Georges Lefebvre's The Coming Of The French Revolution

Written for a broad, general audience—without footnotes, a bibliography, or other formalities—The Coming of the French Revolution still holds a persuasive power over the reader. Georges Lefebvre wrote The Coming of the French Revolution in 1939, carefully dividing the story into six parts. The first four are organized around four acts, each associated with the four major groups in France—the “Aristocratic Revolution,” the “Bourgeois Revolution,” the “Popular Revolution,” and the “Peasant Revolution.” Part V examines the acts of the National Assembly to abolish feudalism and write Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and Part VI presents the “October Days” (xv-xvii). Hidden under the book’s seemingly-simple construction are many facts and events tainted by Lefebvre’s own view of the Revolution. Lefebvre is careful to weave his own ideas and beliefs into the sea of facts, but where do these biases come from? The timing of the release itself and the effect Lefebvre hoped the book would have on the public are one example of his bias. A few
important omissions also alter the perspective of the book. Most of the biases however, lay in the influences of Lefebvre’s youth, especially Marxism. As a Marxist, Lefebvre shows particular attention to the material conditions of the peoples’ lives and how these conditions affect the social relations among people.
This idea of social relations is what Lefebvre sees as the crucial cause of the Revolution: the conflict between the long-standing aristocracy—with their exclusion from political power but still-existing seat at the top of the social hierarchy due merely to birth—and the newly-forming bourgeoisie—who held economic power through supplying money to the monarchy but were continuously excluded from the legal structure (1-2). “Such a discrepancy never lasts forever” (2) and the Revolution would bring about the transformation to restore “harmony between fact and law” (2). The battle between the economic and legal powers started the Revolution, but it would take the urban workers and peasants to bring about the true meaning of liberty and equality for
all. Despite the idea that the bourgeoisie was working “for the good of humanity” (48), the even lower peasants and urban workers “could not expect to win the same immediate advantages as the ‘notables’ from a victory of the Third Estate” (97). Due to food shortages and rising prices, rumors soon spread through the lower class of the aristocracy hoarding food and holding back grain “in order to crush the Third Estate…not merely to prevent [it] from liberating itself but to punish it by pillage and massacre” (106-107). Lefebvre sees these ideas among the lower class as obvious reasons for revolt. According to Lefebvre, if the clergy and nobility were enjoying tax exemptions, merely because of their birth into a higher social order, while the peasants suffered under the “crushing weight” (140) of manorial demands, encroachment of rights, and excessive taxes, Revolution was necessary by any means to bring emancipation and enlightenment to the French. Aside from expressing his own views through the events of the Revolution, Lefebvre also wrote this book in response to some events in France in the late 1930’s and in hopes of inspiring current generations to protect the values of the Revolution and fight for the cause of liberty (xix). Lefebvre stresses the unity of the Third estate against the other two estates, especially at the Oath of the Tennis Court when “almost all…were united by a personal danger in a common resolution to stand firm” (81). This desire to instill in the French people a will to protect their nation is most apparent in the final conclusion when Lefebvre calls directly to the “[y]outh of 1939” (218) as those “who will soon be the nation” (218). As such, Lefebvre tells them to “listen…to the voice of [their] forefathers” (218) in their search for a life of freedom and liberty, so that they may find courage and heroism rather than indifference or irresponsibility in power (218). These qualities of heroism and courage are stressed throughout the book to present a more glorious revolution as opposed to an ugly war full of famine, poverty, and death. Ideologies and coincidental timing are two elements that affect the way in which Lefebvre presents the Revolution to the reader, but the most apparent bias is what Lefebvre conveniently leaves out all together. There is almost no mention of women in the book at all. There is no apparent role for women in the early phases of the Revolution. It is not until the very end, in Part VI, that Lefebvre finally mentions a rally of women that threatens to march to Versailles in their fight for bread. But even this event, usually deemed the March of the Fishwives, is considered to have had “at least a few organizers” (197), of which none are named but presumed to be male. Women are not the only group excluded from Lefebvre’s Revolution, though; positions of religion and the clergy are also greatly absent. Even though the parish priests’ conflict against the aristocratic bishops helped the Third Estate greatly in its fight against the first two estates, Lefebvre barely gives it a mention. With these omissions and otherwise biased staging of facts, Lefebvre presents a very different Revolution to his readers. Without women and the clergy, the success of the Revolution lies only on the shoulders of the men of the Third Estate. These working men, realizing the poor conditions of their lives, unified under their common interests and fought towards the glorious end filled with success. All in all, Lefebvre’s Revolution was an inspiration for the youth of France at the brink of World War II—an inspiration that ignored struggle, death, and the other less-pleasant parts of the Revolution. It is in these differences that one discovers most of the bias in Lefebvre’s The Coming of the French Revolution. The book deviates from the truth and offers an altered perspective of the Revolution.