Of greater significance than the content of the three volumes of Abbe Augustin Barruel's massive work [1797] on the underlying causes of the French Revolution and its goals was that it was a much superior work to Robison's, to the extent that it provoked angry reactions from the Masons and the philosophes of the time, instead of being ignored or mocked by them.
It threatened to throw the revolution, which had already lost its impetus by then, into a bad light by implicating Voltaire and others in a closely worded presentation of documentary evidence but much worse than this, it threatened to drag the true nature of the Enlightenment down and cramp the advance of humanistic theories which were set to sweep the world in the 1800s.
It didn't stem that onslaught because a single book by one now dead Abbe was hardly going to divert a movement which had been long in the planning.
Certainly it is now either accepted or rejected according to one's conservative or communist leanings and is still quite relevant to today's events. Commenters on this blog who dismiss Barruel would tend to be left-liberals, socialists, so-called 'rationalists', philosophes, atheists, humanists and other anti-Christians. Those who realize its historical significance would tend to be traditional conservatives and/or libertarians.
At the time, it was widely discussed and hotly argued over. In other words, it was taken seriously, especially by what would be called in today's terms, the radical left, who feared its effect.
Nicolas Sarkozy se prépare à célébrer le 14 Juillet le plus «zen» depuis son début de quinquennat.Incidentally, you're aware, aren't you, that the 14th of July does not celebrate the storming of the Bastille in 1789 but the feast a year later to celebrate the founding of the constitutional monarchy and the official end of feudalism?
That moment, on July 14th, 1790, was France's best chance of achieving a smooth transition and although Louis' ill-considered flight did much to turn the tide against this solution, it was pretty well the Jacobins and those running them who realized that the melting pot they'd worked hard to achieve might just be snatched from under their noses and so became radicalized beyond the pale, which, incidentally, also brought Robespierre down in the end.
Enter Robespierre now and the Committee of Public Safety, financed by the same class of people who financed every other major social upheaval in the next 200 years, who financed the Russian Revolution and Hitler and are doing it yet again today.
Not for them the peaceful constitutional compromise.
Within two years, the blood was flowing in the streets and hatred and fear had swept the land, with very little material gain for the people who'd been turned from folk with genuine grievances into serial abetters of murder with a thirst for human gore. It's a measure of the ability of the enemy that people are hailed as heroes in France today who should be regarded as the same ilk as Hitler, people such as the traitor Voltaire who was in close touch with the European financial power of the time and had great influence within France plus the grandstanding opportunist Marat.
So this day today is a celebration of that shortlived constitutional monarchy which descended into savagery and butchery within the next year and a half. I wonder how many of the French even know this.
Vive la France!
interesting, and I learned something new.
ReplyDeleteHGF - pleasure. I learnt a few things too.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether the position has changed, but for a long time Simon Schama's history of the revolution, "Citizens", didn't have a French publisher. Presumably that was because he had been blunt about the scale and nature of the horrors, and he had demolished the notion that the other powers attacked France, explaining how France started the wars by attacking them.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd like to see him write something equally frank about the American "revolutionaries" but I dare say that that wouldn't butter his bread.
Yes, yes - I agree. It would be good to see that done though would he tell the truth and would it be oversimplified?
ReplyDeleteThere are some real questions about Washington's 'victory' and the way the Brits blundered out of character for even their blundering of the time.
Maybe we could suggest he do it.
Well the final victory at Yorktown is easily explained - it was the Frogs wot won it, both the battle itself and the naval battle beforehand. Washington's great contribution was to keep at it doggedly until the French pulled his chestnuts out of the fire.
ReplyDeleteI've never explored it in any detail. Thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post.
ReplyDeleteRousseau also totally railroaded the small but important issue of very basic women's rights at the time. Wollstonecraft's work was a response to the man. We celebrated her 500th anniversary this year by the way. I imagine a world devoid of lunatic left wing feminists and identity politics had he and the American revolutionaries got their sense of liberty and justice properly in check when they had the chance. Poor Charlotte too :(
"There are some real questions about Washington's 'victory' and the way the Brits blundered out of character for even their blundering of the time."
ReplyDeleteThat would be interesting. I seem to remember reading about a Major Ferguson wanting to introduce a form of repeating rifle, but was not allowed because he didn't follow proper protocol and bypassed a superior. This honestly seems absurd, though not impossible given if it were a bureaucrat holding rank. There might have been quite a different outcome at the Battle of Kings Mountain (a pivotal battle) were Ferguson allowed his rifles.
