What are the reasons and results of French Revolution?
Answers
Reasons of the French Revolution
1. International: struggle for hegemony and Empire outstrips the fiscal resources of the state
2. Political conflict: conflict between the Monarchy and the nobility over the “reform” of the tax system led to paralysis and bankruptcy.
3. The Enlightenment: impulse for reform intensifies political conflicts; reinforces traditional aristocratic constitutionalism, one variant of which was laid out in Montequieu’s Spirit of the Laws; introduces new notions of good government, the most radical being popular sovereignty, as in Rousseau’s Social Contract [1762]; the attack on the regime and privileged class by the Literary Underground of “Grub Street;” the broadening influence of public opinion.
Results of the French Revolution, 1789-1799(1815)
1. Representative government vs. authoritarianism (the Terror, Napoleon): two different new models of government
2. Stronger, further centralized state with a larger, more effective and more intrusive administration.
3. Abolition of special fiscal privileges, seigneurial dues owed by peasants to lords, internal tariffs, and the establishment of uniform tax system based in principle on one’s income.
4. Creation and extension of new civil rights:
a. equality before the law
b. careers open to talent
c. participation in elections or certain government positions based on property qualifications
5. Socio-economic changes
a. single commercial code
b. abolition of guilds, i.e., workers right to organize in “unions”
c. business becomes an honorable profession
d. (wealthier) peasants acquire land and more peasants become independent proprietors
e. increase in the size and influence of the bourgeoisie, through the acquisition of church lands, greater wealth, and offices as political representatives and government officials
6. Changes in ideas and political culture:
a. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ; popular sovereignty : sovereignty rested with the “people” not in the king, or any narrower group such as the aristocracy; democratic republicanism
b. Nationalism -
c. decline in religiosity, in the influence and authority of the church -
d. formation of a revolutionary tradition centered on the belief that revolution was a means for bringing progressive change and further extension of popular participation and popular sovereignty.
4. Social antagonisms between two rising groups: the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie
5. Ineffective ruler: Louis XVI
6. Economic hardship, especially the agrarian crisis of 1788-89 generates popular discontent and disorders caused by food shortages.