French Revolution during the storming of the Bastille on 14 July. The blue and red cockade was presented to King Louis XVI at the Hôtel de Ville on 17 July. Lafayette argued for the addition of a white stripe to "nationalise" the design. On 27 July, a tricolour cockade was adopted as part of the uniform of the National Guard, the national police force that succeeded the militia. Well after the revolution, by 1912 the French Third Republic had authorised the form of the "tricolore cockade" for use on its military aircraft by the "Aeronautique Militaire" as a national insignia, the first-ever
Causes of the French Revolution the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large." Because the nobles successfully defended their privileges, the king of France lacked the means to impose a "just and proportioned" tax. The desire to do so led directly to the decision in 1788 to call the Estates-General into session. The financial strain of servicing old debt and the excesses of the current royal court caused dissatisfaction with the monarchy, contributed to national unrest, and culminated in the French Revolution of 1789. Louis XVI, his