by Michael Mercadante

Created on: April 23, 2009

The French Revolution refers to a period in the late 18th
century when power shifted from an absolute monarch to the people. The monarchy had bankrupted the nation through wars and irresponsible spending. The common people owed most of their possessions in taxes to both the regional nobility and the crown, and they often had little or nothing left to call their own. On top of this, France was suffering from a famine, which left the population hungry and destitute.

In May of 1789 King Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates General, which was comprised of members of the three societal classes: the church, the nobility, and the commoners. A month later, the king locked the third estate (the commoners) out. In early July, Louis XVI fired his foreign minister, who was popular with the people, and surrounded the city of Paris with armed troops.
Unemployed, starving, and panicked, a group of Parisian commoners stormed the Bastille, a prison on the outskirts of Paris, on July 14, 1789. They were hoping to find weapons with which to defend themselves from the king's soldiers. A war hero named Marquis de Lafayette compelled the commoners to form a citizen's army, and the king's soldiers joined them.
Rumors quickly spread through the countryside that the king had been overthrown (he hadn't), and the rural farmers revolted. They set about destroying the homes and lands of the nobility in a rampage that lasted nearly two weeks, and was known as "The Great Fear".
On August 4, the nobles agreed to abolish the old tax structure in an effort to quell the destruction of their property. Under the old system, which had been in place since the early Middle Ages, nobility did not pay taxes. This left the masses of poor paying the entirety of the tax load for the country. This was replaced with a universal tax system, and the violence stopped.
This represents a fundamental shift in the makeup of French society. Replacing the tax structure also replaced the class structure, abolishing the privilege of the nobility. This created a more democratic representational society, the first of its kind in Europe.
The French Revolution not only radically altered the societal makeup of the French people, it also permanently weakened the French monarchy by binding it to a national constitution. The monarchy of France never again regained its former absolute power, and the influence of this spread throughout Europe, destabilizing other monarchies.
Unlike the American Revolution of the same time, the French did not completely replace their government. They simply restructured it, creating the first consitutional monarchy. The monarchy remained a force of governmnent in France for much of the following century. The American Revolution, however, completely abolished rule by monarchy, replacing it from the start with a less powerful executive who must be elected by the people.

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