1. The French Revolution is unquestionably one of the most significant events of modern history. Rather than viewing the Revolution as a divider of disparate eras, it serves as a bridge or transitional phase between the Old Regime and the New, with its effects reaching far beyond the confines of France. As detailed in the third edition of The Revolutionary Era, by Charles Breunig and Matthew Levinger, many of the themes and conflicts born in the epoch of the French Revolution continued to be eminent themes throughout the nineteenth century. To understand these themes within their full context, it is necessary to investigate their beginnings.
The Revolutionary Era begins by outlining the factors that by 1789 had begun to cause unrest and upheaval within France. The effects of industrialization were being felt in France, as new wealth was being generated, but unevenly distributed, contributing to discontent. The simultaneous confluence of crop failures, economic depression, and the strains of industrialization created an atmosphere ripe for crisis. In addition to these factors, the authors note that challenges to absolutism and a short-term financial crisis provided the immediate impetus for revolution. With France essentially bankrupt and unable to function, King Louis XVI convoked the Estates General for the first time in over a century, at which time representatives of the Third Estate made the momentous Tennis Court Oath, promising to create a constitution for France. Having set up their National Assembly, Louis XVI accepted the Assembly as a fait accompli, as he was powerless to stop its formation. Before beginning to write a constitution, the National Assembly drafted the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, a “statement of the general principles on which the new order was to rest.” These ideas, reflective of contemporary political and social philosophy, were the fundamental basis of the gyrating motion toward the modern nation-state in nineteenth century Europe.
The ensuing season of the Revolution centered on writing a constitution that would reflect the pervading ideas of democratic government while preserving the monarchy. Divisions between moderates and radicals developed, regarding how much power the king should retain in the new government. To combat the government’s ongoing burden of debt, the Assembly voted to confiscate Church lands. Such a move was anathema to the majority of rural French peasants, but increasingly, Paris was controlling the Revolution (and France).
An organ of the local Parisian government, the Commune, grew in power until it was able to “[dictate] policy to the elected representatives of the nation.” Paris would continue to lead the revolution as long as it lasted, up to the time of Napoleon. With growing disenchantment with the constitutional monarchy, political factions developed with increasingly republican ideas. Chief among the factions were the Jacobins, republican radicals who came to power as more the moderate Girondans, along with the king, helped to precipitate a war leading to the government’s fall. On August 10, 1792, Jacobins exploited the political atmosphere caused by ongoing misfortunes in the war against Prussia and Austria by fomenting an uprising against the National Assembly and the king. Having pressured the Assembly into deposing Louis XVI, the Commune had him imprisoned, leaving France without a sovereign and in a state of flux, without a clearly defined government. New elections for the National Convention returned overwhelmingly republican representatives, who promptly abolished the monarchy.
Jacobins gradually asserted control of the Convention, symbolically noted by the authors in the event of Louis’ trial and execution; while the more moderate Girondans preferred to “temporize” and “postpone” the issue, Jacobins were clear in asserting that “the king was a traitor” and deserved death. Thus was the end of monarchy made complete, with the result of an increasing trend toward radicalism under the Jacobin-led government. Arresting Girondans accused of counterrevolution, Jacobins firmly held political control in Paris, with France dragging in trail. External and internal developments challenged the regime, though; the First Coalition, consisting of Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Holland, Spain, Sardinia, and Naples challenged France externally, concurrent to an internal revolt in the Vendée. Added to these problems, serious economic concerns plagued the new government, along with increasing popular discontent outside of Paris, leading to the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety.
Instead of activating the completed Constitution of 1793, Jacobins ruled France through the Reign of Terror via a virtual dictatorship run by a few isolated groups of Jacobins: Maximilien Robespierre and the CPS, the Commune, and the Committee of General Security in control of the revolutionary police. France geared the nation up for total war, necessitated by the grim outlook on the battlefield, by proclaiming universal conscription. With national support summoned, France took the initiative of battle away from the Coalition. Meanwhile, within France, the Reign of Terror thinned out opposition to the government, as insurrections were finally stamped out in Lyon, Toulon, and elsewhere. As the sense of impending crisis passed, more moderate voices began to be heard again in government to calm the Terror. The “Thermadorean Reaction” cast down Robespierre’s regime, as he, too, went the way of the guillotine. Soon, the CPS and the Paris Commune were invalidated as the source of power in the French government, and the tensions of the Reign of Terror eased. The Convention was unpopular and was soon supplanted by the Directory.
