FTE 1: Long-term causes of the French Revolution

Question 1

Louis XVI was an ‘absolute monarch’ before 1789

Answer 1

• Theoretical divine right asserted since days of Louis XIV (no estates-general)
• Specific powers e.g. appointing/dismissing ministers, declaring war, lettres de cachet
• Could overrule the parlements by means of a lit de justice

Question 2

In practice, Louis XVI’s authority was exercised under significant constraints before 1789.

Answer 2

• The parlements could mobilise public opinion in their favour
• Widespread criticism of arbitrary power/despotism in C18 France

Question 3

The nobility continued to enjoy significant feudal privileges in the eighteenth century.

Answer 3

• Exemption from taxation, e.g. the taille and the gabelle

* Feudal privileges e.g. the corvée, seigneurial courts

Question 4

The rural peasantry faced significant economic pressures in the eighteenth century.

Answer 4

• Rapidly expanding population increased competition for plots of land and pushed up rents.
• Tax rises as a result of warfare 1749-1783: taxes took up to 10% of peasants’ income.
• Inefficiency of farming techniques in France; internal customs barriers.
• Problem of poor harvests in the 1780s (observed by Arthur Young during his travels in France)

Question 5

There was growing interest in reforming ideas amongst the urban bourgeoisie in the late eighteenth century.

Answer 5

• Growing bourgeoisie in C18 France
• Resentful of the aristocracy due to their tax exemptions and tendency to monopolise leading positions in the church, government and the military.
• 80 newspapers in France by 1785 (up from 3 in 1700). Palais-royal as central focus for socialising and political discussion in Paris.

Question 6

There was an emerging view that the court and the aristocracy were opposed to the interests of the ‘nation’.

Answer 6

• Ideas expressed in the Marriage of Figaro and the Oath of the Horatii (both wildly popular in the 1780s).
• Also seen in entries on ‘nation’ and ‘luxury’ in the Encyclopedia.

Question 7

Public gossip about the corruption of the French court was legitimate and well-founded.

Answer 7

• Versailles accounted for 6% of all state spending.
• The court was seriously in debt by the 1780s, but leading courtiers (including the queen) continued to spend vast sums of money on fashion and gambling.
• This was a time when ordinary French people were struggling to cope with rising prices: wages increased by about 22% between 1726 and 1789, but prices rose by 65% in the same period.

Question 8

Public gossip about the corruption of the French court was scurrilous and unfair.

Answer 8

• The crown’s debts were mostly the result of foreign wars and an unreformed tax system, not high spending at Versailles.
• Some of the gossip about Marie Antoinette’s luxurious lifestyle was invented e.g. the Diamond necklace affair. (1784)

Question 9

Foreign wars placed an excessive burden on crown finances.

Answer 9

• The Seven Years War had ruined French royal finances in the mid C18 (1756-63)
• The American War of Independence cost a further 1.3 billion livres, and was financed by loans raised by Necker that were not affordable in the long-term (1775-83)
• By 1788, 50% of state spending was required just for royal debts.

Question 10

Hostility towards the crown’s attempts to reform its finances pre-dated Louis XVI.

Answer 10

• Louis XV had also sought to reform French finances towards the end of his reign.
• His minister, Maupeou, ended up suspending the parlements entirely when they blocked proposed changes. However, no solution was found and the tax system remained unreformed.