To What Extent Was The French Revolution Caused By Economic Depression

To What Extent Was The French Revolution Caused By Economic Depression In June 1789 the French revolution had begun. For the next five years there would be bloodshed throughout France, the country was going through a radical change, the change in sovereignty and the failure of the constitutional monarchy being two examples of this. But to what extent was all this caused by economic distress? Before being able to answer the question, one would have to establish the definition of economic distress it could be defined as the misery people (especially the peasantry) faced due to low income and tax inflation or the misery that the entire country was in due to the enormous debts, which had accumulated due to the wars, which were fought. The economic situation was only one of the elements that caused the people to question the monarchy in pre-revolutionary France. France was in great debt and almost bankrupt but this did not stop them from fighting wars. The debt an economic problem turned into a social one, when the peasants were taxed heavily in order to p ay for the debt, this caused them to question greatly their position in society and the effectiveness of their monarchy. Drought and other natural disasters ruined crop production, causing food prices to rise dramatically. With taxes rising and prices too, peasants were living in famine and in poor living conditions. The enlightenment was able to inspire revolutionary thoughts within the people. People began to abandon their beliefs in divine right and focused more on the thoughts of equality and society being run for the benefit of all. The economic situation only made people realize other problems concerning politics and society. A revolution (The complete overthrow of an established government or social order by those previously subject to it) would mean complete reform of political, ideological and economical beliefs, so for such a drastic change to be necessary there would need to be problems in all of these areas to begin with. In Pre-revolutionary France there were three estates - the first estate (clergy), the second estate (nobles) and the third estate (bourgeoisie, peasantry and urban workers). Most of the clergy came from noble backgrounds, as it was usual for the youngest sons of wealthy families to join the church in order to share its wealth. The churchs wealth came from tithes (a proportion or the each years crop paid to the church by landowners) and the vast amount of land that it owned. They clergy were exempt from taxes; instead they negotiated a don gratuit with the king. The don gratuit was an annual payment to the crown and was always much less than what would have to be paid in normal taxation. The church had a great deal of power too as the state religion was Catholicism, it was their duty to spread to ideas of divine right. The second estate was by far, the wealthiest and most powerful. They were exempt from paying direct taxes (until the 1749 vingtieme when they still paid less than they would have done if they were from the third estate) and doing military service such as the corvee (forced labour on roads) and made their money through the land they owned (between 15% and 25% of all land in France). They also receives seigneural (feudal) dues which were fees that the peasants were obligated to pay in order to use the lords mill, oven, wine press, breeding stock, death taxes, inheritance taxes and sale-of-property taxes. The third estate was made up of three parts; the bourgeoisie, who were the wealthiest and most educated part of the estate, many of them being financiers, landowners, doctors, writers and civil servants. It was also possible for wealthy bourgeoisie to buy venal offices to become nobles (however, most ennobling offices requires at least two generations of owners before nobility could be bought. The other part of the estate was the peasantry. It was the least wealthy and most numerous (85% of the French population lived in the countryside and most wer e peasants). Many of the peasants were laboureurs (people who grew enough food to feed themselves, these were the people who found it especially hard when