The French Revolution 1

by Georges Lefebvre, Elizabeth M. Evanson

-- Peter Gay

Genres: History, Nonfiction, French Revolution, France, Politics, European History, World History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Georges Lefebvre was a French historian, best known for his work on the French Revolution and peasant life.

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is definitely not one for beginners. Lefebvre assumes some knowledge of both the Revolution itself and the the late 18th century in Europe more generally, and if you either have no knowledge or aren't quick on your feet when dealing with names and politics - well, this will be a hard book to read. Me, I'm pretty good on the French side of things, and that's the only way I managed to read this without feeling like a complete idiot. There's also no glossary, so woe betide the reader that misses a term that was explained early on... or wasn't explained at all and you're just meant to understand it, but maybe don't.

One of the most awesome aspects of the book is the very fact that it places the Revolution in its broader European context. I had no idea of the Austrian/Prussian/Russian machinations that were going on at the same time as they were posturing about and around France; the controversy over Poland in particular made me realise just how much I have always viewed the French Revolution in isolation. That is, I know that the American Revolution had an impact, and so on; but I had forgotten that of course those countries who eventually invaded had other things on their mind than just an annoying neighbour. This is a common failing of mine, I have realised. So Lefebvre's insistence on providing a really broad context - much broader than I would have thought necessary, with the internal politicking of Pitt etc - makes this a quite remarkable part of revolutionary historiography.

The most annoying thing about this is that it is part one of two. And this translator did not, apparently, do part 2 - which incorporates the Terror, and Thermidor, and Danton being his most awesome. Still, Lefebvre does give a succinct overview of the issues leading to the Revolution, as well as description of the early years. Perhaps the most amusing aspect is that he appears not to like anyone. He doesn't seem to like the proletariat (as he terms them), nor the peasants, and the bourgeoisie quite often come in for disapproval. And let's not talk about the aristocracy. The other thing of note for those of us who've done history more recently and have been forced to deal with issues of historiography and the post-modern/post-structuralist turn is Lefebvre's utter conviction that his interpretation of events is right. In fact, it's not even a conviction - that would suggest it was something he had given thought to. No; this is just the facts, and that's all there is. Which is very appealing, if a little dangerous in the 21st century.

The translation is superb; there was no point at which I thought that it was convoluted or messy.

[Rjurik Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

They don't write books like Lefebvre's anymore. As one of the two or three twentieth century experts on the French Revolution, Lefebvre was entitled to give a definite interpretation of the Revolution. But actually, his certainty of analysis and representation comes from a different era of history writing - the era before the rise of post-structuralism, with its emphasis on contingency and uncertainty. None of that wishy-washiness (or sophistication, if you prefer) for Lefebvre. For him, the French revolution was a bourgeois revolution, no ifs or buts about it. In his classical marxist interpretation, the revolution passed through a series of phases, as social power moved increasingly towards those at the bottom of the social scale. Thus it began with an aristocratic revolt. The first revolution - of 1789 - was one of the 'nation' as a whole, led by the bourgeoisie. The second revolution - of 1792 - was led by those who represented the lower classes, the Girondists and the Jacobins, who represented the sans-culottes (the mob composed of petit-bourgeoisie, aritsans, proletarians). For Lefebvre, this is not so much an analysis as a series of facts immanent in events. It's not so much an interpretation as the only way to read the revolution, not so much born out as inscribed in the facts themselves, such as when the National Assembly stated its aim was to destroy the feudal regime in its entirety. How else might one read this? It's a reading that's almost impossible to challenge, though a whole generation of historians (particularly in the 1980s) did in fact challenge it. These claimed that the revolution was not a bourgeois revolution, but a democratic one - erasing the class dimensions - or in some cases not a revolution at all.

Distressingly, Lefebvre's book ends with the Girondists in power, just before the rise of Robespierre, the most fascinating of the leaders. We're thus left half-way, the revolution in full flight and not yet at its zenith. The second volume is difficult to find in English, and so the whole experience is both enriching and frustrating. Lefebvre is one of the greats, but here we have only half of his story (less if we include his 'Napoleon', thankfully available). Still it's half of a terrific story and Lefebvre is singularly suited to telling it.

[Vik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fresh international perspective of French Revolution

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first volume of the English translation of Lefebvre's masterpiece work on the French Revolution, The French Revolution: From Its Origins to 1793 provides a masterful framework for interpreting the French Revolution from the angle of class struggle whilst not falling into the personality-worshiping of earlier historians from the Marxist school like Mathiez (whose work is still valuable, of course). Lefebvre's introduction to the European world of 1789 and his elucidation of international affairs that divided counter-revolutionary forces is a valuable addition to an aspect often ignored.

