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Anthony's Reviews > Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Citizens by Simon Schama

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
by

135360895

Born in Blood.

The French Revolution shock society and sent the world on a rocky new path. Napoleon Bonaparte was born out of the revolution, the thousand year old Holy Roman Empire and Republic of Venice were both dismantled because of him. The Ancien Régime in France, Italy, Spain and Germany were all changed forever and the divine right of kings and church questioned. Representative government became an idea in Europe. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was proclaimed, a precursor to modern human rights legislation. The idea of a citizen, over a subject was manifested. Not ruled, but reigned or governed over. With rights, as humans. This is Simon Schama’s biggest takeaway from this monumental event. We humans are people, who have a voice. Citizens of the world. However, to achieve that society has to be torn down and thousands of innocents had to be murdered in the process. This is not a march of freedom, but a war on liberty as much as the fight for it. As Schama states, some of the revolutionaries themselves were in fact ‘anti-revolutionary’, those of The Committee of Public Safety and The Directory come to mind. But like Saturn, the sons of the Revolution get eaten just the same.

Schama focuses much of his attention to the first few years of the Revolution, starting with the end of King Louis XVI’s reign. A well meaning but indecisive man, who tried to walk the right line between exerting his authority and trying to plead everyone. Like with the fall of Tsar Nicholas II and the fall of Imperial Russia, he seemed to get it all wrong. Advisors like the Comte de Mirabeau having hidden agendas causing the king to undermine himself and chose the wrong decisions. Schama tells us that the French Revolution was not a new class of bourgeoisie attacking a stagnant government or despotic aristocracy. In fact he shows many of the aristocracy were open to new ideas and were part of the revolution itself. Nor was the Ancien Régime old, but in fact fairly new, around two thirds of the nobility had been ennobled with the last 150 years or so. Some great wealthy magnates, others toiling their own fields, struggling to feed their families and hardly recognisable from the peasants. The nobles liked change and followed the Enlightenment, such as the Marquis de Lafayette, who supported a constitutional monarchy. Schama argues the violence broke out in fact, to prevent too much change rather than drive it.

There were unfortunate mistruths spread in this sense about aristocrats and indeed bourgeoisie as those preventing change, holding down the common man or stopping progress. The government was most interested in efficiency rather than upholding old traditions and many of those in government in the 1780s would be brought back under Napoleon to sort out the mess the revolution and terror had left behind. Curiously Queen Marie Antoinette spent less than half the money the British monarchy did in the same period, but was considered a greedy big spender. It was however, money which caused the whole thing. The country was suffering fiscally. Tax exemptions at the top caused tax evasion at the bottom. This was an unfair system. There was a huge debt, which they knew they would incur to kick the British out of North America and the disastrous Mississippi Company bubble burst in the early part of the century was still rumbling on. But even this was all manageable by the standards of the time. The government was not lazy or incompetent, it just failed to reform in the right areas. Officials often pushed in different directions which led to slow progress. So the money crisis led to a political one. As I said above Louis XVI simply chose the wrong route or ministers which in the end led to his downfall.

On top of this, the two years before the Estates General was called, there were poor harvests, lack of food and bread. This living on government support increased to as much as 40 percent. This was as much about food as any political motive. On 12/07/1789 the customs warehouses and offices of Paris were sacked and burnt and then two days later the infamous prison the Bastille (much smaller in real life than the painting suggest), a supposed symbol of oppression, was stormed. All seven prisoners were released, four forgers, two lunatics and one aristocrat placed there at his family’s request. The Marquis de Sade had left a few years earlier. The governor, another aristocrat was murdered, his head hacked off with a pocket knife and displayed on a pike. The bloody revolution had begun. But again, this was for weapons not freedom. But things had changed forever. As Schama testifies, 1793 and the terror was 1789 with more death. The revolution was bloody and violent and came hand in hand. It also came with those it most effected to relinquish their privileges and their power, the church and the high aristocrats such as dukes. Both can be found supporting the revolution for different reasons. Louis de Saint-Just and Maximilian Robespierre were created and grown in the murder of 1789 and executed the Terror as the authority and right ordained on them in this power vacuum after the outrageous execution of the king in 1793.

The revolution is long, complex and disjointed. No one person controlled it or steered in to a clear defined goal. Not did anyone foresee what truly had begun in 1789. Schama, however does a great job in explaining these events as they start with Louis XVI’s government and end with the military dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is intelligent and well written. However, I still found it not as as engaging Jeremy D Popkin’s A New World Begins. Which for me was really good. The iconoclasts are the worst part, the total destruction of society is always sad. But the ideas of the early days were needed, a constitutional monarchy would have brought France to greater freedom and liberty than the revolution cemented on the people. Unfortunately the Bourbons didn’t learn this in 1815. Schama’s narrative ends in 1794, before the Directory, Consulate and then Empire. But he does explain how the revolution caused over 25 years of war, destruction and death. The ruin of industry and its population, which at 1815 was smaller than 1789. It was also broke and set the economy back another century or so. So in the end the revolution changed everything and nothing at the same time.

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Reading Progress

November 6, 2023 – Shelved

November 6, 2023 –Finished Reading

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