ABSTRACT
One of the most studied – and celebrated – episodes in universal historiography is the French Revolution. For many it was a fortunate event, for others, a great misfortune. In any case, what can be claimed with certainty is that it did not take place in a vacuum. Historians discuss not only its merits, but also the extent to which it was either an isolated event or one element of a worldwide phenomenon. Naturally, all historical phenomena are unique and unrepeatable. There has been only one French Revolution. However, a series of historical incidents took place around it that had characteristics in common with it and with each other. These events enable us to frame such a unique phenomenon in a broader context which, while it might not be global in breadth, is at least significant to the Atlantic countries or to the western hemisphere. Specifically, the French Revolution took place between two American
revolutions, the North American one, initiated in 1776, and the Hispanic American one, initiated in 1808. But, in addition, the French Revolution did not occur in isolation in Europe. It was preceded by revolutionary attempts in the Low Countries, in Switzerland, and in Poland. With respect to its repercussions in Europe, they are undeniable, particularly in neighboring countries, such as Spain, Italy, and Prussia, that were occupied more or less totally by the French over an extended period of time. Spaniards know that, despite the well known rejection of the French invader, before and after the rebellion in Madrid on 2 May 1808, there existed an important afrancesado (pro-French) faction in Spain, which was more remarkable for its quality and its middleclass and intellectual membership than for its numbers. There were Francophile movements – or groups sympathetic to the revolution – in all of the aforementioned countries. Economic and social reforms resulting from the French Revolution were duplicated in many Western European countries even before the revolutionary conquests imposed them. In addition, as in Spain’s case, leaders of anti-French movements frequently adopted reform policies that were closer to those introduced by the French Revolution than to those practiced by the Old Regime. Thus, in Spain, the Cortes of Cádiz proclaimed
a constitution in 1812. This constitution, which had no precedent in the history of Spain, ushered in an entire series of measures, such as an agrarian reform and the proclamation of legal principles – abolition of judicial torture, freedom of expression, habeas corpus, etc. – that were more closely related to French and North American declarations of the rights of man and their proclaimed constitutions than to traditional Spanish laws. In Prussia, Ministers Heinrich-Karl von Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg promulgated edicts emancipating peasants and reforming agriculture (in 1808 and 1811, respectively) that, in the same manner, owed more to French reforms than to Prussian tradition. But it is not just that there were revolutionary movements on both con-
tinents (Europe and America) during the four decades between 1775 and 1815. The point is that all these movements shared visions and objectives. We could say that all of them had a common goal, to end what the French called the Old Regime, characterized in Europe by absolutism, and in America by colonial despotism (or by both absolutism and colonialism). But – and this is something truly new – if revolutionaries on both continents understood clearly that the Old Regime was what they wanted to demolish, they also understood what it was they wanted to replace it with: they wanted a free society and a freer economy, and a more representative political system. They wanted to end what they called “feudalism.” Although this term might not have been too rigorous or consistent, the idea was very simple. The aim was to create a society where all citizens would be equal before the law and where no privileges would be bestowed by birth other than economic ones. With regard to economic equality there was ambiguity among revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic. While respect for private property and the freedom “to will,” that is, to bequeath private estates to heirs, ended up prevailing, there was, particularly in France, a strong current of opinion (which history personifies in Gracchus Babeuf but which represented an appreciable minority) partial to “communism,” which in this case meant intervention by the state to achieve economic equality. As far as feudalism is concerned, while it is true that eighteenth-or early nineteenth-century European and American societies were far from the feudal societies of the High Middle Ages (which experts consider the paradigm), it is also true that they retained many of their features, significantly, a system of personal and territorial privileges, and social estates (strata) that the revolutionaries most notably wanted to abolish. In reality, revolutionaries from both sides of the Atlantic shared a common
set of ideas, nourished by the doctrines of the Enlightenment “philosophers,” in particular Montesquieu and Rousseau in France, and Locke and Hume in England. But what should be emphasized here is that this set of ideas was inspired by yet another revolution, the seventeenth-century English Revolution, which was to be imitated by the revolutions that would follow a century later. The English Revolution is the first great revolution of the modern world, one that leads the way from the absolutist Old Regime to our modern contractual and representative society. For this reason the English Revolution
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was studied by the first social scientists deserving of that name (although they may have had a few Renaissance predecessors). The English Revolution put an end once and for all to the belief that the social order is as immutable as the natural order and that the right of sovereigns to govern was divinely ordained, thus absolute and indisputable. Charles I’s defeat, his imprisonment, sentence and death, the long rule by Parliament and by a man of humble origins (low rural nobility), Oliver Cromwell, as Lord Protector of the British Isles, and his rejection of the crown offered to him, all demonstrated that society was much more malleable than the concept of divine right had allowed anyone to imagine. Events subsequent to the long English Revolution confirm this observation. The restoration of the Stuarts in the person of Charles II, the bloodless dethroning of James II in 1688, and the installation of a king of Dutch origin (William III of