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<\/a><\/p>\nPrerevolutionary France had little sense of a united people. Class divisions were strong, and those of privilege generally did not associate socially with those below them. According to B. A. Avner, \u201cNationalist sentiments were known, then, in prerevolutionary France, but they were shared mainly by limited circles within the elite and were subordinated to the higher value system of the Church and the monarchy. It was the Revolution that transformed them into a powerful, popular force which cut itself loose from the tenets of the Old Regime and based itself upon a new set of principles.\u201d7 Before the Revolution, much of the national sentiment revolved around a particular social class rather than the entire nation. On the eve of the revolution, however, class divisions became less important, and the desire for a single nation emerged.<\/p>\n
The proto-nationalist ideas of such Enlightenment writers, as Montesquieu, Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau, influenced the Revolution. Each professed varying ideas about a nation in the interests of the people, and contemplated the ideal forms of government, society, economy, and religion. The writings of these philosophes had an effect on the emergence of nationalism during the Revolution of 1789.<\/p>\n
Likewise, the General Cahiers of 1789 showed an emerging national consciousness. They expressed the frustrations and concerns of people in the provinces of France. While most focused of local grievances, an underlying desire for greater recognition and a voice in government also surfaced.<\/p>\n
The leaders of the Revolution, e. g., Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Bar\u00e8re, Danton, and Robespierre, gave inspirational and influential speeches that illustrate the nationalist evolution of the Revolutionary period. They illustrate the transition from monarchy to popular Republic. Even from within different parties, the orators of the Revolution used national sentiment and dedication to the nation to rouse the representatives in government. Many of these speeches were carefully planned and written and distributed among the people of France beyond those in government meetings.<\/p>\n
Likewise, the laws and Constitutions passed by the National Assembly, Legislative Assembly, and National Convention echo the nationalist values of the Revolution, and frequently found their justification in the protection of the nation. They show the changes, but also similarities, in the policies of the nation as different parties rose to and fell from power. This nationalist sentiment found its final expression in the levy en masse of 1793, which appealed to the young men\u2019s patriotic spirit and sense of duty to the nation. National symbols, such as the tricolor flag and \u201cLa Marseillaise,\u201d provided rallying points for those who responded to the call of duty.<\/p>\n
While there were many causes of the French Revolution of 1789, a few are credited with having the strongest influence. Among these were the faulty financial practices, a confusing and shaky government, agrarian distress, and Enlightenment ideals. All of these factors contributed to discontent among the people. There was increased state spending and a growing burden of state debt. Some of the spending can be attributed to the wars France fought (or financially assisted) during the eighteenth century. These were funded almost entirely by borrowing, which put France deeper in debt.8<\/p>\n
The high rate of inflation was largely due to the marked increase in metallic currency in circulation during the century as well as a greater distribution of lines of credit.9 Higher prices were the result. Albert Goodwin found that \u201cthe average general prices of consumers\u2019 goods in France were 45 per cent higher in the period 1771-89 and 65 per cent higher between 1785 and 1789 than they had been between 1726 and 1741.\u201d10 This increase was not matched by people\u2019s incomes, so people found that they had fewer and fewer resources to live from.<\/p>\n
The balance of power within the government was also flawed. While technically an absolute monarchy, the power of the monarch was greatly checked by the political power of others, and was hampered by the remaining relics of feudalism. The Church held power, mainly through the influence it had over the hearts and minds of the majority of the people. Catholicism was part of people\u2019s everyday lives, and they trusted the teachings of the Church far more than they trusted the people who taxed them into poverty. The Church held records of births, marriages, and deaths. There were also clergymen in positions of power at all levels of the government.11<\/p>\n
As David Bell expresses, \u201cThe rise of the concepts of nation and patrie initially took place as Europeans came to perceive a radical separation between God and the world, searched for ways to discern and maintain terrestrial order in the face of God\u2019s absence, and struggled to relegate religion to a newly defined private sphere of human endeavor, separate from politics.\u201d12 The turn to rationalism that was characteristic of the Enlightenment tended to separate the Church from the nation. This influence, in turn, shifted people\u2019s devotion from the Church to the idea of the patrie, or fatherland.<\/p>\n
Another source of influence within the government were the parlements, high courts which had the right of registering royal edicts and ordinances. […] The parlements had significant power, which enabled them to influence the laws of the state, and even go so far as to deny the passage of an edict…<\/p>\n
