Just spent an hour in a Confucian temple in Beijing, and a lengthy display on Confucianism and its lasting effects on society made the claim that the French Revolution was inspired by Confucianism (actually, they claimed that much of the west's modern world thinkers were results of Confucian philosophies). Specifically, they mentioned Voltaire and Robespierre as being students for Confucian texts. Can anyone weigh in to confirm or deny this claim? Thanks.
Unlikely. This statement assumes that democratic principles originated solely from Confucianism. Confucianism do contain some democratic principles such as: King and prime minister's duty to serve the people, Mandate of Heaven, which stated that the people can overthrow the dynasty if the King violates Heaven's Mandate, and to create harmonious society for the people in the kingdom. However, Confucianism, despite tint of "democracy", is fundamentally hierarchical. Confucianism promoted top to bottom approach of helping the people. Most intellectual part of population (the people who passed the national exam) must use their wisdom to guide the people into righteous path and to improve subjects' livelihood. So, Confucianism stated that the government must serve the people, but the people (the ignorant) do not know better and government (aka group of smart people) must guide the people. These examples are prominent in pre-modern China and Korea. I can only give Korean examples due to my ignorance in Chinese history. For example, Sejong the Great used confucianism to justify his rule and created hangul to allow common people to write an alphabet that was close to native tongue than classical Chinese. Many prime ministers protested against some Kings' actions by saying the king must serve the people and sometimes sacrifice their lives to make a statement. (One such example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_poem)
However, French Revolution doesn't contain "Confucianism"-like democracy. It was not top ruling the bottom; it was bottom completely overthrowing the top. Even with Mandate of Heaven, it required wiser man to overthrow the King, not a common folks destroying the monarchy. With these things in mind, I highly doubt Confucianism inspired French Revolution. May be getting some interests from French Philosophers? Probable. Inspiring French Revolution? Impossible. French Revolution was inspired from ideas of Renaissance, which was basically revival and reinterpretation of Greco-Roman democracy/republican ideals.
EDIT: OP, I was interested in your question and did more research. This book seems to agree with your question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eastern_Origins_of_Western_Civilisation