The French Revolution shows the historical path the American Revolution did not follow.
The America of today took shape in the republic’s early years. It was the result of a revolution against the British Empire that by all measures should have failed, compromises made between intellectual giants on how best to govern the nation, and the faith of the American people that the path forward for the United States would be guided by the Hand of Providence, not placed in the hands of tyrants.
The study of world history and faith in God guided our founding generation. The lessons of history led America’s Founding Fathers to establish a new path for the country and the world, one where the liberty and dignity of the individual were respected.
On March 4, 1789, the first session of Congress convened under the Constitution of the United States. Later the next month, on April 30, George Washington took the oath of office as our nation’s first president. The first Congress voted on the first ten amendments to the Constitution, or what became the Bill of Rights, and sent these amendments to be ratified by the states. The state ratification process was completed by December 15, 1791.
What if our founding generation had chosen a different path, one far bloodier and revengeful against anyone they perceived as not sufficiently supporting the cause of American independence? The historical models that preceded America’s founding suggested this would be the case.
At the same time our Constitutional Republic was being established, events overseas reminded Americans how quickly a society can spiral out of control. Starting in 1789, France, America’s great ally during the Revolutionary War, saw its people rebel against their king. What started as legitimate grievances against an out-of-touch monarchy ended with an event known as the Reign of Terror. This was the French Revolution.
Background
In October 1777, during the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army was victorious at the Battle of Saratoga in New York. This led France, an enemy of Great Britain, to support the American cause for independence. French assistance proved instrumental to the ultimate American victory.
France’s intervention in the American Revolution added to their already substantial debt. This debt accumulated during years of rising life expectancies and a growing population in France. As a result, the demand for food and consumer goods rose. A new class of merchants and business owners began to supply these needs and gain new wealth. This led to a rise in the bourgeois or middle class, a bridge between the upper-class nobility and the poor. This group wanted more of a say in the affairs of the state.
As French society was changing, the French monarchy was not. King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, and the nobility lived lavish lifestyles while most French citizens struggled to feed their families under an ever-increasing tax burden. In 1788, crop failures led to a lack of food in France, causing fear and uncertainty for many. With food becoming harder to obtain, a new class of people seeking a greater voice, a monarchy living lavishly, increased taxes on those who could not afford it, and a country heading toward bankruptcy due to excessive spending, unrest appeared inevitable.
As a monarch, King Louis inherited his position as France’s ruler. It did not mean he was born a capable leader. His answer to the growing debt and food crisis was to do something France had not done since 1614. He called the Estates-General to resolve the growing issues facing the country. This body represented France’s class structure of the time. It consisted of three “estates” or the “orders of the realm” of the French monarchy. The First Estate comprised the Catholic clergy, the Second Estate comprised the nobility or aristocracy, and the Third Estate, representing approximately 95% of the people, represented the commoners or essentially everyone else. Louis did not know it, but his decision to call the Estates-General started a chain of events that would lead to his death and the end of the French monarchy.
On May 5, 1789, the Estates-General convened in Versailles, France. For so many in French society, this was the first opportunity of their lives to express grievances against the king, albeit through representatives. These representatives wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. Voting was supposed to be conducted as one vote per estate rather than one vote per representative. After some representatives of the clergy joined the Third Estate, it was agreed that voting would be done per representative, a great advantage for the Third Estate because of their superior numbers.
This was unacceptable to King Louis. He responded by ordering the representatives of the Third Estate to be locked out of the meeting room. Giving commoners so much power was never contemplated and immediately threatened his own power. The members of the Third Estate met anyway at a nearby tennis court and declared the Tennis Court Oath to continue to meet until France had a new constitution. The Third Estate declared themselves to be the National Assembly and sought the power to transition France towards a republican government.
King Louis called in the army to quash dissent and arrest the leaders of the National Assembly in Paris. The people responded by arming themselves with thousands of rifles taken from various government buildings, including a military hospital. Gunpowder was needed to use these weapons. A large amount of gunpowder was stored in a political prison in Paris called the Bastille. On July 14, 1789, the Bastille was stormed and, after a brief struggle, taken over by the people with the assistance of some of the soldiers sent to stop them. This event is considered the beginning of the French Revolution and is still celebrated in France today.
