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French Revolution

The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a pivotal period in the history of French, European and Western civilization. During this time, republicanism replaced the absolute monarchy in France, and the country's Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo a radical restructuring. While France would oscillate among republic, empire, and monarchy for 75 years after the First Republic fell to a coup d'état, the Revolution is widely seen as a major turning point in the history of Western democracy—from the age of absolutism and aristocracy, to the age of the citizenry as the dominant political force.

Causes

Many interrelated political and socioeconomic factors contributed to the French Revolution. To some extent, the old order succumbed to its own rigidity in the face of a changing world. It fell to the ambitions of a rising bourgeoisie, allied with aggrieved peasants, wage-earners, and individuals of all classes who had come under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment. As the revolution proceeded, and as power devolved from the monarchy to legislative bodies, the conflicting interests of these two once-allied groups would become the source of conflict and bloodshed.

Causes of the French Revolution include the following

* A poor economic situation and an unmanageable national debt were both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation and France's funding of the American Revolution;
* A resentment of royal absolutism;
* An aspiration for liberty and republicanism;
* A resentment of Manorialism (seigneurialism) by peasants, wage-earners, and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie;
* The rise of enlightenment ideals;
* Food scarcity in the months immediately before the revolution;
* High unemployment and high bread prices resulting in the inability to purchase food;
* A resentment of noble privilege and dominance in public life by the ambitious professional classes;
* A...