This third revolution, the popular revolution, was a movement which sprang from anticipation that the new order could resolve the growing economic problems of the Third Estate. It was these same people who intervened decisively again in October 1789 when the Estates General once more seemed threatened by a royal aristocratic counter coup. Before that happened, however, the financial crisis of 1788-1789 had produced a fourth and final revolution: the peasant revolution. This nationwide uprising was fired by fears for the safety of ripening crops – against the extraction of 'seigniorial dues' and labour services by aristocratic landlords.8 This movement was only subdued by the abolition of feudalism on the 4th of August 1789, cementing the end of the old aristocratic order. Lefebvre's work is often presented as the classic interpretation, although arguably the central factor in this was the fact that World War 2 took place after the publication of 'Quatre Vingt', and so nobody challenged his arguments. That being said, Lefebvre's interpretation takes into full account the research of Ernest Labrousse which highlights the significance of the economic origins of the Revolution.9.
In 1954 Alfred Cobban posed a new argument that the Revolution was not the work of a rising bourgeoisie, but that of a declining one.10 Cobban developed the previous analysis of Goodwin by arguing in 'The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution' that the revolutionary deputies were predominantly lawyers and professionals, rather than capitalist bourgeoisie as Marxists would suggest. This perspective suggests that the revolution was far from an attack on feudalism led by a new class of capitalist minded members of the bourgeoisie. However, Cobban and even Simon Schama provide such a valuable interpretation on the limitations of the Marxist view that they fail to offer an alternative yet coherent explanation of the origins of the Revolution itself.