12 Major Causes of the French Revolution

The French Revolution is one of the most significant and famous events of world history. Lasting from 1789 to 1799, it resulted, among other things, in overthrowing the monarchy in France. There were various reasons which brought about the Revolution. These include intellectual reasons like the ideas put forward by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment; cultural reasons like the rise of the bourgeoisie class; political reasons like the ineffective leadership of French monarch Louis XVI; social reasons like the unjust Estates System; financial reasons like French involvement in expensive wars; and economic reasons like the rise in the price of bread. Here are the 12 major causes of the French Revolution.

#1 Social Inequality in France due to the Estates System

In the 1780s, the population of France was approximately 26 to 28 million and was divided into three estates. The First Estate was the Roman Catholic clergy, which numbered about 100,000. The Second Estate consisted of the French nobility, which numbered about 400,000. Everyone else in France — including merchants, lawyers, laborers and peasants — belonged to the Third Estate, which comprised around 98% of the French population. The Third Estate was excluded from positions of honor and political power; and was looked down upon by the other estates. It thus resented its position in French society. This led to them coming together to launch the French Revolution in 1789.

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#2 Tax Burden on the Third Estate

The First Estate in France, or the clergy, owned 10% of the land though it comprised less than 0.5% of the population. It was very wealthy and paid no taxes. It had many privileges, including the collection of tithes. Tithes was one-tenth of annual produce or earnings taken as a tax for the support of the Church. The Second Estate, or the nobles, owned about25% of the land. They were exempted from paying many taxes and were allowed to collect dues from peasants. In contrast, the Third Estate was forced to pay heavy taxes while the other two were exempted. This burdened the Third Estate leading to their questioning this unjust Estates System and planning to overthrow it.

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#3 The Rise of the Bourgeoisie

The bourgeoisie were the rich men and women of the Third Estate who started to become influential in the years leading to the revolution. They evolved into a new class with its own agenda and political aspirations. The bourgeoisie resented the position of the First and the Second Estate, which they believed was derived from their efforts. Moreover, they aspired to attain political equality with the other two estates. The desire of the bourgeoisie to rid themselves of feudal and royal encroachments on their personal liberty, commercial prospects and ownership of property was one of the reasons which led to the French Revolution.

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#4 Ideas put forward by Enlightenment philosophers

The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century. Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Baron de Montesquieu questioned the traditional absolute authority of the monarch and divisions of society like the Estates System. For example, Locke argued that a leader could only govern a society if he had the consent of those he governed; Rousseau was against all class divisions; and Montesquieu advocated for a system of government based on separation of powers. The writings of Enlightenment thinkers were discussed in France more than anywhere else and they greatly influenced the revolutionaries.

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#5 Financial Crisis caused due to Costly Wars

Throughout the 18th century, France participated in a series of expensive wars primarily against its long-term rival Great Britain. Louis XV, who ruled over France from 1715 to 1774, lost the Seven Years’ War against Britain. He then drew up a plan to avenge the loss by building a larger navy and an anti-British coalition of allies. However, this only resulted in a mountain of debt. Louis XVI, grandson of Louis XV who succeeded him in 1774, then involved France in the American War of Independence against Britain. Though U.S. won the war, France gained little from it. French support for the war was expensive costing approximately 1.3 billion French livres, a huge sum at the time. This worsened the economic crisis in the nation and pushed it toward bankruptcy.

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#6 The Ideological Influence of the American Revolution

The American Revolution (1775–1783) exerted a profound influence on France in addition to the financial burden. Thousands of French officers, most notably Marquis de Lafayette, served alongside the American colonists. They returned home having witnessed a successful revolution built on the Enlightenment principles. The success of the United States demonstrated that concepts such as popular sovereignty, limited government and individual rights were not merely philosophical theories but principles that could be made the basis on which a nation would run. This had a huge psychological impact on French society.

