http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_...nch_Revolution


The Causes of the French Revolution were those significant historical factors
that led to the revolution of 1789 in France.

Although France in 1789 faced economic difficulties, mostly concerning the
equitability of taxation, it was one of the richest and most powerful nations of
Europe.[1] The French people also enjoyed more political freedom and a lower
incidence of arbitrary punishment than any of their fellow Europeans. However,
Louis XVI, his ministers, and the widespread French nobility had become
immensely unpopular. This was a consequence of the fact that peasants and, to a
lesser extent, the bourgeoisie, were burdened with ruinously-high taxes levied
to support wealthy aristocrats and their sumptuous, often gluttonous, lifestyles.[2]

....

In summary, a number of factors led to the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Deep structural causes combined with factors peculiar to the period. Revolution
was not due to a single event but a series of events that, together,
irreversibly changed the organization of political power, the nature of society,
and the exercise of individual freedoms.

Debt

It was debt that led to the long-running fiscal crisis of the French government.
On the eve of the revolution, France was effectively bankrupt. Extravagant
expenditures on luxuries by Louis XVI, whose rule began in 1774, were compounded
by debts that were run up during the reign of his even-more-profligate
predecessor, Louis XV (who reigned from 1715 to 1774). Heavy expenditures to
conduct the losing Seven Years' War against Britain (1756–1763), and France's
spiteful attempt to poke a finger in the eye of the British by backing the
Americans in their War of Independence, ran the tab up even further.

Louis XV and his ministers were deeply unhappy about Britain's victory in the
Seven Years War, and, in the years following the Treaty of Paris, they began
drawing up a long-term plan that would involve constructing a larger navy and
building an anti-British coalition of allies. In theory, this would eventually
lead to a war of revenge and see France regain its colonies from Britain. In
practice, it resulted in a mountain of debts.

Louis XV had spent liberally to establish Versailles as a showplace city worthy
to be the French capital, in function if not in fact. There, he built a Ministry
of War, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (where the Treaty of Paris (1783) ending
the American Revolutionary War was signed), and a Ministry of the Navy.

In Louis XV's high council, the parti dévot ("devout" party), led by the Comte
d'Argenson, secretary of state for war, and the parti philosophique
("philosophical" party), which supported the Enlightenment philosophy and was
led by Machault d'Arnouville, controller-general of finances, vied for power.

On the advice of his mistress, the marquise de Pompadour, the king supported the
policy of fiscal justice designed by d'Arnouville. In order to finance the
budget deficit, which amounted to 100 million livres in 1745, Machault
d'Arnouville created a tax of 5% on all revenues (the vingtième), a measure that
affected the privileged classes as well as the rest of the population. Still,
expenditures outpaced revenues.[14]

Ultimately, Louis XV failed to overcome these fiscal problems, mainly because he
was incapable of harmonizing the conflicting parties at court and arriving at
coherent economic policies. Worse, Louis seemed to be aware of the forces of
anti-monarchism threatening his family's rule, yet he failed to do anything to
stop them.[15] Louis XV's death in 1774 saw the French monarchy at its nadir,
politically, morally, and financially.

Under the new king, Louis XV's grandson, Louis XVI, radical financial reforms by
his ministers, Turgot and Malesherbes, angered the nobles and were blocked by
the parlements who insisted that the king did not have the legal right to levy
new taxes. So, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed and Malesherbes resigned. They were
replaced by Jacques Necker, who supported the American Revolution and proceeded
with a policy of taking out large international loans instead of raising taxes.

....

When Necker's tax policy failed miserably, Louis dismissed him, and replaced
him, in 1783, with Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who increased public spending
in order to 'buy' the country's way out of debt. This policy also failed, so
Louis convened the Assembly of Notables in 1787 to discuss a revolutionary new
fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were told the extent of the
debt, they were shocked. However, the shock did not motivate them to rally
behind the plan but to reject it. This negative turn of events signaled to Louis
that he had lost the ability to rule as an absolute monarch, and he fell into
depression.

....

Edmund Burke, no friend of the revolution, wrote in 1790: " ... the public,
whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the
public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a
just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large." Because the nobles
successfully defended their privileges, the king of France lacked the means to
impose a "just and proportioned" tax. The desire to do so led directly to the
decision in 1788 to call the Estates-General into session.[19]

The financial strain of servicing old debt and the excesses of the current royal
court caused dissatisfaction with the monarchy, contributed to national unrest,
and culminated in the French Revolution of 1789.