Reinterpreting the French Revolution: A global-historical perspective (27 page)

considered walking out ofthe Assembly for good.108 And on the very eve of

the October Days, Barnave despairingly informed an unknown correspon-

dent that “almost all ofthe governing part ofthe Nation,” having become

“our enemy and the enemy ofliberty,” was poised to restore the old order

and accord it “the means to annihilate us, almost without combat.”109

Such fears were only too plainly deepened by Patriot memories of the

events ofJuly, and sustained as well by the king’s continuing refusal to

sanction the Assembly’s revolutionary legislation.

Thus, the polarizing tendencies at work within the Assembly and within

the elitist ranks ofsociety at large before the July Days were also in play

on the eve ofthe October Days. What is more, that polarization interacted

in October (as it had in July) with the popular unrest stemming from

the subsistence crisis. As a consequence, the Patriots in the Constituent

106 These are Egret’s figures, in
Necker
, pp. 353, 357. For corroboration ofthese figures, and some additional details, see Tackett,
Becoming a Revolutionary
, pp. 192–95.

107 Tackett,
Becoming a Revolutionary
, p. 195.

108 Tackett, “Nobles and Third Estate,” p. 289.

109 Cited in Egret,
Révolution des notables
, p. 168.

The descent into revolution

107

Assembly and their confederates at Paris and in the provinces remained

under popular pressure (had they needed it) to defend the Revolution as

it had developed up to that point. Here, then, was yet another calculation

behind the Parisian insurrection ofearly October that removed both the

sovereign and a politically strengthened legislature to Paris.

After every conscientious effort has been made to reassess the converging

forces driving France into revolution in 1788–89, we must still acknowl-

edge as ultimately crucial the discrepancy between the crown’s grandiose

international mission and the civic resources it was able to mobilize to

sustain that mission. Louis XVI was sufficiently alive to his geopoliti-

cal responsibilities to grant Necker a free hand in convoking the Estates

General in 1789; yet, in the end, he could not bring himselfto accept the

reforms that, by fully integrating his “respectable” subjects into public af-

fairs, would have enabled his government to resume the unending French

quest for security and greatness. He was encouraged in his predisposition

to uphold his forebears’ and his own principles by the queen, his brothers,

the courtiers, and all those high clerics and lay nobles in the Assembly and

throughout the kingdom driven ever farther to the right by the prospect of

basic sociopolitical change. Sadly, one specialist’s attempt to characterize

Louis XVI as “liberal to some extent, almost won over to the revolution-

ary cause” must yield to another scholar’s less flattering description ofthe

king at this moment oftruth as “either feebly submissive
. . .
or deviously reactionary.”110 But the Patriots within and outside the Assembly, driven

to the left by their fear of counterrevolution, and riding the perilous tide

ofpopular anxieties and revolt, began gradually to take control ofpublic

affairs in the course of the summer and early autumn.

Georges Lefebvre argued that the October Days marked the end of the

“coming ofthe French Revolution” and the start ofa long-term revolution-

ary process. Most later historians have endorsed this contention. “Nothing

could disguise the fact that political authority had shifted decisively,”

D. M. G. Sutherland has written. “Unlike July when Parisians’ actions

had been essentially defensive, the October Days represented the

first
. . .
occasion when direct Parisian intervention decisively affected national politics.”111 Only now, Colin Lucas has observed, did the “crowd”

invade “both seats ofnational government – the royal palace and the

Assembly – rather than merely the seat ofmunicipal government.” Only

now did it secure the king’s person “as a permanent, political solution to

110 Citations from John Bosher,
The French Revolution
(New York: Norton, 1988), p. 148; and Simon Schama,
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
(New York: Knopf, 1989), p. 419.

111 Sutherland,
France 1789–1815
, p. 85.

108

Reinterpreting the French Revolution

a perennial problem rather than a temporary solution.”112 Yet how lasting

a solution to a “perennial problem” would the king’s forcible removal

to Paris turn out to be? As they endeavored over the next two years to

regenerate their country, France’s revolutionaries would be repeatedly

reminded ofthe precariousness oftheir partnership with Louis XVI. And

even more important, with Great Britain asserting itselfas always in the

overseas world, and with Russia, Prussia, and Austria projecting their

power in old and new ways on the Continent, the French would have to

remain equally obsessed with the “perennial problem” posed for them by

the interaction of global and domestic affairs.

112 Lucas, “The Crowd and Politics between
Ancien Régime
and Revolution in France,”

Journal of Modern History
60 (1988): pp. 448–49. Yet another historian viewing the October Days as a turning point is Egret, in
Necker
, p. 377. Admittedly, Doyle, in his
Origins of the French Revolution
, prefers to break the story off with the events of early August.

3

The first attempt to stabilize

the Revolution: from 1789 to 1791

Timothy Tackett has observed that the impact of the October Days on the

structure and dynamics of politics within the National Constituent Assem-

bly was “considerably less than is sometimes suggested by historians.” The

Assembly, in an attempt to stabilize the political situation, prudently lim-

ited the number of passports issued to nervous deputies wishing to leave the

country, and over the ensuing weeks legislative attendance recovered to the

levels of early August.1 It is always useful to stress underlying continuities

of any kind holding for these early months of the Revolution, as historians

are so frequently inclined to do just the opposite.Indeed, when they seek

to characterize developments in 1789, they dwell with predictable relish

on the dramatic emergence in France of national representative politics,

or proclaim a major “breakthrough” of discourses of popular sovereignty

and conclude that nothing for the French could ever be the same again.

