Zalán Kaposvári
Recently, in our history classes, we have been discussing the most significant changes and events that happened between the 17th and 18th centuries: namely, the time when the Enlightenment set its roots deeply within the people’s hearts.
Personally, the European event that I found particularly interesting is nothing other than the Great French Revolution.
During the whole medieval age, in all the European countries a single type of political system was dominant: absolutism. The word speaks for itself, that is, the country’s government is basically made up of one person: the king. Or more generally: the monarch (as emperors ruled in Europe as well). This person is the only one in the whole state, whose power is limitless. He is in charge of everything; he decides every single question. Of course, in more pressing, or more complicated matters, he also has his own advisors to help him resolve the given problem in a way that matches his needs and goals in the best possible way. And here comes the problem of the system. The monarch is an individual person with individual, personal thoughts, beliefs. This is precisely the fact that proves that the ruler occasionally makes a mistake, an inappropriate decision. He has his own feelings and opinions of different topics, which do not always serve the needs of his subjects.
And now, if we substitute this train of thought into 18th-century France, we get a solution. That solution, by the way, is the Great French Revolution.
The 18th century saw the continuous development of the absolutist monarchy in France, under the rule of the House of Bourbon (which had more than a dozen ”Louises”!). Even though France became the leading military power in Europe at that time, great armies require great amounts of money for maintenance. Can you guess what might have been the problem that brought this whole elaborate system to ruin? The Royal Highness and the other greatly influential aristocrats of France only made significant developments in the (completely depraved) art of making their own palaces and castles to shine and shimmer with extravagant pomp. An example of this is the Palace of Versailles, where so much luxury was created that the lords living there simply didn’t want to get their feet out of that place. They were blinded by luxury, thus they did not realize the ongoing problems and (not much later) crises that appeared in France. Another negative factor was that France did not go through capitalist transformation; instead it retained its old-fashioned feudal system. It was called, by the way, the ”Ancien Régime”, meaning ”ancient system.”
As a consequence, the state revenues were simply not enough to maintain the large, extensive, but competent army. And, as we have already stated generally, the French king, Louis XVI, was expected to find a proper solution to the greatly pressing problem. However, Louis was a very strict and truly absolutist ruler of the country, who (of course) did not want to hear about any reforms, especially those regarding capitalist transformation. Therefore, the crisis in the country deepened and deepened. What is more, the state itself suffered from total bankruptcy.
When I first heard about this complicated situation, I considered it a case that is practically impossible to solve. However, there were attempts to undo this madness in the country: the king finally convened the Estates General, or in one word: the parliament. By the way, a pretty interesting fact is connected to the latter act. Absolutism was so strong in France that the Estates General was not convened for 175 years! So the Ancien Régime was truly a strict absolutist system, indeed. Anyway, the ruler took this step in May 1789, thus the three estates had to vote in order to solve the crisis. The three groups were the Clergy, the Nobility and the Commoners. The members of the first two estates only made up 15% of the population, and the rest belonged to the Commoners. Unfortunately, the three estates were unable to decide about the future. This deepened the problems further: there were worsening working and living conditions, and beyond all of these, people suffered from famine as well.
The next step was taken by the people: protests were held in Paris. These, however, often turned into violent fights between the guards and the demonstrators (or the protesters in other words). Later, the protests spread throughout the whole country.
All these acts, all these wrong decisions only led to the outbreak of the French Revolution, which, in fact, is considered to have started on 14 July 1789. It is not by accident, believe me. The people on this famous day decided to attack the Bastille prison in order to get weapons to defend themselves against a possible attack from the king’s troops. The Bastille was also well known to the crowd as a symbol of the influence of the nobility and the rule of the monarch’s limitless power.
To sum up, I found this particular topic quite interesting because it was packed full of correlations, which, by the way, seemed too complicated at first. But if I dig deeper into the background events, it turns out to be much easier to understand, and thus, it becomes more interesting as well. After all this, I feel that, for me, revolutions are the most exciting events in history.