The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity [Reprint ed.] 0520071204, 9780520071209

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THE

FRENCH REVOLUTION AND

THE BIRTH OF MODERNITY Edited by

FERENC FEHER

The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press Oxford, England Copyright

©

1990 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The French Revolution and the birth of modernity I edited by Ferenc Feher. p.

cm.

ISBN 0-520-06879-3 {alk. paper).-ISBN 0-520-07120-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)

I.

France-History-Revolution, 1789-1799-lnftuence.

2. Civilization, Modern.

3. Political science-History.

I.

Feher.

Ferenc. 1933DCI48.F722

1990 90-10819

944.04-dc20

CIP Printed in the United States of America

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-19840

The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity

EDITED BY

Ferenc Feher

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley

Los Angeles

Oxford

Contents

ACKNOWI FDGMFNTIl1;;

INTRODIJCTTON

Fmnc F,hirlI PART I-STATE, NATION, AND CLASS IN THE FRENCH REVOUTTION I. Mars Unshackled: The French Revolution in World-Historical Perspective Theda Skoc/Jol and Meyer Kestnbauml 13 2. The Making of a "Bourgeois Revolution" Eric Hoh,hawm/W 3 State and COIlDterreyohltion in France Charles TillyI 49

4. Cultural Upheaval and Class Formation During the French Revolution Patrice Higonnetl69

5. Jews into Frenchmen: Nationality and Representation in Revolutionary France Gary Kates I 103 6 The French Revolution as a World-Historical Event Immanuel WnllerI rtein liZ PART II-THE TERROR 7. Saint-Just and the Problem of Heroism in the French Revolution Miguel Abensourl 133

vi

CONTENTS 8. Violence in the French Revolution: Forms of Ingestion/Forms of Expulsion Brian Singer/150

9. The Cult of the Supreme Being and the Limits of the Secularization of the Political

Ferenc Fehir1174 PART III-THE IDEOI.OGICAI. I EGACY OF THE FRENCH REVOT JITION 10. Practical Reason in the Revolution: Kant's Dialogue with the French Revolution Fmnc F(hir/201 I I. Hegel and the French Revolution: An Epitaph for Republicanism Stellen B Smith1219 12. Alexis de Tocqueville and the Legacy of the French Revolution Harvey Mitchell/240 13. Transformations in the Historiography of the Revolution FraTlfois Furet/264 Index/279

Acknowledgment

The majority of the contributions to this volume have been originally pub­ lished in the special issue of Social Research, the theoretical journal of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, vol. 56, no. I, Spring 1 989. Editor and publisher would like to thank Professor Arien Mack, the editor of Social Research for her permission to use the material previously published in the journal.

vii

Introduction Ferenc Feher

The historiography of the French Revolution has been traditionally and rightly regarded as the major yield and the ultimate confirmation of the golden age of historicism, a success story in which every representative paradigm of writing history has had its own share. From Jaures to Lefebvre and Soboul, the Marxist chronicles transpired as proof positive of the validity of their master's paradigm. The liberal partisans of the thesis of "limited but infinite progress" thrived on an apparently inexhaustible treasure trove of the hagiography of the "Republic." In their accounts, an indestructible and constantly resurrected republicanism signaled "progress," and the surrepti­ tiously surviving and occasionally reemerging "ultramontanism" or "royal­ ism" meant "regression. " The advocates of historical decay, from Bonald and De Maistre to Maurras, found their explanatory principle continually confirmed by their nation's intermittent loss of gloire and its incessant inter­ necine strife. Prior to Nietzsche, the mythology of the superman demon­ strated its seductive power through the exploitation of the material of the French Revolution in Carlyle's celebrated work. And the particularly French branch of "skeptical liberalism," initiated by Tocqueville, continued by Cochin, and inherited by Furet, felt itself confirmed by every new disastrous tum of a permanently shaky French democracy. And yet, in the postwar domestic research of the French Revolution, un­ mistakable symptoms of the decline of the traditional interpretations have been emerging for decades, the sole exception being Soboul's classic on the sans-culottes of Year II and the direct democracy of the Paris districts. Put bluntly, the domestic narrative became tediously self-repetitive. Until the publication of Furet's Thinking the French Revolution in the second half of the

