L’Ancien Régime Book I
In the first book, AT confronts the mystery of the French Revolution, which no one seemed to understand at the time and which baffled the succeeding generation. In chapter two, he makes a twofold argument, that the FR aimed neither at destroying religious authority nor at weakening the central authority of the French state. He freely concedes that the philosophes and Jacobins hated the Catholic Church, but insists that this was not a central objective. It was the political and social aspects of Christianity that incurred their real hatred. The priests and bishops were the enemy not because they preached Christ's otherworldly kingdom but because they owned land and belonged to the ruling class. In the end the anti-religious campaign failed even as the Revolution succeeded.
Here, I think, AT is betrayed by his liberal side. He views the Church, remember, primarily as a social institution, and his travels in America had convinced him that religious freedom would actually produce an upsurge in religious practices. Let us agree, for the sake of argument, that there is something to this--though I for one do not at all believe it. It is of more than a little interest to Catholics and Calvinists, Jews and Muslims, which sort of religion it is that flourishes. He also fails to consider how the Jacobins, in making a trial effort at destroying the Church and replacing it with their own state cult, may have been premature but set an example that has been imitated ever since, and with far greater results. Anyone who thinks the USA today is a Christian nation--or even a nation of Christians--is not paying attention.
On the political question, he is certainly right. While there were anarchists and libertines who lent their talents and energies to the FR, the main thrust was always to build on the foundations of what the later Bourbons had accomplished: eliminate any rival authority (whether in the form of the nobles, the Church, the provinces) and strengthen the central state. Some of the argument goes back to Jean Bodin, who laid it down as a given that sovereignty was an undivided force. Thus the elimination of class distinctions could please both Bourbon kings and egalitarian ideologues.
In chapter three, AT distinguishes the FR from predecessor movements that aimed primarily at political change or shifts in power. The FR, by contrast, was more like a religious movement that aimed at transforming the whole of society. He is clearly right (though some of the extremists in the English Civil War could be viewed as predecessors), but he fails to connect this with his observations on the Church. If he had, he might have seen a bit more clearly that to fulfill their vision of a new society, starting out fresh from the beginning, the revolutionaries would have to destroy the Church, which (apart from any other claims) preserved ancient traditions.
After giving evidence that the French Revolution was a pandemic European virus and not a localized plague in France, AT returns to the basic question of Book I: What was the purpose of the FR? It was social and political revolution, he insists, and not the destruction of Christianity. I think one can agree with this proposition without accepting AT's earlier argument--contradicted elsewhere by his analysis--that hatred of Christianity was not a motive. He then concludes by arguing that the Revolution was, although radical, not especially innovative.
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"The priests and bishops were the enemy not because they preached Christ’s otherworldly kingdom but because they owned land and belonged to the ruling class."
"...to fulfill their vision of a new society, starting out fresh from the beginning, the revolutionaries would have to destroy the Church, which (apart from any other claims) preserved ancient traditions."
It would stand to reason that this vision would lead the revolutionaries to target ANY institution that had a significant stabilizing influence on society, whether or not that institution was part of the 'ruling class'.
"The priests and bishops were the enemy not because they preached Christ’s otherworldly kingdom but because they owned land and belonged to the ruling class. In the end the anti-religious campaign failed even as the Revolution succeeded...Here, I think, AT is betrayed by his liberal side."
Yes, I was quite surprised to see that AT denied that overthrowing Christianity was one of the principal aims of the Revolution. Perhaps, AT's own agnosticism prevented him from seeing what is inescapable from a Christian perspective? Namely that all Utopian ideology is inherently anti-God. Only a nonbeliever could conclude that the popularity and survival of the church is a secular matter tied to real estate, or think it contingent upon the political atmosphere.
So far, I don't see how it will be possible to truly interpret the FR as not having been motivated at least partially by an explicit loathing of Christian teachings. In Chapter Two, AT distinguishes between "two separable trends of thought" in eighteenth-century philosophy: the abolition of class and privilege on the one hand, and the attack upon Christianity on the other.
This instantly reminded me Dr. Fleming of your comment from the first thread about the sequence of revolution beginning with King and church and further adding that, "At bottom, it seems to me, are two compatible urges, the one the hatred of all distinctions, the other the hatred of the Christian West." AT might agree that the urges are compatible, but he seems to be disavowing the latter as a primary motivator of the FR, and emphasizing the former.
The FR essentially completed the work begun by Louis XIV in destroying all mediating entities between the central state and the King's subjects, including the historic regions of France, the Church, and other historic French institutions. One thinks of the anti-Federalists in our own country who articulated their fears of similar outcomes under the, at the time, proposed Constitution. We are, one fears, doomed necessarily to be governed, but all governments, regardless of the instruments through which they govern, tend to expand their powers, pulling all control from the periphery to the center. Thus, FR France, the United States, etc. etc. In the modern age, these governments are inevitably totalitarian bureaucracies.
It is true that the FR was an extension, in many respects, of Bourbon policies, but the regime was not totalitarian. As we shall see in the second book, the old regime did plan the economy down to the smallest detail--though it is also true that corruption and ineptitude usually resulted in failure. But, apart from their lust for centralized government, Bourbon France pretty much accepted life as they found it. They wanted to prevent the Church, for example, from making any challenge to the regime, but they did not wish to revolutionize, much less eliminate Christianity. I say this not to defend the Old Regime, but to point out how different it was from our own regime, which is rooted in revolutionary principles--the destruction of Christianity, the subordination of the family to the government, the transformation of tradition morality (Christian and pre-Christian), the transfer of wealth, the destruction of all the forms and norms of civilized life.