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#7 Drastic Weather and Poor Harvests in the preceding years

In June 1783, Laki volcano in Iceland erupted sending volcanic ash high into the atmosphere in Europe. This led to a severe winter in Europe in 1784 and the following summers included extreme droughts that caused poor harvests and famine. France then experienced another series of poor harvests in1787 and1788 with extreme winters. A decade of extreme weather conditions and poor harvests took a toll on the poor peasants of France, who were struggling to survive day to day. The frustration of the peasants drove them to revolt.

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#8 The Rise in the Cost of Bread

The situation in France worsened when poor harvests caused the price of flour to increase dramatically, which in turn raised the price of bread. Bread was the staple food for most French citizens, and it has been estimated by historians that the working class of France was spending upwards of 90% of their daily income on bread alone. Louis XVI implemented deregulation of the grain market but it resulted in further increasing the bread prices. The rise in the cost of bread severely affected the common French citizens who resented the monarch for his not being able to solve the food crisis.

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#9 Ineffective leadership of Louis XV and Louis XVI

In France, as in most other European nations, the monarch ruled on the basis of the divine right of kings. He was thus not answerable to his subjects. However, the philosophies of Enlightenment thinkers made the public think differently. Louis XV failed to overcome the financial problems facing France. He was not able to harmonize the conflicting parties at court to arrive at coherent economic policies. Louis XVI then tried to bring about radical reforms but failed miserably. The poor economic condition of the nation angered the masses and they became critical of their king. Moreover, both Louis XV and his grandson were aware of anti-monarchist forces that were threatening their family’s rule but they were unable to stop them.

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#10 Parlements’ Successful Opposition to Reforms

Several French ministers, including Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques Necker, proposed revisions to the French tax system so as to include the nobles as taxpayers. This may have reduced the financial crisis in the nation and would have lessened the anger of the poor as the tax system would have become more just. A parlement in France was a provincial appellate court. They were not legislative bodies but consisted of appellate judges. The parlements were the spearheads of the nobility’s resistance to royal reforms, and they prevented any reform in taxation that would have include the nobility.

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#11 The Extravagant Lifestyle of the French Monarchy

The extravagant expenditure on luxuries, first by Louis XV and then by Louis XVI, compounded the economic crisis facing the nation and was one of the primary reasons behind the revolution. For example, the construction and remodeling of the Palace of Versailles throughout the 17th and 18th centuries imposed a huge cost on the country. These large expenditures by the French monarchy caused dissatisfaction among the people who began to view its leaders as wasteful while they suffered due to the poor economic state of the nation. This in turn led to national unrest and ultimately the Revolution.

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#12 The Role of the Press and Pamphlet Culture

In the decades leading up to the French Revolution, France witnessed an unprecedented explosion of political pamphlets, newspapers and underground literature that systematically eroded public respect for the monarchy. An important example is The Encyclopédie compiled by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Such works openly challenged the authority of the Crown and the Church. By the 1780s, defamatory pamphlets known as libelles, openly attacked Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the French court. With rising literary rates, all this created a charged political atmosphere in France helping ignite the Revolution.

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Sources By Section

Introduction & General

• William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. (2002) — the most authoritative single-volume scholarly history; covers all causes in depth.
• Georges Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution, Princeton University Press (1947) — the classic pre-revolutionary analysis; essential for understanding the structural causes.
• Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Knopf (1989) — vivid, well-researched; particularly strong on the Old Regime and the court of Versailles.

#1 Social Inequality / Estates System

• Georges Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution, Part I — details the composition and grievances of each Estate.
• Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, Chapter 1 — covers the Estates System and social stratification in pre-revolutionary France.

#2 Tax Burden on the Third Estate

• Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856; English translation by Alan Kahan, University of Chicago Press, 1998) — Tocqueville’s analysis of the inequity of the tax system under the Ancien Régime remains foundational.
• Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution, Part II — specifically addresses the tax privileges of the nobility and clergy.

