Was the French Revolution really as bad as the general narrative says?

by dkey1983
molstern

Well, I don't know exactly what the general narrative is, so feel free to point out anything I've missed.

But, generally, no. Some general beliefs that are actually wrong:

  • The revolutionaries wanted to kill all nobles just for being born in a certain class.

This is wrong. Proportionally, the number of nobles killed was high, about 8 percent of all death sentences compared to 1 percent of the population. But that can easily be explained by the fact that nobles were overrepresented in the group actually targetted, i.e counterrevolutionaries. Bias also plays a part here. The nobles often had a very strong material interest in bringing back the old regime, and weren't given the benefit of the doubt when suspected of working towards that goal. And there certainly was discrimination, specifically regarding imprisonment and exclusion from certain functions. The Law of Suspects, which condemned various groups seen as potentially threatening to indefinite detention, targetted all nobles who weren't supporters of the revolution. In some places all adult nobles were imprisoned, but this wasn't the norm. There was a lot of debate about how far-reaching this discrimination should be, but the actual results don't match the general perception. For example, the revolutionary tribunal had two marquises on the jury (a pool of layman judges chosen by the National Assembly), Hérault-Séchelles was on the Committee of Public Safety, and plenty of others had seats in the Assembly, were prominent Jacobins, or where otherwise influential. I think part of the problem is with the word "aristocrat", as in "kill all the aristocrats", which is understood as a class designation today, while it was a political one during the revolution, meaning the opposite of a democrat. Though there was a connotation of wealth, and one of the other jurymen on the tribunal was accused of believing that all ex-nobles were aristocrats, but the fact that it's an accusation shows how non-mainstream it was.

  • 50 000 people were guillotined in Paris

Heard this claim in a documentary. In reality, about 17 000 people were guillotined in France, 2-3000 of these were in Paris. Generally, the Terror was much less intense than people think. Like in the Scarlet Pimpernel movie with Leslie Howard, they mention an execution of 50+ people in Paris like it's a regular event, but this only happened maybe three or four times. The revolutionary tribunal existed from March 1793 to May 1795. The rate of executions rose to 2 a day in the beginning of the Terror (usually said to be September 1793), and only rose significantly in February 1794. Until then, the rate of false convictions was also fairly low. Around half of all executions took place a few weeks the following summer, following the Law of Prairial, and then slowed down very quickly a few days after Robespierre's death in July 1794, since the tribunal's connections to him lead to it being suppressed. It only picked up its work again with a new crew and new laws. However, the guillotinings were only a part of the deaths. Taking mass drownings, shootings and the mortality in prisons throughout France, the figure is about 40 000. Which is a horrifying number of deaths, but much less dramatic than commonly thought.

  • Crazy women knitting on the scaffold

One of the main images of the revolution in the public consciousness is the crowd around the scaffold. The role of executions is about about as misunderstood as the number. For women, who were excluded from many revolutionary institutions, one of their most important political tools was basically low-tech vote brigading. Women would sit in the audience of political meetings and loudly approve or disapprove of the speakers, which might not seem like much, but it was treated like a serious factor in the political process by those who received the boos. In the same way, the crowd around the guillotine gave their support for what was happening. Popular sovereignty means that the exercice of power stems from the people, and there's the people affirming that their leaders are acting according to the popular will. This was also true in the court room, where the sentence was approved. The applause were also seen as a comfort for the members of the tribunal, who had the difficult task of killing their fellow man, and the public was thought to be necessary emotional support. The joy shown by onlookers was actually condemned during the Terror as well, and defended as an expression of relief at the removal of a threat. It's important to remember than the revolutionary tribunal enjoyed a significant degree of popular trust, even though it's remembered as a mass producer of show trials today. It's judgements were really thought to be correct, which shows in the attitude of prisoners who did their best to be put on trial, sure that their innocence would be recognized. The prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, went to prison himself when he heard of the decree to arrest him, because he really didn't think that the tribunal would sentence him despite his innocence.

(The knitting is incorrect, too, though less "bad". The image comes from the fact that the women who filled the audience in the National Assembly and the Jacobin club were often textile workers, and used the time to work. Later on, these women were identified with the crowd around the guillotine to justify physically attacking them, banning them from the Assembly, and otherwise pushing revolutionary women out of politics.)

Sources: Kare Tonnesson, Revolutionen som skakade Europa.

Pierre-Antoine Antonelle, Déclarations motivées d'Antonelle (one of the marquis/jurymen) There's a very interesting part where he argues the place of ex-nobles in the revolution.

Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution Française, volumes 34, 35, 36.

Donald Greer, The Incidence of the Terror During the French Revolution

LJ Christian, The social-psychological construction of the revolutionary state and Fouquier-Tinville's trial

Le glaive vengeur de la République française une et indivisible, ou galerie révolutionnaire

Alphonse Aulard, Paris pendant la réaction thermidorienne et sous le Directoire, volume 1 and 2

Dominique Godineau, Citoyennes Tricoteuses