The Radical Revolution
James
Couture – April 25, 2004
Questions
at the end of the reading!
Vocabulary
to make sure you know: radical, monarch/monarchy, faction, moderate,
egalitarian, legislate
The first key event in radicalizing the Revolution was the disastrous behavior of King Louis XVI. In 1791 Louis was not a widely popular man, but he might have salvaged a position for himself as a constitutional monarch. Had he accepted limitations on his power and worked with the revolutionary leaders, France might have been spared the pains of the radical phase of the Revolution. Instead, Louis XVI decided to break with the Revolution when the National Convention began its move to take away Catholic Church lands and control the political power of the Catholic Church. Louis XVI attempted to flee from France to join his fellow monarchs outside of France.
On June 20, 1791, Louis XVI and his family were smuggled out of Paris in a coach and managed to get a good way towards the border of France before their escape was discovered. Since their were no forms of long-distance communication in 1791, Louis XVI seemed likely to get away. He had a good lead on his pursuers. Moving at a rapid pace, Louis XVI managed to make it to the border, where he was apparently recognized from his picture on a coin by a border guard sympathetic to the Revolution. Louis XVI was arrested and brought back to Paris.
With his attempted escape, Louis XVI gambled away whatever support he might have held amongst the revolutionaries and the Parisians. By heading for exile with the foreign enemies of France, Louis XVI branded himself as a traitor, a man more concerned with his own power than with the best interests of France. The question of what to do with the King now became a radicalizing question in France. To let the King remain unpunished would be to allow treason. To try the King for treason would mean having to execute him, and thus move the Revolution and France to a much more radical form of government, perhaps like the new democracy in the United States.
With the Louis XVI in serious danger as a result of his action, he had no choice but to approve the a new Constitution in September of 1791. The National Assembly gave way to the Legislative Assembly. France now had a government where the business of actually running the country could go forward. Equally importantly, politicians with similar ideas began to group together into factions, some of which wanted to push the Revolution further. The Jacobins were the key group of people who wanted to make France more democratic, to take wealth from the rich and give it to the poor, to limit the power of the nobility, and to limit the influence of the Catholic Church on French politics. This new factionalism created tensions that were the second pressure that helped destroy the Liberal Revolution.
The mob of Paris became a third element in the radicalization of the Revolution at this time. All through the Revolution, a loose group of unemployed people, angry poor people, and radicals in general had taken to the streets to demand the sorts of changes they desired. This hard-to-define group of people were known as either ‘the mob’ or ‘the sans culottes.’ They often were a mob, using undisciplined violence. Many of them also did not wear the knee-breeches, culottes in French, of the upper-classes. Thus, these sans culottes (those without knee breaches) used the threat of mob violence to pressure for an increasingly radical French government.
Poor people had much reason to press for a more radical government. By the summer of 1792, the lives of the peasants and urban poor was pathetic. The Revolution that the moderate nobles, lawyers, and wealthy men of France had brought was more democratic, but it was not feeding people well. The chaos of revolution and war had also seriously damaged the French economy. Prices for necessary goods were very high in the cities. Yet at the same time farmers were having a hard time getting by. The moderate members of the Revolution could do nothing to solve this problem immediately without seizing wealth from the rich. In fact, the moderates understood that simply robbing the rich wouldn't solve problems in the long run. Starving people are impatient though, and they saw the rich eating well while the children of the poor grew thin. The radicals promised a new egalitarian economy and land reform. The only way to deliver that was to break the power of the wealthy, which was far more radical than the Revolution had been up to that point.
As the radicals gained power as a result of the failure of the moderates to deal with the economic problems, their first act was to call for a new national convention to write a new constitution. The writers of this new constitution were to be elected by every French male who chose to vote. No longer would the vote be held only by the elite. The radicals also planned that the new constitution would leave no place for the King. They sought a democratic republic, something like that of the new United States.
The final pressure, and the one that allowed the radicals to seize full control of France and the Revolution, was the war with Austria and Prussia. As soon as it had become clear that the French Revolution was a threat to King Louis XVI, his father in law, the King of Austria, and the King of Prussia had decided that their own kingdoms would be threatened if France became a democracy. So the kingdoms of Prussia and Austria attacked France to put Louis XVI back in charge. Needless to say, this did not make most French people love Louis XVI. Equally importantly, it became obvious that politics as usual could not continue in the midst of a war for the very survival of the Revolution.
