The French Revolution was a social and political struggle that shook France in the late 17th century. This conflict resulted in the dissolution of the absolutist monarchy, which until then had reigned in France. This revolution meant the triumph of a poor and oppressed people, tired of so much injustice due to the privileges that only the feudal nobility and the absolutist state enjoyed.
Among the causes that triggered the emergence of this revolution are: monarchical absolutism, characterized by an unlimited power of the State without any control over its actions. Political, economic and social inequality. Lack of rights and freedoms. The economic deterioration and the agricultural crisis that was aggravated by the bad harvests of the years before the revolution. Financial bankruptcy caused by corruption of the tax system, misperception and inequality of taxes. The expenses of the wars caused by the military support to the war of independence of the United States.
During that time, society was divided into three social sectors called States. The first state was the church; This received from the peasants the tithe product of their crops. Only the church was authorized to celebrate marriages, births and the preparation of death certificates; in addition to this the church had control over education.
The second state was the nobility. These were the owners of 30% of the lands, the nobles were exempt from paying most of the taxes and held all public positions. The third State was composed of a varied population: On the one hand there was the bourgeoisie, made up of the rich financiers and bankers; then there were the merchants, the artisans, the free peasants, the urban proletariat, who were in charge of the handicrafts and housework. Finally there were the servants who owed work and obedience to their masters.
The third State, despite paying its taxes and performing the worst jobs, did not have any type of rights. It was then that the discontent began, since the bourgeoisie needed to have a little access to power and manage a centralized state that would promote and protect its economic activities.
It was then that on July 14, 1789, the bourgeoisie received the support of a large sector exploited by the nobility: the peasants who, in the midst of an agitated revolutionary crowd, made up of men and women, fed up with so much injustice and hunger, they go violently to the Bastille (symbol of the absolutist regime), which functioned as a prison for opponents of the government system and took it by force. This action succeeds in terrorizing the followers of the old system, thus granting the triumph to the revolutionaries and displacing the nobles and supporters of absolutism from power.
The legacy of the French Revolution was very significant for the rise of democracy. From this fact, a large part of Western countries, including America, have found the solution to their problems in democratic forms of government.
