The causes of the French Revolution are complex; many of them can be traced far back into history. Indeed, the groundwork for the French Revolution was laid long before King Louis XVI, Maximilien Robespierre, and other key figures of the era reached adulthood. One such contributor to the revolution was the Enlightenment. This seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophical movement, whose adherents believed in freedom and equality, led to the popular belief in the 1780s that France should renounce monarchy and support a new type of government—one based on representation and consent. Although some historians have noted that Enlightenment philosophers were more conservative than the revolutionaries who were later inspired by their writings, the ideas of the Enlightenment took root in a nation eager to break away from traditional beliefs.

For hundreds of years the French had believed in the &ldquo...