Rights and the French Revolution

The Rights of Man and Revolution in France
Introduction
Despite the push to eradicate a class based system during the Enlightenment and events leading up to the French Revolution, it was replaced instead by classes based on property and wealth rather than nobility. Two leading figures for and against the new classes were Robespierre and Sieyes. Sieyes supported separating voting rights from human rights while Robespierre believed voting rights were inherent rights of man. Robespierre’s ideals deteriorated as he gained power. The rights of man were essentially an Enlightenment notion. Thomas Paine had written The Rights of Man in 1791 as the French Revolution was underway and he had even gone there to show his support for it; however, Robespierre had him locked away and schedule for execution, not trusting the American. In short, France was a hotbed of insurrection, chaos, mistrust, and change. The politics of governance were in flux and the French Revolution, in which Equality, Fraternity and Liberty were meant to be the ideals, would inadvertently usher in an era of Napoleonic rule.
The New Government
Montesquieu had attempted to identify the three fundamental types of government when he described the republican, the monarchical and the despotic forms. In a republic, the people (or their representatives) hold the power; in a monarchy, one man (the king) holds the power though he is constrained to some degree by law and custom; in a despotism, one man without constraint of the rule of law holds the power.[footnoteRef:2] Jones notes that in France prior to the Revolution, the rule had been absolutist monarchical with the Bourbons having “refurbished monarchical power” with a “dynastic claim to quasi divinity.”[footnoteRef:3] But this claim would not stand the test of time. By the end of the century, the king and queen would be dead, and the leaders of the nation would be regicides, arguing among themselves over how a people’s government should be formed. [2: Montesquieu. “Montesquieu on Government Systems (1748).” French Revolution, January 18, 2018. Accessed November 4, 2019, https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/montesquieu-on-government-systems-1748/.] [3: Colin Jones, The Great Nation (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 12.]
In the 18th century, the rights of man were not a matter to be taken lightly or even something that one took for granted. As Lynn Hunt points out, one of the big questions over right was the issue of voting—the distinction between political and civil rights: “Political rights guaranteed equal participation; civil rights guaranteed equal treatment before the law in matters concerning marriage, property, and inheritance.”[footnoteRef:4] Nowadays, the assumption is that people should have both civil and political rights and that these are part of their basic human rights—but such was not the notion in France. Certainly it was not the notion in America, where the test run for the French Revolution was conducted via the Declaration of Independence and the War that followed. [4: Lynn Hunt, "Introduction: The Revolutionary Origins of Human Rights." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt, 1-31 (Boston: Bedford, 2016), 1.]
The Influence of the Naturalists on the Notion of Class
Rousseau had helped to champion the idea of these rights, but he never moved beyond a vague, romantic idea of emancipation and freedom. Liberty was like an 18th century intellectual drug that fueled many a heady debate in many a salon. It was not necessarily something that anyone expected or foresaw needing to be writ down in fine, well-examined terms. Rousseau’s doctrines had helped to inspire the surge in Revolutionary ardor, but had done little in terms of developing a scholastic-like approach to the problem of governance. Those with a more scholastic-like mind, men like Abbe Sieyes, for example, demonstrated a bit more restraint in their approach to the rights of man than did Robespierre, who pushed for total equality and saw it as one of the noblest virtues of the revolution.
Natural law as summarized by Diderot in the middle of the 18th century in France had done enough to provoke outcry among the Old World political and religious classes. Like most of the Enlightenment thinkers, the idea of Original Sin was rejected, and naturalism like what Rousseau envisioned was viewed as wholly appropriate and acceptable and something that the Old World institutions blocked and opposed on principle because the leaders of the Old World knew if naturalism ever got a toehold in society, society would reject the Old World institutions out of hand.[footnoteRef:5] That was the belief of the Romantics and Revolutionaries, of Rousseau and his offspring, at any rate. Sieyes, who had become a Catholic priest (though his actual belief in the tenets of Catholicism is another matter), had a more reserved opinion on the matter, which came forward in his own arguments on how the rights of man should be observed by the new French Republic being created on the corpse of the monarchy. [5: Lynn Hunt, "Introduction: The Revolutionary Origins of Human Rights." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt, 1-31 (Boston: Bedford, 2016), 5.]
