French Revolution Research Thread

[Luigi]

Apparently in 1789 half of all of France's revenues were spent paying JUST THE INTEREST on their debts.

Some potential links: https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/201 ... -the-debt/
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/history/histo ... e-in-1789/

Also found this post on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ ... nary_debt/

[Luigi]

A good point to consider - Louis XIV and XV were not the first kings to go around wasting a bunch of money and bankrupting their realm, so that cant be the sole cause of the revolution, reign of terror, etc. The people had to be willing and actually carry it out.

[Tactless1]

So Napoleon took over and eventually spent millions if not billions of francs on his wars. How did France recover??????