The Directory vacillated between fears of a restoration of Terror and a restoration of monarchy. To protect against these fears, the Directory was more moderate than the previous revolutionary governments. Rather than submitting to Rousseauist ideas of volonté général, the Directory established Montesquieuian checks and balances to prevent the governmental excesses that had precipitated the Terror. The Directory was also unpopular, but it was at least stable. It sought to maintain the moderate political track by preventing challenges to its hegemony, as with the Coup d'État de Fructidor, removing suspected monarchists from government before they could foment an attempt at restoration. Even so, domestic economic challenges served to undermine the government, although France improved fiscally vis-à-vis the positions of previous revolutionary governments. The Directory exported the revolution via France’s military exploits, as the war was by this point manageably under French control. Napoleon Bonaparte continued his meteoric rise to fame by defeating Austria, paving the way for satellite republics to be established throughout western Europe. These foreign policies cause consternation among the European powers; soon Russia, Austria, and Great Britain allied, forming the Second Coalition arrayed against France. Napoleon became bogged down in an invasion of Egypt and returned to France to participate in what would become the Coup d’État of Brumaire. With his ascension to power, Napoleon’s consulate effectively brought the French Revolution to an end, restoring a permanent order of government. With the rise of the Empire, Napoleon brought the Revolution full circle, making France again into an absolutist state under the rule of a powerful sovereign.
2. Activities of Revolutionary Era followed two basic principles: “Human society could, and should, be organized according to purely rational principles…. [The] path to this new rational order was through mass political activism.” These ideas formed the basis of all subsequent actions undertaken by revolutionaries, as reflected in the ensuing mass mobilization of France. Facets of this phenomenon included mass political engagements, employing the common people of France in politics by making their numerous voices heard by government through protest and unrest. Fearful of what an antagonized public might do, government had little chance to oppose the masses because, as unpopular regimes weakened, little power remained to enforce the will of government. The French military also employed the idea of mass mobilization when universal conscription began. Along with vastly expanding the number of men serving in the armed forces, the produce of national industry was expropriated for use in the now total war effort.
Along the lines of rationality, the advent of the Cult of Reason signaled a more succinct break from the Old Regime philosophy and mentality. “[The] more radical revolutionaries argued for starting from first principles, constructing anew world on the ashes of the old.” In this way, then, the change from a process of deductive reasoning to inductive by government caused France to become more reactionary in its actions. Instead of reforming the state to prevent changing fundamental systems, the state began espousing a particular ideology and built state actions around it. Addressing specific problems to maintain the general existence of the present form of government yielded to a practice of spreading general revolutionary principles with the specific intent of preserving revolutionary changes.
3. A commonality about the commentary surrounding Napoleon is that no single interpretation of his actions exists. What he accomplished, though, is beyond question, as he proceeded to restore a permanent order in France while seeking to expand France’s power throughout Europe. In the process, Napoleon paradoxically reflected both an extension of the Revolution and a reaction against it. He was an extension of the revolution by serving as a means of exporting its reforms to satellite republics established in conquered territories, while at the same time ruling France with the same powers as the absolutist monarchs before him. After coming to power during the Consulate, one of Napoleon’s first major accomplishments was his use of plebiscite to use public opinion to consolidate his power. With this done, Napoleon set about reforming France. He centralized the bureaucracy so that he could more tightly control the nation. Improved tax collection began to help control financial crises, as did expansion in the French economy. Education reform was a major accomplishment, as Napoleon used improved education as a way of securing loyalty from the French people. The Civil Code, or Code Napoléon, updated France’s legal system and made it uniform in all parts of the state. Its influence spread beyond France, into areas of French control throughout Europe and the empire.
Napoleon’s rise to power marked a time of lessened upheaval, as he took a more authoritarian hold of government. An effect of this was application of censorship, which seemed to be a challenge to the rights won in the revolution. While this offended many of the French, having the state make peace with the Church helped to assuage some of the hurt. The Concordat signaled a peace between Rome and Paris, and helped gain the support of Catholics angered by such previous policies as confiscation of Church land. The Church received promise that Catholicism could be legally practiced in France. On the warfront, Napoleon secured favorable peace treaties from Great Britain and Austria, after defeating the Coalition in battle. With new territories in hand, Napoleon set about redrawing the map of Europe, with the effect of undermining Austrian influence in the German States, while increasing Prussia’s influence. Soon, though, Napoleon undertook another war, this time fighting the Third Coalition, including Great Britain, Austria, and Russia. At Austerlitz, Napoleon crushed Coalition forces, causing Russia to back out, leaving Austria to sue for peace.
