Progressive Mistakes of the French Revolution

People often speak nonsense, only to look foolish later, like today's Progressive feminists standing up for Jihadists who would chop off feminist heads, if given the chance. Or well-meaning Billie Eilish offering to share her real estate with people she really did not want to share her digs with. Unexamined ideas and impractical thinking tend to create problems. If an ideology, any ideology, is going to succeed in the long term, it must be consistent with the practical realities. No matter what the system of government one chooses, capable leadership is still required.

Listening to Lecture 26 of Thomas Childer's Great Book Audio Series on World War 2, I was pleased to learn that the ground was taken out beneath the similarly impractical Pacifist/Isolationist movements in the USA in the 1930s, when the Nazis conquered France in 1940. The majority of citizens in the USA immediately understood that the War presented real threats to America which had to be handled effectively. America's small army, which had ranked 19th, in size when the War started, was transformed into the most powerful Army in the World when the War ended 5 years later. the American people ignored ideologies in favor of modifying their goals in view of the practical necessities of the time.

In todays' news, it appears that President Trump and his able advisors have set about to rearrange the world order in a practical way, by using America's power to help end conflicts around the world. Who knows, things could go sideways or backwards, due to bad luck or unforeseen events, but so far, even many of his enemies are admitting that President Trump's tough decisions are producing practical and beneficial results.

Which brings me to back to the time when France was the second-most powerful country in the World, yet had an incapable King, whose poor decision-making opened the door to Progressives taking control of France. Ultimately the Progressives failed as they pursued impractical changes which were unpopular. This is the brief story of what happened: the failures of an inept Monarch opened the door to formation of a French Republic, leading to a series of Progressive changes to French society. The French people did not like many of the Progressive changes. After 10 years of chaos caused by the unfortunate choices of their new government, the French elected Napoleon to be their leader. He proved that he had the executive skill to make changes which most French people wanted. Napoleon was able to make himself Emperor for life (although later bad decisions took him out of power).

Before the rise of Napoleon, back during the time the Guillotine was invented as a high-tech, supposedly humane tool, Progressive leaders used it to do away with their King and Queen in the very real "No Kings Day" of 1791. Once they were operating the government, Progressives over-estimated their power to change entrenched French customs, believing that their education and knowledge entitled them to decide what was good for everyone else. They knew better than the people what was good for France.

Some Progressive reforms lasted after the privileges of the Nobility and the Clergy were abolished. Religious freedom was granted to all Protestants. Slavery was abolished in France and some of its colonies, although even the Progressives knew that they could not completely shut down the money machine from the Sugar trade in their Caribbean colonies.

After they took power in 1789, the Progressives imposed their idealist changes in the 3 French Constitutions created serially in the first six years of Progressive rule. Inspired by Enlightenment writers Rousseau and Voltaire, as well as the American Constitution, also created in 1789, Progressive thinkers saw the opportunity to remake France into a nation with freedom and equality.

Back in 1789, the French people had good cause to be upset about how King Louis 16 and the French Nobility had been ruling France. Louis 16 was just not cut out for the role of King. Lacking the ability to discern right from wrong, he was sneaky and timid. Uncomfortable making decisions of any kind, he preferred to spend his time hunting (think of him as a "Prince Andrew" type.) But the French people believed their Kings were appointed by God and had faith in their Monarchy. They loved Louis16 because he was their King.

In 1789, most French were Catholics. They liked living with their traditions and customs, cherishing the annual rituals in the lives of their families and communities. But in 1789, they had become very unhappy due to the deterioration of the French economy. Guided by their financial advisors, Louis 16 and the French Nobles, had borrowed far too much money, spending like mad on themselves, and refusing to economize in the face of impending financial collapse. France had made huge profits from its colonies. But the Kings and Nobles kept spending much more than came in from taxes and tithes.

Despite its poor financial condition, France even gave huge sums of money to support the American overthrow of British rule. Louis 16 had been convinced by American techno-wizard Ben Franklin to help fight against British King George 3. Louis 16 also loaned money France didn't have because he wanted revenge on King George 3, who led Britain to win the Seven Years War and drive the French out of its North American colony.

