Vive la Révolution?: A Mini-Reflection on the French Revolution

Execution of Louis XVI, Georg Heinrich Sieveking

Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité –  literally translated as liberty, equality, and fraternity – was the motto and rallying cry for the French people during the French Revolution. The object behind this phrase was clear: freedom for everyone. The simplified version of the history of the French Revolution follows a similar pattern to revolutions that were popping up around Europe at the time. A ruler becomes corrupted with power, oppresses the masses, and is eventually overthrown by his own people. It seems clear on the surface that the French Revolution was part of another noble cause like any other revolution to give its people freedom. For example, what distinguishes the revolution in France from that of America, which had just completed its revolution several years before France’s?

The question had been largely addressed by Edmund Burke, an 18th-century English statesman and philosopher, in his influential work Reflections on the Revolution in France. First, Burke’s definition of “freedom” does not coincide with the French’s definition. He differentiates two definitions of liberty in a separate letter to a young Frenchman:

Permit me then to continue our conversation, and to tell you what the freedom is that I love, and that to which I think all men entitled. This is the more necessary, because, of all the loose terms in the world, liberty is the most indefinite. It is not solitary, unconnected, individual, selfish liberty, as if every man was to regulate the whole of his conduct by his will. The liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint. A constitution of things in which the liberty of no one man, and no body of men, and no number of men, can find means to trespass on the liberty of any person, or any description of persons, in the society. This kind of liberty is, indeed, but another name for justice; ascertained by wise laws, and secured by well-constructed institutions (Burke 1790, 7-8).

The French operated under the definition of “selfish liberty” where man is entirely controlled by his base passions and desires. They had abstract ideas of freedom with no guardrails. This could bring about the dangers of making irrational decisions. When man is presented with unlimited freedom, he has no freedom. On the other hand, Burke was not opposed to revolution at all. Most famously, he supported the American Revolution. For Burke, most Americans, notably the Founding Fathers, kept in line with Burke’s definition of “social liberty.” 

The stark contrast between the two revolutions could be found in their treatment of certain institutions. Burke tied “social liberty” with these institutions. On the one hand, he lamented the destruction of traditional institutions such as the Catholic Church and the French monarchy and – by extension – the aristocracy. For Burke, these traditional institutions safeguarded the freedom of the ability to perform duties and obligations toward the fellow citizen. He writes, “there are no rights without corresponding duties, or without some strict qualifications” (Burke 1790, xix). Perhaps he drew from Saint Paul, who wrote in his letter to the Romans, “[w]hat I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate” (Romans 7:15 [RSVCE]). Subsequently, the French upended these institutions in place for either no institution or a novel, yet unstable institution, such as the replacement of Christianity with the Cult of Reason. 

However, the circumstances in America were different. Burke was not as nearly critical of the Americans because they have, in large part, maintained their social institutions as the basis for keeping order and encouraging the development of civic virtues. In fact, state churches in America persisted for several decades after the American revolution and were seen as bastions for virtuous development. The Founders, especially John Adams, had acknowledged the role of religion in the public square as a force for the pursuit of the good. In a letter to Zabdiel Adams, his cousin, he states, “it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principle upon which Freedom can securely stand…The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue” (Adams 1856). Unlike the French, Burke and the Founders observed that without the use of social institutions in place, freedom will ultimately devolve into tyranny. 

Without the social institutions in place, Burke warned the French that total societal collapse would inevitably take place. No clearer event showcases this reality than did the Reign of Terror, which took place several years after the publication of Burke’s landmark book in 1793 and ended in 1794. The short period was nothing short of constant executions and the demolition of traditional institutions. The event was marked primarily with suspicion of the religious and aristocrats. Priests, nuns, members of the higher estates, and even citizens who were critical of the revolution fell victim to the blade of the guillotine. Spearheaded by Maximilien Robespierre, a radical French Jacobin, chaos ensued across France. In short, historians estimate that around 17,000 people died as a result of either the guillotine or prison. Burke had rightly predicted that “selfish liberty” would lead to such a catastrophic event.

What, then, shall we make of France’s motto, Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité in light of the French Revolution? The French heavily mischaracterized what freedom actually represents. It is not, as Burke described, the freedom “to regulate the whole of his conduct by his will” (Burke 1790, 7). It is, however, the state in which “liberty is secured by the equality of restraint” (Burke, 1790, 7). Where the French failed to define proper liberty in its proper limits, the Americans largely succeeded. The Founders understood that revolution is to be fought on limited grounds with the preservation of the true, good, and beautiful in mind. Even over 200 years, Burke reminds his audience that with ordered liberty comes to fruition the truest form of liberty: duty toward our fellow citizens.

References

Adams, John. 1856. The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a  Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. 10 vols. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.

Burke, Edmund. 1790. Further Reflections on the French Revolution. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Kirk, Russel, ed. 1965. Reflections on the Revolution in France. New York: Arlington House.