Which faction would you have supported in the French Revolution?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Reluctant Girondin, not a huge fan of their foreign policy but the least crazy of the republicans.

[PSOL]

Reluctant Girondin, not a huge fan of their foreign policy but the least crazy of the republicans.

Autarkic states never last long, especially if they are conducting a revolution within their borders. Joseon Korea is a great example of the failure of looking inwards while conducting change of any sort. So was the Soviets but that is another matter.

They had an immensely weak foreign policy and weren’t up to the job in defending liberty, fraternity, and equality compared to the Montagnards, whose policies prevented a counterrevolution for the longest of time and stopped France from being carved up by the hungry states around them. Ultimately, the demands for radical democracy they were rooting for was won decades upon decades later.

In order to maintain and strengthen the new rights given to the Third Estate—the manual labourers in Paris, merchants, white collar workers, and non-ethnic French of France like the slaves in the outer colonies and Cagots—Hebertists understood that freedom can only be wrested away by force against the oppression of the monarchy and the pillars of reaction. France would have not been able to survive without their decisive leadership against the hostile church and foreign powers who wanted to partition up the country. While sidelined, their struggle is most responsible why France ended up a major player in culture and science in the late 1800s, else France would have been a backwater along the likes of Russia in the same latter 1800s.

What could have been was lost when the humanist Robespierre didn’t like them because Hebert was an edgy fedora-wearing atheist or whatever the revolution-era French equivalent was, and was scared of dismantling all unfair hierarchical structures in favor of “meritocracy”

Given the fact that the more brutal Directorate—made up of upper merchants and middle noblemen—failed repeatedly in providing any stability externally and internally and were simultaneously sidelined and jumped ship to Nappy I, the Montagnards and Hebertists especially are forever absolved of wringing of “oppression” and “radicalism”.

[Georg Ebner]

As a Christian naturally the reaction.
And that were not the "enlightened"/decadent aristocrats fleeing into the restoration; but the saintly farmers of the Vendée!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The big big problem with the Girondins is their warmongering with austria was quite possibly the worst singular mistake of any French government of that era (even worse than Louis listening to his more reactionary courtiers or Napoleon's Peninsular War). Like, you can pretty much draw a line before and after war breaking out: after there was war pretty much everything went to pot with the whole nation breaking it into mutual conspiracy madness, authoritarianism and contempt for peasants who really mainly didn't see the point of being conscripted to die en masse for some abstract concept. And the Girondin ministry, in particular Brissot, were really the primary villains of spinning these nonsensical conspiracies. I think they get a better press these days because a) they weren't holding the ball when things really spiralled out of control and b) everyone likes the people in their orbit, like De Gouges and Paine, but they were pretty lousy political actors who defined themselves with incredibly petty faction scoring and dithering.

I think the Dantonists come across as most sympathetic in the mess. Danton himself is often portrayed as some mad, glory-seeking and corrupt brute who opportunistically tried to dial things back when the heat got too much: but i read him favourably - a romantic revolutionary who desperately wanted unity in a seething sea of resentments and pettiness, as opposed to Robespierre who wanted unity by believing in this impossibly ethical moral standard for good Frenchmen to be held to, like Robot Santa from Futurama. (The Dantonists were pretty corrupt, I give you that, but was true out of everyone except Robespierre's virtue crew, a man too boring to be amusingly corrupt).

Herbert himself was very much a nasty opportunist, happy to feed just about anyone to the death machine to satisfy his own advancement including other far left types.

I think you could break the monarchist factions down a bit: you have the Monarchiens, the Society of 1789 etc. Some of them had some OK people, but I can't get past the passive-active stuff.

The thing with the Vendee is it was left isolated so you ended up with a series of monstrously esculating reprisals: one of the causes of Robespierre's increasing centralisation was to curtail the more demented of the Jacobin terrors.

