... People of the third estate paid almost 11 times the taxes they should have paid under an equal distribution. While the upper classes lived in luxury at virtually no cost to themselves the bourgeoisie and peasants saw their hard earned wealth disappear into the pockets of the government and the nobility. The ideals of enlightenment thinkers also added greatly to the revolution. Philosophes such as Charles Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau created a spirit of unrest among the lower classes as they taught the ideals of reason. Montesquieu penned l' Esprit Des Lois, which introduces the theory of separation of powers. He felt the branches of the government should be separate and independent of each other in order to create a fair system of checks and balances, much like that of the US government today. Voltaire verbally attacked the French monarchy indirectly through fictitious novels and essays. Rousseau wrote the Social Contract, ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now