ABSTRACT
But such an analysis, however novel and challenging, begs the question of why the Revolution occurred in the first place. If an embittered bourgeoisie did not cause the Revolution, who did? The last part of the article deals with this fundamental question, in which Lucas proposes what might be called a non-Marxist class analysis: the political crisis from 1786-88 convinced the sector of privileged bourgeois commoners that their social pathway to full landed noble status was now being barred, and that Ancien Régime social structure was about to become much more closed. The fear of being shut out, rather than any kind of revolutionary class consciousness or genuine class difference, is what in the end motivated them to revolt.
