After reading Burke’s wonderfully robust ‘Reflections on
the French Revolution’ I looked on the internet for a summary. I couldn’t fine
one, so I wrote my own. Some writing is too good to just leave vaguely in one’s
memory.
In the opening pages Burke explains that he began the book
as a correspondence with a young friend in France (Charles Depont) who was
seeking his views on the revolution.
Burke had no doubts about the importance of the question. ‘The French Revolution’ he wrote,’is the most
astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world’. However opening he has
‘grave doubts on several material points in your late transactions’.
The French Revolution has no connection with the English
Revolution of 1688
Burke was very opposed to any linking of the French
Revolution with England’s Glorious Revolution. He forcefully attacks a sermon
given by a member of The Revolution Society in England. The preacher is Dr Richard
Price,
whom Burke dislikes, not only for his unthinking support for the French
Revolution, but especially because he argues that it is similar to the English
Revolution. Price says the English king ‘owes his crown to the choice of his
people.’ Burke tears this apart as being historical nonsense: ‘it affirms a
most unfounded, dangerous, and illegal and unconstitutional position.’
Burke attacks the principle that popular choice is necessary
for the legal existence of ‘sovereign magistracy.’ He shows how the Glorious Revolution
did not change the fixed rule of succession, but was a pragmatic and
exceptional diversion. That’s all. It had nothing to do with a ‘popular
choice’. Burke praises England’s 1689 ‘Declaration of Rights’ which was drawn
up by great lawyers and statesmen and ‘not by warm and inexperienced
enthusiasts.’ Here there is nothing about people being able to choose their own
governors. Burke eschewed the idea that the king has legality from popular
choice, and asserts England has stuck firmly to the rule of hereditary
succession. The men behind the Glorious Revolution knew that anything that
looked like an election would be ‘destructive’ of the ‘unity, peace and
tranquillity of this nation’. Burke is very hostile to the people who think
that kings should be elected. He loathes the idea that the French are some how
imitating the English. This is a tissue of lies and nonsense.
Kings are not servants of the people
Burke attacks another claim of the Revolutionary Society,
the ‘right of cashiering their governors for misconduct’. This argument is made
because the English establishment drove James II from his throne. Burke said
this was done very reluctantly and only once it had been proved that James II
had plans to overthrow the Protestant state. This was more than misconduct. Burke
mocks Price’s suggestion that the king should be called a servant of the people.
We are to obey the king, not he us. Since you cannot cashier a king without
using force, Burke asserts that Price is asking for violence.
The English like to ‘to receive from their forefathers’.
Burke also mocks Price’s assertion that the English wanted
‘the right to form a government for ourselves’. Not at all. We want to receive
from our forefathers. ‘the fabrication of a new government fills us with
disgust and horror.’ English legislators always look back to what has gone
before. They reflect. ‘A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a
selfish temper and confined views.’ So Burke is earnest in praising what has
gone before in Britain, and the attitude this strengthens.
Castigates the French for not building on what they
already had
Having shown how the British revolution was essentially very
cautious and keen to keep as much as the past as possible, Burke now turns to
the French Revolution and castigates them for not building on what they had: ‘Your
constitution was suspended before it was perfected.’ Burke shows how their
constitution was such that it demanded moderation between the conflicting
parties. His main charge is that they wantonly destroyed what only needed
improving – ‘You began ill, because you began by destroying everything that
belonged to you.’ Burke argues that it would have been better if they ‘had kept
alive the ancient principles and models of the old common law of Europe
meliorated and adapted to its present state’. But instead France has followed
‘false lights.’ Burke is extremely critical about the way France has abandoned
religion. He argues that religion and government go together, but ‘France, when
she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious
dissoluteness in manners and an insolent irreligion in opinions and practice’
and now, ‘She (France) has sanctified the dark, suspicious maxims of tyrannous
distrust.’
The Revolutionary Leaders have no moral compass
Burke accuses the revolutionary leaders of deceit as they
told the king he had nothing to fear when he called the states together. Burke
is shocked at the way the king has been treated, the ‘fury, outrage, and
insult’ heaped upon ‘a mild and lawful monarch.’
