Origins of the French Revolution Dr Stuart Jones

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Origins of the French RevolutionDr Stuart Jones
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Nature of ancien regime

• corporate privileges
• crowns drive towards absolutism

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Structure

• Historiography Marxism versus Revisionism
• Social and economic change
• Intellectual and cultural change
• Fiscal crisis

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Historiography

• Marxist orthodoxy
• Mathiez, Lefebvre, Soboul
• Revisionism
• 1st wave e.g. Alfred Cobban
• 2nd wave e.g. François Furet

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Social and Economic Change

• Classic (Marxist) explanation
• Conflict between rising bourgeoisie and falling
  nobility
• Rise of capitalism

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Problems with Marxist Explanation

• Little structural change in 18th century
• Equation of bourgeoisie with capitalism is
  problematical
• Revolutionary leadership had little connection
  with capitalism

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Was the Enlightenment revolutionary?

• How widely disseminated? e.g. Encyclopédie
• Not solely French
• Not exclusively bourgeois (e.g. Turgot 1774
  landed property still crucial)
• How can we prove influence? Enlightenment ideas
  not intrinsically revolutionary.

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Fiscal crisis

• Monarchy heavily in debt
• Expenditure driven upwards by Seven Years War
  and American War of Independence
• Taxation ? conflict between crown and nobility
  (e.g. Maupeou 1771). Role of parlements.
• Estates General 1789 who speaks for the nation?

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3rd Estate groans under weight of the other two
orders
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The Third Estate frees itself from its chains
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Pamphlet War, 1788-9

• Abbé Sieyes, What is the Third Estate?
• Context calling of the Estates-General
• Key question who speaks for the nation?
• See extract from Sieyes on web