Would the French Revolution have happened if the American Revolution didn't?

what's that?
A comically failed attempt from French aristocracy to take power after the death of Louis XIV, surpressing state secretaries and ministries, and replacing them by councils made of court nobility and a bit of parlementarian nobility, with former royal advisors and ministers being included in these councils.

For each ministry, the said council discussed the decisions they then advised the Regent their projects and platforms. At least technically.
In reality, court factionalism inside a same council, the sheer incompetence of many councillors (when they bothered to show up, which wasn't that systematical), and a tendency to confuse actual administrative and political work to power-grabbing, made it one of the most fucked-up attempts at nobiliar power ever.

In an old post, I described it as a "system made in 1715 by men of 1653 believing they still were in 1614" : most nobles began to abandon counciliar duties more or less quickly in the councils, effectivly letting Louis XIV staff in place but with a structure far too decentralized and and preventing an effective common rule.

It lasted until 1718, until everyone agreed it was moronic to have attempted that in first place.
 
Hi guys,

I think that the roots of the French Revolutions lay in the system put in place by Louis XIV... So, once his successor Louis XV failed to reform it and, furthermore, screw France in two wars (the Austrian succession and the 7 years war), it was a matter of time till something bad will happens.
Now, the OTL revolution was quite particular as it was a increasing spiral of violence and radicalization.
If the American Revolution do not happens, than it could have different consequences in France.

Now, the question had always taunt me is: Was the OTL Revolution (and everything what derived from it) beneficial for France and the French people? Long Time... Would it be better (for France and French People) to avoid the Revolution and, eventually, to stick with a monarchy? maybe slightly little more constitutional...
 

Redbeard

Banned
You do know that non-nobles or annoblished magistrature did played a growing part of French administration since the XVIIth, right?

The whole "French system was run by powdered aristocrats" is maybe good looking on novels and movies, but doesn't fit reality.

The last time aristocracy attempted to take the bulk of political power was during the polysynodal experience, and it was such a joke it was reverted in mere years.

Exactly, my point is that the nobles still had the priviledges but did ever less of the work. What had started as hardened knights winning their spurs and titles in combat had turned into parasites. Of course it can't be excluded, that the French Monarchy could have reformed, but that reform would have had the same consequence - a new (bourgeoisie) elite taking over - the process perhaps just a little less "headless".
 
Exactly, my point is that the nobles still had the priviledges but did ever less of the work.
Nobility was hardly an homogenous social class by the XVIIIth, even less an elite : apart from court and landed aristocracy, the mass of nobility was represented by the little and middle nobility had few to none political role even symbolically.

Symbolical privileges played a greater role by the XVIIIth mostly for two reasons : first, because it was one way for little nobility to really distinguish itself from non-noble landed elites; then because it was seen by the non-nobiliar landed elite as a way to raise socially.
No one was as convinced of the necessity to resurrect old maniorial rites and duties than bourgeois pseudo-nobility that gained more and more weight in French campaigns by the XVIIIth : at some places it went so far that the old dime was renamed "dime bourgeoise".

What had started as hardened knights winning their spurs and titles in combat had turned into parasites.
Only few, a minority of nobility by the XVIIIth could really pretend coming directly from medieval nobility. That claim is perfectly ridiculous and more reflecting the fantasies of XVIIIth nobility than any social or historical reality, even from afar. Most of french nobility at this point was issued from families raised in the very late middle ages and Renaissance from one part, from parlementarian and magistrate roles for the other part.

Social changes were happening, with some difficulties admittedly. But while a revolutionnary outcome isn't to be written off at all, it could probably go more smoothly due to the absence of a real social blockade by "lazy nobles duuuh".

Hell, most of the old landed nobility tended to be mostly a regional elite, playing mostly a part in provincial politics and few in Versailles, because the source of their power was local.
Virtually none of the great statesmen of the XVIIIth comes from these house, or only trough their mothers (as an union with an older house was seen as a social bonus).

While some institutions, as the army and the high clergy (and even there...), did remained mostly under the hand of high nobility, administrative and political positions (including court positions) were definitely not so since the XVIIth century (in no small parts due to the reign of Louis XIV)

TL;DR : the social and political dynamic tended to favour bourgeois elites, even in countryside, since the XVIIth century over nobility in its strictest sense. It's why provoked, partially, the social reclamation of nobility in the XVIIIth and the stress on symbolical privileges.

Things were changing, and it may not have ended as radically, quickly and deeply it did IOTL.
 
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Skallagrim

Banned
But the needed reforms weren't underway on the scale needed. And in OTL France deliberately excused itself from the Bavarian War (it had an alliance with Austria) by citing the American conflict. Even without a conflict if just gives them a couple of years.

They were not underway, but I'm fairly sure at least some reforms were about to be underway. The whole turn of events of OTL was pretty much a case of "the worst that could happen" and "everyone reacts in the poorest way possible". The thing is that a couple of years will do. Governance wasn't great, but it wasn't so bad that it made revolution the logical outcome (no more than various forms of bad governance in other European kingdoms did). As so often, it's about the economy. And reform like those proposed by Calonne when Necker was in charge in OTL (and which, I have argued, would likely get mostly carried out in this ATL) would start to repair the economic framework, the issue of policy (less mercantillism), and the debt/deficit problems.

The economy would still be weak, yes. But the main weakness would be the huge weight of the remaining debt. Well, various countries have been deeply in debt without undergoing a revolution. (Of course, it's far from healthy. But Britain had a leftover debt from the ARW in OTL, and rapidly got rid of that when they started implementing smart fiscal and trade policies. The French debt is much larger, but the same kind of policies would ease the problem faster than some might expect.)

Put simply: a few years of reprieve would be enough.


One thing I wonder is if a lack of an American Revolution reduces mass political violence (less power to the people sentiment). If things like the Day of the Tiles don't spontaneously break out, then there is no double representation of the Third Estate in the provincial estates in Grenoble. That would reduce the expectation for double representation in the general estates, and the subsequent betrayal in our timeline. We all know that missed expectations is the main driver of revolutions so that could make a big difference. When the Estates are called, the Third might need to form shifting coalitions with the Second and First to get laws passed.

Most likely, yes. There will simply be less inspiration for such things. On the other hand... most or all the of thinkers who inspired the French revolutionaries (and their violence!) are/were still around. Keep in mind that, for instance, the French revolution embraced certain radical ideas that didn't actually come from the Americans at all. The Jacobins were very much inspired by thinkers such as Rousseau and Diderot, and they are still there in the ATL. Much like the ideas of Voltaire, Montesquieu, d'Alembert etc.

On the plus side, far more moderate thinkers got killed in the revolution in OTL. In this ATL, Condorcet could well survive. He was one of the most brilliant minds of his age... and an economic reformer of great vision.

If revolution is forestalled, Calonne gets to reform somewhat (as I outlined), and later on the Physiocrats get to become mainstream, one may well expect Condorcet to become important in regards to economic and fiscal policy. I can think of no man better qualified to repair the French economy. Truly, his death in OTL is one of the great tragedies of the revolution.


I think that the roots of the French Revolutions lay in the system put in place by Louis XIV... So, once his successor Louis XV failed to reform it and, furthermore, screw France in two wars (the Austrian succession and the 7 years war), it was a matter of time till something bad will happens.

