Even though there is not a single cause, there is still a hierarchy of importance when analyzing and evaluating potential catalysts for the French Revolution. Economic and political turmoil befell France in the years before the storming of the Bastille, but the fundamental shift from absolute to popular sovereignty infuriated rebel thought and spurred it to revolutionary action. Before the French Revolution, humans accepted their place in society, whether noble or peasant, and followed traditional forms of government. Once the notion of inherent and equal rights for all humans, regardless of their socio-economic status, began to infiltrate French society, the previously unquestionable authority of the monarch and the Church began to falter. be called into question. The intellectual movement of the Enlightenment was both a necessary and sufficient cause for the start of the French Revolution. Although intellectuals generally did not explicitly advocate rebellion or revolution, their philosophies resulted in incendiary actions by starving peasants who demanded societal change.