Louis XVI was personally responsible for the Outbreak of the French Revolution? Discuss?

Louis XVI was personally responsible for the Outbreak of the French Revolution? Discuss? This is a typical Pre U question on the origins and course of the French Revolution, however it is also relevant to A level and other studies as well. Question should be answered by breaking it down into factors, connecting to argument, evidence and analysis. Should be completed in the format of a timed essay. Below is a brief likely conclusion outlining key arguments and factors. Revolution must be defined as a large scale overthrow or upheaval of a political and socio-economic status quo caused by a twin long-term failure of a top-down establishment combined with a short-term rising bottom-up resentment and demand for change. Hence, the personal failure of King Louis XVI and the French State must be illustrated as the key ingredient for the cause of the French Revolution. Louis not only mishandled the French fiscal crisis exacerbating rather than alleviating national debt and economic instability but alienated both political reforms and traditional nobles through his half-hearted indecisive political reform projects between 1776-1789. Additionally, the King's lavish entourage at Versailles twinned with the enlargement of an autonomous satirical public sphere delegitimised the monarchy further exposing the immorality and excessive nature of its practices. Thus by 1789 the King rather than a divine ruler ordained by God had proved himself an ineffective leader detached from elite and popular will. To evaluate, Alexis De Tocqueville's 19th century account of the French Revolution is convincing when defining the French Revolution in terms of a crisis of the state. However, whilst Louis XVI and a crisis of state best characterises the outbreak of the French Revolution, historians have posed wider ideological and socio-economic explanations for the revolution outside the political theatre. These include Furet's assessment of the revolution which prioritises an intellectual focus on the development of the 18th century Enlightenment and public debates concerning popular sovereignty alongside Soboul's Marxist interpretation that highlight the structural social deficiencies in the French Estate system and the rise of a economically and socially dominant bourgeois class. However, these arguments only prove convincingly when considered in the short term after the announcements of the Estates General, Cahiers de doléances and Sieyes What is the Third Estate in 1788-1789 alongside the poor harvest of 1787-1788. Beforehand, middle-classes were active integrated into the social-political status quo and intellectual culture was firmly grounded in elitist culture and the establishment. Ultimately, radical ideology and mass mobilisation must be considered a consequence of state collapse and revolution rather than a chief cause. To conclude, whilst the 18th century saw the socio-economic development of a more affluent, mobile and critical consumer society, the causes of the French Revolution must be situating in the theatres of government and political power. Therefore, Louis XVI for the most part must be held personally responsible for the outbreak of the French Revolution.