France soon took up arms again, against Prussia and Russia, quickly capturing Berlin, leaving Prussia essentially defeated. Soon, Tsar Alexander of Russia pressed for peace, and with Napoleon he concluded the treaties of Tilsit. One of the two treaties gutted Prussia as punishment for opposing France. The treaty with Russia provided for a veritable alliance between France and Russia, ostensibly amounting to Russia supporting France against Great Britain, and France supporting Russia’s appetite for empire in eastern Europe. However, this “alliance” had little effect, as Russia and France would soon go to war again. In the meantime, Napoleon’s “Grand Empire” stretched across Europe, from the Atlantic to Austria and Prussia. Napoleon’s Berlin Decrees formally established the Continental System, which sought to bar all British trade on the European continent.
By 1808, Napoleon became ensnared in the Peninsular war against Spain and Portugal, which has been called “the turning point in the emperor’s military fortunes.” Napoleon was unable to control the war, which became a drain on France’s resources. Austria took the opportunity to challenge French hegemony and was defeated for the fourth time by France, in the Short War, with the result of more Austrian territory being trimmed away and added to French possessions. The Empire was relatively peaceful from 1810 to 1812, up until the renewal of war between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander of Russia. Napoleon was irked by Russia’s lack of enforcement for the Continental System, and saw Russia as standing in the way of true French domination of the Continent. In the ensuing campaign, Napoleon’s Grand Army met disaster against the indomitable Russian winter.
The impending demise of Napoleon’s regime following the War of Liberation, Napoleon’s exile, and his Hundred Days would soon conclude more than a quarter century of turbulence in Europe, dating back to the beginning of the French Revolution. Napoleon’s legacy included more than just his policy. The reaching effects of such actions as updating the legal codes or abolishing serfdom are quite significant. However, it is likely that Napoleon’s greatest contribution to the Revolutionary Era was his “instrumental role in transforming the revolution into a truly global phenomenon,” as political visionaries in subsequent history looked back to the ideas of the French Revolution as sources of inspiration in their own causes.
4. Industrialization began in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, spreading to the European continent around the first half of the nineteenth century. Industrialization occurred at this particular moment of European history mostly because the conditions were only then ripe for its advent. This is not to say that the process was brief, because it was not. Instead, industrialization had its roots in seventeenth century Europe, in a period of “protoindustrialization” involving cottage industries that sought to provide goods for a growing consumer market. From this pre-factory setting, true industrialization began. Factories producing goods in bulk arose at first near sources of waterpower, as this was necessary to power industrial machinery. Later, with the advent of the steam engine, factories could be established more diffusely, although they still tended to be centered in the rapidly growing urban centers. Supplies of new resources were imperative to the beginning and continuation of the Industrial Revolution, particularly coal and iron. Coal quickly became the power driving the machines of Europe, which were made from iron. With the growth of these two industries, industrialization could physically develop in Europe. The alignment of many requisite factors allowed industrialization to spread, including “population growth, advances in methods of agriculture, the expansion of overseas trade and banking institutions, improvements in transportation networks, political liberalization, and technological innovation.” One of the most significant developments for the long-term continuation of industrialization was the advent of the railroad, as it allowed much more rapid travel and transport of goods, thus increasing the size of available markets to producers. This, in turn, could allow manufacturers to produce more goods and continue expanding their markets and profits. As industrialization spread through Europe it changed the face of the continent, both physically and socially.
5. In terms of class change, the Industrial Revolution affected to rapidly expand the middle class, known as bourgeoisie, and to create a new kind of poor, the urban worker, collectively known as proletariat. More individually, industrialization contributed to a change in the working environment for the burgeoning mass of laborers. Rather than working in an agrarian setting, more and more people were toiling inside in factory labor. This was a result of a confluence of factors, including increased agricultural output, which then required fewer agrarian laborers, many of whom gradually migrated to the manufacturing centers in search of work. Working conditions were poor for laborers of the early industrial age, as long days, low wages, and high risk were all too frequently common factors of industrial employment. The rapidly growing urban centers generally could not keep pace with the strains of such tremendous population growth and, as a result, sanitation, housing, and general living conditions all suffered. Whether or not industrial laborers had a more miserable existence than agricultural laborers is debatable. Both endured long hour of work, disease, and other problems, but it is possible that at least psychologically, laborers may have been better off in the agrarian settings, working outside in a more natural environment, doing more varied tasks. In either case, industrialization contributed to the growth of the middle class, as new industrial wealth filtered up to entrepreneurs and business-owners. As this process continued, with the middle class becoming more numerous and more economically dominant, they eventually came to control government, as monarchs and elites could no longer forestall their influence. Advancement in transportation facilities, particularly the railroad, helped to reduce the likelihood of famine among industrializing European societies, as importing food from unaffected areas could relieve locales suffering crop failures. In these ways, industrialization provided a marked effect upon the social landscape of Europe. Such sweeping change, though, led Europeans to undertake a new venture: reasserting and reevaluating individual identities in an age of change.