#3 Rise of the Bourgeoisie

• Alfred Cobban, The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution, Cambridge University Press (1964) — directly addresses the bourgeoisie’s role and motivations in the Revolution.
• Peter McPhee, Liberty or Death: The French Revolution, Yale University Press (2016) — modern scholarly treatment with strong coverage of class dynamics.

#4 Enlightenment Philosophers

• Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (2 vols.), Knopf (1966–1969) — the most comprehensive academic study of the Enlightenment and its political consequences.
• Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge University Press (1990) — specifically examines how Enlightenment ideas were absorbed into revolutionary thinking in France.
• Primary sources: John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1689); Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748); Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762).

#5 Financial Crisis from Costly Wars

• Jonathan Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774–1787, Princeton University Press (1975) — specifically covers the financial cost of France’s involvement in the American Revolutionary War.
• Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, Chapter 2 — covers France’s fiscal crisis and debt from the Seven Years’ War and American war.

#6 Ideological Impact of American Revolution

• R.R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (2 vols.), Princeton University Press (1959, 1964) — the definitive academic study of the transatlantic revolutionary connection; Palmer specifically examines how the American Revolution shaped French revolutionary thought.
• Susan Dunn, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light, Faber & Faber (1999) — written specifically about the American Revolution’s ideological influence on the French Revolution; highly readable and well-sourced.
• Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Knopf (1989) — covers Franklin’s celebrity status in Paris and Lafayette’s role in bringing the American experience back to France.

#7 Laki Volcano and Poor Harvests

• John Grattan and Mark Brayshay, “An Amazing and Portentous Summer: Environmental and Social Responses in Britain to the 1783 Eruption of an Iceland Volcano,” The Geographical Journal, Vol. 161, No. 2 (1995), pp. 125–134 — peer-reviewed paper directly examining the climatic effects of the Laki eruption on Europe.
• John D. Post, The Last Great Subsistence Crisis in the Western World, Johns Hopkins University Press (1977) — covers the food shortages and subsistence crises in late 18th-century Europe.

#8 Rise in Cost of Bread

• Steven L. Kaplan, The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1700–1775, Duke University Press (1996) — the definitive scholarly work on bread, grain markets, and provisioning policy in pre-revolutionary France.
• Steven L. Kaplan, Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade During the Eighteenth Century, Cornell University Press (1984) — covers the grain deregulation policies and their effects.

#9 Ineffective Leadership of Louis XV and Louis XVI

• John Hardman, Louis XVI, Yale University Press (1993) — the standard scholarly biography of Louis XVI; covers his leadership failures and policy blunders in detail.
• Schama, Citizens — particularly good on the character of Louis XVI and the weakness of the monarchy.

#10 Parlements’ Opposition to Reforms

• Bailey Stone, The Parlement of Paris, 1774–1789, University of North Carolina Press (1981) — specifically examines the parlements’ role in blocking fiscal reform.
• Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, Chapter 3 — covers Turgot, Necker, and the failure of reform attempts.

#11 Extravagant Lifestyle of the Monarchy

• Schama, Citizens — extensively covers the court culture at Versailles and its political cost.
• John Hardman, Louis XVI — covers the monarchy’s spending and public perception.
• For Palace of Versailles specifically: Robert W. Berger, A Royal Passion: Louis XIV as Patron of Architecture, Cambridge University Press (1994) — covers the construction costs and history of Versailles.

#12 Role of the Press

• Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, Harvard University Press (1982) — the pioneering scholarly work on France’s underground publishing world, libellistes and the political impact of clandestine literature in pre-revolutionary France.
• Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, W.W. Norton (1995) — directly examines what the French were actually reading in the decades before the Revolution and how that literature undermined the Ancien Régime.
• Robert Darnton and Daniel Roche (eds.), Revolution in Print: The Press in France 1775–1800, University of California Press (1989) — a comprehensive academic collection specifically on the press and print culture as a cause of the Revolution.