10. ENLIGHTENMENT ... AND REVOLUTION

"REVOLUTION"

The French Revolution (Mid-1770s to the
        Early 1780s)

Napoleon Bonaparte

The American and French Revolutions
        compared

The textual material on page below is drawn directly from my work A Moral History of Western Society © 2024, Volume One, pages 401-415.

The monarchical principle in trouble When Prussia's popular King Frederick II (the Great) blocked an Austrian attempt to retake Silesia with his own surprise attack on Austria's ally, Saxony – and then treated high-handedly the Polish-Saxon royal family (directly connected to Louis XV of France) in their defeat – European nobility (and even French commoners) were outraged.  This was not how royalty were to be treated. But in fact, royal absolutism was beginning to slip.  Questions were now being raised on the European continent about the divine rights of kings.  As humanist rationalism blossomed among Europe's intellectuals and aristocrats, the very idea of God-given authority certainly found itself losing its compelling qualities.  If divine rights lost its grip on the minds and hearts of Europeans, what then, morally speaking, justified all this royal absolutism?  Indeed, the Enlightenment had unleashed all sorts of philosophical conversations about reforming European governments in order to make them more rational, more "enlightened."  The debacle of the French role in the Seven Years' War, plus the shocking state of the French king's finances, plus rumors about the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, and her role in the rapid turnover of the King's advisors, all became topics of conversation by intellectuals and noblemen (female as well as male) who gathered in the "salons" of fashionable French homes to discuss the decaying state of French society.  But the conversations could also be heard in the streets of Paris by commoners, who raised many of the same questions. George III's royalist absolutism During the course of the recent war George II died (1760) and his place was taken by his 22-year-old grandson George III.  However this George was not a German ... but was fully English (he never even visited his estates in Hanover).  He was very well educated or "Enlightened" in his youth ... and was tightly disciplined by his mother, who took the responsibility of making sure that her son would some day be every bit the absolutist king (that the first two Georges were not!) that the Bourbon family of France modeled for the rest of Europe's royalty.  For the American colonies, who under the first two Georges had been left largely alone to conduct their own political and economic affairs, George III's efforts to live up to his mother's expectations of him as an absolutist king would soon enough fuel the fires of full rebellion. Taxation without representation Because of the Seven-Years' War, George III's debt had nearly doubled in size and he needed new taxes to replenish his royal treasury.  His thinking was that the colonies had benefitted from his military action in America and therefore they should pay up ... without considering that they had carried much of the burden of the action themselves without compensation.  Worse he simply imposed new taxes without first consulting the colonial tax payers themselves – in direct violation of an ancient right of all Englishmen to be consulted first.  The Whigs in the English Parliament were sympathetic to the colonials when they began to object loudly; the Tories however supported the King's rather autocratic move.  And at this point George was relying principally to his Tory supporters.  Growing conflict Also, the King began to take the attitude that the colonials were far too independent-minded and needed in principle to be shown who now was in charge (unlike his immediate predecessors).  Thus the King sent soldiers to America to protect the tax collectors ... to which the citizens of Boston reacted by dumping tea into the Boston harbor (1773).3  George countered (1774) by shutting down the port of Boston and forcing their citizens to house the often unruly soldiers ... to break their spirit.  Then he moved to make good on his promise to France to outlaw the further expansion of colonial settlements westward so that the Catholic French could place their own settlements there.  Also there were the rumors that he was going to bring the independent congregations of Protestant America under episcopal authority (rule by bishops) ... and thus under his direct control as head of the English Church.   War Finally war started (1775) when he sent his troops by night to seize the gunpowder stored in Concord ... producing actual s hooting on both sides (which the British received the worst of).  When colonial troops then gathered in the heights above Boston the English counterattacked and finally after much loss of life (twice the numbers on the British side) the colonials withdrew ... returning that winter but this time with cannon in the heights around British-held Boston.  The British then wisely vacated Boston ... never to return. That next summer (1776) the colonials made formal what was clearly evident in their behavior:  they considered themselves a fully independent people.  It was a daring move.  The Dutch had performed this same feat ... but it had taken them some 80 years (1568-1648) of agonizing war to carry off their own independence.  The colonials were considered in comparison to the sophisticated Dutch a rather boorish people.  The English expected the crushing of this rebellion to be short work.  Other Europeans stood by wondering.  