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Francois Mitterrand and the Revolution of 1789
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16023 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1989 |
4,096 Words |
| Author
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Curtis Cate
Historian and biographer Curtis Cate was greatly aided in the
preparation of this article by Liane Villemont and Jacques
Deschamps of l'Institut national de l'audiovisuel. |
In an article titled "Virtue," which appeared in the January 24 issue of Le Monde, Andre Fontaine, the able editor of his country's most prestigious daily newspaper, expressed his surprise that "official France curiously forgot last week to honor the tricentenary" of the birth of one of the greatest and most influential political thinkers of all time--Charles de Secondat, Baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu, to whom the United States, like many other democratic states, owes the now classic doctrine of the separation of powers. This official neglect, which is certainly no accident, proves at least one thing. In an age dominated by TV shows and other "spectaculars," a topic as stodgy as the formulation of theory of government could not possibly compete with something as turbulent, momentous, and photogenic as the Revolution of 1789, the bicentennial of which the French are preparing to celebrate in mid-July with a four-day blaze of fireworks and popular pageantry.
It can be argued, of course, that there is no common measure between the anniversary of a great eighteenth-century thinker's birth and a revolutionary upheaval that did away with the French monarchy and ultimately transformed the life of Europe. But the lack of interest in the man who first clearly propounded the theory that political liberty, to be able to subsist, necessitates a division rather than a concentration of the central power of a state, perfectly illustrates the basic hollowness of the lip service paid--particularly by leftists--to the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Some eighteen months ago, when asked if I thought Francois Mitterrand would be a candidate for a second presidential term, I answered that if he was, it would be not least of all because of his burning desire to preside over the bicentennial celebration of 1789. A wish, however, is one thing, its successful realization quite another and I personally suspect that Mitterrand's earlier enthusiasm at this prospect has since considerably cooled.
The Revolution as a Temporal Problem
The first problem he and his successive prime ministers were faced with in meeting this bicentennial challenge was one of temporal limits, for the French Revolution was not limited to a single month or even a single year. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789--largely the work of a rabble-rouser named Camille Desmoulins, who later declared that "we were probably not more than a dozen republicans in all of Paris on the twelfth of July 1789"--was not simply an isolated and essentially
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