DEBATE THE PROPOSITION THAT RE
DEBATE THE PROPOSITION THAT REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS WERE A MAJOR CAUSE OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE OLD REGIMEFinancially, France was in crisis. It owed millions of livre to other nations as a lot of money was borrowed to support the luxurious and extravagant lifestyle of the first and second orders. An example of the un-necessary spending is that the queen at the time, Marie Antoinette, was given the Trianon as a gift from the king. She then spent over 150,000 livres on changing the gardens to resemble English gardens. She also built an expensive theatre which only presented one play - also costing a lot of money. Her extravagance only served to fuel the grievances of a population kept in poverty. Revolutionary ideas formed where the population started to demand political rights and economic freedom.It is said that King Louis the Sixteenth did not have a strong character and was often overpowered by emotions. He did not have the knowledge to run the country correctly and was influenced greatly by those around him. He was not the right person to get the nation out of financial ruin because he did not have the knowledge to do so. For example, he would simply make a law and then it was up to the leaders of the provinces to i
It could even allow the peasant class to collect enough money to buy land of their own. He also had a system of taxation in place that was extremely complex and inefficient. The idea that liberty consists in being able to do anything which does not harm another may have had a huge impact on the way people thought. For many people this idea would be a dream come true because it would enable all people to really be equal. The revolutionary idea that all people were equal and should pay equal taxes started to take hold of the lower classes. The collapse of the old regime in France was inevitable. If everyone payed equal taxes which were fair, then the problem of poverty would be eliminated. The idea that every man is born free and equal in their rights, would have made many people think about their situations and how much better a democratic system would be. The majority of the nation was in poverty and the government was in debt. The king at the time, Louis the Sixteenth, was said to not have the knowledge to run a country properly. The third estate also made up about eighty percent of the French population and before the collapse of the old regime, a lot of them spent over seventy percent of their wages just paying taxes. The only way France could eliminate these problems was a political and financial revolution. In terms of equity, the nation was un-just in that only a small percentage of the population were wealthy while the rest struggled to survive and all of these grievances were to contribute to the collapse of the old regime. During the mid 1780's, the first estate payed no taxes and the second estate were exempt from paying income tax and salt taxes.
Common topics in this essay:
Louis Sixteenth,
Antoinette Trianon,
Financially France,
collapse regime,
third estate,
major cause,
collapse regime france,
knowledge run country,
cause collapse regime,
king louis sixteenth,
major cause collapse,
people equal,
run country,
payed taxes,
ideas democracy,
peasant class,
regime france,
equal taxes,
|