The Good Old Dana

National History Challenge

How the French Revolution shaped citizenship as we know it today

Max Thomas, Grade 6, Ballarat Primary School (Dana St)

 

Descriptor

 

My essay explores the French Revolution and how it changed forever the concept of citizenship in the Western world. It summarises how the whole revolution was essentially a series of crises and responses, with the latter having varying degrees of success.

 

Essay

 

The French Revolution was about rejecting a king, and 15 years later, the French found themselves with an emperor. But, along the way, they birthed ideas about what citizenship and government could look like that outlasted even Napoleon’s greatest conquests.

 

The crises that led to the revolution included the harsh winter of 1788 to 1789, leading to wide famine, while the state was in massive debt and unable to respond adequately to the disaster. (Frankly, they didn't really want to.) The people suffering the crisis took the response into their own hands, by founding a national assembly made up of people from all walks of life, from noblemen to commoners. Once the king grew tired of constitutional monarchy and attempted to escape, though, he was deposed and executed.

 

There was a fine line to walk, as it turned out. When the ‘republic’ (essentially a dictatorship under the Committee of Public Safety) conducted too many paranoia-fuelled executions, they were unceremoniously thrown in the dust heap as well. But, the new system, propelled by challenges from both left and right, soon became a dictatorship too, under that five-man council known as the Directory. After a poor performance in the opening round of the War of the Second Coalition (Britain, Prussia, Austria and a heap of other dudes), ambitious young general Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in a coup in 1799, establishing the consulate. Five years later, he declared himself Emperor, meeting next to no resistance from the population. He then proceeded to conquer the vast majority of Europe, crushing anyone who stood in his way.

 

Well, we’re back where we started, aren’t we? One man, holding almost unlimited power. But it doesn’t stop there. After losing vast chunks of his army in a disastrous invasion of Russia, Bonaparte was defeated by the Allies (that’s what they’re calling themselves now - you’d be forgiven for thinking it was WW2) and exiled to Elba. After one last hurrah (he escaped and returned to France in 1815) he was decisively defeated at Waterloo later that year, and exiled (again) to St Helena in 1815. He died there in 1821.

 

And then guess who they brought back? The monarchy. More than 30 years after Louis XVI was executed, the French got his cousin, Louis XVIII. And did the French resist? No.

 

So, now the sprawling overview is over, let’s talk about how all this impacted the modern world, because it had a huge impact. For starters, the idea of the people overthrowing their own ruler was unthinkable in 1793. Charles I was defeated by a purely military force, and the Americans shook off the rule of (what they believed was and soon would be) a foreign country. Yet, here were the French public, overthrowing their French king. Two things stand out here: the first, that not just the military were getting involved, it was the public too. The second, that they were deposing one of their own. When the Americans became independent, they cast off a British ruler, as I mentioned before. In the imminent Haitian Revolution, the Haitians were doing the same: becoming independent from their French masters, not toppling them from power. All this sent shockwaves through Europe: the role the lower classes could play had just drastically changed.

 

Even before that, though, there was a less obvious, but still fundamental, development that would affect the future of monarchies everywhere. When the king (not yet deposed) granted a new constitution in 1791, it was not as a gift from a divine king, appointed by God, but as aright earned by the good citizens of France. Similarly, Louis’ title changed from King of France to King of the French. This pretty much invented the idea of the citizen king. A great modern example of this is the British monarchy, where they all try to seem ultra-approachable: the benevolent, friendly ruler. The main difference here is that Louis was not at all happy with this arrangement. Eventually, he’d try to escape, leading to him being convicted of treason and getting his head chopped off.

 

In conclusion, the French Revolution undoubtedly changed how we view both citizenship and government. The basic idea of the politically active citizen would show up again in 1830and 1848, both for the most part bourgeois revolutions; in 1830 to restore constitutional monarchy and the citizen king, and 1848, which was mostly similar. In the popular imagination, what the citizen could accomplish was suddenly immense. This led to what we see virtually everywhere in Western society, where the government must have the support of the public to stay in power. Nowadays, of course, it’s rare we see a revolution, but if the government fails to capture the aforementioned popular imagination, they’re still out of power either way.

 

Bibliography

 

  • Duncan, Mike Hero of Two Worlds, The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, PublicAffairs, 2021.
  • Duncan, Mike Revolutions (podcast), Mike Duncan, 2014
  • Hobsbawm, Eric The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991, Abacus, 1995
  • Schama, Simon Citizens, A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1989
  • Wawro, Dr Geoffrey (ed) Historical Atlas, Millennium House, 2008