Provincial estates also held significant influence within the government. They had the power to enact local initiatives, as well as fiscal privileges. These provincial estates were controlled mostly by lay or clerical aristocracy.15 In addition, the Catholic Church held about 15 percent of the land in France, collected the tithe and other taxes, and engaged in commerce. However, it was exempt from taxation by the State.16 The lay and clerical aristocracy held the majority of the wealth in the country, and that gave them power within the government. The landholding aristocracy held seigniorial rights stemming from the feudal system. These rights allowed them to charge tenants for services; including the maintenance of courts to settle local disputes, to collect various dues, to charge tolls on roads and bridges, and for the local population\u2019s use of the seigneur\u2019s grain mill or baking oven.17<\/p>\n
Peasant and noble lives alike were also threatened by a failing agricultural economy. A stalemate between peasants who wanted to preserve traditional methods of cultivation and the monarchy\u2019s efforts to advance new agricultural methods resulted in a complete failure to modernize.18 Recurrent crop failures caused peasants to hoard their
\nharvests, and they refused to trade with areas where famine was more pronounced. Fear of starvation was abundant, especially among the poor farmers who could not afford to buy food if their own crops failed. The traditional land-ownership system, or m\u00e9tayage, in which large farm owners leased parts of their land to tenants for a portion of the harvest, also frequently included feudal taxes due to the land owner. Those whose crops failed, but who still had to pay their taxes to their lord, found it extremely difficult to survive. Many lost faith in the system that put them in such a position with no chance of advancing.<\/p>\n
Enlightenment ideas also had a large influence on the French Revolution. Philosophes such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau produced essays that considered the ideal forms of government, religion, economy, and society. Enlightenment writers\u2019 criticisms of the established system, such as the monarchy and the Catholic Church, awakened literate French people to the need for reform.19 \u201cBy the second half of the eighteenth century, there was a yawning emotional void, left by the discredited notions of God and king. And the idea of the nation, la patrie, was beginning to fill this void.\u201d20 People began to see the flaws and corruption within the government and the Church, and turned to the idea of a secular \u2018motherland\u2019 that reflected the will of the people.<\/p>\n
The writings of the Baron de Montesquieu, particularly his The Spirit of the Laws, reflected the criticisms of French politics that were common in the Enlightenment. He argued that there was no single legitimate political system, but that the system of government should reflect the social, cultural, and geographical conditions of the country. He also advocated for divisions of power within the government…<\/p>\n
Montesquieu expressed the view that an absolute monarch was in danger of becoming a tyrant when he\/she had absolute power. By separating the government\u2019s power, Montesquieu thought to limit the possibility of France\u2019s monarchy becoming a tyranny. Critiques of absolutism throughout the eighteenth century repeated and spread his ideas about the need for independent institutions capable of limiting the power of the king and ministers in France.22<\/p>\n
Another writer who espoused the ideas of the Enlightenment was Voltaire. He was heavily critical of the Catholic Church, championing freedom of religion, of expression, and of the press.23 He brought into question the privileges of the church, and its close political ties with the monarchy and nobility. Through his vocal criticisms of the church and the \u2018unenlightened\u2019 state, the concept of la nation, untainted by ridicule and suspicion, met a growing need amidst the educated people for an outlet for their love of country.24<\/p>\n
An important pre-Enlightenment writer who also influenced the French Revolution was John Locke. His ideas on the social contract revolved around a separate sense of \u2018the people\u2019 vs. \u2018the government,\u2019 which enabled the unified people to stay separate from the government. The people reserve the right to challenge and to transform state institutions if these do not meet their needs.25 And if the government is replaced, the people still remain a united whole. Locke also introduced the idea of a right to rebellion, if the government failed to fulfill the needs of the people, as the French Old Regime clearly did. The idea of a sovereign, united people clearly supports the ideals of nationalism, especially in France where the concept of national identity was not so much about the physical nation as it was about identifying as a \u2018Frenchman\u2019 and being loyal to the nation.<\/p>\n
Jean- Jacques Rousseau, while not a native of France, was another writer who influenced the French Revolution. He advocated a government in the interests of the people. His Social Contract was particularly influential during the Terror of 1793-1794, under Robespierre and the Jacobins.26 His ideas about the General Will being the criterion of government made it possible for an individual to submit to the law on the basis that those laws were in his\/her best interests. The duty of the government was to instill virtue in the people, and to teach them to put the good of the whole above their own personal desires.27<\/p>\n
The Enlightenment, especially its most prominent contributors, was important because it created a climate of opinion in which revolution was possible. The philosophes had no unified theory; however, they were masters of criticism and dissent and were full of hope for change. They created in France a \u2018political culture\u2019 made up of a clientele of activists centered in the Paris salons, provincial academies, and in the Masonic order.28<\/p>\n