Increasing literacy in France exposed the people to the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, themselves Progressives who were leading an assault on established religion. Feudalism had previously required the people at the bottom to pay oppressive amounts of money to the King, the Nobles and the Church. The Aristocracy (meaning the Nobles and Clergy) comprised only 3% of the 28 million population of France. They paid no taxes at all. The Nobles and Clergy received money squeezed out of the people at the bottom, who had no say whatsoever in the way France operated. The lack of food due to repeated droughts in the 1790s ignited the desperation of the common French people. Their anger was directed at these Aristocrats and French Royalty.

The main issue was lack of food. It was not unusual for children to starve to death. Yet, the Nobility and the Clergy refused to reduce their burden on the people or to donate a share of their prosperity to ensure there was enough food for everyone. Rebellion had broken out in several different regions of France.

Apparently not knowing what else to do, the King Louis 16 and the Aristocrats made an unwise decision: They notified the people that everyone should get together for meeting of the Estates General, a type of intervention meeting of all the people of France to try to correct problems for France. The last meeting of the Estates General had happened 167 years before. Chosen as a last resort by the Aristocrats, this Estates General meeting was supposed to get everyone together to discuss solutions, but the reality was that the Royalty had hoped to use the Estates General to force the starving people to pay even more money to the Aristocrats. It shows how out of touch the Royalty had become with the practical realities of the situation, which required the wealthy to make sacrifices, as the common people could give no more.

Representatives from communities all over France attended the Estates General. They all met for several months in a huge room at the Palace in Versailles, a few miles outside of Paris, where the Kings of France had resided for 70 years. After the initial Estates General meetings went nowhere, the representatives of the common people recognized that the decisions made at the Estates General were going to end with a greater burden for them, the common people protested and walked out. They held their own separate meeting in a big room in a nearby building at Versailles, an indoor tennis court. Importantly, a substantial number of reform-minded Nobles also defected from the meeting of the King and Nobles main room. They agreed that the common people needed changes in their favor and joined the protestors' meetings. These Nobles felt that reductions of the burden on the common people were the only way to fix the economic problems. To preserve order, these liberal Nobles were ready to vote against their own pocketbooks and receive less income.

The fact that some Nobles joined with the Protesters encouraged the Protesters, who had suspected that the King and Nobles had been hoarding grain and were selling it outside of France to make money, instead of helping the starving common people. There were lots of rumors and accusations flying all around, no different than the politics of today. Also, during this time, starving peasants had begun storming chateaus across France, undertaking insurrections against the Nobles in distant regions.

Things finally boiled over in July of 1789, when Louis 16 ordered a large army to be brought to Paris, possibly for use in a government crackdown on the people. Incited by this threat on July 14,1789, 1789, a mob in Paris attacked the big prison called the Bastille in the Paris city center. The mob had information that large quantities of gunpower were stored in the Bastille, which the mob wanted to use to defend against attack from the Army. After its initial assault, the Mob was allowed to enter the Bastille because many of the King's Army were also sympathetic to the cause of the common people.

After removing the gunpowder, the mob began tearing down the Bastille stone by stone to the ground. (The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is often compared to the fall of the Bastille.) After the Bastille had fallen, Louis 16 and the Nobles continued to meet at Versailles, as did the Protesters in their separate building, but no progress was made to resolve their differences. The shortage of food got worse.

Then on October 4, 1789, upon hearing that the King was again bringing a large number of additional soldiers to the Paris region, a huge mob of peasants, aggressive men and women, marched to the King's palace at Versailles, wielding pikes, (long wooden shafts with blades attached to one end) waiving clubs and carrying stones for weapons. They wanted to obtain food and grain stored at the palace, to stave off starvation.

Without being given orders to do so, the King's Guards at Versailles killed a few peasants. In response, the mob attacked and killed several of the King's Guards. To end the violence, Louis 16 finally gave in to the Common people. He implied that he would agree to create a constitutional monarchy to satisfy the mob (even though much later it was revealed that Louis 16 had no such intention at that time, he was just trying to mollify the mob to avoid further violence.)

After Louis 16 said that he would make a deal to make a new form of government, the mob leaders insisted that the King and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, immediately leave Versailles and live in Paris itself, near the people. So, the King and Queen and the mob all traveled to Paris in a procession, bringing along many carts of grain with them from Versailles. The Royal Bakers marched along too, with loaves of bread placed on the end of pikes, which were lofted in celebration above the procession. At the same time, peasant men carried other pikes, upon which were raised the severed heads of the unfortunate King's Guards. The mob was sending a message to observers that they now had power over the King, but the King was still their King, but he would work with them to change the way the government operated.

