This is one of my favorite topics ever to talk about and you're giving me a reason to so I'm going to absolutely go off here ;)

One of the major 'turns' of the war was the military turning against the royal family and ultimately, in very large numbers, supporting the revolutionaries. I'd like to talk about those factors, but first, some context and that begins with the ascension of Louis XV, the predecessor to Louis XVI who would be the king that would be introduced to the end of the guillotine, to see the beginning of the issues with the military.

The army began serious degradation under Louis XV. Competent generals would die of old age and would be replaced by sycophantic noblemen whose competence was not in the field but in the court, most notably, Louis XV's mistress' Marquise de Pompadour or her successor, madame du Barry. These two women, John Elting would put it, "ruled France and its armies utterly with a pout, a smile, a flutter of eyelashes, a twitch of the hips." The decay would become almost immediately noticeable. French generals would become infamous for their brutal looting practices and leaving the field of battles to go sit at home if the weather went bad, leaving their men in the field to continue drills or battle.

In 1758 when General Louis de Bourbon-Conde, aka Comte Clermont, took command of the French army. He was also one of these incompetent generals but his summation of the army's condition is useful:

*"[This] poor army is in a miserable state . . . companies less than twelve men strong; with hospitals which are dirty and [stink]; no medical orderlies, little linen, little broth. In short, we are in an inconceivable mess; no discipline, either among the officers or the men; hardly any officers with their [units]."*^[1]

To no surprise, the Seven years War was a complete and utter disaster for the French. I'm running out of adjectives here but try to understand how absolutely smashed they would be, with almost a casual and "almost contemptuous expertise." I can not understate the shame that reverberated through the French military from highest officer to lowest soldiers and this would be the straw that would break the camels back and cause mass reform over the next few years. I'm going to go over these reforms briefly as they help put more context to the utter fuckup that was Louis XVI.

First was Etienne Francois de Choiseul, his tenure was 1764-1771 for reference. His most notable achievement was to convert the infantry and cavalry corps from being their colonel's and captains little private military and enterprises into permanent government run organizations. This is important as rationing and new horses and bedding and clothing was now on the crown's dime. It would establish a system of administration and accountability for military funds and would end a very long practice of abuse at the hands of aristocratic officers starving their men while they ate like kings. There would be quartiers-maitres (quartermasters) to handle these records and supplies distributions. From this came much more reform such as the formation of a military police and a militia reorganization.

The next was from Claude Louis de Saint-Germain. He would form territorial divisions and stopped the sale of officer commissions. As in, you could no longer just show up with a lot of money and say you were an officer now. He would create ten more military schools and would overall create a more tight and organized military. There is so much more but I think you're getting the picture now, the French military would begin to become a very respected group in a matter of years. Their staff officers and artillerymen in particular were admired and their infantry and cavalry divisions began looking damn respectable. The force sent to assist the United States was nothing short of an efficient and well administered machine.

The artillery was a peculiar area of the French military. It was straddling the world of being attached to infantry battalions and only achieved independent status in 1774 but even then they were not fully independent arms until 1793. These men were expected to pass both written and practical tests and because of the erm, less honorable and less distinguished nature of the burgeoning field less noblemen pushed their way into these fields to break that up. These officers neither had high birth but had to get into these tough schools on intelligence and hard work. This would include one Corsican who you may know named Napoleon Bonaparte.

It was, however, too little too late. Louis XV nor Louis XVI supported these efforts and, most of the time, actively thwarted the progress because of general incompetence. Choiseul would be fired because a Du Barry would be more sympathetic to Louis XV's wishes. Segur's work, who strengthened the Artillery Corps and organized the Army Staff Corps to a more meritocratic system would be almost completely reversed with Louis XVI announcing a decree that all Officers must have four generations of noble ancestry and submit documents to prove it. Pierre-Joseph Bourcet would be scoffed at when he attempted to implement examinations and a probationary period for officers, as noblemen were clearly good enough already.

Right up until 1792, Louis XVI had absolute control over half of the officer appointments and promotions. Like I said, he was completely and incompetent and, moreover, did not really seem to care. He would be influenced by none other than Marie Antoinette in this regard, and it would be disastrous. The chasm between officers and the regular men would deepen. The four generations requirement would extend to officers of provincial militias and even the renowned and highly prestigious Artillery and Engineer schools which had previously been mostly untouched by the King's antics.

