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Lecture 12The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789-1792 |
We now come to the Revolution itself. We have already outlined some of the basic causes of the French Revolution as well as the general features of the ancien regime. It seems fairly clear that the closed social structure of 18th century France, administrative inefficiency, bankruptcy and the example of the American Revolution as well as Enlightenment thought all had their effect on what would indeed occur in the last decade of the 18th century. Above all, a revolutionary mentality had been created and this alone, perhaps, is what drove the revolutionaries forward. Our discussion will suggest that there were actually two revolutions, or two distinct stages within the Revolution: the moderate stage of 1789-1792, followed by the radical stage of 1792-1794 (see Lecture 13). For centuries, Frenchmen had met in local electoral assemblies in order to elect deputies for the Estates General. This was, in theory, a representative institution. However, the Estates General had not been called into session since 1614. In July 1788, and because of its unresolved and mounting financial crisis, Louis XVI called for a meeting of the Estates General. After electing deputies, the full body was to meet in June the following year. For the next twelve months following Louis’ request, each Estate drew up a list of grievances, the Cahiers de doléances. Among the lists drawn up by the deputies of the Third Estate were expressed loyalty to Louis, loyalty to the Church and the sanctity of private property. Several lists called for a written constitution as well as an elected Assembly. As the Estates General prepared to meet, there was a general consensus of high hope amongst all concerned Frenchmen. As yet, no one was talking about revolution. The Estates General met at Versailles on May 5, 1789 and there ensued an immediate stalemate over procedure. The nobility argued that the three Estates meet separately and vote as individual bodies. Since the First and Second Estates were the privileged orders, they would stand together against the Third Estate, 2 votes to 1. The Third Estate recognized this and instead proposed to the nobility and clergy that all members of the Three Estates would meet as one body and vote by head. This is an important consideration. The First and Second Estates were composed of 300 delegates each. But the Third Estate consisted of more than 600 solidly middle class deputies from the ranks of government officials, lawyers, merchants, property owners and other professionals. Since the Third Estate had the support of liberal minded priests and members of the nobility, they were almost assured of a majority.
Louis ordered the National Assembly to disband immediately. A Declaration sent to the Third Estate from Louis on June 23 expressed the following demand:
The Third Estate, stood by their solemn oath and refused to yield to Louis’ demands. In an effort to reach some kind of compromise, on June 27, Louis ordered the clergy and nobility to join the Third Estate. Of course, some members of both Estates had already done so but the vast majority refused. I suppose Louis figured that he could control the Third Estate if it were simply a part of a larger body, but his plan clearly back-fired. The Third Estate would not compromise and the First and Second Estate would not conceive of lowering themselves to the same collective body as the Third Estate. Instead, the nobility joined with Louis against the National Assembly. Louis went on to order the army to station themselves near Paris and Versailles, just in case. Although not one shot had yet been fired, the French Revolution had begun.
As a result of this journee, the aristocrats fled the country and Louis decided to withdraw his troops from Paris. Keep in mind, the events that we have been discussing thus far, occurred in Paris alone. Something very different took place in the countryside. The peasants believed that the Estates General would solve some of their more pressing problems. After all, they had already sent their list of grievances to Versailles. If Louis only knew their plight, then he would take care of them. But by June 1789, the peasants had become restless and violent. As the price of bread continued to soar and its supply decreased, the peasants began to attack food convoys on their way to Paris. The peasants also refused to pay taxes, tithes and manorial dues to their landlords, whom they held responsible for their economic plight. By the end of July, the peasants began to burn down the houses of their landlords and with them, the records of their obligations to their lords. The ancien regime was being destroyed by the will of the people. But why did the peasants turn violent? A rumor began to spread that the aristocrats had organized an army to kill the peasants. This was only a rumor, but the Great Fear, as this episode is known, led the peasants to take arms against an imaginary foe. The Great Fear worked to the advantage of the Parisian reformers and provided the National Assembly with the opportunity to criticize aristocratic privilege. So, on AUGUST 4, 1789, French aristocrats surrendered their special privileges by decree (ratified August 11, 1789). This journee marks of destruction of the remnants of feudalism.
Barely 300 words in length, it could be printed cheaply on one side of a single sheet of paper. The Declaration appeared all over France and was subsequently translated into every major European language. As a symbol, it became the gospel of the new French social order. Louis accepted neither the decrees of August 4 nor the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. However, on October 5, 1789, several hundred Parisian men and women marched the twelve miles to Versailles in order to protest the lack of bread to Louis and the National Assembly. At the same time, 20,000 Paris Guards loyal to the Revolution set out to join the mob gathered at Versailles. Louis had no choice but to promise bread and return to Paris with the protesters. Louis was now the captive of the people. He promised bread. He approved the decrees of August 4 including the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.
At ten o'clock on the night of June 20, a berline,
or heavy coach, drawn by four horses, pulled up at the south end of the
Tuileries. At intervals until Drouet rode ahead to the small village of Varennes and with the help of the locals, blocked the bridge across the Meuse River. At midnight, Louis' berline was stopped at the bridge and Louis immediately admitted who he was. The royal party was treated to dinner and treated with utmost respect. Of course, all the church bells began to ring and by morning, 10,000 peasants were in the streets of Varennes. Finally, at 6 A.M. on June 22, representatives of the National Assembly arrived on the scene, escorted by the National Guardsmen. Three day later, the royal family was back at the Tuileries. Louis was now a prisoner of the Revolution and an enemy of the Revolution. With the FLIGHT TO VARENNES, the National Assembly began to wonder just how possible a limited monarchy really was, or if indeed it was now even necessary. Regardless, between the October Days of 1789 and September 1791, the National Assembly busied itself with reforms meant to dismantle the ancien regime. They accomplished this with six basic reforms
By the end of September 1791, the National Assembly announced that its work was done. In many ways, the Constitution of 1791 seemed to fulfill the promises of reform which had been first uttered by the men of 1789. All Frenchmen could now be proud that the following rights had been secured: equality before the law, careers open to talent, a written constitution, and parliamentary government With this in mind, there was a sizeable faction within the National Assembly who were so satisfied that they claimed the Revolution to be at an end, since its primary aims had been achieved. But, revolutionary times are unpredictable. By 1792, the Revolution moved in a more radical and violent direction. This radical direction was neither desired nor anticipated by the men of 1789. Why the Revolution became radical is interesting and there are basically two reasons why it did so. First, a counter-revolution, loyal to Church and King, was led by the noble and the clergy and supported by staunch Catholic peasants. Because this counter-revolution threatened the changes of the revolutionaries, the revolutionaries had to resort to more drastic measures than hitherto imagined. Second, the economic, social, and political discontent of the urban working classes also propelled the Revolution in the direction of radicalism. These were the small shop-keepers, artisans and wage earners. These were the sans-culottes (see Lecture 13), men who defined themselves not only by their trade but also by the clothes they wore. They wore trousers or pants as opposed to the knee-britches of their social superiors. The sans-culottes had played a role in revolutionary events since 1789, but they had, as a class, received few gains. As one historian has written:
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