Napoleon Bonaparte died 200 years ago this day

[Barsoom]

Eloquent if nothing else.

To me it is the inability to restrain the power unleashed by emotion triumphing over reason. Napoleon adores and lauds Rousseau, who looks at Corsica and says something great is coming from there soon. Yet when Napoleon can aspire to the Grand Sovereign role and bestow peace and justice for all, instead he chooses to be ashamed of his youthful ideals and girded his loins for everlasting war. Perhaps some ideals look shiny and bright on the outside but are toxic nonetheless.

I'm not a fan of Rousseau but this argument strikes me as convoluted. First, is the argument that Napoleon started these wars or that the revolutionaries did it? Second, is the problem that Napoleon in his youth looks up to Rousseau or that he in his later years turns away from him? Third, where in your account are Europe's crowned heads, the opponents of the revolution? And finally, how does this new scheme of emotion versus reason relate to freedom? Is freedom now only on the side of reason or does it necessarily include the expression of emotion?

I think I've made it clear that I draw a firm line between Napoleon and the revolutionaries of 1789, and of course between the revolution and its monarchic opponents. Out of these 3 sides only one championed freedom, and it's not the side you pointed to in your previous post. The revolution lost twice: once, domestically, against a Thermidorian reaction that installed Napoleon, and once, internationally, against a monarchical coalition that not only reinstalled the Bourbons but also the Oranges in the Netherlands, the Savoys in Genoa and the Habsburgs in Venice. In concrete terms, and quite unintentionally, the net result of the French Revolution is defeat, 25 years of warfare across the continent, and the extension of monarchy to 3 long-standing republics.

And yet the French Revolution has a place in our history as a beacon of freedom and democracy. The reason for that is its afterlife as an inspiration to generations of revolutionaries and, more importantly, reformers who turned those monarchies first into constitutional monarchies and then gradually into democracies with the monarch as merely a symbolic figurehead. There is one philosopher who foresaw the spirit of the revolution retaining its force even if its concrete manifestation in the first republic were to be defeated; this is not your emotional Rousseau but the eminently reasonable Kant.

 

[loup99]

once, domestically, against a Thermidorian reaction that installed Napoleon

That is a shortcut, between Thermidor (1794-1795) and the Consulate (1799-1804) you have the Directory (1795-1799). It is much more the coups and instability of the Directory which installs Napoléon than the events of Thermidor with the execution of Robespierre and his friends decided by former allies amongst the Montagnard and Plaine who feel threatened.

The reason for that is its afterlife as an inspiration to generations of revolutionaries and, more importantly, reformers who turned those monarchies first into constitutional monarchies and then gradually into democracies with the monarch as merely a symbolic figurehead.

Not in France, in France it was the generations of revolutionaries who continued the fight and ultimately compromised with the moderate monarchists by 1875 (date of the Constitutional laws establishing the Third Republic).

There is one philosopher who foresaw the spirit of the revolution retaining its force even if its concrete manifestation in the first republic were to be defeated; this is not your emotional Rousseau but the eminently reasonable Kant.

With regards to the French Revolution Rousseau is a more important influence than Kant.

 

[Barsoom]

That is a shortcut, between Thermidor (1794-1795) and the Consulate (1799-1804) you have the Directory (1795-1799). It is much more the coups and instability of the Directory which installs Napoléon than the events of Thermidor with the execution of Robespierre and his friends decided by former allies amongst the Montagnard and Plaine who feel threatened.


Not in France, in France it was the generations of revolutionaries who continued the fight and ultimately compromised with the moderate monarchists by 1875 (date of the Constitutional laws establishing the Third Republic).


With regards to the French Revolution Rousseau is a more important influence than Kant.

Agreed, it's a shortcut. Also agreed, in France revolutionaries outweighed reformers for the next half a century, though as you note, the end result was a compromise with reformers. The reason I added "more importantly" to reformers is that the influence of the revolution is not limited to subsequent revolutionaries but also to opponents of revolution who nevertheless adopted many of the ideals it championed.

Rousseau is obviously a bigger influence on the revolution itself but this is not what I was talking about. I already said that the revolution achieved a negative result in the first instance. I'm talking about it still being highly regarded despite the defeat and despite the excesses. Kant (in Streit der Fakultäten / Conflict of the Faculties, 1798) correctly predicted this.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

And yet the French Revolution has a place in our history as a beacon of freedom and democracy.