Yes! In many ways, it was Louis XV who messed up the most. Louis XIV put in place a system that was fit for his day and age. Colbert, the great mercantillist, was the big man in Louis XIV's administration. His policies were useful at that time. If Louis XV had been willing to reform gradually, all would have been solved. But he did nothing of the sort. "Après nous le déluge", indeed!


Now, the OTL revolution was quite particular as it was a increasing spiral of violence and radicalization. If the American Revolution do not happens, than it could have different consequences in France.

Now, the question had always taunt me is: Was the OTL Revolution (and everything what derived from it) beneficial for France and the French people? Long Time... Would it be better (for France and French People) to avoid the Revolution and, eventually, to stick with a monarchy? maybe slightly little more constitutional...

If a revolution still happens, at any time within the general OTL 'age of revolutions' timeframe, it will still be inspired by the same thinkers, and it will probably still be bloody. To create a not-so-bloody French revolution, you'd need to change the whole ideology, at least to the extent of eliminating the ideological influence of men like Rousseau and Diderot. (Those two were widely cited as thee main inpiration for the radicals who committed the Terror.)

I think that if the monarchy is not reformed, a revolution would still have happened, mosly inevitably. I do think, however, that reform was going to happen if things hadn't turned out as poorly as in OTL.

My view is that the French revolution was a terrible thing, though it came from good intentions, and that it did far more harm than good. Your views may differ, depending on what you consider desirable. Personally, I'd argue that the Terror, the genocide of catholics in the Vendée, the mass murder of priests and the mass theft of church property, the extralegal executions of entire aristocratic families (including the children), the inprisonment (and often execution) of intellectuals like Condorcet... etc. etc. are all examples of the revolution's darker side.

All in all, I think a reformed French monarchy (ultimately following the example of the British monarchy in OTL) would be much more desirable than what happened with the French revolution.

[post edited to correct some spelling errors]
 
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Skallagrim

Banned
An additional thought that occurs to me regarding the hypothetical absence of a French revolution: there will be massive effects on all of Europe. And not just because no Revolutionary & Napoleonic wars (which means that different states, such as the HRE, will continue to exist at least a bit longer, and would also have major effects on Polish national identity, what with no Duchy of Warsaw and all that). Other effects would include:

-- Absence of the legal system exported by Napoleon, for instance: his legal code became the basis for laws in various countries. So that's pretty much gone, and pre-revolutionary legal frameworks persist. Needless to say, a move towards "natural law" (Enlightenment-inspired) and codification was already underway, and would likely influence legal developments... but more gradually and more diversely (on a country-by-country basis).

-- No radical move towards centralisation in France. Thus, this particular effect of the revolution is not exported either. European countries generally remain more decentralised longer; local regions retain their traditioal rights for a longer period. Again, a move towards centralisation precedes the revolution, but without France going all radical on that subject and Napoleon forcing it on every conquered country, developments will be far more gradual. (Combined with 'no toppling of governments/countries', this means - just for example - that the Republic of the Netherlands stays Republican, doesn't become a mostly centralised monarchy after Napoleon's defeat, and remains a rather federal country. Similar things apply to other countries.)

-- No 'levée en masse' (yet). It's likely to happen anyway, at some point, but the use of vast citizen-armies and of professional state armies is delayed. For the moment, warfare remains a thing presided over by the elite, and the ultimate change towards mass warfare will bew more gradual.

-- No state control of education (yet). This whole thing was largely inspired by the French revolution, and got adopted in various other European countries. A tendency to standardise education became the norm. (This was also related to the political centralisation and the desire to standardise the language and educate the youth in a 'national' fashion). In many ways, this tendency improved education standards. In many other ways, it was abused to indoctrinate young people. Again, the whole development will be different and - you guessed it - more gradual. Oh, and without the French revolution's anticlericalism, religion remains more powerful, and retains its traditional role in education. Most schools, therefore, will (for the time being) remain religious schools.

-- Finally, the modern collectivist movements (as we know them) will get butterflied away. That doesn't mean 'no collectivism', but the forms we are familiar with (such as nazism and communism) are ultimately heirs to the French revolution in various ways:

---->The French revolutionaries introduced such measures as price controls, some flirted with the abolition of property, and had vehement arguments about unprecedented powers to be given to the state (including the power - and explicit goal - to redistribute incomes). Furthermore, we can safely say that the later Communards were influenced by the French revolution, and the Commune directly influenced Marx and other progenitors of communism. Even when the Russian communists killed aristocratic families with fanatical passion, they explicitly referenced the French revolution.

---->Similarly, the concept of modern nationalism in Europe was very much influenced by the French revolution. The idea of a people having a right to its "natural orders" sure came back later on, and the French republic's anthem (which remains the French anthem to this day) proudly sings about spilling the meadows with the impure blood of foreigners. (Really: "Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!".) That same obsession with 'blood' equating to 'nation' - an idea until that time far from universal - sprung up in various countries occupied by the French at that time. Not to mention the fact that many German philosophers who turned the emerging notion of collectivism into a distinctly nationalist direction were also formed by the French revolution. (After all; German nationalism as we know it was initially a reaction to Napoleonic occupation.)


...all in all, I think we can conclude that without the French revolution, things would most likely be less dramatic. More gradual. In some ways, that means certain positive developments get slowed down, delayed. In many other ways, it means that certain abject horrors are avoided altogether. I suspect that some forms of collectivism and nationalism, in their modern sense, would emerge anyway. But a bit later, and generally more local and less extreme. Without the urge to centralisation, and the example of France (and, indirectly, of the USA), there might not be an 'Italy' or a 'Germany'. These might well develop regional nationalisms instead, based on existing states and regions. Napolitan nationalism. Bavarian nationalism. That sort of thing. Europe might well end up consisting of far more, smaller countries. (And later on, a stronger urge towards separatism - in places such as Scotland - might be the outcome. "National identity" would be a local thing, almost by definition.)

As for collectivism: an emerging middle class, resulting from the industrial revolution, is simply a fact by now. It cannot be avoided. Politics are going to change. Governments are going to get ever more professionally bureaucratic, and they are going to grow bigger as time passes. But the aims of 'collectivism' might well end up not being revolutionary at all, but... bourgeois. It would be the lower middle class calling for activist governments, pension schemes, welfare systems, labour laws. Revolutionary movements like socialism and communism might never get going. Rather, things would a gain be more gradual: a slow, incremental transition from the ancien regime into something that would ultimately resemble a modern social democracy in many ways.
 
Most likely, yes. There will simply be less inspiration for such things. On the other hand... most or all the of thinkers who inspired the French revolutionaries (and their violence!) are/were still around. Keep in mind that, for instance, the French revolution embraced certain radical ideas that didn't actually come from the Americans at all. The Jacobins were very much inspired by thinkers such as Rousseau and Diderot, and they are still there in the ATL. Much like the ideas of Voltaire, Montesquieu, d'Alembert etc.

You're missing an important social point tough : a good part of radical revolutionnary support came from both urban and rural middle-class (rather than upper classes, would they be nobles or non-nobles). This isn't going to go anywhere, even with a more balanced budget and fiscal reforms. I'm thinking especially about the semi-agrarian reform that was the nationalisation then the auction of clerical properties (which, included as well urban properties, beneficing urban midle class too), altough it had arguably more leverage in Northern France than in Southern France (which explains, but only partially, the relative political distance in early revolutionary years).

