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Example research essay topic: Louis Xvi French Revolution - 1,483 words

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... ts and constitutions, the establishment of legal equality among all citizens, experiments with representative democracy, the incorporation of the church into the state, and the reconstruction of state administration and the law code. Many of these changes were adopted elsewhere in Europe as well. Change was a matter of choice in some places, but in others it was imposed by the French army during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792 - 1797) and the Napoleonic Wars (1799 - 1815).

To later generations of Europeans and non-Europeans who sought to overturn their political and social systems, the French Revolution provided the most influential model of popular insurrection until the Russian Revolution of 1917. From the beginning of the 20 th century until the 1970 s, the French Revolution was most commonly described as the result of the growing economic and social importance of the bourgeoisie, or middle class. The bourgeoisie, it was believed, overthrew the Old Regime because that regime had given power and privilege to other classes the nobility and the clergy who prevented the bourgeoisie from advancing socially and politically. Recently this interpretation has been replaced by one that relies less on social and economic factors and more on political ones. Economic recession in the 1770 s may have frustrated some bourgeois in their rise to power and wealth, and rising bread prices just before the Revolution certainly increased discontent among workers and peasants.

Yet it is now commonly believed that the revolutionary process started with a crisis in the French state. By 1789 many French people had become critical of the monarchy, even though it had been largely successful in militarily defending France and in quelling domestic religious and political violence. They resented the rising and unequal taxes, the persecution of religious minorities, and government interference in their private lives. These resentments, coupled with an inefficient government and an antiquated legal system, made the government seem increasingly illegitimate to the French people.

The royal court at Versailles, which had been developed to impress the French people and Europe generally, came to symbolize the waste and corruption of the entire Old Regime. A Parlements and Philosophes During the 18 th century, criticism of the French monarchy also came from people who worked for the Old Regime. Some of the kings own ministers criticized past practices and proposed reforms, but a more influential source of dissent was the parlements, 13 regional royal courts led by the Parlement of Paris. The parlements were empowered to register royal decrees, and all decrees had to be registered by the parlements before becoming law. In this capacity, the parlements frequently protested royal initiatives that they believed to threaten the traditional rights and liberties of the people.

In widely distributed publications, they held up the image of a historically free France and denounced the absolute rule of the crown that in their view threatened traditional liberties by imposing religious orthodoxy and new taxes. These protests blended with those of others, most notably an influential group of professional intellectuals called the philosophes. Like those who supported the parlements, the philosophes did not advocate violent revolution. Yet, they claimed to speak on behalf of the public, arguing that people had certain natural rights and that governments existed to guarantee these rights.

In a stream of pamphlets and treatises many of them printed and circulated illegally they ridiculed the Old Regimes inefficiencies and its abuses of power. During this time, the parlementaire's and the philosophes together crafted a vocabulary that would be used later to define and debate political issues during the Revolution. They redefined such terms as despotism, or the oppression of a people by an arbitrary ruler; liberty and rights; and the nation. Financial reform was attempted before 1789. Upon his accession to the throne in 1774, Louis XVI appointed the reform-minded Anne Robert Jacques Turgot as chief finance minister. Between 1774 and 1776 Turgot sought to cut government expenses and to increase revenues.

He removed government restrictions on the sale and distribution of grain in order to increase grain sales and, in turn, government revenue. Jacques Necker, director of government finance between 1777 and 1781, reformed the treasury system and published an analysis of the state of government finance in 1781 as a means to restore confidence in its soundness. But most of these reforms were soon undone as the result of pressure from a variety of financial groups, and the government continued to borrow at high rates of interest through the 1780 s. Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed minister of finance in 1783, and three years later he proposed a new general plan resembling Turgot's.

He wanted to float new loans to cover immediate expenses, revoke some tax exemptions, replace older taxes with a new universal land tax and a stamp tax, convene regional assemblies to oversee the new taxes, and remove more restrictions from the grain trade. D Assembly of Notables and Estates-General To pressure the parlements into accepting the plan, Calonne decided to gain prior approval of it from an Assembly of Notables a group of hand-picked dignitaries he thought would sympathize with his views. But Calonne had badly miscalculated. Meeting in January 1787, the assembly refused to believe that a financial crisis really existed. They had been influenced by Necker's argument that state finances were sound and suspected that the monarchy was only trying to squeeze more money from the people. They insisted on examining state accounts.

Despite a public appeal for support, Calonne was fired and replaced by Lounge de Brienne in April 1787. Brienne was also unable to win the support of the assembly, and in May 1787 it was dismissed. Over the summer and early fall, Brienne repeatedly tried to strike a compromise with the Parlement of Paris. But the compromise fell through when the king prevented the Parlement from voting on proposed loans, an act that was seen as yet more evidence of despotism.

In May 1788 the government abolished all the parlements in a general restructuring of the judiciary. Public response to the actions of the king was strong and even violent. People began to ignore royal edicts and assault royal officials, and pamphlets denouncing despotism inundated the country. At the same time, people began to call for an immediate meeting of the Estates-General to deal with the crisis. The Estates-General was a consultative assembly composed of representatives from the three French estates, or legally defined social classes: clergy, nobility, and commoners. It had last been convened in 1614.

Under increasing political pressure and faced with the total collapse of its finances in August 1788, the Old Regime began to unravel. Brienne was dismissed, Necker reinstated, and the Estates-General was called to meet on May 1, 1789. Estates-General, national representative body in France before 1789. Its basic function was to give consent to royal taxation. Its members were divided into three classes, or estates: the clergy, the nobility (both small minorities), and the third estate, which represented the great majority of the people. The Estates-General, first convened by King Philip IV in 1302, was most powerful in the 14 th and early 15 th centuries.

Under Charles VII the monarchy began to develop independent sources of revenue and relied less on the Estates-General. After 1614 the body did not meet until 1789, when Louis XVI summoned it to deal with the financial crisis that gripped France on the eve of the French Revolution. In June 1789 the third estate, joined by some of the clergy and nobility, began the Revolution by defying the king and declaring itself a National Assembly. Louis XV (1710 - 74), king of France (1715 - 74), whose failure to provide strong leadership and badly needed reforms contributed to the crisis that brought on the French Revolution. Louis was born at Versailles on February 15, 1710, the great-grandson of Louis XIV, whom he succeeded at the age of five. Philippe II, duc d'Orleans, governed as regent until Louis reached his legal majority in 1723.

In 1725 the king married Maria Leszczyska, daughter of Stanisaw I of Poland. The following year he appointed his former tutor, Andr Hercule de Fleury, as prime minister. Fleury gave France a stable administration until his death 17 years later. Thereafter Louis himself was in nominal control, but he took only a sporadic interest in government and never followed any consistent policy at home or abroad. He was frequently influenced by his mistresses, the most powerful of whom was the marquise de Pompadour. France was involved in three wars during Louis's reign.

As a result of the first, the War of the Polish Succession (1733 - 35), France gained the province of Lorraine. The second, the War of the Austrian Succession (1740 - 48), which marked the beginning of a colonial struggle with Britain, was indecisive. In the last, the Seven Years' War (1756 - 63), France, crippled by Bibliography:


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Research essay sample on Louis Xvi French Revolution

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