"Personally, I'd like to see him write something equally frank about the American "revolutionaries""
-would that be a novel of suspense given in scalp by scalp detail?
I seriously can't get my head around Americans and Brits fighting one another - it seems stupid but I suppose you needed your independence. Since the last world war, this has been less of an issue for Britain.
ReplyDeleteI respond here from a more personal perspective rather than historically documented.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem that for the most part, people did not want the government intrusion and felt quit of it now that they were in the New World where they earned the right to conduct themselves as they would (esp for the frontiersmen). They had had their fill of it and were enjoying their new freedoms. Some didn't even want intrusion from the colonial governments.
I do think it odd, but put it down to sort of a family squabble. It was very much a civil war with neighbor against neighbor; people who wanted to be self-determined versus people who wanted the government to keep them safe (perhaps), or who were just loyal.
You have the combined effort, maybe, of the Scottish Enlightenment with desire for religious freedoms and to be released from class distinction or imprisonment even.
The irony is, of my family who fought the British, their descendants fought against the very government that their grands helped to create, in the Amer. Civil war (or as Southerners like to call it, the War between the States).
Just a bit of history; really, all history is interesting in its own way.
on another tangent would be the Scottish Highlanders who fought for the British. You would think after Culloden, they would want to side with the Colonials against the government. You wonder at the motivations there. (sorry to drone on, you just hit on an interest there :))
ReplyDeleteBurke was correct in his assesment of the British war against American independence: What did the British think they were going to with a huge and distant land, no longer a volutary and enthusiastic subject, if the British actually won?
ReplyDeleteWritten accounts abound of Hessian soldiers who had Washington in their sights and did not pull the trigger. Perhaps that is true of the Scotts as well.
The American Founders were extremely well versed in history, and may have held the wealth of the Roman senate in consideration for their own futures. But the phrase hanging together or hanging separately goes back at least as far as Franklin. These were great risks for men to take who already had the advantage of fame and prosperity.
It is ironic that what the Crown provided for the colonists--an overiding authority that was little used--was completly unappreciated because it was not understood, a condition that would not continue after independence. What it was would be discovered through its lack in that great disorder within and between the states after the war and before the Constitution.
HGF - yes. You know about Culloden, yes? And the clearances. I've wondered about the Scots too [I'm always wondering about them] but I suppose the clan meant they didn't combine well.
ReplyDeleteXlbrl - I was getting worried about you. Hadn't seen you about. Yes the states were excedingly jealous of each other, mnore so than the Australian states or British regions.
I wonder at that because surely they were bound by the new world necessity to present a united front.
"Written accounts abound of Hessian soldiers who had Washington in their sights and did not pull the trigger."
ReplyDeleteinteresting, didn't know about that.
off the cuff, I do believe that the discordance in the beginning is what set the groundwork for the war between the states the next century.
yes, I'm familiar with Culloden. True about them not combining well. (and also the Irish); unless there was a strong leader, perhaps. It will be interesting with the Scottish call for Independence and such.
Too much information here for many interesting discussions...too little time. :)
The new American states were not concerned in the least in presenting a united front to the dangers of the world. They had more immediate problems. Hamilton and Madison raised the consciousness among the populace through the Federalists Papers about that necessity prior to the referendums.
ReplyDeleteLacking the Crown, the individual states experienced mayhem. Every screw came loose in every state--internally. They had not yet reached the point of interstate rivalries. Men did not know what madness they were capable of because there had never been any question before that they could attempt it. The state legislatures scared the hell even out of the anti-federalists. The constitution was a general code that only replaced the misunderstood true function of the Crown.
Be careful of what you wish for.
Side note--the Hessian accounts of not pulling on the original W were in letters home. And, there were 500,000 Germans in Pennsylvania. Lucky for Martha.
Somehow, the French Revolution has come round here to the American Revolution. Related and clearly one I'll have to explore now.
ReplyDeleteThanks, all, for that.
Americans were kindly disposed to revolutions against Kings, and grateful for French help in the war, so Washington had to spend every part of a lifetime of good will he had gained from the American citizen to keep America from supporting it.
ReplyDeleteJohn Adams as well was one of the Americans who understood unequivically that the French Revolution was going to be a disaster, Jefferson was one who was in favor; Tom Paine as you know was deeply involved.
One of your boys said we can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. We must have a democracy to establish a revolution.
Interesting stuff, this, isn't it?
ReplyDelete