Explain the financial and political problems of the French government in 1797
...ments (law courts), which to approve a bill before it could be passed as law. To make things worse, the King and Queen did not have the hearts of the people. This is needed for a successful rule. The King, while liked, was regarded as useless and indecisive, while the Queen was hated because people believed her to be a spendthrift and disliked her Austrian roots. Louis was not actually a bad King but his priorities were his family, hunting, and clock making rather than running the country. Marie Antoinette was very young and not knowledgeable about political affairs. However she was very good for international relationships because she was beautiful and amenable. She did not actually spend a lot of money; this was simply a misconception. The King did not realise the civil unrest that was in France and for this reason did not deem it necessary to pass reforms in France. This became a problem. The King’s backward thinking prevented change of the administrative system, which was in chaos. France had overlapping systems at work in the country. In the South, the country was ruled by Roman law. The North followed a law based on local customs. There were 35 ancient provinces, 34 modern generalities, 8 military regions, and 13 parlements; all working at the same time and in their own ways. The problem was that when new laws, systems, or structures were introduced the old ones were not discontinued, they were just added to. Weights and measures varied from town to town, which made taxation difficult. This meant the amount of goods one had was different wherever they were. Taxation was a very big problem. The North and centralised parts of France were taxed heavily while further out regions were not so. A classic example of the chaos, is shown in travelling up the Saone and Rhone rivers, on this journey an individual could be taxed 36 times. Certain elites in the country were exempt from tax or most taxes, and so the main debt fell to the peasants, who did not have the money to pay it. The debt in France was royal, not national which again, caused problems. There was no centralised treasury. This meant there was no way to tell the financial state of the country; therefore the King did not see why there was a problem borrowing more money. The end result caused the bankruptcy of France. The government did not put enough money into repaying its debt. For this reason the country was in a very bad financial state in 1787. France’s administrative system was already in trouble. Massive debts were already accumulated, yet France kept entering into wars. This only increased the problems. France had a nasty habit of losing wars. As well as the human cost, the political cost of warfare was great. T...