1. To what extent was the French Revolution a product of rising social tensions?
  2. the 18th century was a period of social, political and economic upheaval in France. It was also a phase of declining absolutism as aristocratic infiltration produced unsatisfactory results. The system of absolute monarch and the Christian clergy underwent changes and a new form of government emerged based on the principles of enlightenment and inalienable rights. The French Revolution (1789-99) marked the end of the long history of the monarchy, advent of the bourgeoisie and inaugurated the history of modern France. Though it is difficult to define the revolution, it is clear that it was a series developments and a sustained period of disorder and conflict. Georges Lefebvre suggests that the origins of the French Revolution lay deep in French history itself. Several interrelated political and socio-economic factors contributed to the outbreak of the revolution. It was the interplay of the intensification of the struggles between existing orders, rise of new social groups, impact of ideas of enlightenment, political tensions etc. it is also worth noting that most European states were formed in a similar way and the revolution wasn’t unique to France. However, the origins of the Revolution must be sought in the specific situation within France. The French Revolution is said to have marked a breach between the existing ‘Ancien Regime’ and the ‘New French Nation’.

Traditionally, the French society was divided into three orders- the Church, the Nobility and the Third Estate. Though the first two groups only represented a small portion of the French population, they enjoyed a great deal of power, fiscal privileges, control over large tracts of land and also dominated the law making body or the parlement. By the end of the 18th century, these classes underwent transformation as they lost their homogenous character and witnessed a great deal of differentiation. This was one of the reasons for social unrest in France.

The Church was a semi-autonomous body that intervened in the political, social and economic life of the French society on the grounds that it performed services by praying and interceding with god. It enjoyed the privilege of paying only a small share of their income to the state, collecting tithe (one-tenth of the income) from all sections of society and owning 10 per cent of the land in France. Within the organisation of the Church, there existed a sharp distinction between the upper and lower clergy. The latter was a group of country priests that formed a majority, belonged to the Third Estate and played an important role in the Revolution.

The Nobility, the ‘social elite’, owned over 25 per cent of the land in France, enjoyed legal privileges, rights of jurisdiction and immunity from taxes like taille personelle. They also dominated the Parlements or the hereditary legal corporations. Internal divisions within the nobility emerged when Louis XIV started the process of ‘ennoblement’. This implied that merchants and financiers could purchase offices and find their way into the ambit of political power. Thus, the aristocracy, which was initially based on blood, was now divided into noblesse de robe (new wealthy, administrative nobility) and noblesse de’epee (nobles of the sword). They were also separated in terms of functions, the military families despising the Civil Servants and parlementaires. A third kind of division, existing between the noblesse de cour and provincial nobilities, followed from the centralizing policies of Louis XIV. By the end of the 18th century, most nobles were faced with economic difficulties. They were officially barred from taking up trade and professional activities and depended solely on their estates for income. However, inflation reduced the value of fixed income and their expenses increased while incomes declined. The King introduced certain policies to help the nobility cope with such a crisis. These policies discriminated in favour of the nobility and led to the creation of sharp differences among the old nobility, upper middle classes and the anoblis.

The Third Estate constituted 96 per cent of the French population and was a very diverse class. It consisted of groups like the bourgeoisie (lawyers, professionals, royal administrators, financiers etc.), lower urban classes like the traders, labourers, domestic servants and unemployed people. They were affected by rising food prices. The largest component of the Third Estate was the peasantry whose main grievances were the excessive burden of taxes like tithe, taille, salt tax and excise and forced labour or corvee. They also resented the coming of capitalism to the country side, opposed closures and distrusted private property.

Thus the French society was complex and highly stratified. The tensions within the society had heightened by the end of the century.

The immediate background to the French Revolution can be found in the intensification of the struggle between the absolute monarch and the aristocracy. It was the aristocracy that led the revolution to victory in the first phase. Hence G. Lefebvre calls this phase the ‘aristocratic revolution’. The French court, due to its reckless expenditure and expensive bureaucracy, was faced with constant financial troubles. French participation in the American War of Independence led to deepening of the financial crisis as the state faced a debt of 112 million lures. Callone, the controller General of Finance, presented the King with a series of solutions. He suggested reduction of the salt tax, abolition of internal custom duties, and commutation of corvee and introduction of a permanent tax on land, regardless of its owners. These radical suggestions threatened the privileges and powers of the Church and the aristocracy. Both these estates resisted these reforms in the parlement by attacking royal ‘tyranny’ and defending their privileges as ‘traditional rights’. As a challenge to new reforms the parlement stated that it was incompetent to authorize a new tax and hence need the assent of the Estates General (the National Assembly). Louis XIV was forced to concede and elections were ordered in 1788, arousing hopes of liberal and constitutional reforms.