The French join the action But the wondering ceased when in 1777 the colonials destroyed a British army of 6,000 men at Saratoga.  France now joined the war on the American side ... the recently crowned French King Louis XVI more than happy to make whatever trouble he could for British King George III. The impact on French thinking Thus the new conflict began to take shape the way dynastic conflict typically did ... except that Louis had no idea of what he was getting involved with.  The idea of a subject people rising in rebellion against their king was not a principle he should have been supporting ... no matter how much trouble it brought France's traditional royal enemy England.  His soldiers who served in America would certainly become infected with the idea that the people had political rights of their own ... and that it was okay for them to break free from their sovereign king when they possessed the moral right to do so.  Considering that the Enlightenment conversations in the French salons were already bringing up such questions as the right and wrong of politics, the American rebellion was likely to prove toxic to French politics.  And indeed it did. American victory With key French help in the huge British defeat at Yorktown (1781), the colonials finally broke the last of the English will to continue the conflict ... and the English sued for peace.  The Americans had done it ... secured their independence from royal rule in basically five (but very hard) years! For more (much more) on  America's War of Independence 3Actually the reaction was not only about taxes but also about the fact that the King was subsidizing the earnings of the struggling British East India Company ... forcing the colonies to buy their tea when in fact Dutch tea was much cheaper. Bostonians reacting to the Stamp Tax Library of Congres The Boston Tea Party - December 16, 1773 (actually a night-time caper!) Museum of the City of New York The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill) - June 1775 - by John Trumbull Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Alexander Hamilton's American Troops overrun the English Redoubt-10 at Yorktown  -  October 14, 1781 Virginia State Capitol The uniting of the thirteen new states as a federation In coming together to fight George III's aggressions, the inhabitants of the English colonies in America had certainly thought of themselves quite seriously as "Americans."  Otherwise they still typically saw themselves as Georgians, Virginians, New Yorkers, etc.   Thus when the English armies were finally sent back to England at war's end, they proceeded to look to the development of their former colonies as newly independent states, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, South Carolina, etc.  Despite a continuance of the Confederation that had held them together during the recent war, the lack of a continuing common cause had demonstrated the weaknesses built into this union. Thus they were beginning to compete diplomatically and economically with each other in their ongoing relations with the Old World of Europe.  They were even erecting trade barriers against each other's products in the hope of encouraging the development of the industry and commerce of their particular state.   Those who had given so much of themselves during the war now grew alarmed at where this new narrow view of patriotism was taking them.  Not only was this hurting the Americans financially, but their disunity could give opportunity to one of the major European powers (Spain, France or even England) to come and force them back into colonial status.4  Particularly now choosing to work independently of each other, any one of these small states would be an easy pickoff by the more powerful European monarchs. Thus delegates from twelve states (Rhode Island refused to participate)  gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to put together some kind of a stronger constitutional union that would face them outward in common defense ... and inward with an agreement to do away with these trade barriers they had been erecting.   But many were suspicious of a central power (they had just fought off the power of the English King and Parliament) and would come to support the idea of a union only under the promise of a number of guarantees that this federal union would not compromise the powers of the states ... and the people themselves.  Thus a promise was made to add a Bill of Rights to the Constitution as soon as it was ratified and a new government formed under its provisions. The Constitution itself provided for a system of power distribution that would use the natural human tendency of those in power to want to accumulate even more power ... to have that tendency offset by other parts of the governing system acting in the same way.  This system was well recognized at the time (thanks to the writings of the French political philosopher Montesquieu who had studied carefully the mechanics of the British government) and was termed the "checks-and-balances" system.  Law-making powers were assigned to a Congress of two Houses, a Senate representing the States and a House of Representatives representing the citizen voters.  But the legislative powers of Congress were carefully limited to only those outlined in the Constitution itself.  A President was designated as the chief executive officer (and head of the military and the diplomatic corps) whose job was to oversee the implementation of the laws made by Congress.  And a federal judiciary was designated to try cases coming under constitutional law.  