Europe: A History (142 page)
From then on, the Revolution acquired its own momentum, its rhythms dictated by tides of uncontrolled events. It passed through three main phases.
In the first, five-year phase, 1789–94
, the French Revolution accelerated through ever-increasing degrees of radicalism until all the institutions of the previous social and political order had been swept away. For more than two years the National Assembly, the
Constituante
, laboured over the design of a constitutional monarchy. In one full night, 4–5 August 1789, thirty separate decrees abolished all the apparatus of serfdom and noble privilege. The Declaration of the Rights of Man (26 August 1789) was followed by the abolition of the provinces (December 1789) and the civil establishment of the clergy (June 1790). It appeared that stability and consensus might have been achieved when, on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, on 14 July 1790, the whole of France joined in a Grand Festival of Federation. In Paris, the King attended mass in the presence of the leaders of the assembly, and the commander of the National Guard, General Lafayette, swore a solemn oath of allegiance proffered by the Bishop of Autun, Talleyrand.
In the Austrian Netherlands, the revolution was moving still faster. In August 1789 the powerful Archbishopric of Liège was seized by ‘patriots’ in a bloodless coup. In August a patriotic army was raised by General de Mersch to confront the Austrians. In November demonstrations in Ghent ended in bloody massacres; and finally, in December, Brussels expelled its Austrian garrison. By the end of the year an independent Union of Belgian States had been declared. It lasted for thirteen months, before the re-entry of the Austrians in force in February 1791.
In France, the introduction of a consolidated Constitution (September 1791) called for elections which swept the original, moderate leaders aside. The new Legislative Assembly was much less sympathetic to the monarchy. It struggled to get a grip for twelve months until it, too, was overtaken by the declaration of a Republic and the opening of the Republic’s National Convention. Then, in the summer of 1792, with France at war, the mainstream revolutionary movement was hijacked by root-and-branch radicals, who had earlier seized control of the municipal Commune of Paris. Hence, if the Estates-General and the National Assembly (1789–91) were dominated by Mirabeau’s constitutionalists, and the Legislative Assembly (1791–2) by republican Girondins, the National Convention (1792–5) took its orders from Robespierre’s extremist Jacobins.
The two dread years of Jacobin supremacy began during the invasion scare of 1792, when the Prussian army was thought to be in striking distance of Paris (see below). When the King dismissed his Girondin ministers in expectation of foreign rescue, popular resentments began to rise. In July, when the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick announced his intention to liberate the King and to execute the whole population of Paris if the Royal Palace was touched, they boiled over. It was exactly the pretext which the Jacobins needed to declare ‘the fatherland in danger’, and to call for the abolition of the monarchy. Five hundred ardent Massilians marched to the support of Paris. On 10 August, with the Massilians in the van, the Tuileries was duly stormed and the King’s Swiss Guard massacred. In September, with the Commune controlling the capital, thousands in the Paris prisons were butchered in cold blood; the King was deposed; and the Republic declared.
GAUCHE
F
ROM
the earliest days of France’s Estates-General, the nobles of the Court Party instinctively positioned themselves to the right of the King, whilst the Third Estate sat on the left. To sit on the right-hand of authority, as on ‘the right-hand of God’, was an established mark of privilege. As a result, ‘the Right’ became a natural synonym for the political Establishment, whilst ‘the Left’ was applied to its opponents. These divisions grew more marked after 1793 in the National Convention, where the Jacobins and their associates occupied benches in the left and upper sections of the chamber. They formed the revolutionary block of deputies on the
‘Montagne’
, which physically towered over the moderates of the
‘Plaine’
below. The opposition of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ has provided a basic metaphor for the political spectrum ever since.
1
Yet the metaphor has its problems. It only works if the political spectrum is seen to be ranged along a straight line, with ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ separated by the conciliatory ‘Centre’ between them:
Reform————Status quo————Reaction
Extreme—Left—Centre-Left—CENTRE—Centre-Right—Right—Extreme
Left
Right
In this scheme, the most successful politicians are likely to be those who command the consensus of ‘the centre ground’ with the help of either the moderate Left or the moderate Right.
Marxists, and other dialecticians, however, see the political spectrum not as unilinear, but as bi-polar. In their scheme, politics consists of a struggle where two opposite forces are fated to contend, and where one or the other will necessarily establish supremacy. In the long run, as in a tug-of-war, or with a pair of scales, the Centre cannot hold the balance indefinitely, and must always give way to ‘Left’ or ‘Right’. The notion of a political order based on consensus, tolerance, compromise, restraint, or mutual respect for the law is a ‘bourgeois illusion’.
What the unilinear and the bi-polar schemes share is the dubious assumption that ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ are simple opposites.
The spatial arrangement of political assemblies, therefore, involves important considerations. The British House of Commons, for example, places the Government benches on the Speaker’s Right in direct confrontation with the Opposition benches on the Speaker’s Left. It accurately reflects the adversarial politics of the two-party system, putting ministers and
shadow ministers face to face in their exchanges across the despatch box. This, too, is a dialectical concept, actively discouraging the activities of a third party and the spirit of coalition on which most Continental assemblies depend. It could not be adapted to the purposes of an assembly elected by proportional representation. The House of Lords, in contrast, which has to make provision for a substantial body of independent members on the ‘cross benches’, is arranged round three sides of an open rectangle. In the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the massed rows of an undivided hall indicated the compulsory unanimity of all present (see Appendix III, p. 1334).
