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17th century France had many characteristics of an older France

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hundreds of years of state building had allowed many regional exceptions and exemptions and particularities to develop in terms of administration

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characterized by local authorities and regional ties

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this continually frustrated royal government to run an efficient kingdom

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but these conditions can't be said to have caused the French Revolution

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what were the causes of the French Revolution

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some say it was the Enlightenment

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some people such as Barruel blamed it on "conspirators and people with sinister motives", he was referring to the intellectual movement of The Enlightenment

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they articulated a notion of self-government, a critique of absolute monarchy and the church, of rights such as civil and economic freedoms

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these ideas were profoundly at odds with how the system worked

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if Louis XVI was King of France by the grace of God, then any criticism of religion would undermine absolute monarchy itself

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Voltaire rehabilitates the name of Calas after he was unjustly tortured and killed by through

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Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau

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the Enlightenment was not confined to France but certainly had its great flowering there

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none of these philosophes claimed to be revolutionary per se

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most were well-to-do, even nobles

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they were certainly not a revolutionary party calling for revolutionary change

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however, the philosophes did call for reform

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Condorcet

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people are born as tabula rasas that need to be formed

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criticized the church for preaching an angry God and that humans had an inherently sinful state

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central is the assumption of perfectibility

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if we make the world a better place, make it more prosperous, respect people's freedoms, then is no limit to what may be achieved in terms of a more civilized society

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economic reforms also seen as important

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Francois Quesnay

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Laissez faire economy

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why should the meek have to wait in order to enter the kingdom of heaven to be happy

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prioritizes reason, invention, progress to improve the lot of the people in the here and now

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Rousseau

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egalitarian, social critic, much more radical than the other writers and thinkers of the Enlightenment

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conflict comes from the inequality that humans produce in society

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lived in Montmorency in a simple environment

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argued for a new form of citizenship, a new form of government based on the will of the people

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1762 book: Emile, or on Education

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fascinated by what the voyages of exploration were saying about the rest of the world

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tales from James Cooke were profoundly interesting to the philosophes

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tales of people who were apparently "primitive" but who appeared to be happier than many people were in Europe

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Rousseau used these reports to write devastating essays of 18th century France, a society of mass poverty and elite privilege

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however, it is difficult to see the philosophes as a direct cause of the French Revolution

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even Rousseau would not have called himself a revolutionary

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they looked more to enlightened rulers such as Catherine, Frederick and even Louis the XVI to introduce enlightened reforms

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you also have to consider what people were even able to read the works of these men

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education was still mostly in the hands of the clergy, and these were the last people who would want to teach people to read the philosophy of the philosophes

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one volume of the Encyclopédie cost as much as a peasant family could earn in a year

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only 47% of men and 27% of women were capable of even signing their name

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even secondary schools such as the Lycée Louis le Grand

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curriculum was dominated by a study of the classics taught in Latin or Greek

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certainly they were not taught the works of the Enlightenment