Forgotting the heavy role of middle-classes, and especially the real (if ponctual) intervention of lower classes in French politics due to both clear social reasons and a certain politicisation (partially itself due to vulgarized or widespread distribution of philosophers ideas trough colporteurs) is unadvisable for this period.

Yes! In many ways, it was Louis XV who messed up the most. Louis XIV put in place a system that was fit for his day and age. Colbert, the great mercantillist, was the big man in Louis XIV's administration. His policies were useful at that time. If Louis XV had been willing to reform gradually, all would have been solved. But he did nothing of the sort. "Après nous le déluge", indeed!
I've myself a low opinion of Louis XV, mostly because while he was bored with ruling half of the time, he never let much latitude to his ministers doing his job. But even I think that's too much : Maupéou Reform, that could have cut down parlementarian meddling, was made in the latter part of Louis XV, and dismissed out of blue by Louix XVI (that might have had good intention, but was incompetent and much more the product of the court than he get a bypass for).

It's less a problem of persons (Louis XV's son more or less traditionalist stance isn't that of a stellar exemple), than a problem of political opportunities. As what said, giving France a decisive victory in the XVIIIth, less for the benefit of victory, than for a lasting time of peace for the kingdom could help a lot. You need some sort of political stability at this point, and you may see more reforms as Maupéou's arising.

If a revolution still happens, at any time within the general OTL 'age of revolutions' timeframe, it will still be inspired by the same thinkers, and it will probably still be bloody.
I think you're giving too much credits to thinkers and ideas, and not enough to the social-economical situation of the kingdom : the feeling that things stagnated, that old institutions were a burden, and that fiscal pressure was simply too much is translated by Englightement ideas (more or less well digested) but weren't created by it.

Terror itself is much more the result of the situation (roughly speaking, it was a mess and it ask nearly a year for the Convention to have a real authority over provincial Jacobins)

the genocide of catholics in the Vendée,
*Sigh* I always wonder why this piece of reactionnary historiography manages to get on the board.
Not to digress too much, while particularily violent, the repression in Vendée was nowhere close to a genocide : it have more to do with the repression of Protestantism under Louis XIV or the sacks of the Palatinate (which, when it comes to proponents of the genocide thesis, always gets conveniently forgotten), with the caveat that the Convention control of the situation was much more limited, and it let a mostly republican army in face of a really harsh rebellion. Eventually, republican and insurged losses were roughly the same, which tells about the violence of the conflict.

We're more in the presence of a vicous circle of insurgence/counter-insurgence (the role of nobiliar and clerical elites into the known radicalisation of Vendéeis important : you had a quasi-biblical treatment of the insurgency, which doesn't go anywhere close to tolerent, peaceful and victimizing) on which Convention couldn't do much before 1794 and the return of a strong state authority.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand : revolutionnary and counter-revolutionnary violence doesn't comes out of blue from 1789 and the eviiiil Rousseau and Diderot. It comes from a really shitty social-economic situation and poor political choices leading up to the Convention which had but a mess to manage (not that it didn't made poor decisions itself).
But even if the situation gets better, and that changes are still happening but smoothly, the risk of radical violence (especially when it comes to the pretty much unavoidable fiscal or popular revolts) is still there.
 
Absence of the legal system exported by Napoleon
Code Napoléon is the result of decades of legal reforms attempts. While it was probably coming into existence more easily accompanying the diverse revolutionnary changes, it was more than just in the air. The work of Robert-Joseph Pothier is a good exemple on how the legal system not only already went beyond the simple compilation since decades, but how it was more and more rationalised trough an enlightement approach.
ITTL, while it might be slower (altough I'd still expect a revolutionnary approach to quicken things), you will end by the early XIXth with an equivalent of the civil code.

No radical move towards centralisation in France.
Erm...It was already the case by most cases. Provincial parlements were largely minorized, généralités (directly answering to Versailles) were the basic political-administrative grids, taxation was as centralized you could get (with the exception of Pays d'Etats, and even there it was less of a thing in the XVIIIth), and up to industrial policy with manufactures being largely a field of political intervention.
If something, French Revolution represented a short period of de jure and de facto decentralization before reverting back in the mid 1790's to a centralized management.

Really, Ancien Régime not only created the base of centralization, but also enforced centralization as much as it could and successfully so. Nobody really denies that.
ss warfare will bew more gradual.

-- No state control of education (yet).
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It didn't became a thing before the late XIXth.
Even discarding the most caricatural parts (indoctrinating, abusing, etc*), French Revolution never managed to pull that, even if it wanted (which depends a lot from the era : some toyed with the idea, but Rousseauist conception of education actually hindered that), you really have to wait the latter part of the XIXth to see a clearly national education structure to be proposed (partially in answer to the clericalist conception of education of the XIXth in France, which did its job cutting off what existed on decentralized secular education).

I'm sorry, but this point in particular is nonsensical.

*No siree, clerical schools are not indoctrinating anything, and the political and economical power of the clergy and official church is perfectly normal, move along.
-- Finally, the modern collectivist movements (as we know them) will get butterflied away. That doesn't mean 'no collectivism', but the forms we are familiar with (such as nazism and communism) are ultimately heirs to the French revolution in various ways:
Nazism is the heir of French Revolution.
Seems legit.

Martians of War of the Worlds are the heirs of French Revolution too, aren't they?

---->The French revolutionaries introduced such measures as price controls
Such measures already introduced by times of crisis, if unequally and more or less regionally. What the Convention did was more to systematise an already existing thing (this, incidentally, could summarize well a good part of the historical role of French Revolution)

some flirted with the abolition of property [...] and explicit goal - to redistribute incomes
That was particularilly marginal : apart from Babeuf and Roux (and even them were more possibilists than confiscationists), nobody really went trough this. Even less the ruling revolutionaries that, abiding by a Rousseauist stance, were quite keen on property rights. The main difference is that for Conventionals, property rights were coming along civic duties in a Roman-inspired fashion, rather than being an isolated natural right.

(It's not exactly this, but it's close enough for a short post).

I'm sorry, but the crushing majority of revolutionnaries weren't proto-Commie-Nazis-equalitarians-evil-ev0000000000l! group ; they were, for the crushing majority, proponents of property rights going along a civic conception of society.
You did have exception, but they were generally found outside the club organisation or at their margins (and more along Cordeliers than Jacobins to begin with).

proudly sings about spilling the meadows with the impure blood of foreigners.
Actually, it's known that it's bot a reference to the "blood of foreigners", but the blood of "counter-revolutionnaries' or traitors.
Again, I'm sorry, but it seems you're making things up there : it was quite contradictory to the civic definition of French nationalism even at this period, meaning a mix of messianic and universalist stances, with an inclusion within the nation of anyone willing to contribute to it with the corollary that people that were part of the nations but decided to act against it were more or less considered as matricides.
It's a narrative that came a lot in revolutionary political litterature.

I have to ask : where did you get your information about XVIIIth and XIXth France? Even Menu isn't as caricatural. Heck, even Toqueville isn't. No offense, but I'm under the impression reading a legitimist booklet of the XIXth (which isn't a good thing when it comes to historical and political accuracy).[/QUOTE]
 

Skallagrim

Banned
@LSCatilina - I cannot force you to actually do so, but if you were to peruse my various comments on this board, you would soon see that I am by no means some kind of 'reactionary'. You react to my last two posts like a bull reacts to a red flag. That is: wildly, and without subtlety. I am sorry that you seemingly cannot take a step back and look at all of what I wrote. As it is, you opt to provide quotes of excerpts from my posts, and you react to these excerpts without reacting to their context. Especially in your second post, you deviate from argumentation and into caricature. I must say, I find that poor form.


