called the Estates-General. It had not met since 1614 and couldn't without the consent of the king. It basically had no power. The economic problems created by the French kings also contributed to the Revolution.
Because of Napoleon’s selfishness when conquering other countries he is considered a tyrant. Even though Napoleon was a tyrant, he still had many accomplishments to help benefit France. Napoleon ended the French revolution, therefore ending many of the country’s problems. Before Napoleon, there was constant violence, acts for revolution, and economic instability. Napoleon overthrew the Directory in a coup d’etat in 1799 and was the beginning of the Napoleonic Era.
France was heavily indebted for financially supporting the American Revolution, as it would weaken France’s European rival, Great Britain, because of the wars waged by Louis XIV and spending of royal family. 3. Increasingly huge deficit, the French government was nearly bankrupt. 4. Heavy tax burden on the French peasants (= 90 % of the population).
Introduction The French Revolution was one of the most relevant events in the modern Western history. This revolutionary movement took place in the last years of the eighteenth century, most precisely between 1789 and 1799. During this period, the monarchy was radically overthrown and the government drastically changed. As this struggle marked a turning point in human society and the world history, France was never to be the same. Causes Louis XVI Wars and Taxation One of the main causes was observed not only in Louis XVI’s sumptuous kingship but also in the disproportionate social and economic condition of the lower classes.
nch RAmerican and French Revolution Two revolutions sparked change in the late 1700’s. The first is the American Revolution, and then came the French revolution. When considering the American and French revolutions little is in common between them, other than both being started for liberty. The difference such as the causes of each revolution. The methods used by the Americans and the French and the outcome of both revolutions are vast and for more significant.
Over the course of the fifteenth century the English nobility had grown in power, however Henry VII was quite fortunate that 25% of leading noble lines had died out. Henry limited the power of the lords to a level he felt he could control better. Plummeting the number of lords meant that he could also control the size and level of the nobility. Henry chose wealthy nobles to the senior social echelons; he also chose them because they could be able to help fund larger armies. Whilst choosing the wealthier nobles he was reducing threat to himself.
In one of his most well known works “Letters concerning the English nation”, Voltaire contrasts the overbearing French government with the English government. He believed that the French government had more social barriers that kept the lower classes from ever moving up or getting rich through hard work. Instead, people were stuck in the class that they were born into. Voltaire could see that the government inherently favored the aristocracy and wrote "In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other. "(Dictionnaire Philosophique) The French government did their best to keep Voltaire's writings out of the hands of the common people, however his views and philosophies became widely known in France.
For centuries, historians have described the French Revolution, filled with aggression, terror and human injustice, as a radical revolution. The oppression and disparity of France’s social classes caused the French Revolution to turn violent and remain mired in a monarchy ruled by despots. In contrast, the American Revolution fostered the transformation of thirteen independent colonies and their different socio-economic classes into a single unified nation. As the different people of the thirteen colonies rallied around a common goal of liberty and freedom from tyranny, the American Revolution became more and more radical. The American Revolution was more radical and had much more significance than the French Revolution because the American Revolution was a catalyst for real, historic and permanent change.
An unmanageable national debt, both caused by and exacerbating the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation. Food scarcity in the years immediately before the revolution. Absolutism and privilege France in 1789 was, at least in theory, an absolute monarchy, an increasingly unpopular form of government at the time. In practice, the king's ability to act on his theoretically absolute power was hemmed in by the (equally resented) power and prerogatives of the nobility and the clergy, the remnants of feudalism. Similarly, the peasants covetously eyed the relatively greater prerogatives of the townspeople.
All in all, Maria Theresa strongly limited the nobility’s influence, both over the peasants and over the government. During Louis XIV’s reign of France, the nobility of the state was even more so affected than that of Russia’s. Louis complicated and flooded their lives with great parties, gossip and other preoccupations, with which to keep them busy. He was said to be the first ruler with complete domestication of the noble class, which means that he controlled the nobility like one would control a pet. Louis’ state of France complete with possibly the most ornate palace ever built, Versailles, truly showed that an absolutist state ruler was able to rule anything and everything, even the most elitist