6. With the massive population shifts ongoing during the early nineteenth century, many poor were moving into the urban centers of Europe to find jobs in industry. At the same time in England, elites who could afford to do so were beginning a movement toward suburbs, if only for weekends. This trend gradually continued, with increasing numbers of middle class bourgeois making the trip to suburbia. A result of this was that the cities became the dwelling place of the industrial laborer. Formerly, where the central districts of cities had been home to the upper classes, they became increasingly the domains of the working classes. In family life, the “Cult of Domesticity” defined the role of women as being the keepers of peace in the home, while men earned the family wage. This was a marked difference from the roles of women in agrarian life, where they had frequently worked with men in maintaining the farm’s routines. Even in cities, women had actively participated in the family’s work, whether helping to run a business or in some other family affiliated task. With industrialization, though, the “Cult of Domesticity” meant that women had to stay home and tend to family and keeping the home. A new sense of class identity developed over the course of the nineteenth century, as members of the middle classes noted common characteristics among each other and began to associate within a similar group of people. By the 1830s, the working classes began to be associated with the movements of labor emanating from England’s Reform Bill of 1832 and France’s July Revolution. While these broad classifications had become part of the common lexicon by the 1830s, they were by no means homogenous in their composition. Divisions included those between men and women or between factory laborers and artisans. From these various factions arose new political ideologies and agendas, each representing the vision of its particular group of support.
7. Liberalism and socialism were preeminent among the nineteenth century political ideologies. Liberalism referred most specifically to the “capacity to act freely, without government restraint.” Socialism, on the other hand, referred to the movement against capitalist imposed servitude, seeking to reorganize society more equitably among the disparate classes. Liberals spoke of liberty, the freedom to determine one’s own course in life, free from outside interference by government. In England, much more than in Europe, this meant specifically seeking out individual liberty. In continental Europe, liberty became inextricably tied to nationalism, as enjoying the fruits of liberty required throwing off the yoke of foreigners from the nation, or, as required by Italy and Germany, forming a nation. On the other hand, rather than focusing on individual goals, socialist doctrine sought to redress problems collectively. The ideas of utopian socialism were intended to improve life for the working classes by creating more equitable economic systems and by “[defining] new communities that would reintegrate individuals into a harmonious social order.” While following the same basic precepts of socialism, scientific socialism, or communism, went beyond these goals. Instead, it sought to overturn the existing order completely, rather than just reorganizing society. The basic premise of communism is that capitalism is inherently flawed, in that the proletariat is the subject of, and subject to, the bourgeoisie. According to Karl Marx, the visionary of the communist movement, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Against this class struggle would rise violent revolution, with the proletariat emerging triumphant over the bourgeoisie. Marx was clearly mistaken in his assumptions, though, as communism failed to make a significant showing in Europe until the Bolshevik Revolution during World War I.
8. With Napoleon’s fall from power, the Powers of Europe faced the task of trying to undo the effects of the French Empire. The processes of the political settlements of 1815 could not be separated from the omnipresent features of Romanticism, as the movement permeated contemporary culture and thought. The ideas of romanticism stood as a swift reprisal against the emotionally fettering chains of reason imposed by the Enlightenment. In the same way, then, that romanticism was a reaction to the previous age of thought, the tasks of the diplomats at the Vienna Settlement of 1815 was to affect a reaction against the Revolutionary Era, by seeking to restore the old order of Europe. However, this task was impossible, because circumstances had greatly changed in the years between 1789 and 1815. While undoing Napoleon’s European cartography was not too difficult, it was clearly impossible to undo the exportation of revolutionary ideas throughout the Continent. Even so, the diplomats did what they could to restore the new European order to a more traditional one. This is part of the pull of romanticism, hearkening back to tradition for inspiration in the present. Seeing the more stable governments of the old absolutist monarchs, contemporary monarchs would have preferred a conservative leap toward absolutism, except that the French Revolution had made such a move impossible. Once made more liberal, freedoms and rights could not so easily be taken away without undermining the state’s support, and thus, its authority. As passion and emotion were integral to romanticism, posing starkly in opposition to the pure reason of l’age de luminaire, a feeling of active devotion to those of one’s ethnic identity became a useful tool for promoting allegiance to government, and the ideas of modern nationalism came into being.