Orange), contingent upon his recognition of Parliament’s legal and executive powers, and, therefore, his acceptance of his role as the first constitutional monarch in history, resulted in a political organization unheard of previously. The English Revolution provided indisputable proof, for the more aware spirits and minds of that era, that any social organization can change according to the will of those who constitute it: the concept of the “social contract” appears already in writers of the times, such as Thomas Hobbes, and it becomes renowned and celebrated by the middle of the next century with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. However, as with all social events, the English Revolution had an antecedent: the Dutch (or the Low Countries’) Revolution. In their revolt against Spanish absolutism, the Dutch carried out a social and political revolution. This revolt, which would become a revolution, was initiated in 1566 in opposition to Philip II of Spain, who was their “natural lord” by inheritance, for the Hapsburg family had controlled the Low Countries since the end of the fifteenth century. Although in many respects the Dutch Revolution is an antecedent to the English Revolution and gives way to the “first modern society” (de Vries and van der Woude 1997 called it the “first modern economy”), it did not result in a model as politically and economically stable or clearly defined as the one that emerged in England. However, as a far-reaching revolutionary phenomenon there is no doubt about the primacy and importance of the Low Countries’ Revolution. The Dutch rebelled in 1566 for three reasons: religious, political, and economic. These three derived from the fact that since the Low Countries were a more complex, rich, and advanced society than Spain, they demanded a government and a social organization quite in opposition to the absolutism that Philip II was trying to impose. The first aim of the rebellion was to achieve religious tolerance, the peaceful coexistence of the Catholic creed with the various Protestant creeds expanding there, and with Judaism. This religious plurality was in opposition to the Catholic monolith that Philip wished to maintain. A second goal was to moderate the system of heavy taxation which the Spanish Crown wanted to impose upon its wealthy Dutch subjects. The final goal was to maintain the complex and intricate forms of government in the region’s provinces, where a decentralized, almost federal
system prevailed among the provinces and a representative oligarchic system within them. All of this made political dissensions in the Low Countries subject to a series of checks, balances, and limitations that were incomprehensible and unacceptable to the theocratic absolutism of the Spanish king. The rebellion against Spain, therefore, was not a simple war of independence. It was, rather, the first successful revolution in modern Europe against absolutism. The power and the social innovation achieved in the Low Countries were
due to their advanced economy, which was closely related to the geographical characteristics of the surrounding area. Located on the river Rhine’s delta, the Low Countries are, as expressed in their name, extensions of low and flat lands that fall below sea level at times. Feudalism never achieved great strength in the northern zones because, due to its swampy conditions, the lands were settled late and as frontier fringes. The wealth of the region originated from its trade with Baltic countries, England, and the Iberian Peninsula and from its early development of industry. By the end of the Middle Ages it was an extremely urbanized and commercialized area. Another geographical characteristic of the area has left an indelible mark on Dutch society: features of the terrain allow, almost require, that land close to the sea, semi-submerged in salt water, be drained via the use of dikes (polders). That is to say, by means of complex public works the Dutch have been reclaiming land from the sea. This turned out to be necessary as the population grew and arable land became scarcer. The shortage of land became worse because peat was abundant and many sections were turned over to its production; the conversion of arable land into peat bogs aggravated the shortage of tillable soil. This situation had considerable economic and social consequences. On the
one hand, as we have seen, it contributed to a Herculean intensification of public works (the construction of dikes has been an incessant activity for the Dutch since the Middle Ages), which in turn instilled a spirit of cooperation and organization among peoples of different origins and having different languages. On the other hand, it contributed as well to the development of the Dutch economy by stimulating innovations that left a lasting imprint, not only on the Low Countries, but also on the entire world. For example, Dutch agriculture adopted a series of new techniques that, by means of complex crop rotations and by combining cattle-raising with agriculture (alternating the planting of cereals for human consumption with forage), achieved a much higher agricultural yield than those obtained by traditional means. These new agricultural techniques were later imitated and perfected in England and in the countries located on the northern European plain, thereby initiating what has been called the European Agricultural Revolution, which was the basis of early modern and modern economic growth. In combination with this, the relative paucity of land favored the introduction of industrial (or protoindustrial) activities in the Dutch domain: we have already mentioned peat production. This fuel was used in homes, in metallurgy, and for the production of bricks. The textile industry also developed in rural areas and in cities
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such as Leiden, Bruges, Hondschoote, etc. The food industry, especially the production of cheese, fish, and salt-curing, and the brewing of beer, experienced great growth as well. Many of these products were exported, which encouraged the expansion of other commercial activities for which geography already predisposed the country: navigation, commerce, and naval construction. From the late Middle Ages, the Dutch ports (Bruges, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other minor ones) became centers of intense commercial activity that connected lands around the Baltic Sea with Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and, with ever greater frequency, the Mediterranean. Development of these activities created a society that was not too stratified.
