Reinterpreting the French Revolution: A global-historical perspective (39 page)

and more “elitist” protagonists of the Center in the tense summer of 1791,

we cannot afford to forget those on the Far Right who were now aban-

doning the Revolution (if they had not already deserted it) altogether.And

this reminds us that the old regime had bequeathed to it what Hampson

has called a “profound social division” which the Revolution could only

politicize and “inflame into bitter and bloody conflict in some parts of the

country.” Frenchmen were divided into “those who understood and shared

the enthusiasm for ...a new kind of society” and “those to whom the whole

business was an incomprehensible threat to their traditional values and way

of life.” On one side of the ever-widening divide was the so-called revo-

lutionary bourgeoisie – a smattering of “liberal” nobles, “members of the

professional classes and some of the more politically conscious artisans.”

On the other side appeared “about half the clergy, many conservative

gentry and large sections of the peasantry.”125 Social conflict among the

“notables” and their followers in revolutionary France was not quite as

it has been pictured by either Marxists or revisionists of later times – but

it was real nonetheless.Discernible even in the relatively irenic period of

the Constituent Assembly, it was fated to take on a tremendously enlarged

significance in subsequent years.

Reevaluating the revolutionary process in France from the October Days of

1789 through the summer of 1791 confirms our working hypothesis that

continuities in this period mattered as much as discontinuities.Europe

remained a world bristling with challenges to international stability; and

125 Hampson,
Prelude to Terror
, p. 85.

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the men of the Constituent Assembly, however busy with the work of re-

constructing France, gave frequent signs that they had not forgotten their

country’s grandiose past role as self-styled “arbiter” of that dangerous

world.In their labors for domestic reform, the legislators at Paris showed

themselves to be inspired primarily by the need to reconsolidate the French

state’s power in a war-prone Europe, if also – secondarily – by the need to

serve the interests of citizens on the home front.Finally, the thrusts and

counterthrusts of political factions in the National Assembly gradually

brought to the fore precisely those Frenchmen – activist Jacobins – who

would prove in the end most adamant about resurrecting the international

might of the old France even while pursuing the most progressive sociopo-

litical dreams of the revolutionary new France.

Thus, one finds continuity with the past as well as celebration of the

present – and anticipation of the future.To mull over this last point is,

in part, to recognize anew that, even in this relatively “moderate” and

“peaceful” phase of the Revolution, signs abounded of crises lying in wait

for the French in the near future.It was as though the greatness of their

past required a similar greatness to come – a greatness whose violent real-

ization would eventually sweep away the king, clerics, and aristocrats of

the old order and install in their place the citizens and perspectives of a

new, modernized, and more competitive commonwealth.

4

The “revolutionizing” of the

Revolution: from 1791 to 1794

A “self-denying ordinance” passed by the Constituent Assembly prior

to its dissolution ensured a complete turnover of personnel when the

Legislative Assembly first convened at Paris on 1 October 1791. The new

legislature included fewer clerics and nobles and boasted more provin-

cial bourgeois than had its predecessor; its members tended on average

to be somewhat younger. Moreover, these neophyte deputies, having been

elected in the anxious aftermath of the Flight to Varennes, betrayed from the

start a radical bent not heretofore encountered in the Revolution’s leaders.1

That radical proclivity manifested itself above all in a foreign policy which

before long plunged France into a war that was destined, with only brief in-

terruptions, to last for a generation. The resumption of a significant French

role in Great Power politics in turn further radicalized domestic politics

and policy-making. It doomed both king and Legislative Assembly, led to

a “reign of Terror,” and forced a basic legislative review of this society’s

obligations to its people.

This chapter, after summarizing the events of the period from October

1791to July1794, will begin its analysis by reappraising the revolutionaries’

foreign policy. It will present that policy as reflecting France’s strategic

needs quite as much as its internal interests and politics. It will then reassess

some of the most important administrative, social, and cultural reforms

enacted by the men of the short-lived Legislative Assembly and its storied

successor, the National Convention. Those policies, like the reforms insti-

tuted by the Constituent Assembly, speak to us of revolutionaries who were

forced at times to place state-security considerations above the satisfaction

of specific political and social interests on the home front. Finally, this chap-

ter will reconsider the increasingly desperate struggle of politicians and fac-

tions for power during 1791–94 and show how this hard political infighting,

1 The personnel and policies of the Legislative Assembly have been examined in some detail in C. J. Mitchell,
The French Legislative Assembly of 1791
(New York: E. J. Brill, 1988).

159

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like the substantive reform legislation of the period, was inextricably

bound up with the reassertion of French influence in the world’s affairs.

