The French Revolution and the 99 Percent

Relevant History welcomes historical mystery author Susanne Alleyn. She's the granddaughter of 1960s children's author Lillie Vanderveer Albrecht and is the author of the Aristide Ravel historical mystery series, set in revolutionary Paris, as well as of A Far Better Rest, a reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities. She is currently working on the fifth Ravel mystery; a non-mystery historical novel, also set in eighteenth-century France; and a nonfiction project. Visit her at her author website, and at her blog, where she chats with fictional sleuths from across the centuries. Make sure you check out her entertaining and insightful interviews of sleuths Hetty Henry (from Relevant History author M. E. Kemp), Annie Fuller (from Relevant History author M. Louisa Locke), Mary Wollstonecraft (from Relevant History author Nancy Means Wright), and Lt. Michael Stoddard (my fictional sleuth).

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Most people’s knowledge of the French Revolution is pretty much limited to 1789, Bastille Day, and howling mobs, illustrated with snippets from The Scarlet Pimpernel. Guillotines, lots of gore. So what should make all that stuff Relevant History? We in North America don’t have kings and queens to overthrow. There’s no palace of Versailles, no Marie-Antoinette swanning about with a three-foot hairdo.

Well, just about everything we think of when the words “French Revolution” come up (aside from Bastille Day) actually happened as a result of the second revolution.

Eh?

The second French Revolution?

1789 is the date most people learn about, and “the Revolution” seems like a highly compressed event (Bastille falls, mobs in streets, Antoinette loses head, mass guillotinings, all within a few months). But “the Revolution” actually went on for five years, from 1789 to 1794. And during those five years, France had, not one, but two revolutions, the relatively peaceful 1789 one—and the 1792 one, which initiated the messier and much more violent chapter known as the Terror.

The 1789 revolution? It began with a financial crisis, and a polite rebellion of middle-class delegates who had come to Versailles to make suggestions to Louis XVI about how to fix the financial crisis, and climaxed with the attack on the Bastille, after which Louis (mostly) caved in. It was responsible for legal reforms, and transformed France from an absolute monarchy to a limited, constitutional one. The bourgeoisie (rather than the nobility) now were firmly in charge under the king, in an elected assembly. Everyone who wasn’t a hidebound, tight-assed ultraroyalist was overjoyed by the changes. (Until Louis proved himself to have no allegiance to the new constitution by unsuccessfully trying to escape.)

With the many reforms that the 1789 revolution brought, optimistic citizens probably pointed to their new constitution and parliament and claimed that France was halfway to a rather conservative democracy. But it was still, undoubtedly, a democracy for the bourgeoisie and the bankers. The constitution created in 1791 favored the wealthy: rich financiers and industrialists, the upper middle class, and the landowning aristocracy, who had lost their titles and their nastier feudal privileges, but none of their property. Men who paid a certain amount of taxes were called “active citizens” and were able to vote and run for office. But it won’t come as much of a surprise that most ordinary people didn’t pay enough taxes to qualify, and thus were “passive citizens” and effectively muzzled, kept out of any participation in government—which suited the aristocracy of wealth very well. The short version: the ruling class, with some new blood in it, kept on ruling.

Well, surprise, surprise: It didn’t take the urban blue-collar population, the lower middle classes and the working classes—known as sansculottes—long to realize that, ultimately, they had gained no power and few material benefits from the revolution of ’89. A few key events mark where that first hopeful, happy revolution began to go wrong, and where the sansculottes began to grumble. The first was Louis XVI’s bungled attempt to flee; that fiasco made plenty of people permanently distrustful of their chief executive. Then the new constitution disenfranchised about 70% of the population. And then there was the war, with France’s old enemies Prussia and Austria—possibly one of the stupidest wars ever blundered into, with the starry-eyed but unworkable idea that Liberty should promptly be exported to the rest of Europe, which cost many lives and a lot of money, and never seemed to end. And so the sansculottes grew steadily angrier and more frustrated, particularly with the new, “democratic” ruling classes who weren’t sharing the benefits of their nice, moneyed, bourgeois revolution.

Perhaps this story begins to sound familiar?

We in the United States have been lucky. The outcome of our first revolution, our bourgeois, capitalist, conservative democracy that was established in 1789(!), has lasted well over two centuries, while the first French Revolution and its bourgeois, capitalist, conservative constitutional monarchy lasted barely three years. Our bourgeois republic, with reforms and regulations tweaking it over the centuries, has worked pretty well.

In France, though, it didn’t take long for the overpressured system to crumble. In the summer of 1792, the sansculottes of Paris had had enough; they held their own blue-collar revolution, toppled the monarchy, went in for participatory government in a big way, and demanded many more rights, including quite a few measures intended to promote economic, as well as social, equality. The leaders were, of course, middle-class professionals (as ever), but this time they were going to pay some attention to the sansculottes and do what “the people” demanded.

Yep, it’s sounding familiar.

Our system in the USA is growing more and more corrupted in favor of the wealthy and powerful. Our “99 percent”—our sansculottes—are beginning to realize how, as many previous reforms have been whittled away over the past few decades, the bourgeois republic has failed them. Are we, too, on the way to a second revolution, the 1792 revolution, a revolt against the greed and indifference of the one percent who do nothing for their millions but shove money around?