You're missing an important social point tough : a good part of radical revolutionnary support came from both urban and rural middle-class (rather than upper classes, would they be nobles or non-nobles). This isn't going to go anywhere, even with a more balanced budget and fiscal reforms. I'm thinking especially about the semi-agrarian reform that was the nationalisation then the auction of clerical properties (which, included as well urban properties, beneficing urban midle class too), altough it had arguably more leverage in Northern France than in Southern France (which explains, but only partially, the relative political distance in early revolutionary years).

Forgotting the heavy role of middle-classes, and especially the real (if ponctual) intervention of lower classes in French politics due to both clear social reasons and a certain politicisation (partially itself due to vulgarized or widespread distribution of philosophers ideas trough colporteurs) is unadvisable for this period.


I've myself a low opinion of Louis XV, mostly because while he was bored with ruling half of the time, he never let much latitude to his ministers doing his job. But even I think that's too much : Maupéou Reform, that could have cut down parlementarian meddling, was made in the latter part of Louis XV, and dismissed out of blue by Louix XVI (that might have had good intention, but was incompetent and much more the product of the court than he get a bypass for).

It's less a problem of persons (Louis XV's son more or less traditionalist stance isn't that of a stellar exemple), than a problem of political opportunities. As what said, giving France a decisive victory in the XVIIIth, less for the benefit of victory, than for a lasting time of peace for the kingdom could help a lot. You need some sort of political stability at this point, and you may see more reforms as Maupéou's arising.


I think you're giving too much credits to thinkers and ideas, and not enough to the social-economical situation of the kingdom : the feeling that things stagnated, that old institutions were a burden, and that fiscal pressure was simply too much is translated by Englightement ideas (more or less well digested) but weren't created by it.

Terror itself is much more the result of the situation (roughly speaking, it was a mess and it ask nearly a year for the Convention to have a real authority over provincial Jacobins)

(snip)

(...) revolutionnary and counter-revolutionnary violence doesn't comes out of blue from 1789 and the eviiiil Rousseau and Diderot. It comes from a really shitty social-economic situation and poor political choices leading up to the Convention which had but a mess to manage (not that it didn't made poor decisions itself).
But even if the situation gets better, and that changes are still happening but smoothly, the risk of radical violence (especially when it comes to the pretty much unavoidable fiscal or popular revolts) is still there.

I suspect that the prime difference between our view of history lies in one thing you mentioned: you believe I give too much credit to the influence of ideas. Your own view seems more materialist. That's fine, but I happen not to share that view. I will happily agree that material conditions play a constant and important role, but ultimately I think that ideas and ideologies are far more important in shaping our societies, cultures and histories than you seem to believe. Indeed, I also think (even though I am not an adherent of the 'Great Man'-theory) that the personalities of the people involved at crucial moments matter a great deal. It's not just the general economic and otherwise material background that shapes events. Well, we seem to disagree on that. Fine. A difference of opinion.


*Sigh* I always wonder why this piece of reactionnary historiography manages to get on the board.
Not to digress too much, while particularily violent, the repression in Vendée was nowhere close to a genocide : it have more to do with the repression of Protestantism under Louis XIV or the sacks of the Palatinate (which, when it comes to proponents of the genocide thesis, always gets conveniently forgotten), with the caveat that the Convention control of the situation was much more limited, and it let a mostly republican army in face of a really harsh rebellion. Eventually, republican and insurged losses were roughly the same, which tells about the violence of the conflict.

We're more in the presence of a vicous circle of insurgence/counter-insurgence (the role of nobiliar and clerical elites into the known radicalisation of Vendéeis important : you had a quasi-biblical treatment of the insurgency, which doesn't go anywhere close to tolerent, peaceful and victimizing) on which Convention couldn't do much before 1794 and the return of a strong state authority.

You can sight all you want, but genocide is a bit of a touchy subject for many people, and generally widely debated. There are many who take a rather narrow view of what constitutes genocide. By that view, several examples of genocide as identified by Raphael Lemkin (who coined the term) no longer qualify. For instance, he considered the Albigensian Crusade to have involved genocide, while those who take a more narrow view disagree. Needless to say, I take the broader view. You seem inclined towards a more narrow definition. Again, that is a perfectly normal disagreement. But your rather vehement claim that anyone who doesn't agree with your view is propagating "reactionary historiography" is uncalled for.

I will not deny that there are reactionaries who hold certain positions in regard to the French revolution. Some of those positions are blatent nonsense, some are half-truths, some are up for interpretation, and some are just plain correct. It is most unfortunate if you feel the need to dismiss certain positions because they are held by (among others!) people you may disagree with in a more general way.

As far as I am concerned, the question as to the nature of the acts of mass murder perpetrated in the Vendée is one of those that are up for interpretation. We differ in our interpretation, clearly. That is no reason for me to dismiss your position as "progressive revisionism" or some such tripe (which would be weird, as I am in fact rather progressive myself), and I would much appreciate it if you showed me the same courtesy.

This essentially would be my entire response to the first of your two posts, and I rather wish you'd have left it that. But rather, you seem to have taken you futher offence at what you perceived to by my position in my most recent post, and felt the need to react by producing ludicrous straw men; caricatures of my actual position -- and you then proceeded to attack those. (Rather, than, say, my actual position).


Code Napoléon is the result of decades of legal reforms attempts. While it was probably coming into existence more easily accompanying the diverse revolutionnary changes, it was more than just in the air. The work of Robert-Joseph Pothier is a good exemple on how the legal system not only already went beyond the simple compilation since decades, but how it was more and more rationalised trough an enlightement approach.
ITTL, while it might be slower (altough I'd still expect a revolutionnary approach to quicken things), you will end by the early XIXth with an equivalent of the civil code.

That's very nice. What I find strange is that you have reacted to one fragment of my comment on this subject, and seem to have missed the part where I wrote "Needless to say, a move towards "natural law" (Enlightenment-inspired) and codification was already underway, and would likely influence legal developments... but more gradually and more diversely (on a country-by-country basis)." Which is pretty much what you just repeated. So... thanks for agreeing with me...?


Erm...It was already the case by most cases. Provincial parlements were largely minorized, généralités (directly answering to Versailles) were the basic political-administrative grids, taxation was as centralized you could get (with the exception of Pays d'Etats, and even there it was less of a thing in the XVIIIth), and up to industrial policy with manufactures being largely a field of political intervention.
If something, French Revolution represented a short period of de jure and de facto decentralization before reverting back in the mid 1790's to a centralized management.

Really, Ancien Régime not only created the base of centralization, but also enforced centralization as much as it could and successfully so. Nobody really denies that.

Nor do I deny it. But I was explicitly talking about all of Europe, where French occupation really did introduce radical centralisation, which was in many cases not reverted. I named the Netherlands as an example, which was legally a confederal state (though in practice rather federal) when the Pichegru showed up, and was turned into a unitary centralised state (for the first time in its history) under the French. The House of Orange, returning from exile, kept that change. This happened in several countries. I'm not even passing objective judgement, I'm merely observing that without the French occupation, this would be vastly different.


