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Why did France have a revolution in 1789
last straw and left the country balancing on a knife edge.
The other main short-term trigger was the calling of the Estates General. On 4th of May 1789 Louis XVI called together representatives of the three estates, the nobles, the clergy and the proletariat, in a final-ditch attempt to avoid a conflict. In the run-up to the summit people were asked to write complaints they had, this led people to complain about all sorts of things, in fact every thing that they could remember being bad was put down, this gave the king a ridiculously long complaint list which was of little use. Nobody in France would have been alive when the last Estates General had been called over a century earlier and this may have led to grossly inflated expectations of what it would achieve, this was not helped by the fact that people had been encouraged to believe that the king had been chosen by god and so was all-powerful. The calling of the Estates General also, unfortunately, coincided with the death of Louis’s son. Louis was not particularly focused and failed to propose any major reforms which left the first and third estates with a bitter taste in the mouth. Following the calling of the Estates General the 1st and 3rd Estates decided to band together and set up the National Assembly. The members of the National Assembly swore a famous oath not to disband until they had achieved their aims. I think that the calling of the Estates General and the forming of the National Assembly dictated when the revolution took place, but without the other causes would have been unlikely to lead to a revolution.
I think that while all the causes where important, the long-term economic and social causes were the most influential, because they infuriated the peasants. They made the situation seem desperately unfair to the poor. I think that the social causes were also important because they roped the middle classes into the revolution, and because the middle classes were often better educated than the proletariat and were able to put ideas of revolution into their heads. I think that the intellectual and political causes were less important because many generations had lived under feudal systems in France and other countries for eons without revolting, and only a handful of the French people would have seen the benefits of democracy in America. I think that of the short term triggers the economic slump was the most influential because it compounded existing problems and drove the proletariat to desperation. I think that the calling of the Estates General and the forming of the National Assembly decided when the revolution happened and so were also very influential.