While not directly generating the ideas of nationalism, certain aspects began to emerge in Enlightenment-era France, specifically that of la nation.<\/p>\n
Because of the political and economic instability, nobles and clergy demanded the convocation of the Estates-General in 1787. When this demand was ignored, and the Parlement of Paris was exiled to the provinces, the regional parlementaires incited the local people to violent protest. This made it difficult for tax collectors to do their job and find resources for the state treasury. On top of this, the Assembly of the Clergy showed their support of the parlements and voted to give the King an insultingly small don gratuit.29 In August of 1788, the king announced that he would call a meeting of the Estates-General for May 1789.<\/p>\n
A growing sense of unity within the country foreshadowed the nationalism expressed during the revolution. Nationalism developed during the subsequent French Revolution as a driving force within revolutionary governments. This emerging national consciousness was expressed in the General Cahiers of 1789. These were a compilation of the cahiers de dol\u00e9ances, or lists of grievances, submitted by every electoral assembly throughout France. There was a marked similarity among the g\u00e9n\u00e9ralit\u00e9s\u2019 (the administrative divisions of France) demands. Even within the three rival estates, many expressed the same fundamental goals and desires…<\/p>\n
While there was a desire to keep the traditions and the culture of France, there was also a desire to break with parts of tradition. From this framework came a new political culture of unity and continuity. Constant references to the \u2018new;\u2019 the Nation, the community, and the general will, helped create a stronger sense of national purpose within France. These revolutionary values and emerging symbols became powerful because so many people from different parts of the nation began to act on them. They brought about a revolutionary culture that was distinct from that of the Ancient Regime.39 These Revolutionary practices also incorporated the traditions of the large populations from the provinces that resided in Paris and surrounding cities. Revolutionary culture was unique in that it combined both urban and rural traditions.<\/p>\n
Politics frequently reflect the current cultural and social climate; a changing Revolutionary culture was also reflected in a change in political thinking. Influence from Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the ideology of the American Revolution, came to bear upon politics at the beginning of the French Revolution. Some of the political and social questions that arose during the revolution were, how to balance the power of the individual within society, what that meant for society, and how does one reconcile a loss of individual freedom within the benefits of an established state.40<\/p>\n
Francois Furet saw the answers to these questions within Rousseau\u2019s writings. He saw the advancement of the general will as the solution to the problem of political justice: \u201cFor the general will presupposes the atomization of society into myriads of \u2018autarchic\u2019 individuals who communicate with each other only through the general will; the general will must also identify itself fully with each individual will, so that in obeying the general will each individual obeys only himself.\u201d41<\/p>\n
Rousseau\u2019s writings on the Social Contract reflect the social and political problem of individualism. If one submits to the will of another, or to that of a nation, then that person loses his\/her individual will. They are submissive to the will of the other. However, Rousseau responds to this dilemma by saying that the will of a nation reflects the collective will of the population, so that the individual will is still expressed. By becoming part of the national consciousness, and adding the individual to the general, the will expressed is that of the good of the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach of us places his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and as one we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.\u201d42<\/p>\n
Nationalism reflects the general will Rousseau writes about. Indeed, in Geoffrey Best\u2019s collection of essays, Connor O\u2019Brian states that \u201cthe general will in question can only be that of the nation.\u201d43 Without a unified national consciousness, the general will would not exist. As long as several men consider themselves to be a unified single body, they have a single will. This single will expresses the common preservation and well-being of the body.44<\/p>\n
Furet also argues that Revolutionary ideology was not born so much in the Cahiers as through the political elections. While the Cahiers show the development of a national identity, the actual ideology of nationalism developed after the 1789 Revolution. There had to be a manifestation of the peoples\u2019 will.45 This was provided by the balloting of 1789. It played a pivotal role in deciding which political figures would continue to influence the Revolution. Those who were elected had an important bearing, obviously, on the proceedings of the Revolution of 1789.<\/p>\n
An important feature of the French Revolution was the role of social salons and journals. The salons of the social elite provided venues to discuss social and political issues, fashion, and literature. They were gatherings of writers, philosophes, musicians, and artists, as well as members of the court and the clergy, and held in the homes of hostesses with some social finesse and financial means.46<\/p>\n
