The French Revolution told Simply

King Louis XVI

The French revolution may seem daunting and complicated, but in reality, it is quite simple, you need only look at it in the right way. Let us start from the very beginning:
Marie Antoinette was an Austrian princess, and she was set-up in an arranged marriage with the French King's grandson, Louis, in order to ensure the peace between both empires. Louis was a shy young man when he married, easily influenced and with not much wit. He couldn't make up his mind, had no particular opinions, and kept a daily diary in which he wrote what he caught when out hunting. Many said at the time and they still do now, that he was not king material, what with his gentle nature and modest tinkering and manual work abilities. What he loved doing the most was hunting, followed by locksmithing, and let's not forget his huge appetite.
One her side, Marie Antoinette was an energetic teenager, still seeing life in pink. She was frivolous and didn't much care for important matters such as state problems or running a kingdom. She enjoyed theatre, playing, walking about in the gardens, and starting fashions. She had opinions, but mainly about fun things.

Marie Antoinette

When these two people married, there was a mixed reaction. The French people didn't like the idea, as they still had bitter feelings about Austria, which had dragged them into a war because of their alliance. Others were rejoicing at the idea, at the fortification of the French-Austrian alliance. Louis and Marie Antoinette weren't happy however. Louis' shy nature led him to mostly ignore his wife, and spend his time hunting. Marie Antoinette sought refuge in luxuries and plays. It is reported that only after seven years of marriage did they consumate it. The long period without an heir made the people dislike Marie Antoinette a little bit more, thinking of her as barren, when in reality, it was Louis' indecision.

Chateau part of Petit Trianon

The revolution stems from hatred and people having had enough. They encased many things, which filled up the bucket little by little, until finally it overspilled. The biggest event responsible was the financial crisis. When Louis became King, France was already in deficit after the Seven Years War, and taxes were brought up to make up for the loss of money. But I'm sure you know, the taxes were brought up for the poor, the peasants etc. For the nobles and the clergy, their taxes were reduced and almost null. The people of France were eventually so poor from all the money going to the King that they couldn't afford bread anymore. One thing to note about the French, they love their bread, and can't live, or eat, without it. Many finance ministers came and went, and most notable among them, Jacques Necker. Necker, realising the severity of the situation, proposed a new tax plan that took more money from the nobles and clergy and less from the poor, as well as reducing the power of the Parlements, a kind of legislature. He was fired. The next minister proposed only the taxes part of the plan, and was also fired. It's no surprise that France went into more of a depression, since the poor no longer had any money to give to taxes. This was the biggest trigger for the revolution, but there were other smaller matters, such as the Queen's Petit Trianon, her own personal chateau equipped with a make-believe farm featuring real farmers in action. This chateau caused anger for two reasons. The poor farmers believed it an insult that the Queen amused herself seeing the farmers working about, and sometimes participating in milking or other such things. The second reason goes back to money. Trianon, originally for Louis XV's (Louis XVI's grandfather) main mistress, Madame de Pompadour, was renovated and remade with the money of the state, making the deficit even worse. Not to be excluded from the list is the notorious affair of the necklace, resulting in Marie Antoinette having the reputation of a money-spending slut, responsible for everything that was wrong. Indeed, although it was a case of wrong-place wrong-time, Marie Antoinette was blamed for all the troubles, and was non-affectionately referred to as "L'Autrichienne" (The Austrian, feminin form).

Estates General Meeting

But enough about why, let's move on to the how. As a last solution to the money crisis, the King reinstated Les États-Généraux (Estates-General) in May 1789. Constituting of a general assembly representing the three types of people, noble, clergy and the common folk, Les États-Généraux were left to come up with and decide on an idea for the depression. Once the people, that is, the Tiers État (Third Estate) gained a little power, they realised how powerless they still were against the monarchy ruled by the rich, the clergy, and royalty. They started meeting internally to discuss things without the full États-Généraux, going with the name of Les Communes (the Commons), until finally breaking away from the États-Généraux to become L'Assemblé Nationale (National Assembly). They mainly broke away because of the voting system that would be used in the États-Généraux. Originally, each member of the estate would get one vote each, and there were twice as many people in the Third Estate (renamed to National Assembly) than in the First Estate (clergy) or the Second (noble). But the policy was changed last minute and the votes became one per estate, meaning a vote out of three. The National Assembly did not like that.

