What was the nature of the fiscal crisis that triggered the French Revolution?
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER:
The expenses of a long series of European wars, beginning with the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748), initiated the fiscal crisis. King Louis XV was rebuffed in his attempts to repeal tax exemptions for some favored groups. The Seven Years War (1756-1763) exacerbated the situation. King Louis XVI was warned that the government's finances were stretched thin, but he plunged France into the American Revolution anyway. Renewed attempts to increase the nobility's taxes met with frustration and political maneuvering by each side. When Louis called a meeting of the Estates General for the first time in 163 years, the opportunity existed for a combined front to resist governmental power and institute a constitutional monarchy. Besides the fiscal crisis within the French government, there was a growing crisis within French society. The nation's poor were a large, growing, and troublesome sector. The poverty of peasant families forced younger children to seek seasonal work away from home and led many to crime and beggary. The urban streets swarmed with beggars and prostitutes. The wretchedness of the French poor is best indicated by the growing problem of child abandonment. Unable to afford decent housing, obtain steady work, or protect their children, the poor periodically erupted in violent protest. In the countryside violence was often the reaction when nobility and clergy increased dues and fees. In towns and cities an increase in the price of bread often provided the spark. A succession of bad harvests propelled bread prices upward and provoked an economic depression as demand for nonessential goods collapsed. By the time of the Revolution, nearly a third of the Parisian work force was unemployed. Thus the rebellion of the French nobility their greed and unwillingness to submit to higher taxes was most immediately responsible for the Revolution, and the Third Estate joined in because it was already overburdened with taxes and in the midst of an economic depression.
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