2

INTRODUCTION

'970s, which has become a turning point for friend and foe alike, innovating impetus came exclusively from outside. The Anglo-American "revisionism" successfully questioned the relevance of the major explanatory devices of the Marxist school, at least in the actual form in which they had been used. Via the accumulated experience of sociological research, the new American "so­ cial history" or "historical sociology," whose paradigmatic works were Tilly's The Vendee and Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions, gave an impor­ tant stimulus to that particular style of writing history, which had been cap­ tive too long to a dubious method of "typology." In her celebrated, as well as hotly debated, On Revolution, Hannah Arendt has drawn such a sharp contrast between the "American" and "French" models of revolution that the after-effects of her challenge or provocation have been reverberating ever since in historical consciousness. Of the contributors to the present volume, Higonnet with his most recent Sister Republics is thoroughly indebted to Arendt's provocative gesture. English and Scandinavian New Leftist histo­ rians were the only worthy sucessors to Guerin's and Soboul's pioneering explorations into a hitherto unknown continent of anonymous militants ( I have i n mind the works by Cobb and Tonnesson ). The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity, emerging from a special bicentennial issue of Social Research (the theoretical journal of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research) and with a majority of its contributors coming from outside of French research, tries to live up to the already very high standards of the new tradition. A very serious trend, at once historical and philosophical, lurks behind the decline of the French domestic narrative. The end of World War II marked the simultaneous collapse of the great paradigms of nineteenth-century his­ toricism, which, without public recognition, had been philosophically eroded already for a long time. The Hegelian-Marxian paradigm of a progressive conclusion of (pre}history was hard, later outright impossible, to maintain in the face of the Holocaust and the Gulag. Paradigms of historical decay had profoundly compromised themselves by their often close association with the "heroic" efforts of Fascism and Nazism to "overcome decadence." The para­ digms oflimited (mostly technological) progress, which had for a while fared best, ran into the insurmountable hurdle of the apparently ineliminable poverty of the postcolonial world and the skeptical "ecological conscious­ ness." Although on the academic scene of "mass society" historical research has expanded to an incredible extent; although its methodological self­ awareness has been immensely refined and its tools sharpened; although the walls of national segregation have been pulled down within the global in­ stitution of academe, historians have been increasingly at a loss concerning the extra muros relevance of their research. In the meantime, however, a beneficial change has begun to develop in

INTRODUCTION

3

the professional-historical consciousness under the impact of the widespread acceptance of hermeneutics in the social sciences. This acceptance has in­ fluenced the historian, whether or not the historian was consciously preoccu­ pied with philosophy. The nineteenth-century paradigms of history operated with the concept of an objective, uniform, homogeneous and coherent pro­ cess comprising its "meaning" (which was to be "scientifically" deciphered by historians) . They often used the hypothesis of objective historical laws, and they ascribed an unambiguous (although divergingly explicated) direc­ tion to the integral process. True enough, several constituents of these theories, above all its "objectivity," had already been profoundly questioned in the nineteenth century, primarily by Nietzsche. The methodological con­ sequences of this challenge, however, dawned on the historian with excessive delay. But now we are living in an age of "hermeneutical consciousness," the spirit of which, transpiring in the present volume, can be summed up in a term that none of the participants uses and some of them would object to: posthistoire. Posthistoire, a term coined in the process of exploring "postmodernity," seems to be a particularly inept category for the use of historians ifit is meant in the facile and misleading sense of "history having come to a standstill." But there are other possible interpretations of the term. If "postmodernity" is understood not as an epoch subsequent to modernity, but as a position and attitude within modernity which confirms modernity's "arrival," its final settling-in, while at the same time making inquiries into modernity's creden­ tials and efforts to render meaning to it, the concept posthistoire will emerge from a taboo and a barrier for the historian into a stimulus. In this under­ standing, history will transpire as a text that we read together, but each of us in his or her own individual way. This collective, at the same time personal, reading does not recognize any "distinguished" reader. (Such a position could only be achieved by the absolute transcendence of our common world: modernity.) But although there are only myths of and arrogant claims to a "distinguished position" and "absolute transcendence," there is indeed a shared core in the reading of the same story by every community of readers. Despite the conspicuous-theoretical, methodological, and political­ differences between the contributors to The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity, the "shared core" of the story read and recounted by them, indi­ vidually and collectively, is palpably present. It is comprised in the title of the volume, and it provides this collection of papers with a strong internal cohesion. The shared core is the authors' recognition that after several cru­ cial antecedents and preludes, modernity has been born out of the French Revolution; further, that modernity "is here," it has arrived; and, finally, that it has to be given a meaning. It is at this point that the often heated debate between the seemingly isolated papers in the volume begins.

