The French Revolution would be led by shopkeepers ... Andrew: He checked his money and there was the king’s face, on a banknote. POSTMASTER: C’est le Roi, c’est le Roi et la Reine.

In fact, France’s support for the revolutionaries in the American War of Independence had a far greater impact on its finances, costing over a billion livres (French currency of the period).

The capture of the Bastille ignited one of the greatest social upheavals in Western history, the French Revolution. Violence spread to the countryside, where peasants demanded the feudal system be ...