Lynn Hunt Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution

Lynn Hunt

Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution

University of California Press, 1984

The re-invention of the notions of political and ideology.

The very notion of “the political” expanded and changed shape. The structure of the polity changed under the impact of increasing political participation and popular mobilization; political language, political ritual, and political organization all took on new forms and meanings. P. 2

By the end of the decade of revolution, French people had learned a new political repertoire: ideology appeared as a concept, and competing ideologies challenged the traditional European cosmology of order and harmony; propaganda became associated with political purposes; the Jacobin clubs demonstrated the potential of mass political parties; and Napoleon established the first secular police state with his claim to stand above parties. (p.2)

Paradoxically, while multiplying the forms and meanings of politics, the most revolutionary of the French acted out of a profound distrust of any thing explicitly political. Leading political figures never called themselves politicians; they served “the public good” (la chose publique), not a narrow “partisan spirit” (esprit de parti). Politics and politicking were consistently identified with narrowness, meanness, divisiveness, factionalism, opportunism, egotism, and selfishness. (p.3)

Three major interpretive positions of the French Revolution:

- the Marxist interpretation – revolution served as a touchstone; it fostered the development of capitalism by breaking the feudal stranglehold on production, and it brought the bourgeoisie as a class to power.

- the revisionist interpretation – there was no conscious class conflict between bourgeoisie and aristocracy; a crisis of social mobility and status anxiety within an amalgamated elite made up of nobles and bourgeois (Furet).

- the modernization account (Tocqueville) – the Revolution represented the aggrandizement of state power and centralization rather that the triumph of capitalism: revolutionaries ended up creating an even more powerful state modeled on that same absolute monarchy. (pp.3-7)

The aim of the book is the politics of revolution, the political culture of the Revolution. (p.10) revolutionary political culture cannot be deduced from social structures, social conflicts, or the social identity of revolutionaries…Revolutionaries worked to reconstitute society and social relations. (p.12)

As disagreement over the nature of the rearrangement (between society and politics) became apparent, different ideologies were invented in order to explain this development. Rather than expressing an ideology, therefore, revolutionary politics brought ideology into being. (p. 13)

In order to reconstruct the logic of revolutionary action and innovation, it is thus essential to examine both the politics of revolution and the people who practiced them. My contention is that there was a fit or affinity between them, not that one can be deduced from the other. (p. 13)

The chief accomplishment of the French Revolution was the institution of a dramatically new political culture. (p. 15)

Political clubs as political schools.

Political clubs proliferated at every level, and electoral assemblies seemed to meet almost continuously during the revolution’s first years. (p.20)

Certain key words served as revolutionary incantations. Nation was perhaps the most universally sacred, but there were also patrie, constitution, law, and, more specific to the radicals, regeneration, virtue, and vigilance. (p. 21)

The revolutionary oath of loyalty created sovereignty from within the community. (p.21)

The reading of revolutionary language commonly follows from some prior assumption: that language is an instrument of social conflict (the Marxist position), that language is a vehicle of political self-deception (the Tocquevillian position), that language is a carrier of cultural integration (the Durkheimian position)… I propose to look at language more horizontally, in term of its internal patterns and its connections to other aspects of political culture…Revolutionary language did not simply reflect the realities of revolutionary changes and conflicts, but rather was itself transformed into an instrument of political and social change…revolutionary political discourse was rhetorical; it was a means of persuasion, a way of reconstituting the social and political world. (p. 24)

To treat revolutionary rhetoric as a text in the manner of literary criticism. (p.25)

As a consequence of the constant displacement of political authority, charisma came to be most concretely located in words, that is, in the ability to speak for the Nation. (p.26)

The Nation and the Revolution were constantly cited as points of reference, but they came with no history. (p. 26)

The French harkened to a “mythic present” (p.27)

The obsession with conspiracy became the central organizing principle of French revolutionary rhetoric (Furet). (p.39)

Conspiracy became a systematic obsession when the revolutionaries confronted the novelties of mass politics…everyone seemed to fear back-room politicking, secret machinations, and factionalism. (pp.42-43)

Distrust of factions.