Is there another side to that coin?

If you want to take a snapshot of the philosophical purity of feeling flowing from the Tennis Court Oath and not witness what happens next or take short cuts to get where you are trying to go, that is your choice. You see this beautiful ideal, I see Robespierre lurking in the shadows. You see Lady Liberty leading the troops into the New Age, I see Madame Guillotine guarding the door. You see the Napoleonic Code, I see dead and broken scattered across Europe. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If the Ancien Regime died when the head of Louis XVI hits the scaffold, what was born when L'Emperor picks up the fallen crown and puts it on his own head? Beethoven speaks for many when he rips his symphony dedicated to Napoleon asunder. France? France's government changes with the seasons and has been mocked over the centuries by other powers as a pillar of political instability. Brilliant literature, great love, divine wines, gourmet foods; bad politics. The well itself has been poisoned.

Merely killing the king did not destroy the king's power, all it did was fill the wolves with blood lust seeking it for their own. The Tzar was deposed and brutally executed, his power lived on in the characters of Stalin; and is Putin not a shadow of the Romanov power replacing sang real with counter-Intelligence? What you want and what you get are frequently at great odds with one another.

Utopia, by definition, is a perfect place which cannot exist; those who seek to make the dream a reality frequently summon a nightmare instead.

 

[loup99]

You see this beautiful ideal, I see Robespierre lurking in the shadows

Robespierre was a man of principles, but certainly not one of shadows. He was guillotined in part because he was accused by his former allies of having taken too much of the limelight. With regards to the Enlightenment beliefs listed above, Robespierre is an excellent example of someone committed to such ideals, even before being elected to the Estates General he defended several causes célèbres as a lawyer.

You see Lady Liberty leading the troops into the New Age, I see Madame Guillotine guarding the door.

Neither one nor the other corresponds to reality, obviously. The guillotine was implemented as a more humane and equal execution method, which it was given the horrible sentences of the Ancien Régime.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely

I'm not quite sure if you are suggesting Robespierre had absolute power? That would be an enormous historical mistake, Robespierre at best was one amongst several members of the Committee of Public Safety, which was only one of several committees, permanently accountable to the National Convention. He never had any executive power on his own, and being a part of a parliamentary committee is very far away absolute power. This is a period when the Constitution defended by Robespierre amongst others, but never implemented due to the exceptional context of civil war, allowed to citizens to intervene directly in the lawmaking. Robespierre held the power of an influential member of Parliament, his charisma gave him a big audience and reputation, but that doesn't materialise into power. It is absolutely impossible to compare him with Napoléon the Consul or Emperor!

 

[Jopa79]

say something nice about him

Well, Napoleon had "eyes correctly open" while looking for lovely beauties, let's say for instance, while he succeeded to get married with Empress Josephine.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Robespierre was a man of principles, but certainly not one of shadows. He was guillotined in part because he was accused by his former allies of having taken too much of the limelight. With regards to the Enlightenment beliefs listed above, Robespierre is an excellent example of someone committed to such ideals, even before being elected to the Estates General he defended several causes célèbres as a lawyer.


Neither one nor the other corresponds to reality, obviously. The guillotine was implemented as a more humane and equal execution method, which it was given the horrible sentences of the Ancien Régime.


I'm not quite sure if you are suggesting Robespierre had absolute power? That would be an enormous historical mistake, Robespierre at best was one amongst several members of the Committee of Public Safety, which was only one of several committees, permanently accountable to the National Convention. He never had any executive power on his own, and being a part of a parliamentary committee is very far away absolute power. This is a period when the Constitution defended by Robespierre amongst others, but never implemented due to the exceptional context of civil war, allowed to citizens to intervene directly in the lawmaking. Robespierre held the power of an influential member of Parliament, his charisma gave him a big audience and reputation, but that doesn't materialise into power. It is absolutely impossible to compare him with Napoléon the Consul or Emperor!

It is safe to say that your points are lost in translation. The point under discussion is a chain of events that left Napoleon with absolute, unrestrained, power. Robespierre is a gatekeeper along the way and an example of fanatics and True Believers doing evil disguised as good, I find him deplorable.

 

[loup99]

Robespierre is a gatekeeper along the way and an example of fanatics and True Believers doing evil disguised as good, I find him deplorable.

