So, in France at dat time the king was very weak. Louis 16 was a respectable king but he was largely uncharismatic and dull, he preferred hunting and tinkering with stuff. His wife, Marie Antoinette, wasnt so bad either, she was an empathetic woman and was more down to earth
In France of Louis 16 there was 4 castes. King, which in theory holds all power but on practice he is not. Nobility, which didnt have to work basically and they basically didnt do much. Aristocracy, or I dunno how to name them, people who did have wealth, somehow. And everyone else was a peasant, they practically didnt have much rights
In this France, aristocracy could buy titles and nobility also had titles and privileges. However, nobility was entirely different and held disproportionate power. Because king was weak, they just did wat they wanted and king couldnt do much. So, aristocracy of dat time was seething with rage because this one big caste of people who can appropriate gigantic sums of money to build lavish mansions, have ludicrous ceremonies, hard to describe this type of opulence. So, aristocratic power was on decrease even though they are mostly the people who knew how to boil water and stuff, maybe even how to govern
So, situation was unsustainable. If king wanted taxes, he couldnt tax people who has money, he taxed peasants. It was pretty ruthless, if king wanted grain he just appropriated grain from common guy. Because of this quite dumb economics, overall, the system was unsustainable. Peasants couldn't buy bread but this schmuck at pallaces in Versailles? Bro he had it all, you dont know wat he had on his plate
The revolution then was all set in stone. First, aristocracy started a very wide propaganda campaign, they began to criticize king's functionaries for their corruption and incompetence. (It was true.) At dat time, salons were popular and every posh guy read pamphlets and smart journals or watever. So, it was very effective to getting across the message. Wat aristocracy wanted is abolition of nobility, or at least their titles which granted them quite serious power
But because nobility had almost all power they just said nah, you p*ssies wont do any thing to people of the king. So, the king's apparatus was largely unresponsive and rigid to the feelings of the nation. Aristocracy saw dat and wat they did is use peasants. Basically, they said dat France is a backward country, very poor, where one despot and his cronies
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