Causes of the French Revolution Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by land of lala

The monarchy spent money on unnece­ssary things which caused anger amongst the third estate. Using the money on buying extrav­agant luxuries, first by Louis XV and then by Louis XVI, increased the economic crisis facing France and was one of the primary reasons behind the revolu­tion. One example of this was the constr­uction and remode­lling of the Palace of Versailles during the 17th and 18th centuries. Another example of unnece­ssary spending was the Marie Antoinette spent much money on refurb­ishing the Palace of Versai­lles, which included the Petit Trianon. She also spent lots of money on clothes, jewellery, and gambling. These large amounts of money being spend on unnece­ssary things by the French monarchy made the third estate very dissat­isfied and began to view their leaders as wasteful while they had to suffer due to the poor economic state of the nation. The third estate had to pay all the taxes. Another reason that the French third estate was angry at the monarchy is that instead of helping with the food shortage when told about the bread shortage, Marie Antonette said “If the people have no bread, let them eat cake.” This led to national trouble and eventually to the revolu­tion.

An important cause of the French revolution is the economic crisis that France was facing at the time. Throughout the 1700’s France was involved with several wars (mainly against Britain) which cost them a lot of money. One example of this was during the American war of indepe­ndence against Britain. France had allied with the US and helped with America’s war efforts. This was very expensive and caused France to go into bankru­ptcy. King Louis XVI’s decision to help America during the war would soon cause him to be facing a financial crisis in his own country. Louis XVI tried to fix his country’s financial crisis by increasing tax rates on the third estate and new taxes for the nobility. By doing this Louis XVI failed to realise that the French nobility would work to block his plans and the third estate would soon become angry with the monarchy. Another reason the cause of France’s economic crisis was the expensive extrav­agant lifestyles of the French monarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1623 the Palace of Versailles was first built by Luis XIII and over the next 155 years, the palace saw expensive renova­tions and additions. Marie Antoinette ordered a new theatre to be built in the Palace of Versai­lles. In total, the entire building of the Palace of Versailles would have cost France around $2 billion in today’s value. Marie Antoinette also spent lots of money on fancy clothing and jewellery. By spending money on all of these things it left little money to spend on food which caused a food shortage for the third estate (also because the first and second estates were eating it all). These large expend­itures by the French monarchy were the main causes of France’s economic crisis which angered the third estate (because their taxes increased with every expend­iture of the monarchy) and directly led to the outbreak of the French Revolu­tion. There are many other causes of the French Revolu­tion, but these are a few of the main ones.