If we are to have some way of understanding that extraordinary sequence of events, causes and consequences which goes by the name of the French Revolution, we must begin by outlining the conditions which gave rise to it. This chapter will therefore, to begin with, be devoted to a brief description of the taxes and the manner in which they were levied under the Ancien Régime, and following that, will proceed with an account of the fiscal crisis which lasted throughout the eighteenth century and was only resolved with the meeting of the Estates-General. The following chapter will be concerned with the equally critical economic crisis of 1789.

The direct cause of the French Revolution was the inability of the Royal Treasury to resolve its problems. The fiscal crisis, which, from 1786, took a sharp turn for the worse, can be traced far back into the past, for the state had been living beyond its means since the beginning of the seventeenth century. Yet the day came when palliative measures, which were by then a matter of habit, and temporary expedients, which served as a method of government, no longer delivered the hoped-for results. The peculiar features of the fiscal system of the Ancien Régime, and the hostile reactions which it tended to provoke, also account for the impasse in which the Treasury found itself. For want of any other solution, the privileged groups, which up until then had stubbornly rejected any reform, had no choice but to agree to the Estates-General being called.