Influence of the French Revolution
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The French Revolution had a major impact on Europe and the New World. The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarizing politics for more than a century. The closer other countries were the greater and deeper was the French impact, bringing liberalism and the end of many feudal or traditional laws and practices.
Impact on France
The changes in France were enormous; some were widely accepted and others were bitterly contested into the late 20th century. Before the Revolution, the people had little power or voice. The kings had so thoroughly centralized the system that most nobles spent their time at Versailles, and played only a small direct role in their home districts. Thompson says that the kings had:
- ruled by virtue of their personal wealth, their patronage of the nobility, their disposal of ecclesiastical offices, their provincial governors (intendants), their control over the judges and magistrates, and their command of the Army.
After the first year of revolution, this power had been stripped away. The king was a figurehead, the nobility had lost all their titles and most of their land, the Church lost its monasteries and farmlands, bishops, judges and magistrates were elected by the people, the army was almost helpless, with military power in the hands of the new revolutionary National Guard. The central elements of 1789 were the slogan "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" and the "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen", which Lefebvre calls "the incarnation of the Revolution as a whole."
The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarizing politics for more than a century. Historian François Aulard writes:
- From the social point of view, the Revolution consisted in the suppression of what was called the feudal system, in the emancipation of the individual, in greater division of landed property, the abolition of the privileges of noble birth, the establishment of equality, the simplification of life.... The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity."
Impact on Europe
Europe was racked by two decades of war revolving around France's efforts to spread its revolutionary ideals, and the opposition of reactionary royalty, led by Britain and Austria. War broke out in 1792 as Austria and Prussia invaded France, but were defeated at the Battle of Valmy (1792).
See also
- Edmund Burke#French Revolution: 1688 versus 1789
- Liberalism#French revolution
- Romanticism and the French Revolution
- Papal States#French Revolution and Napoleonic era