The National Assembly took more and more powers in order to combat the invading armies of Prussia and Austria. A new volunteer army of French citizens, as opposed to paid soldiers, was created. Suddenly all Frenchmen were fighting for France, rather than for the king of France. That change was significant. The old royal army officers were replaced with men loyal to the Revolutionary government. Finally, when the threat of defeat by the Prussians and Austrians was most severe, in early September of 1792, the government decided to execute all the "enemies of the Revolution" held in French prisons. This action was taken to ensure that the people who had opposed the power of people would not be able to return to ruling France. Unfortunately, the massacre of more than 1,200 people without trial was entirely illegal. Only a fraction of the 1,200 were in any way traitors to France. With this orgy of violence, the Revolution had reached a point from which it could not return. It had executed its enemies without trial, if not entirely without reason.
From the dark massacre of early September 1792, the Radical Revolution rose on September 20th to find itself alive. At the city of Valmy the new French citizen army turned back the Prussian invaders and saved the Revolutionary government. Even the radicals were surprised that the patriotic French volunteer soldiers could defeat the Prussian professionals. Having slaughtered their immediate enemies in the prison massacres and finding themselves suddenly victorious on the battlefield, the Paris mob and the Jacobins pushed for complete control in the National Assembly. The moderates were pushed aside and the new leaders decided to change France still more. On September 21, 1792 the National Convention that the Jacobins had called for the year previously called for an end to the monarchy.
On December 11, 1792, the Convention put Louis XVI on trial for treason. He was accused of plotting to destroy France by working with foreign kings. The more moderate leaders of the Revolution tried to save him, but the Convention narrowly voted to execute him. He was beheaded by the guillotine on January 21, 1793.
Since the French army had proven successful at Valmy, and since the monarchies that surrounded France continued to oppose the Revolution, the French government declared war on England, Holland, and Spain. At the same time, a serious French rebellion of royalist supporters broke out in February 1793. The radical revolutionaries found themselves in control of a country at war with nearly all of its neighbors and even some of its own people. To deal with the incredible pressures of constant war and revolution, the radical leaders declared a state of emergency on April 5th, 1793. A Committee of Public Safety was established with very broad powers. The new emergency powers of the government pushed the Revolution to a new phase, The Terror.
The Terror lasted from September 1793 to July 1794. During this period, the Guillotine's bloodletting, the dictatorship of Maximilian Robespierre, and many of the historically memorable events of the Revolution took place. Despite it's short time, more radical change was packed into these eleven months than had occurred anywhere else in the world. During the Radical Phase of the Revolution, France moved beyond even the United States in its attempt to bring democracy to its citizens. In terms of economic policy, the leaders of the Terror tried policies that would later take on a new and more lasting form as communism.
Despite its democratic goals, the actual government of the radical phase of the Revolution was a dictatorship led by the 12 members of the Committee of Public Safety. Mixing the roles of legislator, jury, judge, executioner, and executive, Committee of Public Safety attempted to reshape France into a pure secular (non-religious) democracy as rapidly as possible. Maximilian Robespierre, known as "the incorruptible," quickly became the leader of the Committee of Public Safety. He came to symbolize both the positive and negative aspects of this phase of the Revolution.
The negative aspects of The Terror are easy to identify. At least 40,000 Frenchmen were executed, mostly by guillotine, as enemies of the Revolution. Very few of these executions followed a trial. If the Committee of Public Safety wanted someone dead, they were often beheaded immediately.
Equally horrible was the constant threat of mob violence that ruled the large cities of France. Sent out by scandalous newspapers like Jean Paul Marat's "Friend of the People," mobs attacked noblemen stupid enough to have remained in France. The houses and warehouses of the wealthy were sacked and robbed at the mere hint of horded (saved while others are starving) food. Even something so simple as failing to wear the right tri-colored ribbon or a liberty cap could get a poor soul beaten if some Revolutionary mob suspected the offender of opposing the Revolution.
Finally, the trials without juries or evidence and the imposing guillotine exemplify the terrorism of the Terror. The Committee of the Public Safety gave itself the power to order the execution of anyone in France simply for suspicion of opposing the Revolution. Robespierre claimed this power was necessary to protect the innocent, democracy, and equality. No one but traitors had anything to fear from the guillotine in his eyes. Unfortunately, in a time of chaos and paranoia executioners often aren't careful about whom they kill. A Frenchman could find himself accused of treason for no reason in the morning and be standing in line at the guillotine that afternoon. As the pace of killing quickened, people ratted each other out in attempt to avoid being ratted out first. Dishonest people turned in their private enemies as traitors to have them killed by the government. Even Georges Danton, the man who had started the Terror in the first place, was executed by guillotine as an enemy of the people for daring to say that it was time to stop killing people. By the end of the Terror, nearly everyone in France lived in the constant fear that they would soon find themselves in line to be "shaved by the national razor," guillotined.
Despite the pure horror of The Terror, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety did bring many positive changes to France. Unavoidably, their decision to destroy the nobility and execute the king permanently weakened the nobility. Nobles would rule France in the future, as would Napoleon, but never again would a king rule France as Louis XIV had done. Similarly, the ideas of democracy, even if they never came into practice were drilled into the minds of the French. For the first time, it was government policy that all Frenchmen were equal. Not only could all men vote, but all men were executed the same way, by the guillotine.