9. The effects of tensions and continued revolutionary trends during the Restoration contributed to a period of instability in much of Europe, culminating in the Revolutions of 1848. With the notable exception of Great Britain, much of the rest of Europe would undergo significant challenges to government for the first time since the Napoleonic Wars. In Great Britain, conservative Tories held control over the government, with the monarchy being weakened in power. Tories were much less open to reforms than were their adversaries, the Whigs, who had the support of the new industrial middle classes. Domestic economic problems spurred the initiation of some protective tariffs, notably the Corn Law, to help the slumping economy. While these acts may have been good for the economy as a whole, they were extremely unpopular among the poor. With demonstrations arising against these unpopular laws, the Tory government feared revolution and began a course of limiting civil liberties, for example, suspending the Habeas Corpus Act. Following the subsequent “Peterloo Massacre,” and more repressive government actions, public manifestations of discontent subsided. Soon, a new Cabinet began a policy of applying “piecemeal changes in laws and institutions that helped bring the British government into closer touch with economic and social realities.” Although only a beginning by government to accept that the Industrial Revolution had effected major changes in Britain, The Reform Bill of 1832 did not go far enough to satisfy the working classes. As a consequence, their Chartist movement sought to force Parliament to yield to numerous liberal political demands, including universal male suffrage, annual Parliamentary elections, and payment of stipends to representatives of the House of Commons. However, Parliament successfully ignored the Chartists demands, rendering the movement irrelevant.
While reformers in Great Britain tried to effect change via parliamentary channels, continental Europe suffered through a period of much more acute instability. In France, the unwise king, Charles X, tried to restore an absolutist monarchy, with the result of having his reign overthrown and replaced by Louis Philippe of Orléans. His July Monarchy did little to improve France’s social conditions, so pressure continued to build. With the outbreak of some labor insurrections in 1834 at Lyons, the monarchy had a united coalition of labor and republicans arrayed against it. Demonstrations in Paris were followed by mass arrests of republicans, as well as strict censorship laws. The results of these actions, as well as having a non-responsive government, led France down the road to revolution in 1848.
Following revolution in France, Belgium, Poland, and states of Italy and Germany sought to assert independence, challenging the policies of the Concert of Europe. In Belgium, the independence movement succeeded, as the Great Powers were engaged in suppressing revolts in other parts of Europe. Poland, for example, was soon crushed by Russian military supremacy. Following the end of their revolt, the Poles received a much less liberal constitution from Russia, existing in a de facto military dictatorship. In the Austrian Empire, revolutionary activity amounted to nationalist uprisings of different ethnic groups, met with Austrian repression. In Prussia, King Frederick William IV allowed very little liberalization until the outbreak of revolution in 1848. As elsewhere, Prussians wanted representative government, but the king was loathe to grant it, fearing revolution. The main problem with the Greek Revolt was not so much a challenge to the Concert of Europe, as Greece was relatively insignificant. Instead, its relevance lay in deciding the “Eastern Question” about the degenerate Ottoman Empire. In all of these cases, whether revolts were successful or not, two ideas remained significant in the progress of individual revolutionary trends, as the Industrial Revolution continued to build pressure throughout most of Europe. To release the mounting pressure, revolutionaries looked back to the ideas of the French Revolution.
10. The sources of the Revolutions of 1848 came from all across Europe, but were actually quite similar. French resentment of non-representation in government and corruption, German dissatisfaction at continued political division, and suppressed nationalism within the Austrian Empire and Italian States were all driving factors of the Revolutions. Global economic troubles compounded the effects of these factors, as did a common ideology seeking greater liberalization and political rights. The spread of the revolutions was so rapid that rulers had to submit to demands or face being ousted. In several cases, the removal of an unpopular minister or promise of a constitution served to placate the masses, but in general, sweeping changes had to be promised before guaranteeing the purveyance of order. Soon, though, a counterrevolution had begun, and by 1849 it had essentially swept away all of the gains revolutionaries had made.
