Historians point to a
wide variety of causes
for the French Revolution.
But they all agree that the
excess enjoyed by the ruling
class was the major factor.
Isolating themselves in
a distant country palace,
the king and his court made
one out of touch decision
after another.
Their increasing extravagance
led the French people
to question the
role of the monarchy
and wonder if the time hadn't
come for a more democratic form
of government.
Today, we're going
to take a look
at 11 ways a corrupt
and elite ruling class
led to the French Revolution.
But before we get started,
be sure to subscribe
to the Weird History channel.
After that, we'd be much obliged
if you would leave a comment
and let us know what
other revolutionary topics
you would like to hear about.
OK.
Vive la revolution.
Louis XIV, known
as the Sun King,
ruled France by
cultivating and controlling
a royal cult centered
around himself.
The cult was carefully managed
and, to no one's surprise,
entirely excluded the nation's
working class and poor.
In fact, in 1682, Louis moved
the capital to Versailles,
a hunting lodge he
owned outside of Paris.
It was from there that the
monarchy would rule until 1789.
At the highly
isolated Versailles,
the royals and
their court became
lost in a maze of protocol,
ritual, and hedonism that
almost completely cut them
off from the day to day
existence of regular Parisians.
Finally, on October 4th, 1789,
thousands of Parisian women
marched the 12
miles to Versailles
and demanded King Louis
and the other royals
returned to the city with them.
After 24 hours of
protests, the king
agreed to head
back to gay Paris.
Louis XVI was famous for
being a faithful husband.
However, his grandfather, Louis
the XV, infamously, was not.
The French probably wouldn't
have judged him too harshly
for his infidelities, had these
women been merely companions.
But Louis had a
frustrating habit
of giving his mistresses
official state power.
One of those mistresses,
known as Madame de Pompadour,
became highly influential
in Louis' politics
and even advised him on
several international issues.
In modern terms, it would be
as if JFK made Marilyn Monroe
the Secretary of State.
The people of France saw
Pompadour's undue influence
as despotic.
And their unhappiness
began to ferment
into a revolutionary spirit.
Marie Antoinette had some
pretty expensive tastes.
And to the people of France,
their foreign-born queen
became the personification
of extravagance
in the royal court.
One of her pricey habits
was a deep and abiding love
of chocolate.
Many previous French royals
were also chocolaholics.
But Antoinette loved
the stuff so much,
she actually brought her very
own chocolate chef with her
from Vienna.
He was given the title
Chocolate Maker to the Queen.
And his entire job
consisted of inventing
new chocolate-centered recipes
for her royal highness,
like a French Willy Wonka.
At the end of the 18th
century, chocolate
was becoming more widely
available to the masses,
but was still considered
an elite treat.
This is probably
why it didn't do
much for Marie's
public image when
it became known that she
started each and every day
with a steaming hot cup of
cocoa with whipped cream.
Coupled with her
expensive appetite
for the latest fashions
and a personal stylist
whose sole job was to create
over-the-top hairstyles,
the queen became a public enemy.
When Louis XVI ascended
to the throne in 1774,
he gave Marie Antoinette a small
palace on the Versaille estate
called Petit Triano.
Sparing no expense, which
seemed to be her typical MO,
Antoinette had the palace,
which had originally
been built for
Madame de Pompadour,
completely redesigned to fit
her own tastes and aesthetics.
Petit Triano became
Antoinette's retreat
from the confines of court life.
The palace had an
English garden and farm,
where Marie could live
out what she considered
an ideal rural existence.
Ironically, the very
privacy and peace
that she sought from
her time at Petit Triano
made her the target of
even more criticism.
The public thought
her retreats were
tantamount to a rejection of
her role in royal politics.
They suspected she
only wanted privacy,
because she was
likely up to no good.
The behavior of the king
and the royal family
wasn't the only factor that
brought on the revolution.
The overly favorable treatment
of the French aristocracy,
which was closely
tied to the monarchy,
was another contributing cause.
In the centuries prior
to the French Revolution,
attacks known as
taille came into being.
And the responsibility
for paying it
fell on the shoulders of the
peasants and the non-nobles.
While the specific laws and
rules governing this tax
changed over time, the one
thing that never changed
was that the aristocracy
was exempted from paying it.
It was a direct tax
based on land ownership.
But it was far from the only tax
non-nobles were subjected to.
As for the aristocracy, all
that money they saved on taxes
was spent lavishly
on masquerade balls,
gambled away at card
tables in casinos,
and used to build
magnificent estates.
Not surprisingly, resentment
towards the aristocracy
grew and became a major
reason for the advent
of the Revolution.
In 1778, the United
States was deep
into the American Revolution
against Great Britain.
France, not being terribly
fond of the British,
recognized the US as
a sovereign country
and pledged to support
them militarily.
