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I am curious about why so many historians seem to think that the FR was both a revolution of the bourgeois and a revolution of the common man. I am reading four different books interpreting the FR right now and one of the overwhelming threads is this notion that the bourgeois instigated the Fr and freed the oppressed masses from the heel of the nobility on their collective neck.This is at odds with what I know of the FR. Yes, most of the leaders were solidly middle class if not lesser nobility. Yes, they spouted platitudes about liberte, egalite, and fraternite, but their actions certainly did not live up to their ideals. They swept away all the old institutions of France and replaced them with a system that was at least as oppressive as the old. In fact, in some ways life was harder in the Republic than during the monarchy for the common man. Conscription alone was enough to cause some revolts, while the suppression of religion in the early Republic caused violent upheavals that were not fully settled until Napoleon signed a new concordat with the Pope.I just find the Marxist or neo-Marxist interpretation of the revolution unconvincing. The FR was not so much about class as it was about power and privilege, class was only a secondary concern for the great mass of Frenchmen. The bourgeois were concerned about class but only to the extent that they wanted to be ennobled and felt cheated that there were not enough ways to become so. The great mass of peasant farmers and artisans wanted to be free of onerous taxation and for artisans to be free of the influence of the guilds. They rode the coattails of revolution in hopes of seeing their desperate situation bettered.
.... one of the overwhelming threads is this notion that the bourgeois instigated the Fr and freed the oppressed masses from the heel of the nobility on their collective neck.
The French Revolution was truly revolutionary; turning the social order over totally. Lately I have come to understand our revolution was a motivation to the French, less for our change of control and more for the money pickle they were in for bank-rolling us. To common was more, or less along to the ride.
This is at odds with what I know of the FR. Yes, most of the leaders were solidly middle class if not lesser nobility. Yes, they spouted platitudes about liberte, egalite, and fraternite, but their actions certainly did not live up to their ideals. They swept away all the old institutions of France and replaced them with a system that was at least as oppressive as the old. In fact, in some ways life was harder in the Republic than during the monarchy for the common man. Conscription alone was enough to cause some revolts, while the suppression of religion in the early Republic caused violent upheavals that were not fully settled until Napoleon signed a new concordat with the Pope.
Leaders were from all estates; many of the clergy were "younger sons" of lesser nobility, many of the "failed nobility" had bones to pick, the middle class saw the American colonists taking charge of their own destiny. That left the ones to riot in the streets... the common man.
I just find the Marxist or neo-Marxist interpretation of the revolution unconvincing. The FR was not so much about class as it was about power and privilege, class was only a secondary concern for the great mass of Frenchmen. The bourgeois were concerned about class but only to the extent that they wanted to be ennobled and felt cheated that there were not enough ways to become so. The great mass of peasant farmers and artisans wanted to be free of onerous taxation and for artisans to be free of the influence of the guilds. They rode the coattails of revolution in hopes of seeing their desperate situation bettered.
The easy way out, that; if you can get people into the class / race / gender /cultural conflict mentality, they will fill in the gaps without any great amount of facts needed. The basic reality is that it was about power for a certain group (hidden behind the liberty issue). Same as the Magna Carta being the thing that gives us our rights... yeah, right... it was for the barons, only much later relating to the commoners.I've always thought it interesting that the French found things so bad that they spent 10 years killing anyone that didn't agree that they needed to kill anyone that didn't agree they should get rid of an over-powerful devine right king...only to need an over-powerful self-appointed emperor to straighten them out. ::)
scout, I know virtually nothing about the FR, but isn't what you said below (mostly what is underlined) about class? If not, could you please explain further what you mean?
I just find the Marxist or neo-Marxist interpretation of the revolution unconvincing. The FR was not so much about class as it was about power and privilege, class was only a secondary concern for the great mass of Frenchmen. The bourgeois were concerned about class but only to the extent that they wanted to be ennobled and felt cheated that there were not enough ways to become so. The great mass of peasant farmers and artisans wanted to be free of onerous taxation and for artisans to be free of the influence of the guilds. They rode the coattails of revolution in hopes of seeing their desperate situation bettered.
