Kazuhiko Ranmabayashi
March 21, 1996
The Mythical RevolutionIt is the common knowledge that the French citizens overthrew the ancien regime in 1789 in order to establish new republic government, and it is the French Revolution, the beginning of the modern era. Perhaps, throughout the world most of the people have heard about the French Revolution and know it in some sense because the French Revolution is the Revolution that the people believe the greatest of all revolution, and therefore, people learn it and sometimes try to follow it. However, the French Revolution, the people learn and try to follow, is possibly just a myth of the Revolution. The real French Revolution, the historical fact of it, is hiding in the deep mist.
In one myth, the people think that the French Revolution was the work of the Enlightenment; the rationalism of the Enlightenment generated the revolutionary movement in France. However, this thought is unlikely the truth because the Enlightenment philosophers did not suggest or expect a revolution. Also, the philosophy of the Enlightenment was not widely spread to the low class people or peasants who joined the Revolution from the beginning in 1789. Moreover, the Revolution began two decades after the Enlightenment reached its zenith. The Enlightenment could not be the direct cause of the French Revolution though the Revolutionary leaders got political ideas from the Enlightenment philosophy to respond and justify the Revolution after it happened.
In another myth, which had been believed by Marxists, is also far from the reality. They think that the French Revolution was the conflict between the capitalist bourgeoisie and aristocrats: the class conflict. However, most of the bourgeoisie, who joined the Oath of the Tennis Court, and the aristocrats were standing on the same economic bases: land, urban property, offices, and annuities. Moreover, most of the people who joined the attack on the Bastille were just the poor peasants; they did not even know the word capitalism.
The French Revolution was really begun by coincidence of the two different things: the political crisis between king, aristocrats and bourgeoisie, and the economic breakdown. The political crisis was caused by the near-bankruptcy of the state, which was caused by the wars, the French had been fighting since the time of Louis XIV. In order to collect money, king Louis XVI called the Estates General, but the Estates General produced political crisis and social disorder. At the same time the French economic breakdown was in the depth, and it lead the people to rise in revolt.
The economic breakdown was caused by the rapid population growth in France. During the 18th century, agricultural productivity remained constant, and production hardly rose at all, but from 1740 to 1790 the population grew by more than a third. Growth of peasants meant a shortage of the land, and the landlord raised rent nearly double, lowered the peasants' living standard. In addition to that, the poor harvest of 1788 brought scarcities and high price that lead the food riots of 1789. The riots were formed by the city people and the peasants who left their homeland because there was no way to live.
The Revolution, caused by the political crisis and the economic breakdown, drove France through many phases. From the establishment of the Constitutional Monarchy of 1791, the Legislative Assembly of 1792, the National Convention of 1793-1795, The Directory of 1795, to the French Empire of 1804, France constantly changed with blood and cruelty. Reality of the Revolution was far different from the myth that passed by Marxists, the Enlightenment idealists and the Romantic poets like Byron and Victor Hugo. The Revolution, which was ruled by madness, finally gained the order, but it was not by the people of France but by one man, Napoleon Bonaparte.
However, the people still recognize the French Revolution as a special and the greatest of all revolutions. It is probably because of the some features of the French Revolution that make the French Revolution different from the revolutions that happened before. Although, the French Revolutionary leaders took ideas from the American Revolution of 1776 and the English Revolution of 1688, there were some completely new ideas: citizen, liberty, the sacred rights of man, the common good, the sovereignty of the nation, republic, and so on. Another reason why the people thought the French Revolution as something special was because most of the European people directly felt the Revolution by the French Revolutionary Wars. These wars, France against all the Europe, were caused by both the Frenches desires to inspire others to follow their example and other European nations' fear of the French Revolutionary.
During the Napoleonic era, Napoleon conquered a half of Europe, and imposed the ideals of the French Revolution because he believed himself as a child of the Revolution, and it was his duty to spread the Revolution. He was really the child of the French Revolution because he was the French Emperor but also imperialist. However, unlike Alexander the Great (a king) and Julius Caesar (a Noble), Napoleon (an ordinary soldier from Corsica who was not even truly French) was elected to be the Emperor by the citizens of France. France did not become the true democratic nation, but it was at least populistic. Another thing that Napoleon spread throughout Europe was Nationalism. The Nationalism lead the French people through the Revolutionary Wars, and it was the Nationalism that unified Italy and Germany later.
Since the French Revolution was one of the most famous (by the Myth) and successful revolution, many countries tried to import it. Series of the Socialist revolutions often emphasized the French Revolution because the ideals of the revolution were still coming from the French Revolution. Socialist revolutions and any other revolutions either changed whole social structure and then collapsed or just did not work at all. However, unlike these socialist nations or any other nations, France did not experienced change in the social structure. Even after the rapid political revolutions from 1830 to 1958, the social structure remained the same because in France, there had been strong bureaucracy, and what had been changing by the revolutions is only the head of the bureaucracy. What the real French Revolution did was only spreading the ideals of the Revolution and changing the form of the government, but the bureaucracy remained the same.