Listen to the Summary of William Doyle's The French Revolution in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. The French Revolution was triggered by Louis XVI's attempts to avoid bankruptcy. Over the eighteenth century, France had fought three great wars on a worldwide scale. The results were disastrous. France made no territorial gains when peace was signed in 1783, and the independent Americans gave no sign of abandoning their traditional British trading links...