Jean-Christian Petitfils argues that without the crushing weight of public debt, the French Revolution would not have occurred. In his new historical study La Révolution française, published by Perrin, the historian examines the structural failures, financial ruin, and institutional blockages of the 1780s that ultimately plunged France into systemic collapse.
The crushing financial ruin of the 1780s
According to Petitfils, the structural parallels involve an unmistakable inability of the state to successfully reform itself alongside entrenched institutional deadlocks.
A yawning deficit and military financing
Historical records analyzed by Petitfils indicate that the crisis was rooted deeply in state spending and borrowing policies. By the late 1780s, the kingdom’s debt hovered between 1,2 and 1,9 milliard de livres de dette.
Annual revenues sat at approximately 475 million livres against expenditures supérieures à 600, leaving a yawning deficit driven heavily by military financing, notably the costly intervention in the American Revolutionary War.
Jacques Necker and international borrowing
The historian places substantial historical responsibility for the debt burden on Jacques Necker. In 1781, Necker published his Compte rendu au roi, claiming a minor financial surplus and committing what contemporaries considered a profound breach of protocol by publicly disclosing the royal budget.
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Rather than relying on domestic loans or increased taxation from a patriotic populace, Necker turned to international markets to borrow funds, expanding the national debt significantly. Petitfils notes that despite Necker’s popular reputation as a public protector, his financial strategies primarily catered to the interests of the high aristocracy.
Resistance to Calonne’s sweeping reforms
Efforts to avert bankruptcy through structural reform faced fierce resistance. Controller-General Charles Alexandre de Calonne recognized by August 1786 that the financial situation was untenable. Calonne proposed sweeping reforms to dismantle the remaining apparatus of feudalism—including the abolition of remaining serfdom, which still bound roughly 100 000 serfs en Bourgogne—and to strip away centuries of accumulated regional and noble privileges. However, the monarchy lacked the political authority to override these entrenched corporate bodies and provincial privileges.
Semi-banqueroute and the refusal of the clergy
The immediate catalyst for state insolvency arrived in May 1788 when Louis XVI, facing empty coffers, proclaimed a semi-banqueroute, paying military troops with interest-bearing notes.
When the king asked the clergy to increase its financial contribution, known as the “don gratuit,” to 8 million livres, the assembly of the clergy refused, offering a fraction of the request and demanding the convening of the Estates-General. Within months, the state nationalized church property, inflicting a 100-million-livre loss on the clergy.
The birth of the National Assembly and the rise of Napoleon
Petitfils contends that the upheaval was accelerated by a coalition of the three traditional orders of nobility—the nobility of the sword, the robe, and finance—who united to block royal reforms. Simultaneously, the rising bourgeoisie and the Third Estate pushed for broader political representation. On June 17, 1789, deputies of the Third Estate declared themselves the National Assembly, marking a dramatic transfer of absolute sovereignty from the crown to the nation.
Reflecting on the legacy of the period, Petitfils suggests that modern political culture remains shaped by the conflicts of 1789, marked by deep ideological divisions and difficulties in sustaining open political dialogue. The turmoil of the era ultimately required the stabilization efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte under the Consulat to establish enduring administrative institutions, such as the Civil Code, effectively concluding the revolutionary cycle by 1804.
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