Aspects of European History 1789-1980

Stephen J. Lee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134966455
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

In this sequel to his popular Aspects of European History, 1494 - 1789, Stephen J. Lee charts the most commonly encountered topics of nineteenth and twentieth century history, from the origins of the French Revolution, through the social and political reforms and upheavals of the last two centuries to the present.

Helpful and accessible, the book includes:

* an invigorating guide and sound source of background material
* short analytical chapters
* an interpretative approach to history, providing a range of viewpoints on each subject
* both a broad survey and specific studies
* stimulation for student's ability to develop and clarify theme
* a careful structure which aids notetaking, preparation of essays and revision.

Any student of European history will want to have this book at their side throughout their course studies.

1
The Origins of the French Revolution

The purpose of this opening chapter is to provide a synthesis of some of the more important interpretations of the outbreak of the French Revolution.

The 1770s and 1780s brought with them a serious economic depression. This seemed the worse because it followed a long period of mounting prosperity and it caused a sense of resentment and bitterness as all classes faced a decline in their status. The fabric of society was now threatened with rupture by the exertion of two internal forces. These had existed for much of the eighteenth century but were now greatly accentuated by the economic crisis. The first force was the hostility between the Second Estate (aristocracy) and the Third Estate (bourgeoisie, peasantry and urban proletariat) as they pulled further apart from each other. The second force was the simultaneous attempt of both Estates to pull away from the policies of the monarchy and the implications of absolutism. For a while the Estates formed an unnatural alliance against the central power of the monarchy, and so the second force was the stronger. The king, finding himself in serious difficulties, yielded to the combined demands of the different classes, and agreed to summon the Estates General. Now that the central authority seemed to have collapsed, the original antagonism between the Estates reasserted itself so violently that the first force tore through the fabric of the ancien régime. The influence of the nobility was now overwhelmed by successive waves of the Third Estate as the bourgeoisie, peasantry and proletariat each pressed for the achievement of their aspirations.

* * *

It is a common assumption that revolution is caused by misery; Marx certainly believed that worsening conditions create a situation favourable to revolution. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, Alexis de Tocqueville advanced the theory that the French Revolution broke out when conditions were improving. He observed: ‘It is not always by going from bad to worse that a country falls into a revolution.’ Moreover: ‘the state of things destroyed by a revolution is almost always somewhat better than that which immediately precedes it.’¹ In 1962, J.C.Davies used a slightly different approach, but complemented de Tocqueville’s view. He suggested that ‘revolutions are most likely to occur when a prolonged period of objective economic and social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal’.² This seems to be borne out by the general economic trends of the eighteenth century.

Between 1741 and 1746 France experienced a high overall economic growth rate. Large sections of the bourgeoisie benefited from the threefold increase in trade and the fivefold increase of overseas trade, together with the revived prosperity of ports like Dunkirk, Le Havre, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Nantes and Marseilles. The increase in prices (estimated at 65 per cent between 1741 and 1765) drove up the value of farm produce and greatly improved the living conditions of the tenant farmers. Although famines did occur, for example in 1725, 1740, 1759 and 1766–8, there was nothing in the 1780s to compare with the catastrophic levels of starvation during the years 1693–4 and 1709–10. In the general upsurge of prosperity, the French bourgeoisie and peasantry seemed distinctly better off than their counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe.

When it came, during the 1770s and 1780s, the slump had a profound effect. France experienced a recession similar to that suffered by other countries; this was probably no more than a temporary dip in a lengthy economic cycle, possibly precipitated by a shortage of bullion from the New World. French industry and commerce were, however, badly affected because of the inadequate nature of French credit facilities. Production therefore declined, unemployment increased and the recession soon spread to agriculture. To make matters worse, there was a severe drought in 1785, and in the following years the peasants were unable to afford the usual quantity of seed, the inevitable result being short yields. The 1788 harvest was ruined by an abnormally wet summer and the position was even worse in 1789. The degree of starvation was lower than it had been at various stages during the reign of Louis XIV, but the suddenness of the decline in the fortunes of each class in the 1770s and 1780s had a far more dangerous psychological impact. The bourgeoisie and the peasantry, in particular, saw the gap between their aspirations and their achievements growing ever wider, while the nobility struggled desperately to hold what they had. The result was deep resentment and growing bitterness, both of them more inflammable revolutionary material than suffering by itself. The social classes looked with increasing suspicion at each other and at the régime itself, trying desperately to recapture their former share of the national wealth and to continue their previous quest for material advancement.

