SUSAN DUNN
AND
ROBERT F. DALZELL, JR.
Revolutionary Myths
in France and America
In 1989 the world was treated to elaborate celebrations of two historical
events, both presumed to be of towering significance. In this country the
bicentenary of George Washington's inauguration as President - and
hence the commencement of government under the Constitution of
1787 - was marked by a full-dress reenactment of the ceremony itself, re–
plete with quantities of apt commentary, and in France the stupendous
commemoration of the start of the French Revolution came and went.
Though hardly for the first time, the jostling together of these celebra–
tions in a single year raised some tantalizing questions about the compa–
rability of the American and French Revolutions. As events, what, if
anything, did they have in common? And what of their legacies? What
vision, what enduring symbols, were future generations in each country
able to draw from the experience of revolution? With today's news once
again full of talk of "revolution," some answers to these questions may
indeed be useful - as antidotes, if nothing else.
Certainly on the face of it - as Americans are apt to note with a
distinct air of self-congratulation - the American and French Revolutions
could not have been more different. One conceived politics as rational
debate and compromise, the other as the decapitation of adversaries: one
was followed by decades of political stability, the other by a turbulent
succession of empires, restorations, and failed republics. Moreover the
myths created by the two revolutions mirrored those differences. Even
before he was chosen President, George Washington stood as an exem–
plary figure whose idealized character provided a compelling model of
integrity, duty, and responsibility. The operative myth in revolutionary
France, on the other hand, quickly became the cult of unrestrained
vengeance - a new absolute in a country long accustomed to absolutism.
Yet despite the obvious differences, there remained important simi–
larities. Both revolutions were products of the Enlightenment, and nei–
ther - finally - produced a viable political settlement. Although it seems
clear in the French case that any hope for political stability was doomed
by a mythology of vengeance, we sometimes forget that the American
Revolution also failed to secure the nation on an enduring foundation .
Even the admirable and inspiring myth of George Washington was not
infinitely malleable. By the middle of the nineteenth century the institu–
tion of slavery had produced a moral and political crisis in the United
