How Did The Enlightenment Cause The French Revolution

Kylie Turner
Mr.O’Reilly/Mr.Metzger
Humanities
27 October 2015 How did the enlightenment cause the French Revolution.
In order to understand the French Enlightenment you should know how it came into the French philosophers and eventually the French Revolution. In the years 1562-1598 France was plagued by religious wars between the Catholics and the Protestants. These wars would turn the french monarchy upside down with their religious beliefs. The growing power of the French caused a threat to the monarch. This caused the monarchs over the next 50 years to side with either the Protestants or the Catholics in order to keep their own security and the peace in France. Eventually, these wars would come to a stop with the Catholics controlling

Absolutism was the new form of government brought on by the religious and civil wars of the previous centuries. Louis XIV was role model for such an absolute monarch as he instituted a centralized government and centralized national bureaucracy. He also gave rein to the Catholic Church and recognized it as the national religion of France. The further confrontation between Catholics and Protestants, which saw the domination of the latter by the newly recognized national religion and the lack of freedom of citizens due to the strong centralized government, gave rise to the French Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, was born after louis XIV died in 1715 which was already underway in England before he died, when he died he just jump started the Enlightenment for the French. Louis XIV was an important part in the enlightenment because part in the E Most of the French Enlightenment philosophers had visited England and returned opposing the old authority. Although monarchies had changed in France over the previous centuries the entire power in France had seen a cycle of power shift between the monarchy, the nobility and the Church. The French Enlightenment philosophers sought to bring an end to