The National Assembly continued to meet and became a body with increasing influence among the people. On August 26, 1789, the Marquis de Lafayette, a man instrumental in helping George Washington and the Continental Army during the American Revolution, drafted, with the assistance of Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.” Most of the seventeen rights declared in the document have language similar to what is found in the American Declaration of Independence. For instance, the first of the seventeen rights states, “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.”
However, although people’s rights were being declared, food remained a problem. On October 5, 1789, a large crowd of women tired of food shortages walked approximately twenty miles outside Paris to the lavish Palace of Versailles, where the king and queen resided. Groups of revolutionaries joined these women along the way. Some believe as many as 60,000 people eventually arrived at the palace gates on the morning of October 6.
While the palace was not stormed, a small group, unhappy with the queen, managed to enter the queen’s quarters, killing two guards. The queen was unharmed. King Louis and Queen Marie appeared before the crowd, offering to help them. Both monarchs agreed to go back to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. They brought with them stores of bread and flour for the people. While this defused a potentially volatile situation, the revolutionaries effectively placed the king and queen of France under house arrest in Paris.
1790 turned into 1791, with continuing discussions about how France should be governed moving forward. Many sought a constitutional monarchy, where the king and a legislative body shared power. King Louis was never receptive to this. While he made concessions, such as offering support for the Declaration of the Rights of Man, he still sought to be an absolute monarch with veto power over any legislative body. This stalemate began to frustrate many revolutionaries.
One of these revolutionaries was the forty-fifth signer of the Tennis Court Oath, a man who played an instrumental role in the French Revolution – Maximilien Robespierre. A lawyer who attended the prestigious Louis-le-Grand school in Paris, Robespierre was an intellectual who wanted a greater voice for French society’s poor and lower classes. He was successful enough as a lawyer that he was named to represent Arras, France, as part of the Third Estate at the meeting of the Estates-General.
Robespierre became vocal within the National Assembly and began giving speeches. Many people heard these speeches, which were open to public attendance. His popularity with the public grew as many became receptive to his advocacy for France’s lower classes.
Like so many before and after him, Robespierre’s public persona masked a darker side that showed itself in short order. He was part of a group of revolutionaries called the Jacobins, the most committed to bringing radical change to France. These men debated and discussed political matters with each other at the Jacobin Club. Robespierre became the president of the Jacobins on March 31, 1790.
Events changed again in June 1791 when King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, believing it was inevitable that the monarchy’s power would be constrained, attempted to flee France for neighboring Austria, Queen Marie’s country of birth. The king was recognized about twenty miles from the Austrian border and was returned to Paris.
On July 17, 1791, a large crowd of 50,000 demonstrators gathered at the Champ de Mars in Paris to seek the removal of King Louis from power. This was organized by some of the most radical members of the Jacobins. While most in the crowd were unarmed, some shots were fired at the National Guard troops who were loyal to the king and under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette. The National Guards fired back on the crowd, killing as many as 50 people. This furthered tensions in Paris.
In September 1791, France adopted a new constitution. It allowed King Louis to retain some power while trying to establish rights for the individual. This was the product of much deliberation, and many hoped this would similarly stabilize France to how the Constitution of the United States turned our country into a functioning constitutional republic. This was not the case for France. The most radical of the revolutionaries, those who would not accept any role for a monarchy, rejected this new French constitution.
The plethora of monarchies around Europe closely monitored events in France. If King Louis were to be deposed or have his power limited, they could be next. King Louis sought war against neighboring Austria to create a situation where a foreign army could march into Paris and rescue him.
The National Assembly was now called the Legislative Assembly under the newly enacted French constitution. Many within this body also sought war because they wanted to spread the revolution to other countries. On April 20, 1792, France declared war against Austria. Other European countries, including Prussia, joined the war against the French.
A turbulent internal situation became more complicated with a foreign war. The war started poorly for the French, and an army of primarily Prussian soldiers began marching towards Paris. Panic set in, and disorder followed. On August 10, 1792, fearing King Louis and Queen Marie would be freed by this foreign army, a crowd stormed the Tuileries Palace and, in the confusion, took the king and queen prisoner.
Amongst the chaos, the most radical actors of the French Revolution began to use violence against those they considered disloyal to the revolution. On September 20, 1792, the Prussian army was turned away from Paris. At the same time, radicals murdered 1,100 “counter-revolutionaries” in their prison cells.