Delegates were chosen for a new National Assembly to be run by the people, and the Aristocrats who supported changing the way France was governed, now began meeting all together in one chamber in Paris daily, called the National Assembly. The Moderates controlled many of the delegates at the beginning of the National Assembly. Then, over time, the delegates split into smaller, like-minded groups of Progressives (who wanted no King), Moderates (who wanted a Constitutional Monarchy like Britain had) and Conservatives (who wanted a King). The Progressives sat at the left side of the large Assembly room, the Conservatives on the right side. The political terms "Left" and "Right" arose at this National Assembly and came to mean what they mean to us now.

The creation of a new form of French government inspired formation of local political clubs which arose throughout France. The clubs of the poor and lower middle classes usually argued for radical changes. The French citizens with money wanted a conservative approach to reform. These local clubs met frequently. They sent messengers to their delegates in Paris about what they wanted in the new government.

The National Assembly met regularly and came up with a constitution and communicated with the King about each day's events. But as time passed, King Louis 16 became increasingly frustrated, as he did not really want to change things. Then, about two years after he and his Queen had moved to Paris, Louis 16 and his family tried to sneak out of France, feeling that he had become a captive and fearing that he would eventually be overthrown.

It was later revealed that Louis 16 and his wife had secretly written to his wife's relatives—the Royalty of Austria—requesting that once Louis 16 and his family were safely in Austria, the Austrian army would invade and conquer France, then return Louis 16 to his unrestricted Kingly power.

The idiocy of Louis 16's escape plan is consistent with his lack of common sense. The Royal Carpenters built him a giant luxury carriage (which by itself would draw anyone's attention) to transport the King and his entourage out of France. These Royals snuck away in the middle of the night, taking country roads once outside Paris, and headed for the border with Austria.

Although Louis 16 and his entourage were dressed in common clothes, the gilded and leather trimmed carriage also carried 3 security officers riding on the roof, all dressed in matching yellow suits. Moreover, Louis 16 did not attempt to disguise his face at all, even though his face was familiar to many, having been pictured on the coins and paper currency widely circulated through France at that time.

This gaudy carriage drew the attention of local authorities about 40 miles away from the Austrian border. After being identified by a man who had seen him at Versailles, Louis 16 admitted who he was, and the entourage was escorted back to Paris under guard. His treason and betrayal of France was exposed. It is no wonder that Louis 16 was ultimately executed by the Progressives in power at that time. The people were angry at his disloyalty, deceptions and treasonous actions. It was his own duplicity which convinced the National Assembly that they must execute Louis 16, as well as his queen, Marie Antoinette.

The French people probably would have been better off if they had just named one of the King's relatives to be a new King to get things back on track, but at that time, it was all the rage by Progressives in France that science and knowledge was everything, that God was a lie, and that nobody needed any king, nor any faith in religion.

Motivated by their convictions, the reformers in the new Constitutional government made extreme changes in France, which is when things got crazy. The Progressives had never been in power before. Many were intelligent and well-read but that didn't mean that they were practical or considered the ramifications of making extreme changes. They did not foresee the push-back which would result.

The Progressives didn't have the extensive political experience possessed by the American Founders, who had the advantage of all being rich men with considerable government and business experience. The American ancestors had been running America for more than 100 years. After the Americans luckily defeated the English in the American Revolution, thanks to help from Louis 16, the American Founders knew that they had to stick together for the new nation to survive. They already knew that they wanted the new America to be a lot like it was before, minus British control. It took them 6 years to put the new American Constitution in place, joining 13 separate colonies into one united government.

Most of the Americans knew that they had to buy into the Liberty and Equality concept. Dissention in the fragile new United States of America risked being re-conquered by Britain or some other colonizing nation. The Americans had a much easier time sustaining their Constitution than the French would have, because the new American Government was run by the same people who had run the prior colonial governments. They knew what they wanted to do and what they needed to do.

The French delegates had never been in power before. There was no unity of goal. There were too many people involved in the National Assembly to be able to get any reasonable consensus. (Not unlike our American Congress, who can argue endlessly whether American voters need to show reliable identification before being allowed to vote, when a school class of 12-year-olds could reach unanimous agreement that valid proof of the right to vote is a good idea in about 5 minutes.)