Among the salons, usually hosted by upper class women, there were subtle rivalries. Salons reflected the social and political opinions of their members, so naturally there were differences among them. The salons provided the aristocrats opportunities to speak and interact with writers, philosophers, and artists who would normally reside in separate social circles. \u201cMadame du Deffard greatly admired Voltaire, whom she succeeded in attracting to her salon for many years. Twice a week Mme Geoffrin invited different guests: on Monday a salon of artists, architects, and sculptors, on Wednesday a salon of men of letters- Diderot, Alembert, Marivaux, Marmontel, abb\u00e9 Reynal, Saint-Lambert, Holbach, and the comte de Caylus.\u201d47<\/p>\n
Topics varied widely, as shown by the differences in those invited to the salons. However, Pre-revolution, national ideals became a prominent topic and were promoted among intellectuals. They were the first to encourage the new public literary sphere that developed throughout the eighteenth century that was separate from the court.48<\/p>\n
Though the salons in no sense planned the Revolution, their analytical spirit and freedom from all sense of responsibility allowed the participants to imagine how things might be if circumstances could be altered. In sapping respect for established authorities and diminishing resignation, in bending the will of the administration to favor them, they corrupted the integrity of officialdom; that is, they compromised their loyalty to the regime and helped destroy it from above.49<\/p>\n
On the eve of the Revolution, nationally-minded salons promoted nationalist thinking and material. They continued the criticisms of the monarchy and Catholic Church that were propagated during the Enlightenment. Because the hostesses, and occasionally hosts, of the salons were prominent figures in society, with prominent friends, they were able to influence the downfall of the monarchy.<\/p>\n
Likewise, pamphlets and journals reflected the growing national ideology. Even the words increasingly used to express ideas about government and country show a striking change in loyalties and psychology. More and more, la patrie was used instead of le pays, le citoyen instead of le sujet, and la nation instead of l’\u00e9tat.50 From these pamphlets emerged three fundamental ideas: \u201cthe idea of a declaration of rights, the conception of national sovereignty and the necessity of endowing France with a constitution.\u201d51<\/p>\n
As a whole, these demands anticipated the response of the Third Estate to the political challenge of the privileged orders.52 The pamphleteers realized that the old conception of a state made up of the king and his three classes of subjects no longer made sense. They knew that to achieve the new social order they desired, they needed a nation of citizens who realized that their own best interests lay in the national interest, and who would act in unison to achieve these interests.53 Among these pamphlets was Siey\u00e8s\u2019 \u201cWhat is the Third Estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Abb\u00e9 Emmanuel Siey\u00e8s also wrote about the social contract. In contrast to Rousseau, Siey\u00e8s assumed that the nation could not manifest itself directly, meaning that it could not become a nation-state naturally. That process required assistance. He stated that it must make itself heard, and proposed the National Assembly as this voice.54 His theory of national unity also relied greatly on the idea that the delegates to the National Assembly were representative of the entire nation, not merely their own electoral districts. Otherwise, what would benefit one district might be detrimental to another.55 He also took issue with the \u2018two-step system\u2019 as portrayed by Locke (consisting of the formation of the people, followed by the contractual establishment of government) and even with the idea of a contract existing between the government and the governed at all.56 He argued that the national interest could only be located in and expressed by the Third Estate. He saw the other Estates as corrupt and virtually useless. He viewed the Third Estate as the embodiment of the nation.<\/p>\n
It suffices to have made the point that the so called usefulness of a privileged order to the public service is a fallacy-, that, without help from this order, all the arduous tasks in the service are performed by the Third Estate; that without this order the higher posts could be infinitely better filled; that they ought to be the natural prize and reward of recognized ability and service; and that if the privileged have succeeded in usurping all well-paid and honorific posts, this is both hateful iniquity towards the generality of citizens and an act of treason to the commonwealth. Who is bold enough to maintain that the Third Estate does not contain within itself everything needful to constitute a complete nation?57<\/p>\n
The problem with excluding the First and Second Estates was that they held a majority of the wealth. Regardless of how hard the Third Estate worked, the wealth was needed to run the country. However, as the Third Estate made up a majority of the population of the nation, it did, in a sense, make up the nation itself. The Third Estate, especially in the areas surrounding Paris, made up some of the loudest proponents of nationalism. They made the strongest call for change within the state, and put the nation before all else.<\/p>\n