The French Revolution was truly revolutionary; turning the social order over totally. Lately I have come to understand our revolution was a motivation to the French, less for our change of control and more for the money pickle they were in for bank-rolling us. To common was more, or less along to the ride.
Wally,What you are describing is essentially the newer neo-conservative take on the FR. It has only started gaining ground in the last twenty years or so. There are still plenty of Marxist historians out there though. What gets me is the sheer load of ideological baggage in just about every history of the French Revolution. Everybody has a stance on whether it was good or bad or revolutionary or not. This is not new either; histories written while the fields were still damp with blood took an ideological stance as well.Personally, I don?t think the FR changed the western world as much as we are led to believe. It was revolutionary for France sure, but was it revolutionary for the rest of Europe and the western world by extension? Of that, I am not so sure. How do you explain the rise of democratic institutions in England and the US? English democracy dates to 1688 at the latest and influences are much earlier than that. The English killed their king but that dead king's descendant still sits on the throne in Buckingham Palace. The US successfully revolted and established a democratic regime prior to 1789 as well.War costs for French assistance in the American Revolution were simply the straw that broke the camel?s back. The French economy was in horrible shape debt-wise long before 1776. Lastly, the average Frenchmen knew almost next to nothing about the war in America, they certainly did not read it in the papers. 70% of Frenchmen were illiterate in 1789 and certainly had more important things to worry about than the state of the economy; such as if 1789 would be another poor harvest as so many had been since around 1770.I really think the initial leaders of the Revolution were simple opportunists who saw an opportunity to seize power from a weak king and took it. Their later populist rhetoric was more for domestic consumption than any true conviction. I don?t think they got serious until after the Battle of Valmy, when they saw that the other Europeans might really go to war to put the Bourbon?s back on the throne and in the process separate the revolutionary leaders heads from their neck?s. I wish I could remember the quote about the prospect of one's death sharpening the mind greatly. That is what I think happened with the start of the First Coalition. The Revolutionary leaders did a collective "whoa, we might have to really fight". I don't think they really thought that Austria, Prussia, and England would fight to restore Louis XVI.Ski, Class in revolutionary and pre-revolutionary France was not the same as what we consider class today. Class was not determined by wealth, but rather by birth or title. In pre-revolutionary France there were nobles, clergy, and commoners, that was class. Yes most clergy, especially higher clergy were nobles as well but their allegiance was to the church not the nobility. Wealthy merchants had started to break that barrier down, but only by buying into the nobility. There were also many nobles who came from merchant roots, if anything they tried to out-noble the ancient noble lines because they did not have the long bloodlines of nobility. They were not considered true nobles like those who could trace their ancestry back hundreds of years or that had been given ?Honours of the Court? and could actually meet the King, who had to prove noble ancestry dating to 1400.Most peasants did not want to be nobles, they wanted to keep their money and not see 40% or more of their yearly income paid in taxes. What chafed the peasants the most were the feudal duties they owed and even worse were what were known as the ?banalities?. The ?banalities? were rules that said a peasant had to mill his grain at the lords mill, only sell goods at the lords market, or that covered when he could use communal land for grazing or that he had to give a certain percentage of wood he cut to the lord, etc.. These were small things to most wealthy people and nobles but huge in the life of a peasant farmer, the nobles also clung to these privileges like barnacles to a ship. (I think that last line comes from Tocqueville) and refused to give up their ?banalities? even if they did not make use of them. The peasant also owed labor to the king every year on highway upkeep and other things. Serfdom also existed in a small part of pre-revolutionary France. These are not class issues except in the broadest sense, the peasants saw them as issues of individual dignity not class.The artisans, both loved and hated the guild system, but mostly hated it. The Masters of the various guilds conspired to keep prices high and also got to judge who could learn which job. The guilds kept prices high and had a sanctioned monopoly on their trade in the towns in which they existed. The guild system also stifled upward mobility by limiting who could be a master and you had to be a master to own your own shop. The vast majority of artisans wanted to do away with the guild system to open up opportunities in the trades. Think about it. How happy would you be if you were not allowed to be a master because you did not have the right connections and were therefore condemned to a life of wage labor?