Let’s hope, if it happens, we can manage it better. Because the real 1792 revolution, under conditions of war, paranoia, and squabbling factions, led soon enough to the unforgiving emergency dictatorship called the Terror—and then political infighting and show trials and guillotinings (and more paranoia). Which eventually led to an exhausted population that said “To hell with it,” and let a certain charismatic young general named Bonaparte take over and clean up the mess.

Will the 99 percent rise up in a second American Revolution against the tyranny of Wall Street, giant corporations, lobbyists, and venal politicians?

It sounds kind of attractive, doesn’t it?

And perhaps, if it happens, it may lead to something better. But let’s hope we’ve learned some lessons from history, because, under similar conditions, the Second American Revolution might lead us straight to the Terror—and finally Napoleon—instead.

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A big thanks to Susanne Alleyn. She’ll give away one hardback copy of The Cavalier of the Apocalypse to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I'll choose the winner from among those who comment by Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available within the U.S. only.

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Comments

[Sophia Rose]

I liked the posting in a 'shivery' kind of way as I contemplated the situation in the US. Knowing that there are too many people who do not pay attention to history or have group savvy (everyone out for themselves is very much what goes on generally), I think if we had an uprising it would not go so well either.

The historical mystery series sounds interesting and this is a new author to me.

Thanks for the post!

[Suzanne Adair]

Happy New Year, Sophia Rose! Thanks for stopping by, and I, too, got chills when I read the post.

[Susanne Alleyn]

The French "popular" uprising of 1792 didn't go so well, either . . . which is why it degenerated within a year to the Terror. :-) Susanne

[Sandra]

Yeah, the "looking out for number one" mindset so many have is worrisome. It's not so much that they aren't concerned for the 99%, but that they hope to one day join the 1% (however unlikely that actually is), so they don't want to restrict those at the top too much. I wonder who our Buonaparte would be if we got to that point?

[Linda]

WOW--I loved "Game of Patience" and "Treasury of Regrets" is on my Kindle to read, but even with all that info on French history, I never thought about the two revolutions (my brain merged it all into one big one that took years--similar to what is happening in the Middle East now).

Reading this on the morning after the New Hampshire primary, I am very soberly reminded of the adage, "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it".

Who says history is not relevant?

[Suzanne Adair]

Welcome, Sandra. When "Looking out for Number One" gets dragged out too long, you get stagnation, then degradation. And I can think of several people who already consider themselves Bonaparte, even if they haven't made it official. :-/

[Suzanne Adair]

Hi Linda! Thanks for stopping by. Downright creepy, the relevance of history and the ignorance of people about it. I'm expecting within my lifetime to hear of some power attempting to invade Russia -- again. (No, I wasn't around when Hitler tried it.)

[M. E. Kemp]

We have become a bunch of sheep in this country, content with our little pastures, lacking the zeal of our ancestors to fight for our rights. Of course, we have peaceful means to address issues but few of us bother -- look at the illegal things the Bush administration did that the public just accepted!

[Suzanne Adair]

Thanks for commenting, Marilyn. While it seems to take a certain "entry-level" amount of crookedness to be a successful politician, I wonder whether politicians are more crooked now than they were a hundred years ago.

[Nancy Means Wright]

An excellent post, Susanne. And I like the way you've made it relevant to our country today. As a self-styled student of the French Revolution,I can certainly see how the Parisian sansculottes match today's protesters.Neither had leaders per se, yet myriad reasons for anger and despair. I also worry about the current "war" between liberals and arch-conservatives--could it lead to a divided country--a civil war? We truly must look to the past to solve today's problems. Although all I see now is stasis...
Congrats to anyone winning Susanne's novels. I've read them all with joy and admiration!(Nancy M.W.)

[Suzanne Adair]

Welcome back to my blog, Nancy. Yes, I can see "sansculottes" in those students who were pepper-sprayed at U of C weeks ago. The direction of this country sure needs more thought from leaders than it's receiving.

[Susanne Alleyn]

Thanks, folks, for stopping by. Yeah, I fear we may have more sheep than angry sansculottes among us at present--particularly since the angriest of our population seem to be the fruitloops--ahem, the Tea Partiers, who have more in common with the Vendean rebels who thought bringing back the monarchy was a great idea... But then, there's always that handy French phrase, "le politique du pire"--"politics of the worst", or, "just wait and let the idiots running things let things get even worse and eventually something will give way and cause things to happen". I'd hate to wait for how much worse it could get, though. --Susanne

[Auntie Knickers]

"Le politique du pire" -- what a useful phrase! And I remember 1968 when some of my fellow students were saying, "Vote for Nixon, the revolution will come sooner." (I couldn't vote yet. But he won. And the revolution didn't come.)

[Suzanne Adair]

Auntie Knickers, I love that little slice of history you supplied. Amazing to think of Nixon being associated with revolution. A lot of people vote for presidents because they're expecting some sort of revolution. And boy, are they disappointed.

[Susanne Alleyn]

I expect the idea was that the left-wing revolution would come that much sooner in response to Nixon's right-wing politics...though he seems a marvel of middle-of-the-road restraint in comparison with some of today's right wing. (BTW I goofed with my genders above: la politique, not le politique--wouldn't you know that the word "politics" would be capriciously feminine.) :-D Susanne

[Suzanne Adair]

Susanne, yes, perhaps that's it. And political analysts do regard Nixon's policies as more middle-of-the-road.

[Liz]

Interesting parallels. Where does Chelsea's wedding fit in?