If there was any commonality among the Revolutionaries, however, it was at least on the matter of liberty. When the revolutionaries took over in France, the first principle they put forward was an echo of Rousseau’s doctrine in The Social Contract. Rousseau had written that man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. The National Assembly in France in 1789 wrote: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility.”[footnoteRef:6] In reality, the idea did not play out quite as practically as the revolutionaries envisioned. Political enemies were slaughtered by the thousands. Freedom and equality could not abide, it turned out, criticism or objection. [6: National Assembly. “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 26 August 1789.” Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Accessed November 4, 2019. http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/item/3216]
The Third Estate
Abbe Sieyes viewed the alienated class as the Third Estate—the future of French governance;[footnoteRef:7] yet even Sieyes would be playing a part in the coup that would install Napoleon later on when the Revolution began eating its own. The reason for this is simple enough: Sieyes was a monarchist at heart and though he sympathized with the plight of the ordinary people, the lower classes, he did not believe they should have voting powers. In truth, he was no different than the American Revolutionaries, who believed voting rights should be for the propertied class alone. Sieyes wanted essentially the same: he did not think it wise for people of low status to have an equal say in the fate of a nation with men of a high status. Those born of a higher class should naturally have a greater say in the rule of the state than those born of a lower class, a class without property or privilege.[footnoteRef:8] [7: . Lembcke, Oliver, and Weber, Florian. “Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès : The Essential Political Writings.” (1 st ed. Vol. 9), 43-50.] [8: Abbe Sieyes. "Preliminary to the French Constitution." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt (Boston: Bedford, 2016), 78.]
This notion put Sieyes at odds with Robespierre, who wanted voting rights for all—but the Idealist in Robespierre died along with those who mounted the scaffold and Robespierre became the tyrant he had accused the monarchy of being. Thouret, like Sieyes, was a bit more practical and pragmatic about government—less caught up in the romantic but vague Ideals of those followers of Rousseau, and more Old World or even bourgeois in his approach than his counterparts. He put forward that voting rights and the right to hold office should be for those who paid direct taxes comparable to three days’ wages and those who are not servants.[footnoteRef:9] [9: Thouret. "Report on the Basis of Political Eligibility." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt (Boston: Bedford, 2016), 79.]
Robespierre’s Romanticism
Thouret’s views flew in the face of Robespierre’s. Robespierre stated, “All citizens, whoever they are, have the right to aspire to all levels of office-holding. Nothing is more in line with your declaration of rights, according to which all privileges, all distinctions, all exceptions must disappear.”[footnoteRef:10] Robespierre, at least initially, opposed the notion of rights earned by the amount of money one earned; he believed the Constitution was quite clear on the matter “that sovereignty resides in the people, in all the individuals of the people.”[footnoteRef:11] Robespierre expressed his idealism clearly in his “Report upon the principles of political morality which are to form the basis of the administration of the interior concerns of the Republic.” He argued that virtue and equality were to be soul of the new French Republic and that every action should be oriented towards maintaining that equality and that virtue.[footnoteRef:12] [10: "Speech of Robespierre Denouncing the New Conditions of Eligibility." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt (Boston: Bedford, 2016), 80.] [11: “Speech of Robespierre Denouncing the New Conditions of Eligibility." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt (Boston: Bedford, 2016), 80.] [12: Robespierre, Maximilien. “Report upon the principles of political morality which are to form the basis of the administration of the interior concerns of the Republic.” Translated from a copy printed by order of the Convention, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, MacEwan University Libraries.]
