The French Revolution - Causes

Roman Numerals

Before we begin, let's talk about the numbering used for the French kings. The French kings often passed names down a line of succession, so to keep track of this, they added a number after the name. The most common way to write these numbers was by using Roman numerals.

Image note: the man in white in the painting to the right is King Louis XVI. The artist of this painting is unknown, but it is commonly called Louis XVI: execution by guillotine.

You've likely encountered Roman numerals before, but just to clarify, we'll be talking about three kings:

King Louis XIV:
- XIV = 14
- King Louis XIV was an absolute monarch.
King Louis XV:
- XV = 15
- King Louis XV was king during the Seven Years' War
King Louis XVI:
- XVI = 16
- King Louis XVI was king during the French Revolution

The French were not alone in using Roman numerals in this way. If you aren't certain about Roman numerals and find yourself stuck on what number a particular king is, be sure to ask your instructor!

The Causes of the French Revolution

A pyramid labeled (from top to bottom): The first estate, the second estate, the third estate. King Louis XVI was crowned king of France in 1774. His predecessors, Louis XIV and Louis XV, bankrupted the nation with the building of the Palace of Versailles and expensive religious and foreign wars. Louis XVI continued in their footsteps by helping fund the American Revolution, despite not getting much out of it.

Additionally, his Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette, alienated the French people due to her wasteful gambling and shopping. This was seen as doubly egregious because she wasn’t born in France and she continued spending even during the droughts of the 1780s, which led to famines and unemployment. The monarchy continued to tax the people, and they retaliated with riots and strikes.

Desperate for ideas, the King called the Estates General to order in 1789. Like the British Parliament, the Estates General was made up of representatives designed to help consult the king and garner public support for his actions. Unlike the British Parliament, it had no lawmaking authority and hadn’t been called in nearly 200 years – since 1614! The Estates General had three estates:

The First Estate: made up of the clergy (those who worked for the Catholic Church). This represented less than 1% of the population, and while wealthy, they paid no taxes.
The Second Estate: made up of nobles, who were just 2% of the population. Nobles were those who held land (they possessed 20% of all the land in France) and held the highest positions under the monarch. Like the clergy, nobles paid no taxes.
The Third Estate: everyone else - in other words: 97% of the French population was in the third estate. Considering the large number of people in this group, there was a mix of wealthy and poor, but regardless of your financial status, this is the group that paid taxes in France.

Before the meeting, each group was supposed to make a list of changes they wanted. However, as the third estate made their list, they realized they were equally frustrated with the other two estates as they were with the king. Fearing the anger of the third estate, the other two estates locked and guarded the meeting hall.

The Tennis Court Oath and the French Revolution

The Third Estate met on a nearby tennis court and vowed not to leave until they created a new constitution that guaranteed their rights like the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, or the American Constitution (newly ratified in 1788).

The people of France saw the shift in power, and some rioted. They stormed the Bastille, a French prison for political insurgents, freed the few remaining prisoners, and took the weapons. Two months later, the National Assembly crafted The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Feudalism officially ended, and a constitutional monarchy began.

But this was not enough to appease the hungry. Thousands of women led the march on the Palace of Versailles to make the king negotiate. When he tried to flee, the Jacobins (extremists who wanted to end the monarchy) arrested King Louis XVI and his family. King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, their son, and the king’s sister were all executed. His brothers fled.

Image note: the engraving above shows Marie Antoinette (the woman in white) about to be executed by guillotine. This image is titled Journée du 16 octobre 1793 (The Day of October 16, 1793) and was created by Isidore Stanislas Helman in 1794.

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