The same might well be said for the American Revolution. Except the Americans had installed the constitutional “guardrails” of “checks and balances” limiting government. Not so in Paris.
France (Louis XVI) had suffered massive financial losses by supporting the Americans against England without making the gains in the Caribbean they’d hoped for. They claimed no new territory. They’d gambled and lost. Debt crushed them. It brought on a huge political crisis trying to avoid default. The system was unsuitable to address the reversal.
Louis was indecisive, his younger brothers had undermined him at Versailles for years, spreading all sorts of fake news about him and his very unpopular (because she was Austrian) wife. Then the weather finished the job.
Storms, droughts, bad harvests, starvation and the inability to sufficiently address these crises (because they were broke) combined to precipitate the storming of the Bastille. What subsequently took place in an attempt to create a new utopia from scratch based on Rousseau’s back to nature balderdash descended into “the terror”. Heads rolled.
A lot of those revolutionary ideas sounded really good. Who would oppose “virtue”? Who would oppose “liberty” or “equality” or “fraternity? They’re mutually exclusive, but they make great slogans. Bonaparte found them very useful.
French revolution was a masonic project.
The same might well be said for the American Revolution. Except the Americans had installed the constitutional “guardrails” of “checks and balances” limiting government. Not so in Paris.
France (Louis XVI) had suffered massive financial losses by supporting the Americans against England without making the gains in the Caribbean they’d hoped for. They claimed no new territory. They’d gambled and lost. Debt crushed them. It brought on a huge political crisis trying to avoid default. The system was unsuitable to address the reversal. Louis was indecisive, his younger brothers had undermined him at Versailles for years, spreading all sorts of fake news about him and his very unpopular (because she was Austrian) wife. Then the weather finished the job. Storms, droughts, bad harvests, starvation and the inability to sufficiently address these crises (because they were broke) combined to precipitate the storming of the Bastille. What subsequently took place in an attempt to create a new utopia from scratch based on Rousseau’s back to nature balderdash descended into “the terror”. Heads rolled.
A lot of those revolutionary ideas sounded really good. Who would oppose “virtue”? Who would oppose “liberty” or “equality” or “fraternity? They’re mutually exclusive, but they make great slogans. Bonaparte found them very useful.