[Samof94]

The big big problem with the Girondins is their warmongering with austria was quite possibly the worst singular mistake of any French government of that era (even worse than Louis listening to his more reactionary courtiers or Napoleon's Peninsular War). Like, you can pretty much draw a line before and after war breaking out: after there was war pretty much everything went to pot with the whole nation breaking it into mutual conspiracy madness, authoritarianism and contempt for peasants who really mainly didn't see the point of being conscripted to die en masse for some abstract concept. And the Girondin ministry, in particular Brissot, were really the primary villains of spinning these nonsensical conspiracies. I think they get a better press these days because a) they weren't holding the ball when things really spiralled out of control and b) everyone likes the people in their orbit, like De Gouges and Paine, but they were pretty lousy political actors who defined themselves with incredibly petty faction scoring and dithering.

I think the Dantonists come across as most sympathetic in the mess. Danton himself is often portrayed as some mad, glory-seeking and corrupt brute who opportunistically tried to dial things back when the heat got too much: but i read him favourably - a romantic revolutionary who desperately wanted unity in a seething sea of resentments and pettiness, as opposed to Robespierre who wanted unity by believing in this impossibly ethical moral standard for good Frenchmen to be held to, like Robot Santa from Futurama. (The Dantonists were pretty corrupt, I give you that, but was true out of everyone except Robespierre's virtue crew, a man too boring to be amusingly corrupt).

Herbert himself was very much a nasty opportunist, happy to feed just about anyone to the death machine to satisfy his own advancement including other far left types.

I think you could break the monarchist factions down a bit: you have the Monarchiens, the Society of 1789 etc. Some of them had some OK people, but I can't get past the passive-active stuff.

The thing with the Vendee is it was left isolated so you ended up with a series of monstrously esculating reprisals: one of the causes of Robespierre's increasing centralisation was to curtail the more demented of the Jacobin terrors.

They called him The Incorruptible.

[gerritcole]

I’d go hang out with Napoleon

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The big big problem with the Girondins is their warmongering with austria was quite possibly the worst singular mistake of any French government of that era (even worse than Louis listening to his more reactionary courtiers or Napoleon's Peninsular War). Like, you can pretty much draw a line before and after war breaking out: after there was war pretty much everything went to pot with the whole nation breaking it into mutual conspiracy madness, authoritarianism and contempt for peasants who really mainly didn't see the point of being conscripted to die en masse for some abstract concept. And the Girondin ministry, in particular Brissot, were really the primary villains of spinning these nonsensical conspiracies. I think they get a better press these days because a) they weren't holding the ball when things really spiralled out of control and b) everyone likes the people in their orbit, like De Gouges and Paine, but they were pretty lousy political actors who defined themselves with incredibly petty faction scoring and dithering.

I think the Dantonists come across as most sympathetic in the mess. Danton himself is often portrayed as some mad, glory-seeking and corrupt brute who opportunistically tried to dial things back when the heat got too much: but i read him favourably - a romantic revolutionary who desperately wanted unity in a seething sea of resentments and pettiness, as opposed to Robespierre who wanted unity by believing in this impossibly ethical moral standard for good Frenchmen to be held to, like Robot Santa from Futurama. (The Dantonists were pretty corrupt, I give you that, but was true out of everyone except Robespierre's virtue crew, a man too boring to be amusingly corrupt).

Herbert himself was very much a nasty opportunist, happy to feed just about anyone to the death machine to satisfy his own advancement including other far left types.

I think you could break the monarchist factions down a bit: you have the Monarchiens, the Society of 1789 etc. Some of them had some OK people, but I can't get past the passive-active stuff.

The thing with the Vendee is it was left isolated so you ended up with a series of monstrously esculating reprisals: one of the causes of Robespierre's increasing centralisation was to curtail the more demented of the Jacobin terrors.

They called him The Incorruptible.

That's the point really: at a certain level, anti-corruption became less a cause for good governance and more a deranged moral crusade. His philosophy was that people are fundamentally virtuous, aside from individual immoral actors ruining everything with their corruption and wickedness. He could not face the messy reality of people outside of their Rosseaun ideal, and so simple financial corruption or overt factioneering was essentially the same as being personally unvirtuous and ruining the entire body politick.

[1978 New Wave skinny trousers]

I like the Girondins myself, especially Brissot, and I agree with their decision to go to war against Austria. With the exception of Joseph II, the Habsburgs were a vile dynasty of reactionaries and bigots that should have been sent packing 90 years earlier, if not for that meddling Marlborough.