4

INTRODUCTION II

The first complex issue, about which there is a considerable degree of dis­ agreement among the authors, but discussed in the "subtext" rather than in the text itself, is the question of whether the process of birth of modernity had actually come to an end or whether it is still a delivery-in-progress. This "merely" subtextual issue is of crucial significance. Its evaluation will ulti­ mately decide the tone, the method, and the style of the contributions, the distance that has been taken in them to the collectively recounted story. Put briefly, this will define whether the subject matter of the narrative, to use a wise category that Agnes Heller coined in her A Theory of History, is "the past of the present" or past pure and simple, which, as such, is dead. As is well known, Furet holds the view that the French Revolution has already come to an end and therefore has to be treated as a "cold issue" by the historian. In this context, it will suffice to assert about this regularly misread aper�u that it is not a hostile statement against the Revolution and that the thesis of the fait-accompli character of the Revolution is not an obstacle to Furet in participating in the "shared core" of the story, in "rendering meaning to modernity." On the contrary: it is precisely on this basis that he can formulate what he regards as the main message of our age. For my part, I have insisted in The Fro ii Inquisition, � Instrumental rationality, �

284

INDEX

Insurrection, military, 51 Insurrection, of August ( 1 792), 1 1 2 I ntegration, in Saint-just, !A3 Interpretation, :h5L9L Ill.. Il9 I ranian revolution, 2li Ireland, French Revolution and, � jacobins, � � � � calamity and, 31 capitalist layering, R2 catholicism of, � classical ideals in, 11 clubs, � � I...l1, I1l6 contradictions of, � !M, daily life, 9Q decline of party, !.5l dictatorship and, � � differences among, � L'esprit revolutionnaire, 86 illusion of, !!9 insurrection of I 793, Lfu Le Chapelier, 1!3 legitimacy of, Lfu liberals and, 3§ memory of, !l1 orthodoxy and, !M=-95 politics of, 20 poor and, � revolutionary, illJ social life, 100 state system, 155. !fu... � � terrorism and, 1()3 universalist/individualist vision, !!5, 88 jaures,jean, L !.1.5 javogues, Claude, � jessenne,jean-Pierre, 55., 5§ jewish question, 104- 1 06, lolbJ !..5 journees revolutionnaires, 155. !..5§, 1 58. See also Septem ber massacres Kant, a, !A:5, IJl!, gQ!., � 2.1 L 222-223, �� on ancient democracies, 2.lil=212 Arendt on, � categorical imperative in, � church vs. religion, 2 1 5 n Constant and, 202-203 Copernican revolution and, � Danton and, � doctrine of virtue, 2 1 3 factum brutum in, 206

lawful revolution, � on legal systems, 206 moral philosophy of, gQ§, 2 1 2-2 14 political philosophy of, � � 2 1 2-2 14 on res publica noumenon, 2.lil on Robespierre, gQ!., � on trial of king, � typology of regimes, :zn8. See also specific works Kantorowicz, E., !A&, � Kates, Gary, 6 Kennedy, Michael L., :zB n. � Kestnbaum, Meyer, gj Key words, of French Revolution, I] King. See Monarchy Kocka, jiirgen, � n. 3..! Kojeve, Alexandre, ill Koselleck, R., � n. � Kropotkin, Pierre, � La Chalotais system, 13 La Chapelle-Basse-Mer, 59-60 Lacombe, C., 9.'i Lacos, Choderlos de, z§ Lacoue-Labarthe, P., � Lacroix, S., 1 1.6 n. !3 Ladouce, Laurent, 59 Lafont de Saint-Yenne, on art, 25 Lally-Tollendal, motion of, ill Lamartine, Alphonse de, ill Lamennais, church and, � Landauer, Gustave, � Lasky, M.j., !A:9 n. !9 Law, 204-205, 2..l2 Lebas, suicide of, 88 Lebon, Gustave, !..51 Lebrun, Franc;ois, 68 Lefebvre, Georges, I , 5§, 1 1 2 Lefort, Claude, � Leftists, 3..! Legality, revolution and, 204-205. 2..l2 Legistes, 1 96n Le mal revolutionnaire, � � Leninism, 268-220 Lepelletier, Louis-Michel, 1!2. 102n Lepetit, Bernard, � Lequino, on suicide, !!1 Letters on the Aesthetic Education ofMan (Schiller), 208 Levee en masse, 2 1 . See also Mobilization Liaisons Dangmuses, Les (Lacos), 7Ji