All other powers, most particularly the laws that guided the daily affairs of the American people were (by the Bill of Rights) reserved to the States ... and to the people themselves.  Thus the Constitution provided for a limited government to protect the unity of the individual states ... and little more than that lest it should want to take upon itself ever wider powers.  It was understood that sovereignty remained with the people and the states.   Whether or not this system would continue to work as originally intended would ultimately depend on the people themselves.  The historical record for popular vigilance in this regard was not good.  Thus when Benjamin Franklin was asked at the end of the meetings that had been held in secret as to what kind of government they had come up with his answer was: "a Republic ... if you can keep it."5 For more (much more) on The Birth of the American Republic 4Treaties in those days were indications only of a pause in a conflict ... not its resolution.  Treaties were made and unmade in rapid succession.  Thus the Treaty of Paris recognizing American independence by the British could be broken at any time the British noticed a weakness among any of the American states. 5Note:  of critical importance.  Keeping those powers separate and not having them come – by human instinct itself – into the hands of a smaller and more powerful group of authorities has been very difficult, even in America, where the national authority has slowly stripped state and local authorities of much their power, where federal judicial authority (most notably the Supreme Court) has taken on greater legislative powers than Congress, and where the president employs executive power solely in accordance with his own personal tastes … and through extensive bureaucratic control of the nation's life – control that Congress seems unable (or unwilling) to check. Signing the Constitution of the United States - by Howard Chandler Christy Architect of the Capitol THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789-1799) Supporting the war in America of course had only worsened the situation for the French royal treasury (once again!).  Taxes would have to be raised.  And because both the Church and the nobility were exempted from taxation, this would all fall on the French tax-paying commoners (the moneyed middle class), who were already heavily burdened with taxes.  Discussions about revising the tax system led nowhere.  Eventually the discussion moved to the idea of taxing the nobility ... gaining opposition from that quarter... but merely highlighting all the more the privileges of the nobility versus the burdens of the commoners.  At this point (May 1789) Louis XVI was forced to turn to the Estates-General (a French National Assembly representing all three estates of: church, nobility and commoners).  Because of the practice of royal absolutism, this august body had not been convened by a French king since 1614.  With this call to assemble, French politics exploded. It was apparent from the beginning that the Third Estate (commoners) was going to dominate the proceedings ... and had a number of economic and political reforms they were demanding to be put in place or they would not be willing to cooperate with the King.  Seeing the calling of the Estates-General as a mistake, Louis then tried to shut down the assembly (June), only to have the members of the Third Estate move to a nearby tennis court, and there swear an oath to not leave until a new constitution was granted by the king.6  Indecisive behavior by the King, the arrival of troops to Paris, and all sorts of rumors circulating around the streets of Paris,  set off rioting and looting culminating in the storming of the Bastille castle (July) and the complete breakdown of royal authority when the King's troops began to side with the Paris mob of sans culottes (workers who wore trousers rather than knee-length silk breeches or culottes). At this point the Third Estate was now meeting as the "National Constituent Assembly," working on a new Constitution for France, which included the ending of all the privileges of the Church and the nobility.  Frenchmen of all classes now stood equally before the law, stated clearly in the new Declaration of the Rights of Man (August).  In one stroke, French feudalism had come to an end.    Some noblemen were willing to go along with the new France.  But many (émigrés) showed their opposition by fleeing to other countries ... and appealing to the rest of European nobility to form a counter-revolution in order to restore the nobility's ancient feudal rights in France.  This merely put all the nobility (and upper-level Church authority) in the eyes of the new French "citizen" under suspicion of treason.  Then when the King himself attempted to escape France (June 1791) and was caught at the border, he was returned to Paris now also under similar suspicion. The target of reform was not only the old royal-feudal structure of France but also the Church organization that had long supplied it its legitimacy.  Church property was turned over to the Assembly, which then sold the land in order to raise needed revenues.  Clergy now became civil employees paid by the State, required to swear loyalty to the State rather than the Pope.  Most clergy refused and were treated as traitors. The Constitution was finally approved in September of 1791, providing for a constitutional monarchy:  a single legislative body (basically the National Assembly), a monarch with limited veto powers, and an independent judiciary.  But it was short-lived ... as the King used his remaining powers to protect priests who had refused the oath of loyalty to France rather than the Pope.  