How Was Louis Xvi Responsible For The French Revolution

King Louis was responsible for the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. A king by definition inherits his position by right of birth, but like most Kings, Louis XVI also inherited the inadvertence of the previous ruler of France, his grandfather. Despite this misfortune, he proved to be more than incompetent to do his duty as ruler of France. His autocratic and neglectful style of leading led to his downfall and his poor decision making economically and politically only cemented it.

The social system in France had already been flawed many years before Louis XVI came into power. It was of the norm to have people of different social and economic standings, this is what people had been raised to believe. The segregation between estates became more obvious when Louis XVI ruled because the peasantry had to bear the weight of the country on their shoulder because they paid the majority of tax although they were poor. Louis XVI was indecisive by nature, this did not act in his favour as the country needed the king to make decisions and to stand by them. The decisions

The country was spending twenty percent more money than they were earning. Eighty percent of their income was coming from the tax of the peasants. The clergy and nobilty were exempted from paying property tax and the nobilty often avoided paying other taxes. Naturally the peasantry were angry and frustrated, how could they bear the weight of the entire country 's debt when they could hardly feed their own families? Louis failed to see that the very people he hired to collect tax syphoned some of the money for themselves, this was one of his many oversights. Some may argue that this was beyond his control, but no evidence shows that Louis XVI attempted to solve this problem of corruption. Instead, his solution was to tax the peasants on the very little money they had to spend on their own families. People were desperate and frustrated, and knew something had to