MOHAMED ABULINEIN EL-SAYED A BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789 1799)

the philosophical spirit in salons, caf and clubs, came the erosion of the monarchical authority, undermined by the provisional, short-lived reforms and opposition effectuated by the aristocracy. The French Revolution is marked as a period of radical social and political upheaval. France was wracked by a Revolution which radically changed the regime, administration, military and culture of the nation as well as plunging Europe into a series of wars. France went from a largely feudal state under an absolutist monarch to a republic which executed the king, and then to an empire under Napoleon Bonaparte.
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In adhering to an outdated feudal system, the French aristocracy and monarchy rendered the true impetus to the French Revolution. France was rife with unsustainable economic and cultural disparities: it boasted some of the greatest minds of the Enlightenment despite rampant illiteracy and penury among its populace. Perhaps most destabilizing factor was the class disparity between the emerging wealthy bourgeoisie and the old nobility. At the same time, discontent grew among the lower classes as landlords in the countryside went on to bind peasants who constituted the great majority of the population who lived in miserable poverty and had pulled no strings on the way the country was run. They did not own the land they worked on, but rented them from nobles. The cities were places of great squalor, and life for the poor there was no better than it was in the country. The social order had changed a little for many years. Yet, the grievances of the poor were soon to find expression in the violence and passion of the French Revolution.