Scope
This timeline covers the long prehistory of the French Revolution through the interaction of warfare, debt, financial reform attempts, institutional rigidity, political breakdown, and the intellectual transformation associated with the Enlightenment.
Inclusion rule
Include events that materially worsened the fiscal structure of the monarchy, attempted to repair it, or exposed the inability of the old regime to reconcile finance with political legitimacy.
Why this timeline exists
The revolutionary crisis of 1789 is easier to understand when placed inside a longer history of debt, state ambition, credit, reform, and repeated failure. This timeline provides that broader frame.
Key phases
- War-state expansion and debt accumulation
- Financial experimentation and crisis
- Intellectual criticism and reformist thought
- Reform without structural resolution
- Final breakdown into political crisis