Because every nobleman who wanted a position in the officer corps got it, there would be an enormous surplus of officers. As in, the needs of the aristocracy, not the size of the army, was what determined the number of officers. Such a surplus of officers would cause efficiency issues to say the least. Many would be underworked, did not care for the military life, and did not care for their men. They would often take no time with their men and leave the training and drills for their officers de fortune and Majors, who often had no estate and were paid by commission. With absolutely no upward mobility available to them they would also lose their zeal and stop giving a crap as well.

In 1787, for an army of 180,000 men (9400 of them officers), there were 18 Marshals, 225 lieutenant generals, and 538 field marshals. Fredrick the Great has 103 generals for 195,000 men, for reference. Their lavish lifestyles would block the roads with massive baggage trains. The poor soldiers, usually hungry and with little morale because their officers didn't give two craps, would have to guard these trains full of food and luxuries for the officers who did not do anything all day. Most Captains wouldn't know the name of even 5 of their men, as there were at times over 30 or 40 lieutenant colonel's per regiment! These men would live in

**. . . veritable cities of luxury, with their attendants, purveyors, bakers, butchers, merchants of all sorts, theatrical troupes, comedians, comediennes, and their chambermaids and other young laides who are not at all washerwomen or vivandieres [as in, prostitutes] . . . Life at headquarters went like a country fair."*^[2]

Another important factor that would cause the mutiny of the men toward their king was the issue of pay. I'm sure you could have seen this coming -- first lack of food, and now lack of pay. It was already petty change these men were getting but to tack onto that officers would take 'cuts' from their mens pay (illegally but nobody cared) and would disguise it as inflation or phantom purchases. To top this all off it was not unheard of for men being forced to 'indefinitely' continue to serve after their 6-8 year tenure. The result of this was catastrophic -- NCO's and grenadiers which should be formed of the most experienced and veteran men who want to come back would not. They had no low level leadership or experienced men. Lastly, desertion. Sometimes as much as one third of the enlisted men in one year would desert.

This would create even more shadowy practices. God it's just a race to the bottom with these people, huh? The recruiters were nothing short of menaces to get more men to fill up the holes left by deserters who were leaving for the Austrian and Prussian armies. Racoleur's were men who would lure and even kidnap men, force them into buildings, and wait until an authorized recruiter came and bought the men. Combine this with the fact that there was an increasing number of foreigners acting as independent regiments within the military who would be paid significantly more and treated much better (mainly because they were not being treated by French officers), it would create an aura of spite toward the French regiments and an allure for the German and Swiss ones -- which would cause many men to desert and fake a German/Swiss jargon and try to get into the foreign regiments for better treatment and pay.

The last big change before the revolution was in 1778 which created a pseudo-national army. Service was 4 years and would be mandatory. No voluntary enlistments or substitutions permitted and it would be chosen by lottery. Each parish across France was given a quota and they had to meet that quota and this would recreate that system of inequality that I spoke of early. Nobility and clergymen would be 'excused' very informally and in their place, to fill the quota, married and old men would be forced into their place. This pissed a lot of people off.

Ultimately, the army had been the Royal Army -- a King's Army -- and not the nation of France's. For all its great attempts at reforms and the devotions of the men who tried to save it, in summary, it suffered from four great trials:

1. Lacking an organized and proper means of recruiting it turned into chaos. The army would take what men it could via persuasion, fraud, and force and filled it ranks with foreign deserters, criminals, and young men who were nothing short of kidnapped.

2. The gulf between the officer and the men became a widening abyss as the opportunity for promotion became increasingly thinner as ranking up became more of a sycophantic duty than a meritocratic and dedication one. No experienced men wanted to stay as NCO's and Grenadiers when they knew they would never achieve anything as the system was rigged.

3. The officers set no good example for their men. They would fail to take care of their men and would rather spend their time in brothels and what was essentially a traveling circus sipping wine than spend time with their men and would resort to harsh and unfair punishments in lieu of actual respect from their men and leadership on their parts.

4. There was no national spirit or patriotism. The King was its "center and motivating force" but Louis XVI had no comprehension of that responsibility. Like a medieval ruler he put the trust in his nobles and gave no thought to his common soldiers.

Thus, the army became yet another and perhaps the most volatile bed of revolutionary urges. One full of restless, mistreated, and unhappy men -- men who were given muskets, horses, artillery and armor with the training to use them. The criminal and deserters, the agitated NCO's and officers de fortune who could not perform their duties and hated their aristocratic overlords, helped along with wine and silver sent ripples through the military and these men were ready for trouble.