When the Estates reassembled in December 1787, the privileged classes insisted that the formula of 1614 should be applied, according to which the three orders should be composed of equal number of deputies and should deliberate in separate assemblies. The Third Estate resisted this as it would have implied that they would be in a permanent minority. They insisted that the Estates General should have double representation and that orders should meet in a single deliberative assembly. The continued insistence to revert back to the precedence of 1614, revealed the intentions of the conservative majority of the aristocracy who were unwilling to compromise on their privileges. This galvanised the alienated Third Estate as well as the wealthy bourgeoisie against the aristocracy. A ‘patriot’ party was formed to represent the hopes of the Third Estate and to demand constitutional reform. Distribution of pamphlets and propaganda became means for the third Estate to muster support and generate political opinion in their favour. Hence, the struggle against royal despotism was now transformed into a struggle between the privileged and unprivileged classes and a demand for equal rights. The King, finally, was compelled to given in to the demand for double representation.

Popular revolts and pressures in the form of revolts re-enforced the political victory of the Third Estate. The Fall of Bastille on 14th July saved the National Assembly from dissolution while the march of the Parisian women to Versailles in October forced Louis XVI to return to Paris and accept the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Mean and the Citizen’. Popular movements played a critical role in the success of the revolutionary struggle even though they often had an autonomous course and objective.

The French countryside witnessed several grain riots, consumer movements, assaults on millers, granaries and food convoys and even full scale revolts as early as 1775. These rural disturbances were mainly directed against royal taxes, tithes, seigniorial dues, game laws, corvee, hunting rights etc. Peasant revolts of 1789 were also directed against capitalism in the countryside. Most of these were well defined revolts with a definite purpose and direction. These attacks were accompanied by a widespread fear and suspicion of the aristocratic groups. The rural groups stormed Bastille, a symbol of arbitrary power, and this incident triggered the revolution proper and forced the National Assembly to address the question of feudalism. After feudalism was abolished on 4th August, the peasant movement ended abruptly and the peasants thereafter became conservative.

The urban disturbances and movements were closely linked to the political ideals that the Revolution had fostered. Various organisations and mobilisation grew out of extensive debate and discussion. These urban revolts were mostly anti-Clerical in nature but their underlying motives were mostly economic concerns as the revolts were against rising food prices, declining wages and purchasing power. Added to this was the resentment of the ‘rich’ as the masses feared that this group would wipe them out of existence. These movements were led mostly by the petite bourgeoisie that was desperate to preserve their lower middle class status. This group was referred to as the sans-culottes because they wore pantaloons as opposed to the fancy knee breeches worn by the elite. They envisioned an egalitarian society and therefore favoured a democratic republic.

Feminist viewpoints in the works of scholars like Lynn Hunt, Joan Landes, Joan Scott and Sara Melzer, highlight the role played by the French Women through the course of the revolution. Before the Revolution, upper class women participated in the political sphere as owners of salons and courtiers. However, women who participated in the public sphere were often attacked as being of loose morals who only contributed to the degeneration of the society. But there were many who protested against the distinction in the role of men and women in French society. At the beginning of the French Revolution, several writers took up the cause of feminism and demanded greater rights for women, higher pay, right to education and citizenship rights through pamphlets. Some women also actively participated in riots and demonstrations. One of the earliest examples of women taking up arms was the October March of 1789. After the nationalisation of the Church, some women worked towards reclaiming their religion from revolutionaries. While most revolutionaries were urban women, the counter-revolutionaries consisted of rural women. Hence, women too contributed to the Revolution in various ways.

The role played by the King and the army were also important political factors in the Revolution. The King vacillated and was unable to prove himself a trustworthy champion of reforms. He lost the chance of being accepted as the leader of the revolution due to his disappointing conduct. He continued to oscillate between his role as a traditional monarch and defender of privileges and his role as an enlightened monarch till the end. Though he declared a policy of taxing the privileged classes, he was unable to enforce it. He only accepted the constitution in name and tried to seek safety in flight before the constitution was signed. It became difficult for the crown to depend on the army to confront the National assembly or disperse Parisian Crowds due to the large scale political disaffection among the officers. The French guards, the mutinous elements of the army provided the mobs with the military and strategic know how required to besiege Bastille. The army played a critical role in ensuring the expansion and survival of the revolution and succession of military activities preserved and consolidated the revolution.