Burke says they have reaped what they have sown – anarchy,
unrest, no commerce, taxes unpaid, poverty, i.e. the French Revolution is an
unmitigated disaster. None of this was necessary. Burke heaps blame on the Revolutionary
leaders for ‘authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations,
slaughters, and burnings throughout their harassed land’
The Revolutionary Leaders do not have the breeding to
govern
Burke says that the people who have come to power in the
National Assembly do not have the experience or breeding to govern well. When he
looked at the lists he could not find any who had practical experience. Burke
is especially dismissive of how the states were merged, and at the
preponderance of small-town lawyers who were there.
‘The general composition was of obscure provincial
advocates, of stewards of petty local jurisdictions, country attorneys,
notaries…conductors of the petty wars of village vexation.’ From reading the
list, Burke knew what was going to happen. These men were ‘intoxicated with
their unprepared greatness’.
Burke also argues that these lawyers and the investors were
out to make money out of all the upheavals. This was the Third Estate, and what
Burke thinks is missing is the landed interest. And any control over this Third
Estate, now the National Assembly.
He is astonished that such people should have to write a
completely new constitution. Burke is also dismissive of the clergy who had
come, for they were village curates who ‘knew nothing of the world beyond the
bounds of an obscure village.’
This is Burke’s conclusion on the Third Estate: a ‘momentum
of ignorance, rashness, presumption, and lust of plunder which nothing has been
able to resist.’ Burke has focused, rightly, on the weakness of human nature.
He is arguing that you have to look to those who have experience in government
and who have learned to think properly about how to run things.
The French have abandoned these people. They are levellers
who ‘pervert the natural order of things.’ Burke believes people can rise, but
the road should not be easy. There needs to be a season of probation.
The importance of hereditary property
Burke insists on the importance of hereditary property, this
is the English House of Lords. Burke believes they give solidity to the state,
and is contemptuous when they are ‘rashly slighted in shallow speculations of
the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy.’ Burke’s problem
with France is this: ‘The property of France does not govern it.’ So, the
country’s money now is just paper. He predicts, correctly, that The National
Assembly will ruin France.
Politics must be practical and suitable to man’s nature
Burke now returns to criticising Price’s sermon, attacking
the idea that France has been following the cause of liberty. He then lists all
the terrible things that have happened. Burke attacks Price who dislikes the
‘inadequacy of representation’ in Britain. For Burke it is adequate because it
has worked. Burke despises the way Price and others attack the British system
as being unfair and illegitimate. Burke fears they want to destroy both the
civil and religious authorities in Britain, and this is why they look to France
with ‘passionate enthusiasm’. With the ‘rights of men’, they want to blow up
all that has gone before.
Burke lists what rights we have, they are very practical. But
our rights are not equal, they depend on how much we have in the ‘partnership.’
And Burke is convinced that the state has to have restrains for the passions of
men. So the subject must obey, otherwise there is anarchy. The state must be
built on practical experience, not abstract theories. So, again he emphasizes
the importance of respecting the past.
Here is perhaps the most important sentence in the book,
applicable in all generations.
‘It is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture
upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for
ages the common purposes of society.’
He loathes the political theorists – ‘They are
metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false.’ And he thinks
they are construed to give the theorists power.
And why are the theorists false? They ‘…are so taken up with
their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his
nature.’
And – they want blood. That is what makes a revolution
proper. A bloodless one for them is ‘vapid.’
The arrest of the king and queen (October 1789)
Burke now turns to the capture of the king and queen. He is
appalled at how Price and others could congratulate the National Assembly after
this. It was ‘the most horrid, atrocious, and afflicting spectacle that perhaps
ever was exhibited to the pity and indignation of mankind.’ For Burke what
happened was ‘the degenerate choice of a vitiated mind’, because there has been
no punishment against those who engaged in the violence of that day. Burke underlines
the grim contradiction of the French Revolution.
‘Amidst assassination, massacre, perpetrated or mediated,
they are forming plans for the good order of future society’.
