AND MODERNPOLITICS :I.. W f he contours of the monarchy or oligarchy. Rather it was to modern world have been be the servant, the property of the defined essentially by people, the guarantor of the rights and two eighteenth century liberties of citizens rather than the departures from trad- regulator of subjects. The redefinition ition. The first, and without doubt the turned on the Revolution's reversal of farthest reaching of the two, was the so- sovereignty. In principle, at any rate, it called Industrial Revolution, which was the people who embodied heralded a gradual but irresistible shift to sovereignty, not the prince or monarch. a new mode of economic production The Declaration of the Rights of Man and characterised by apparently unlimited of the Citizen, promulgated in August, gowth, constant change as opposed to 1789, makes this quite clear in its stability, mass production and mass preamble, reminding us that the markets, the unprecedented growth of decisions and actions of legislators and urban society and the creation of the now administrators, the purpose of all familiar capitalist and wage-earning political institutions should conform to classes with their distinct and generally the basic principles of safeguarding the mutually hostile goals. inalienable and natural rights of man. It However, if we wish to grasp the followed from this redefinition of the origins of modern politics, the source of relationship of the citizen to the state that so many of our modern political all public offices should be filled by ideologies, it is to the second upheaval, elected citizens. who should then be the ~renchRevolution, that we must accountable for their actions. Certainly, at turn. For the turbulent 1790s in France different times during the Revolution, did not, indeed could not affect that Jean-JacquesRonsseau. different groups interpreted the elective country alone. The Revolution, through principle and the notion of accountability its ideals, slogans and transformations, briefly, some of the more important variously - the very restricted franchise particularly those exported after war legacies of the Revolution, whose two of the men of 1789 came under fire from broke out in 1792, left an indelible mark hundredth anniversary is commem- the popular strata who were excluded, on most parts of Europe. Try as they orated this year. but these 'took their revenge' in 1793 by might, committed opponents of the In the first place, the French enforcing daily accountability on their Revolution failed to eradicate its traces, Revolution marked a radical departure elected representatives, at thelocal level as the political history of the nineteenth from the past in its redefinition of the at least. Even at the height of the 'Terror', century demonstrates with such clarity It state. No longer was the state to be that period of war dictatorship, the war is the purpose of this article to indicate, instrument of control in the service of a cabinets, the Committees of Public Safety A Versailles, A Versailles'- an engraving of the famous women's march of October, 1789, to demand bread; a practical piece of feminine direct action. Desmoulins brandishingpistols as he addresses the crowd outside the Palais-Royal. and General Security, had to have their personally or through their repres- do the same? Freedom was not restricted remit renewed every ten days by the entatives in its formulation'. to France. National Convention, the elected Personal liberty was also at the heart If the early phase of the Revolution representatives of the people. And it is of the Revolution's work. Here we see an was concerned with freedom and rights worth remembering that the Convention understandable reaction to the arbitrary of the citizen, war, self-inflicted in 1792, was able to topple Robespierre and his and repressive denials of what we would led to an extension of the role of the state associates when it became convinced that now deem to be basic human rights: once again. More than one commentator his policies were no longer appropriate. freedom of worship, freedom of thought, has seen in the First French Republic's The notion of popular sovereignty freedom of speech. The Revolution's war effort the orieinsV of modern was itself based on the most fundamental basic definition of freedom was totalitarianism, the subordination of the The 1 principle enunciated by the revolu- utilitarian and expressed in the individual's rights to the claims of the ? tionaries, the belief that 'men are born Declaration of the Rights of Man as state in a manner much more com- I and remain free and equal in rights' 'being able to undertake anything as long prehensive than any anci~nregime state desire , (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of as it does not harm others'. It was up to could have contemplated. Defence of the or her r the Citizen, article one). The notion that the law to ensure that one citizen's liberty Republic led to the mobilisation of the or alle man might be a citizen and might have did not curtail the natural rights of entire population in the war effort. It led freedof rights as well as obligations was a another citizen. These basic liberties did to rationing and to the Terror - the the na? dramatic shift of emphasis to a position make a significant difference. Men had enforced acquiescence of the population modei that we now take for granted. When the right to think differently than their in the national struggle on pain of havini taken in conjunction with the destruction landlords or employers, at least in law; ostracization, confiscation of property, traditif ot privilege announced on the night of 4 Jews and Protestants had the right to imprisonment and finally death. The or the! August, 1789, and defined on 11 August worship freely and publicly - no small concept of the sovereignty of the people from r somewhat less liberally, this proc- change given the forme$ monopoly of the was never lost, but the way in which it require lamation of equal and inalienable rights Roman Catholic church on religious was interpreted points very plainly to the the in was the cornerstone of the French matters, and the minimal concession of Bolshevik concept of the dictatorship of constit Revolution, and was a truly revolu- tolerance of the Protestant denomin- the proletariat in the sense that Cl0 tionary proposition as far as the nature of ations embodied in the 1787 Edict of democracy was set aside during a people politics was concerned. From it stemmed Toleration after a century of official crucial, transitional period, and effective politic1 logically the modern tradition of mass intolerance of ~rotestantism: leadership was entrusted to an elite respec politics and advancement based solely It is of great importance to note that which combined expediency with birth 4 on merit, of one legal system to be the rights and liberties set out in the ideology and justified its action in the nation' applied to all and open to all. During the declarations and decrees of the National name of the people. Or, in more general, doctrif course of the Revolution, the latter Assembly had a universal import. The but similar twentieth-century terms, one revold consequence, that of one law for all, revolutionaries were not talking about might see in the rule of the committees of inspij proved more acceptable to many than the rights of the Frenchman or of the the French Republic the prototype of demad did the notion of political democracy, French citizen. The 'lessons' of 1789 and modern war cabinets and dictatorships or nay although circumstances imposed this the ideals of the Revolution were which all place national salvation abo;e themsl from 1792 to 1795, and it was no more universal. This is what made the French thehmn%i rights and freedoms of the the R4 than a reasonable interpretation of article Revolution a European affair from the individual. natio! six of the Declaration of the Rights of very beginning. If the French could In these terms, the French Revolution loyalf Man which stated that 'The lwis the establish a political system based on the embodies all the ambiguities inherent in Revoll expression of the general will. All rights of man and on popular the relationship between the individual gened citizens have the right to participate sovereignty, why could other peoples not and the state in the modern world - the subs4 The most famous National Guardsmen were the volunteers from Marseilles who marched on Paris singing their famous song, the 'Marseillaise', which had been composed by Rouget de L7sle. A song-sheet illustrates the scene. desire of the individual to maximise his thought. Anyone who accepted liberty most compelling force in political life in or her freedom, and the need, perceived and popular sovereignty as the highest most parts of the world. or alleged, of the state to limit that values could style himself a French It should be said that the French freedom in the name of class interest or citizen - hence the citizenship conferred Revolution did not proceed according to the national interest, both of which are on Tom Paine, Priestly and Wolfe Tone. a preconceived plan. We should modern, ideologically based concepts There was none of the cultural, linguistic remember that it began as a reform having little or nothing to do with or racial exclusiveness associated with movement. Certainly, the reformers had traditional interests like dynastic claims many subsequent brands of nationalism. political ideals, but rarely did or the whims of rulers, and which, far It must also be said that the circumstances allow them to apply the from resulting from arbitrary decisions, Revolution promoted nationalism quite ideals in a thorough manner, or even to require the force of duly passed laws or unwittingly as German$ Dutch, Belgians hammer out the practical consequences the invocation of ideology and/or and Spaniards began to feel the presence of the ideals they proclaimed freely in the constitutional provisions.