It didn't became a thing before the late XIXth.
Even discarding the most caricatural parts (indoctrinating, abusing, etc*), French Revolution never managed to pull that, even if it wanted (which depends a lot from the era : some toyed with the idea, but Rousseauist conception of education actually hindered that), you really have to wait the latter part of the XIXth to see a clearly national education structure to be proposed (partially in answer to the clericalist conception of education of the XIXth in France, which did its job cutting off what existed on decentralized secular education).

I'm sorry, but this point in particular is nonsensical.

*No siree, clerical schools are not indoctrinating anything, and the political and economical power of the clergy and official church is perfectly normal, move along.

When I point out that the system of state schooling has historically been used to indoctrinate, you call that 'caricature'? It's simply a fact. And the French revolutionaries did, in fact, foster state-controlled education. They did view it explicitly as a tool for 'molding citizens'. And I wasn't even arguing against state education an sich; I clearly expressed that it brought about improved educational standards. The simple fact is that education can be used to indoctrinate; in many cases to impress upon the youth the 'virtue' of nationalism. Which happened. More exactly: various countries that had been occupied by France kept many of the reforms, including both planned(!) an actualised education reforms, and then used them. Occasionally in not-so-nice ways.

As for the remarks about clerical schools: they indoctrinated, too. I never claimed otherwise. My point is that indoctrination by 19th century states, in an age of rather fervent nationalism, happened to not always be such a good idea in practice.

Anyway-- I am sorry too, but your whole response here seems mostly based on what you think I believe. I suspect you have formed a certain opinion of my general position, perhaps based on earlier encounters with people who happened to hold similar views on this particular subject, and have now made a severe error in judgment here. (To be specific: you seem to think that you are debating a rabid reactionary, when you are in fact talking to a progressive with heterodox views on various subjects.)


Nazism is the heir of French Revolution.
Seems legit.

Martians of War of the Worlds are the heirs of French Revolution too, aren't they?

Not an argument. I named a wide variety of links between the two. I get that you are not the sort to find ideology very relevant (as you have expressed that), and obviously I am the type to find ideology of crucial importance... but you reaction here is just plain childish. I explained in detail why I see this link. You react as if I had equated them one-on-one. I didn't do that by any means.

As I said, I named a variety of influences that radiated out from the French revolution and - in my view - eventually shaped what we know as modern collectivism. (Observe: not collectivism in general, but its modern iteration.)

You have reacted to no more than three sentences in my argumentation, and not even very accurately. You present a complete caricature of my position, you utterly ignore the vast majority of my argumentation, and they you proceed to mockery.

Do you really think this is in any way good form, or intellectually honest? (That's not a rhetorical question: I really wonder.)


Such measures already introduced by times of crisis, if unequally and more or less regionally. What the Convention did was more to systematise an already existing thing (this, incidentally, could summarize well a good part of the historical role of French Revolution)

I will gladly agree that much of what the revolutionaries did was a more drastic and - crucially - nationalised form of things that had existed previously. This does not take away the fact that the revolutionaries doing (some of) these things inspired people such as the Communards later on, which in turn inspired various leading socialist thinkers.

Again, your own view on what motivates people might inspire you to disregard suh influence, while I am very much focused on the role of such ideological influences. But do not think my argumentation here is incoherent. Your accusation that I had called the revolutionaries "proto-commies" or something is particularly jarring. I did not do so. I merely detailed how various ideas within various proment forms of modern collectivism descend from the French revolution.


That was particularilly marginal : apart from Babeuf and Roux (and even them were more possibilists than confiscationists), nobody really went trough this. Even less the ruling revolutionaries that, abiding by a Rousseauist stance, were quite keen on property rights. The main difference is that for Conventionals, property rights were coming along civic duties in a Roman-inspired fashion, rather than being an isolated natural right.

(It's not exactly this, but it's close enough for a short post).

It was marginal. (Which was why I wrote: "some flirted with"... but your partial quotation strangely omits that.) The Communards did play it up later on, though. So it did become a relevant aspect of the revolutions legacy in OTL, even if it was marginal at the time, and the ATL absence of the revolution would have effects in that regard. Which was my point.


I'm sorry, but the crushing majority of revolutionnaries weren't proto-Commie-Nazis-equalitarians-evil-ev0000000000l! group ; they were, for the crushing majority, proponents of property rights going along a civic conception of society.
You did have exception, but they were generally found outside the club organisation or at their margins (and more along Cordeliers than Jacobins to begin with).

Again with the caricatures. I already responded to your actual comment above, but again: you portray me as claiming that a particular strand of thinking was mainstream at the time, while I have merely argued that it existed, and that it was revisited by the Communards (and later, various collectivist thinkers) later on.

More importantly: nowhere have I claimed that the revolutionaries were "proto-Commie-Nazis-equalitarians-evil-ev0000000000l!" (At most, some factions indeed had a bit of a prominent egalitarian streak.) And it continues to be weird how you can so utterly misrespresent what I have written.


Actually, it's known that it's bot a reference to the "blood of foreigners", but the blood of "counter-revolutionnaries' or traitors.
Again, I'm sorry, but it seems you're making things up there : it was quite contradictory to the civic definition of French nationalism even at this period, meaning a mix of messianic and universalist stances, with an inclusion within the nation of anyone willing to contribute to it with the corollary that people that were part of the nations but decided to act against it were more or less considered as matricides.
It's a narrative that came a lot in revolutionary political litterature.

Again, you seem to take one particular view and consider it as being sacrosanct. All others must be wrong! A lot has been said about the Marseillaise, and while true that the hymn also explicitly refers to traitors, the line about blood in the meadows is almost directly preceded by the part about foreign enemies.

As much as I'd love to discuss songs with you, it is by this point rather clear that we simply disagree on various subjects (importance of material conditions vs. importance of ideology; narrow definition of genocide vs. broad definition; and finally the correct interpretation of the lyrics to a nationalistic hymn).

We're probably not going to agree on those points. What I must note, however, is that you have - in a rather rude fashion - dismissed everything that doesn't line up with your viewpoint, a priori. I don't find that very wise or admirable, because it doesn't come across as very convincing, nor as particularly civilised. Perhaps you don't care for that, and that's your right. But I bear you no ill will of any kind, and ideally I'd just want any discussion to be friendly and polite, so it deserves mention.

Furthermore, as I noted earlier, you seem to have mistaken me for some kind of reactionary, and crucial elements of your response seem based on that. Specifically: you have not actually responded to my arguments, but rather to what you think a reactionary would believe. And had I actually believed what you seem to think I believe, your reaction would even have been largely valid. But I don't believe that. And I sincerely hope that this reaction on my part clears up any confusion... and clears the air between us.

Finally, let me assure you that I do not take my information from legitimist propaganda. ;)
 
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Again, you seem to take one particular view and consider it as being sacrosanct. All others must be wrong! A lot has been said about the Marseillaise, and while true that the hymn also explicitly refers to traitors, the line about blood in the meadows is almost directly preceded by the part about foreign enemies.

