(Editor’s Note: This is a pretty solid college essay I finished in 2006. It is an answer to the question “Was the French Revolution orderly?” I hope you get something from it.)

The French Revolution poses an interesting question:  How can an idea based on freedom and scientific reasoning lead to such tremendous chaos?  After witnessing what could be described as a model revolution in the Americas, middle-class French yearned for more personal freedom and political power.  With the ideas of the Enlightenment in their minds and money being stripped from their pockets as a solution to the financial crisis, the middle-class saw their opportunity to throw off what they considered the yoke of the oppressing nobles. Although the French Revolution began as noble and orderly, the revolutionaries became divided, leading to The Terror, which forever left a stain of chaos and disorder on the Revolution.