Wealthy merchants and industrialists had as much power as the land-owning nobility. Urban governments were in the hands of bourgeois groups, while rural areas were mainly in the hands of nobles, but their relationships were rather fluid. In general, all of these elites had liberal attitudes and preferences with respect to economic, political, and religious matters. The Spanish monarch’s inability to understand this, in spite of his knowledge of the country, ultimately provoked the Eighty Years’ War which not only led to the independence of the Low Countries, but also to a true social revolution in the emerging Republic of the United Provinces. This political revolution was, however, not complete because, while
remaining a republic, the new nation retained many monarchical features. This paradox was due to the way in which independence was achieved. During the long war against Spain, power was to be inevitably concentrated in the hands of a military leader, a role which was performed to perfection by a nobleman, William of Orange, who became de facto king albeit without a crown, acquiring the title of stathouder (literally, lieutenant mayor) previously reserved for provincial governors. The Orange dynasty in Holland came to have almost monarchical status, and the Orangist party was the strongest and most cohesive. During the glorious seventeenth century, William’s descendants vied for power with provincial oligarchies in disputes that were frequently bloody. This political duality between republic and stathouder was never resolved, and, along with the dubious gift of the stathouder William III of Orange obtaining the English throne in 1688, the duality contributed to the economic, political, and social, even demographic, paralysis that overtook Holland in the eighteenth century. After the traumas suffered as a result of the French invasion and the Napoleonic wars, during the nineteenth century Holland gradually adopted a political organization patterned upon that already in place in Britain, France, and Belgium: the constitutional monarchy. The English Revolution, which we discussed in the previous chapter, took
place almost immediately after the one in Holland. It resulted in a system based on a constitutional monarchy, with increasing parliamentary predominance. Although this system evolved in following centuries, it retained the basic characteristics of the agreement reached in 1688. These two political revolutions, the incomplete Dutch and the fully realized
English Revolution, were the prelude and the model for the Great Atlantic
Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It must be emphasized that both Holland and Britain had reached a level of economic and social development far superior to that of their European neighbors when their respective revolutions started. It seems clear that for various reasons absolutism constituted an obstacle to continued growth in both countries. In the first place, the arbitrary taxes that absolute monarchs tried to impose constituted a serious attempt against juridical security, which was an essential requirement to the normal functioning of the market and to entrepreneurial investment. In the second place, the economic interests of the bourgeoisie (capitalistic economic agents) clashed with those of absolute governments, which were rarely capable economic policy makers. In the third place, equality before the law and the independence of the judiciary turned out to be basic ingredients of juridical security. In the fourth place, the governments of the Old Regime tended to represent the interests of the land-owning nobility, which were frequently directly opposed to those of the urban classes. In the fifth place, property forms in the Old Regime, and in particular land ownership, impeded the functioning of the market, frequently limiting certain social groups from access to property; the clearest and quantitatively most important examples of this problem were the land holdings of the Church and of the nobles. These constituted enormous lumps of real estate partially or totally at the margin of mercantile traffic. In the sixth and final place, something similar happened with the labor market, where the estate and guild structures in place greatly hindered economic and geographic mobility. In addition to the economic reasons presented here, there were political ones, which coincided with them.
