French Rev Essay, Research Paper
The year 1989 marks the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. To
celebrate, the French government is throwing its biggest party in at least
100 years, to last all year. In the United States, an American Committee
on the French Revolution has been set up to coordinate programs on this
side of the Atlantic, emphasizing the theme, “France and America: Partners
in Liberty.”
But were the French and American Revolutions really similar? On the
surface, there were parallels. Yet over the past two centuries, many
observers have likened the American Revolution to the bloodless Glorious
Revolution of 1688, while the French Revolution has been considered the
forerunner of the many, modern violent revolutions that have ended in
totalitarianism. As the Russian naturalist, author, and soldier Prince Petr
Kropotkin put it, “What we learn from the study of the Great [French]
Revolution is that it was the source of all the present communist, anarchist,
and socialist conceptions.” 1
It is because the French Revolution ended so violently that many
Frenchmen are troubled about celebrating its 200th anniversary. French
author Leon Daudet has written: “Commemorate the French Revolution?
That’s like celebrating the day you got scarlet fever.” An Anti-89
Movement has even begun to sell momentos reminding today’s Frenchmen
of the exces
calendars that mock the sacred dates of the French Revolution.
The French should indeed be uneasy about their Revolution, for whereas
the American Revolution brought forth a relatively free economy and
limited government, the French Revolution brought forth first anarchy, then
dictatorship.
Eighteenth-century France was the largest and most populous country in
western Europe. Blessed with rich soil, natural resources, and a long and
varied coastline, France was Europe’s greatest power and the dominant
culture on the continent. Unfortunately, like all the other countries of
18th-century Europe, France was saddled with the economic philosophy
of mercantilism. By discouraging free trade with other countries,
mercantilism kept the economies of the European nation-states in the
doldrums, and their people in poverty.
Nevertheless, in 1774, King Louis XVI made a decision that could have
prevented the French Revolution by breathing new life into the French
economy: he appointed Physiocrat Robert Turgot as Controller General of
Finance. The Physiocrats were a small band of followers of the French
physician Francois Quesnay, whose economic prescriptions included
reduced taxes, less regulation, the elimination of government-granted
monopolies and internal tolls and tariffs — ideas that found their rallying cry