French Revolution Dbq

Many hail the French Revolution as a beginning into a more equal society. But the Revolution is judged on its sentiments rather than its results. The French Revolution never established Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The ideals that the French Revolution was based upon were flawed and abstract to be put into action. The government used coercive violence and the power of fear to crush enemies of the State. The revolution must be looked at in terms of its inability to accomplish what it had originally set out to and the violence and destruction that ensued.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, in The Social Contract, says “...the moment there is a master, there is no longer a sovereign.” Rousseau’s ideas of the “General Will” theorised that sovereignty

only exists in common will. The implication of this radical republicanism is obvious: one has the right to resist any political claim that he does not recognise as the rational product of his will. Edmund Burke, an Irish statesman who served in the House of Commons, is sharply critical of this “abstract ideal” that the French Revolution was based upon. “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” (Burke, 1790) Burke claims that the French Revolutionaries are trying to build a society from scratch. He says that any such enterprise is doomed to fail and fall prey to anarchy. In his Penser la Revolutions francaise, François Furet argues “On one hand we must stop thinking of revolutionary consciousness as more or less a ‘natural’ result of discontent and oppression…” According to Furet, the Revolution assumed the radical ideology that any excuse of power could be excused if it were achieved in the name of the people. Both Burke and Furet argue against enlightenment and rationality and that idea do not directly translate into actions. Burke also states “by adhering…on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by the superstitions of antiquarians”, and thus he attacks the liberals of the time. (Burke, 1790) He asserts having strong institutions can help maintain stability and be a strong force to help the populace. Essentially, he advocates the preservation of the old regime because despite the heavy taxation, the lack of political power and the general despair facing a vast number of individuals, the country as a whole, the more important body, was maintaining sufficient success. The Revolution was viewed as wholly unnecessary and counterproductive for the establishment of liberty. While the Terror hadn’t yet begun, it is foreseen in their (Burke and Furet) castigation of the revolutionaries.
Government led violence in 1792 was a brutal, barbaric and unnecessary segment of the French Revolution directed at terrorising the opponents of radical movement’s attempts toward instilling control.

“A total of 16,597 executions took place in Paris between March 1793 and late August 1794. An additional 40,000 were executed without trial or died in prison and in excess of 200,000 died in the civil war in the Vendee during this time period. Over 98 percent of the executions were for alleged opposition to the National Convention, the ruling body in France from 1792 to 1795.” (Hugh Gough, The Terror in the French Revolution (New York: St. Martin's Press Inc., 1998) The ideals of liberte, egalite and fraternite quickly spun out of control and into state sponsored killings. The outbreaks of violence from the beginning of the revolution were criticised by the British Press. (Reactions of the British Press to the French Revolution, Rosemary Begemann, 1973) The Times and The World held the belief that the French were not yet ready of liberty. (British Press, Begemann) Talking about violence in his book Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama states “....it was not merely an unfortunate by-product of politics…..In some depressingly unavoidable sense, violence was the Revolution itself.” Schama goes on to argue that the violence could be justified had it achieved some successful end. But this was not the case. Many areas of the country were in a state of civil war and while the artisans were free of hierarchy, they were even more nakedly exposed to economic inequities. (Schama, 1989) Schama condemns those who believe that the violence was undertaken to further the fruits of Revolution is

“jejune.”
The French traded one autocratic government for another. What began as a revolution against a broken and corrupt royalty to liberate the French people ended up in the installation of a dictatorship, completing the circle.