French political orators were speaking in two registers at once: one political and the other sacred…factional politics was synonymous with conspiracy, and “interests” was a code for betrayal of a nation united. (p.44)

French revolutionary rhetoric broke through the confines of past politics by positing the existence of a new community (rather than the revival of a purer, former one) and by insisting that it could be realized through politics (rather than through the true religion, a return to past tradition, or an adherence to some previously made social contract). (p. 49)

Politicization of everyday life – costumes, standardization, holidays.

Different costumes indicated different politics, and a color, the wearing of a certain length of trousers, certain shoe styles, or the wrong hat might touch off a quarrel, a fistfight, or a general street brawl. During the Revolution, even the most ordinary objects and customs became political emblems and potential sources of political and social conflict. (p.53

The politicization of the everyday life (p.56)

Symbols of the Revolution:

- the cockade

- the liberty cap

- the patriotic altar

- the liberty tree (p.59)

The officials of the revolutionary regime tried to discipline popular political festivity. Officials incorporated popular symbols into organized festivals and ceremonies, and they devised their own symbols for popular consumption. (p.61)

Revolutionaries could only hope to win their “symbolic” battles if they succeeded in educating their public. An intense course in political education was necessary to teach the people to distinguish between the Liberty of their republican present and the Black Virgin of their royalist past. (p.68)

National education, propagandizing in the army, and the enforcement of bureaucratic routine were strategies for the extension of power. They contributed to the “perfectioning of the political machine” by incorporating officials and ordinary citizens alike into the republican state… But now even the measures of space, time, and weight came into question. Everyone should speak the same language, use the same weights and measures, and turn in the old coinage. (p.70)

The standardization of costumes (made by David) – On the one hand, the deputies or representatives of the people were supposed to be simply a transparent reflection of the people, that is, just like them, because part of them. For this reason, everyone was supposed to wear a new national uniform that would efface differences. On the other hand, the representatives were obviously other, different, not like the people exactly because they were the teachers, the governors, the guides of the people. Accordingly, the uniforms of officials were to be just distinct enough to permit recognition. (p.77)

The masculinization of the Revolutionary imagery (the symbolical battle between Hercules and Marianne) – In the eyes of the Jacobin leadership, women were threatening to take Marianne as a metaphor for their own active participation; in this situation, no female figure, however fierce and radical, could possibly appeal to them. Hercules put the women back into perspective, in their place and relationship of dependency. The monumental male was now the only active figure. (p.104)

The persistence of the left-right division (p. 133)

The rhetoric of revolution appealed to the peripheries of the nation, to people who lived in the economic, social, and cultural backwaters. (p.148)

The professionalization of bureaucracy – p. 152

City professionals seized the opportunity to develop political careers. P. 155

In the villages – continuity of leadership between old regime and new, the continuing hegemony of the same local notables. (p.166)

Layers dominated national and regional politics; merchants, artisans, and shopkeepers were prominent in the cities; and a mixture of peasants, artisans, and small merchants ran the villages. (p.167)

The Revolution opened political access to groups that previously had been excluded for social reasons – modest merchants, artisans and  shopkeepers, and minor professionals. (p.170)

General cultural patterns that shaped the workings of revolutionary politics:

- mobility

- migration

- opportunities to religious minorities (pp.181-183)

The Revolution was, in essence, the multiplication and diffusion of culture and power. (p.188)

The most obvious centers for local officials were the Jacobin clubs. (p.201)

In terms of social origins, the new political class was heavily urban. (p.205)

The French Revolution did promote the rationalizing of authority, the development of new political institutions, and the increased participation of the people through an expanded electoral process. (p. 209)

The creation of a new political rhetoric and the development of new symbolic forms of political practice transformed contemporary notions about politics. Politics became an instrument for refashioning society. (p. 213)

The new men and the new political culture came into being together. (p. 216)

Three strands in French political culture that were in formation during the Revolution: democratic republicanism, socialism, and authoritarianism. (p. 224)

[Revolution] was the moment in which politics was discovered as an agent for conscious change, as the mold for character, culture, and social relations. (p.236)