Reinterpreting the French Revolution: A global-historical perspective (18 page)

the king’s domain offoreign policy.10 As for Necker: Mercy-Argenteau

reported somewhat simplistically and unfairly to Joseph II in April 1789

that the director-general offinances could see “only the financial problems

to which he subordinates all else.”11

It is certainly true that Necker, backed in this instance by the royal cou-

ple, prevailed in conciliar debates over militants like Saint-Priest, who held

in 1789 (much as Nicholas II’s advisers would hold, more successfully if

not more wisely, in 1914) that resorting to warfare abroad might bank the

9 Ibid., pp. 135–36.

10 Harris,
Necker and the Revolution of 1789
, pp. 304–6.

11 Ibid.

The descent into revolution

69

rising fires ofsociopolitical insurgency at home.12 The Genevan therefore

was able to block what otherwise would likely have become a costly new

French involvement in the Byzantine alliance politics ofthe Continent.

This did not at all signify, however, that Necker, as the guiding spirit of the

moment at Versailles, was oblivious to resplendent French diplomatic tra-

dition, or to the implications ofstability and prosperity at home for the

pursuit ofsecurity and prestige abroad. The conciliar decree (
Résultat du

Conseil
) of27 December 1788 is best known to historians for its attempt

to arbitrate the dispute within the kingdom over procedural matters re-

lating to the approaching assembly ofthe Estates; but it is noteworthy

that the director-general in obtaining it was mindful, too, of larger issues.

“Ifthere is established in Your Majesty’s finances an immutable order,” the

decree sanguinely prophesied, “ifconfidence soars, as one may hope, ifall

the forces of this great kingdom
. . .
become vitalized, Your Majesty will

enjoy in his external relations an ascendancy which adheres much more to

real and well-ordered power than to an authority that is irregular.”13

Less than five months later, in his eagerly awaited address of5 May 1789

to the Estates General ofthe realm, the Genevan returned to this fundamen-

tal theme. “You will not forget that the financial needs of the government

are not separate from your own,” Necker somberly reminded his audience.

Indeed, he continued, they were “one and the same,” since “expenditures

for defense, [and] for policing the kingdom, treating the creditors of the

government justly, rewarding truly meritorious service, and the needs of

maintaining the dignity ofthe foremost throne in Europe
. . .
concern the

nation as much as the monarch.” Louis XVI’s finance minister went on to

declare that modern warfare could not be financed solely out of “ordinary”

revenue; that loans would again be required should France reenter the lists

ofcombat; and that, as a result, the financial integrity ofthe crown remained

a matter ofnational security and honor.14

Like Calonne, Loménie de Brienne, and Lamoignon before him in the

turmoil ofthe “prerevolution,” so now Necker in the opening months

ofthe Revolution itselfwas calling for and indeed bravely auguring the

convalescence ofFrance at home and abroad. Yet all his exhortations and

assurances could not mask the embarrassing reality ofFrench impotence

in 1789. At the very least, France’s nullity in continental affairs ruled out

any credible mediatory role for Louis XVI’s government in matters pitting

Britain and Prussia against Russia and Austria.15 Moreover, by treating

so timorously with Russia over its envisaged quadruple alliance and then

12 Ibid., p. 305. Saint-Priest, for one, was explicit on this point in his later memoirs and recalled as well that he had advanced the same argument eighteen months earlier in connection with the Dutch crisis.

13 Quoted in ibid., pp. 330–31.

14 Cited in ibid., pp. 421–23.

15 Anderson, “European Diplomatic Relations,” p. 275.

70

Reinterpreting the French Revolution

lamely rejecting the concept, Versailles only excited disdain in the courts of

Europe. “By our rapprochement with Russia we have embittered the league

(England, Prussia, Holland), [as well as] Poland, Sweden, and Turkey,”

wrote French ambassador Louis-Philippe, comte de Ségur, disconsolately

from St. Petersburg on 22 May 1789. “By not signing the alliance,” he

went on, “we have given the two imperial courts a grievance. Thus we have

got out ofthe alliance all the kicks and none ofthe halfpence. This is what

our domestic troubles have brought us to.” Ségur went so far as to raise

the possibility ofa reconciliation between London and Berlin, on the one

hand, and St. Petersburg, on the other, that could “completely overthrow”

French influence at Catherine’s court even as it spelled a new defeat for

Versailles’s Turkish client.16 And indeed, Ségur’s anxiety on this last point

may not have been in all respects unfounded: Austria’s ever-vigilant Mercy-

Argenteau had expressed a similar concern in his correspondence with

Vienna just four months earlier.17 Still, the outstanding fact here was not so

much the diplomatic uncertainties attending the Near Eastern crisis as the

total inability ofthe onetime “arbiter ofEurope” to have anything effective

to say about it.

Those holding the diplomatic and military portfolios at Versailles –

Montmorin, Saint-Priest, Puységur, and La Luzerne – must have tasted es-

pecially bitter frustration as events now unfolded rapidly in eastern Europe.

In the spring of 1789, Joseph II’s forces, rebounding from setbacks of the

preceding year, once more seized the offensive, sweeping through Turkish-

held Serbia; by that autumn they would be in Belgrade. Sweden’s audacious

attack on Russia’s northwestern flank soon fizzled out, due as much to

mutiny in Gustav III’s army and to general discontent within his kingdom

as to Denmark’s sudden strike against Sweden. Meanwhile, Catherine’s

gifted general Suvorov led a relentless Russian offensive against the Turks

in eastern Romania. Sweden, abandoned by its onetime confederate France

in 1789, would consider itselffortunate to be able to make peace with

Russia upon a status quo ante basis in 1790; Turkey would be compelled to

cede its Black Sea territories down to the Dniester River to the Romanov

colossus; and Poland would feel more vulnerable than ever to its rapacious

neighbors.

