Reactions to the Revolution in France

            The French Revolution is known as one of the greatest social movements of all time, as well as one of the most tragic. As France fought to change the order of the monarchy and change it into a possible democracy the world reacted in different ways. The United States which had just gained their independence from Great Britain saw the revolution as a direct strike against a monarch’s rule. For Great Britain the reactions to the revolution were mixed between those who were for the revolution and those who saw it as an attack on the sanctity of the rule of the monarchy. The escalating tensions between the people of France and the monarchy over a broken tax system and an economic crisis caused the Estates General to convene for the first time since 1614 to deal with the problems that were arising in France.  The artisans hungry from the lack of food wanted a way to fight for a chance at gaining ground against those in power they headed towards “the most formidable of all arsenals, the towering state prison of the Bastille.”[1] It was here that the French Revolution would truly go from peaceful talks to an all-out assault on the French class system as well as the monarchy. The Storming of the Bastille was the first in many different talking points that would arise from the revolution. Those against the revolution like Edmund Burke thought that traditions that had been in place for generations were in jeopardy. Those who were for the revolution saw it as a way to end old feudalistic systems and fix the broken systems. Even though word of the revolution spread throughout Europe and the United States the reactions of those who voiced their opinions is something that was documented very extensively and would be used as a way to change society as the world knew it.

            The quickest reaction to the French Revolution came from France’s neighbors to the north Great Britain. Multiple people voiced their opinions on the revolution in which started a pamphlet war between multiple writers that reached overseas into the United States. The main cause of the of the pamphlet war was writer Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he writes about the effects of the revolution as well as how the people involved treated the monarchy unjustly. Burke assess that “from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our Constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity,—as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right.”[2] The term entailed inheritance for Burke is one of the things in which the French Revolution is attacking because the people of France want to take back lands as well as have rights that weren’t given to them in the past. Entailed inheritance is when the land, title, money, and any other assets goes from the parents goes to the first born male child. Burke believes that the family unit should be modeled after the royal family in which the name of the family will go on and the land of the fathers will be passed along to the son.

In response to Burke’s writings Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the first to speak out against what he was writing, she wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Men in which she directly attacks what he’s saying. Wollstonecraft attacks towards Burke were written as a letter that everyone would be able to see, firstly saying “I shall not attempt to follow you though “horse-way and foot-path”[3] but, attacking the foundation of your opinions, I shall leave the superstructure to find a center of gravity on which it may lean till some strong blast puffs it into the air; or your teeming fancy, which the ripening judgment of sixty years has not tamed, produced another Chinese erection, to stare, at every turn, the plain country people in the face, who bluntly call an airy edifice – a folly.”[4] Her scathing words towards Burke are harsh as she reiterates the reality of what the French people are fighting for, they fight for change not an building that would be erected that can only be seen as a reminder. Wollstonecraft believes that what Burke is saying isn’t worth hearing because his logic towards why he denounces the revolution is faulty. Further stating that “These are gothic notions of beauty – the ivy is beautiful, but when it insidiously destroys the trunk from which it receives support, who would not grub it up?”[5] Wollstonecraft believes that Burke worships antiquity but when the past is what comes up and destroys everything why should they worship it. She believes that people shouldn’t worship the broken old structures that have been erected but think of the future of the people. The father can take away the land, wealth, and title of their child without so much as a blink of his eyes and the child wouldn’t be able to complain.

 As the French Revolution continued the people of Britain were gaining a closer look at what was happening during this time. Edmund Burke’s attack against the French Revolution also changed into an attack towards the people of France after an attack towards the royal family in which a group of revolutionaries had broken into the chamber of the queen killing her guards, Burke writes, “A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband not secure of his own life for a moment.”[6] By painting the image of the Queen of France as a regular person who had just barely escaped death and ran off into a safe place Burke was attempting to gain sympathy for the royal family because they are in danger just as any person who is of high power. He further states that “Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king's body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women.”[7] this attack took place in on the morning of October 7^th 1789, Burke is illustrating the horrors of what the savage people of France will do to those who are of noble rank just because they weren’t born into a rank in life that would allow them the same freedoms as those in power. The royal family wasn’t imprisoned on that day but when they were taken into custody the people of France who had fought towards their goal knew they were getting close.

The London Times covered the execution of King Louis the XVI on January 25, 1793 writing down his final words, “He made a sign of wishing to harangue the multitude, when the drums ceased, and Louis spoke these few words. I die innocent; I pardon my enemies; I only sanctioned upon compulsion the Civil Constitution of the Clergy… "Ah!" exclaimed the Monarch, "I shall then at length be delivered from this cruel suspense.”[8]  In writing down his final words Britain would now have to acknowledge that they would have to deal with a different France and not the one that they had encountered for so many years.

