Originally Posted by smrk2

Going back to an earlier point you and Turn Prophet made about the relative success of the French Revolution; to the degree that France did not achieve radical, egalitarian democracy, why is it wrong to judge the revolution a failure in this respect?

Originally Posted by dalerobk2

Again, it depends on your definition of both the Revolution itself as well as failure and success. The Revolution went through many different phases and historians disagree on when the Revolution started and when it ended. Some see it as ending with the Terror, other with the Directory, and other with Napoleon. From 1789 through the summer of 1791, the Revolution was pretty moderate. Revolutionaries thought of themselves as reforming French politics to make France a constitutional monarchy much like Britain. In June 1791, the king escaped Paris for the Austrian frontier. This is known as the Flight to Varennes. He was unsuccessful. The Flight to Varennes radicalized the Revolution. For the first time there was a significant political faction that called for the ending of the monarchy and the creation of a Republic. The Revolution continued to be divided and radicalized. This is when Rousseau’s idea of the general will and popular sovereignty became so influential for the Revolution.

Radical egalitarian democracy was not the goal of all revolutionaries. In fact, even many of the most radical revolutionaries didn’t believe in the abolition of slavery or equal treatment of people of African descent in the colonies. Still, the idea of popular sovereignty was a real achievement of the Revolution. And it was not just in France but all of the western world. The Revolution basically said that the people are ultimately in charge of their own politics. In other words, no one individual can claim to be the absolute sovereign authority. Only the people have that right. The Revolution is considered a turning point in western history because it ended absolutism, for the most part. It transformed the nature of political discourse and politics itself throughout the west.

I wouldn’t really call the Revolution a success or failure, to be honest, but the rise of modern political culture based upon popular sovereignty and the ending of absolutism was a very real outcome of the French Revolution.

Originally Posted by smrk2

I tried to phrase my question so that I wasn't oversimplifying things, but I do concede that my (as such, under-informed) picture of the revolution is weighted towards the sensational, romantic, terrible elements, from the radical republican/populist politics to the terror. So were those aspects of the revolution a failure (with the latter being rather unfortunate)?

I know you made the point about Louis XVIII signing the charter in 1814, but how were the French people in charge of their own politics when Louis was installed on the throne by foreign powers -- he enjoyed so little popular support that Napoleon crowd-surfed his way back into power without firing a shot (or have I watched Waterloo too much)?

Originally Posted by dalerobk2

I don’t mean to belabor the point, but this myth is so prevalent among Americans that I feel the need to emphasize once more how wrong it is. I teach the French Revolution class every Fall and students always mention the influence of the American Revolution on France. Americans have this bloated perception of the importance of the American Revolution. I can only assume it’s high school teachers who are somehow beating this into high school students. The American Revolution had no more effect on France than it had on the rest of the western world.

For one thing, Americans over estimate the significance of the American Revolution. It wasn’t some magical event that came out of nowhere. It was very much within the context of the mid-eighteenth century Atlantic World, especially Britain itself. George III had angered a lot of people in Britain, especially in parliament, by deviating from what they considered settled constitutional practice. Tons of people in Britain had been calling for a reapportioning of Parliament so that people were equally represented. The “no taxation without representation” was not uniquely American. Not even close. It grew out of the exact same type of arguments already extant in Britain itself. It grew out of the British reform movement of the 1760s and 1770s. In fact, many Britons actively supported the Americans and hoped it would led to fairer parliamentary representation in Britain itself. Americans did not single handedly bring democracy to the western world. It was part of a much, much larger context that developed around the Atlantic World.

Also, the Americans were much more influenced by the French than the other way around. The Americans were intimately aware of the French Enlightenment, particularly people like Diderot, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. That latter one was perhaps the most important in shaping the new American Constitution. Montesquieu was a noble and far from a firebrand radical. He and Voltaire deeply admired the British system and wanted the French system to be more like it—that is, with a constitutional monarchy. These are the guys, ironically, who shaped the Americans—guys who admired the British system. The French revolutionaries on the other hand were influenced by radical Enlightenment figures, not the earlier moderate philosophes. They looked to people like Condorcet, but particularly Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was without a doubt the most radical democrat of the Enlightenment. Americans never accepted Rousseau’s radical, egalitarian democracy. The French, during the French Revolution, did.

Also, the American Revolution and French Revolution were not anything alike. They didn’t even use the term “revolution” in the same way. Americans used it in the traditional way to mean “bring back around” (like a revolution of the earth around the sun). They saw George III as undermining British politics and they meant their revolution to put things back in order the way they were before George III. The French changed the very definition of the word “revolution.” For the first time, the word was used to mean rupture from the past—a complete and irrevocable break. They were doing something completely new that had never been done before (even in America!). They began referring to the “Old Regime.” It was done and in the past. It was of no use after this radical rupture. They even changed the calendar to start over from the birth of the republic as year one. Time would now be told from the birth of the republic, not Christ. (I mention this in more depth in my “Ask a Professional Historian” thread.) The word revolution had never been used in this way before, but now it meant something completely new.

You also have to understand that the French Revolution didn’t just happen in the late 1780s. There had been numerous conflicts between the Louis XV and the Parlement of Paris going back to 1763 over taxes and deficits. The exact same type of debates that were going on at exactly the same time in Britain (and then America). Those political debates between king and parlement continued all the way through the 1780s but only becoming more intense after the debt doubled with the American War. Politics had been changing in France for nearly two generations. Absolutism had been undermined for decades before the French Revolution. There was a long history of political contestation in France before most French had ever heard of Jefferson or Franklin. I could go on about Bertin, Terray, the Maupeou Revolution, Turgot, Necker, Calonne, etc, etc, etc. The French Revolution has a real history that has a very real French context. It was not somehow sparked by Americans.

Finally, you mention noble officers serving in America and coming back democrats. That is simply not true. Lafayette, whom you mention quite a bit, for example was a moderate. He was never a democrat. In fact, he became head of the National Guard in large part to curtail popular violence and repress the forces of popular democracy. He accompanied the October Days in order to protect the king from the people. He ordered the Champ de Mars Massacre. He ultimately left France for exile in 1792, and good thing he did b/c he almost certainly would have been killed during the Terror. Lafayette was no radical democrat. And tons of research has shown that there were huge tensions between the noble officers and common soldiers after the start of the Revolution. Soldiers simply refused to follow noble officers’ orders, which were in support of the monarchy.

Again, I won’t belabor the point further, but I do think it’s a pretty important point. By the way, only Americans have this inflated sense of the American Revolution. People in France don’t see the American Revolution as a core cause of the French Revolution. Nor do Britons, Canadians, etc. Only Americans hold this notion as the American Revolution being central to modern western history.