Comparison of The American Revolution and the French Revolution

10 Pages 2570 Words

the national debt from 8.7 million livres to 3 million livres.

Had Turgot been allowed to pursue his policies of free trade and less
government intervention, France may very well have become Europe's first
"common market" and avoided violent revolution. Unfortunately for France
and the cause of freedom, resistance from the Court and special interests
proved too powerful, and Turgot was removed from office in 1776. "The
dismissal of this great man," wrote Voltaire, "crushes me. . . . Since that
fatal day, I have not followed anything . . . and am waiting patiently for
someone to cut our throats."3

Turgot's successors, following a mercantilist policy of government
intervention, only made the French economy worse. In a desperate move to
find money in the face of an uproar across the country and to re-establish
harmony, Louis XVI agreed to convene the Estates-General for May, 1789.
Meanwhile, the king's new finance minister, Jacques Necker, a Swiss
financial expert, delayed the effects of mercantilism by importing large
amounts of grain.

On May 5, the Estates-General convened at Versailles. By June 17, the Third
Estate had proclaimed itself the National Assembly. Three days later, the
delegates took the famous Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disband until
France had a new constitution.

But the real French Revolution began not at Versailles but on the streets
of Paris. On July 14, a Parisian mob attacked the old fortress known as the
Bastille, liberating, as one pundit put it, "two fools, four forgers and a
debaucher." The Bastille was no longer being used as a political prison,
and Louis XVI had even made plans to destroy it. That made little
difference to the mob, who were actually looking for weapons.

Promising the guards safe-conduct if they would surrender, the leaders of
the mob broke their word and hacked them to death. It would be the first of
many broken promises. Soon the heads, torsos, and h...