He was also accused of showing little interest in organizing a national army to protect France from the larger reaction against the Revolution by the surrounding powers.   Thus when French action against the Austrians and then the Prussians proved dispirited and unsuccessful, the blame fell on the King. 6Certainly influencing French thinking along these lines was the coming into full effect of the new American Constitution, when just a couple of months earlier (April) Washington was sworn in as the new American President. Versailles Palace in the period just prior to the French Revolution Musee de Versailles - Giraudon Sketch by Jacques-Louis David of the Tennis Court Oath (French:  serment de jeu de paume) A pledge signed by 567 of the 577 members of the French Third Estate (and a few members of the Second Estate) on June 20, 1789 at a tennis court near the Palace of Versailles.  They had regrouped themselves as the National Assembly after being dismissed from the gathering of the Estates-General -- and swore that they would not leave until a new constitution was granted by the King (the artist Jacques-Louis David later became a deputy in the National Convention in 1792). Jean-Pierre Houël (1735-1813) - Prise de la Bastille ("The Storming of the Bastille") The Return of French King Louis 16 to Paris - June 25, 1791 - colored copperplate by Jean Duplessi-Bertaux after a drawing of Jean-Louis Prieur The insurrection The Assembly now seemed to be given over to increasingly radical voices calling for the King's abdication.  At the same time anti-Revolutionary sentiment seemed to be spreading in the conservative (and still quite pro-Catholic) countryside ... especially the Vendée ... adding to the nervousness of Paris.  Finally in August of 1792 a bloody Paris insurrection exploded and the indecisive King lost the last of his powers ... and was arrested and imprisoned.  At this point the Assembly (heavily represented by lawyers) also lost its powers, as Paris came under the control of local committees made up of a variety of radicals, some of even a working-class background.  The Storming of the Tuileries Palace by members of the Paris Commune, August 10, 1792 - by Jacques Bertaux Palace of Versailles The Convention Elections were then called (with all adult male Frenchmen voting) to send representatives to a new constitutional Convention.  When it met in September it decreed the end to the monarchy, the beginning of the French (First) Republic, and a new non-Christian calendar beginning at year 1 (1792). The King is guillotined The Girondins, led by the more pragmatic Georges Danton, were less radical than the Jacobins.  The Girondins were less interested in bringing the King to trial than in keeping the Paris Commune from totally dominating all aspects of the French Revolution. The Jacobins, led by the Idealist Maximilien Robespierre – and which interestingly included in their ranks a number of noblemen, including even the King's cousin Louis Philippe – reflecting Paris radicalism, were in favor of the King's death.  A vote in early 1793 on the matter split the Convention, with the Jacobins (and some Girondins) gaining a small majority.  Thus the King was executed at the guillotine like a mere commoner three days later. It was shocking.  A king had been executed by his own people. But this merely marked the beginning of the Republic's struggle to find some semblance of political structure.  With the King out of the way, Girondins and Jacobins turned on each other.  Robespierre's Jacobins accused Danton's Girondins of conspiracy to betray the Revolution ... with every attempt to answer the accusations making the Girondins look all the more guilty.  The Paris mob now was at the door, demanding the expulsion of the traitors (the Girondins).  Twenty-nine Girondin leaders were arrested and carried off.  The Girondin party was devastated (summer 1793). . The execution of Louis XVI, January 21, 1793 The Republican Constitution (1793) The way was clear now for the finishing of the new Constitution.  The preamble was even more utopian than the earlier Declaration of Human Rights.  Not only was freedom of speech and press and equality of all before the law guaranteed, the Declaration proclaimed that all French had the right to education, to work, to receive public assistance, even to rise in rebellion if the government failed to deliver on these rights. Even though the Constitution provided for a Legislative Assembly, since the days of the Convention the real work had been performed through a series of committees, the most important of which was the Committee of General Security (searched for enemies of the Revolution to bring to "justice").  With the creation of the Republic that function was then taken over by the Committee of Public Safety. Georges-Jacques Danton All executive power was conferred upon a Committee of Public Safety (6 April 1793) made up of 9 members, of which Danton was one.  However he himself was executed April 5, 1794. Maximilien Robespierre, 1758-1794 It was Robespierre's belief that political terror and virtue were of necessity inseparable.  "If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country. … The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."  "On the Principles of Political Morality" (1794). Jean-Paul Marat A radical journalist, publisher of L'Ami du peuple, who strongly supported of the September 1792 massacres and, in compiling his "dealth lists," was a strong encourager of what was to eventually become the Reign of Terror ... though he himself was stabbed to death in his bathtub by self-proclaimed Girondist Charlotte Corday on July 13, 1793, just prior to the startup of the Terror. Charlotte Corday and Jean-Paul Marat Repulsed by the massacre of September 1792 that Marat had encouraged, she came to his house ostensibly to report on a Girondist plot and give Marat names for his death list.  