Burke’s contempt for the National Assembly continues ‘They
act like the comedians of a fair before a riotous audience’. They have power to
destroy, nothing to construct. Burke mocks the idea that public benefit can be
gained from the murder of the kings’ servants and the attempted assassination
on himself and his wife. Burke then describes well what happened on 6th
October, 1789. He then asks, ‘Is this a triumph to be consecrated on altars?’
Burke is here refusing to surrender to the notion that the
end justifies the means. He will go on to argue that the ends, anyway, were
paltry and pathetic.
‘The age of chivalry is past’ destroyed by the
intellectuals
Burke has great admiration for the royals and the stoicism
they are displaying when facing such unjust trials. Regarding the Queen in ages
past if threatened ‘ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, but
the age of chivalry has gone…that of sophisters, economists; and calculators
has come’.
For Burke it is chivalry which has distinguished Europe ‘to
its advantage…without force or opposition it subdued the fierceness of pride
and power.’ Now, all this is to be destroyed and condemned as ‘antiquated
fashion’. So a king or queen can be murdered and if ‘the people’ gain, then ‘we
ought not to make too severe a scrutiny’.
Burke blames the intellectuals. He is writing in 1789, four
years before the terror, but prophetically writes this: ‘In the groves of their
academy at the end of every vista you see nothing but the gallows.’ Violence
has usurped the ancien regime, so violence will have to maintain the new order.
The French Revolution has taken away the moral compass.
Civilisation rested ‘upon two principles…the spirit of a gentleman and the
spirit of religion…’ and these principles were inculcated into the nobility and
the clergy, these two groups help maintain these principles. With these there
is learning, and this learning then benefits trade and commerce. Take these
principles away and France will be a ‘nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and,
at the same time, poor and sordid barbarians destitute of religion, honour, and
manly pride.’ Burke fears this is going to happen because for the leaders of
the National Assembly, ‘Their humanity is savage and brutal.’ The loss of
chivalry in France is particularly poignant because England learned these
manners from the French.
Burke makes no apologies for dwelling so long on the assault
on Versailles because it was such a tragedy, indeed if it was put on the stage Burke
expects he would weep. For this event shows that, ‘Criminal means once
tolerated are soon preferred.’ In this even the natural senses of right and
wrong were swallowed up. Price referred to this day as a ‘leading in triumph’, Burke
has torn this facile assessment apart. Burke asks for proof that Louis and Maria
Antoinette were cruel tyrants who were planning on massacring the National Assembly
– then their imprisonment would be just. But that is not the case.
Burke comments that the French do not know the English very
well which is due to the sort of newspapers they read, i.e. noisy journalists. Burke
insists that England is still governed by the old feelings of chivalry – ‘We
are not converts of Rousseau; we are not disciples of Voltaire; Atheists are
not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers…. we still feel within us’. Burke
again and again is appealing to morality, and that it is natural for men and
women to worship God and respect their seniors in society.
Burke castigates the French intellectuals – ‘With them it is
a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things because it is an old
one…they are at inexpiable war with all establishments.’ Burke mocks the
thought that the French Revolution has been inspired by the English and says
that the English will never take on the teachings of the French Revolution.
As for atheists who have written in England – ‘At present
they repose in lasting oblivion’ Then Burke lists all the names of atheist
writers that nobody reads. And in England they never became a cabal. Rather
than atheism, Burke says, ‘We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that
religion is the basis of civil society and the source of all good and of all
comfort.’ This is because man is a
religious animal and atheism is against not only our reason, but out instincts
and that it cannot prevail for long.’ So Burke blames the atheists for the
downfall of France. England will never follow.
The confiscation of church property
The established church is important so politicians sense
they are accountable to God. Burke writes at length on this. Church and state
are inseparable. Education strengthens this for it is in the hands of the
clergy. And the English do not want the clergy to get a salary from the state.
They want it to be independent. And Burke hates the idea that leaders just use
religion to subdue the simple and vulgar. No, the leaders are believers. Burke
loves the fact that an archbishop goes before a duke in a ceremonial procession.
