Moderate Phase of the French Revolution

4 Key excerpts on "Moderate Phase of the French Revolution"

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  Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance

  The Power of Story

  • Professor Eric Selbin(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Zed Books

    (Publisher)

  Radicals remained in charge, and in September the separation of church and state was formalized. While truces were brokered throughout France to bring assorted resistance and rebellions to an end, the government still had to put down radical uprisings demanding ‘Bread and Constitution of 1793’ as well as contend with ‘White Terror’ in places where conservatives sought revenge. However, the moderates that remained were welcomed back into the revolutionary fold and a new path forward for a more tempered if still resolute revolutionary process sought. And here the French Revolution’s star turn in the Story of Social Revolution comes to an end. Little is made of the conservative (or moderate, depending on one’s perspective) reaction which defined much of 1795 and culminated in yet another new, essentially liberal, constitution and bicameral legislature indirectly elected by male tax-payers. who in turn elected a five-man executive ‘Directory.’ In 1796 Babeuf’s proto-socialist Conspiracy of Equals 10 was crushed before it really got started; this may have contributed to the monarchists’ somewhat surprising electoral success in 1797, which led in turn to their purging and a 1798 electoral resurgence by the radicals. Tacking back and forth between these poles and confronting myriad challenges, in 1799 moderate republicans turned to their most accomplished general, Napoleon, who on 18 Brumaire (9 November) ousted the Directory and in fairly short order turned most of the revolution’s achievements on their head, ending representative government, instituting censorship, suppressing what rights people did retain, to varying degrees restoring the rights of the Church and aristocracy, and creating a new monarchy in many ways far more powerful, this despite his commitment to liberal 124 Revolution, rebellion, resistance principles of rationality and private property. Yet this is not the aspect of the French Revolution at the center of this story.

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  The Moral Culture of the Scottish Enlightenment

  1690–1805

  • Thomas Ahnert(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Yale University Press

    (Publisher)

  122 Conclusion: Moderates in the Late Enlightenment By the early nineteenth century Moderates were sometimes described as a conservative interest group that had lost its intellectual vigor and openmind-edness, and was held together primarily by its members’ opposition to social and political change. 1 Moderates not only were critical of the French Revolution, but also worked closely with the crown’s political manager in Scotland, Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, who used his far-reaching control over appointments to various posts and offices to secure support for the government. Moreover, in the early 1800 s they seemed suspicious of any skeptical or heterodox ideas, far more than had been the case in the mid- and late eighteenth century. In the mid-1750 s the Moderate Party had sided with David Hume and Lord Kames against the orthodox clergy, but in 1805 the Moderates resisted the appointment of a professor, John Leslie, on the grounds that he had endorsed Hume ’s skeptical notion of causation in an obscure note on a scientific work on heat. 2 The growing conservatism of the Moderates is often traced to the 1790 s and believed to be a reaction to the increasing violence of the French Revolution. The revolution had at first been widely welcomed in Britain. Most observers, including the majority of Moderates, had viewed it as a belated, but laudable attempt to follow the example of the Glorious Revolution exactly a century earlier and to transform France into a constitutional monarchy. That m o d e r at e s i n t h e lat e e n l i g h t e n m e n t 123 perception had, however, been shattered by the increasingly violent turn the revolution took, with the assault of the Parisian sans-culottes on the Tuileries palace in August 1792 , the slaughter of the Swiss guards protecting the royal family, the prison massacres in Paris in September of that same year, and, most alarmingly, the execution of the king in January 1793 .

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  Benjamin Constant and the Birth of French Liberalism

  • K. Steven Vincent(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  . . and has remained constitutional and moderate, though encouraged to become revolutionary and all- powerful.” 46 54 Constant and French Liberalism He criticized those who spent their time focusing on the past inju- ries of the old regime or of the revolutionary period. “The Republic is a goal, the revolution was a route; it is time to turn our view away from this route, in order finally to see where we have arrived.” 47 What was needed was an assessment of the present, which entailed bring- ing the revolution to a close and supporting the Republic. Constant argued that any restoration of the monarchy would weaken France internationally and further destabilize France internally. It would undermine the war effort, would have no impact on the weakness of the French navy vis-à-vis the English navy, would not reinvigor- ate commerce or lead to solutions to the monetary and credit crises. Moreover, it would lead to civil war. 48 As this indicates, Constant was not an advocate of revolutionary change per se, recognizing that changes of government inevitably involved “convulsions, anarchy, massacres.” 49 He characterized the turmoil in France since 1789 as “a devastating torrent.” 50 In the pref- ace, he declared that it was not his intention “to write against any type of government,” and repeated later in the work that he “did not write against any form of government, but against all species of new revolution.” 51 This suggests a support of the French Republic primarily for anti-revolutionary reasons, which was certainly an important element of his moderate stance (and one that would con- tinue to inform his thought in subsequent years). But, in fact, he was also supportive of the Republic because it was a legal representative government, a regime that was in principle more defensible than the hereditary system of the monarchy.

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  Unbelief and Revolution (Lexham Classics)

  • Groen van Prinsterer, Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Harry Van Dyke(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Lexham Press

    (Publisher)

  LECTURE

  XII

  Second Phase: Development (1789–94 )

  We have seen how the Revolution arose in Europe, and how particularly in France a political inversion and a social revolution were prepared by the growing prevalence of anti-Christian theories. It was natural that the march of events should reveal what the course of ideas had accomplished. After the phase of Preparation we must consider the phase of Development.

  When I survey that dreadful but also highly instructive period from 1789 till 1794 , I rediscover in it all the features which I have deduced, in my provisional sketch, from the logic and nature of the Revolution principle: consensus about the salutary nature of the Revolution doctrine; contention about the degree and manner of its practicability; ceaseless forward movement, amid a progressively more vehement struggle; release of every moral and legal bond; compulsory unity under the iron yoke of an increasingly more violent centralized government.

  No proof could be more striking of the perniciousness of a doctrine which, when it had free course, resulted in such anarchy and atrocities. Yet, is the cogency of this proof widely acknowledged? No; to this day many will contend that lack of statesmanship and many other contingencies caused the revolution to deviate from its original goal and that opposition caused it to turn to excesses. Let me now demonstrate, therefore,

  First, that the contingencies alluded to were for the larger part themselves the consequences of the Revolution doctrine, and never had the kind of impact attributed to them;

  Secondly, that in the horrors of the Revolution there was neither deviation nor exaggeration, but, on the contrary, unrelenting application of the false philosophy.

  This inquiry should to some extent be independent of our assessment of the Revolution doctrine. I wish to put aside all prejudice against it and with an open mind trace the connection between cause and effect. My desire is to obtain the pure result of unbiased historical investigation; afterward one will be able to see whether it is favorable or unfavorable to the Revolution doctrine.

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