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Pre Revolution Dbq

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Pre-Revolution France
Up until 1789, France was an absolute monarchy ruled by a King who claimed his total power to govern to be God-given. In 1775, that divine King became 19-year-old Louis XVI of the House of Bourbon. The new French King was initially happily welcomed to the throne by his subjects, as he “wanted to do well by his people, including the poor, if only he could determine what it meant”; but he was not able to do so due to circumstances that “made him more of a prisoner than a prince, and far removed from his subjects.” Indeed, Louis XVI inherited one of the world’s most powerful and wealthy dynasties, but he also governed a nation that was choked by mounting debt, rampant fiscal mismanagement, and a highly inequitable system …show more content…

When the colonies became the United States of America in 1776, France had gained absolutely nothing from the American War. In fact, the country now faced enormous financial debt from taking out international loans to finance its war expenses, which only added to the already existing debt from the Seven Years War (1754 – 1763), during which France not only lost its Navy, but also its territories in North America. Its policy of borrowing huge sums brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy by the mid-1780s, with the Crown’s debt mounting so high that fifty percent of the state’s income went to pay the interest on the …show more content…

To make matters worse, for the past decade, the French populace had been suffering from famine because of bad harvesting and sky-high price of even bare necessities. The demand for manufactured goods plummeted, causing many workers, farmers, and traders to be without work. The laws of the land were becoming increasingly burdensome to the Third Estate, while excusing the clergy and nobility from paying taxes. Since they already had to pay tax on land (taille), tax on food and drink (aides), tax for the upkeep of the clergy (tithes), tax on salt (gabelle), and many more, the common people were understandably angry with the entire burden falling on them while the other two Estates remained exempt from taxation. Clearly, “Laws themselves [were] nothing but instruments at the hands of the rich, to oppress the

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