After explaining the importance of the church, Burke now
castigates the National Assembly for confiscating the property of the church,
‘which it was their first duty to protect’. Burke says that the National Assembly
has taken the property of men ‘unaccused, unheard, untried.’ This is the work
of a tryant. He calls them the ‘confiscators’ who have helped themselves to the
property of others to pay the national debt. Burke looks at other act of theft
against those who had an income under the old regime. This lack of good will
even extends to treaties. Deals with the attack on the nobility which happened
via the attack on the church.
Burke hates the intellectuals who formed a cabal ‘for the
destruction of the Christian religion’. Because of their talents, their ‘evil
tendency’ was ignored. ‘These atheist fathers have a bigotry of their own and
they have learned to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk.’
They intrigued with princes, they cultivated the monied
interest. They fuelled the revolution and the idea that the church should pay
the nation’s debts. The clergy had had nothing to do with the transactions that
brought the debts – but they had to pay because of the grim attack of the
writers. Burke mocks the impact of these writers when he said that Henry 8th
would not have needed his survey of all
the monasteries. He just had to say, ‘Philosophy, Light, Liberality, the Rights
of Man’ and the job was done.’
The financial situation in France was not so critical
Burke argues that there was no need for these illegal
confiscations of property. The financial situation in France was not so
critical. There follows a detailed analysis with the conclusion that the plan
of Necker would have worked; and that was has since happened has made France
even more impoverished. Burke continually attacks the confiscation of church
property. Sees that there is ‘an alliance of bankruptcy and tyranny’. And calls
the government an ‘ignoble oligarchy’. Refers to Aristotle who saw that a
democracy has ‘many striking points of resemblance with a tyranny’. Burke fears
for the minorities in France. Burke admits that the monarchy in France had
abuses, but they could have been dealt with. He sees deceit in the story in
that none of the people who first came to the assembly of the states ever
wanted to pull down the monarchy. Burke shows that France was not in such a bad
state – i.e. there was some good in the rule of monarchy. Looks at the
population. It was doing well. And at agriculture, again a success story. And
other aspects of the economy. So, the idea that the government of France was
‘an absolute evil’ is nonsense. This was a government whose excellence could be
improved. That’s all. The monarchy was working towards this. Burke is certain
that the French Revolution will not do as well.
The decent character of France’s nobility and clergy
Burke is appalled at the way the nobility and clergy have
been slandered. What have they done? Burke says that he found the French
nobility ‘composed of men of high spirit and a delicate sense of honour’ Not at
all violent towards the lower classes. Their main fault was accepting ‘that
licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on their ruin’. For Burke,
‘Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. ‘They did not deserve the
suffering the French Revolution inflicted on them.
Same with the clergy. Their treatment was undeserved and Burke
suspects some of the persecution was motivated by greed. To condemn the clergy,
the atheists have had to go to history, not the present clerics. So they act
out the massacre of St Bartholomew to engender more hatred of the clergy. They
are perverting history.
There are weaknesses, but we must bear with ‘infirmities
until they fester into crime.’ This had not happened with the clergy. Burke
when he visited found ‘the clergy in general persons of moderate minds and
decorous manners.’ Impressed by the scholarly nature of the bishops, and some
of the senior clergy he had met. Deserve respect. But the National Assembly have
a disposition just to plunder the church. Now there is an ‘elective clergy’,
i.e. stooges of the government, and Burke believes this is a temporary measure
before they stamp out Christianity all together. This is the aim of the
‘philosophical fanatics.’
The importance of property
Regarding the confiscation of the church and monasteries’
property, it is justice that is being mocked. And so the National Assembly sits
not for the security of property, but for its destruction. Burke blames the
atheistic journalists wo have ‘filled the populate with a black and savage
atrocity of mind.’ Burke is against any government being able to ‘confiscate’
property. His objection is larger than just the appalling anti clericalism that
had swept France. For it means there has been a departure from basic justice.
Burke is not against reform, but loathes these people who
‘consider his country as nothing but carte blanch – upon which he may scribble
whatever he pleases.’ Burke is all in favour of inheritance. It is good for
some things not to involve money.