By that time that Louis 16 and his wife were guillotined, much had already been changed in the way that the French people lived: The new government told the people that reason and equality were to be worshipped. Religion was superstition and should be shunned.

The Progressives were very concerned that France was surrounded other countries, all ruled by their Kings, all of whom were worried about losing their own heads if their own citizens tried to take power as had the people of France.

The new French leadership was antagonistic towards the neighboring Kings, who began to invade France, and attack from all directions. French leaders became paranoid that some local delegates were foreign agents, suspecting them of plotting against France, or of collaborating with the neighbor Kings. Acting on rumors and unproven accusations, the Progressive leaders started holding hearings in the National Assembly, quickly convicting those accused, crediting baseless allegations and unreliable proof, finding that people with other ideas were guilty of treason for supporting a return to monarchy, or even supporting a Constitutional monarchy instead of a republic. Once convicted, these former leaders were soon sent to the Guillotine for public execution, without valid proof or good reason for killing them, other than Progressive fear of invasion by neighboring armies and/or fear of internal skullduggery.

Over time, the Moderate and Conservative leaders were able to take power away from the Progressives and started undertaking their own prosecutions of Progressives, again based upon flimsy accusations and suspect evidence, sending Progressive leaders to the guillotine in revenge, until eventually things finally settled down after six months of blood flowing daily, more than 2,400 executions taking place in all, before this "Reign of Terror" ended.

A smaller group of delegates then began running things for France, the majority having recognized that important decisions could be made more easily and quickly by having fewer people involved. Even though the Priests had previously been among the most important men in France, as they represented both Church and State, and had been at the center of many community functions and ceremonies, the Priests were discharged by the new government. The Progressives voted to take away all the lands owned by the Catholic Church, including the Monasteries and the convents. (As much as 10% of all French real estate had been owned by Catholic Church and other religious Orders.)

The Progressives sold off the church lands and buildings to raise money to keep the new French government going, even though most of the French people were Catholic and believed in God. A lot of the common people were unhappy that their Catholic religion had been outlawed.

The Progressives started paying priests salaries, if a priest agreed to swear allegiance to the French nation over God. About one-third of the priests refused to put the French Government over their God and quit. The Progressives believed that their nation was their God. Everything must be done that was best for the French nation. The government wanted everyone to call each other "Citizen", to reinforce the message that all were equal.

They even wanted to do away with the formal "Vous" word and have everyone call each other the informal "Tu' for the same reason. (Does this "reform" sound familiar to the "compelled speech" sought by today's Progressives, trying to force people to use preferred gender terms?) The government even created one place of worship called "Church Without God". (This reminds me of the double- speak language of George Orwell's novel 1984.)

People were also unhappy with the non-religious new French calendar the Progressives put in place instead of the old calendar (the old one which we still use today). The new French calendar started year 1 as the date that the King had been executed in 1793. The new calendar had only 10 months, as part of the new metric system which the Progressives introduced into France. ( I like the metric system, which was one of the good ideas of the French Progressives, which still has not been accepted in America.)

All the months of the new French calendar were named after flowers, rivers and other non-religious items, for example, the month named "Thermador" was in the summer. Religious or Historical names were cancelled by the Progressives. The new leaders created 10-day weeks in the new calendar, so that people only had one day of rest every 10 days, instead of one day of rest every 7 days. You can imagine how popular that was, not to mention the Progressives doing away with religious holidays and inserting political holidays in their place. The Church and the new calendar changes affected everyone and caused the greatest resistance to the new French government.

Progressives reorganized all the political sub-divisions and remade the entire country, so that there were 84 equal sub-divisions, each with a county seat within 1 day walk for all citizens of that sub-division. If a big city was not centrally located within a sub-division, it was no longer a country seat, even if its location was on a big river which was suited to a high degree of trade. The intention was to make everything fair. The Progressives changed a lot more things to make the country fairer to everyone, too many to mention in this article, many of them impractical.

As is true with American politics today, the countryside people of France were typically more conservative than those in the big cities. In several regions and several mid-size cities in France, the politics were highly conservative and the people there were very unhappy at all the changes which the Progressives forced upon them. There were other cities which became Progressive strongholds.

