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French Revolution Documents on the Web (McLaughln)

 
 

In many ways the French Revolution was a clash between classes, with the middle class (the Third Estate) assaulting the privileges and indeed the very existence of the nobles. However, in order to do that a new conception of  the structure of society, a new valuation of the contributions of the various parts of society,  and a new theory of the source and purpose of political power were needed. In this document a leading publicist for the Third Estate, the Abbe Sieyes, describes the self-understanding of those who made the Revolution.
 

Abbé Sieyes: What is the Third Estate?


Called by the King to address the financial problems facing the nation, the Estates General immediately became divided. The Nobility and Clergy wanted to vote as estates, which would give them a two to one majority over the Third Estate. The latter wished to vote as individuals which would give them the majority (a similar problem had plagued fifteenth century Church councils). Upon finding their meeting place locked, the Third Estate withdrew to a tennis court where they took the following Oath. In time the King required the first two estates to join the Third in a new National Assembly, dominated by the Third Estate.
 

The Tennis Court Oath, June 20, 1789


Still with the support of the King the National Assemby proceeded to reform and restructure the nation to assure equality, uniformity and efficiency. Institutions that threatened or opposed those goals were either abolished or severely revised. But already events were proceeding more swiftly than the Assemby could control. In the countryside the peasantry spontaneously threw off the burdens of feudalism in a wave of violence and disorder. Fearing that disorder (and agreeing that the feudal order was an abuse) the Assembly voted it out of existence. In doing so the Assemby dismantled the social/political system that had ruled France since the early Middle Ages.
 

Decree Abolishing Feudalism, 1789


Already in the Decree Abolishing Feudalism the Church and the clergy had been subject to the Assembly's desire for reform. But the Assembly went much further. Its vast estates were confiscated  to meet the national debt and its officials placed under the secular authority. As in the Reformation, the clergy were stripped of their privileges and endowed with both the rights and responsibilites that all other citizens enjoyed. Clergy became officials of the state without any independence. Already one can see a difference from developments in England where John Locke had preached religious toleration and the separation of Church and State. The needs of equality and the cohesion of the state battled against the freedom of both institutions and individuals.
 

Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 1790


The King, appalled by the decrees of the National Assembly became a threat to the Revolution. He and his family were at first arrested and then eventually executed, making of France a Republic. As the Revolution became more radical, it faced enemies both at home and abroad. In order to confront these challenges to the new Republic the Committee of Public Safety was created and given dictatorial powers in order to harness the full strength of the nation. Perhaps the most important example of its innovative approach was the creation of the mass citizen army. Such conscript armies, drawing upon all levels of society, and supported by the total resources of the nation, would become standard in Europe and elsewhere, making possible the ever increasing destructiveness of war. In effect this legislation created the modern nation in arms.
 

The Leveé en Masse, August 23, 1793


The most famous innovation of the Committee of Public Safety, an innovation that most revolutions would henceforth copy, was the terror. While the armies confronted France's foreign enemies, it was the duty of the terror to cow or eliminate the internal enemies of the Revolution. It was not only the Royalists who were its targets, however. It was also directed against those who had supported the Revolution, but who opposed its further radicalization.  The Revolution had begun to feed upon its own. It is especially important to note that opponents were viewed as immoral, not merely politically dissident. The strictures against profiteering echo the shift of power in the Revolution from the monied middle class to ever more radical and ever poorer elements in society. Robespierre's logic will be that of the terrors unleashed in our own century.
 

Maximilian Robespierre (1758-94): Terror and Virtue, 1794


Already in the previous passage Robespierre betrays the religious quality of his devotion to the Revolution, to virtue, and to purity. In this last selection he addresses religion itself, claiming God or Nature or Reason for the Revolution. Temples and festivals to Supreme Reason were instituted throughout France.  Note that it is not a specifically Christian God. In fact the Revolutionary government pursued a policy of de-Christianization. The God of the Revolution and of Robespierre is in many ways the God of the Enlightenment, although already certain Enlightenment thinkers had moved beyond religion to atheism.
 

Maximilian Robespierre (1758-94): On the Festival of the Supreme Being, 1794


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