French Revolution Research Paper

It is certainly true of the French Revolution that nothing had its intended effect, least of all the idealism which inspired the revolution itself in that optimistic summer of 1789. The King’s plan for fiscal reform had turned into a freewheeling effort to recreate the nation on a humanistic, rational basis, the results of which would define European history forever. Nothing represents this utopian vision better than the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which codified a universal law that ranked even above the constitution in significance. It stands in history as a titanic example of moral uprightness, but also as one of failure: it had been weakened by 1795, entirely abolished by the Napoleonic Code, and not widely adhered

Feudalism, or at least the laws and traditions that enabled it, had been abolished in a broad stroke on 4 August when everything feudal, from the tithe to the venal offices, was swept away. William Doyle called it “the most radical few hours of the entire revolution”. For an assembly not two months old, this was a tremendous achievement and also a crushing responsibility – for they were now responsible for creating the social order that would replace it. The assembly had promised upon foundation to deliver a constitution, and now it added to that a measure of urgency: it not only had to rewrite the federal government’s playbook but that of French society from its most basic manorial unit

Prussia and Austria had no immediate revolutions, nor was there overly much uproar in the Empire. What mattered was the precedent it set. It showed that people could effectively bring their government to account, and more than that, legitimately blame it for every social ill by virtue of its tyranny or its human rights transgressions. This applied, of course, to the obvious danger this posed to the autocracies of Europe. The declaration not only justified but demanded revolution in every society that did not meet its rigorous definition of democracy and human rights. The British had a system that met most of these constraints and, despite probably not being sufficiently democratic to satisfy the revolutionaries, may have been safe; Prussia, Austria, and Russia had no such condolences, relying as they did upon unquestioning obedience to the dictates of their ruling