Peasant and noble lives alike were also threatened by a failing agricultural economy. A stalemate between peasants who wanted to preserve traditional methods of cultivation and the monarchy’s efforts to advance new agricultural methods resulted in a complete failure to modernize.18 Recurrent crop failures caused peasants to hoard their
harvests, and they refused to trade with areas where famine was more pronounced. Fear of starvation was abundant, especially among the poor farmers who could not afford to buy food if their own crops failed. The traditional land-ownership system, or métayage, in which large farm owners leased parts of their land to tenants for a portion of the harvest, also frequently included feudal taxes due to the land owner. Those whose crops failed, but who still had to pay their taxes to their lord, found it extremely difficult to survive. Many lost faith in the system that put them in such a position with no chance of advancing.
Enlightenment ideas also had a large influence on the French Revolution. Philosophes such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau produced essays that considered the ideal forms of government, religion, economy, and society. Enlightenment writers’ criticisms of the established system, such as the monarchy and the Catholic Church, awakened literate French people to the need for reform.19 “By the second half of the eighteenth century, there was a yawning emotional void, left by the discredited notions of God and king. And the idea of the nation, la patrie, was beginning to fill this void.”20 People began to see the flaws and corruption within the government and the Church, and turned to the idea of a secular ‘motherland’ that reflected the will of the people.