One of the key differences in how the 1848 revolutions panned out was that only in France did a government truly change. The July Monarchy fell in February, and by April a provisional government was preparing for the elections that would lead to the Second Republic, and Louis Napoleon’s rise to power. In Prussia, King Frederick William IV rigidly conformed to an absolutist view of monarchy, in spite of considerable liberal opposition. With the outbreak of violence in Berlin, though, under duress, the king acceded to some concessions, including a constitution. The creation of a bicameral national assembly did little to erode the absolutist nature of the Prussian monarchy, though, as the king came to dominate it. So, unlike in France, little had actually changed in Prussia. An abortive effort to unify the German States also showed the ineffectual nature of the 1848 Revolution in Germany. Divisions and weakness within the Frankfort Parliament prevented any serious possibility of national unification at that time. What separated the Austrian revolution in 1848 from the events elsewhere was the overwhelming dominance of nationalist themes. The Habsburg monarch, Emperor Ferdinand I, at first had to accept the gains of the revolution, as he had no way to repel it. Given time, though, he was able to quell resistance in the Czech capital Prague, and later in Vienna itself. Unlike in France or Germany, Austrian authorities primarily used the military to crush opposition, as favorable opportunities developed. To quell the continued revolt of the Magyars, Austria enlisted Russian help. Soon, the revolution was over in Austria, with little to show other than heightened tensions within the empire. In northern Italy, revolt centered on gaining autonomy and independence from Austrian control. King Charles Albert of Sardinia invaded Austrian-controlled Lombardy while seeking support from rulers throughout Italy. Thus, as with the ethnic minorities in the Austrian revolution, the Italian states were seeking liberation. However, unlike in Austria, the goal was to create a unified state. Austria defeated the Italian coalition, forestalling unification for a while. Thus, the Revolutions of 1848 accomplished very few of the goals pursued by revolutionaries. Even so, the revolutions were important in laying the groundwork for future reforms and changes, particularly the unification of Germany and Italy.
11. Because the Revolutions of 1848 did not attain their goals, they have been interpreted as failures. For the most part, existing governments regrouped and swept away what little progress had been made during the revolutions. Even so, the revolutions were not without effect, because they “crystallized ideas and projected the pattern of things to come.” The short-term goals of realizing new governments, new rights, and new social opportunities were not to succeed. However, with a wider perspective of the revolutionary era, it is possible to argue that the revolutions did not ultimately fail. While their coming to fruition certainly took longer than the revolutionaries of the day would have expected or wished, that their goals were realized in the final summation is at least a positive expression of the work the revolutionaries began. With the end of the revolutions, romanticism yielded to realism, and with this change in outlook went the people of Europe, as they continued to pursue their goals, albeit less abstractly.
12. Rupert Christiansen’s novel Paris Babylon: The Story of the Paris Commune could have summarized Paris during the Second Empire with a single word: decadence. Doing this, though, would have been to strike so short of the target that it was necessary to write the entire book. Although Christiansen acknowledges that it is impossible to define Paris as a single entity, it is true that people contemporary to the fall of the Second Empire did view Paris singularly as a city of moral depravity, just as today the cosmopolitan city can be seen as being exclusively one thing or another. It only depends upon what slant one takes in viewing it. Speaking specifically of Emperor Napoleon III’s administration, Christiansen writes, “The Second Empire was a quiet tyranny – rarely beastly, often merciful, sometimes genuinely benevolent – which the prosperous and self-interested could easily ignore: there was such fun, such profit to be had from doing so.” The second half of this statement is the key to understanding Napoleon III’s France. It was acceptable to engage in “genuine benevolence,” but evidently such was not the concern of the rich. Instead, lavish and frivolous living was the order of the day. The book’s title is telling: Paris was the modern Babylon. As subsequent history would show, destruction fell upon Paris just as it had Babylon.
Christiansen’s view of the Second Empire, then, was predominantly negative. Devoting a full chapter to “Monuments of Hypocrisy” is a telling, if ironic example. Rather than discussing some of the prevailing social problems of the time, Christiansen chooses to present an insight into prominent discussions of the era, which focused much more on truly insignificant causes. Among these “monuments” are a violated sculpture, a debate about the indecency of the opera, and a culture of permanent transience: a state of flux wherein the vogue of today is the “laughing-stock” of tomorrow. In all of these cases, Christiansen is commenting on the superficial nature of French society.
Moving toward the beginning of hostilities with Prussia, Christiansen provides insight into the character of some of the French people. Knowing subsequent history, it is amazing to find cheering, maddened crowds sweltering in a fever of nationalism and patriotism as the calls come for war. That France would crush Prussia was guaranteed; that matter of concern would be how the world would look upon France for picking such a fight. Christiansen provides this episode to expose how a people with can have a naïve understanding of war and its possibilities when drunk on the seductive aroma of national power and splendor. In keeping with the title Paris Babylon, it is only too obvious to see in retrospect why the city of pride would fall. This is not to oversimplify circumstances and suggest that Paris’ decadence or French moral corruption caused defeat in the ensuing war, as if by some divine retribution. Rather, feeling so secure of French power, and in the control of an obviously degenerate government, France was ill prepared to face the professional Prussian army.