That is a complete caricature of Robespierre though and factually false. He has nothing to do with a fanatic or "true believer" in any way, you refuse to consider the period and the man in its complexity if you seek to find "good" and "evil". The French Revolution is a far too intricate chain of events for it to be reduced to this simplistic binary vision. In no way does Robespierre by the way lead up to Napoléon, other than Napoléon having been a Jacobin, but Napoléon gets power and influence years after the death of Robespierre. Given that Robespierre never personally had any executive power there is no link in your chain.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

That is a complete caricature of Robespierre though and factually false. He has nothing to do with a fanatic or "true believer" in any way, you refuse to consider the period and the man in its complexity if you seek to find "good" and "evil". The French Revolution is a far too intricate chain of events for it to be reduced to this simplistic binary vision. In no way does Robespierre by the way lead up to Napoléon, other than Napoléon having been a Jacobin, but Napoléon gets power and influence years after the death of Robespierre. Given that Robespierre never personally had any executive power there is no link in your chain.

You want to defend The Terror perpetrated by the ‘Virtuous’ ‘Incorruptable’ man of ‘god’?

That is on you. I’m not chasing that rabbit.

 

[loup99]

You want to defend The Terror perpetrated by the ‘Virtuous’ ‘Incorruptable’ man of ‘god’?

It is not a question of defending anything or anyone, just to correct common misconceptions. There was no "Terror", that is a term coined by Robespierre's Thermidorian opponents to discredit him and his supporters after his death. It is no longer retained by historians, but is very interesting to deconstruct and analyse. The revolutionaries refused to instate terror on the order of the day, but in the rhetoric spoke about "inspiring terror" upon the "ennemies to justice". What you had was a period of revolutionnary government, with exceptional policies, including in courts. Secondly, as I explained, Robespierre was always one of several members of the Committee of Public Safety, accountable to the National Convention and re-elected regularly as confidence in him was renewed. He is one of several actors who supported the phase of so-called revolutionnary government, but he is also one of those who rejected instating terror on the order of the day despite it being demanded by the most radical parts of the Parisian popular movement. As for "incorruptible", that is true, Robespierre was not corrupted compared to others (Mirabeau). Virtuous depends on the virtues you retain, as for "god" I don't know what you mean? Did you mean to write "good" or did you refer to the Cult of the Supreme Being?

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

It is not a question of defending anything or anyone, just to correct common misconceptions. There was no "Terror", that is a term coined by Robespierre's Thermidorian opponents. It is no longer retained by historians. The revolutionaries refused to instate terror on the order of the day, but in the rhetoric talked about inspiring terror on the ennemies to justice. What you had was a period of revolutionnary government, with exceptional courts and policies. Secondly, as I explained, Robespierre was always one of several members of the Committee of Public Safety, accountable to the National Convention and re-elected regularly as confidence in him was renewed. He is one of several actors who supported the phase of so-called revolutionnary government, but he is also one of those who rejected instating terror on the order of the day. As for "incorruptible", that is true, Robespierre was not corrupted compared to others. Virtuous depends on the virtues you retain, as for "god" I don't know what you mean? Did you mean to write "good" or did you refer to the Cult of the Supreme Being?

Yes, there was a 'The Terror'. Blood flowed.

When Robespierre died, the blood continued to flow. I'm not discussing a marketing campaign, merely the river of blood flowing from Madame Guillotine that leads to political solution which ultimately produces the tyrant of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican Ogre - the man about whom this thread revolves.

 

[loup99]

Yes, there was a 'The Terror'. Blood flowed.

No, there was not at all, you apparently did not read my post. Please do not use terms if you don't know their definition and context. Just because there were deaths in a context of civil war and exceptional revolutionnary government, it does not mean ter "terror", which was never instated on the order of the day, is adequate. "The Terror" was a term coined by opponents to Robespierre after his death, which is why it is no longer used by historians. I advice you to read up on the period if it interests you, Jean-Clément Martin has worked on the construction of the "Terror" and Hervé Leuwers on Robespierre himself, he was written a biography.

When Robespierre died, the blood continued to flow.

Which is precisely why a term fabricated by opponents of Robespierre to discredit him is not retained, it is simply inaccurate and leads to a misleading rupture at his death, when he was one of several members of the committee and executions continued intensely in his absence and after his death.

I'm not discussing a marketing campaign, merely the river of blood flowing from Madame Guillotine that leads to political solution which ultimately produces the tyrant of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican Ogre - the man about whom this thread revolves.