Yes, it seemed a stretcher when AT denied that destruction of Christianity was one of the reasons for the revolution. The actions of the Jacobins were nihilistic in the extreme. When someone goes so far as to change the numbering and naming of calendar years, weeks, days, even seconds, we're dealing with more here than just oppressed peasants seeking to better their lot by killing off the nobles.
It's enough to make you wonder what they thought they were going to achieve from it all once they had finally reduced everything to zero. Perhaps they wanted to create a whole new universe in their own image?
Even the denizens of Babel had enough sense to actually build something instead of destroying everything around them.
The previous essays and those to come (as well as the accompanying Responses) have whetted my appetite for the forthcoming Chronicles Summer School on the French Revolution!
By following the forthcoming essays and continuing discussions on this website I should be well prepared for the Summer School (that is, for once, my summer school homework will have been done!).
" he makes a twofold argument, that the FR aimed neither at destroying religious authority nor at weakening the central authority of the French state. He freely concedes that the philosophes and Jacobins hated the Catholic Church, but insists that this was not a central objective. It was the political and social aspects of Christianity that incurred their real hatred. The priests and bishops were the enemy not because they preached Christ’s otherworldly kingdom but because they owned land and belonged to the ruling class. In the end the anti-religious campaign failed even as the Revolution succeeded."
Dr. Fleming,
When did these different ideas and notions of progress, evolution, change, reform and growth become one in meaning and assumption? It is as if AT assumes that any acts committed under these various names would inevitably lead to more and more human progress provided the intention was present. It was not a new idea, afterall Lucretius knew the differnce between change,growth, development and destruction and he was no Aristotelian. It seems strange to me that men acting in the name of enlightenment were so short sighted and unenlightened.
I found AT's description in chapter three of the similarities between Christianity and the revolutionaries most interesting. He states, "for the ideal the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change in the French social system but nothing short of a regeneration of the whole human race. It created an atmosphere of missionary fervor and indeed assumed all the aspects of a religious revival... It would perhaps be truer to say that developed into a species of religion, if a singularly imperfect one , since it was without a God, without ritual or promise of a future life. Nevertheless this strange religion has, like Islam, overrun the whole world with its apostles, militants and martyrs."
I don't wish to start jumping too soon to comparisons with our present society but these "apostles, martyrs and militants" have progeny that have been successful at convincing much of the West that a lack of future (eternal) life, a missing element when the FR began, is not such a big deal. They have also substituted rituals and patron saints (insert here your favorite "ism" and think of MLK, Mandela, Obama, Hollywood types).
I also look forward to what Dr Fleming has to say about AT's description of the increasing dominance of urban life at the expense of rural life and how Paris came to dominate. I certainly think there is a parallel here with the US.
I'm not a scholar regarding the FR. My *impression* is that the Jacobins didn't other throw the Monarchy - just as the Bolsheviks didn't overthrow the Czar. In both cases, it was really the middle-class liberals who paved the way for the Jacobins and Communists to take over France and Russia. That is my uniformed *impression*.
But if accurate, I wonder if AT can be compared to our 20th Century liberals who often decry the excess of Lenin but minimize their evil intentions - aka Lenin was just "a liberal in a hurry".
I apologize for my lazy reliance on "spell-checker". Instead of 'Other throw' -I meant "Overthrow" and By "Uniformed" I meant "Uninformed"
Inserted: In chapter three, AT distinguishes the FR from predecessor movements that aimed primarily at political change or shifts in power. The FR, by contrast, was more like a religious movement that aimed at transforming the whole of society. He is clearly right (though some of the extremists in the English Civil War could be viewed as predecessors), but he fails to connect this with his observations on the Church. If he had, he might have seen a bit more clearly that to fulfill their vision of a new society, starting out fresh from the beginning, the revolutionaries would have to destroy the Church, which (apart from any other claims) preserved ancient traditions.
After giving evidence that the French Revolution was a pandemic European virus and not a localized plague in France, AT returns to the basic question of Book I: What was the purpose of the FR? It was social and political revolution, he insists, and not the destruction of Christianity. I think one can agree with this proposition without accepting AT's earlier argument--contradicted elsewhere by his analysis--that hatred of Christianity was not a motive. He then concludes by arguing that the Revolution was, although radical, not especially innovative.
While it is true that some of the aristocrats who helped to initiate the first phase of the FR were only interested in limiting the power of the monarchy, such people cannot really be compared with the liberals and social democrats who started later revolutions. That role belongs to Lafayette and his ilk. In a sense, I suppose, we can blame Mirabeau for not knowing better than to make common cause with the cheap lawyers who flooded into the Estates General, but that is a debatable point. The other questions being raised are very interesting but can be better discussed in the context of Book II, which we will do next week.
Does anyone know what were the operating definitions of "enlightened," "prejudice" and "reason" when used by Burke in his Reflection of French Revolution? I assume that the words had some degree of purity, unrecognizable today, given how far away they were from the revolt of the 20th Cent.
“YOU see, Sir, that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that we are generally men of untaught feelings, that, instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice and to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.”
On the idea of religion forming a social and a political institution, and revolutionary anger mainly being directed at the latter, I wonder if the difference is purely arbitrary.
The state is organized public action. Religion is organized public action. In cases of hostility of one to the other, it would seem odd that a person wants organized public action to eliminate organized public action.
"The FR dealt with the citizen in the abstract..just as relegion deals with mankind in general.." AT
Theosophists deal with mankind in general, Religion speak to
citizens.
" Religion is organized public action " PS
Perhaps the more important aspect of religion is what takes
place in private- on one's knees.