But she stabbed him -- and was quickly apprehended and guillotined several days later.  This became a major contributing event to the Reign of Terror as the Jacobins began their massacre of Girondists and other "enemies" of the Revolution. Jacques-Louis David – Death of Marat (1793) oil on canvas Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts Marie-Jeanne Roland de la Platière (1754 - 1793) by Adelaide Labille-Guiard - 1787 Her salon in Paris had earlier become the rendezvous of Brissot, Pétion, Robespierre and other leaders of the Revolution; but when she and her husband became critiques of the cruel excesses of the Terror, she fell from favor with the radical Montagnards or Jacobins (Danton and Robespierre).  She was executed November 8, 1793. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet - French mathematician and philosopher Condorcet wrote Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain while in hiding (October 1793 - March 1794) from the Jacobins.  He was arrested and died of poisoning in prison.  His book was published the following year by his wife. The "Reign of Terror" (1793-1794) In October, trials of the enemies of the Revolution began in earnest.  The Queen was guillotined, then much of the Girondin leadership as well.  As arrests began to become more widely sweeping through French society, the Committee of Public Safety, now headed by Robespierre, became more absolute in its control.  Indeed, by the end of 1793 Robespierre was the virtual dictator of Republican France. Not only did the Paris guillotine work overtime to kill thousands of enemies of the Revolution, the French army found itself busy in the French countryside putting down anti-Revolutionary rebellions.  Worst was in the Vendée where the army conducted something akin to genocide in bringing the people of that province into submission.  Estimates of those who died in the Vendée range from a quarter to over a half of the population of 800,000. By the next summer (1794) the Revolutionary Tribunal was at its most active in trying and executing the Republic's enemies at home.  The Jacobins were persuaded that only terror could shake the people's feudal Catholic mindset and free them to rise fully to the rule of human "Reason." Indeed, the Cult of Reason was intentionally set forth as the new state-sponsored atheistic worldview (or religion), designed to replace France's long-standing Catholic foundations.  As such, "Reason" was required of all those true to French Republicanism.  Thus it was that in November of 1793, at the height of the Reign of Terror, churches across France were forcibly transformed into Temples of Reason, including most importantly Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral – where a huge procession followed a newly appointed "Goddess of Reason" and her white-clad girls into the cathedral and placed her on the altar to be worshiped.  This worship of "Human Reason" in turn merely stirred more deeply the radical instincts of those most dedicated to the "social cleansing" taking place in Paris and across much of France. The Reign of Terror as the French revolutionaries turn on each other - 1793-1794 The Goddess "Reason" is carried to the Notre Dame Cathedral - 10 November, 1793 But the public mood itself was now beginning to turn against all this social terror, a terror that Robespierre praised as the hallmark of true Republican Revolution.  When in July (1794) 16 nuns went singing to the Paris guillotine for the crime of choosing to remain nuns, things took a turn for Robespierre.  Political jealousy within the Committee of Public Safety also motivated his arrest (end of July) ... and execution the next day.   With the downfall of Robespierre (and other Jacobin leaders) the Committee of Public Safety lost influence ... and eventually the use of the word "terror" itself became a crime.  The Thermidorian Reaction had set it. Robespierre is himself executed - July 27, 1794 Closing of the Jacobin Club, during the night of 27-28 July 1794, or 9-10 Thermidor, year 2 of the Republic Print by Claude Nicolas Malapeau (1755-1803) after an etching by Jean Duplessi-Bertaux (1747-1819) The Directory (1795-1799) Surviving Girondists now took charge, wrote a new constitution and put it before the people, who approved it overwhelmingly.  The new constitution provided for a bi-cameral legislature and a five-man executive committee, termed the Directory.  Unfortunately for France this executive scheme proved largely unworkable (in part also because of the poor level of political talent among the directors).  The Directory tried to step back from the excesses of the Revolution ... and was able to do so only because politically the country was exhausted.  But these were shaky foundations.  Besides, the French government still had not solved the problem of an empty state treasury ... and the economy in general was in very bad shape.  And corruption was a problem the new government seemed unable to overcome. The French army The major difference between the French army and those of its enemies was that the French army, by the end of 1792, was made up of masses of conscripted or drafted commoners ... literally hundreds of thousands of new "citizens" called on to defend their Republic ... whereas the armies of their adversaries tended to be paid soldiers, forming smaller armies limited in size by the size of the treasury of their royal employers.  