You are using the words not of a marketing campaign but of a political campaign against Robespierre. This is a bit like if you insisted on saying "Trump made America great again" but refused to realise Trump himself had used this as a slogan. Furthermore, it is wrong to claim "the river of blood flowing", because the revolutionnary government and the courts of exception actually ended at the end of the National Convention and with the Directory. The coups of the Directory against the royalists and neo-jacobins, and repression of the Parisian uprisings, are distinct from the period of the National Convention dominated by the Montagnards. However you could say the repeated coups during the Directory did pave way to Napoléon who was a tyrant and dictator in the sense that he abolished the Republic to instate his own regime. The guillotine is even less relevant as a red string, it was in use until the death penalty was abolished in 1981.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

No, there was not at all, you apparently did not read my post. Please do not use terms if you don't know their definition and context. Just because there were deaths in a context of civil war and exceptional revolutionnary government, it does not mean ter "terror", which was never instated on the order of the day, is adequate. "The Terror" was a term coined by opponents to Robespierre after his death, which is why it is no longer used by historians. I advice you to read up on the period if it interests you, Jean-Clément Martin has worked on the construction of the "Terror" and Hervé Leuwers on Robespierre himself, he was written a biography.

Which is precisely why a term fabricated by opponents of Robespierre to discredit him is not retained, it is simply inaccurate.


You are using the words not of a marketing campaign but of a political campaign against Robespierre. This is a bit like if you insisted on saying "Trump made America great again" but refused to realise Trump himself had used this as a slogan. Furthermore, it is wrong to

Yes. I did read your post. You, unfortuantely, seem unable to get the figurative rather than the literal meaning of mine. In every post. I can list them out going back to your initial diatribe when Robespierre's name was mentioned, which I would have cut off earlier if I had remembered your easy-to-invoke reverence for that political killer.

I detest him, you adore him. Whatever. Let's make this easy, have a nice day.

 

[loup99]

Yes. I did read your post. You, unfortuantely, seem unable to get the figurative rather than the literal meaning of mine because each reply you miss more and more points. In every post. I can list them out going back to your initial diatribe when Robespierre's name was mentioned, which I would have cut off earlier if I had remembered your easy-to-invoke reverence for that political killer.

I detest him, you adore him. Whatever. Let's make this easy, have a nice day.

I do not adore, devote, love or revere anyone discussed in this thread, and Robespierre had both his strengths and flaws as we all do. However, I myself willingly admit, and maybe it is a flaw of my own, that I do adore the historical method of being critical and reading sources. Sometimes in my adoration for that critical and academic history I can get carried away. Sorry if you felt violently criticised when you read my posts that attempted to (poorly) summarise the ongoing research of far more knowledgeable and qualified historians than I would even imagine of being, my intent was not to post any diatribe. The references I tried to give will hopefully give a better portrait of the man and the period for those interested.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

There was no "Terror", that is a term coined by Robespierre's Thermidorian opponents to discredit him and his supporters after his death.

ROFL. It is a term he coined himself.

 

[Barsoom]

Is there another side to that coin?

If you want to take a snapshot of the philosophical purity of feeling flowing from the Tennis Court Oath and not witness what happens next or take short cuts to get where you are trying to go, that is your choice. You see this beautiful ideal, I see Robespierre lurking in the shadows. You see Lady Liberty leading the troops into the New Age, I see Madame Guillotine guarding the door. You see the Napoleonic Code, I see dead and broken scattered across Europe. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If the Ancien Regime died when the head of Louis XVI hits the scaffold, what was born when L'Emperor picks up the fallen crown and puts it on his own head? Beethoven speaks for many when he rips his symphony dedicated to Napoleon asunder. France? France's government changes with the seasons and has been mocked over the centuries by other powers as a pillar of political instability. Brilliant literature, great love, divine wines, gourmet foods; bad politics. The well itself has been poisoned.

Merely killing the king did not destroy the king's power, all it did was fill the wolves with blood lust seeking it for their own. The Tzar was deposed and brutally executed, his power lived on in the characters of Stalin; and is Putin not a shadow of the Romanov power replacing sang real with counter-Intelligence? What you want and what you get are frequently at great odds with one another.

Utopia, by definition, is a perfect place which cannot exist; those who seek to make the dream a reality frequently summon a nightmare instead.

