Depending on whom you read, there are varying views on how much the Enlightenment concepts influenced the French Revolution. However, it is very evident that the French Revolution was influenced, particularly after it began, by changing views in a variety of domains (such as political philosophy) in France during the eighteenth century.
It is crucial to remember that starting with Louis XIV's reign at the end of the seventeenth century, the French started considering overhauling their administration, monarchy, and economy. The French economy struggled and was heavily indebted from the 1680s until his death, especially in comparison to its rivals, the Dutch and the English. The "absolute" nature of the French monarchical system, the relative inactivity of the nobility, their inability to engage in commerce (unlike the English), and the underperforming economy that relied on Colbertism—a zero-sum perspective on economics that prioritized acquiring land and material goods over engaging in commercial activity—were all problems for some thinkers at the time. French thinkers were searching for alternatives during the eighteenth century while the French continued to practice the same kind of monarchy under Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Many significant French thinkers turned to the English for inspiration during this time despite their fierce competition with the English as they strove for dominance in the world - [there was a great lot of interaction of ideas between the two countries for many centuries]. For instance, Montesquieu and Voltaire lauded the mixed constitution, religious tolerance, and commercial prosperity of England/Britain. Instead of just copying the English, they and others, like the Marquis d'Argenson, Mably, and the Physiocrats, developed their own administrative and economic responses to French difficulties that were French in origin. As a result, as the French position deteriorated, there were intellectual conversations and a yearning for change starting at the end of the seventeenth century and becoming more outspoken starting in the middle of the eighteenth.
However, whether ideology played a role in the French Revolution's causes is debatable. In fact, once it was announced in 1788 that the Estates General would meet in 1789, many of the leading causes—including the threat of bankruptcy, the lack of political representation for many professionals, the aspirations of the high nobility, the incompetence of various ministers, and the king—started to come together. It is suggested that the Third Estate's behavior and philosophy were influenced by Enlightenment ideas as a result of the Estates-General assembly and how the monarchy and other two estates treated it. The Abbé Sieyès was one of the main movers behind the early Revolution, the establishment of a National Assembly, the assault against privilege, etc. To develop a new kind of governance, he was obviously drawing on a number of Enlightenment concepts and expanding on the theories of earlier Enlightenment theorists. Major Enlightenment concepts, such as religious tolerance, political representation, equality, secularism, etc., are also evident in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), which also incorporated important (pre and) Enlightenment thought.
While some contemporary critics have noted the French Revolution's substantial reliance on Enlightenment concepts and influential intellectuals like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, others have maintained that this was not the case in 1789. When Timothy Tackett (Becoming a Revolutionary) read the journals and other writings of many of the important early revolutionaries, he found that many of them had little interest in the Enlightenment's ideals or thinkers, preferring instead to respond pragmatically to the problems they faced on a daily basis. But as the Revolution progressed, many concepts from the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment were adopted and abandoned.