The National Assembly is illegal
Burke sees the National Assembly as being essentially
illegal. ‘A voluntary association of men’ using the opportunity, ‘to seize the
upon the power of the state.’ So, ‘they proceed exactly as their ancestors of
ambition have done before them’. They are following the ‘formulas of tyranny
and usurpation’. Experimenting with other people’s lives on ‘untried
speculations’ So, they are ‘ready to cut up the infant for the sake of an
experiment.’ Their eloquence, does not have wisdom. They have unleashed
destruction in the name of reform
‘Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than
prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.’ True
reform is about a lot more than pulling down the old. Burke all for slow
change. ‘We compensate, we reconcile, we balance’. It is all too destructive.
‘By hating vices too much, they come to love men too
little.’
The new constitution, ‘a puerile and pedantic system’
Burke considers their constitution. He mocks the way
representation works because there is no direct link – as in England – between
the citizen and the representative. Instead the system operates via 18
departments connecting to 1,720 districts, connection to 6,400 cantons. Says
the representation is unequal It is held together by philosophy, ‘not anything
moral.’ He calls the National Assembly ‘alchemistical
legislators’, who will only bring the constitution into being through ‘terror’.
(He is writing four years before the terror proper). Burke sees the National
Assembly really as an arm of the state, not a body that can balance
the executive. This means there will be an oligarchy in each department, and
this will encourage speculators.
The constitution will encourage speculators and usurers who
know nothing of agriculture – this is because they are selling off church land.
For Burke ‘one old experience peasant’ is worth more than all the directors.
‘They will not follow the plough whilst they can direct treasuries and govern
provinces.’
Burke says that these legislators ‘have founded a
commonwealth upon gaming’. What is so bad is that ‘all are forced to play, few
can understand the game. The many must be the dupes of the few who conduct the
machine of these speculations’ So, all the power is going to settle in the
towns with the burghers and the monied directors. Burke see that if this
‘monster of a constitution can continue France will be wholly governed by
agitators…trustees, agents, attorneys, money jobbers, speculators. Here end all
the deceitful dreams and visions of the quality and rights of men’
Another problem Burke sees with the constitution is the
power of the city of Paris. For though the French Revolution wants everyone to
be Frenchmen, it is likely that the regions will lose their localities. Burke
mocks the idea that we can feel affection for a mere number. All will be
controlled by Paris.
No external control of the National Assembly
So, the National Assembly has ‘every possible power’, but
‘no possible external control.’ There is no senate. Always there is such a
body. Needed for review and steadiness. As for the executive – a downgraded
king. Just a channel for the National Assembly. Better if the king had nothing
to do with the judiciary for ‘Everything in justice that is vile and odious is
thrown upon him.’.
Burke shows how it is for the good of the state when a king
has a councillor who he does not like, but who serves well. But now a minister
of state in France has no dignity. These ministers of state in France, ‘they are
the only persons in that country who are incapable of a share in the national
councils. What ministers! What councils! What a nation! – but they are
responsible. ‘So, there is no authority in the executive. Suggests that the
king have the prerogative of declaring war and peace, otherwise the other kings
will start meddling in the National Assembly.
The National Assembly has abolished the parliament – which
was independent. So they could oppose ‘arbitrary innovation’. A great security
to private property. A corrective to the excesses and vices of monarchy.’ None
of this in the new system. They could have served as a corrective to the ‘evils
of a light and unjust democracy.’
Also they should have kept the ‘ancient power of registering
and remonstrating…all the decrees of the National Assembly. This stops the
‘occasional decrees’. Instead you appoint the judges and tell them what to say.
And it’s dangerous if they don’t. Worse, the law makers are exempt from the
law. So – the move to oligarchy.