The September 1791 French constitution was re-rewritten because the first version included power shared with the king. There would be no power for the king moving forward. This new version was written by far more extreme members of what was called the National Convention, including Maximilien Robespierre. France was declared a republic on September 21, 1792. This proved to be a republic in name only.
The Terror Begins
The terror that defined the French Revolution began in earnest with the decision on the fate of King Louis XVI. The faction of the more moderate National Convention members called the Girondins, whose base of support was in the provinces outside of Paris, had been advocating for a constitutional monarchy and had not changed their position. For them, executing King Louis meant their efforts would be in vain. For Robespierre and his supporters, whose support was based primarily in Paris, the king’s execution was the only acceptable outcome. Robespierre famously declared, “Louis must die so the nation will live.”
On December 26, 1792, King Louis XVI of France went on trial. The jury was made up of the 749 elected members of the National Convention. He was charged with treason, among a multitude of other charges. While Louis had legal counsel, the Convention made sure to limit or outright reject any legal defenses Louis offered. For most of the Convention members, Louis’ guilt was a formality. The only issue that mattered was whether keeping the king alive or executing him would benefit the new France. Louis was quickly found guilty by 693 members of the Convention of all the charges brought against him. After a heated debate, the Convention members voted in favor of his execution by a narrow margin.
On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI was brought to the guillotine in Paris. He had his hands tied behind his back and was placed on a board face-down, with a large blade over his neck. The blade was released and the king’s head was severed from his body. The guillotine was designed to be quick and painless and was supposed to represent equality in the method of death among different classes. The French monarchy, whose origins dated back to the reign of Clovis I in 496 AD, died with King Louis XVI in 1793.
Where was France to go from here? Two distinct factions had developed after the execution of King Louis. The Girondins and the most radical Jacobins called the Montagnards. The two sides tried to appeal directly to the people about what a new French government should look like.
Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety spread terror throughout France during the French Revolution.
In April 1793, the harmlessly named Committee of Public Safety was created, it was said, to protect France from its enemies, both foreign and domestic. It was controlled by the Montagnards, who grew in ruthlessness. Maximilien Robespierre became the twelve-member Committee’s most influential member. Through propaganda, they created an image of the Girondins that they sought to destroy the republic through federalism by seeking to spread power throughout the provinces rather than centralized in Paris, where the base of Montagnard support was centered. The Girondins were tarnished as traitors. The masses in Paris began to believe this.
On June 2, 1793, an insurrection against the Girondins occurred in Paris, and their leaders were arrested. What started as political disagreements between two factions turned one side into criminalizing the other. Twenty-nine Girondin leaders were arrested. Twenty-two of those leaders were sentenced to death. Guilty of nothing more than opposing the Montagnards, these men met their end under the guillotine’s blade in Paris.
In short order, the traditions of France that had governed the country for generations were discarded, God no longer had a place in French society, and mob rule became the new governing model. Justice became whatever the Committee members wanted it to be. They simply declared their victims guilty of treason when, in reality, most were guilty of nothing. There was no due process or fairness available to the condemned. As Committee member Georges Couthon stated, “The guilty have no right to [legal] counsel, and the innocent do not need any.”
The Committee of Public Safety launched terror throughout France, seeing almost 17,000 French citizens executed under the guillotine and possibly as many as 50,000 killed in total during a ten-month period that ended in July 1794. It only ended after Maximilien Robespierre and his close allies met their end under the same blade where they sent so many others to die. The Committee’s victims included Marie Antoinette, those deemed to be “counter-revolutionaries,” those deemed guilty of the crime of “inspiring discouragement,” those declared to be “enemies of the people,” some members of the clergy who would not renounce their religious vows, or anyone that the Committee decided was a threat to their ideology and power.
This period, known historically as the Reign of Terror, became the model for twentieth-century police states. Its legacy is still felt today.
Can events similar to those of the French Revolution happen in the United States? While our Constitutional Framers designed a system that decentralizes power and the Bill of Rights guarantees rights for the individual American, one aspect unites eighteenth-century France with twenty-first-century America – human nature. There will always be some in every society capable of committing and justifying evil acts and who seek to sow discord in a civilized society for their own power and narcissism. The United States is not immune. This is why it is so important for Americans to learn and understand history.
Terror, violence, the use of the justice system for political purposes, and the overall deterioration of the moral standards of society cannot become normalized in the United States. The French Revolution teaches us the dangers of such a course.