For anyone interested in this period, I cannot recommend Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety highly enough. Besides being a masterpiece from one of the most talented historical fiction writers of our time (seriously, read Wolf Hall too if you somehow missed it), it will teach you more than you ever needed to know about all the different personalities and factions of the Revolution.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

1. Feuillants
2. Bonapartists

[Diabolical Materialism]

Firmly in the Enragés camp.

[Flyersfan232]

lafyette

[Make America Grumpy Again]

Enrages, since they supported direct democracy

[The Mikado]

Where's "emigrate as early as possible" as an option?

[Georg Ebner]

In general i really cannot understand any somewhere between. Either everything or nothing - anything else is not defendable. The F.R. demonstrates this excellently: Sure, left/liberal/conservative historians have collected lots of facts - but have not had any clue, what was really going on, why the process of the Rev. was in se coherent&consequent. Only someone beyond the most extreme LeftExtremism like MICHELET was - despite being a "sweating prole" (NIETZSCHE), knowing far fewer facts, telling lots of lies - able to understand it, as an InSider - LOUIS PHILIPPE - told ACTON once. (The other one was deMAISTRE, who was beyond RightExtremism, but no historian.)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well whatever our views, I hope we can all agree on the one indisputable fact: that 'Philippe Égalité' was pondscum.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I like the Girondins myself, especially Brissot, and I agree with their decision to go to war against Austria. With the exception of Joseph II, the Habsburgs were a vile dynasty of reactionaries and bigots that should have been sent packing 90 years earlier, if not for that meddling Marlborough.

Hanburgs were vile, sure, but did they really represent an inherent threat to France when the war was declared or were they just a despotic, useless mess.

The problem is it's hard not to point out the war as a key turning point, and not for the better - we go from Rights of Man and the abolition of feudalism to conspiracy theories from all levels of government, forced conscription, the prison massacres and the alienation of potential foreign allies. I do believe Brissot was an idealist and not a cynic who thought that war was some free way to bolster his own personal support, but it's a really fitting display of how disastrous liberal interventionism is in practice - classic case being them mistaking the anti-Austrian sentiments in the Austrian Netherlands for some kind of parallel liberal revolutionary sentiment, rather than if anything a conservative movement against Joseph II's "enlightenment" reforms. In every case, the sister Republics established by France were little more than dominated piggy banks for France.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Well whatever our views, I hope we can all agree on the one indisputable fact: that 'Philippe Égalité' was pondscum.

The worst people were those like Fouche and Barras imo.

[Lechasseur]

I'd have been a constitutional monarchist, whichever option that would be

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sorry for the bump, but I was actually reading the thread back when I was logged out, and it took me everything I had to avoid logging back in to sh*t on PSOL's laughably nonsensical takes. It takes a truly remarkable degree of buffoonery to be willing to write so confidently and pretentiously about something he is so clearly ignorant about. I would almost be impressed, if he wasn't talking about a period of my country's history I'm deeply passionate about and I've been studying since I was a child. As things stand, I just hope that any leftist who's interested in actual facts and not LARPy bullsh*t knows better than to listen to a word of his pseudointellectual drivel.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

In general i really cannot understand any somewhere between. Either everything or nothing - anything else is not defendable. The F.R. demonstrates this excellently: Sure, left/liberal/conservative historians have collected lots of facts - but have not had any clue, what was really going on, why the process of the Rev. was in se coherent&consequent. Only someone beyond the most extreme LeftExtremism like MICHELET was - despite being a "sweating prole" (NIETZSCHE), knowing far fewer facts, telling lots of lies - able to understand it, as an InSider - LOUIS PHILIPPE - told ACTON once. (The other one was deMAISTRE, who was beyond RightExtremism, but no historian.)

Funnily enough, Isaiah Berlin claims somewhere that de Maistre made himself unpopular among other ultra-royalists by saying, correctly as it turned out, that the Revolution wasn't completely reversible and a Bourbon restoration would have to behave at least slightly more demurely than the Ancien Regime.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Sorry for the bump, but I was actually reading the thread back when I was logged out, and it took me everything I had to avoid logging back in to sh*t on PSOL's laughably nonsensical takes. It takes a truly remarkable degree of buffoonery to be willing to write so confidently and pretentiously about something  he is so clearly ignorant about. I would almost be impressed, if he wasn't talking about a period of my country's history I'm deeply passionate about and I've been studying since I was a child. As things stand, I just hope that any leftist who's interested in actual facts and not LARPy bullsh*t knows better than to listen to a world of his pseudointellectual drivel.

