What caused the French Government during the french revolution to have economic/financial problems?
France had been in huge debt since the beginning of the century, the almost constant wars of Louis XIV and Louis XV being the main reasons. The decision of Louis XVI to aid the American colonists during the American War of Independence made the financial situation even worse, due to the high financial cost of French involvement. The fact that the richest parts of French society – the aristocracy and the clergy (the Catholic Church owned a lot of land in France) were exempt from direct taxation, and fiercely resisted indirect forms of taxation, made it difficult for Louis XVI to reduce the budget deficit, as even in peacetime the maintenance of the large French standing army and navy was very expensive, and he couldn’t tap in to the resources of the wealthiest parts of the population. No real attempt had been made to address the budget deficit problem throughout the century, so by 1789 it was out of control.
