French Revolution: Taking a Macro

¶ … French Revolution:

Taking a macro vs. A micro view of the conflicts

Generally speaking, there are two approaches to analyzing historical narratives. One approach is to take a broad, far-reaching view of historical events with a generalist's perspective. Another is to take a micro-view of events and to focus in on a specific aspect of history in great detail, only to later show how it is emblematic of a larger event. In Origins of the French Revolution, historian William Doyle takes the former approach while in Religion and Revolution in France: 1780-1804, Nigel Aston takes the latter.

According to Doyle, previous histories of the French Revolution have tended to fall into three categories: the first, earliest interpretation, heavily influenced by Marxism, proclaimed that there was indeed a class-based revolution of seismic proportions, completely overturning the relationship of the proletariat to the bourgeois in a positive fashion. The second, a kind of counter to this original view, suggests that fundamentally no revolution took place that had permanent and lasting effects on French society, that the French Revolution was bloody and disturbed the natural order of society, and that the overturning of the dictatorship of the revolutionaries was necessary and wholesome. And the third perspective offers a kind of revisionist history, once again suggesting that indeed there was a potentially beneficial revolution, even though its long-terms effects were not necessarily as lasting and positive as the original designers intended.

In his history, Doyle attempts to provide an in-depth, yet brief account of the three 'Estates' of the Ancient Regime of France during the monarchy to suggest a more balanced view of what transpired during the Revolution. Doyle's view is that "it would be truer to say that the revolutionaries [were] created by the Revolution" rather than the revolutionaries created the Revolution. [footnoteRef:1] in other words, the radical ideas that begin to ferment were not started by intellectuals. They were generated by the social and economic crises that highlighted the bankrupt nature of the Ancient Regime and its inability to heal the growing divides within society or to deal with the real problems faced by the French populace. Although not an explicit ideologue, Doyle clearly does not see class warfare as inevitable (he is not a Marxist) and believes the Revolution has roots in specific political failures of individuals and arbitrary historical circumstances. The leadership failed to address these problems, the problems were not necessarily due to an inevitable systemic collapse. [1: William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution., (New York: Oxford University Press: 1999), 213]

Doyle's book discusses the financial difficulties of the French monarchy and Bourbon government and how a series of bad harvests led to the collapse of the dominant social order through a series of preventable events. "The principles of 1789 cannot be identified with the aspirations of any one of the pre-revolutionary social groups.[footnoteRef:2]" in fact, the bourgeois was rather prosperous, not angry and agitating its oppressed status. Only later, were there specific attempts to whip up the ire of the bourgeois, when there was a "marked change in the political atmosphere" and until that time it had given "little thought" to the questions of political enfranchisement.[footnoteRef:3] There was no inevitability about the pre-revolutionary class warfare although Doyle does believe that there are reasons that the social unrest of 1789 was fundamentally different than previous stirrings of malcontent with the crown, in contrast to revisionist historians. Unlike Marxists, he does not believe that such differences were necessarily insurmountable, had there been different leadership. [2: Doyle, 210] [3: Doyle 135]

In direct contrast to Doyle's general approach, Neil Aston in Religion and Revolution in France: 1780-1804, turns a laser-like focus upon a specific aspect of the Revolution, namely the role religion played in fostering it. The dominant religion of France at the time (as now) was Roman Catholicism. Aston begins his book by discussing the special, privileged role of the First Estate, as well as different theological debates raging at the time, such as the Jansenism controversy. He also gives attention to other faiths, including Protestantism and Judaism, which were present in France at the time. Protestants and Jews were some of the Revolution's earliest recipients of additional rights in the new, secular, equal society.[footnoteRef:4] [4: Nigel Aston, Religion and Revolution in France, 1780-1804, (Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 244.]

Another important influence was what Aston calls a lack of 'enlightened piety,' or the persistence of a mixture of folk traditions and populist Catholicism despised by intellectuals, but professed in practice by members of the working classes. Although France would come to seem like the paradigmatic example of Enlightenment revolution (or non-religion) during the later phases of the Revolution, during the pre-Revolutionary period, the community ties of religion held the population fast. Intellectuals would come to see this as problematic later on, just as members of the official clergy preached against it. However, this is evidence that religion was a source of continual friction regarding the attitude of the state towards religion and often formed a way for the lower classes to articulate resistance. [footnoteRef:5] it was not always a mechanism of instilling state order and imposing ideas upon the populace, and the people had control over how they interpreted and articulated religion. [5: Aston, 55 ]

Despite the eventual, official atheism or quasi-paganism of the later revolutionaries, during the early phases the majority of the French public, even the revolutionary-minded French public was religious and supported the ideals of the faiths they professed. From Aston's specific analysis of the phenomenon of religiosity in France, it is possible to draw a conclusion about his view of the inevitability of the Revolution: unlike Doyle, Aston does believe the Revolution was inevitable. Tensions between higher-level members of the clergy and the lower orders that identified with the Third Estate were rife. However, while Aston may be more inclined to portray the Revolution with an inevitability lacking in Doyle's account, he does not believe that the culture clash between faith and revolutionary principles was inevitable. It only came when gradually, the tone amongst the revolutionaries in the Assembly turned bitterly against the clergy. Eventually, "the Assembly voted for the complete dispossession of the clergy, and turned its face against some powerfully argued last-minute speeches by those advocating leaving the First Estate with some property."[footnoteRef:6] [6: Aston, 138]