* * *

The eighteenth century had seen a gradual deterioration in relations between the Second and Third Estates. Each had improved its position economically compared to its own past, but each came to regard the other as a serious threat to its security and well-being. This resentment greatly increased after 1776.

The nobility managed to reassert its influence over the administration and local government by the alliance between the noblesse d’epée and the noblesse de robe, while positions of authority within the Church had, in the words of Talleyrand, become the preserve ‘presque exclusif de la classe noble’.³ On the other hand, the nobility feared the ambitions of the wealthy sections of the bourgeoisie and resisted fiercely any attempts by the latter to break the monopoly of the noblesse de robe over the administrative offices and the parlements. The bourgeoisie regarded their ultimate aim as passage into the Second Estate through the traditional method of ennoblement. Increasingly, however, this form of upward mobility was blocked and with it any chance of gaining political power. Two future leaders of the Revolution showed the effects that disillusionment with this state of affairs could produce. Carnot’s radical views followed his unsuccessful attempts to gain ennoblement, while Danton claimed that ‘The Old Régime drove us to [revolution] by giving us a good education, without opening any opportunity for our talents’.⁴ The peasantry, although lacking the education and economic power of the bourgeoisie, had their own aspirations which were challenged by the rural nobility. Seigneurial rights and dues were extracted to the full, and the peasantry had to suffer the inconveniences and hardships produced by the banalité du moulin, banalité du four, banalité du pressoir, droit de chasse and droit de bauvin. And, according to one of the cahiers of the peasantry in 1789, ‘the contempt of the nobility for the commonality is beyond belief’.⁵ The nobility therefore came to be regarded as a parasitic element, enjoying seigneurial privileges without carrying out the functions which had once accompanied them.

The rift between the Second and Third Estates widened during the 1770s and 1780s. Under the impact of the recession, the peasantry found the seigneurial dues particularly onerous, while the nobility increasingly tightened up their exactions in order to solve their own difficulties. The burden of the depression was therefore passed downwards to the section of society least able to bear it. The bourgeois complaint about the nobility was more indirect but nevertheless significant for the future. They accused the nobility of resisting any rationalization of the economic and financial structure and of perpetuating anachronistic institutions at a time when reform was most urgently needed.

Yet tensions between the social classes did not result in immediate conflict. For a while they were partially restrained by a temporary and basically artificial coalition against a common target, the absolute power of the monarch.

* * *

The motives of each class in establishing this common front against the central government differed widely, but each had a fixed idea that the régime in its present form could no longer serve its interests or guarantee it from exploitation. The government had, therefore, to be modified. Precisely how remained a matter of vague speculation until the monarchy actually collapsed under the combined pressure.

The nobility feared absolutism more profoundly in the 1770s and 1780s than ever before. The banning of the parlements seemed to be an attack on the most cherished power of the nobility, gained after a long struggle since 1715, namely the questioning of royal legislation. When the parlements were restored in 1774 the nobility returned to the offensive, only to be confronted by the appalling spectre of a reforming monarch who, to make matters worse, was served by ministers who openly expressed reservations about the existing fiscal system and the exemptions from taxation. Louis XVI seemed a greater menace than Louis XV because he appeared to be more willing to embark upon an extensive remodelling programme which would reduce the social status of the nobility in a way never even considered before. The nobility therefore used every device available; they fought the reform programme in the parlements, in the Court and in the Assembly of Notables. As the financial crisis worsened after 1787, they demanded the convocation of the Estates General. This was merely an appeal to an early precedent, one which the nobility knew the monarch could not ignore. The Estates General would naturally confirm the powers of the nobility, since on the traditional method of voting the First and Second Estates would outnumber the Third.

