What Caused the French Revolution?

As Ulysses Grant once said, “The right to revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable.” This is the exact situation France was having during the 18th century. The people of France were suffering because of their government. They had two options, to rebel or to sit tight. They decided to rebel. But exactly why were the people of France suffering? They were rebelling due to short-term factors like massive starvation among most of them and lack of improvement.

Starvation was one of the main factors leading to the French Revolution. It lead to several milestone events in the revolution but it all started with bad weather. According to Wikipedia.org, “A series of crop failures caused a shortage of grain, consequently raising the price of bread. Because bread was the main source of nutrition for poor peasants, this led to starvation.” According to the quote, it started with limited the crop production in the country and secondly, since there was limited crops, the prices on food rose, especially on the main source of food, bread. This caused several uproars throughout the country. Especially when most people in the country cannot afford their number one necessity. It has been proven throughout history that poverty leads to revolutions. Even though this factor was a major one leading to the revolution, it certainly was not the only one.

Another factor leading to the French Revolution were the politics within the country. At the time, their absolute monarchy was an absolute disaster. First of all, King Louis XVI brought France to mass debt. He and his wife, Marie Antoinette used money without any limits, as Priya Karan from Suit101.com says, “Louis XV also spent extravagant sums… Antoinette spent incredible amounts of treasury money.” Considering France was in a massive debt, King Louis XVI did not do anything about it. This did not only apply to the debt he caused but to any issue his own country was facing. He was known as a pushover for a reason. Whenever he decided on something anyone else could have persuaded him against it with little to no effort in order to steer things toward their way. Without any firm stance on any issue no progress can be made, certainly, further angering the people of France.

Personally, I believe that the short term factor like these were the one that triggered the French Revolution. If long-term factors were the ones that caused the French Revolution, the revolution would have taken several years ago in any other rough patch France was having. Certainly, the long-term factors certainly contributed to the beginning of the French Revolution but the short-term ones were the one that overfilled the bucket, and gave the necessary push.

Short-term factors like massive starvation among most of the people of France and lack of improvement were the factors that lead to the beginning of the French Revolution. The starvation that came from raised prices and lack of food surely angered the people and with no improvement of the situation just embittered citizens even more. Even though, other external and long-term factors also contributed, these short-term factors put things over the top to ignite the start of a new beginning for France.