<P> A growing number of the French citizenry had absorbed the ideas of "equality" and "freedom of the individual" as presented by Voltaire, Jean - Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot and other philosophers and social theorists of the Age of Enlightenment . The American Revolution demonstrated that it was plausible for Enlightenment ideas about how a government should be organized to actually be put into practice . Some American diplomats, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, had lived in Paris, where they consorted freely with members of the French intellectual class . Furthermore, contact between American revolutionaries and the French troops who served in North America helped spread revolutionary ideas to the French people . </P> <P> France in 1787, although it faced some difficulties, was one of the most economically capable nations of Europe . The French population exceeded 28 million; of Europe's 178 to 188 millions, only Imperial Russia had a greater population (37 to 41 million). France was also among the most urbanized countries of Europe, the population of Paris was second only to that of London (approximately 500,000 vs. 800,000), and six of Europe's 35 larger cities were French . </P> <P> Other measures confirm France's inherent strength . France had 5.3 million of Europe's approximately 30 million male peasants . Its area under cultivation, productivity per unit area, level of industrialization, and gross national product (about 14% of the continental European product, excluding Russia, and 6% to 10% above the level elsewhere in Europe) all placed France near the very top of the scale . In short, while it may have lagged slightly behind the Low Countries, and possibly Switzerland, in per capita wealth, the sheer size of the French economy made it the premier economic power of continental Europe . </P> <P> Historian John Shovlin states, "It is a truism that the French Revolution was touched off by the near bankruptcy of the state ." It was the burden of the national debt that led this to the long - running financial crisis of the French government . Before the revolution, the French debt had risen from 8 billion to 12 billion livres . Extravagant expenditures on luxuries by Louis XVI, whose rule began in 1774, were compounded by debts that were run up during the reign of his even - more - profligate predecessor, Louis XV (who reigned from 1715 to 1774). Heavy expenditures to conduct losing the Seven Years' War (1756--1763), and France's backing of the Americans in their War of Independence, ran the tab up an even further 1.3 billion livres </P>

What led to the french revolution of 1789