Source+A

Hi, those doing Source A can put their analysis here.

**Source A** **The** //**Parlement**// **President’s response to King Louis XVI’s decision to tax the nobility and the clergy (6 August 1787), in view of the growing debt the government was facing.**

Your //Parlement// has considered this issue of taxing the nobility and clergy for twelve years. We conclude that it does not have sufficient power to approve these measures as they are excessive and unreasonable.

Given the fact that your //Parlement// finds it impossible to vote for such crushing taxes, it can only urge Your Majesty to agree to the summoning of the Estates General.

If, despite the appeals, arguments and views of your //Parlement//, Your Majesty were still to feel obliged to make use of your absolute power, we would continue to protest with firmness and respect, against such practices which would be both disastrous and illegal.

Kimberly (13)

This source supports to a large extent that the French Rev was due to deteriorating economic conditions.

This source is a response from the Parlement President to King Louis XVI’s decision to the nobility and the clergy in view of the growing debt the government was facing. In this source the Parlement President argues against the decision to tax the nobility and the clergy, and says that if King Louis XVI decided to tax the nobility and the clergy, they would “continue to protest with firmness and respect, against such practices which would be both disastrous and illegal ”.

From this source, we can infer that King Louis XVI is now caught in a spot. If he decides to go ahead and tax the nobility and clergy, the nobility and the clergy have promised to “continue to protest with firmness and respect”. If he does not tax them, he will have to tax the third estate, which would increase the burden of taxes that the third estate has to face, which would make them even more displeased than they already are. This would cause either of the two groups to revolt, so from this we can say that the deteriorating economic conditions caused the French Revolution.

Also, from contextual knowledge we know that the King decided not to tax the nobility and clergy and instead went on to raise the taxes the third estate had to pay. This made the third estate’s life very hard, as they did not earn enough to both pay taxes and live a reasonably comfortable life. While they were in this condition, they saw the nobles and the clergy living lavish lifestyles and not having to pay taxes. This imbalance of wealth made the third estate extremely unhappy, so they decided to revolt. Thus we can see that this is a cause of the French Revolution.

This source can be said to be quite reliable, as it is coming straight from the Parlement’s President, who shamelessly says that taxing the nobility is “excessive and unreasonable”, even though from contextual knowledge we know that the nobility and clergy has more than enough resources to pay the taxes.

Analysis of Source A

This source agrees with the hypothesis to a large extent. In this source, we see that King Louis XVI was attempting to tax the nobility and clergy in order to lessen the debt that the government was facing. This shows that France was in dire economic straits, as if the economy of France were healthy and the government were not in debt, King Louis XVI would not have a need to extend taxes (which previously had only applied to the third estate), to the first and second estates. The //Parlement// felt that the taxes were "unreasonable and excessive", and thus could not vote for the taxes. This is especially true since I know from contextual knowledge that before the summoning of the Estates General, the //Parlement// of France mainly consisted of nobles. The refusal of the upper classes to have taxes imposed on them would have undoubtedly led to further economic problems. In order for King Louis XVI to push through the taxes, he was advised to summon an Estates General, something which had not bee done in France for many years. This shows us how desperate King Louis XVI was to bring about economic reform, showing us that the country was in a bad state economically. Thus, I feel that this source supports the hypothesis as it shows us that France did not have a good economic climate at the time. Pavithra Ramkumar

Yiming (25)

Source A supports this statement to a great extent.

It can be inferred from Source A that the inability of the King Louis to decisively enforce the policy of taxing the nobility and clergy would have led to deteriorating economic conditions that in turn led to the French Revolution.

From the source, King Louis had been unable to make use of his absolute power to enforce the policy of “taxing the nobility and clergy” for “twelve years”. This tax generated would have improved the economic situation and diminished the deficit accumulated in France during that period. Based on my contextual knowledge, although the nobility and clergy constituted only a small percentage of the population, they owned up to 40 percent of the land, and considering the fact that they had resisted from paying taxes due to the “protests…against such practices” for more than a decade, France would have lost half of the taxes it should have collected during the period and this would have been debilitating to the financial situation of the government and its people, exacerbating the deteriorating economic conditions that would then spark off the discontent of the people to lead to the French Revolution.

This is verified with Source C, in which the parish of Boisse in France in 1788 states that the Third Estate “desires…all the taxes…be paid equally by Lords, Churchmen and the Third Estate according to the possessions of each”. This reflects that the payment of taxes is inequitable such that the Third Estate had to pay all of the taxes whilst the First and Second Estates were exempt, and it can be inferred that this was not only debilitating to the people such that they had to write to complain of the situation, it also would have worsened the economic conditions of France considering that many of the taxes were not paid by the nobility and the clergy.