Could the french revolution have been avoided?

Question:In the land of "What If" history, you sure picked a tough one. Yet, I will argue to the negative.

The French Revolution was all but inevitable given certain circumstances that would have been darn tough to alter:

While Louis XIV was a fairly enlightened and educated monarch...he begat the (then) modern notion of the Divine Right of Kings. The idea that God Himself places certain people on the throne on purpose and to deny that is to deny God. His grandson Louis XVI was the worst form of person to imagine to carry this notion. He ignored his education, thought little of his people, and had little intellegence. Despite the fabulous wealth he flouted while his people starved, his court saw that upholding him as king kept them in their own power. So there were no real people arround him to encourage a lighter touch with the peasants.
Also, The American Revolution had taken place with a huge amount of the ideology coming from French thinkers and pamphleteers. So its success was only an encouragement the the very French people who helped to spawn such ideas of Liberty and that the Government is there to serve the People.
Finally, The French military was no longer just a product of the upper classes, it had been drawn from everywhere as a means of advancement to the underpriviliged. Napolean would rise from these ranks. And the army's constant use through the years and the poor treatment of them by the nobility meant that when push came to shove, they would likely be on the People's side in conflict.
You would have to change quite a few things in France's history to stop the momentum of unrest that would become The French Revolution.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: In the land of "What If" history, you sure picked a tough one. Yet, I will argue to the negative.

The French Revolution was all but inevitable given certain circumstances that would have been darn tough to alter:

While Louis XIV was a fairly enlightened and educated monarch...he begat the (then) modern notion of the Divine Right of Kings. The idea that God Himself places certain people on the throne on purpose and to deny that is to deny God. His grandson Louis XVI was the worst form of person to imagine to carry this notion. He ignored his education, thought little of his people, and had little intellegence. Despite the fabulous wealth he flouted while his people starved, his court saw that upholding him as king kept them in their own power. So there were no real people arround him to encourage a lighter touch with the peasants.
Also, The American Revolution had taken place with a huge amount of the ideology coming from French thinkers and pamphleteers. So its success was only an encouragement the the very French people who helped to spawn such ideas of Liberty and that the Government is there to serve the People.
Finally, The French military was no longer just a product of the upper classes, it had been drawn from everywhere as a means of advancement to the underpriviliged. Napolean would rise from these ranks. And the army's constant use through the years and the poor treatment of them by the nobility meant that when push came to shove, they would likely be on the People's side in conflict.
You would have to change quite a few things in France's history to stop the momentum of unrest that would become The French Revolution.

definetly yes

However it would have needed a king with more resilience and less self-paralysing compassion. Louis retreated and surrendered when he should have resisted and attacked.

Pretty much like Carter in the 80's- wishing well but in reality a self-made complete disaster

Sure , if the french people were willing to accept the way they were living or if the king had been willing to cut back on his excesses and pay more attention to running his kingdom. But as neither of those took place, the revolution was unavoidable.

No. Things were going badly (famine, debts, the society becoming too rigid), and the kingdom needed another kind of king that this affable, average intelligence, conservative one who could not understand the need for change. However it might have been less bloody if the king hadn't tried to escape. This became the straw that broke the camel back. Would we have become a parliamentary democracy like the UK? That's a possibility. Or the king could have learned nothing and stayed mulishly on his position and the Terror would have happened nonetheless, but a little later.