There is, of course, something to be said for such a conclusion.Yet there

may be grounds for arguing, with respect to 1789 and indeed with regard

to the entire phase of revolution dominated by the Constituent Assembly,

that continuities mattered as much as discontinuities.After summarizing

events in this period, Chapter 3 will reassess the European high politics

of 1789–91 and the initial harbingers of a French resurgence in the face of

old and new international challenges.It will then take up some of the basic

institutional reforms enacted by the Constituent Assembly and present

them from a global-historical viewpoint as responding as much to old-

fashioned state security needs as to newfangled expectations of citizens

caught up in revolution.Finally, this chapter will track the changes in the

balance of political forces within the Constituent Assembly and show how

they principally benefited those policymakers and activists (at Paris and

elsewhere) who were most determined both to uphold French influence

abroad and to pursue a revolutionary agenda at home.

1 Tackett,
Becoming a Revolutionary
, pp.199, 202–3.

109

110

Reinterpreting the French Revolution

p r o l o g u e : n a r r a t i v e o f e v e n t s

Over the roughly two years of its existence, the Constituent Assembly

passed a barrage of reforms.Some of these measures were of such obvi-

ous utility to the nation that they aroused relatively little opposition.Thus,

the Assembly created a uniform administrative system of departments,

districts, cantons, and communes.It rolled all internal tolls on commerce

back to the national borders, standardized weights and measures, over-

hauled the judiciary, and began the process of codifying French law.

In other areas of public policy, however, the deputies could not help but

foment new controversies.By selling off church properties, suppressing

“useless” religious orders, and enacting (and then requiring clerical ad-

herence to) a Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the Assembly antagonized

both Gallican Church and papacy.By depriving nobles of their seigneurial

justice, tax privileges, and monopoly of employments in the armed forces,

and then abolishing hereditary nobility itself, the Assemblymen multi-

plied their enemies in the erstwhile Second Estate.On the other hand, by

establishing a divisive distinction between “active” and “passive” citizens,

legitimizing the heaviest seigneurial dues owed by peasants to their former

lords, allowing grain prices to rise, closing down public workshops, and

banning all unionizing, the deputies alienated legions of plebeian French-

men and Frenchwomen.

In these circumstances, the role of the king would palpably be critical.

Louis XVI dutifully attended the first annual celebration of Bastille Day

(
fête de la fédération
) on 14 July 1790.However, three months later he

began to sanction secret overtures to foreign courts that could in time lead

to military intervention against the Revolution.Papal pronouncements

of March–April 1791 condemning not only the Civil Constitution of the

Clergy but also the founding principles of the Revolution itself only rein-

forced royal reservations about the course of events in France.In addition,

Louis was coming under mounting pressure from his wife and brothers

(and from émigrés already congregating in foreign parts) to repudiate the

Revolution.

Hence, the royal family’s abortive attempt, on 20 June 1791, to flee

the country.Five days later, upon his forced return to Paris, the king

was “suspended” from his functions by an Assembly that was now con-

fronting an unanticipated constitutional dilemma.Although the deputies

and the Court cobbled together a compromise of sorts (on 15 July), rein-

stating Louis pending his acceptance of the almost completed constitution,

the “Flight to Varennes” had aroused political passions in French soci-

ety at large.Indeed, the Jacobin Club at Paris, until now home to many

of the revolution’s most illustrious Patriots, split over the question of the

The first attempt to stabilize the Revolution

111

monarch’s fate: the conservative majority of its membership withdrew to

form their own (“Feuillant”) association.Meanwhile, the sponsorship by

the ultraradical Cordelier Club of a petition implicitly calling for a republic

provoked a “massacre” of Parisians by National Guards on the
Champ de

Mars
(17 July).A new line had been drawn – in blood – between Lafayette,

Bailly, the “Feuillants,” and other notables still desirous of preserving the

crown, on the one hand, and the more radical revolutionaries – Jacobins,

Cordeliers, and so on – on the other.

True, Louis XVI formally accepted the completed Constitution of 1791

on 13 September and was formally reinstated in his regal duties.On the

thirtieth, the Constituent Assembly dissolved, thus making way in orderly

fashion for the newly elected Legislative Assembly.But prospects for a

fruitful collaboration between the executive and legislative branches of

government were clouded at best.A counterrevolutionary manifesto left by

the king at the Tuileries Palace on 20 June 1791 had betrayed his real feelings

about the upheaval in his kingdom.Meanwhile, politicians and activists on

the Left seemed to find new reasons daily for rejecting all thoughts of

compromise with those on the Right.And overshadowing everything else

were signs of deteriorating relations between revolutionary France and the

other European powers.

t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l s i t u a t i o n :

c h a l l e n g e a n d r e s p o n s e