The French Revolution

There is considerable controversy over the causes of the Revolution. Some scholars emphasize material factors. With one out of every five Europeans being French in the year 1789, as the country's population increased, its food supplies grew short. Agricultural reform was long overdue: land had become divided into such small parcels that most non-urban Frenchmen lived close to the subsistence level. The year 1776 saw a devastating agricultural recession, which forced the landlord property owners to exploit their sources of revenue at the expense of the human condition.

Meanwhile, the past century's commercial prosperity had stimulated the growth of a monied middle class, the bourgeoisie. By the 1780s, the upper-tiers of these nouveau riche were challenging with r

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ocratic traditions. Louis' reluctance to sanction the National Assembly decrees led to a second Parisian uprising, the "March of the Women." In October 1789 a mob marched to Versailles. Although the royal household was ostensibly protected by the "revolutionary national guard" under the Marquis de Lafayette, the king was forced to capitulate to the crowd. Louis and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were moved immediately to Paris; they were followed in short-order by the National Assembly relocating there. So it was that France became a "constitutional monarchy" and legal distinctions between Frenchmen disappeared. It was a false equilibrium, though: the king was virtually a prisoner -- and, more ominously, many in the populace were permanently alienated by the pretensions of the Assembly and the prevailing civic disorder. Nevertheless, 1789 through 1791 was a comparatively peaceful period, and during that time the National Assembly did much to modernize France. Imminent national bankruptcy, Louis' most prominent legacy, was averted by the confiscation of ecclesiastical land. Simultaneously, the Church and law courts were reconstructed to conform with a rational and uniform system of local government by elected councils
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2612
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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