285

INDEX Liberal-bourgeois interpretation, 268-270 Liberalism, !.!.!L � Liberty, !.3Q commerce and, � French Revolution and, � struggle for, � Tocqueville on, � 258-259 Locke,John, !.1.), � :zfi6 Lodge. See Club Loi Agraire, gg Lord Acton, � Lotman, L M., 2fio Louis Napoleon, � � � Louis-Phillipe, g§, 99 Louis XIII, 49 Louis XIV, iJ!5, = Louis XVI, !!1, lib � � ideology of, l.OO popularity of, � public/private life, g§ revolution of, � trial of, lli Lowith, Karl, lli Lucas, Colin, a s§ Lynn,John A., li, � 28-29 Mably, on ideology, 82 Machiavelli, N., � 15(), � � McNeill, William !L 2B Maier, !L !1§ Maistre,J. de, � yz, :zfi6 Malesherbes, 1 1.0 Mallet du Pan, yz, � Le mal revolutionnaire, 251 -252, � Mallhus, T. R., � Marat,Jean Paul, !..13 cruelty of, 95 Massin on, 80 murder of, 8B plan de legislation criminelle. 80 tyranny offreedom, 206 Markets, 9Q, !..!!Q, � Martyrs de prairial, 93 Marx, Karl, JA., 34, 3§, � � � � 268-271 on Convention, 2fiB d 'Allarde laws, Illl, 91 die deutsche Misere, 209-210 historical necessity, � Jewish question, 2fiB Le Chapelier laws, Illl, 91

on market society, g§z, See also specific works Massin, on Marat, 80 Mathiez, Albert, 1 !L !.l§, � � � 19!.. � Maurras, on history, I Maury,Jean-Sifrein, abbe, I I L !.!3 Mazarin,J., 5Q Mercier, Louis Sebastien, !!§, 222 Michelet, Jules, I..1&, !A!! Middle class, � � � � as bourgeoise class, i3 constitution of 1 791 , 35 as new France, 3!1 violence of, !M:=95 Mignet, F. A., 35. i3, � 265-266. � on bourgeoise revolution, 3§ on equality, 4..! on Third Estate, � Military life, 8B Military reforms, 2.1 Military re-organization, I1I MiII,John Stuart, � � Mirabeau, Count, !.9§ Mitchell, Henry, !!, 1.0 Modernity, Z=!!, � � � Monarchy, 5Q, !\Q, 8J, 84-85. See also Old Regime Montagnards, !!§, I I1I military policy of, 2 1 1 793 conslitution and, !..9.! suicide and, 8B universalist vision of, 9.! Montaigne, M. E., !!§, 2.1 1 Montesquieu, C. L., 7CJ, Z5., � � � ���� Moore, Barrington,Jr., !A Morality of the Means, 168 n More, Thomas, l2fi Mounicr,JcanJoseph, ".53 Nantes, massacre of, fill Napoleon, !'§' .Ji, 55, � Illl, g§, � army and, 23-24 civil code, � Hegel on, � Hundred Day rule of, � Napoleonic wars, 24-26 significance of, � on social mobility, i3