13. Christiansen begins Paris Babylon with a chapter entitled “Autumn Pastoral,” which beautifully sets the tone of his narrative. In the course of this introductory chapter, Christiansen says of the Second Empire, “It radiated glamour. It glittered and dazzled….The way to keep the loyalty of the French was to attract and distract their attention….” If this was the case, then Napoleon’s regime was successful in this venture. Government types and social elites glittered for the opportunity to retire to the château of Compiègne for a brief season of festivities each fall—the Autumn Pastoral of reference in the first chapter’s title. The theme of the opening chapter’s resplendent opulence shows a France keen to entertain the upper echelons of society. The following chapter, “The First Thunderclap,” caters to a different group, but to the same effect.
Circumscribing an entire chapter, “The First Thunderclap” is about a sensational murder case, and nothing more. As in “Autumn Pastoral,” Christiansen exhibits the “glitter and dazzle” of the Napoleonic government, except that the government did not have to provide this spectacle. Once the grisly murders surfaced in the media, Napoleon’s government was for quite a while free of having to “attract and distract” the public to avoid scrutiny of a faulty and decaying government and state. Additionally, Christiansen notes that the public’s utter fascination with the murder case “served as a portent of what might be to come next” as “it came at a point when the regime was painfully and silently beginning to realize that its time was up….”
Indeed, time was running out on the Second Empire. The first half of Christiansen’s book serves as a preparation for the sharp contrast in circumstances with development of ensuing events. With France boldly, if unwisely, going to war against Prussia, a full realization of the nation’s weakness would soon be forthcoming. With the coming of the war reality sets in for the first time, as French forces cannot hold the battlefield against the Prussians. As the war turns to siege, and then to the Commune, Christiansen’s early characterization of the French as fascinated with the murder case comes brings to mind a darker side of the human psyche, normally hidden away by the imposition of order. With a breaking down of order, though, a reign of chaos fell upon Paris, embodied by the bloody Commune.
14. Christiansen presents the events of the Prussian siege of Paris and the Commune as a daily chronology of events. In the process, a view develops of Parisians at first composed, in the beginning of the siege, but becoming more concerned and embattled as the siege drags on. As the prospects of lasting in the siege became increasingly futile, the republican government of Paris sought an armistice, to prevent unnecessary suffering in the city. With the announcement of the armistice, granted by Bismarck, Parisians felt betrayed by their government. Following the armistice, a representative government was to be established in Paris. Subsequent developments prompted “the spectre of a war within Paris between Parisians [making] it all the more imperative to establish the city with a credibly legitimate government.” With this concern in mind, then, it is startling to see the process by which the Commune came to power, as the inherent structure of the system favored the working classes. Compounding the problem, “as many as half a million middle-class Parisian citizens were still absent….” As a result, the Commune government, though elected, could hardly be called ideologically representative of its constituency.
Once installed, the Commune set about preparing the city’s defenses against impending attack by republican French forces. Paris, having just suffered a siege lasting 131 days, was in store for another two months of destruction. Christiansen views the Commune as a sudden reaction to historical visions and energies, given a body, form, and will to act. The ultimate purpose was to reclaim Paris for the working classes. To this end, the working classes were the Commune, as it increasingly became an outlet of repressed antipathy against the upper classes. Arrayed against this incongruous machine were the forces of the republican government, claiming legitimacy to the rule of France. After two bitter months of civil strife and war, the Commune finally fell, as the republican forces recaptured Paris. The results were horrendous, as casualties and deaths from the strife mounted. The most painful facet of the destruction was the wanton lust for revenge practiced by both sides, as both innocents and participants found death all too readily dealt by the defenders and the liberators. With the fighting over, France had to begin the process of healing. Unlike Babylon, though, Paris would be rebuilt.
15. In a book of incredible episodes, one of the most striking is the exhibition of naivete and wild bravado displayed when France declares war on Prussia. The concept of gloire had obviously superseded rational thought, as the French found in the forthcoming campaign a cause célébrer. Rather than viewing the war as a potential stumbling block, which any war can be, it was seen as an opportunity for France to flaunt her power; never did the idea of defeat enter into the collective mind. An English journalist correctly viewed the situation, saying “It is in this frivolous spirit that the nation which pretends to consider itself the most civilised in the world enters upon a war the terrible issue of which few dare trust themselves to contemplate.” Punctuating this statement was the fact that France did indeed have immediate and severe problems in the ensuing war. To think that France may have escaped this era without such bloody carnage caused by not only the war, but especially by the Commune would be to evaluate what caused the war in the first place. Blame must be affixed to France, and French pride. Perhaps more significant and, in the long run, more unfortunate than France’s failure to evaluate the sense of going to war was the failure of future governments to look back and revisit this period. Part of the reason World War I was not averted was because of such overwhelming nationalist sentiment cheering the various nations on to war. With such foolhardiness in a populace, reason will not always prevail over emotion. In this way, romanticism had not faded away, while Enlightenment remained a memory from the distant past.