Taking the Bastille

Jacques Necker urged the King to hold a Séance Royale (Royal Session), which the King planned on doing, but people in his council told him not to try to unify the Estates, but to rather oppose unity on them. The King decreed that they could not meet on their own, and as is to be expected, the National Assembly did not like that either. They completely broke off to become the National Constituent Assembly. They continued meeting and made it their duty to completely rewrite the constitution, but feared that the King was planning on forcibly removing them using the foreign soldiers that were arriving into the country. They decided to act before Royalty and set their eyes on the Bastille (prison) which contained big amounts of gunpowder. By this time, the revolution was set in motion, and there was chaos and looting everywhere. The National Constituent Assembly as well as many commoners stormed the Bastille on the 14th of July 1789, now become the national holiday of France. After storming the Bastille and killing many people in it, although there were only nine prisoners, the mob went around town parading various heads of important people on sticks. The mob was aided by most of the French Guard, which was on their side. The King was alarmed at the violence, and backed down on the Assembly.
A great fear had spread throughout France after the Bastille. The nobles were afraid of the peasants and thus fled to other countries, and the peasants were afraid the nobles were trying to bring war to France by summoning foreigners. A little more than a month after the storming of the Bastille, the National Constituent Assembly created the Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen) and abolished feudalism. The King's absolute power was also reduced to simply saying yes or no to ideas voted by the Assembly, called the veto.
During all that time when the people of France gained more power than the King, the debt had only worsened, which brought on the march of the women on Versailles. They first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, the Assembly's HQ, but when their cries for bread and an end to royalty powers were ignored, they marched to Versailles, where they demanded the royal family to move to Paris to a less luxurious lifestyle in accordance to the deficit and shortage of bread. They had brought with them several guns and weapons, and as they pushed through, many guards were killed. Eventually, the King agreed to move, finally and completely making the Assembly legal.
Later, there was a problem with the church, and the pope. When everyone became citizens and equals (not yet done chronologically), the clergy were also starting to be voted on, denying the authority of the pope. This caused even more riots with the ones obsessed with religion. They began calling themselves Royalists because they wanted the King and monarchy back, and with it, their church. These people, mostly from Brittany, became known as the Chouans, and started a war from within France.
Besides all these hiccups, the constitution was slowly being rewritten from scratch, and everything was almost going smoothly, with various new laws and codes that seemed in the favour of a citizen. Even the freedom of the press was granted. But everything metaphorically crashed when the King tried to runaway, not liking where the revolution was going. He was captured thirty kilometers away from his home in Paris, along with his wife and children, after which his home, which had already been like a prison, was actually turned into one. The family was placed under constant surveillance and they weren't even allowed to stay long in their garden.

Maximilien Robespierre

The Assembly still preferred to have a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, so the King was kept for an image, but soon he posed a threat. In the eyes of the people, he was dangerous and could call on his wife's family to wreak war on France. George Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave big and impressive speeches, rousing up the public in the favour of a republic. The Assembly, still wanting a sort of monarchy, ordered their municipal police to control the crowds, resulting in deaths and the end of free speech. Danton fled to England while Desmoulins went into hiding. In addition to everything happening, Austria also warned France to stop its sillyness and reinstate the King or else.
Although the Assembly had tried to run the country, everything fell apart and broke up, leaving the treasury even emptier than before, not to mention the completely messed up army and navy.
In 1792, the Paris Commune, self appointed new government, attacked the King's home in Paris and took him prisoner, while also sending gangs into prisons all over to kill the prisoners in their cells, now known as the September Massacres. The Assembly had become so feeble that they were practically pushed away, and once the Paris Commune became the official new government, they started by decreeing a republic. Once done, Austria was evidently angered, but France declared war on them before they could, and so began a war on multiple fronts. An inner war with the Chouans, a political war with the monarchists and royalists, and war with almost of all Europe who didn't want the revolution disease to pass around to their own kingdoms.
Maximilien Robespierre delivered a speech that would define the fate of the King's trial, stating that if the King, now completely useless, was allowed to continue to live, he would be a constant threat to the Republic. On the 15th of January 1793, Louis was voted guilty of conspiracy and attacks on public safety, and was guillotined on the 21st of January.

The Guillotine

Now things were really in the gutter. The war on both fronts wasn't being won, the deficit was still getting worse, and anybody simply suspected of treason, whatever that meant, was guillotined almost immediately by the Committee of Public Safety. This period is known as La Grande Terreur (the reign of terror). Robespierre, the one so fervent for the death of the King, became an important leader of said committee, and was mostly responsible for sending people to the guillotine. The Queen was also subject to the guillotine, but not before her children were taken away to be 're-educated'. Even Danton and Desmoulins (and his wife) were subjected to the guillotine, although they had previously been best friends with Robespierre, who allowed their execution. Eventually though, in the need to create a perfect republic, the republic soon started turning into a dictature by the hands of Robespierre and his committee. Anyone opposed to them, and therefore to the republic, was executed, almost without trial. The entire Convention, comprising of the entire government, retaliated and in turn guillotined Maximilien Robespierre along with many others who were turning the republic into a dictature. With the end of Robespierre came the end of the reign of terror, but not the end of the problems. The country still had no money, and was still in a war and remained so for a year, until along came Napoleon and his ambitions and army, but that is for another post.
But it is sad when you think about it; in the beginning, all the commoners wanted was some bread...

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