Hey Tony, welcome back and congrats on the pHd.

What is your take on the Feulliant club, and their leadership of by Barnave, de Lameth and Duport? Obviously they are far to oury right ideologically, but what's your stance on how they ran the Assembly and their downfall?

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

I'd have been a constitutional monarchist, whichever option that would be

Welcome to the Feuillant club then.

[PSOL]

Sorry for the bump, but I was actually reading the thread back when I was logged out, and it took me everything I had to avoid logging back in to sh*t on PSOL's laughably nonsensical takes. It takes a truly remarkable degree of buffoonery to be willing to write so confidently and pretentiously about something  he is so clearly ignorant about. I would almost be impressed, if he wasn't talking about a period of my country's history I'm deeply passionate about and I've been studying since I was a child. As things stand, I just hope that any leftist who's interested in actual facts and not LARPy bullsh*t knows better than to listen to a world of his pseudointellectual drivel.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sorry for the bump, but I was actually reading the thread back when I was logged out, and it took me everything I had to avoid logging back in to sh*t on PSOL's laughably nonsensical takes. It takes a truly remarkable degree of buffoonery to be willing to write so confidently and pretentiously about something  he is so clearly ignorant about. I would almost be impressed, if he wasn't talking about a period of my country's history I'm deeply passionate about and I've been studying since I was a child. As things stand, I just hope that any leftist who's interested in actual facts and not LARPy bullsh*t knows better than to listen to a world of his pseudointellectual drivel.

Hey Tony, welcome back and congrats on the pHd.

What is your take on the Feulliant club, and their leadership of by Barnave, de Lameth and Duport? Obviously they are far to oury right ideologically, but what's your stance on how they ran the Assembly and their downfall?

They're not the figures I'm most familiar with, so I don't want to make any definitive claims, but they strike me as generally sincere and well-intentioned in trying to make the constitutional monarchy actually work (which, while not ideal by any stretch, would certainly have spared France a lot of troubles). That said, their perspective in this regard was fundamentally flawed. Louis XVI could not be trusted as a working partner in a new liberal constitutional order. IIRC by that point, he was already plotting with the Austrians to crush the revolutionary government (which is why, to dispel another set of bad takes I saw in another French Revolution thread a while ago, he WAS unquestionably guilty). The flight to Varennes took place months before the 1791 constitution was even enacted, for crying out loud! If you really wanted the French monarchy to survive, the best thing to do might have been to force him to abdicate and replace him with Louis XVII (or even, in a preview of the 1830 revolution, with the Duke of Orleans). Even then, who knows if it would have worked, but it would have been less ridiculous than handing the keys of your constitutional castle to a guy who's sworn to tear it down.

[Georg Ebner]

In general i really cannot understand any somewhere between. Either everything or nothing - anything else is not defendable. The F.R. demonstrates this excellently: Sure, left/liberal/conservative historians have collected lots of facts - but have not had any clue, what was really going on, why the process of the Rev. was in se coherent&consequent. Only someone beyond the most extreme LeftExtremism like MICHELET was - despite being a "sweating prole" (NIETZSCHE), knowing far fewer facts, telling lots of lies - able to understand it, as an InSider - LOUIS PHILIPPE - told ACTON once. (The other one was deMAISTRE, who was beyond RightExtremism, but no historian.)

Funnily enough, Isaiah Berlin claims somewhere that de Maistre made himself unpopular among other ultra-royalists by saying, correctly as it turned out, that the Revolution wasn't completely reversible and a Bourbon restoration would have to behave at least slightly more demurely than the Ancien Regime.

He - and MICHELET - were the only ones aware, that it was finally faith vs. regnum hominis, what it was all about. (In His youth deM. had been an InSider as a high-ranking FreeMasoner and radical revolutionist.)
Thus deM. knew, that an external restoration could not repair broken souls.
Yet, for the longer distance He was sure, that the revolution with its irrationality will have been "completely reversible" - if i remember correctly, He even spoke of an "inavoidable restoration" (of the souls).