[ina · Rating 5 out of 5]

jak na osobę, która nie przepada za tym krajem, wiem teraz zaskakująco wiele o rewolucji francuskiej



…



know your enemy…

[Steven R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. A thorough exploration of Europe during the French Revolution placing it squarely within its historical, political, and economic context. A good antidote to the Burkean analysis that is so common in England.

Not an introduction, you need to know a lot about the Revolution already. For this reason it would benefit from a glossary of french terms and major persons (the older english traditions have these! Why did Routledge get rid of them??)

[Ramil Kazımov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bu kitap kesinlikle Fransız devrimini tarihi bir olay olarak öğrenmek isteyenler için değildir. Gerçi kısa sürede bitirdim ama oldukça zorlandığımı diyebilirim. Yazar bir çok kaynaktan yararlanmış ve Fransız devrimini sadece tarihi olarak değil de hem ekonomik hem siyasi hem de sosyal yönden ele alarak uluslararası bir perspektifden yaklaşarak açıklamaya çalışmıştır. Devrim konusunda Ciltler dolusu yazmış Albert Sorel ve Jules Michelet kimi yazarlardan yararlanmış ve gerçi biraz sıkıcı olmuş ama devrim konusunda her şeyi açıklamaya çalışmıştır. Fransız devrimini her şeyiyle öğrenmek isteyenlere kesinlikle tavsiye ederim. Ama başlangıç yapmak isteyenler mutlaka uzak durmalı 😎

[Sholto Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the first years of the revolution

[Oscar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Marxist History of the French Revolution. Particularly enjoyed Lefebvre's discussion and exploration of Foreign Affairs surrounding the Revolution.

[Nate Golden · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative but pretty brutal read. I wish I had found a more modern text.

Vive la Révolution !

