The French Revolution was a prominent revolution of its time. This revolution lasted for about ten years and completely altered the course of France's future. The results of the revolution resolved many of the causes that began the Revolution. Amongst the time of the English and American Revolutions, the French people were merely another oppressed group that rebelled against avaricious rulers. The French Revolution was caused by an assortment of factors. The causes varied in social, political, and economical aspects. .
Without the French society's actions, the Revolutions could not have been possible. A revolution began to boil in France's excessive population. At the end of the eighteenth century, France's population inconveniently rose. The rise, however, was mostly in the peasantry of the civilization. The increased vying of food and shelter caused rigorous competition between poverty stricken French citizens (Bosher 33). During this time there was also a decrease in grain production. "Even an entire region suffered from a crop failure resulting from bad weather or from crop diseases or pests" (34). An increase in population combined with this time of unprosperous farming led to widespread famine amid the conception of the Revolution. The time period before the Revolution gave birth to a different way for society to think. The Enlightenment, an intellectual movement in late 17th and 18th century Europe, taught society to put faith in the logic of man and his reasoning. Author Alfred Cobban said, "Now the view began to grow that the individual existed for the sake of the nation" (25). Philosophers taught to challenge all conventional standards (Hampson 47). The Enlightenment spread to France from northern Europe and created writers such as Voltaire and Diderot questioned every officials authority (Kirchberger x). The rigid social divisions of France also had a profound influence in the Revolution.