Robespierre’s followers were equally as idealistic and that Romantic mood and spirit can be seen in “French Constitution, Rights of Man and Citizen,” a highly symbolic work that has been religious iconography and Masonic intonations. The French Constitution is clearly being associated with the Ten Commandments received by Moses from God in the picture. The 27 principles of the Constitution are divided into two tablets like those that Moses had. Surrounding the tablets are French soldiers with the fixed bayonets there to enforce the new rule. However, hovering above the new rule is an benevolent force—along with the all-seeing Masonic eye. The Masonic influence within the French Revolution is of course without doubt and “French Constitution, Rights of Man and Citizen” shows just how influential the Masons were as their symbol sits aloft where God would have been represented in the Old World.[footnoteRef:13] [13: “French Constitution, Rights of Man and Citizen,” Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, accessed November 8, 2019, http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/55]
Still, for all the heavy symbolism and Romantic mood that prevailed, the Revolution did achieve some of its objectives politically and socially speaking. As Cook points out, “Compared to 18th century Britain, or even the infant American Republic, the basic suffrage was widely distributed during the early years of the French Revolution.”[footnoteRef:14] In other words, the people did enjoy a degree of power, as promised by Ropespierre. However, the taxation issue did linger, though Cook notes that “it was by no means as draconian as many historians have assumed.”[footnoteRef:15] Even so the Revolution is best remembered for bringing into existence the Reign of Terror, and it is that which ultimately casts the longest shadow on the politics and squabbles of the Revolutionaries. For all their disagreements and strife, the guillotine fell like a gavel to silence critics and eventually even to silence Robespierre when the tide turned against him. [14: Malcolm Cook, Elections in the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 44.] [15: Malcolm Cook, Elections in the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 44.]
The Turn
As Higonnet points out, “the fiercest anti-Jacobins were former Jacobins.”[footnoteRef:16] The arguments between the Revolutionaries and the subsequent fallout that led to the Terror was a testament to the fact that the Revolutionaries in their various quests and pursuits to achieve the perfect government out of the ashes of the monarchy had no firm basis in reality. They were playing out a fantasy in real life, but the most realistic of them would be the ones facilitating the rise of Napoleon by the end of it. [16: Patrice Higonnet, “The Harmonization of the Spheres,” The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 4, The Terror (Emerald Publishing, 1994), 118.]
Napoleon represented a return to law and order that the Revolutionaries had been unable to put into practice by the end of their rule. They had made big promises and their Idealism had attracted many, but like visionaries who could not work out the kinks in their new design, frustration set in, tempers flared, anger and resentment took hold and directed passions towards bloodletting. By the end of the French Revolution, the people were calling for a monarch—and Napoleon answered the call.
Conclusion
Robespierre had presented the romantic ideal, the noble concepts of equality and virtue serving as the heart of the new classless system. However, the idealism did not persist and the system reverted to classism based upon wealth and property, just as Abbe Sieyes believed it should. It was to some degree the sensible, restrained approach to shifting the country out from under the rubble of the monarchy into something of a hybrid state, where the Revolutionaries could espouse their Ideals and doctrines while the propertied-class still had the power to exercise their rule in government. The little people—the Third Estate—they were to be honored to a degree because without them the country was nothing, but the wealthy wanted the vote.
Bibliography
Abbe Sieyes. "Preliminary to the French Constitution." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt, 78. Boston: Bedford, 2016.
Cook, Malcolm. Elections in the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
“French Constitution, Rights of Man and Citizen,” Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, accessed November 8, 2019, http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/55
Higonnet, Patrice. “The Harmonization of the Spheres,” The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 4, The Terror. Emerald Publishing, 1994.
Hunt, Lynn. "Introduction: The Revolutionary Origins of Human Rights." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt, 1-31. Boston: Bedford, 2016
Jones, Colin. The Great Nation. London: Penguin Books, 2003
Lembcke, Oliver, and Weber, Florian. “Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès : The Essential Political Writings.” 1 st ed. Vol. 9
Montesquieu. “Montesquieu on Government Systems (1748).” French Revolution,
January 18, 2018. Accessed November 4, 2019, https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/montesquieu-on-government-systems-1748/
National Assembly. “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 26 August 1789.”
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Accessed November 4, 2019. http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/item/3216
Robespierre, Maximilien. “Report upon the principles of political morality which are to form the basis of the administration of the interior concerns of the Republic.” Translated from a copy printed by order of the Convention, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, MacEwan University Libraries.
"Speech of Robespierre Denouncing the New Conditions of Eligibility." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt, 80. Boston: Bedford, 2016.
Thouret. "Report on the Basis of Political Eligibility." In The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition, edited by Lynn Hunt, 79. Boston: Bedford, 2016.