Also the French developed the use of different services in tactical support of each other, particularly the use of artillery in support of the infantry (and of course cavalry for the same purpose).  Particularly skillful in this regard was a young artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte ... who would soon distinguish himself as an excellent tactician. Advance against other European powers The French found some degree of sympathy for the Republican cause in other parts of Europe ... in particular among the Dutch, who in 1795 set up (with the help of the French army) a new Batavian Republic – something of a sister republic of France's.  Also Prussia turned the west bank of the Rhine over to France ... in order to concentrate on its war with Poland.  Spain was pacified (1795).  Then Napoleon advanced into northern Italy, defeating both Italian and Austrian efforts to block his advance (1796-1797).  From Italy he headed north to attack Austria, which soon called for a peace that recognized the various expansions of the French borders (1797).  Napoleon was a fast-rising name in France. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Rise to prominence Napoleon had first distinguished himself by firing his cannons on royalist uprising in Paris (1795) attempting to overthrow the new Directory.  This earned him (age 26) his appointment by the Directory as General of the Army of Italy... which he honored with his subsequent victories in Italy (against principally the Austrians and the northern Italian states they dominated).  As a national hero he was able to cultivate political supporters within the Directory in Paris ... making the Directory increasingly dependent on him personally. The Egyptian campaign Finding that the French navy was not ready for a direct assault on Britain, Napoleon decided to take the war to the Middle East in order to seize for France Britain's vital trade route to India.  At first (1798) he scored an easy victory against the Mamluk's Egyptian Army.  But Lord Nelson's British fleet soon showed up, destroyed Napoleon's French fleet, and ended any idea of France controlling the vital trade route to India.  But Napoleon pushed on from Egypt to Syria anyway (early 1799) ... into a world of hunger, disease (the plague) and brutality – devastating his troops as well as the local population. Consul (or dictator) 1799 Hearing of mounting political confusion (and growing unpopularity of the Directory) back in France – and finding no further opportunities for glory in the Middle East – Napoleon decided to return to Paris.  Upon his arrival (oddly enough, to a hero's welcome) he shut down the Council of Five Hundred and the Directorate, and named himself Consul of France ... confirmed in a new French constitution which in turn received in a national plebiscite almost total approval (a rather suspicious tally of 3 million in favor, only 1500 opposed). Emperor (1804) There were numerous attempts to unseat, even at one point to assassinate, Napoleon ... and he used one such incident to move (with another highly approving plebiscite) to make himself "Emperor of France" ... with the rights of succession to the title on the part of any of his personal heirs.  And so with the Pope in attendance, Napoleon had himself crowned French Emperor in December of 1804.  He thus re-established in France the ancient principle of monarchy, with himself as an imperial monarch.  The First French Empire was thus born. Reforms In so many ways Napoleon brought France into modern culture.  Besides modern military strategies, he introduced a new legal code – one which would outlive him as a model followed not only in France but widely in Europe (particularly in those countries where Bonapartist rule once held sway) and even in many other parts of the world. It replaced the complex mix of feudal customs with precise written rules applied equally to all citizens regardless of social rank.  He reorganized the administration of France, ending its confusing maze of feudal districts, instead dividing France into 80 départements of more or less equal size, governed by prefects which he himself appointed, thus tightening Paris's control over the rest of France ... and giving it a truly national or French identity in replacement of the regional loyalties characteristic of traditional France.  He freed up the sale or exchange of property ... and opened the trades or professions to anyone trained for the work – and not just to those born to specific guild families.   He extended to Catholic France, brutalized by the Revolution, his Concordat of 1801 – restoring the Church and its priesthood to its place of religious privilege ... though he did not return to the  Church properties seized during the Revolution.  On the other hand, he shut down the Catholic Inquisition and ended the restrictions against Protestants and Jews.  He liberalized France's divorce laws.  He also pushed for the development of more secular public secondary schools (lycées).  And he started France thinking in metric terms (though full conversion to the metric system would not take place until the mid-1800s). Wars and more wars However it is in the conduct of his many wars that Napoleon is largely remembered.  He was hugely successful ... most of the time.  In 1800 he pulled success out of a near disaster at Marengo (Italy) and won overwhelmingly at Hohenlinden (Germany) against the Austrians.   