What set the stage for the French Revolution?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. A stagnant economy in France not only failed to modernize and capitalize on the growing market economy, but there was also a stagnant social hierarchy in which the three estates, defined by law, precluded the First and Second Estates from paying taxes. The brunt of taxation was borne by the Third Estate, whose members were excluded from government. Many in France found it outrageous that the French government had supported the American Revolution and sent military and financial aid so that the Americans could throw off British tyranny on the basis of "no taxation without representation." A series of economic crises throughout the 1770s and 1780s pushed France to the edge of bankruptcy. And then an extremely bad harvest in the late 1780s forced a price hike in the cost of bread. After the lack of political representation, the stagnant economy, the enforcement of traditional social orders, and continuing economic crisis, the political eruption began in 1789.