"5 myths about the French Revolution" Topic

"Two hundred twenty-six years after the fall of the Bastille, the French Revolution stirs passions mostly among historians like myself. But many of the myths surrounding the revolution have proved more difficult to extinguish. Even the name Bastille Day is something of a misnomer. France's national holiday actually commemorates two separate events: the fall of the Bastille fortress in Paris to revolutionary crowds on July 14, 1789, but also — because 19th-century legislators wanted something less bloody to celebrate — the massive, peaceful "Festival of Federation" held throughout the country on July 14, 1790, to express the French people's commitment to liberty and unity. To mark this year's remembrance, here are the real stories behind five other canards…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Please don't tell me Robespierre is being rehabilitated by revisionist historians.

I guess, now we are halfway through this special year, and with all the Waterloo titles thrown out (some of which I've bought) but now are dropping in numbers, authors and publishers may well be going back to the beginning. Could be very interesting?

The idea that the French Revolution was the product of the oppressed peasantry is enduring but totally wrong – the middle class started it and it was largely over those big tax bills

By and large, oppressed peasantry don't start successful revolutions – Napoleon figured that out in his design of the French National Guard

Ochoin:
Sad but true. I taught a course on it for a couple of years and I had a hard time finding text books I could tolerate. They are almost parodies. That's one (of the many) I am not longer in the 'biz.

Why would Robespierre need rehabilitating, by "revisionist historians" or anyone else? For folks who understand the Revolution in each of its phases, as well as the actual workings of the various committees, tribunals, conventions, and assemblies, Robespierre is not--and never has been--the single, undisputed icon for "terror."

But those who view the Revolution as a horrific, bloody, and unnecessary mess, then obviously Robespierre is a villain.

Frederick is right about the "bourgeois" revolution, but the big tax bills were only a part of it. While these middle-class revolutionaries had read Francois Quesnay, they were equally attuned to Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.

The five myths should not survive even a pub quiz. I might accept the one about the downtrodden poor, unless you have really read the history. Really good responses above!

Every revolution is rapidly followed by one (or even both) of two things…..a massacre of the revolutionaries and then a civil war. The Rebel Colonies after 1776, France 1793, Russia 1917, Ireland 1921, Cuba 1959, Spain 1936, Greece 1945, former Jugoslavia, former USSR……China…………India/Pakistan……Animal Farm.

"The Rebel Colonies" achieved independence in 1781 after declaring it in 1776 and then fighting the British for a little more than five years to guarantee it. We did not massacre our revolutionaries, and the American Civil War began in 1861, which I do not believe anyone would consider "rapid."

I'm not sure either about your examples regarding Greece, especially if you mean 1829, or Spain in 1936. The former resulted in independence from the Ottomans, with French and British assistance, and no revolutionaries killed and no civil war. As for Spain, there was no revolution at all but a civil war for three years, and both sides suffered more or less until Franco emerged victorious.

There is real danger in saying "every," "all," and "never" in history.

@ Maggie
Who said Robespierre was a "single, undisputed icon for terror"?

I do try not to see history in terms of absolutes.

Robespierre acted at least partially through a lust for power & was not overly squeamish on how that was achieved or held on to. However, he probably liked dogs…..

MaggieC70

Very good post. But talking of revolutions, I found it odd that deadhead left out the 'English Revolution', which led to the English Civil War? I do hope he wasn't trying to imply that such things only happened abroad, not in Britain? LOL

@Ochoin: no reputable historian of the period believes Robespierre to be solely responsible for the Terror; I was referring in a rather oblique way to posters on many a forum who have made such claims, similar, I think, to those who believe Napoleon to be the Antichrist.

And this alleged "lust for power" by Robespierre: was it for himself personally, or power to direct the Revolution in the way he believed it should go? There is a difference, you know.

And no, history is never about absolutes, nor should it be seen that way.

@Gazzola: I figured you were eminently qualified to deal with the English upheavals in the 17th century.

@ Maggie

Apology accepted.

I've never read any historian, reputable or otherwise, who paints Robespierre as a one man show.

Do you really think Robespierre differentiated between the desire for personal power & power to advance his ideology?

Based on my time in the academic trenches, I do think Robespierre was more interested in power within the committee to advance the revolution in what many were beginning to see as too radical a direction. I've never seen Robespierre as bloodthirsty, but I have seen him, judging from his writings and other contemporaneous documents, as an idealist. In my humble opinion, idealists are dangerous because nothing and no one ever seems to quite meet that ideal, and therefore they must be removed.

Just my opinion, of course, no more and mo less valid than any other.

Well, Maggie, you say 'idealist'. I say 'fanatic' but I guess we're in agreement as to what the critter looks like.

Isn't Max the one who coined the phrase about how you can't make an omelette without cracking eggs? Now that's an icy pronouncement on the deaths of hundreds.

He wasn't a ravening monster of course but a practiced judicial murderer: "Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts."

Did he truly believe in freedom & oppose tyranny? If so, he was pretty inured to the suffering of the innocent.

"Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible."

I do not think that in a short post that uses a few select quotes I have captured the complexity of the man but his methods were repellent no matter the provocation &, most telling, he was readily able to use the Terror against political opponents who were every bit as opposed to the Ancien Regime & its trappings as him.

Jordan's book on Robespierre says there were no distinctions between the Girondins & the Jacobites. Dear Max's purge of his opponents was the result of political intrigue & not any idealistic agenda.

At the onset, numbers of the revolutionaries were noblemen. In fairly short order most of them were shouldered aside by the middle class. One revolutionary was a Bourbon, Philippe Egalite. He ended up sneezing in the sack.

One online source credits the omelet quote to Francois de Charette, 1742. And I always thought it was Lenin.

Also, real effect of the Bastille: de Broglie realized that if the Gardes Francaises had joined the crowd then he couldn't trust any troops. He told Louis this and the planned military coup against the National Assembly was called off. As always, Louis was about 6 months behind the times. An earlier coup might have worked.

Armed with 20/20 hindsight, I'd only have mobilized foreign regiments.