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- HOW MANY PEOPLE TOOK DEPT AND HOW MUCH INTREST DID THEY TAKE
- The war added more than a billion livres to a debt that had already risen to more than 2billion livres. Lenders who gave the state credit, now began to charge10 per cent interest on loans. So the French government was obliged to spend an increasing percentage of its budget on interest payments alone
- WHAT DID THE GOVERNMENT DO TO MEET ITS REGULAR TAXS AND HOW MANY ESTAES WERE THERE, WHICH ESTATE PAID TAXES
- To meet its regular expenses, such as the cost of maintaining an army, the court, running government offices or universities, the state was forced to increase taxes. Yet even this measure would not have sufficed. French society in the eighteenth century was divided into three estates, and only members of the third estate paid taxes.
- WHY WAS THE ESTATE PART OF FEUDAL SYSTEM
- The society of estates was part of the feudal system that dated back to the middle ages. The term Old Regime is usually used to describe the society and institutions of France before 1789.
- DID THE CHURCH ALSO EXTRACTED THE TAXES, DID THE POPULATION OF FRANCE ROSE RAPIDLY
- YES, The Church too extracted its share of taxes called tithes from the peasants, and finally, all members of the third estate had to pay taxes to the state. These included a direct tax, called taille, and a number of indirect taxes which were levied on articles of everyday consumption like salt or tobacco. The burden of financing activities of the state through taxes was born by the third estate alone. The population of France rose from about 23 million in 1715 to 28million in 1789. This led to a rapid increase in the demand for food grains. Production of grains could not keep pace with the demand. So the price of bread which was the staple diet of the majority rose rapidly.
- AS I THAUGHT PEACENTS ALSO TOOK PART IN THE REVOLT
- In the past, peasants and workers had participated in revolts against increasing taxes and food scarcity. But they lacked the means and programs to carry out full-scale measures that would bring a change in the social and economic order. This was left to those groups within the third estate who had become prosperous and had access to education and new ideas.
- The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of social groups ,termed the middle class, who earned their wealth through an expanding overseas trade and from the manufacture of goods such as wollen and silk textiles that were either exported or bought by the richer members of society .Louis XVI had to increase taxes for reasons you have learnt in the previous section. How do you think he could have gone about doing this? In France of the Old Regime the monarch did not have the power to impose taxes according to his will alone. Rather he had to call a meeting of the Estates General which would then pass his proposals for new taxes. The Estates General was a political body to which the three estates sent their representatives. However, the monarch alone could decide when to call a meeting of this body. The last time it was done was in 1614.
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