28 The French Revolution

The shots fired at Lexington and Concord that sparked off the American Revolutionary War in 1775 may—in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson—have been “heard round the world,” but it was the fall of the Bastille in Paris in 1789, and the upheavals that followed, that was to set all Europe ablaze. The French Revolution not only toppled France’s own monarchy, it threatened all the other monarchies of the ancien régime in Europe and led to decades of warfare as the forces of reaction attempted to slay what they regarded as the monster in their midst.

The roots of the French Revolution go back to the time of Louis XIV, whose long reign lasted from 1643 to 1715. During Louis’s minority, France had been racked by civil wars between various aristocratic factions, and once Louis began to rule in his own right in 1661 he determined to end the power of the nobility and centralize all power in himself, famously declaring “L’État c’est moi”—“I am the state.” The aristocracy were obliged to spend most of their time at court, living in Louis’s magnificent new palace at Versailles, outside Paris. Here, far from their provincial power bases, they were not in a position to raise rebellions against the king. However, cocooned in isolated luxury, both the nobility and the royal family were distanced from the common people and their growing grievances.

Economic mismanagement and growing discontent Louis XIV had further sought to neutralize aristocratic dissent by exempting the nobility from paying taxes, the burden of which thus fell upon the peasantry and the bourgeoisie. This burden steadily increased through the 18th century as France flexed its muscles on the world stage, fighting a number of wars to maintain its position in Europe and to build and defend its overseas empire. In this last ambition it was largely unsuccessful, losing Canada and India to Britain in the Seven Years’ War, which ended in 1763. The economy was also weakened by the extensive system, flowing down from the Crown, of patronage and monopolies, which stifled trade and industry.

Louis XIV’s successor, Louis XV, proved a weak and indecisive ruler, dominated by his mistresses; and the faction, intrigue and corruption that swirled around the court as a consequence brought the monarchy into increasing disrepute. Things only got worse under the inept and lackluster Louis XVI, who came to the throne in 1774. Louis’s decision to give military support to the Americans in their struggle for independence from Britain, although successful in that aim, brought France to the brink of bankruptcy. The attempts of Louis’s finance ministers to introduce economic reforms were thwarted by opposition from the aristocracy and Louis’s own wife, Marie-Antoinette.

Marie-Antoinette

Louis XVI’s wife, the Austrian princess Marie-Antoinette, was widely criticized by anti-monarchists for her perceived extravagance and lack of sympathy for her impoverished subjects (although it is unlikely that she ever actually said “Let them eat cake” when told that the people had no bread to eat). Scurrilous rumors abounded, especially about her supposedly insatiable sexual appetites—as in America, those of a republican bent adopted the language of “virtue,” pointing out the decadence and depravity of their oppressors.

The events of 1789 Things came to a head in May 1789, when, in order to resolve the economic crisis, Louis was persuaded to summon—for the first time since 1614—the Estates-General, the assembly representing the three estates: the clergy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie. The second estate, the nobility, proved unwilling to consider any kind of change, giving the initiative to the third estate, the bourgeoisie, the middle classes, whose commercial ambitions had been thwarted by unfair taxes, restrictions on trade and economic mismanagement. The third estate declared itself to be the National Assembly, and when the king sent troops to Paris, seemingly in a move against this rebellious new body, the mob stormed the Bastille (a fortress holding a number of political prisoners) in order to seize arms in its defense. The French Revolution was underway.

“The fundamental source of all sovereignty lies in the nation … The law is the expression of the general will.”

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, August 1789

The revolutionaries in Paris and elsewhere established a National Guard to defend the National Assembly. Meanwhile, the army was divided, and did nothing. The National Assembly set about abolishing the privileges of the aristocracy, and in August issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which asserted the liberty and equality of all men. In October, Louis and his family were obliged to leave Versailles and take up residence in Paris, where they would be close to the people to whom they were now accountable.

The bloodbath After a failed attempt to flee the country in 1791, Louis was brought back to Paris and forced to give his agreement to the new constitution, which severely limited his powers. These developments did not go unnoticed among the other countries of Europe, most of which remained absolute monarchies. In August 1791 Leopold II of Austria and the king of Prussia jointly declared that they would not rule out armed intervention in support of the French king, and in December Louis himself was writing to a number of crowned heads suggesting concerted military action “as the best means of putting a stop to the factions here.”

In August 1792 the Austrians and Prussians invaded, with the stated intent of restoring Louis to his full power. The invaders were driven back at Valmy, and the revolutionaries then turned on their fellow Frenchmen, massacring hundreds of suspected counterrevolutionaries. In November, France was declared a republic, and the following year Louis and his queen were convicted of treason and sent to the guillotine.

“When the last king is hanged with the bowels of the last priest, the human race can hope for happiness.”

La Bouche de fer [The Iron Mouth], a revolutionary journal, July 11, 1791

This was just the beginning. In the face of further foreign threats and internal revolts, the Jacobins—the radical faction—eclipsed the moderate Girondin party and established a virtual dictatorship under the Committee of Public Safety, dominated by Maximilien Robespierre. In the subsequent “Reign of Terror,” tens of thousands of suspected counterrevolutionaries were guillotined. This bloodbath only came to an end when Robespierre himself was overthrown in a coup in July 1794 and executed.

The excesses of the Terror so alarmed governments in other European countries such as Britain that any calls for political or social reform at home were regarded as both dangerous and treasonable, and ruthlessly crushed. The progressive spirit of the Enlightenment, which had helped to fuel the revolutions in both France and America, was snuffed out by a renewed mood of fear and reaction. In France itself, political turmoil continued through the 1790s, until stable government was restored by a fiercely ambitious young army officer called Napoleon Bonaparte.

the condensed idea

Established the principles of liberté, égalité and fraternité, but at the cost of much bloodshed