The wars with the neighbor Kings did not stop. As time passed, a lot of French citizens became fed up with the changes they did not like, and looked to return to the old ways, like going to church on Sundays and celebrating Easter.

Many of the Progressive changes were reversed by Napoleon after he came to power. He was a military genius, becoming a General at age 24. Napoleon possessed superior executive abilities and made good decisions, which had been sorely lacking in the French leadership. He was also very good at self-promotion and came to be famous for winning so many battles and dressing in a very conspicuous way when he walked in public so that everybody who saw him soon learned that he was the famous general. Napoleon became the head of all the armies and defeated the armies of the neighbor Kings and even took land away from most of them.

It did not take long for Napoleon to be democratically elected as France's leader, taking control over all of France by himself and his advisors. He initially had many successes, including creating a fairer set of laws. He brought back the old calendar and allowed the people to worship God, although he was practical enough to know that he couldn't give any land back to the Catholic Church, which would have created a nightmare of conflict with the people who had purchased the Church property from the Progressives. Napoleon also reduced the number of items in the Progressive's Bill of Rights but left some of the Rights intact.

Napoleon worked tirelessly and practically, quickly becoming even more popular. After a couple of years passed, he engineered his government so that he was able to make himself into an Emperor of the French Empire for life. This was not the democracy that the Progressives had been looking to create when they executed Louis 16 and Marie Antoinette.

Napoleon could not rest on his accomplishments as the Kings of Europe still regarded Napoleon as anti-King, because Napoleon had come to power based on his own accomplishments and abilities. He wasn't born into leadership, as the foreign Kings had been. They saw him as a continuing threat and banded together to try to conquer Napoleon's huge army.

Napoleon's great weakness was that he did not know when to stop invading other countries and concentrate on protecting the new borders he had given France. He engaged in combat with too many foreign Kings and finally was badly beaten by the Russians, resulting in the deaths of huge numbers of French soldiers, after which he was forced out of leadership.

Eventually, France went back to having a King again. Many decades passed before democracy was again considered in France.

I wanted to tell this story because there is turmoil in America today with Progressives seeking many changes which are unpopular with the majority of Americans, such as requiring solar-panels, windmills and reducing use of more economic carbon-based fuels, instead of letting the people chose their energy source from the marketplace; allowing crime to soar in the guise of protecting individual rights of the disadvantaged, whose communities are most harmed by Progressive refusals to take the repeat offenders and dangerously mentally ill off the streets; in favoring irresponsible people over the responsible; in choosing to appease foreign bad actors instead of confronting them to make changes.

Today in America, Progressives make some of the same mistakes as the French made: It is not practical to try to force people to change their pronouns, which is confusing. (I still must take too much time to figure out who is the "their" when I run across that word in news stories.) It makes no sense to allow biological men to compete in woman's sports in view of the general disparity of strength and fragility. It is impractical to favor the needs of interest groups comprised of small numbers of people, making everyone else dance to their tune; to interfere with the safety of airline travel to force political change. It is impractical to create incentives which reward people more for not working than for working. It is impractical for American States to enact confiscatory taxes for take more money from the wealthy, which only reduces those States' tax revenues when the wealthy go elsewhere. Changes need to make economic sense and political sense, and they need to come slowly. People will put up with a lot, but everyone's patience runs out at some point.

Lasting changes could have been made from the get- go in France without chopping off heads and making a lot of unnecessary and non-productive fuss. Something had to be done because the inept French King had been making bad financial decisions, choosing to favor the rich and powerful over his starving subjects.

What France really needed was effective leadership, whether appointing a new King who understood what needed to be done to get the country on track, or creating a new government which was more fair to the common people, but at the same time, to be realistic, to change things in a measured way, and within the expectations of the majority of the people. The French Progressives' drastic changes didn't stick.

In any event, the French Revolution would probably have succeeded if most of the people had been on board with creating a constitutional monarchy, as had worked in Britain. But in France, there were too many ideals pursued by leaders without practical sense to find workable solutions.

Regardless of personal feelings and emotions, pursuing unpopular changes remains a political dead-end in America, just as it was in France 240 years ago.

Bob Worden © 4/20/26
Author of How to Stop Wars and Save the World: Lessons in Negotiation, Settlement and Leadership. I am indebted to Prof. Suzanne Desan and her highly entertaining Great Course regarding The French Revolution and the Age of Napoleon, available on Audible.