I think we are pretty much on the same page... had a good post to that end but it crashed. 😛
That has happened to me several times as well. Now if I know I will be typing a long post I write it up in Word and then cut and paste.
I am curious about why so many historians seem to think that the FR was both a revolution of the bourgeois and a revolution of the common man. I am reading four different books interpreting the FR right now and one of the overwhelming threads is this notion that the bourgeois instigated the Fr and freed the oppressed masses from the heel of the nobility on their collective neck.This is at odds with what I know of the FR. Yes, most of the leaders were solidly middle class if not lesser nobility. Yes, they spouted platitudes about liberte, egalite, and fraternite, but their actions certainly did not live up to their ideals.
To me it sounds like you answered your own question and took it one step further.
I think we are pretty much on the same page... had a good post to that end but it crashed. 😛
Sorry about that. 🙁 If that happens to me I click "back" on my browser (Firefox) and my post is normally still there, and I can click "post" again. Another thing - if you make a lengthy post, you can highlight it all, right click, and copy it all before clicking post. That way it will be saved in case the server does hiccup.
Sorry about that. 🙁 If that happens to me I click "back" on my browser (Firefox) and my post is normally still there, and I can click "post" again. Another thing - if you make a lengthy post, you can highlight it all, right click, and copy it all before clicking post. That way it will be saved in cast the server does hiccup.
With IE it goes back to the original quote of the post to be answered (at least it did yesterday) and must start again.... ::)Guess I will cut and paste the next rant... 8)
War costs for French assistance in the American Revolution were simply the straw that broke the camel?s back. The French economy was in horrible shape debt-wise long before 1776. Lastly, the average Frenchmen knew almost next to nothing about the war in America, they certainly did not read it in the papers. 70% of Frenchmen were illiterate in 1789 and certainly had more important things to worry about than the state of the economy; such as if 1789 would be another poor harvest as so many had been since around 1770.
Let me remind you about how the French helped the American revolution: Lafayette.Spain and France were traditional enemies of Britain and looked for revenge. In early 1776, France set up a major program of aid to the Americans, and the Spanish secretly added funds. Each country spent 1 million "livres tournaises" to buy munitions. A dummy corporation run by Pierre Beaumarchais concealed their activities. Americans obtained some munitions through Holland as well as French and Spanish ports in the West Indies.In the American Revolution, Lafayette served in the Continental Army under George Washington as a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde Nationale during the French Revolution.The Franco-American alliance refers to the 1778 alliance between Louis XVI's France and the United States; the alliance was promoted in the United States by Thomas Jefferson, a Francophile. The combined strength of the Americans and the French virtually guaranteed victory against Great Britain. France successfully supported the American War of Independence, managing to expel the British and obtain recognition of American independence through the intervention of Rochambeau, La Fayette, de Grasse, or Suffren.The French Navy played a decisive role in supporting the American side, as American could hardly resist the British Navy. The French under de Grasse managed to defeat a British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781, thus ensuring that the Franco-American ground forces would win the ongoing Siege of Yorktown.Finally, the Treaty of Paris was signed on 3 September 1783, recognizing American independence and the end of hostilities.French people started the revolt because of famine and because of unequal representation in the Etats-G?n?raux: Tiers Estate requested a better balance of power as they were representing 98% of the population with 1 vote whilst First Estate, the clergy and Second Estate, the nobility, were allowed of 1 vote each. Furthermore, this assembly, the General Estate (Etats G?n?raux) wasn't called since 1614.France in 1789, although facing some economic ( especially taxation) difficulties and simplicities, was one of the richest and most powerful nations in Europe; further, the masses of most other European powers had less freedom and a higher chance of arbitrary punishment. At the time Louis XVI called the Estates-General of 1789, he himself was generally popular, even if the nobility and many of the king's ministers were not.Nevertheless, the Ancien R?gime was brought down, partly by its own rigidity in the face of a changing world, partly by the ambitions of a rising bourgeoisie, allied with aggrieved peasants and wage-earners and with individuals of all classes who were influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment. As the revolution proceeded and as power devolved from the monarchy to legislative bodies, the conflicting interests of these initially allied groups would become the source of conflict and bloodshed.
