rowth in nationalism that had occurred as a result of the Enlightenment (nationalism being, in this case, a belief that the nation should be the focus of the state, rather than any mutated 20th century meanings of the word). Central to the Enlightenment was reason: it encouraged criticism, and freedom of thought, speech and religion, and was seen as the end of man's self-imposed irrationality at the hands of the Church in particular. However, once religion was discredited, and the notion of the ``divinely-appointed'' monarch discredited with it, people became increasingly dissatisfied with the government, which before was held in place by its association with God. Nationalism had existed previously to the Enlightenment, but before it had been tied in with religion and the monarch; now people wanted to cut it free from those discredited notions, and this resulted in a much more powerful fanaticism, one that was revolutionary rather than conservative. Nationalism's revolutionary and anti-monarchic nature in this state are what contributed to the French Revolution. Conor Cruise O'Brien sums it up: ``The philosophes hoped to rid the world of fanaticism, but what they actually seem to have done is to have provided fanaticism with a new deity...There was a yawning emotional void, left by the discredited notions of God and king. And the idea of the nation, la patrie, was beginning to fill this void.'' 1 In the medium term, the bankruptcy of the French Crown contributed a lot to the causes of the French Revolution. By the late 18th century, half of the royal income was being spent on the interest alone for the huge debts it had built up; the French court spent one twelfth of government revenue; tax collection was very expensive due to the bonuses paid to tax collectors; most of the French Empire was lost in the Seven Years War (the war cost money, and France lost out on taxes); and Louis XVI joined in the American War of Independence, which als...
