The French revolution had both short term causes and long term causes, the long term causes were Economic, political and social, an example of a long term economic cause is starvation, and that there is too much poverty and people unemployed. The political cause is that Louis XV was a week king who caused Frances financial crisis to slide further into chaos, this caused France to face a financial crisis for centuries. A social cause is that the French had a strict society before the revolution, rich people owned all the land and had privileges and paid little taxes while peasants had to pay many taxes and had only little power, this lasted for many centuries too.
Some examples of short term causes are the attack on the Bastille prison, declaration of the rights of man, and peasants uprisings.
The national convention gave its powers to the Committee of public Safety, it was controlled by the Jacobins and the leading figure of this Committee was Maximilien Robespierre. They rule and enforce the law during the reign of terror by Issuing a number of law and rules, these were the Law of Prairial, by this law juries were allowed to convict people without hearing any evidence, and the Law of Suspects, by this law people could bw put in prison without trail. Their aim was to destroy the royalists.
At the end of the reign of terror, 8 of every 10 who were killed were poor people not rich noble, it had spread fear all over france, everyone was sick of the killing and fishing was contaminated that fishing was band.
In France, both the King and the members of the 1st and 2nd estates were against the revolution, this is because that the revolution meant that the king and the people had to obey these rules, many of these rules are opposed by the king and the richest members of the 1st the 2nd estates. The revolution also meant that the special privileges of the members of the 1st the 2nd estate would be abolished, and that they can no longer control the members of the 3rd estate and collect taxes from them.
The other kings and royal families outside France weren’t very worried about the revolution because the assembly said that war wasn’t one of its aims. The emperor of Austria, Francis II wanted to fight the French people in defense of their king and queen, this is because the queen, Marie Antoinette, also came from the Austrian royal family.
The 1st estate comprised most of the population of France, ranging from rich businessmen and professional to poor peasants, the middle class people made the poor people aware of their rights, because of the bad harvest food prices skyrockets, so they wanted more action in their lives, and began to take action themselves, they were encouraged of what the middle class people had got away with.
It all started when the king called a meeting of the Estates Generals to tax the people, the 3rd estates people wanted a share of power, they wanted a constitution, these are a set of rules which said how the country was run, it was opposed by the king and the members of the 1st the 2nd estates, when the king tried to break the meeting, members of the 3rd estates met in a nearby tennis court and pledged not to go home until France had a written constitution, the National Assembly couldn’t control the working people who were keen to fight for their rights, they broke into a building called the Invalides and took weapons, then captured Bastille, the army refused to stop this attack, this met that the army was no longer in control, too.
The 1st estate was made up of people of the church, they were very important in the time were people believe in heaven and hell, so, in return for pray for the king and people, they had privileges like that they didn’t have to pay the taille (the main tax). The 2nd estates were made up of nobles who helped the king for centuries, in battle at court and in government jobs, they are expected to serve the king in war, in return, they had privileges. The 3rd estate are the most hard working estate, they are all the other people other than the nobles and the clergy, they are treated unfairly and badly and had no privileges. When the economic crises occurred, these was less money and the process of food rises, and it was for fair for the 3rd estate as they don’t have enough money.
Because of this, there was famine and members of the 3rd estates had to fight for their rights before they die from starvation, so there were violent moves by these people and the French revolution begun.