I really think the initial leaders of the Revolution were simple opportunists who saw an opportunity to seize power from a weak king and took it.
At the time of the Age of Enlightenment, people and ideas were extensively travelling, I fully disagree with your statement when you just consider leaders of the FR as simple opportunists ! It's a shortcut statement without any evidence to support it !! I would like to use a quote that I really agree with : "History is what happened, not what we wanted to have happened"
Notice that the discussion is not about French assistance to the American revolutionaries. But the origins of the Revolutionary impulse in France. You are absolutely correct about the French help to America, which had nothing to do with French support for the American agenda and everything to do with seeing Britain humbled. My entire point about contemporary historiography on the FR is that it is too simple and political. Many historians look at the events of 1789 and put their own spin on them without really taking into account the motivations of the participants. They are putting words into the mouths of the revolutionaries if you will.
I really think the initial leaders of the Revolution were simple opportunists who saw an opportunity to seize power from a weak king and took it.
At the time of the Age of Enlightenment, people and ideas were extensively travelling, I fully disagree with your statement when you just consider leaders of the FR as simple opportunists ! It's a shortcut statement without any evidence to support it !! I would like to use a quote that I really agree with : "History is what happened, not what we wanted to have happened"
Lets do that then. Was the mass of people in Europe but particularly France aware of the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment? I think not, evidence would suggest that the Philosophes were just as elitist as the nobility and clergy they so vigorously attacked. I stand by my assertions that the revolutionaries were simple opportunists, every revolutionary is an opportunist. They saw an opportunity to upset the established order and siezed it. They thought they could change France for the better by adjusting the monarchy to force the king to take account of the wishes of the people. When that failed they executed the king and created a republic, when that too failed they elected an emperor and when they were finally defeated after 20 years the Bourbons were restored and they eventually got a republic again in 1871 after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Prussia. During this whole FR and Napoleonic period they attempted to export their ideals through war liek any true evangelist. During the Enlightenment elites traveled and discussed, peasants di not and peasants made up the vast majority of the population of Europe and not just France. I would encourage you to read de Tocquville's treatise on the revolution. He was a very incisive observer of not just America but also France. Sadly he did not live to finish his work on the FR, I personally would love to be able to read the finished product, but what he did finish is an excellent study of France before and just after the revolution.
Lets do that then. Was the mass of people in Europe but particularly France aware of the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment? I think not, evidence would suggest that the Philosophes were just as elitist as the nobility and clergy they so vigorously attacked. I stand by my assertions that the revolutionaries were simple opportunists, every revolutionary is an opportunist. They saw an opportunity to upset the established order and siezed it.
I agree with you when you state that most of common people were not aware of enlightenment ideals, especially when you have to struggle to simply survive. Even during the American Revolution, to which social class did the leaders belong?However can you give me a single example of a revolution that was not triggered or used by such so-called opportunists ?It's a nonsense to despise any revolutionary as being an opportunist, they are just catalysts that precipitates a process or event, especially without being involved in or changed by the consequences.
There is no despite in calling a revolutionary an opportunist, that is simple recognition of the facts. If it is not an opportune time then the revolution fails. It is much like betting on a long shot versus betting on a sure thing, in one you are a loser most of the time but when you win you win big and in the other you tend to win more consistently but lose in the long run. Revolutionaries that succeed are like the guys that pick along shot and win.My main argument is that the revolutionaries in France revrted to popularism to gain support from the common people and not out of any true faith in their populist sentiments. They stoked popular discontent over taxes in both wealth and in kind and demonised the nobility only to impose burdens that were just as onerous if different themselves.
If you consider an opportunist as someone who takes advantage of any opportunity to achieve an end, often with no regard for principles or consequences. I still disagree: some opportunists were guillotined shot ...
....My main argument is that the revolutionaries in France revrted to popularism to gain support from the common people and not out of any true faith in their populist sentiments. They stoked popular discontent over taxes in both wealth and in kind and demonised the nobility only to impose burdens that were just as onerous if different themselves.
One can make a case for the AmRev being set up similarly (san guillotine)... witness the founders and their take on the common man in gov't. The main difference was the French running amok. They completely reordered society; we just changed to whom we, ultimately, paid our taxes.
