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Effects of the French Revolution
Peace and prosperity are dependent on the natural order of events and the effort towards maintaining the structure attributed to success. In the common era, the natural order relied on the structure of a dynasty, mainly a ruling family and power transition through lineage and existence of loyal subjects. Any attempts towards altering the agreed power structure resulted in bloodshed and political and economic instability. In ensuring loyalty to the powerhouse, dynasties across medieval eras are known to employ dictatorship to mete signs and acts of betrayal. Nonetheless, some perfidy acts were executed successfully to the dismay of foreign dignitaries despite the awareness of repercussions from these deeds. The 1789 revolution in France that led to the dethronement of the king and queen denied the nation of the benefits of conservatism and insight of ages. That is mainly observed in Edmund Burke’s perception of the revolution. Edmund Burke’s astuteness in “Reflection on the Revolution in France” highlights the reasons for maintaining a monarchial leadership by exemplifying Britain’s prosperity with the system and why the revolution in France had significant losses than preempted.
Foremost, the revolution disrupted and denied the French progenies their inheritance. The dethronement initiated chaos and destruction of properties and the loss of lives. That meant acquisition of possessions belonging to the king and his loyal subjects and dividing among the revolution masterminds. The killing of the French ruler and his family and that of his allies cut a heritage, bringing to an end the inheritance lineage. In illustrating the essence of adhering to monarchial rule, Edmund Burke posits that “You will observe that from the Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers and transmitted to our posterity…” (Greenblatt 198). The British constitution through is monarchial structure facilitated the preservation of unity through its diverse segments allowing for an inheritable throne, peerage, house of commons, privileges, liberties, and franchises from ancestral lineages (Greenblatt 198). The revolution effects would comprise individuals not longing for posterity from a generation unappreciative of its ancestors. More so, the English perspective of inheritance is the development of the principles of transmission, conservation, and improvement through free acquisition but the preservation of the same. Burke reasons that leadership inheritance through the framing of polity in blood relation binds a country’s constitution to the precious domestic ties, adopting the fundamental edicts into the bosom of kinfolk’s affections; thereby, maintaining inseparability and esteeming the warmth (Greenblatt 198).
Moreover, the revolution created a negative image of France among its associates. At the time, there existed the principle of sensibility and honor chastity. Also, people held sex and rank with generous loyalty and gratified submission that exalted obedience and subservience of the heart. In turn, the spirit of glorious freedom was kept alive even in servitude. The betrayal of the French sovereign was a great disrespect to these values. The act must have pushed away and severed ties with connected dynasties, given it was an event of a first in the world (Greenblatt 197). Edmund Burke presented the dethronement as a disgustful and horrible circumstance and wished the perpetrators would not have used the short cut to power or haste in their decisions (Greenblatt 203). Besides, monarchial leadership was a way of strengthening ties with other kingdoms through marriages and the formation of allies. For instance, the overthrown French queen was the daughter of the Empress of Austria (Greenblatt 201). Through the monarchy structure, Britain managed to establish itself as a powerful kingdom, and it is on that basis that it remains a powerful state in modern Europe.
Incisively, the heinous act destabilized the effects of power in the French homeland. Despite power’s ruthless aggression of ensuring the stability of a kingdom, it came with pleasing illusions that made it gentle, harmonized the diverse aspects of life, and made obedience a liberal act. Further, it ensured insipid assimilation and the incorporation into politics the views which remodel and unstiffen the reserved society. Conversely, the revolution dissolved these features of power through the adoption of the novel exultant empire of light and reasoning. In Burke’s words, “All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off…and the understandings ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our estimation, are to be explored as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.” Edmund Burke further reiterates that the advanced perspective adoption disregarded the murder of a sovereign, a father, or a bishop as of significance provided the people are the primary beneficiaries and, as such, the act was pardonable through the revolutionists’ sight which was against the natural structure (Greenblatt 202). Burke presumes that the barbarous philosophy, the result of cold hearts and opaque comprehensions, was void of concrete wisdom, destitute of elegance and taste, and laws reinforced by its terrors. Such conceptions have no regards to engross the affections on the fragment of the commonwealth. In essence, that sort of reasoning which expels the affections cannot fill the void. The combination of public affections with manners is necessary at times as a supplement or corrective utilities to the laws (Greenblatt 202). Every state ought to have precepts through which the developed mind would be willing to delight.
Furthermore, the dethronement of the French sovereign deprived the realm of civilization and manners. Burke opines that Europe was flourishing before the revolution, and the success was owed to their spirit of old manners, especially monarchial practice, and opinions. The civilization and manners in Europe and the good things attributed to them relied on two principles; the gentleman and religious spirits (Greenblatt 203). The disloyal act in France was as a result of the aptness to cogitate things in the state they were found instead of amply adverting to the reasons for their development and upholding (Greenblatt 203). The clergy and the nobility ensured the existence of learning even between confusion and arms, yet it settled its dues to the two with usury. The experimentation on the stability of a nation without the nobility and religious spirit, which define civilization and are the old fundamental principles, results in gross, barbarianism, and poor inhabitants destitute of honor or religion (Greenblatt 203).
Summarily, the existence of monarchial structures ensured the stability of society. Through the inheritance of property and privileges, possession of power, development of allies, and preservation of civilization, monarchial developments were vital in conservative times, and the French king’s dethronement deprived the realm of these benefits. Such advantages contributed to the development of, for instance, contemporary Britain, and the balance alterations can be attributed to current trends in France, such as the constant riots.
Work Cited
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. 10th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 197-204.