The army will become a monster
According to its own minister the army is in a state of
anarchy. Burke points out that this will become a political monster, ‘devouring
those who have produced it’. This is of course exactly what happened. Burke
asks why anarchy has taken over the army, and his answer is because of the
violence the National Assembly has sanctioned, which included the killing of
soldiers who were guarding the king. It is to do with the assertion of the equality
of men, the pulling down of the idea of a gentleman, the abolition of titles…’But
M. de lar Tour du Pin is astonished at their disloyalty.’ Burke mockingly
suggests that the soldiers are sent the ‘excellent sermons of Voltaire,
d’Alembert, Diderot, and Helvetius…’ The National Assembly has weakened the
‘austere rules of military discipline.’
There must be blood
‘Any part of the puerile and pedantic system with they call
a constitution’ harms everything it comes into contact with: the crown, the
army; the municipality.
Burke concludes – ‘There must be blood’.
That has to happen if you mix mutinous soldiers with
seditious citizens. There is also the problem that the soldiers have to
petition both the court and the National Assembly for promotion. And they have
destroyed the principle of obedience. Who should choose the officers, surely
the soldiers in the French Revolution. Everything is elective – so why not in
the army?
This means there will be violence because when there is a
difference between the National Assembly and the army that is the only option
left.
‘As the colonists rise on you, the Negroes rise on them.
Troops again – massacre, torture, hanging! These are your rights of men! These
are the fruits of metaphysical declarations wantonly made…You lay down
metaphysic propositions which infer universal consequences, and then your
attempt to limit logic by despotism.’
In this new system where there are no lords the peasants
ask, ‘why are we taxed to maintain what you tell us ought not to exist?’
So the whole system of the equality comes to this: ‘They (the
members of the National Assembly) have left nothing but their own arbitrary
pleasure to determine what property is to be protected and what subverted’
The Revolution has bankrupted the country
After the French Revolution the revenues of the state ‘was
diminished by the sum of two hundred million…considerably more than one third
of the whole.’ So, the National Assembly have overthrown the nation’s finances.
Because each district acted as it felt when it came to taxes. That was because
of the ‘government’. They asked for ‘voluntary benevolence’. Now they have to
get that benevolence by force.
‘The invention of these juvenile pretenders to liberty was
in reality nothing more than a servile imitation of one of the poorest
resources of doting despotism.’
Says that the French economy is all about paper money, while
in England it is about commerce, solid credit, and keeping political power out
of transactions.
The National Assembly have no lines of credit. Unlike the
old government which could raise money. The new just rest on ‘church plunder’.
They think this will cure all the evils of the state. All they can do is issue
more paper money, assignats, on the basis of confiscated property. For Burke is
it madness to replace a working system with one based on confiscated property.
Especially when there is no valuation of the said property. And when the cost
of maintaining these properties is more than their worth. ‘These are the
calculating powers of imposture! This is the finance of philosophy!’.
Burke continues to criticize their financial arrangements.
Especially ‘coining into money the bells of suppressed churches.’
‘The prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted
in payment for a biscuit or a pound of gunpowder.’
The members of the National Assembly ‘are besieged by no
others enemies than their own madness and folly, their own credulity and
perverseness.’
Before July 1789, the finances were sound. Now they are
grim.
Good Order
‘Good order is the foundation of all good things. To be
enabled to acquire, the people, without being servile, must be tractable and
obedient. The magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their authority. The
body of the people must not find the principles of natural subordination by art
rooted out of their minds. They must respect that property of which they cannot
partake. They must labour to obtain what by labour can be obtained; and when
they find, as they commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavour,
they must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal
justice.’
To talk about liberty without wisdom and virtue means it
becomes ‘the greatest of all possible evils.’
For Burke liberty means reforming what we have, and that
requires ‘much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful and combining
mind. This I do not find in tow who take a lead in the National Assembly.’
Instead we have ‘bidders at the auction of popularity’.
In answer to the question that surely some good much have
come from the French Revolution, Burke writes – ‘The improvements of the
National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.’
The importance of understanding human nature
Burke praises the English constitution where people ‘acted
under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind, let us
add if we please, but let us preserve what they have left, and, standing on the
firm ground of the British constitution, let us be satisfied to admire rather
than attempt to follow in the desperate flights of the aeronauts of France. ‘
Burke says his views are based on ‘observation and much
impartiality.’
