3
Launay’s men were able to hold the mob back, but more and more Parisians were converging on the Bastille. Around 3 p.m., a company of deserters from the French army arrived. The soldiers, hidden by smoke from fires set by the mob, dragged five cannons into the courtyard and aimed them at the Bastille. Launay raised a white flag of surrender over the fortress. Launay and his men were taken into custody, the gunpowder and cannons were seized, and the
seven prisoners of the Bastille were freed. Upon arriving at the Hotel de Ville, where Launay was to be arrested by a revolutionary council, the governor was pulled away from his escort by a mob and murdered.
Analysis
How could it Happen that in a modern autocracy that a rabble of peasents can defy the judgement of God and topple a modern monarch
The three main causes of French revolution are as follows: 1. Political Cause 2. Social Cause 3. Economic Cause.. The Bridge will now look at each cause indiviually, starting with the political causes. For surely the tensions that led to the overthrow of the Bourbons could happen elsewhere
1. Political Cause:
Modern France is the centre of autocratic monarchy. The French Monarchs have unlimited power and have declared themselves as the “Representative of God”.
Since Louis XIV, The French Monarchs engaged in luxurious extravagance at the royal court of Versailles. They enjoyed unlimited power. By the Letter de Catchet, they arrested any person at any time and imprisoned them.
They showed nothing but indifference towards their subjects, the attitude of the monarch is revealed by his son’s famous remarks, “I am the State without me there is no France”.
But the ‘butterfly monarch’ weakened the economic condition of France. Seven Years War against England brought nothing for France except bankruptcy due to over expenditure in wars and luxury.
France was weak and the king Louis XVI was an innocent and simple man strongly influenced by his queen Marie Antoinette who always interfered in the state affairs. Marie Antoinette was the daughter of Marie Theresa, the Austrian Empress. She enjoyed the luxurious and extravagant life. She sowed seed of the French Revolution. Thus, the autrocratic monarchy, defective administration, extravagant expenditure formed the political cause of the French Revolution.