Causes of the French Revolution

When I first learned about the French Revolution, I didn’t understand why it occurred. The textbook gives the reader two different examples, which may or may not have been the origin of the Revolution. It seemed as if the textbook was leaving it up to the reader to decide. While there is much disagreement over this topic, I think that social differences combined with a lack of food due to economic hardship is what caused the Revolution.
There are two main schools of thought on why the French Revolution happened, the Marxist and the Revisionist school of thought. The Revisionist historiography of the French Revolution suggests that the struggle is due to economic hardship, ultimately resulting in a lack of food. This school of thought specifically states that there was no strong division between the classes, whereas the Marxist school of thought directly contradicts the Revisionist school of thought. The Marxist historiography suggests that the start of the Revolution was a class struggle between the Nobility and Bourgeoisies. This school of thought says that the medieval society limited the bourgeoisie, which was becoming more powerful and wealthy.

In My opinion, social differences (the Marxist school of thought) were one reason why the French Revolution began. French society was split into three classes or estates. The first estate was the clergy, the second was the nobility and the third was everyone else. The third estate also held the bourgeoisie, which was their upper middle class. Both the nobles and the clergy had rights that were not extended to the third estate. These noble rights were a source of social tension because they gave French noble’s rights that no one else had, and this seemed unfair to the bourgeoisie, who attempted to get them taken away. These social differences pushed the large population of bourgeoisie to become increasingly more wealthy and self-confident. Those characteristics allowed them to abolish the feudal rights, pushing the social tensions further between the classes. In addition to abolishing the feudal rights, the bourgeoisie gained so much confidence that they declared themselves the national assembly. They thought, "If king wont do it, than we will do it ourselves." (Photo on right: Tennis Court Oath). 

My second opinion of why the French Revolution started is because there was a lack of food due to economic hardship (the Revisionist school of thought). Now, not only were there major social differences occurring, but a lack of food added onto that and made things worse. The lack of food, specifically bread from a poor harvest season, was a major source of the Parisian people’s anger. This is so, because bread was the mainstay of the French people’s survival and when bread became scarce, the prices rose dramatically, and many people could not afford it. However, it was not really the bread that caused the anger, but the idea behind it. The French people expected the government to be able to provide them with work and bread so that they could survive. When bread became more expensive people stopped buying manufactured goods, which resulted in a collapsing of the market. The bread just highlighted the economic mess the French were in, causing people to take charge, which resulted in the march on Versailles. 7,000 women travelled form Paris to Versailles to complain about the lack of affordable bread. They angrily invaded the palace looking for Marie Antoinette. The royal family was saved by Lafayette and the National assembly, but as a result they had to move to Paris

(Photo on left: march on Versailles).

After analyzing the causes of the Revolution I understand why it happened. I believe that it is a combination of the Marxist and the Revisionist school of thought. However, there are still other possibilities of why the Revolution began, so I’d like to hear your ideas, what do you think caused the start of the French Revolution?

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