Everything you wanted to know about THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Q: Was the revolution in France inevitable?
A: I wouldn’t say it was inevitable, because, prior to the revolution, very few people in France could have anticipated that such a thing would happen. At the time, France was the most powerful regime in western Europe. It was wealthy, or at least it appeared so; it had a big army; it was very stable; and it had had an autocratic monarchy for centuries. Yet there were underlying problems in the country and it was these problems that brought about the revolution (see page 36).
Q: Was it only Paris that was affected by the revolution, or did the unrest spread across France?
The revolution affected the entire country, but in different ways. Everybody was very well aware of what was happening, even before the Estates-General [the representative assembly of the three estates] met in 1789. The electoral process of selecting deputies to attend the Estates-General helped to politicise people, and books of grievances were drawn up, giving people the chance to say what they thought was wrong with the old regime. So the French people