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

The Legislative Assembly called for in the Constitution of 1791 first met

at Paris on 1 October of that year. Its turbulent one-year history was

dominated by a struggle between “Feuillants” and other moderates, who

hoped to preserve the monarchy and peaceful foreign relations, and the

“Brissotin” adherents of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, who were determined to

achieve executive and legislative power by manipulating controversial for-

eign and domestic issues. In November, the Brissotin deputies secured pas-

sage of draconian decrees against émigrés and clergy who refused to take

the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; the king’s decision to veto

these (and subsequent) punitive measures gradually undermined his polit-

ical position. At the same time, Brissot and his cronies took up the cudgels

for war against Austria (and, possibly, other states) both in the Assembly

and at the Paris Jacobin Club. As 1791 ended and 1792 began, other forces

also contributed to a deterioration in Franco-Austrian relations: the coun-

terrevolutionary scheming of the Court and its diplomatic agents abroad,

Lafayette’s desire to use war to impose a political compromise on both Left

and Right, and the Austrian government’s eventual decision to attempt to

reverse the Revolution by intervening militarily in France. In March, a

Brissotin ministry was forced upon the king. On 20 April, France declared

war on Austria; soon, the French would be at war with the Prussians

as well.

The war powerfully contributed to the toppling of the monarchy in

France. In June, Louis XVI’s dismissal of his Brissotin ministers and ve-

toes of measures pursuing “non-juring” clerics and setting up a military

camp at Paris provoked an ugly antiroyalist demonstration at the Tuileries

Palace. In July, the country was declared to be “in danger,” and Paris soon

learned of a manifesto in which Prussia’s duke of Brunswick threatened dire

consequences should Parisians not submit to Louis’s authority. By early

August, forty-seven of the capital’s forty-eight sections were demanding

deposition of the king; a “revolutionary commune” usurped the Parisian

municipality; and on 10 August forces storming the Tuileries overthrew

Louis XVI and reinstated the Brissotin ministry dismissed two months be-

fore. Over the next month, French voters nervously aware of Lafayette’s

desertion to the Austrians, of Prussian victories at Longwy and Verdun,

and of a massacre of prisoners at Paris still managed to elect delegates to

a radical National Convention.

At its first public session (21 September 1792), the Convention unan-

imously voted to abolish the monarchy. Louis XVI was put on trial by

The “revolutionizing” of the Revolution

161

year’s end, and executed on 21 January 1793. The international situation at

the outset of the Convention’s existence seemed favorable to France: the

Prussians were stopped at Valmy on 20 September 1792, and the defeat of

Austrian forces at Jemappes (6 November) opened the way for a French

advance into Belgium. On 19 November and 15 December, Convention

decrees offered aid to all peoples desiring to “recover” their freedom and

laid out ground rules for French control over and conduct in conquered

or “liberated” lands. The Republic soon annexed Savoy and Monaco, and

its troops poured into the German Rhineland.

It was in these – momentarily – favorable times that Brissot’s faction

of Jacobin deputies (the “Girondists”), profiting from their identification

with the war, decided to do battle with those Jacobins associated with

Robespierre (soon to be referred to as “Montagnards” in the Convention).

Unfortunately for Brissot and his allies, the resulting struggle for power

unfolded in the first half of 1793 against a backdrop of newly deteriorating

conditions both abroad and at home. On 1 February, France declared war

on the English and the Dutch; this was followed up with a declaration of

war against Spain on 7 March. General Dumouriez, a Girondist protégé,

lost the battle of Neerwinden on 18 March and on 6 April defected to the

Austrians. The French had to withdraw from the Netherlands and were

increasingly besieged on other fronts, too. Meanwhile, inflation and food

scarcities were sapping popular support for the government at home, and

antigovernment revolt flared in the Vendée (western France) and other re-

gions. The authorities implemented emergency measures – the creation of

a Revolutionary Tribunal and Committee of Public Safety at Paris and of

“surveillance committees” in the communes, imposition of price controls

on grain, and so on – but this was not enough to avert a showdown

between Girondists and Montagnards in the Convention. The Parisian

insurrection of 31 May–2 June led to the arrest of Brissot and a num-

ber of his “Girondist” allies and to a purge of all government committees

save for the Committee of Public Safety.

It fell now to the “Robespierrist” Jacobins (Montagnards) to manage

what was becoming an ever more perilous situation. “Federalist” insurgents

were active at Marseilles, Lyon, Bordeaux, and elsewhere; Valenciennes was

lost to the Austrians on 28 July 1793; Toulon went over to the British on

27 August; and on 5 September a popular insurrection at Paris posed a

new threat to the government. Its reponse to all these developments was to

implement the “Terror.” Robespierre had joined the Committee of Public

Safety in late July; he and like-minded members of the executive commit-

tees and Convention spearheaded a national defense of the Revolution.

Over the ensuing months, general price (and wage) controls were enacted;

hoarders and speculators were brought to heel; the armies were enlarged,

reequipped, and retrained; the queen and other “counterrevolutionaries”

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were eliminated; and all available national resources were mobilized. As a

result, the “federalist” revolts (and rural insurrections in the Vendée and

elsewhere) were crushed before year’s end; the British had to evacuate

Toulon in December; and by June–July 1794 France’s armies had resumed

the offensive on most fronts. This, of course, made it safe for the leading

Montagnard politicians to quarrel among themselves. When Robespierre

and several of his confederates insisted upon intensifying rather than relax-