[David Warner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taking the story of the French Revolution up as far as the formation of the First Coalition after the declaration of war by the French Republic on Great Britain and the Netherlands on 1 February 1793, ten days after the execution of Louis XVI, this is by intention a partial history, both chronologically and ideologically. It has to be said that this book has not aged well, but as its original was first published in 1930, revised totally in 1951, and then revised again in 1957, before this translation in 1962, that is not to be surprised at in view of the huge amount of research which has been produced since, much of it inspired by this and other works of Georges Lefebvre. Lefebvre's most important textbook has been his 'Quatre-vingt-neuf' of 1939 (translated as 'The Coming of the French Revolution'), the classic Marxist, class-based study of the origins of the French Revolution, which along with his studies of the peasants of the Nord and of Le Grand Peur, had set the benchmark for social histories of the period, not only through their emphasis upon 'history from below', but also in their incorporation of the important role of rural society in driving the social changes of 1787-91, which provided the socio-economic basis for much of the political and administrative revolutionary movements, and it is from his work in these studies that this book forms a synthesis.
Lefebvre uses the same Marxist explanatory system of his previous works to show how what he calls the aristocratic, bourgeois, and popular revolutions developed from the original financial and political crisis of the Ancien Regime in 1787-89, so as to lead to the radical social and governmental changes that culminated in the establishment of the Republic and the onset of the revolutionary wars, which he clearly regards as the culmination of the social and political revolutions of which he approves, both in his personal opinion and as evidential proof of his Marxist thesis. However, in so doing, and by making spring 1793 the end date of this volume and start point for its successor, he thereby arbitrarily divorces the Jacobin Terror and Thermidor from what precedes them, when, as François Furet was to show in his 'Interpreting the French Revolution', the political and social democratic ideas which the Committee of Public Safety sought to impose in 1793-4 were not only widespread within the Third Estate leaders of 1789, but in many cases informed the cahiers des dolèances submitted by the electoral committees to the Estates-General. For Furet, and for conservative writers, the Great Terror was not only an intrinsic part of the Revolution, but actually inherent in the principles which drove it from its very beginnings, so must be considered as constituting a vital constituent part of the French Revolution, 1787-95, and must therefore be considered with the events that preceded it, with the establishment of the Directory marking a recognisable end point to the period of reforms driven by the democratic ideals first propounded in 1787-89.
But, Lefebvre, a proponent of the Revolution as both social good and historically determinate necessity, cannot accept this, with the 1793-4 Terror regarded as an aberration caused by the circumstances of war and thel threat of counter-revolution, that perverted the original revolutionary aims, and which through its excesses brought about the Directory, Consulate, and Empire and the betrayal of the pure principles that he believes had been fulfilled by the republican and popular government established by the Convention in 1793, and so for ideological, if not historiographical, reasons, the Great Terror of the Jacobins and the reaction thereto by the Convention in 1794-5 have to be treated separately from what went before, as though they do not belong to the 'great' French Revolution so admired in this book.
Lefebvre within this framework can ignore the Great Terror, but he does have to deal with the events of June to August 1792 and the September Massacres, which he does by justifying the first as the necessary use of popular force to regain control of the Revolution from the politically compromised Girondins and the constitutional monarchists in order to establish the Republic, and excusing the second as simply a result of the military situation, blaming not only the Brissotins for failing to prevent it, but what he regards as the counter-revolutionaries for in effect bringing it upon themselves by their failure to accept the principles of the Revolution, and downplaying the incitement to action of the Jacobin Left, such as by Marat. For Lefebvre, who regards the Revolution as a necessity produced by the socio-economic and class structures of pre-revolutionary France, the violence of the great insurrectionary journées and the prison massacres of 2 to 6 September 1792, which he tries to downplay in both the numbers and innocence of victims, are therefore just further necessities, wrong in themselves morally, but understandable within the greater picture of the Revolution. In so doing, Lefebvre paints violence as somehow incidental to the Revolution, or as only used as a last resort because the revolutionary leaders failed to pursue the popular will, when in fact violence was inherent in the Revolution from 14 July 1789, was mostly unideological in its genesis, and where coordinated by Parisian and communal sections or inspired by the Jacobins was used by these, overwhelmingly middle class, educated leaders, for partisan and sectional aims, and for the gaining or securing of power by their minority party groups.
Lefebvre begins his book with a rather bland survey of the political and social situation across later eighteenth century Europe in an effort not only to provide a broader background to the events of 1789 to 1793, but also to contextualise the French Revolution as not only a national process, but also a European one, which allows him to treat the responses to events in France by the other powers as part of the Revolution itself and as factors in the historical explanations thereof. This rejection of the insular approach, if neither profound nor fully developed, is welcome, particularly in view of how the Revolution was to have an enormous impact upon all European states and redraw the political, national, and ideological frontiers of the continent for a century, but it also means Lefebvre can use the actions of the European powers as reasons to excuse the radical extremes to which the revolutionaries succumbed, and permits him to distance the pure, abstract Revolution up to spring 1793 of which he approves, from the flawed, human revolutionaries, where they engage in activities which are morally suspect, as with the September Massacres.
As a Marxist historian of socio-economic change, Lefebvre is at pains not to frame the Revolution in political and ideological terms, preferring to regard individual actions within a larger class-based and group context, however, it is clear from the text that he holds firm opinions about individual revolutionaries, and that this is very much a Jacobin history with the Girondins as their enemies, which further allows him to paint the outbreak of the Revolutionary Wars, which Brissot and his supporters advocated, and which he utilises as a reason for violent extremism, as a Girondin plot to further their grip on power, and as a tacit betrayal of the Revolution through the way its conduct required, if not so much collaboration, cohabitation with the court, whose fundamental object was to reverse the Revolution. In so doing, although this is more covert than overt, Robespierre emerges as the hero of the Revolution - Lefebvre has no time for the less principled and corrupt Danton - as the man who first opposed the war, but then took over leadership of the Revolution when that war brought crises and the threat of disaster through the Girodins' revolutionary failures.