You are arguing with a straw man. Of course there's another side to that coin, it's in the very post you selectively quoted: "the defeat and excesses of the revolution." It's the reason I put more stock in the revolution's legacy of ideas than in its concrete achievements, and explicitly said these ideals animated reformers as well as revolutionaries. I must say I'm a bit disappointed. I know you as a well-informed poster, I thought you would recognize that by invoking Kant rather than Rousseau I was making that distinction.

There are two problems with your position in this thread. One, you forget that the evil you perceive on one side of a conflict does not mean that the motives on the other side are pure. The crowned heads of Europe did not at first band together to defeat the tyrant Napoleon, they intervened to restore the monarchy before dangerous republican ideas could undermine their own position. I objected to characterizing their actions as a defense of freedom.

Two, you oversimplify the chain of events that leads from the Bastille to Napoleon to modern France. Napoleon would not have had that shining military career that put him in a position to seize power without the help of the British and the Austrians. The revolution is only one cause of the man's rise, the indispensable other is an enemy to fight.

Even if you side with Burke, you must realize that a critique of the revolution's internal dynamics does not automatically mean that an armed intervention is the best response. And that a rejection of the actions taken by the revolutionaries is not the same as a rejection of all their ideals. Burke himself supported the American Revolution, which shared many of them.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

You are arguing with a straw man. Of course there's another side to that coin, it's in the very post you selectively quoted: "the defeat and excesses of the revolution." It's the reason I put more stock in the revolution's legacy of ideas than in its concrete achievements, and explicitly said these ideals animated reformers as well as revolutionaries. I must say I'm a bit disappointed. I know you as a well-informed poster, I thought you would recognize that by invoking Kant rather than Rousseau I was making that distinction.

There are two problems with your position in this thread. One, you forget that the evil you perceive on one side of a conflict does not mean that the motives on the other side are pure. The crowned heads of Europe did not at first band together to defeat the tyrant Napoleon, they intervened to restore the monarchy before dangerous republican ideas could undermine their own position. I objected to characterizing their actions as a defense of freedom.

Two, you oversimplify the chain of events that leads from the Bastille to Napoleon to modern France. Napoleon would not have had that shining military career that put him in a position to seize power without the help of the British and the Austrians. The revolution is only one cause of the man's rise, the indispensable other is an enemy to fight.

Even if you side with Burke, you must realize that a critique of the revolution's internal dynamics does not automatically mean that an armed intervention is the best response. And that a rejection of the actions taken by the revolutionaries is not the same as a rejection of all their ideals. Burke himself supported the American Revolution, which shared many of them.

I have always found you a reasonable fellow, so let's start again from another angle:

There is a profound difference in the American Revolution and the French Revolution, and it involves the transfer of power.

In the American, the ideals of the Philosophes were used to inflame the hearts because smugglers were tired of giving up profits to a far away crown where they had no say over how the Crown's investment in the Colonies was managed. It was a war for home rule of the new world, not a war seeking to overthrow the established order of the old world.

In the French, the ideals of the Philosophes were used to inflame the hearts of Frenchman against the established order; where nobility was bought and sold and the nobility was a burden upon the people. Global warming makes a play, a few harvests are damaged, hunger begins. A starving people cut off the head of an uncaring king.

When the King's head hits the scaffold the crown rattles around a bit before it is picked up by Bonaparte who, literally, places it upon his own head and covers himself with Merovingian bees.

Does this telling require shortcuts, omissions of facts from the narrative, and brevity to make this point? Absolutely. Is it a figurative rather than a literal image? Certainly. Have I forgotten history and suddenly think France is completely Evil and the Allied powers completely Good? Unlikely. Is that how I communicate? Unfortunately. Is any disrespect meant to you or to others? Perish the thought.

 

[loup99]

ROFL. It is a term he coined himself.

First of all, when you quote selectively, please quote the entire block. Secondly, when you decide to contradict what others write on the basis of evidence, please provide your own evidence.

There was no "Terror", that is a term coined by Robespierre's Thermidorian opponents to discredit him and his supporters after his death. It is no longer retained by historians, but is very interesting to deconstruct and analyse. The revolutionaries refused to instate terror on the order of the day, but in the rhetoric spoke about "inspiring terror" upon the "ennemies to justice".

