THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION
French revolution was a disastrous turnaround
in the pursuit of civil liberty by the people of France. It was a dark period
that can never be erased from the hearts of humanity. There are so many
documents that are touted to have positively contributed to the emergence of
the revolution since they inscribed a sense of entitlement in the minds [1]of
masses. Subsequently, many philosophies have thus emerged after the revolution;
either in criticism of the primary documents or expounding more on the initial
intentions of the drafters of the primary instruments. This paper intends to
juxtapose the two generational sets of texts in an analytical manner, precisely
stating the improvements or discredit that may be manifested. Here are some of
the basic texts relied upon by the revolutionists.
Declaration
of Human and People’s Rights; 1789
Cognizant of the nature
of misfortunes they had gone through, and attributing the political strife to
ignorance of the rights of man and corruption of government, the national assembly
of France came up with the declaration which was to serve as a reminder to the
people of their rights, obligations and the limits of the executive power. The
declaration underscored various legal principles including observance of the
rule of law by all, fundamental human rights that cannot be derogated from and
also exercise of sovereign power in accordance with the constitution for the
greatest public good. Also, the most fundamental feature in this document was
the emphasis on sovereign power belonging to the people in which case the
people would exercise it as they wished.
Declaration
of Rights of Women and Female Citizens
Later in 1791, Olympe
de Gouges ingeniously advocated for the publication of the Declaration of
Rights of Women and Female Citizens, a document which intended to restore
parity between the rights of men and women.[2]
These set of views were hinged on equalization and the first objective was to
root for representation of women in the national assembly. The declaration went
ahead to pronounce that women had the same rights as men and that it was
imperative upon the state to ensure equal applicability of the law to both men
and women. Finally, there was a clear outcry from women to have men stop any
acts of violence directed to women, a practice which was prevalent at that time
in France.
Memoirs
from beyond the tomb
In this collection of
books, René de Chateaubriand, a former foreign affairs minister of France sought
to give a chronological account of the historical and political developments in
France including the revolution which he witnessed during his lifetime. Though
the memoir was a personal account of his life, he was keen to capture the
political transformations, most importantly, the French revolution and he went
ahead to give a detailed explanation of the effect that the revolution had to
other parts of the world including Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. He
was critical enough to denounce the kind of violence that the orchestrators of
the revolution subjected everyone to, pointing out that this ultimately changed
his political philosophy. The views espoused by Chateaubriands have further
been confirmed by the assertive writer, Doyle William who gave an in depth
description of the state of France just before the French Revolution.[3]
Other important
writings have followed the texts mentioned above in which case they have either
improved on the ideas of the first authors or on the other hand taken a
diametrically opposed position from them.
The first of these
authors is Dan Edelstein who endeavored to explain the reason as to why the
French revolution failed to produce positive results as compared to the
American Revolution.[4]
The rationale for this disparity according to Edelstein is that the French one
was hinged on the Rosseauist political revolutionary culture while the American
Revolution was a true reflection of the liberalist natural rights ambitions of
the citizens[5].
The argument fronted by this distinguished author is that terror after the
revolution erupted owing to the influence of Jacobins literature.[6]
The literature in question indicates that Jacobins posited that all his
political enemies were not only unnatural deviants but also enemies of human
kind and thus were to be eliminated. This is indeed an improvement of Chateau
Brian Memoirs and also advancement in terms of reason behind the violence after
the revolution, which Brian shunned in the first place.
The next set of
literature is Joan Wallach Scott’s article[7]which
majorly is a dissection of the manner in which women addressed the issue of
equality during the French Revolution. She acknowledges that despite the fact
that at that time there were several progressions in the civil rights of
people; women were still regarded as second class citizens. Every other
marginalized sector gained recognition including slaves but the case with women
was different. The perception was that it was both natural and divine that
women should be subservient to men. What concerned Joan more was the approach
that women took to address this inequality, especially Olympe de Gouges. She
criticized the French Declaration on the Rights of Women and Female Citizens
because it made the same old mistake; Fighting for the rights of women while
having the status of men as the yardstick. In this respect, she feels that
women at that time did not do enough to protect their status in the society.
[1]
Declaration of Human and People’s Rights and the Declaration of Rights of Women
and Female Citizens
[2]
But it has to be underscored that this was just a personal opinion by Olympe
even though it gained momentum and became so popular in France.
[3]
William, D; A Brief Introduction to the French Revolution (2001)
[4]
Edelstein; The Terror of Natural Right
[5] Patrice
Gueniffey, La politique de la Terreur: Essai sur la violence r´evolutionnaire,
1789–94(Paris, 2000); Jean-Cl´ement Martin, Violence et R´evolution: Essai sur
la naissance d’unmythe national (Paris, 2006).
[6]
Edelstein also attributed Jacobins philosophies to have heavily borrowed from
Rosseauism.
[7]
French Feminists and Rights of Man: Olympe de Gouge’s Declaration
