The Pale Assassin - Background
What caused the French Revolution?
Much had happened in France during the years before The Pale Assassin begins that finally led to the outbreak of revolution during that fatal year of 1789.
The country was bankrupt because of long years of financial mismanagement and its involvement in two costly wars – the Seven Years War and the American War of Independence. The French system of taxation was very unfair, and there was a huge division of wealth between the rich (the aristocracy) and the poor (the craftsmen, or artisans, and the peasants, who worked for the most part on the estates owned by the aristocracy). Food shortages after a succession of bad harvests particularly affected the poor, who resented the privileged life-style of the aristocracy, especially those at the court of the King.
There was also a new challenge to established views. The American Constitution, and the intellectual movement of writers and thinkers called the Enlightenment, had shown French liberals that there was another, fairer, way of organising society. Indeed, among them were many aristocrats who recognised the need for change and reform; but ultimately they could do little to stem the violent, bloody flow of what became the people’s revolution.
But perhaps, most crucially, the King was badly advised. Isolated in his grand, extravagant palace at Versailles and surrounded by flattering courtiers, he had little idea of how the ordinary people were suffering.