What you say is not only wrong, it is also a big chronological mistake which has no basis in etymology or the vocabulary used during the French Revolution. As shown by Jean-Clément Martin the belief that you should inspire "terror" is rooted in Antiquity, and that was the sense used by Robespierre when he spoke about inspiring terror to the ennemies of the Republic. "The Terror" with a capital "t" as forged by opponents to attack and blame Robespierre for responsibilities he did not have is not the same thing as using the word "terror". The invention of this term gave a name to a period which did not have any. There had been acts of considerable violence, like the Massacres of September or the war in Vendée, but up until the death of Robespierre he himself and the National Convention explicitly refused to say France had entered a regime of terror. The violence we see during the 1788-1794 period happens without clear directives from the state or determined policy, but the aims of controlling the popular movement to avoid them doing their own justice is central in the 1792-1794 phase. For political reasons Tallien, rival to Robespierre, after his death, stated that the past period had been "The Terror" and was the fault of Robespierre.

In short, while there are two different senses of the word, the common one of "terror" used at the time by several revolutionaries but which was neither that of a period nor of a system of government, and the coined one by Tallien as well as other opponents to Robespierre to retrospectively describe a period, "The Terror", neither of the two were coined by Robespierre. I don't know which use you meant, hence why I reply to both.

The revolution is only one cause of the man's rise, the indispensable other is an enemy to fight.

The process of militarisation and the construction of the citizen as a soldier in arms was certainly instrumental. That is a process within the Revolution, together with the difficulties of the Directory as the regime of the "extreme centre" (Pierre Serna).

 

[Barsoom]

I have always found you a reasonable fellow, so let's start again from another angle:

There is a profound difference in the American Revolution and the French Revolution, and it involves the transfer of power.

In the American, the ideals of the Philosophes were used to inflame the hearts because smugglers were tired of giving up profits to a far away crown where they had no say over how the Crown's investment in the Colonies was managed. It was a war for home rule of the new world, not a war seeking to overthrow the established order of the old world.

In the French, the ideals of the Philosophes were used to inflame the hearts of Frenchman against the established order; where nobility was bought and sold and the nobility was a burden upon the people. Global warming makes a play, a few harvests are damaged, hunger begins. A starving people cut off the head of an uncaring king.

When the King's head hits the scaffold the crown rattles around a bit before it is picked up by Bonaparte who, literally, places it upon his own head and covers himself with Merovingian bees.

Does this telling require shortcuts, omissions of facts from the narrative, and brevity to make this point? Absolutely. Is it a figurative rather than a literal image? Certainly. Have I forgotten history and suddenly think France is completely Evil and the Allied powers completely Good? Unlikely. Is that how I communicate? Unfortunately. Is any disrespect meant to you or to others? Perish the thought.

Yes, there is certainly a difference between a domestic revolution in the heart of Europe and a revolution-cum-independence-war in a faraway colony. I think we can add the migration of the most outspoken Tories to Canada, the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, and the personality of its first president to the contributing factors for US success. But the most important is probably its relatively small international weight. Foreign powers feared the spread of subversive ideas less because events in the colonies would not be so readily regarded as an example in Europe as a revolt in a premier power with a proven cultural attraction throughout the old continent. They intervened not to end the revolution but to aid it because to them harming the UK was more important.

And there's the rub: to my mind the Declaration of Pillnitz and the War of the First Coalition had a large and negative effect on the course of events in France. As the war progressed, military men like Napoleon made careers that ultimately put them in a position to seize power. But long before that, potential intervention warped the political process within France. The Declaration of Pillnitz was taken as a serious threat, partly because of family ties between the Austrian and French monarchs and partly because Prussia had a proven track record, having already suppressed the Dutch patriot movement. Louis XVI stalled, changed his mind repeatedly, attempted to flee; in short: did everything except stick to his word. I don't think it was only Louis' political ineptness or the fiery zeal of a rather small minority in parliament that destabilized the situation but also the chance of foreign intervention on Louis' behalf.

I have been fascinated by revolutions since I was 17 and I saw the Berlin Wall come down. They are precarious things, revolutions. Some of them, like those in 1989, make the world a better place. Some fail to take off. Some succeed at first but then succumb to a reaction. And one or two go down to defeat but their ideals live on. The French Revolution is one of those, no reasonable person can judge it a success on its first go-around, but its had a remarkable afterlife.

 

[loup99]

The French Revolution is one of those, no reasonable person can judge it a success on its first go-around, but its had a remarkable afterlife.

I disagree in the sense that the system of the Ancien Régime never came back, despite the ultraroyalists trying otherwise.