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WALLACE KATZ
But in the case of France, this general aristocratic reaction was something
of a farce--a dangerous farce, but a farce nonetheless-because in France
royal absolutism, or anything vaguely approaching it, was merely a fiction.
Everywhere els"e in Europe after 1760 autocratic monarchs, assisted by
imaginative and forceful ministers, were reforming and modernizing their
states from above. Hence the reaction of the traditional privileged classes
-the aristocracy and the clergy- who quite naturally saw in the strength–
ening of the central royal power a threat to their own "liberties" and
regional autonomy. In France, however, the aristocratic reaction is the
consequence not of royal power but of royal in·eptitude and weakness–
the French monarchy had by the end of the eighteenth century brought
France to bankruptcy and nearly reduced her to a second-rate power.
The fact is that the French Revolution was made necessary by a situa–
tion which has no analogy elsewhere--the increasing inability of th'e
French monarchy, from about the second half of Louis XIV's reign, to
govern effectively. Hence no mere "revolt," but a real "Revolution"-a
radical transformation of the entire political and social order-was in
the cards for France: for any honest attempt at reform, no matter how
initially moderate in nature, would have sooner or later to direct its
energies against the very keystone of the
ancien regime- the
"absolute"
monarchy itself.
The development of the Revolution in France follows from this.
In its first phase, as is well-known, the Revolution was characterized by
moderation. It was only when Louis XVI, acting perfectly in character,
tried to flee from France in June, 1791, that the moderate course of the
Revolution was abandoned and a more radical direction gradually
began to take shape. The first effect of the king's flight was to assure
his own eventual demise and that of the monarchy as an institution as
well: his action demonstrated that the continued existence of the
monarchy in France was incompatible with the aims of the Revolution,
with its demand's either for social and political reform or for effective
government. Moreover, in fleeing from France, the king served notice
to his fellow monarchs that he had refused to accept th'e Revolution
and that he trusted to them to help him destroy it. In tum, the flight
of the king, and the overnight
popular,
disenchantment with the monarchy
that followed it, discredited the more moderate revolutionists who had
supported the king, thereby opening the way for a new, more radical
leadership of the Revolution.
It was, of course, with the War of 1792 that the Revolution ex–
tended itself beyond the frontiers of France. Yet this is not to say, as
Palmer does, that "with the war, a specifically French Revolution was
merged into a more general Revolution of Western Civilization." The
