The revolution began due to the treatment of the middle and lower class by the first and second Estates. Even though the Third Estate represented about 98% of the French population they only held one vote; this often led to the interests of the people being overruled by the nobility and the church. The elaborate spending done by King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, and their support to the American revolutionaries led to France’s financial crisis. Because of this the price of bread, a staple in the French diet, soared. Along with this in 1788 many of the French farmers experienced poor harvests. The nobles begin to import more goods causing many French workers to be laid off. By 1789 half of the French population is in need of work, and one of eight French citizens are in extreme need. Soon the King is forced to call the Estates General, a meeting of the three estates. The King and the other estates lock the Third Estate out of the meeting hall, because of this the Third Estate pledges to not disband until they had written a new constitution. That is what brought on the French Revolution, and in it leaders like Maximilien Robespierre brought the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers that he would attempt to incorporate into the new government.