On "La Marseillaise," I would agree that the sang impur refers to the enemy forces (some have argued that it ironically refers to the French republican armies themselves, being not of aristocratic blood, though I tend to doubt it) but I don't think it is supposed to have racialized/xenophobic connotations against all foreigners. Note the fifth verse:

Français, en guerriers magnanimes,
Portez ou retenez vos coups !
Épargnez ces tristes victimes,
À regret s'armant contre nous.
(bis)
Mais ces despotes sanguinaires,
Mais ces complices de Bouillé,
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié,
Déchirent le sein de leur mère !

The verse refers to the common soldiers of the opposing armies as "sad victims" who do not want to take arms against France, distinguishing them from the real enemy, the "bloody despots" who conspire with the traitor Bouillé.
 

Towelie

Banned
At the risk of oversimplification, it seems that the failure of the state to collect taxes, particularly from regional noble elites, was a major part of why France was in such an economic rut. I do wonder if Louis XIV's centralization efforts used some carrot and stick techniques that helped to create this problem (give up these rights and privileges, and then I won't tax you as much). Its not as if Louis XIV's efforts were without resistance, after all, and what may have made sense in the late 17th century would be a huge problem 100 years later.

Failures in tax collection of course are only one reason for France's debt.

The failure of the harvests that created the food insecurity leading up the Revolution can't be dealt with, but a better relief effort on the part of the government may have bought it some good will.
 
One thing I'd like to know is how exactly do you think the American Revolution would be averted? The Imperial Crisis has roots that went back decades. Changing different aspects of Anglo-American history would have varying knock-on effects for Europe, and the further you went back, the greater the number of butterflies. From a purely financial standpoint, what others have said up thread about supporting the American war I find agreeable. But say that the imperial crisis is thwarted because, for whatever reason, the Seven Years War never breaks out? You remove the war debt accrued by Britain and butterfly away one of their most compelling reasons for closer administration of the colonies. How much debt did France accrue in that war, and how much cash did they lose out on by ceding territory to the victorious powers? That's just one example.
 
@LSCatilina - I cannot force you to actually do so, but if you were to peruse my various comments on this board, you would soon see that I am by no means some kind of 'reactionary'.
Where did I said that? I don't know what your stances are (and frankly, for this kind of discussion, I couldn't possibly care less). What I said is that a lot of informations you're giving are generally issued from politicized, more or less reactionnary, historiography (one exemple as many, the "genocide" part is definitely associated with such).
I react "as a bullet" because it's really amazing to me, that this sort of arguments and claims made it so easily on this discussion.

As it is, you opt to provide quotes of excerpts from my posts,
Because it's just easier to quote excerpts than posting the whole long posts, when it come to readability. Huge walls of texts quoting everything and themselves quoting everything before is an obstacle to discussion.
I assume anyone barely interested on the discussion will go to read your post, when I just quoted part of your posts because it's eventually more comfortable : there's no great plan to dissect your posts or to "hide" something. Again, I assume anyone interested will look on your post directly.

Especially in your second post, you deviate from argumentation and into caricature. I must say, I find that poor form.
I'm sorry if you saw it this way.

It's not just the general economic and otherwise material background that shapes events. Well, we seem to disagree on that. Fine. A difference of opinion.
I'm surprized that, for someone that doesn't like his posts being caricaturized, you nevertheless do to others.
As I never said you were some kind of legitimist reactionary, I never said that JUST the general economic background played. What I wrote, no more, no less, is that you missed important factors, such as the economical-social background of the XVIIIth century.
You're perfectly entitled to have your own vision of history, even if I indeed doesn't share it as far too idealistic, but that wasn't why I pointed these factors : they needed to be mentioned in order to have an actual allohistorical discussion.

For instance, he considered the Albigensian Crusade to have involved genocide
Is this is an exemple of a "broader" view, then I don't see which kind of people knowing a bit the period could agree, to be honest.
I mean, I try to remember one historian going this way, but I fail to : I think it eventually come down to politics. While Vendean insurgency is heavily politicized in France by people that, while largely outside universitarian structure, are generally tied up with far-right; Albigensian Crusade doesn't at the latest have the same political "label".

But your rather vehement claim that anyone who doesn't agree with your view is propagating "reactionary historiography" is uncalled for.
It's not a vehement claim : virtually every proponent of this theory is associated with french far-right or ultra conservative right. It's a fact you can't dismiss when it comes to politicized history.
Even François Furet, that can hardly be considered as a revolutionary apologist, considered it as a poor and politicized historiography. Hell, even Max Gallo said that.

"Vendean Genocide" is part of the french reactionnary historiography, that is mostly widespread trough non-universitarian authors as Zemmour or Deustch. I'm surprised, genuinly, that you choose to ignore it.

I would much appreciate it if you showed me the same courtesy.
It's not because I think one theory a member pulls there is basically inane, that I think ill of the member that posted it in first place. Showing courtesy isn't, at least as far as I'm concerned about deliberetly ignoring huge problems with your posts, but pointing these without considering you personally responsible for their existence.
Or, to make it shorter : it's not because you pull a far-right sided theory that I think you're such.

That's very nice. What I find strange is that you have reacted to one fragment of my comment on this subject, and seem to have missed the part where I wrote "Needless to say, a move towards "natural law" (Enlightenment-inspired) and codification was already underway, and would likely influence legal developments... but more gradually and more diversely (on a country-by-country basis)." Which is pretty much what you just repeated. So... thanks for agreeing with me...?
Listen, if you want to get snarky, we can play both this game : you want to avoid being caricaturized? Fine. But act accordingly.

Anyhow.

The legal basis of Napoleonic Code wouldn't be "largely gone", as in butterflied in great extent, because the legal basis was already underway to be built in most cases.

The pre-révolutionary legal work was already being less and less relevant (Pothier's works on written customs can show that) and while it would probably not look as the IOTL Civil Code, you'd likely end up with a IATL equivalent without a country-by-country basis (this was, as well, declining by the XVIIIth, which can be pointed trough appeals) and maybe less gradual than you think, mostly due to the state direct legal interventionism.
It's one of the reasons parlements were declining and fossilisating : they were less and less relevant, and provincial parlements even less than Paris.

Nor do I deny it. But I was explicitly talking about all of Europe, where French occupation really did introduce radical centralisation, which was in many cases not reverted.
You did stated "No radical move towards centralisation in France.", but fair enough on the European part.
That said, I think you're mentioning particular exemples, nd that have more to do with napoleonic than revolutionary politics.
It does have its importance : while napoleonic policies mostly answer to the really specific conditions of the last decade of the XVIIIth, revolutionnary policies were more issued from both ideological and social tenants present more broadly in the XVIIIth and, as such, more probable to pop up ITTL rather than napoleonic policies.

You gave Netherlands as an exemple, but the Batavian assembly of 1796 points how much the debate between federalist/centralized/decentralized constitution wasn't that clear. It seems that Directoire was mostly fine with the mostly federalist look of the Batavian Republic, until monarchists became an actual political threat in France, forcing a much more centralized structure.

ITTL, I think the decentralising features of the first part of French revolution (whatever Feuillant or Jacobin, on this regard) could have indeed a far better chance. But overall, French centralism as a model was a real thing even before the revolution : Bourbon Spain is an obvious exemple, Joseph II's reforms as well : you had a centralizing tendency in Europe at this point, and that would likely continue to exist without Napoleon.
The argument could be made, actually, that centralisation effort could be slower, but smoothier ITTL

When I point out that the system of state schooling has historically been used to indoctrinate, you call that 'caricature'?
Yep. Equalling national eduction with "imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle" is a caricature or at the very least, judgemental.

