Causes of the French Revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Causes of the French Revolution - Essay Example Under the shadow of this dilemmatic political concern, French feudal lords proved to be a focus of attention by limiting the power and freedom of a common man. Although, the Lords were a principal target of rural insurrection; they remained on centre stage in the National Assembly's dramatic renunciation of privilege of 1789 thereby forming a continual bone of contention between rural communities who found the early enactments of the legislators to be thoroughly inadequate along with legislators facing continuing rural turbulence; therefore they were an essential element in the revolutionaries' notions of the "feudal regime" being dismantled; they were the concrete subject matter addressed in the first legislation that tested the tensions inherent in the thorny constitutional issue of a royal veto (and they thereby contributed to the difficulty of embodying the Revolution in some monarchical form); they were invoked in the rhetoric with which those in high places addressed the growin g international tension surrounding the revolutionary state, a rhetoric which imbued the revolutionaries with a self-righteous sense of a national mission to liberate the victims of feudalism outside of France, altering the character of European warfare. (Markoff, 1996, p. 3) The best example is the involvement of British and German governments in this concern of revolution. One of the main reasons for the revolution is the authority practiced by Lords which let arrears accumulate on periodic dues for years, then demand that peasants pay up, and accept a land-for-debt swap; under retrait, a lord had the optional right to substitute himself for the purchaser of peasant land; and lords might hold or fabricate a claim on a portion of common land. Many seigniorial rights could thus be put at the service of landholders oriented to a growing agricultural market, to such an extent that some historians have wondered whether peasant contestation might not be better described as a losing, rear-guard struggle against a growing capitalism than a vanguard battle against a dying feudalism in conjunction' with the victorious bourgeoisie. (Markoff, 1996, p. 77) Another factor that leads one to think as the cause of revolution was the corruption of the Lords and noble people, who were not liable to any of the (heavy or normal) taxation system implemented by the government, for being an authoritative privileged class. The dilemma lied within their perception according to which they were not answerable to any official in case of denial of any rule. Financial Downfall Right from Louis XIV to Louis XVI, all the noble personnel enjoyed undue privileges and advantages particularly in the financial matters. These include: 1. Lack of financial accountability in response to government questions, and they never use to bother about it. 2. They had access to government loans with the right to acquire