"Degrees of Violence in the French Revolution" Topic
8 Posts
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Tango01 | 10 Jun 2016 3:29 p.m. PST |
"The French Revolution marks a stain in history, notorious for one of the bloodiest periods in modern civilization. Whether this infamous violence existed at the birth of the Revolution or only during the Terror has been the topic of debate between scholars since the 1980s.1 François Furet challenges the previous "theory of circumstances" claiming that the violence, which existed during "The Terror," existed at the birth of the Revolution.2 Violence was predicted even before tensions peaked in France, and undeniably was existent during the beginning stages of the Revolution. Circumstances also heightened the level of violence, which occurred from 1793-1794. Therefore, both theories hold validity, yet the question remains: were there warning signs to this violence before the Revolution even began? One document, "Paris Scenes," written by Louis Sébastien Mercier before 1789, foreshadowed the violence which was to come to Paris. During the Revolution Mercier served as a deputy of the Convention and was connected to the Girondins.3 Within the document Mercier describes the state of Paris, he describes the Parisians as "a fighting race." 4 He discussed the peasant riots and draws constant comparisons to the British, illustrating his belief in their stable political system thus illustrating how unstable the Parisians themselves were becoming. "…[A]nd their violence would be the more cruel, since they lack in themselves all power to control it." 5 Throughout this publication, Mercier's comparison of Paris in the 1780s to England's Revolution acknowledges some of the hindrances involving the Parisians. " Nor have we settled in our minds the difference between disturbance and revolution." 6 This evidence supports Furet's case and even further implies that this aggression existed even before the Revolution technically began…" More here link Amicalement Armand |
vtsaogames | 10 Jun 2016 6:08 p.m. PST |
The level of violence in the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars are pretty intense, but pale next to the stunning number of executions in the French Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. Throw in the gore in Haiti, intense even before the slaves rise up. I don't have a good explanation for the intensity of the bloodshed. |
Tango01 | 11 Jun 2016 10:17 a.m. PST |
Much more near of our time… the former Yugoslavia slaughter… Same lebel of bloodshed… Amicalement Armand |
basileus66 | 14 Jun 2016 3:25 p.m. PST |
I don't think the French Revolution was particularly bloody, or not bloodier than other periods of unrest. What makes it so notorious was that it happened in one of the major powers of the time; that affected literate classes -therefore, they left dozens of written testimonies about the violence as victims-; that has left literally millions of written pages trying to explain the phenomena of revolutionary violence; and finally that it was romanticized in later years, from the revolutionary and the conservative sides alike; the former by making of the Revolution -and revolutionary violence- the craddle of democracy and of the struggle of peoples to construe a political voice; the second by building a mythology of victimization that served to justify counter-revolution and to conquer the moral high ground for a social class that dreamt of a golden past that never existed but in their collective imaginations (Hollywood has been strangely sympathetic to that narrative) |
Tango01 | 15 Jun 2016 10:52 a.m. PST |
Agree with you Antonio… if it has been so bloody, not so many Hight Class people could managed to scape to other country… even the King has bad luck. Amicalement Armand |
cazador | 20 Aug 2016 11:09 a.m. PST |
The Vendee rebellion was put down in a particularly brutal manner. |
Brownbear | 20 Aug 2016 2:15 p.m. PST |
Every civil war is bloody |
Whirlwind | 20 Aug 2016 2:31 p.m. PST |
What are the facts either way? Is there a serious comparative study of the levels of violence in revolutionary struggles? |
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