In 1805, with the birth of a new round of war by a new coalition (the "Third") of Britain, Sweden, Russia, and Austria, things got off to a poor start for Napoleon when his own French-Spanish naval coalition was defeated by the English at Cape Finisterre (Spain), ending his hopes for an invasion of England by his Grande Armée.  He then turned his army east towards the Austrians, crushing them at Ulm.  But in the meantime his combined French-Spanish navies were again defeated – decisively – at Trafalgar (Spain) by the English under Lord Nelson.  But the French were able to capture Austria's capital Vienna ... and then move on to destroy a combined Austrian-Russian army at Austerlitz before the end of the year. The resulting peace saw Napoleon remaking the face of central Europe, putting to an end the Holy Roman Empire and combining the hundreds of small but semi-independent German states into a Confederation of the Rhine.7  Napoleon was at the height of his glory at this point. In 1806 he marched against the ("Fourth") coalition of Prussia and Russia, crushing Prussia at Jena and Auerstedt.  He then turned to face Russia, fighting to a stand-off at Eylau ... and then to an overwhelming defeat of Russia at Friedland.  The Prussians lost half of their territory in Germany when Napoleon created the Kingdom of Westphalia and placed his brother Jerôme over it as king.  With the Russian Tsar, Napoleon was kinder in his victory, hoping to create a friendship that could serve French interests in East Europe. He now focused his thoughts on Britain, attempting to tighten his "Continental System" of a blocking of all commercial relations with Britain on the European Continent in an effort to cripple the British economy and thus force Britain to finally fall under his rule.  But his effort to discipline Portugal (which had not been honoring the boycott) drew him into the Iberian Peninsula of Spain and Portugal ... where Spanish sensitivities to French intervention in the region's political affairs drew him into a draining round of local fights with Spanish guerrilla bands.  His appointing his brother Joseph as King of Spain (1808) in the hope of getting on top of the situation there only made matters worse.  He was forced to position permanently a huge portion of his army to hold things together in Spain ... while he faced continuing threats to France elsewhere.  Indeed, the British under Wellington would take advantage of Napoleon's troubles elsewhere by sending their own troops to Spain and gradually ending French control there. At this point (1809) Austria (part of the "Fifth" Coalition) re-entered the fight against France, actually defeating the French in a battle at Aspern ... but then being devastated by the French in a second engagement at Wagram.  Politically this resulted in a huge loss for Austria.  But at least peace would reign in Europe for the next few years. But the Russian Tsar was being pressured by his nobles to join with Britain in an offensive against the French ... in the hope of retaking Poland.  Napoleon heard of these plans and instead decided to take the initiative.  Thus in 1812 he headed a French army of nearly half a million troops into Russia.  A big mistake!  The Russians fell back instead of offering direct resistance to the invaders (except at bloody Borodino) destroying their own crops and animals to keep the French from securing food for their troops.  Napoleon made it all the way to Moscow just as the harsh Russian winter set in ... finding nothing in this abandoned and burned-out city to mark this as a victory.  The Russians simply would not surrender.  After five weeks of pointless occupation, and with political problems brewing back in Paris, Napoleon decided to withdraw.  The retreat was so ruinous that less than one-tenth of his army made it back alive to France. Encouraged by Napoleon's failure in Russia a Sixth Coalition was formed against him in 1813.  Once again Napoleon, with a rebuilt army, humiliated the Coalition at Dresden.  But the numbers were against him, and a few months later at Leipzig, Napoleon's army was crushed.  Humiliating terms were put before Napoleon, which he delayed too long in accepting.  Napoleon attempted to hold off with a number of smaller engagements ... but he was running out of soldiers.  Finally the French Sénat took action in deposing him.  Napoleon now had no choice but to accept exile to the Island of Elba (off the Italian coast) which he was allowed to continue to rule as "emperor."   The victorious allies then reinstated in France the Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVIII.  Their hope was to put this whole 25-year nightmare of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire behind them and move back to business as usual.  That was not to be. The Battle of Waterloo (1815) In early 1815 news reached the allied delegates to the Congress of Vienna that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and was gathering a new French army in order to restore his French Empire.  Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia were determined to put to an end forever Napoleon's efforts to undo their work.  By the summer, Napoleon was ready to act against this new coalition, moving into (today's) Belgium where outside the village of Waterloo he met the combined army of Britain (under Wellington) and Prussia (under Blücher) ... and went down in defeat.  