The problem with this is that the War of the First Coalition from 1793 was not so much a Girondin as a Jacobin war, since it was the execution of the king, for which Jacobin leaders agitated from 10 August 1792, which was the real casus belli, because while Louis lived negotiations were ongoing, and it was the Brissotin ministers who sought to keep open the possibility of peace by using the king and his family as bargaining chips. The Girondins did indeed originally want war as a means of securing the gains of the Revolution and of imposing themselves upon the king, as a way of attaining a republic, but there strategic aims were limited, based upon gaining the Austrian Netherlands and expelling the émigrés from the Rhenish principalities. It was the Jacobins who came to see the war once it broke out in April 1792 not in strategic, international or diplomatic terms, but as a means of destroying the constitutional monarchy, and thereby the moderate settlement of 1791, and then of internalising the war as a weapon against their internal opponents, first the Girondins, then the Dantonists, and then the working class sections. And it was this Jacobin war which was to create the climate not only for the Jacobins and their then allies, the Parisian sections to seize power, but also for the development of government by Terror, and ultimately to force the reaction which was to undermine the revolutionary principles of 1789-93 and eventually lead to the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte. Where the Girondins saw their enemies in the court and the foreign powers, the Jacobins always saw theirs as within France, especially in those more moderate revolutionaries, such as the Girondins, who sought to temporise with and accommodate the realities of the political situation rather than act only in accord with the abstract principles demanded by revolutionary purity. Lefebvre rightly recognises the impact war had on the Revolution, but he fails to fully accept how the war was both entered into and fought for domestic political, sectional, and ideological reasons, and, as much as he might wish to contextualise it, for primarily domestic purposes, even if these differed between revolutionary groups.
Lefebvre's Jacobin stance develops from what for him is the turning point of the Revolution: the king's flight to Varennes on 20/21 June 1791. This indeed was the night when the constitutional efforts of the first two years of the Revolution came to an end, and is regarded by the author as the moment when the king parted company with the Revolution requiring his removal if the latter was to survive. It was also self-defeating in that it both encouraged the election of more anti-monarchist deputies to the forthcoming Legislative Assembly and forced the king into accepting a Constitution he abhorred as a necessity to maintain his throne, which ultimately locked him into a constitutional straitjacket from which he could not escape as the Assembly increasingly came under the dominance of the Girondins, the influence of the Feuilliants declined, and the power of royalist ministers evaporated. However, while Louis can be faulted for his actions, which if successful would have resulted in civil war, the fact that the constitutional monarchy did not work was as much due to the unwillingness of many revolutionaries to make it work, and the failure by radicals in the Parisian sections, the revolutionary clubs, and within the Legislative Assembly to accept the 1791 Constitution as the final settlement, or to give it sufficient time for king, assembly, and people to learn to compromise and make it work. The real problem was that while the Constitution gave the king executive power within constitutional and legislative limits, and was the political solution to the demands of 1789, when he sought to exercise those constitutional powers, Louis found himself circumscribed by non-constitutional forces and always pressurised by the threat from insurrection and the vitriol of his radical opponents. But, it is unlikely anyone could have made the 1791 Constitution function effectively, once the Feuilliants who did seek its success had been sidelined by the Brissotins in the winter of 1791-2, when, thanks to Robespierre's self-denying ordinance, those who sat in the Constituent Assembly and were therefore the very writers of the Constitution were barred from sitting in the successor Legislative Assembly and from implementing it. Instead, the king, court, and ministers, who were banned from membership of the legislature and thus from exercising leadership therein, were faced with working with a Legislative Assembly of novices, none of whom had been members of the previous body, while those who had been legislators in 1789-91 and who wished to continue to exercise political influence moved to the Parisian clubs and took positions in the Parisian commune, ensuring that much effective power gravitated to these bodies outside of the constitutional structures, providing a recipe for chaos in which the royal administration was constantly vulnerable to amorphous, uncontrollable, and often violent, radical agents with which it could not negotiate and over which it could not exercise control, and so it was only a matter of time before these radical Parisian centres of power, supported by popular protests inspired by the rhetoric of their leaders, would seek to gain control over the executive by overthrowing the 1791 Constitution and the monarchy with it. The settlement of 1791-2 was one neither king nor revolutionaries supported, and one which could not last, but to solely blame king and court for its failure is one-sided.
It is true that Louis sought to undermine the principles of the Revolution and to undo the settlement of 1791, but he was constrained by a need to act within that constitution, while his opponents were not, which is why when the court realised that acting constitutionally would only further weaken the royal government, despite its efforts at bribery, he sought to escape his confines by fleeing across the border. That he failed only further showed his weakness and the weakness of the constitutional monarchy, and was just another stage in the collapse of the monarchy, a collapse that began on 14 July 1789 when the king lost his legitimacy over the exercise of violence, and when political violence became the preserve of the revolutionaries and the Parisian populace as a means of enforcing their wishes upon the administration and then upon the country. This is because, as Lefebvre fails to acknowledge, the Revolution was driven by violence from its beginnings, violence which drove it to the Great Terror of 1793-4, to the reaction of Thermidor, to the undemocratic Directory, and ultimately to the triumph of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799, as the one man who could take back control of that violence from the revolutionaries and the populace and secure it for the administration, externalising it as war against Europe rather than as a political weapon at home, and thereby both completing and overturning the Revolution of 1789, so negating many of the achievements of 1789 to 1793 which Lefebvre clearly admired. Georges Lefebvre's history of the French Revolution is only a partial one because his objects are partial, and this book is really an explanatory prelude to what he conceives as the ultimate political and ideological ends of the Revolution and of the socio-economic structures which drove the radical changes of 1789 to 1793, that is the creation of the Republic, the establishment of the Convention, and the government of the great Committee of Public Safety, whose excesses are to be justified by historical necessity and the precepts of Marxist determinism.