Not only that couldn't have been made by revolutionnaries would have they wanted to (a bit like, in spite of all the big speeches about the necessity of having only one national language, most of political work was made in various speeches and languages when needed to) : the reality of revolutionnary education is generally (with the disappearance of religious-issued schools) a more or less uneasy continuation of the pre-revolutionnary situation (at least in province : I agree that in Paris and the greatest towns it was different) with the maintain of particular schools in face of the more or less lukwarm attempts at cantonal schools and by 1797, these effectivelly disappeared.

Most of the republican schooling consisted at learing some passages of the Declaration of Rights of Men, not on an "indoctrination", even if it would have been planned, there wasn't structures for that. You didn't have "abuses" becayse the educative system was so broken by the mid-1790's that there was nothing to abuse from.

Most of revolutionary projects were just that : projects. You really need to wait for the XIXth century to have an actually national education going on.

I think you're underestmating how the (very real) political changes during the revolution went much more smoothly overall in the main part of the country : you usually find the same local names from one part to the other part of the decades, sometimes without even a blink.

(To be specific: you seem to think that you are debating a rabid reactionary, when you are in fact talking to a progressive with heterodox views on various subjects.)
So, basically : "I don't like when you assume things about me, that's rude : so I'll assume things about you!"
To say the least, it's not very coherent.

Do you really think this is in any way good form, or intellectually honest? (That's not a rhetorical question: I really wonder.)
I'd be extremely surprised, if during two years on this board, you'd never had been introduced to sarcasm.

I will gladly agree that much of what the revolutionaries did was a more drastic and - crucially - nationalised form of things that had existed previously. This does not take away the fact that the revolutionaries doing (some of) these things inspired people such as the Communards later on, which in turn inspired various leading socialist thinkers.
At this point, we could as well blame Roman Empire for communism, because they did inspired Enlightement writers, that did inspired Jacobins, that did inspired some part of Communards, whom another part was close enough from Marxism, which itself inspired Lenin.

Accumulation of historical links doesn't makes a continuity. For what matter the topic, it means that the absence of one revolutionnary historical influence (and I'd want to stress that french socialism before the latter decade of the XIXth, tended to be anti-Jacobine) doesn't imply that it makes socialism as a revolutionary and anti-bourgeois ensemble going anywhere (which is not the same as arguing radical socialism wouldn't go different ways, tough : as said elsewhere, I'd lean towards a more libertarian approach)

Your accusation that I had called the revolutionaries "proto-commies" or something is particularly jarring. I did not do so.
It looked so : you stressed quite a lot on how revolutionaries were leaning on supressing property rights, equaling income, went trough a de sanguinis nationality conception, etc. and then made a parallel with communism and nazism. I tried to point how these parallels couldn't really hold because it was either marginal, or being a misinterpretation in first place.

It was marginal. (Which was why I wrote: "some flirted with"... but your partial quotation strangely omits that.)
I know I'm not supposed to be judgmental...But that's called a troll.
Everyone can see that I included "some" in the quotation.

Again, you seem to be very much about "let's discuss it seriously" but you can't help but lying there. How is this supposed to be courteous?

The Communards did play it up later on, though.
Even Communards didn't : proper communism (and generally limited to a national mutualism) was fairly marginal among Communards as well, while neo-Jacobinism or non-communist socialism dominated (and formed the two big political ensembles of the Commune. You'd be hard-pressed finding exemple of large nationalisations that wouldn't fit the aformentioned relation to civic forfeiture.

So it did become a relevant aspect of the revolutions legacy in OTL, even if it was marginal at the time, and the ATL absence of the revolution would have effects in that regard. Which was my point.
I think you're confusing two things : that French Revolution introduced the concept of popular sovereignty that, in turn, made the previously existing economical interventionism being politicized.
That's what became a feature of modern revolutionnary movements, rather the marginal revolutionary egalitarism which, as you said, was more bent on redistribution (at the exception of Babeuf) than mutualism or communalism that blossomed in french socialism.

Basically, XIXth is the mix, rather than the continuity, of two social traditions : popular revolution (jabobinism, carbonarism, blanquism) and socialisation (babouvism, saint-simonism, proudonhism) that knew different (if convering) ways.

ITTL, while the idea of popular sovereignity would be likely modified (even if I don't expect a radical change), the rise of socialism (mutualist or communist) would probably be still a thing even if possibly looking more like IOTL Proudhonism, meaning less politically revolutionary than it was, but still pretty much adressing and lower middle-class and lower classes (especially n a TL where bourgeoisie and upper middle-class are part of a same smooth evolution).

And it continues to be weird how you can so utterly misrespresent what I have written.
I'm hardly responsible of your posts containing exagerations, misinterpretations and strecthing facts in order to fit your points tough. See above where I disagree.

Again, you seem to take one particular view and consider it as being sacrosanct. All others must be wrong! A lot has been said about the Marseillaise, and while true that the hymn also explicitly refers to traitors, the line about blood in the meadows is almost directly preceded by the part about foreign enemies.
No, I come to actually have some basic knowledge of the era, and able to read contemporary documents.
Most mentions of "impurity" in revolutionnary litterature refers to aristocrats and traitors. If you're interested on some extracts this part of the page isn't bad.

sang impur de l'hydre aristocrate
de verser quelques gouttes de sang impur pour éviter d’en verser de très-pur, c’est-à-dire d’écraser les principaux contre-révolutionnaires pour sauver la patrie
sang impur des prêtres et des aristocrates abreuve donc nos sillons dans les campagnes
quand leur sang impur sera versé, les aboyeurs de l'aristocratie rentreront dans leurs caves
la justice nationale a scellé la liberté française par le sang impur de ses tyrans
le sang a coulé mais presque partout cela a été le sang impur des ennemis de la Liberté,

That one exception on these extracts
le sang a coulé mais presque partout cela a été le sang impur des ennemis de la Liberté,
comes from Dumouriez that can't really be depicted as your typical revolutionary.

Now, either you provide some other sources to back your interpretation (and if it's valid, you'd have no real issue finding some), either you try making it personal.
In the first case, i'd be happy to discuss. If you continue implying I pull things out of my ass, you can consider me uninterested discussing with you.

Anyhow : the part about "impure blood" isn't directly preceded by the mention of foreign soldiers, not exactly so at least.
It's part of the chorus, each verse mentioning the invasion not as an existential threat from outer nations, but as "a horde of slaves, of traitors and conspiratorial kings". While bloody, it's clearly a political reference.

Does it means there wasn't a room for a quasi-racial interpretation? Of course not, and it was more or less to be expected. But, and that's the relevant part on this discussion, it wasn't the interpretation that transpired from revolutionary structures that remained largely based on the political, revolutionary vs. counter-revolutionary part.

I don't find that very wise or admirable, because it doesn't come across as very convincing, nor as particularly civilised. Perhaps you don't care for that, and that's your right.
Are you kidding? Your answer involved distortion (short extracts of your post being identified as concious editing; ) and outright sham ("you didn't quote that"). You're not really in position to take the high road..

