Why Did The Ancien Regime Collapse In 1789

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WHY DID THE FRENCH ANCIEN REGIME COLLAPSED IN 1789? There are a series of reason to why the ancient regime collapsed in 1789, but they could be mainly divided in the following: Enlightment ideas and how they speeded up reaction, the financial problems and its debts, the example the American war of independence settled, the role of the monarchy and how they failed to provide a strong, moral leadership, and the discontent of the bourgeoisie and peasantry, along with the problems in towns. I will explain each one of them in the following essay. The enlightment was an intellectual movement started y the “Philophes”.They were suspicious and sceptical about features of society, as Catholicism and Divine right monarchy, which were based more on tradition and superstition rather than in scientific reason. They dealt with politics, history, religion, science, education, government, politics, economics.. Some of their proposals consisted on religious toleration instead of catholic intolerance, freedom of speech and press, no censorship, uniform taxation with no tax privileges, free trade, constitutional monarchy instead of the “divine right” and education based on meritocracy instead of reserving it for the privileged orders, etc.. They were not revolutionaries, however they did have an impact on the Collapse of the ancient regime in 1789, and therefore of the French revolution itself, and even if they didn’t completely intended it, they caused the population (By salons, press propaganda, debates, journalists) to start questioning certain aspects of the way France was ruled and it provided a justification for criticism and for change. It also provide created a questioning of the authority, as the criticisms sometime reached workers, peasants and artisans as scandalous satires in pamphlets which presented the queen as promiscuous, and a impotent and indecisive king.
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