revs essay

[wilson]

Hi, this is an essay I wrote on the French Revolution in preparation for my second sac. Any comments/ criticism would be fantastic. I realize that there are many grammatical mistakes. However, I am more interested in comments on the structure/ content rather than the grammar.

thanks




“The character of a popular government is to place its government in the people and be severe toward it”- Robespierre

In your discussion
Consider the ways in which the revolutionaries after 1791 attempted to remake the French social and political order following the earlier phases of the revolution and evaluate how successful they were in creating a new society consistent with the original aims of 1789.





Despite Maximilien   Robespierre’s claim that the revolutionary government “must be severe towards itself”, the French Revolution after 1791 was led on a disastrous and violent course.  This violence, according to revisionist historian Simon Scharma, was not only “an unfortunate side effect, it was the Revolution’s source of collective energy”.  Throughout the years proceeding 1791, the Terror became the salient feature of the French Revolution, distorting the original aims set out by the revolutionaries in 1789.  The attempt to remake the social and political order in France after 1791, ultimately failed, becoming a disastrous period in French history.

In creating a new society, the revolutionaries attempted to remake the economic policies of the French government.   A committee set up by the Legislative Assembly in 1791 was delegated the responsibility of dealing with those who were poor and impoverished in France. The committee found that 4 million Frenchmen and women had to support themselves simply by begging.  The committee’s refusal to take action to help these people because it was seen as too difficult was a betrayal of the notion of equality: a key part of the original vision of the Revolution. However, equality was not the only original principal of the Revolution to be ignored after 1791, The Law of the Maximum put in place to put a cap on food prices, took  away the right of millions of peasant farmers to make a living and support themselves by selling their crops.  This support historian William Doyle’s (a leading revisionist) claim that the Revolution had no benefits for peasants or workers.  Instead of helping workers as the Revolution had originally aimed, the law robbed them of their liberty to work and make a living selling their crops.  The economic policies of the Legislative Assembly and later the Convention destroyed the notion of fraternity or brotherhood in France.   The Law of the Maximum pitted the Sanns Culottes (a radical revolutionary movement who supported the Law) against the Peasants themselves, who vehemently opposed it.  Many Sanns Culottes used intimidation methods to force Peasants to obey the law showing a further breakdown of unity in the French republic.  The economic policies of France after 1791 were in no way consistent to the original aims of the Revolution.  These economic policies were enforced through a carefully constructed political terror.

Furthermore, the political terror orchestrated in France after 1791, saw a breakdown in the values of the Revolution.  The Law of Suspects, passed on September 1793 initiated the political terror by giving the Committee of Public Safety the right to arrest those who were seen as a threat to the Revolution. In reality however, the law was a brutal attack on the liberty of the people of France.  Thousands of people (30,000 according to historian Peter Mcphee) lost their lives during the terror, including prominent opponents of it Jaques Herbet and Danton who were suspected of collaborating against the Revolution.  The execution of many innocent Frenchmen and women through what Robespierre describes as “revolutionary governance” represents a revolution that lost its course and its belief in liberty of the people. However, the attack on people’s liberty was not only initiated by the Committee of Public Safety, in the provinces,  subordinate authorities were given the task of finding enemies of the Revolution in their particular region,  leading to an aggressive witch hunt of the committee’s “enemies”.   The political terror put in place in France after 1791, was a violent attack on Freedom of speech, association and liberty in France, many of the original aims of the Revolution. This attack was triggered by a hostile change in the social climate of the nation.
 
After 1791, the social climate in France was destroyed due to the government becoming “too severe toward itself”.    Due to the rise in political clubs such as the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, many people now had a keen interest in the social affairs of the nation.  However, this saw a break-down in the fraternity of the people as many became concerned with the direction of the Revolution. The media including revolutionary newspapers such as L'Ami du peuple , named those believed to be against the Revolution and called for the people to rise up in support of it. This hysterical social climate ultimately led to the hysterical response of the September Massacres (September 1791) where 1100 innocent people were killed, suspected of being opposed to the Revolution.  The social climate turned men against each other; it destroyed fraternity in the name of the Revolution.   Historian Micheal Adock claims that the reformation of the church beginning with the “civil constitution of the clergy” was a key crisis of the Revolution.  The reformation saw an attack on the liberty of the Church, many were denied the right to religious freedom as the concept of the Nation was seen as more important than the religion. This attack represented an abandonment of the original notion of liberty taking the Revolution on a new and dangerous authoritarian course.


The original aims of liberty, equality and fraternity became distorted after 1791 after the Revolution became too severe unto itself.  The attack on these ideals, led to a breakdown in the social, political and economic order in France creating an unjust system. In a misguided attempt to safeguard the Revolution, the revolutionaries abandoned the very ideals they were fighting for.