However, helping a disorganized
band of upstart rebels
take on the world's
most formidable empire
was not cheap.
The continuation of the
French and Indian War,
a long-standing conflict
with the British fought
in the new world, cost
the French 1.3 billion
livre, which today is
equivalent to hundreds
of billions of dollars.
With the financial crisis
of the 1780s still not over,
support of the American
cause sank France even deeper
into debt.
It became just
one more grievance
that led to revolution.
There were numerous reasons
that led to the Revolution.
However, not all
of them were true.
Conspiracy theories,
gossip, rumors, and scandals
were equally responsible for
shaping public perceptions
about the ruling class.
And by the late 1780s,
those perceptions
were anything but positive.
One such rumor concerned the
so-called Pacte de Famine.
France had experienced frequent
famines and food shortages.
And a conspiracy theory that
explained it began to take
hold.
The theory held that the royal
family was withholding food
from the commoners and
hoarding it for themselves
and other elites.
These chronic food
shortages are perhaps
what later led to the belief
that Marie Antoinette had
coldly dismissed the plight
of her people with the words,
"let them eat cake."
However, while the hunger
was real, the quote was not.
It actually came from a book
by the philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rosseau, who attributed
it to a young princess.
Marie was only nine when
the book was published.
So most likely, it wasn't her.
Prior to the Revolution,
France was a stratified society
broken up into social
classes known as estates.
Built on the medieval
era world order,
there were three estates.
The first was the clergy.
The second was the nobility.
And the third was
absolutely everyone else,
from wealthy merchants
to poor farmers.
When the king called upon them,
which was admittedly rare,
the three estates would convene
as a sort of parliament.
Such was the case in 1789,
when a financial crisis finally
moved Louis XVI to throw
caution to the wind
and call a meeting of
the estate's general.
It did not go well.
The third estate,
who, don't forget,
included the poor
and downtrodden,
attempted to seize more
political influence
and agency from the other two.
The king, who was not
having it, decided
to do something
incredibly petty.
He physically locked the
third of state representatives
out of the meeting.
As you can imagine,
they weren't happy.
Their representatives reconvened
at a nearby tennis court,
where they vowed to write a
constitution that would correct
all of the wrongs that infected
the ruling classes of France.
While it's believed that
Louis XVI had good intentions,
he was not great
at politics, often
making decisions that
were a bit tone deaf.
For example, take the case of
Jacques Necker, the Minister
of France, whom the king fired.
The problem was that although
Louis didn't realize it,
Necker had become a hero
among the common folk.
The popular minister
had championed
several financial
reforms and tried
to communicate the state's
financial situation
to the populace at large.
The royals, for their
part, decided to blame him
for a mounting debt crisis.
Marie Antoinette herself was one
of his most formidable enemies.
So when her husband dismissed
Necker on July 11th, 1789,
the French people
did not take it well.
The move reinforced
the growing sentiment
that the king was corrupt.
And just three days later,
a group of Parisians
stormed the Bastille, igniting
the powder keg of revolution.
When the revolution
came, not every member
of the French royal
family was opposed to it.
In fact, at least
one junior member
of the royal Bourbon family
was a very active participant.
That man was Louis Philippe
II, Duke du Orleans
and Prince of the Blood.
Prior to the revolution,
Louis Philippe and his wife
didn't have the best
relationship with Louis XVI
and Marie Antoinette.
At the same time,
they were very popular
with the common people of Paris.
During the revolution,
Louis Philippe and his wife
threw their lot in with
the revolutionaries
and even provided direct aid
to the infamous Jacobins.
The loyalty Louis
Philippe showed
to the revolution and
the people of France
was, sadly, not
enough to save him.
On the 6th of November,
1793, he would
follow the rest of his
family to the guillotine.
Unlike his grandfather,
who had a rep for being
a self-interested
hedonist, Louis XVI
took his job as king seriously.
Early in his reign, he showed
great competence at the job.
But in the end, not so much.
The only thing Louis proved
to be truly effective at
was motivating the
people of France
to end the monarchy
once and for all.
It is said that Louis, who
was known to be quite shy,
lacked the confidence in his
own ability to make decisions
and grew increasingly
doubtful that he
had what it took to solve
France's complex problems.
He became overwhelmed
and slowly withdrew
from the political world.
These characteristics are
typical of depression,
which has led some historians
to suggest that Louis may have
suffered from the condition.
The people of France,
however, didn't
care much for the reasons
behind Louis' failures.
His introverted behavior
won him few admirers
and only convinced the public
that he was unfit to rule.
And on January 21st, 1793, Louis
was beheaded at the Place de la
Revolution.
So what do you think?
Was the French Revolution
worth the fight?
Let us know in the
comments below.
And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos
from our Weird History.