The saddest part of this all, honestly, was that Louis XVI had his fate in his hand this entire time. There were still traditions of victory and loyalty and if Louis had, even in this last hour, shown a modicum of force and presence along with at least an elementary level of respect and understanding for the well-being of his soldiers they likely would have rallied the army to him in this period. However, he was a passive and dimwitted soul who knew no better and it would be his pampered Gardes Francaises who would turn against him first. Barely anyone raised a weapon in his defense except his redcoat Swiss Guard -- who he would abandon to be trampled and beaten by the Parisian mob.

TL;DR: At least for the military (which can be argued as the most influential part of France to revolt against the King and the Nobility), it was not some abstract sense of "rich vs poor." Many nobles honestly weren't even that rich and their nobility came from land ownership and heritage. Where it stemmed from was, ultimately, the noble privileges and the abuses performed by the nobility -- nobles who were generally incompetent and overall shitty people toward their men. It was not so much a "they have more money than us" but "these idiots have so much more power and privileges than me and they did absolutely nothing to earn it other than be born in the right family."

---

Notes:

[1] Reginald Savory, His Brittanic Majesty's Army in Germany during the Seven Years War, p.58

[2] Carnet de la Sabretache, Les Origines de l'Organization Divisionnaire (The Origins of Divisional Organization) p.729

General Information:

John Elting, Swords Around a Throne

I think I can answer you this.

Now we all know the joke of France’s only military victory coming during their civil war/revolution because hey, how can you technically lose when you fight yourself? Well the frogs found a way to f*&% that up too believe it or not.

See a little bit before the Frenchies decided to overthrow their head-honchos, there was a little diddy across the pond in history called the 'Merican Revolution. I’m sure there’s no need to delve into that as we all know that’s when 'Merica started kickin ass (but not takin names because that gets in the way of the USA Kickin-A World Tour 1776-Eternity).

Well the Frenchified people figured it sounded like a pretty good idea to so they gave it a go. Didn’t quite work out. Here's what happened.

When the frogs got bit by the freedom bug, they were in for a rude awakening. First off, they still had Mr Louie runnin the show in a dictator-for-life role. This sumbitch was dumb. He spent too much, made too little, and didn't have a spine to stand up to anyone. Also food costs were goin through the roof. Here they are, a bunch of vets coming back after getting a taste of the good life (Merica, freedom, and biscuits) and when they can't get any biscuits, some bitch-witch named Mary said "let them eat cake." Well, they don't WANT cake, they WANT biscuits. Which really pissed them off.

So these fellers went to this fort looking for guns and ammo. I use the term "fort" quite loosely as since it was French, it was probably comparable to my sofa forts in my parents' living room. After this the frogs got a lil cocky and started fighting the gubmint.

Shortly (a couple days) later, the soap dodgers ran out of the capitol. Thus beginning the long standing truth about French military prowess being similar to the special helmet wearing kid in the corner eating paste.

Of course after this a few of the womenfolk got together in their sewing circles and got to fussin'. See, at about this time, they really wanted to bake some bread for their little tad poles, but just couldn't find any. So the croutons went to this little shindig at the palace except evidently they weren't exactly "invited". This became a big deal and got blown out of proportion as a symbol of the revolution. Who knew a potluck could change history?

Well the rifle-droppers got to carryin' on for a while pissing each other off, surrendering to snails right and left I guess, until ol' Mad Max showed up on the scene. This guy was as much of a badass rebel as a Frenchman can realistically be (slightly higher than a 'Merican teletubby running with scissors). He kicked ass and beheaded everyone he didn't like. A lot of places might tell you he was doing it to suppress rebellion but really he was just didn't like berets. But sadly, the turtle necks rose up and killed Mr. Robes; keeping the beret alive.

After Max, the surrender monkeys then turned to ol Boney. Now how in the hell does a country go from whining about one thing being so bad, killing off their kinfolk, only to go back to what they were whining about in the first place? These fellers are about as reliable to fall flat on their face as The Bandit is to doin' what they say can't be done. No wonder they gotta eat snails and frogs and intestines. I guess it's the only way to cover the taste of hundreds of years of shame and failure.

Besides what the others said - I would like to point out that the revolutionaries were more of the urban poor, the sans-culottes, and the peasants were more ambivalent about the revolution - there was actually a big counter-revolution by peasants in Vendée. It was crushed rather brutally and there are some half-confirmed sources about some really nasty stuff.