Along with the cahiers, these revolutionary pamphlets constitute the best sources of information on the thinking of literate Frenchmen at the beginning of the Revolution. They reflected the nationalist ideology that would become important during the Revolution. \u201cWritten, for the most part, by the men who were to dominate in France during the revolutionary years to come, they at once simplified and popularized the philosophical ideas current in the eighteenth century and laid the ideological and practical basis for many of the debates and laws of the Constituent and, to a lesser extent, the later assemblies\u201d58 By examining publications dating from the Eve of the French Revolution, historians can compare the nationalist sentiment that was expressed there with the opinions that were expressed previously under the Ancien R\u00e9gime…<\/p>\n
When they defined the word \u2018patriotism,\u2019 the pamphleteers said they meant love of country and of fellow-citizens, and the desire that both they and France be prosperous and happy. Specifically, however, to them a patriot was a citizen who, loving his country and countrymen, wished to make his country great and his countrymen happy through the well-known reforms. Patriotism, in fact, had become synonymous with reform, and to be called \u2018patriotic\u2019 was becoming the greatest honor to which men might aspire.63<\/p>\n
A French patriote was a full-blown nationalist, setting his own nation above all other nations, and contemplating it with feelings bordering on adoration.64 Patriotism was something to which all good citizensp aspired. To be considered a patriot in the French Revolution was to be respected. Patriots were often the leading figures of the Revolution. They showed great love for and devotion to their country. Nationalist sentiment can be seen in the efforts to plan a government that would make the nation great. In France, the nationalism expressed through patriotism was aimed at uniting a nation with a government that was in the interests of the people, and not for the personal gains of a monarch.<\/p>\n
In August of 1789, the National Assembly declared the abolition of feudalism and decreed the \u201cDeclaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.\u201d This document asserted that men are born and remain free and equal in rights.65 It also showed the strong nationalist leanings of the National Assembly: \u201cThe principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation.\u201d66 It hailed the nation as the all-powerful entity from which authority and privilege extended. The Declaration also echoed Rousseau\u2019s ideas about the general will.<\/p>\n
The law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, in person or by their representatives, in its formation. It must be the same for everyone whether it protects or penalizes. All citizens being equal in its eyes are equally admissible to all public dignities, offices, and employments, according to their ability, and with no other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.67<\/p>\n
Rousseau\u2019s writings on a general will that represented the needs of the people went hand in hand with the National Assembly\u2019s idea of a nation that was in the interests of its citizens. The Declaration gave France the foundation for a nation in which all people were equal, regardless of station, and would be treated as such in the eyes of the law. It provided for a nation that was not based on religion or an absolutist monarch- which was revolutionary in a state which had previously held the belief that the monarch\u2019s right to rule came directly from God. Instead, France would have a state where power came from the nation itself, i.e. the people.<\/p>\n
Overall, nationalism played an important role in the French Revolution of 1789. It was a driving force for change within the state. The shift from monarchy to the idea of a nation in the interests of the people reflected an emerging national consciousness.<\/p>\n
Love for la patrie and la nation surfaced with the Revolution, free from ties to the monarchy and Catholic Church. With influence from Enlightenment writers like Rousseau, the baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Locke, the Revolution aimed for an enlightened, nationally-minded France. Through publications like the General Cahiers and political pamphlets, the nationalist ideology was distributed and publicized. Orators like Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Bar\u00e9re, Danton, and Robespierre likewise spread the national ideals of the revolution. Their speeches provide an important insight into the evolution of revolutionary policy and its reflection of French nationalism. The levy en masse of 1793 relied heavily on national pride and patriotic spirit. Symbols such as the tricolor flag and \u201cLa Marseillaise\u201d remain enduring images of the French Revolution of 1789.<\/p>\n
Nationalism should not be seen as just a result of the French Revolution, as is often the case; rather, the growth of nationalism was among the causes of the French Revolution and its subsequent development.154 The spread of nationalist ideals through social and political forums cemented the Revolution\u2019s goals and created a national France.
\n__
\nExcerpts from Nationalism in the French Revolution of 1789, by Kiley Bickford, here published without the footnotes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to Otto Dann, from antiquity, nation, in the old Latin sense, meant a people of the same origin. The most common criteria for a nation were a shared language and history;1 a \u201cpeople\u201d generally shared a background and ideals. From this emerged the leading social groups, which expressed the characteristics of the nation. Most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[280,395,7823,36,6091,7824],"class_list":["post-4236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-politics","tag-democracy","tag-france","tag-french-revolution","tag-nationalism","tag-patriotism","tag-revolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}