French Revolution revisited

On July 14, 1789, the Bastille, the symbol of the ancient regime in France, was knocked down by the Parisian crowd which confirmed the collapse of the royal power of the Bourbons.Infact a power vacuum had appeared before 1789 with clear signs that the government was economically and politically bankrupt. Things had not been the same since the reign of Louis XIV, which is usually regarded as the high-water mark of the Bourbon dynasty. There were several factors involved, and of course they interacted to erode the authority of the government. Perhaps the most significant to pin down in terms of its results is the general intellectual climate of the 18th century enlightenment. The writers and philosophers of the enlightenment, Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau questioned everything in the spirit of rational inquiry. Inevitably the illogical teachings of the Church were called into question. Thus the Divine Right of King theory too was stripped of its irrational mysterious shroud and the King no more remained the Holy Cow. But the French government proved strangely slow to see the danger in this new thinking.

The demographic and economic problems of 18th century France proved hostile to the regime as well. In the absence of the industrial revolution as Britain was by then experiencing, great pressure was building up on land and food supplies in what remained mainly a peasant economy. The treaty of Paris in 1763, which concluded the 7-years war in Britain, deprived France of her colonial empire in Canada, the West Indies, India and Louisiana and in the process removed an important social and economic escape valve for France which was becoming over populated for her limited economic base.The economic pressure was mounting but the government paid no heed and remained extravagant with no clampdown in court expenditures. Ten thousand people lived and worked at Versailles by the time of Louis XVI regime. Expensive naval projects such as the fortification of Cherbourg by cones towed out to sea in the 1780’s and cost 28 million lives and it was a ruinous fiasco as they collided, became worm-eaten and sank. All of this had to be financed by a very narrow tax base principally by peasantry. The nobility and the clergy had generous tax exemptions. Sweeping reform of the tax system was necessary therefore if the regime was to survive. The trouble that such a change meant overturning the privileged status of the nobility and the clergy. But the authority of Louis XVI proved inadequate for such a task.The failure to reform for a long time exacerbated the situation and the year 1789 saw the passing of the ancien regime. On June 17, the deputies of the Third Estate declared themselves as the National Assembly. With the storming of Bastille, the National Assembly, set itself to the task of drawing up a constitution for the new revolutionary order. On August 26, the assembly finally voted through the Declaration of Rights of man and Citizen. Freedom of religion was established despite the opposition of the church. The rule of law was central and this was defined with a clear echo of Rousseau’s expression of the general will. Sovereignty resided in the nation, a clear rejection of the hereditary principle of the ancien regime and the rights of men were defined as "liberty, security and resistance to oppression."On September 21, 1792, the French Republic was proclaimed which took the decision to put Louis XVI on trial. Robespierre argued for punishment rather than trial: Louis’s defence was heard but on January 7, 1793 693 deputies voted against him. On January 21 Louis was guillotined.This act of regicide together with the proclamation of republic convinced the European governments that peace or coexistence with the revolution was impossible. The French now talked of expansion to her natural frontiers • the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees. France now declared war on Britain and the Dutch Republic on February 1, 1793. At the same time, The Reign of Terror was unleashed to combat the internal resistance against the revolution. Thus the revolution was at war on two fronts. The internal struggle led to the radicalisation of the republic and the revolution succeeded only partially in achieving its aims. However the significance of the ideas of the revolution cannot be underestimated under any circumstances and the coming generations will subscribe to them.