None the less, twentieth century experience has shown that the political Right could be every bit as radical as the political Left. In addition to opposing each other, the radical elements of Left and Right shared the ambition for overthrowing the democratic consensus. In this light, the realization dawned that political forces may best be aligned round a circular track. In this scheme, not only does Left oppose Right, but Totalitarianism opposes Democracy:
Given these considerations, it emerges that a horse-shoe or a semicircle provides the most appropriate spatial arrangement for the multiple but competing interests within a democratic assembly. Such is the layout, not only for many national assemblies in Europe, from Warsaw to Paris, but also for the
‘hémicercle’
of the European Parliament at Strasbourg.
2
On 20 September, the opening of the National Convention coincided exactly with the cannonade at Valmy which saved the Revolution from suppression from abroad. 22 September, the day when the Republic was proclaimed, was later judged to be the starting-point of the Revolutionary Calendar,
[VENDÉMIAIRE]
.
In due course executive power was concentrated in two successive Committees of Public Safety—the first (April-July 1793), dominated by Danton, the second (July 1793–July 1794) by Robespierre. The Convention’s independent initiatives were ended. The foreign war was prosecuted with vigour. The ‘Counter-Revolution’, in the Vendée and elsewhere, was mercilessly assaulted. A new
super-democratic Constitution providing for universal suffrage, for referenda, and for an elected government was passed, but remained a dead letter. The Committees of Public Safety in Paris maintained their grip on the whole country through a network of subsidiary committees in every commune and department in France. These committees, formed by the law of 21 March 1793 for regulating foreigners, became instruments of unlimited dictatorial control.
VENDÉMIAIRE
I
N
October and November 1793, France’s National Convention voted to introduce a Republican Calendar based on revolutionary principles. In a series of decrees it was decided that the year should begin at midnight on the autumnal equinox of 22 September, and that Year I of the Republican era should be judged to have begun on the day of the Proclamation of the Republic, 22 September 1792. The year was to be divided into twelve equal months of thirty days, and each month into three ten-day ‘decades’ (There were to be no more weeks, or Sundays.)
MONTHS:
Vendémiaire
(Month of Harvest);
Brumaire
(Month of Mist);
Frimaire
(Month of Frost);
Nivôse
(Month of Snow);
Pluviôse
(Month of Rain);
Ventóse
(Month of Wind);
Germinal
(Month of Seeds);
Floréal
(Month of Flowers);
Prairial
(Haymaking Month);
Messidor
(Month of Reaping);
Thermidor
(Month of Heat);
Fructidor
(Month of Fruits).
DAYS:
1,11,21,
primidi;
2,12,22,
duodi;
3,13,23,
tridi;
4,14,24, quartidi; 5, 15, 25,
quintidi;
6,16, 26,
sextidi;
7,17, 27,
septidi;
8, 18, 28,
octidi;
9, 19, 29,
nonidi;
10, 20, 30,
decadi
. (See Appendix III, pp. 1288–9.)
When the system was put into operation, 1 January 1794 was officially transformed into
Duodi
of the 2nd Decade, 12 Nivôse, Year II.
To keep in line with the natural year of 365¼ days, the calendar years were organized into four-year groups called
franciades;
and each year was allocated five complementary days, the
sans-culottides
. The fourth year of each
franciade
received an extra ‘leap day’, the
Jour de la Révolution
.
The Republican Calendar was officially maintained for fourteen years; but it was virtually abandoned after six. The Gregorian Calendar was in widespread use again under the Consulate, long before it was formally restored on 1 January 1806/11 Nivôse XIV.
Nothing was better calculated to disrupt the nation’s sense of orientation than the change of calendar. Counter-revolutionaries tried to keep up the old time. Revolutionaries tried to insist on the new. Historians have to cope with both.
The Revolution started to devour its own children. The Terror raged, consuming an ever-mounting tally of victims. Danton and his associates were denounced
and executed in April 1794, for questioning the purposes of the Terror. Robespierre, the chief terrorist, met denunciation and death on 28 July 1794,10 Thermidor II.
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The fate of the monarchy mirrored these developments. In October 1789, after a Women’s March of protest to Versailles, Louis XVI had been brought with his family to their palace of the Tuileries in Paris. He was already the butt of indecent humour:
Louis si tu veux voir
Bàtard, cocu, putain,
Regarde ton miroir
La Reine et le Dauphin.
(Louis if you wish to see I Bastard, cuckold, and whore, I Look at your mirror I Your queen and your son.)
26
In June 1791, after repudiating all concessions made since the days of the Tennis Court Oath, he had fled in disguise to the eastern frontier, only to be caught at Varennes in Champagne. Returned to Paris in disgrace, he then signed the first Constitution as prepared by the National Assembly, becoming the ‘hereditary agent’ of the people. In August 1792, when the Tuileries was stormed, he was arrested and ‘suspended’. In September, he was deposed. On 21 January 1793 he was tried and executed as a traitor. On 16 October Marie-Antoinette suffered the same fate. The ten-year-old Dauphin, Louis XVII, was handed to plebeian foster-parents, and subsequently died from neglect and tuberculosis.