[RUDOLF NAGEL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reading and brilliantly translated. Should be read by anyone trying to understand the origins of the FRench revolution. Offers good insight on the situation elsewhere in Europe at the time.
It is not very much detailed as regards the players at the time, but I strongly recommend reading this book.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

This beats GR. Pretty fucking abstruse. Another too-dense-for-the-tube disappointment.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough review of the events of the French Revolution, from a historical Marxist (class-centric) perspective. Part One is particularly interesting, giving a wide-spectrum summary of the European world as it looked just before the events of 1789 - highlighting trends in European philosophy, economics, social structures and foreign policy that contributed to the upheaval that was the Revolution.

Unfortunately though, much of Lefebvre's work went over my head as the meat of the book is dry and dense. I don't know much about the French Revolution and I've had difficulty finding a popular introduction to this time period. I hoped this would be the introduction I've been looking for, but sadly not. It's frustrating how so many books on the FR assume the reader has decent prior knowledge. The search continues.

[Trevor Logeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars because I can tell this is a very good overview and account of the French Revolution. I am either stupid or maybe you need a basis to really get into this book but I found it hard to follow. I would recommend getting a much easier book or way to be familiar with all the characters of the revolution and then jump into this book for much more detailed almost textbook quality. Definitely worth a read and I’ll definitely reread this at some point and am looking forward to being able to follow a bit better a second go around

[OneDimensionalMan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really great chapters, first third, last chapter especially. Otherwise some what anachronistic and presupposes a level of knowledge overly great for a casual reader and rather dated. Nevertheless has its moments and the prevailing thesis about the nature of the French Revolution being predominantly rooted in aristocratic then bourgeois then finally proletariat struggle is compelling and well argued.

[Ozan Aytas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Olağanüstü. Başyapıt. Çeviri kaynaklı olduğunu düşündüğüm bazı sıkıntılar olsa da Avrupa ve Dünya tarihinin çok kritik bir dönemecini kavramak için hem oldukça geniş hem de detay, dar nüansları yakalamakta usta bir yazar Lefebvre. Özellikle Terör dönemini bir solukta okudum. Başucu kitabı tanımını en çok hak eden eserlerden.

[Maxim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despair, Desperation, Despondency, Discouragement, Hopelessness refer to a state of mind caused by circumstances that seem too much to cope with - articulation of this book's bearable heaviness (bread, enlightenment, politics, guillotine, Robespierre, betrayal, values, blood, 700 pages)

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

not bad, not good. decently written, and has some clarity but its just dry (i blame translation tho)
not his best french rev. publication imo

[Blessy Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first volume on the French Revolution by Georges Lefebvre is a great introduction to one of the most well-known events in European and world history. In fact, I thought that this book would serve as an excellent textbook to study and examine the details of the Revolution. Particularly the initial chapters are a brilliant showcase of how this event could be broken down as one of class conflicts and aspirations. However, towards the end, the book does gets bogged down by numerous factual details that sometimes fail to present an ignorant reader with a more cohesive understanding of the Revolution. It certainly could have helped if the Routledge edition had carried some helpful maps and useful citations for the reader through which they could better understand the motivation of various political groups and people like Robespierre, Marat, Feuillents, Girondins, and even Mme Roland. At times, the details overwhelm you so much, that you feel a slight disinterest in the significant political events that occurred from 1789 to 1793. This however is not the case with EP Thompson's Making of the Working Class which makes you care of each and every figure they way one would emphatize with a literary character (though the Penguin edition also lacks in useful citations making the book look cumbersome which it is definitely not!). The wholehearted way Thompson embraces 'history from below' is starkly different to the dry and slightly disdainful tone of Lefebvre. But even then, Lefebvre work is a great textbook and introduction to French Revolution. And it is indeed a bit sad that students (and even teachers) would really on Arvind Sinha's so utterly boring book to grasp the basics of modern European histories especially when such excellent options are available for study!

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first volume (up to 1793) of the English translation of a classic history of the French Revolution. I enjoyed reading it, although the text is rather dense and, in some places, I had difficulties in following the chronological connections of the events discussed.