The French Revolution

Louis XVI

Louis XVI

• Bourbon family of kings

• Ascended in 1774, when he was 20 years old.

• Married Marie Antoinette, an Austrian princess

• Helped the 13 colonies of USA gain independence

Financial Situations Pre-Revolution

• Empty treasury

• Drained by long years of war

• Maintaining the Palace of Versailles was expensive

• War against Britain added 2 million livres to debt

• Had to pay 10% interest to lenders

• State had to increase taxes

Estates System

1. Clergy

2. Nobility

3. Third Estate

   • Big businessmen, merchants, lawyers, court officials, etc.

   • Peasants and Artisans

   • Small peasants, landless laborers, and servants

Peasants were 90% of the population, but only a small number owned the land they cultivated. About 60 percent of the land was owned by nobles, the Church, and other richer third-estate members. The members of the first two estates enjoyed certain privileges by birth.

Old Regime

The society and institutions of France before 1789

Taxation

• The first 2 estates were exempt from paying taxes to the state.

• The Church too extracted its share of taxes called tithes from the peasants

• The nobles extracted feudal dues from the peasants. Peasants were obliged to render services to the lord: to work in his house and fields, serve in the army, or build roads.

• All members of the third estate had to pay taxes to the state. These included a direct tax, called taille, and several indirect taxes levied on articles of everyday consumption like salt or tobacco.

• The burden of financing activities of the state through taxes was borne by the third estate alone.

Subsistence Crisis

• Population rose from 23M in 1715 to 28M in 1789

• Production couldn’t keep pace with demand, the price of bread increased rapidly

• Most workers were employed as laborers in workshops whose owner fixed their wages that did not keep pace with the rise in prices. So the gap between the poor and the rich widened.

• Things became worse whenever drought or hail reduced the harvest.

• This led to a subsistence crisis, something that occurred frequently in France during the Old Regime.