Louis Xiv Dbq

In the 1600s, the longstanding Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVI controlled the means of the French nation state. However, after battling in the Seven Years War and the American Revolution, the French were highly susceptible to economic demise and state disintegration. The French’s debt, especially that which was accumulated by participating in the wars, proved to be an enormous encumbrance to the nation. Furthermore, the French currency became corrupt and seriously invaluable. In order to cultivate and regenerate wealth in France, ruling monarch Louis XVI sought to impose taxes on the constituents of the land. However, the nobility and the clergy refused to compensate the state by paying taxes. Luckily, their power and status legalized
their exemption from satisfying the demand of state enforced tariffs.
Conversely, considering the nobility and clergy’s refusal to pay taxes – the financial burden was beset upon the common Frenchmen. The common Frenchmen were enraged and inharmonious with the ideals of the state, especially considering that they were often very poor and not granted the respect or power to properly challenge iniquitous policies. Moreover, “early modern French society was legally stratified by birth,” which signifies the lack of social or economic mobility for the French. Expressly, no matter how hard the commoners worked to move up the social and economic latter, more often than not they were stuck in their places as commoners; they would often never be given the opportunity to become of the clergy or noble. Furthermore, poor policies permeated their existence – and they could not escape their pre-stratified dispositions. Considerably, they sought to engage in social revolution to alarm the state and ‘uncivilly’ announce their discordance with the French
nation-state.
Considering that the clergy and nobles refused to pay taxes, they in some ways fostered the diminishing of France’s social capital. To illustrate, the common people of low social ranks revolutionized and galvanized against social and economic inequity they were subject to in order to evoke change. Though the noble or clergy were not forcefully reprimanded for their refusal to pay taxes, it is imperative to consider the idea that they had a heavy hand in inciting rebellion in the spirits of the commoners. Expressly, this pervasive revolution may have been eliminated if the nobles and clergy had not contrived such conspicuous social and economic disparity between them and the commoners. Consequently, this vividly discernible disparity encouraged commoners to foster and uplift egalitarian and enlightenment philosophies that proved to weaken the authority of the state. Correspondingly, as if debt, inequity, and diverse social philosophies did not rupture the sovereignty of the French nation – natural disasters, extreme famine and high food costs further advanced the ideas of France’s sealed, abominable fate.
To illustrate, about thirty million French people under Louis XVI’s reign were struggling to simply feed themselves and their families. Considering that France was overpopulated and that an overwhelming population of the peasants/commoners were extremely impoverished, “as they lived at or below the subsistence level”, there was not enough tangible produce and bread (in particular), to sustain the people. To illustrate, poor people relied heavily on bread to fill themselves up and to keep from being hungry – but in the face of crop scarcity, King Louis XVI was compelled to raise the prices of the bread which angered
many. In the final analysis, it is important to realize that the French Revolution was a ten-year (May 5, 1789 until November 9, 1799) social and political outcry that was utilized as an instrument to implement radical social change. This revolution was led primarily by liberalist, Napoleon and the common people of France who focused chiefly on the spread the philosophies of the enlightenment period and the implementation of liberal and democratic governance. The revolution was induced by France’s horrid accumulation of debt, the failing of the monarchy controlled state, rise of taxes, the stark inequalities between the noble, clergy, and commoners, the extreme hunger that pervaded millions of Frenchmen, and the spread of diverse ideologies.