            Across the Atlantic was a new country that had risen to power with the help of France, the United States was still a small rising power but they were also heavily influenced by what was happening in Europe. “Americans widely celebrated the French Revolution in its glorious opening in 1789, as it struck at the very heart of absolutist power.”[9] America was for France becoming a democracy and believed that they had played a role in France’s decision to change the rule of the King. The pamphlet war that was started by Edmund Burke in Britain would soon find its way to the United States as well with Thomas Paine’s reply Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution. Paine who was a part of the American Revolution was for the French fighting and replied to Burke by saying “Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.”[10] Paine believed that the dead shouldn’t tell the living what to do and that the living should have the chance to pave their own lives. He’s also telling Burke not to make the ordeal personal because this is how government should be and not something that should be passed down, it should be earned.

In the article “America and the French Revolution” Francis D. Cogliano states that “American enthusiasm for the French Revolution continued over the next several years. When news reached America in December 1792 that the revolutionary French armies had turned back Prussian and Austrian forces at Valmy on 20 September, and that the monarchy was abolished two days later, Americans turned out in the streets for massive public celebrations. Soon thereafter, however, American opinion began to change. The execution of Louis the XVI on 21 January 1793 and the onset of the Reign of Terror, as well as the French declaration of war on Britain on 1 February, divided Americans.”[11] Even though the French helped out the United States gain their independence the newly formed American government began to change and they sided towards their once ruler Britain because the instability of France and the dramatic turns that they were making weren’t something that the government was fully ready for. Another side to Cogliano’s argument is that America and France were two countries that “shared membership in the exclusive club of the world’s republics,”[12] and that they should help France in any way possible. The motions that were set by the French Revolution would impact the relationship between the two countries since France outlawed slavery in the French Caribbean colonies, and gave rights to women both of which weren’t a part of the United States constitution. Another was a decision by President Washington during France’s Revolution and the impact it would have with trade “President Washington declared American neutrality in the war, breaking the terms of a 1778 treaty with France that had promised mutual assistance between the two countries. While France had aided the U.S. during the American Revolution, America would not do the same for France.”[13] The United States saw neutrality as the key to expanding their trade with multiple countries but also as a way to not have complete involvement in the affairs of other countries. The other side to this was that they were also trading with Great Britain and any conflict between the two countries would cost the newly formed country economic hardships. Britain didn’t admire how the United States were attempting to gain from the growing conflict and would see the two countries battling each other once again resulting in a treaty between them even though France and the United States were comrades against Britain.

            The overall impact of the Revolution and the reactions from other countries was mixed with those who were for the revolution and those who were against the revolution. Edmund Burke was one of the biggest proponents against the French Revolution inciting the biggest multi country pamphlet war. Burke received responses from not only Britain and America but also Scotland and France, some were for his commentary on the Revolutions while others were against what he was saying. The outcome of the French Revolution in itself would bring the United States to question many of their own polices afterward especially in the terms of slavery and women’s rights. The words of those who spoke for the revolution would keep on living with those who lived within the country for years after it ended. Were these words of revolution what caused people in the United States to battle against one another during the Civil War? This is a question that would take much thought for years to come. Whether the Britain and America reacted in a positive or negative manner towards the revolution wouldn’t change how it ended, the people of France ultimately choose their own path without the help of either country.

Bibliography

Burke, Edmund. Reflections on The Revolution in France. Edited by Thomas H.D. Mahoney.

Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1955

"British Newspaper Coverage of the French Revolution."Available from

 http://oldsite.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ayliu/research/around-1800/FR/index.html. Accessed October 5, 2014.

Cogliano, Francis D. "America and the French Revolution." History Issue 84, no. 276 (1999): 658-665

Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989.

Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burkes Attack on the French

Revolution. Edited by Ernest Rhys. New York: Everyman's Library. 1915, 1930.

Ushistory.org. "Negotiating with the Superpowers." Ushistory.org. Available from http://www.ushistory.org/us/19b.asp. Accessed November 11, 2014.

—."Trans-Atlantic Crisis: The French Revolution." Ushistory.org. Available from http://www.ushistory.org/us/19a.asp. Accessed November 11, 2014.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles &

Reprints. 1960.

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[1] William Doyle. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. [Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989.] 110

[2] Edmund Burke. Reflections on The Revolution in France. Edited by Thomas H.D. Mahoney. [Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 1955] 37

[3] William Shakespeare. King Lear 4.1.57

[4] Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Men. [Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints. 1960.] 7

[5] Ibid, 10

[6] Burke, Reflections on The Revolution in France, 82

[7] Ibid

[8] London Times January 25, 1793. "British Newspaper Coverage of the French Revolution."Available from

 http://oldsite.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ayliu/research/around-1800/FR/index.html. Accessed October 5, 2014.

[9] Ushistory.org."Trans-Atlantic Crisis: The French Revolution." Ushistory.org. Available from http://www.ushistory.org/us/19a.asp. Accessed November 11, 2014.

[10] Thomas Paine. Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burkes Attack on the French

Revolution. Edited by Ernest Rhys. [New York: Everyman's Library. 1915, 1930.] 12

[11] Francis D Cogliano. "America and the French Revolution." [History 84, no. 276: 658. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 11, 2014). 1999.] 658

[12] Ibid, 659

[13] Ushistory.org. "Negotiating with the Superpowers." Ushistory.org. Available from http://www.ushistory.org/us/19b.asp. Accessed November 11, 2014.