�

lJl3, �

286

INDEX

Napoleonic concordat, IJll, 202 Nassau, William, � National Assembly, � n, Il5, � !.fu.., � � � See also Constituent assembly National development, in Sieyes, 1 � Nationalism, � !!!4 Nationality, 1 � National regeneration, !.l, !9 National representation, !ll, !.9 Natural rights, Hegel on, � Nature, concept of, !.:H. 138- 140 Necker, Jacques, 80 Nietzsche, F., !...3 Nineteenth century, n, 3§ Nobility, 4Q, 49, 62-63, 98-1 0 1 Nodier, Charles, !i3 La Nouvelle Heloise (Rousseau), z.!., 15 Nozick, Robert, ill Oath of Allegiance, 1 03- 104 Oath ofHoratii (David), 7J., 86dl8 Old regime, 3.'b 9Q, � I§, � !JlQ, � � � � ti.l. � � � 271-272, 274-27;, 299

bureaucracy and, 91 decline of, 1£ failure to restore, 45 framework of, 100= 1 0 1 freemasonry and, � Gallican church reform, ill institutions of, 19 Jacobins and, � lost wars of, 1 Z modernizing effects, 80 public life, 7!!. republicans in, g§ revolutions and, m rhetorical legacy of, � Tocqueville on, � � � ti.l. 258� unpopularity of, � women and, 99 On the Common Sl!Ying (Kant), � Oppositions, � Oriental ism, 128 Owen, Robert, 39 Pacification, s§ Paine, T., !!!1 Pamphlets, !!!!. ill Parallel legal systems, I :z!!

Paret, P., 28n. 21, � Paris, 53> � 9L l2ll Parlements, !.z!l Pas-de-Calais, 55::5§ Patriotic party, 9Q Payan, Claude, !.!!g Pethion, pamphlets by, � � Petion,Jerome, 88 Petty-bourgeoise, � Plunomenology (Hegel), � 2fi6 Philosophy, German, 222 Philosophy, of history, !!::9 Philosophy ofHistory (Hegel) , � � 233� Philosophy ofRight (Hegel) , 2fi6 Physiocrats, !!Z Plassey plunder, l2ll Police, creation of, 54 Political fundamentalism, defined, !9.! Political interpretation, of French Revolution, S., !.!.Z Political science, creation of, !!Z Political state, as savage state, !.35 Politics fundamentalism in, !9.! sacrilizing of, !93 Saint-Just and, � !.H Tocqueville and, m Set also specific persons, issues Popular justice, !.§5 Popular resistance, 51 Popular sovereignty, 182-183 Pornography, z.!., 80 Posthistoire, :1 ill PostmodernitY, 3 Prisons, � Privacy categories of, 21 common good and, 8J definition of, 7 1 elitist sensibility and, 13 feminized, 7J green and, H. z§ married life and, H. z§ nationalism and, !!g, !!i, � secularized, 7J women and, � Professionals, 53 Proletariat, definition of, 39 Property, Z5. !!§, !Me Protestant reformation, � � �

INDEX Public sphere, 91 architecture and, 'E. categories of, U civic harmony and, 14 elitist sensibility and, 13 nationalism and, 82-84, 93 public good, 69- 1 0 I , 96-98 public life, '8 Z!J "E secularized, 'E. Punitive reforms, 95 Quinet, Edgar, !.3.1, !.l.'i, !.M!!Ji Rabaut, Saint-Etienne, � � Rabelais and His World (Bakhtin) , !§s Rameau 's Nephew (Diderot), t8B

Ranke, L. von, 1..28 Rationalist fanaticism, LIl2 Reason, in Saint-Just, 95, � Rebellions, � Reddy, William, 9Q Reeve, Henry, � Reflections on the Revolution in Frana (Burke), �

Reformation, � � Regeneration, III Regicide, IA1 Reign ofTerror, 230-231 Reine du Monde, 80 Religion, 1 Z1:, Ill]

Religion within Reason Alone (Kant), 202

Renouvier, on solidarisme, g§ Representant en mission, 5§ Republic, The (Plato), 22.1 Republicaines Revolutionnaires, !ill, 95 Republicanism legality and, 91 as masculine, Th g() revolution and, 9Q Republic ofletters, 80 Republic of virtue, !J!9, 192- 193. 230-231 Res publica noumenon, 2JJ)

Restoration, 3§, g(), � � � Reubell,Jean-Fran