The Historian and the Revolution

Eighth Essay

Amar Murray

After my earlier journeys through the French Revolution, its interpretations and ideas, and the views of the different parties that shaped its course, I decided to pause before continuing my inquiry into scientific and metaphysical thinking and their influence on society and revolution. A brief survey of the historians who wrote about this period would give us a broader and deeper understanding of it.

Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of the Revolution. Some saw it as wholly destructive evil. De Maistre wrote: “Never has the work of demons been so evident as it was in this revolution.” Broadly speaking, the interpretations of earlier historians were shaped by prior convictions or political allegiances, and consequently lacked scholarly detachment. Gustave Le Bon makes this point when he writes:

“Today, people have forgotten the earlier chroniclers of the French Revolution, such as Thiers, Quinet and Michelet, despite the last of these having considerable gifts. Their views contain a certain obscurity and are dominated by the principle of historical destiny. Thus Thiers regarded the French Revolution as the natural outcome of absolute monarchy; Quinet saw its events as the consequence of previous oppression and the old despotism; and Michelet considered it a popular achievement worthy of admiration and reverence.”

Other historians interpreted the events of the French Revolution through a theory of fate and inevitability. Émile Ollivier wrote in The French Revolution: “No one can resist revolutions. Human beings cannot alter the elements or prevent events arising from the nature of circumstances.” Taine wrote: “When the representative assembly opened at the beginning of the French Revolution, the course of ideas and events was already determined. Each person carries his future and history within him without knowing it.” Monsieur Sorel wrote: “The French Revolution, which appeared destructive to some and regenerative to others, was a natural and necessary ordering of Europe. It emerged from the past and can be explained only in the light of the preceding age.” For this group of historians, the Revolution was a predestined event, the inevitable consequence of an earlier condition.

A second group questioned the Revolution’s impact and hesitated to give a clear verdict. After praising the French Revolution, Monsieur Hanotaux was asked whether its achievements justified its cost. He replied: “History will hesitate a great deal before passing judgment on that.” Monsieur Madelin expressed a similar hesitation in his book on the Revolution: “I cannot deliver a definitive judgment on an event as complex as the French Revolution. Its causes and consequences demand extensive investigation.”

Among those historians were non-French writers whose judgments were severe. This is hardly surprising, given the suffering inflicted on Europe, and on Germany in particular. Monsieur Faguet describes the German view of the Revolution:

“Germany once regarded France as a nation that had oppressed, despised, devastated and plundered it for fifteen years in the name of liberty and fraternity. Today it regards France as a nation that, under the pretext of these two words, establishes a despotic, unjust, disruptive and destructive democracy, unfit to serve as a model for anyone. This is the entirety of Germany’s view of France, and the substance of what its newspapers and books express.”

What we truly need is a third group, governed in its work by detachment and fairness. Historians document events and transmit the records. Those events may be so numerous that no one could possibly recount them all. The problem, however, lies in selecting whatever suits the historian’s political ideas and religious or intellectual convictions. The resulting arrangement of documents departs from fairness and justice, making it impossible to recover the actual history. History is falsified, and the historian’s own opinion and perspective come to stand in its place.

We must therefore recount history without passing judgment on individuals in praise or condemnation, and without tailoring it to what we consider society’s best interests. The social interest that guides a historian today may no longer be the same interest in the future.