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The events that took place in the late eighteenth century in France are known collectively as the French Revolution. These events are often cited as crucial for modern history and society. Despite being radical and revolutionary, both in scope and measures selected, they had the set of important political, social, and philosophical prerequisites that suggest the conservative, as well as radical, characteristics of the Revolution.
The French Revolution is usually credited with overturning the monarchy characterized by royal absolutism and enforcing the Republic instead. This, according to the consensus belief, was reached by massive popular effort, against the wish of the opposing contemporary government. This point is hard to argue with and is true to a large extent. However, certain important clarifications should be made. The initiation of Estates-General by King Louis XVI. While the Estates-General subsequently stripped the ruling elite of its power, which is a revolutionary act, the very fact of assembling a ruling organ and redistributing power may serve as a prerequisite, if not a suggestion, of further action. Such a view was famously advocated by Immanuel Kant, the German thinker and philosopher, and one of the major actors in the events of 1793.
According to Kant, as soon as the king was willing to give away part of his power to the people, the tightly organized regime will inevitably turn into a chaotic mess. In this regard, Kant was viewing the events not as a revolution, but rather as a change of the governing organ, and the resulting popular uprising – just a result of people’s fears and lack of understanding. In essence, Kant pointed to the King’s assembling of Estates-General as an erroneous move. It is easy to see how this goes in line with his theories of absolute truths and taking into account the risks he was facing for offering judgment, it is easy to see his bias. However, other thinkers of the time supported his claims, including Edmund Burke, who also pointed to the fact of abandonment of absolute power by the king (Stearns, Gosch, and Grieshaber 375).
Even Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, the advocate of the popular sovereignty and a key figure in the transformation of the Estates-General into the National Assembly, agreed that the absolute monarchy was reduced to the constitutional form after the events of 1789. This arguably redistributes the role of the uprising and later reforms. One can go as far as suggesting that Louis XVI contributed to the government change pressed by the financial crisis his regime was facing. This should not be viewed as an attempt to downplay the importance of the popular effort, but rather to show that the events were perhaps less “revolutionary” and more consequential than the current lore suggests.
The financial troubles mentioned above – the huge debts faced by the government and resulting in the Estates-General assembly – were not the sole reason for the Revolution. The agricultural crisis and the rising prices of food also stirred the masses. The crisis only fifteen years before the Revolution has resulted in the series of revolts known as the Flour War of 1775, which, while driven primarily by bread prices, may be viewed as a prerequisite for the events of 1789 onward.
The social order of the time precluding the event was also a major influence. The social structure utilized the division into three estates: the clergy (the First Estate), the aristocracy (the Second Estate), and the commoners (the Third Estate). This was essentially a caste system with the sole difference of the possibility to gain a higher status. This was already happening with the emergence of the bourgeoisie, which consisted basically of the representatives of the Third Estate, but influential and powerful enough to be equaled to the First and the Second one. This marginal group further emphasized the gap in rights and wealth which existed between the estates.
At the same time, the rise of the Renaissance movement throughout Europe emphasized the fundamental equality of all human beings and the right to strive for it. In simpler words, two major trends of the end of the century were the abundance of inequity grounded in politics and the motivation and justification for changing it based on cultural developments. The struggle for female rights was also conceived at this time, with Olympe de Gouges, a political activist who is often cited as the proto-feminist and an advocate of gender equality. While not having the direct impact on Revolution, her writing went in line with the cultural heritage of the era and planted a seed that would only be fully developed after the end of the period in question.
However, it is important to distinguish two distinctive elements of the uprising. The cultural aspect of the Renaissance values and philosophies, as well as the political order of the events probably did not influence the majority of the population, which consisted mostly of the peasantry. The masses were instead concerned with the social and, to an even larger extent, economic situation, which sometimes directly threatened their survival. It is easy to ignore the philosophical aspect when you are famished and left without means of sustaining your family. Thus, the major motivation behind the French Revolution was the public turbulence, and the cultural support only reinforced the resolution.
The changes brought with the Revolution are numerous and reflect in all major fields of civilized society – politics, economy, and human rights. Among the most noticeable are the introduction of new government models – the constitutional monarchy, the republic, and the representative government, although it is important to remember that all of the examples in the case of France differ significantly from formal definitions. The second major change, which is both intentional and successful, is the total eradication of privileges that were essentially passed down since the feudal age (Stearns, Gosch, and Grieshaber 382) and created inequity and injustice. Thus, the human rights were instilled and documented in the Declaration of the Rights of Man (Stearns, Gosch, and Grieshaber 368), making liberty and equality a real phenomenon instead of a philosophical category. Finally, the process of separation of the state and the church has begun, decreasing the Church’s authority and influence. Even the foundations for national, gender and racial equality were laid, with Jews being granted active citizenship in 1792, and the ideas of Olympe de Gouges spreading in the gradually more favorable social climate.
In all, the French Revolution is rightly placed among the most influential events that shaped the modern world. While some of its aspects, like the political implications for the term, maybe misplaced or partially unjustified, the resulting series of events set the important precedent that may serve an example of the declaration of power by the people in case of the abuse of power by the government. While criticized by conservative contemporaries and modern liberals alike for its excessive violence and radical nature, it nevertheless achieved most, if not all, of the goals set by the revolutionaries. In essence, on the European scene, this meant the turning point between the old feudal and the new democratic governing system.
Works Cited
Stearns, Peter, Stephen Gosch, and Erwin Grieshaber. Documents In World History, New York: Longman, 2003. Print.
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