Finally, let me assure you that I do not take my information from legitimist propaganda. ;)
Never said that, even if the wording was wrong : just that some parts you pulled did made me think about this.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I'm sorry, @LSCatilina - at this point, discussion does indeed seem rather pointless. You express the idea that I am trolling you, or that I am being sarcastic and snarky. Clearly, there is some kind of terrible miscommunication going on. I think that most of that would be solved if this were a face-to-face meeting, since it's mostly about tone and about 'talking past each other'. You see, I am not trying to troll, or to be snarky. What you take to be snark was honest befuddlement. (For reference, basically anything I write can be taken at point blank value. I hardly ever express sarcasm, and when I do, it's not directed at discussion partners.)

What I have done is nothing but my utmost in an attempt to respond to every single point you made. And yet, it doesn't seem to clear the air. I'm glad that you do not see me as a reactionary, but can you get that you really came across like that?

Heck, even now, discussion is difficult, because we clearly have very different frames of reference. To stay on the most obvious subject: you explicitly dismiss the entire notion that what happened in the Vendée could have been genocide as a view that is only held by people "associated with French far-right or ultra conservative right". But I am not French, and what you descibe is not the case in the Netherlands (where I live, and have studied).

generally issued from politicized, more or less reactionnary, historiography (one exemple as many, the "genocide" part is definitely associated with such).

I react "as a bullet" because it's really amazing to me, that this sort of arguments and claims made it so easily on this discussion.

While Vendean insurgency is heavily politicized in France by people that, while largely outside universitarian structure, are generally tied up with far-right; Albigensian Crusade doesn't at the latest have the same political "label".

It's not a vehement claim : virtually every proponent of this theory is associated with french far-right or ultra conservative right. It's a fact you can't dismiss when it comes to politicized history.
Even François Furet, that can hardly be considered as a revolutionary apologist, considered it as a poor and politicized historiography. Hell, even Max Gallo said that.

"Vendean Genocide" is part of the french reactionnary historiography, that is mostly widespread trough non-universitarian authors as Zemmour or Deustch. I'm surprised, genuinly, that you choose to ignore it.

All of this illustrates that our frames of reference are quite different. You see, in the Netherlands, this issue isn't politicised at all, and referring to the "Vendée genocide" is in no way a political statement. If eyebrows are raised at the term at all, that would be regarding the general issue of how genocide should be defined. (So, yes, over here, people not wanting to call it the Vendée are indeed the same people who don't want to call the Albigensian Crusade a genocide -- and for the same, largely non-political reasons.)

So, you might see how our frames of reference differ vastly. Even if you do not think of me as beholden to some odious ideology, it really came across like that. I'm glad we can step past that, but even then, the point remains that you do consider the idea of there having been a genocide to be some kind of weird fringe idea. Maybe it is in France, but I assure you that has to be a French political thing. In the Netherlands, where right-wing views are mostly unheard of in academic circles, both sides of this issue are represented in the field of genocide studies, and in an a-political context.

So here, we have a major difference in frame of reference, clearly. It's hard to bridge that kind of gap, especially in an online discussion where subtleties of tone cannot be expressed.


When it comes to the Napoleonic Code we also seem to miscommunicate, but in this case mostly because we apparently talk "past each other". From your latest response, it becomes clear that you are talking about France, and France alone. But when I refer to developments towards codification on a country-by-country basis I am not talking about regions in France ('counties'?), but about the various European countries - states - that had the Napoleonic Code thrust upon them. The Napoleonic Code became the direct basis (regularly with little alteration) for the civil law in Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, and it remained in use in Germany in a semi-official capacity until 1900.

That was what I was talking about. Not about developments within France, but about the way this exportation of the Napoleonic Code would have been prevented, and all these countries would be developing their own codification, more gradually, and individually ('on a country-by-country basis').

Perhaps we are truly talking past each other, but what I just referenced simply seems not to be what you were talking about. So... miscommunication, clearly. Either you misunderstood me, or I am even now misunderstanding you.


With such vast differences in frame of reference, and with such misunderstandings occurring, and considering the fact that we are apparently misreading each other's tone (I read yours as accusatory; you read mine as snarky), I truly think that further discussion isn't very smart. We're probably just going to keep on saying the wrong things to each other without meaning to.

The issue of the French anthem is simply not important enough to me to risk a verbal altercation, which I don't enjoy. And I suspect we're not going to see things each other's way when it it comes to the whole debate about ideology, material circumstances, and the relevance of certain revolutionary ideas later on. I fear that if I get into that, it's really going to be a fight. I don't want that.

As such, I'd really like to conclude this discussion now, hopefully without any hard feelings, and with any altercation ascribed to differences of perspective and miscommunication.
 
At the risk of oversimplification, it seems that the failure of the state to collect taxes, particularly from regional noble elites, was a major part of why France was in such an economic rut. I do wonder if Louis XIV's centralization efforts used some carrot and stick techniques that helped to create this problem (give up these rights and privileges, and then I won't tax you as much). Its not as if Louis XIV's efforts were without resistance, after all, and what may have made sense in the late 17th century would be a huge problem 100 years later.

Failures in tax collection of course are only one reason for France's debt.

The failure of the harvests that created the food insecurity leading up the Revolution can't be dealt with, but a better relief effort on the part of the government may have bought it some good will.

The problems with French tax collection date back way further than LXIV, and the reigns of XV and XVI saw increased taxation outside of the Taille (from which the nobility were exempt). It was still inefficient, for sure, and that inefficient management of Frances wealth (together with accrual of debt from a load of wars) is certainly why the estates general were called. But the calling of the estates general isn't in itself a cause for revolution, the deep resentment of the Bourgeois and rural non-elite I think is chief here. The EG gave them a vehicle for their dissent and from there it spiraled in almost farcical (the actions of the court) fashion.
 
the deep resentment of the Bourgeois and rural non-elite I think is chief here.
Actually EG didn't really represented that wholly, especially the rura non-elite. Cahiers de doléances and Tiers Etat representents were overwelmingly dominated by an urban and rural middle-class and upper classes, as many EG representents are often from the same social circles than the representants in Estates Provincials and Particulars.

Most of the deep resentment of the lower rural classes eventually appeared, not in EG, but with the general rioting and uprising of Augustus 1789 and would grow from there; even if most of FR eventually focused on urban and rural middle-classes as leading the whole movement.
 
you don't need to avert the AR. You just need to get France to not jump in wholeheartedly. As others have said, that's only part of the issue. The initial part is LXVI dismissing ministers who were starting to get the debt down and insisting on a full fledged war with Britain. I'm kind of surprised the debt only would go up by 10 % for a war lasting 4-5 years.

I can't remember where I saw the numbers, but somewhere there was a chart showing French debt slowly going down until XVI came along and mucked things up, then doubled down by going to war with Britain again in support of the AR. XVI was a perfect storm of bad. So, I doubt no AR automatically averts the FR. changes it a bit, but considering the king, probably happening in some form, sooner or later. the FR was itself a perfect storm of events, though, and one aspect was the additional debt from the AR, so eliminating that may allow even the horrible captain XVI to manage to escape the worst of the storm.

A lot of people pull out the Bavarian Crisis (War of succession) as the next flash point. However, I believe France had no interest in reviving Austrian interests, and opposed Joseph's move. Being involved in the AR was a very handy, albeit expensive, excuse to stay out. I doubt France gets involved even without being entangled in AR. The timing was such that if France wanted, it could have ditched the Patriots and took care of more pressing needs at home. France correctly saw that Austria had no backers, and had no interest in being a backer. IF they thought advancing Austria's interests were more important
 
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