The bourgeoisie saw matters differently but went along with the tactics of the nobility. To them, the Estates General offered the prospect of fundamental constitutional reform, which would enable the bourgeoisie to exert more control over the political institutions and to redesign the economic structure. After the brief experiments of the Regency with laissez-faire, France had seen the return of the mercantilist policies of Colbert from 1726 onwards, and the restoration of the oppressive guild system and internal customs barriers. Then, during the reign of Louis XVI, govemment policy seemed to lose all sense of overall direction. At the very depth of the economic depression the government seemed prepared to unleash the market forces of Great Britain; by the free trade treaty of 1786 it exposed the struggling French industries to laissez-faire at the very time that protection was most needed. If the chaotic economic and fiscal system were to be reorganized, the bourgeoisie would have to play an active role. This could no longer be done by hoping for a special relationship with the monarchy as had existed in the reign of Louis XIV; the nobility had long since blocked the access to political positions. The solution, therefore, had to be found in representative institutions—in a parliamentary monarchy. Much as the bourgeoisie resented the nobility, they therefore resented the latter’s demands for the calling of the Estates General.

The peasantry regarded the meeting of the Estates General as a panacea. It would be the means whereby the unequal distribution of taxation would be remedied. The taille, capitation, vingtieme, gabelle and aides would be reassessed or possibly replaced by a graduated land or income tax. The institution of monarchy still commanded respect, but it was felt increasingly that its powers should be limited. The peasantry suspected that the government had been making profits from fluctuations in the price of grain; this and other grievances could now be articulated openly, with greater hope of redress.

In expressing its opposition to the policies of the régime each class made use of the ideas of the leading French philosophes. It is often assumed that Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau exerted direct influence on the growth of revolutionary feeling and thereby precipitated the events of 1789. In reality, the growth of dissent was not actually stimulated by the philosophes; rather, dissent was expressed with the help of quotations taken liberally from their writings. The Paris parlement, for example, used Montesquieu’s theories of the balance of power. Sometimes the phrases used closely resembled the American constitution which, in turn, borrowed from the philosophes. The parlement of Rennes, for example, declared in 1788: ‘That man is born free, that originally men are equal, these are truths that have no need of proof’,⁶ an obvious mixture of Jefferson and Rousseau. The cahiers of each social group in 1789 contained examples of an unusually lucid statement of general grievances. It appears, therefore, that Montesquieu and Rousseau had more influence on the expression of opposition than on its actual formation.

* * *

Such a distinction would have offered little comfort to Louis XVI. During his reign the monarchy not only reached its lowest ebb for two centuries; it eventually proved incapable of presiding over the normal process of government. The main problem was that the monarchy could no longer maintain a careful balance between the divergent social forces for the simple reason that it had no consistent basis of support. Louis XIV had promoted the image of absolutism by elevating the monarchy into a lofty position of isolation. But he had taken care to maintain the support of the bourgeoisie in order to counter the hostility which his policies often invoked from the nobility. After 1851 Napoleon III was to depend on the backing of the peasantry to counterbalance the opposition of the workers. The French monarchy could survive only if it was able to rely upon a politically significant section of the population, or to pursue the more difficult policy of ‘divide and rule’.

The vulnerability of Louis XVI was all the greater because of the financial crisis which lasted throughout his reign, and which proved that he could not maintain his authority without the goodwill, or at least indifference, of his subjects. Intolerable strains had been imposed on the financial structure by the Seven Years’ War and the War of American Independence, and he was forced to consider changes in the methods and assessment of taxation. The situation was not without precedent: Louis XIV had had to agree to the introduction of the dixième and capitation during the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). But Louis XVI had to deal only with a relatively docile nobility, and with an impoverished and not yet articulate peasantry. Louis XIV encountered much more widespread opposition, and in particular a concerted demand, from 1787, for the convocation of the Estates General. In finally giving way in 1788, he acknowledged the collapse of absolutism and the existence of a political vacuum at the centre.

* * *

Freed from the necessity of having to co-operate against the régime, the Second and Third Estates now expressed their fears of each other more openly, and the crisis became revolution.

The nobility showed their determination to maintain the traditional voting procedures once the Estates General had convened. This brought out into the open their differences with the Third Estate, which proceeded to reconstitute itself as the National Assembly. This was the first sign of institutional revolution, as it was an open defiance of the authority and procedure of a traditional body. From this stage onwards, as G.Lefeb...