This time he was exiled to a small island (St. Helena) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where he would remain until his death six years later. For more (much more) on Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars 7He had also promoted himself earlier that year from the position as President of the Italian Republic (since 1802), to now being King of Italy. The Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (reigned 1799-1815) finally settles France down ... before spinning the country outward in a campaign of European conquest Napoleon at the Pesthouse in Jaffa Napoleon on Borodino Heights Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau   Napoleon's retreat from Moscow - 1812 THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS COMPARED The American Revolution Actually the American Revolution was no revolution at all, socially and culturally speaking.  It was revolutionary only in the sense of a people rising up against their feudal king and succeeding in the short span of a half-dozen years in securing their full independence as a people.  But America before the war and America after the war was pretty much the same.  150 years of colonial self-rule since the early 1600s had taught the Americans how to take care of themselves – from building their own communities of homes, barns, workshops, schools and churches ... to defending themselves from their local enemies, the Indians (and occasionally the Spanish and the French).  The American "Revolution" occurred simply because an English king decided to take away the personal liberties to which these Americans were well accustomed.  Their "Revolution" merely confirmed those liberties ... not create them as if they were new.     Even the Constitution they drew up in 1787 was a rather limited political document, more a treaty among thirteen independent states providing for cooperation so as to keep them from splitting into little contending states, vulnerable to the continuing imperial designs of the great powers of Europe.  The Constitution did not provide for a "government" such as we think of today when we think of an institution which governs over people.  Government in that sense remained a strictly state and local affair (except occasionally in times of war) ... up until the mid-1960s when President Johnson and his "Liberal"8 brain trust decided to build a "Great Society" which would govern from Washington, D.C. on virtually every matter affecting American life.  But that took nearly two centuries to come into existence after the American "Revolution.' The French Revolution / Napoleonic Empire But what happened in France in follow-up to America's Revolution was indeed truly "revolutionary" in every social-cultural respect.  The French Revolution killed the feudal system that had governed Europe for a thousand years.  And the Napoleonic Empire put in its place a new system by which the masses of common people, not the select lords and ladies, formed the foundation of European social power.  The French armed their people ... and in the process of fighting their own wars gave real strength to the notion of the "people" – or (as this new concept would develop through the 1800s) the "nation." It was not just France that the Coalition powers of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain and Sweden were fighting.  It was their Revolution they were trying to undo.  They were quick to support the French Bourbon monarchy that the French Revolution had nearly decapitated.  In many ways Napoleon was one of them ... another monarch.  But he was a monarch who stood for the ideals of the European Enlightenment.  They were opposed to those ideals more than the person of Napoleon ... though it was hard to differentiate the two, Napoleon had so completely embraced personally Enlightenment ideals. For this reason, at first many of the European upper-middle class (university educated) intellectuals were very supportive of the French Revolution ... even at first of Napoleon.  But in bringing the idea of the sovereign "people" forward, the French Revolution also raised the question of how to define those people.  Though most of the European aristocracy spoke French among themselves, the common people spoke a multitude of languages ... which carried the songs, the poetry, the stories, the dreams of the common people.  And thus local language became an important factor in defining "the people." In this way "nationalism" was born ... aided greatly by the cultural arrogance of the occupying French governors and their troops.  Thus the idea of "German" and "Italian" began to take place, to be joined by the already rising sense of being English (but also Irish), Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Polish, etc.   Thus feudal Europe was entering a truly revolutionary social phase ... one which would bring forth the pride of the European nation ... but also the tragedy of the national bloodying of World War One (1914-1918) ... and the consequent undermining of European dominance throughout the world. 8There is considerable confusion over the term "Liberal" in today's America.  Originally the term meant liberal in the sense of being free ... in reference to being liberated from the autocratic governments of Europe which attempted to control all social life from above by higher authority.  Liberal meant full grass-roots self-government of the people themselves.  In America today it means almost the opposite ... where a Liberal is actually what Europeans would term a Socialist, meaning someone who believes that society would work better (or more "progressively") under the extensive guidance and control of high-level government experts ... such as President Johnson proposed in the mid-1960s with his "Great Society" – an idea which American "Liberals" have supported ever since. Go on to the next section:  The "Modernizing" of the West   Miles H. Hodges