The following circumstances led to the outbreak of revolutionary protest in France:

1. Louis XVI was an autocratic ruler who could not compromise with his luxurious life. He also lacked farsightedness.
2. When he ascended the throne the royal treasury was empty. Long years of war had drained the financial resources of France. Added to this was the cost of maintaining an extravagant court at the immense palace of Versailles.
3. Under Louis XVI France helped the thirteen American colonies to gain their independence from Britain the war added more than a billion lives to a dept credit, now began to charge 10% interest on loans. So the French government was obliged to spend an increasing percentage of its budget on interest payments alone.
4. The state finally increased taxes to meet its regular expenses such as the cost of maintaining an army, running government offices and universities.
5. The French society was divided into three estates but only members of the first two estates i.e,, the clergy and the nobles were exempted to pay taxes. They belonged to the privileged classes. Thus the burden of financing activities of the state through taxes was borne by the third estate only.
6. The middle class that emerged in the 18th century France was educated and enlightened. They refuted the theory of divine rights of the kings and absolute monarchy. They believed that a person’s social position must depend on his merit. They had access to the various ideas of equality and freedom proposed by philosophers like John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu etc. Their ideas got popularised among the common mass as a result of intensive discussions and debates in saloons and coffee houses and through books and newspapers.
7. The French administration was extremely corrupt. It did not give weightage to the French Common man.
   The state finally increased taxes to meet its regular expenses such as the cost of maintaining an army, running government offices and universities.