why did France have a revolution in 1789 if?

Question

the monarchy got back to power for the most of 19th century with Napoleon and Napoleon the III? What was the point of the revolution in the 1st place if they didnt have a democracy till their loss to in the Prussian War?

Answer 1

France, as my AP European History teacher says, just doesn't get it. They have revolution after revolution, and are always moving in circles and never moving forward. There are even several revolutions after the one in 1789. The people just saw that the king was living lavishly at the expense of a high national debt, the commoners had no representation because as the 3rd Estate (with the Clergy and Nobles as the 1st and 2nd, respectively) they only had one of the votes out of 3. Also, the king was far removed at Versailles, so the people didn't feel like he was responsive to their situation, and the myth of Marie Antoinette and "let them eat cake" was just a representation of how the royalty were so out of touch with the common people, it never really happened. To directly answer your question, the people weren't thinking long term. They were just fed up with the bread shortage and lack of response to their problems by the inept government.

Answer 2

They were tired of the inept Monarchy of Louis the 15th and his wife Catherine. The economy was in shambles and the couple didn't do anything to assuage the people's anger. After the revolution, France was in a complete state of confusion. Monarchy was their safefty net but they wanted to have a democracy.

Answer 3

It was as good a time as any to overthrow the corrupt and uncaring power class. The people who took over were cut from the same material and slid out of democracy back into monarchy. Each time, however, Democracy was a little stronger and final was able to hang on to power.

Answer 4

The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a period of major political and social change in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment ideals of democracy, citizenship, and inalienable rights. These changes were accompanied by violent turmoil, including mass executions and repression during the Reign of Terror, and warfare involving every other major European power.

For the next 75 years, France would be governed as a republic, a dictatorship, a constitutional monarchy, and an empire. Causes of the French Revolution

Historians disagree about the political and socioeconomic nature of the revolution. One interpretation is that the old aristocratic order of the Ancien Régime succumbed to the ambitions of a rising bourgeoisie, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, and allied with aggrieved peasants and wage-earners in the towns, particularly Paris and Lyon. Another interpretation sees various aristocratic and bourgeois attempts at political and economic reform spinning out of control and coinciding with popular movements of the new wage-earning classes and the provincial peasantry, but see any alliance between classes as contingent and incidental.

However, adherents of both models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the revolution. On the one hand, there are the economic factors:

A poor economic situation and an unmanageable national debt, both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation, the massive spending of Louis XVI and the many wars of the 18th century
High unemployment and high bread prices causing more money to be spent on food and less in other areas of the economy
Food scarcity in the months immediately before the revolution (A recent study of El Niño patterns suggests that the poor crop yields of 1788-89 in Europe resulted from an unusually strong El-Niño effect between 1789-93.[1])
On the other hand, there were social and political factors, many of them involving resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals:


Resentment of royal absolutism
A resentment of noble privilege and dominance in public life by the ambitious professional classes
Resentment of manorialism (seigneurialism) by peasants, wage-earners, and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie
Resentment of clerical privilege (anti-clericalism) and aspirations for freedom of religion
Aspirations for liberty and (especially as the revolution progressed) republicanism
Finally, perhaps above all, was the almost total failure of Louis XVI and his advisors to deal effectively with any of these problems.

Answer 5

The French were starving thanks to the little Ice age, crops had failed and what really pissed off the French was when Marie Antionette said, "let them eat cake !"