There were many causes for the French Revolution, which started in 1789. However there were three main causes that affected the decision to have a revolution the most which were the weak economy, a bad harvest, and King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. These were the main reasons that lead to the French Revolution because these events were the ones that affected France the most during 1789.
The weak economy was one of the causes of the French Revolution because at that time France was in debt. France was in debt due to helping the colonist become independent from Britain in the American Revolution. For example, in The French Revolution Begins reading it states “And he borrowed heavily in order to help the American revolutionaries in their war against Great Britain, France’s chief rival.” This is one of the reasons that started the French Revolution because due to being in debt King Louis XVI’s solution was to raise the taxes on the nobles. This was surprised the 2nd estate which consist of the nobles because they paid the least taxes of the 3 estates. Due to this action the 2nd estate called a meeting called the Estates General. In these types of meetings each estate would usually only get one vote but due to the fact that it would be unfair to the 3rd estate. So for this reason every person who was at the Estates General would be granted a vote. The Estates General was to basically approve the new tax. This meeting then caused the National Assembly, which was what the third estate was now called. The third estate pledged a tennis court oath that stated that they wouldn’t leave until a new constitution was made. They drafted a new constitution, which now made France a constitutional monarchy. In conclusion, this is how being in depth was one of the reasons that started the French Revolution.
Another cause for the French revolution was the bad harvest in the 1780’s. This was one of the causes for the French revolution because people could grow their food or grain, which is the ingredient to make bread. “The price of bread doubled in 1789, and many people faced starvation” (French Revolution Begins). In my opinion, I believe that this is one of the reasons to start the revolution because the people back then were poor. They were poor due to the reason that most of their money went to taxes so, if their money went to taxes and they barley had enough to pay for how much the bread used to be hoe are they expected to pay for bread when the price is doubled. I also believe that this is inequitable due to the fact that it isn’t their fault that there was bad weather I believe that the king was just trying to get money. Doubling the bread price made people not have enough money and many people died because of starvation. In conclusion, this is how a bad harvest was another one of the major causes to the French Revolution.
The last main cause to the French Revolution had to do with King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. This I believe was the main reason for the French Revolution because the king and his wife were spending money on unnecessary things. For example “…she spent so much money on gowns, jewels, gambling, and gifts…”(The French Revolution Begins). Based on this evidence we could see how the money was being misused and how the queen didn’t even care about the situation happening with the people. Another example showing how Antoinette was a bad queen was “One year she lost the equivalent of $1.5 million gambling in card games” (The French Revolution Begins). This example shows us how the queen spent money and when it came to help people put they were in depth. An example of how King Louis XVI was being a bad king was “However he lacked the ability to make decisions” (The French Revolution). In my opinion I believe that this is how King Louis XVI was a cause to the French Revolution because this quote shows how he did not know what was right for the people and did not know how to deal with all of the things that were going on in France like people wanting a revolution. This was a good thing for France because they saw that the King could not make any good decisions so they saw that it was a good idea to overthrow the monarchy and become a limited monarchy.
In conclusion there were many things that lead to the French Revolution but only 3 things were the main causes. The 3 main causes were the fact that the French were in depth due to the American Revolution. The fact that there was a bad harvest in the 1780’s. Lastly the fact that King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were spending money in a useless way and that they were making bad decisions.
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