The monarchial misrule as well as brain storming ideas of the great thinkers and philosophers had ignited the French revolution.
The despotic rule in France had been highly exploitative and the income of the state in France was considered as the income for the ruler. Ruler’s also claimed that they had divine right to rule over France. Luis XIV claimed that he himself was the state. Lui’s XVI had an opinion that whatever he said was the law of the state.
In France there was only one democratic institution that was called Estate General. It was no doubt a people’s representative body. But its meeting was not called since 1614. Even judicial posts in France had become subjects of hereditary rights. The whole administration system was formed by the privileged class. Common people had no right even to claim their participation in governmental affairs.
There was no local self government in France. France had not a universal civil code. There were 385 types of judicial codes which were in use in the different regions of the country. The language of the courts was Latin while mother tongue of the people was French.
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When France was under the tyrannical rule of the cruel despots, awakening came in the middle class and a great number of philosophers and thinkers showed the people a new path that was of a desirable change in the society and also in the nation. Voltaire compared the French administration with British administrative system in his work called; Letters on English’.
Rousseo in his ‘Social Contract’ had very clearly defined that it is the public who forms the state and not the ruler. In his another book “Discusses on Science and Art” he had presented his critical view on modern civilisation. Monsteque criticised the hypothesis of ‘divine rights of the rulers.’
Thus these thinkers presented democratic, humanistic and revolutionary ideas which had given French revolution a great impetus.