Clear winners, clear losers, and countries somewhere in between

emerged from the fog and din of these dramatic developments. M. S.

Anderson has accurately commented that “Russia
. . .
had shown a greater

capacity for territorial expansion than any other European state and was

now the greatest power on the continent.” Austria, although deserted by

France in its duel with Prussia, had gained at least temporarily at the expense

16 As quoted in Sorel,
Europe and the French Revolution
, p. 517.

17 See Harris,
Necker and the Revolution of 1789
, pp. 305–6.

The descent into revolution

71

ofTurkey (also abandoned by France) and might look to consolidate its

security in the always perilous reaches ofeastern Europe through partici-

pation in a new division ofPoland – yet another polity for which Versailles

could do nothing more. Prussia still had its pact with London, was ever

casting about restlessly for new friends on the Continent, and was not

about to be outdistanced by either St. Petersburg or Vienna in demand-

ing new territorial concessions from the embattled Poles. The British,

fearful as always in 1788–89 of being dragged into the predatory power

politics ofcentral and eastern Europe, could hope to mitigate their conti-

nental anxieties by continuing to move ahead into industrialization and

by solidifying their commercial links with the vast and inviting world

beyond Europe. As for the French, they struck most observers as be-

ing destined for many years to relative inconsequence in international

affairs.18

Were the French in fact to be left behind by the abhorred “modern

Carthage” in the competition for the limitless resources of the extra-

European world? And (in part as a result of
that
failure) would they have

to acquiesce without a murmur in the unchecked shift of power on the

Continent from a French-dominated west toward a “Slavic-Teutonic” east?

Necker made it abundantly clear in the
Résultat du Conseil
of27 December

1788, and in his address to the Estates General on 5 May 1789, that he was

as alive as any ofhis colleagues to the worrying implications for French

foreign policy of the sociopolitical crisis at home. External affairs chal-

lenged the director-general as urgently in 1788 and 1789 as they had ten

years before. But the evolution of
internal
affairs since the heady days of France’s intervention in British North America just as plainly complicated

the situation faced by the French government. As responsibilities in all

areas ofpublic policy came gradually to be shared by broader circles of

politicized citizens, would this undercut ministerial efforts to revive the

war-making capabilities ofFrance, or could Necker and his associates

reasonably draw some encouragement from the patriotic sentiments of

an awakening general public?

The issue was at all times in doubt, given the dynamic political and

social factors now in play; what could not be questioned was the strength

ofthat patriotism as full-fledged revolution set in. The recent emphasis

in French Revolutionary historiography on political-cultural analysis has

brought to light some intriguing evidence ofa literate nation engaged

in the process ofrecovering its historical identity even as Louis XVI’s

advisers lurched desperately from one financial expedient to another. For

instance, of230 political pamphlets published between February 1787 and

18 Anderson, “European Diplomatic Relations,” p. 278. See also Ford,
Europe 1780–1830
, pp. 73–74, for corroboration of all these points.

72

Reinterpreting the French Revolution

March 1789 and subsequently analyzed, more than 50 percent invoked

events in French history as so many arguments for asserting the current

rights ofthe “national” community. Also, the authors ofthese treatises, as

ifto certify their “nationalist” credentials, were willing to mention English,

Dutch, or Swiss constitutional precedents only insofar as they could then

brand those precedents as inapplicable to France, given the country’s

unique traits and historical experience. Moreover, these publicists were

determined to “make the history ofFrance begin with the Franks.” No

longer would it be acceptable, as it had been for commentators like the abbé

Dubos earlier in the century, to glorify the supposed link between the impe-

rial tradition ofancient Rome and the unbridled sovereignty oflater French

kings. The “nation,” sustained by claims oflegitimacy harkening back to

“Frankish” freedoms rather than to “Roman” servitude, would now reign

in partnership with a king whose powers would henceforth be limited by

the laws.19

And from a “nation” liberated as never before could emanate

“nationalism” – a point elaborated in older studies as well as in scholarship

keying recently upon political-cultural exegeses. It is true that the national-

ism inspiring the French at the commencement oftheir revolution was not

very strident. One ofthe first statistical analyses ofthe
cahiers de doléances

of1789 yielded the cautious conclusion that the
patrie
ofmost French cit-

izens at that time, however much it might celebrate the solidarity ofking

and nation and sanctify Jansenism and other national traditions, was tem-

pered by “cosmopolitanism” and by a “peaceful and unaggressive spirit.”20

Yet how long could this emancipated national consciousness retain its cos-

mopolitan and pacific qualities in the seething crucible ofcontinental and

extracontinental politics? It turns out that those
cahiers de doléances
drawn up in northern and northeastern communities and jurisdictions likeliest to

come to blows with France’s customary foes, Britain and Austria, in time of

renewed war most insistently demanded such reforms as nationalization

ofthe army, universal liability for military service, increase ofthe navy,

and state control ofthe making ofwar and peace. Such petitions, insisting

that France uphold its historic honor and prestige, demanded (in the man-

ner ofradical essayists ofthe ancien régime) that, at the outbreak ofwar,

the Estates General be forthwith summoned. In other words, war in the

future was to be a national, not merely a dynastic enterprise. Finally, sev-

eral
cahiers
quite candidly alleged the superiority ofFrench institutions or looked upon France as the preeminent power in all Europe, or even ofthe

entire world, and added that such a country must naturally be “an example

19 Furet,
Interpreting the French Revolution
, pp. 33–36.

20 Beatrice Hyslop,
French Nationalism in 1789 According to the General Cahiers

(New York: Octagon, 1968), pp. 194–95.