As did the American Revolution, the French Revolution had its immediate origins in the government’s financial difficulties. The efforts of the ministers of King Louis XV (r. 1715–1774) to raise taxes to meet the expenses of the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War were thwarted by the high courts, known as the parlements. The noble judges of the parlements resented the Crown’s threat to their exemption from taxation and decried the government’s actions as a form of royal despotism.

When renewed efforts to reform the tax system met a similar fate in 1776, the government was forced to finance its enormous expenditures during the American war with borrowed money. As a result, the national debt soared. In 1786, the finance minister informed the timid king Louis XVI (r. 1774–1792) that the nation was on the verge of bankruptcy.