16. Romanticism, as a movement reflecting personal emotion, was among the most important ideas of the nineteenth century. The freedom of personal expression allowed a person to better communicate with others by being more true to self. Instead of being compelled to always let reason dictate thoughts and actions, it was more acceptable to let emotion be the guide of action. “Enlightenment had conceived the idea of man in general….Romanticism countered with distinctive individual features….” These features spilled over into private life in the nineteenth century, at a time when the division between public and private life was becoming sharper. During the French Revolution, however, intense scrutiny of patriotism essentially disrupted the privacy of the home. As the century continued, the home became once more a place of refuge, where fathers could escape the toils of their labors and enjoy private time with family, before leaving again back into the public sector. The family itself was a central unit of society, “the basic cell of the organic social order.” The home was eminently the domain of women, expected to rear children while men worked to earn wages. These ideas bear the common thread of nineteenth century thoughts on private life. Navigating through a century of instability, the family and the home remained a solid foundation of life.
17. With the stark division between the public and private domains of men and women in the nineteenth century, it is interesting to note that while men and women were both working, they did not work together. A man, in his public jobs and functions, worked alongside other men, and a woman, performing her duties in the home, worked with other women. An illustration of this point provides a strange commentary on contemporary society, and begs the question “why” this permanent division existed. An assertion that “the biological construction of the male and female expressed their different human destinies” clearly reflects a stance supporting contemporary gender roles. Using religion as a basis for the argument, the proponents of this view may as well have used any kind of logical fallacy to explain away the established gender roles. Using religion as an argument today is clearly not viable, and religion has not changed much in the last few centuries. Instead, perceptions change. Fortunately, as in cases here regarding gender roles, perceptions have changed for the better.
18. As the central unit of life, the family is vital to understanding nineteenth century culture and society. It is largely from the family that children develop a sense of self. In so doing, the child receives an inculcation of prevailing social mores and norms, as the members of the family raising the child were presumably affected similarly by their environments as they grew up. In gaining a preliminary sense of society, a growing child begins to develop and grow into his or her surrounding culture. This means absorbing and responding to the values that comprise the structures of culture and society. In the context of the nineteenth century, this necessitated subscribing to normative social behavior, which was, in turn, largely determined by gender. As gender determined a person’s sphere in society, the exposure a child would receive to the larger social community would depend on his or her gender. Thus, a son would be groomed to someday enter the public sphere as a member of the work force, or a daughter would remain in the home, learning the domestic trades fitting of a wife. In industrial Europe, these structures were much more rigid than they had been in pre-industrial times, when men and women had worked in closer contact. In general, the effects of the industrial age on nineteenth century society were to change the duties of the family unit, as individual members of the family met new responsibilities and domains; and as a collective group, as the entire family adjusted to a changed social and cultural environment.
19. As an aspiring student of both the French language and Revolution, it is interesting to review the brief section regarding how the French language was changing during the Revolution. In keeping with the Jacobin theme of unity, the idea developed to address people with the familiar, personal form of “you,” tu. Although not required by the revolutionary government, using tu rather than the more formal vous was a symbolic gesture toward upholding fraternité with one’s comrades. Another development, much more scandalous to the French, was the practice of using vulgarity in public press. The purpose was to achieve a stronger effect when writing about a particularly dastardly topic, such as the queen, Marie-Antoinette. “The Austrian tigress was regarded in every court as the most miserable prostitute in France….” The particular torrent from which this excerpt comes continues to embattle the Queen’s good image to the point of “[portraying her] as the inversion of everything a woman was supposed to be: a wild animal rather than a civilizing force; a prostitute rather than a wife; a monster, rather than a mother.” Finally, some French developed new caveats to language. For instance, members of the military clique could converse using words of their own promulgation, as when referring to a German enemy as “une tête de choucroute,” or to the English as “le goddam.” In both of these cases, the changes of the contemporary social environment corresponded with changes in spoken language, with the effect of adding a subtle (or unsubtle) emphasis on ideas one might seek to voice.