The radical phase of the Revolution also began the rise of French military power that would sweep Europe under Napoleon. From the dark days of September 1791, Robespierre and the Committee of Public safety built the French army into the most powerful in the world at their time. The army also served as a school for nationalism. Each soldier fought for his country rather than his king. The French army not only saved France from destruction, but it also began to conquer neighboring countries. In doing so, French generals brought the logic and laws of the French Revolution to the conquered territories. France exported its Revolution at the tip of the bayonet.
Since many Frenchmen were poor, Robespierre and his allies decided to seize control of the economy of the nation. They passed a law that set a maximum price for bread. This change was popular with the Paris mob, but the farmers in the countryside were hurt by their inability to sell their grain for the prices they needed. Similarly, the Committee of Public Safety allowed the mob to attack rich Frenchmen and steal their goods. At times the Committee of Public Safety attacked the rich and the nobles directly, beheading them with the guillotine. These changes were meant to give and equal share of the wealth of France to all, but the practices were too crude and disorganized to really make things better. The poor knew that Robespierre was trying to improve their lives, but his well-meaning actions seemed to bring nothing but blood and chaos.
Aside from their immediate military and egalitarian successes, Robespierre and the other radical leaders sought to reshape the French people into a truly modern nation. Unfortunately, to do so required that the Revolution attack the traditions and habit of many of their own supporters. One thing the Committee of Public Safety sought was a complete separation of Church and State. France, however, was an overwhelmingly Catholic country. As the leaders of The Terror limited the power of the Catholic Church, seized and gave away Church lands, and arrested priests, many Revolutionary Frenchmen became disturbed by the new direction of the Revolution.
The fight over Christianity's
influence over the French government quickly developed into an attempt by the
radical revolutionary government to de-christianize France. The first attack on Christianity was the
change of the Christian calendar. Since
that calendar, the calendar we still use, began with the birth of Christ, it
was an obvious target of The Terror.
1789, the first year of the Revolution became Year One. The names of the months were changed to
represent the seasons. More
disturbingly, Catholic Churches were taken by the government and converted into
"Temples of Reason." The
great Notre Dame cathedral suffered this fate.
The Terror even went so far as to force Catholic Priests to marry, which
violated their vow of chastity.
Needless to say, women were forced to marry those priests. This attack of Christianity quickly
destroyed much of the support that the Revolution held in the countryside.
By the summer of 1794, France had sunk into chaos under the leadership of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. French peasants and French Catholics (who were often the same people) were openly opposing the revolutionary government. Many educated people of Paris and the big cities lived in constant fear that they would be denounced and executed. People who owned shops and factories were furious at the constant looting and thefts by the Paris mob. The obvious solution to all of these problems was to end the rule of the Committee of Public Safety, but to do that risked the threat of bringing down the wrath of Robespierre.
In the end, the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre were destroyed suddenly. On July 27th 1794, a brave soul in the National Assembly accused Robespierre himself of treason. Robespierre was not present at the time and his allies were unprepared to stop the motion. Seeing their chance, the other members of the National Assembly quickly used the very powers of the Committee of Public Safety, the power to execute traitors without trial, to send Robespierre and the other members of the Committee of Public Safety to the guillotine. In all, 22 leaders of the Terror were dead by the end of the day.
Despite their execution and horrible violent mistakes, the Committee of Public safety members had managed to save the Revolution from its enemies. France was a democratic republic in the summer of 1794, but sadly she was too shattered by The Terror to continue the efforts that had brought democracy into being. Robespierre can be credited both with saving the Revolution and creating the fearful cancer that killed it.
Questions for the Reading:
1. Define: egalitarian, faction, Jacobin, moderate, radical
2. How did Louis XVI blow it? What did he do that made his people hate him?
3. Do the Jacobins seem to have wanted anything that you do not consider to be reasonable? Were they making crazy demands?
4. Briefly, and in complete sentences, describe the three main elements that pushed the French Revolution in a radical direction.
5. Who were the sans culottes? Who would be America today’s version of the sans culottes? Describe.
6. Why did the kings of Prussia and Austria attack France?
7. Do the prison massacres seem reasonable to you? Would you have ordered them? Explain.
8. What was the Terror and what was the government like during the Terror?
9. How did Robespierre and his supporters justify (explain) the Terror? Does their justification make sense to you?
10. What was the most unpopular mistake of the Terror?
11. Are you surprised by the way the Terror ended? Explain.
12. Robespierre still has many supporters in France and amongst historians today. Do you think he was a hero or a villain? Explain.