The dominant intellectual current of the time was represented by the Enlightenment. Ideas of Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire were being widely disseminated among and followed by the aristocrats and the middle classes. Terms like ‘general will’, ‘nation’ and ‘citizen’ were becoming popular and ideas like political liberty, right to inalienable rights, freedom of thought and expression were reflected in documents like the Declaration of Rights of Men and Citizens. Secularisation of politics by removing the influence of the church was rooted in ideas of philosophes like Voltaire. The opening of the political atmosphere in 1789 fostered liberal ideas associated with the Enlightenment

Keeping in mind the immediate background to the French Revolution, some scholars feel that the French Revolution was an outcome of the economic crisis in France. J. Michelet felt that the uprising against the old order was due to the growing economic misery of the French. Tocqueville challenged this by arguing that the 18th century French Society was witnessing economic prosperity. C.E. Labrousse showed that though France was a growing economy, there was a slowdown in the decades before the Revolution and that this was made worse by the free trade treaty concluded with England in 1786, the agrarian crisis of 1780s and the fiscal crisis of the state.

Marxist scholars have argued that the French revolution was a bourgeois revolution and hence a result of class conflict. According to Marxist scholars, the Revolution was led by an alliance of the bourgeois elite and the popular classes against the nobility as the latter came to resent the growing influence and economic power of the bourgeoisie. Urban popular movements were a result of the class conflict that marked the events of the revolution. Thus they viewed the Revolution as a transition from feudalism to capitalism. Scholars who advocate such a view include Georges Lefebvre, Alphonse Aulard, Albert Soboul and Michel Vovelle. Soboul maintained that the Revolution was a class struggle in which the bourgeoisie, supported by the masses were successful in overthrowing the old order and restructuring society as per their interests. Lefebvre divided the Revolution into four stages- the Aristocratic Revolution, the Bourgeois Revolution, the Popular Revolution and the Peasant Revolution. He claims that all classes united against the old order.

The Marxist view faced severe criticism by the Revisionist historians who feel that class struggle played little role in the Revolution and was not responsible for the emergence of capitalism in French society. Scholars like Alfred Cobban and George Taylor felt that the Old order in France was defined by internal contradictions and only a Revolution could resolve the problem. They see the Revolution as an instrument of progress. Cobban noted that only 13 per cent of the French Revolution was led by the bourgeois class. He felt that there was no common interest between the professionals and those involved in trade and commerce. Cobban further argued that the majority of the leaders of the Revolution were the petty administrators, judges, officials. Taylor pointed to the common economic interests of the bourgeoisie and the nobility and hence argues that they were not distinct groups. He sees the Revolution as a struggle for political power. Neo-Conservative Revisionists like Francois Furet attacked the Marxist interpretation and provided political and intellectual theories for the French Revolution. Furet argued that the Revolution was an outcome of the cultural structures of the old regime. He emphasised the relationship between the Enlightenment and the Revolution and argued that the democratic ideas propagated by Rousseau and other enlightened thinkers became central to the Revolution. For Furet, the revolution accepted the idea of popular sovereignty so as to excuse any abuse of power carried out in the name of the people. He justified Jacobin violence on these grounds. Keith Baker, in his work, has shown the profound influence certain ideas of Rousseau developed in the ‘Social Contract’ had on the Revolution. He looks at how these Enlightenment political ideologies mutilated into revolutionary Jacobinism. He emphasised the importance of discourse and concluded that political language helped people articulate their demands in a better fashion. He drew attention to the public sphere that initiated public opinion.

Daniel Mornet argued that the climate of enlightenment had no impact on the Revolution directly. He feels that the though the enlightenment encouraged people to demand reforms, it wasn’t threatening enough to result in the collapse of a regime. According to him, it was political factors that played a role in bringing about the Revolution. Robert Darnton also argues that the Enlightenment only had an indirect impact. Cobban and Taylor, on the other hand, completely denied any impact that the Enlightenment may have had on the Revolution as they feel that the influence of enlightened ideas was too sporadic. Neo-Liberals or Post Revisionist historians discuss the cultural factors that led to the outbreak of the Revolution.

The French Revolution, therefore, was the outcome of a combination of factors. The most important of these were the rising social tensions due to economic, political and ideological factors. What began as a political movement led by the aristocracy transformed into a struggle of the masses against an unjust regime. While the 18th century was a period of unrest in most of Europe, the situation in France was unique due to the distinctive interplay of political, social, economic and ideological influences. All these together resulted in the outbreak of the Revolution.

Bibliography:

  1. Gary Kates (ed), ‘The French Revolution: Recent Debates and Controversies’, Routledge , 1998.
  2. Francois Furet, ‘The French Revolution 1770-1814, Blackwell Publishers’, 1988.
  3. Norman Hampson, ‘A Social History of the French Revolution’, Routledge, 1963.
  4. William Doyle, ‘The French Revolution: A very Short Introduction’, OUP, 2001.
  5. Alfred Cobban, ‘History of Modern France: Old Regime and Revolution, 1715-1799’.
  6. Georges Lefebvre, ‘The French Revolution: From Its Origins To 1793’.