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Did Napoleon preserve or pervert the gains of the Revolution Napoleon was indirectly responsible for spreading many of the ideals of the French Revolution throughout Europe. Although he never openly espoused revolutionary tenets his Empire and government was in many ways the living embodiment of those ideals. The three main areas that he had a significant impact were individualism, secularism, and nationalism. Prior to the French Revolution, class or social status was more important in French society and government than the individual. Merit and ability was subordinated to your family status and whether you were of the noble class. The Revolution did away with this and stated that all individuals were equal in the eyes of the government.
How one advanced was based on merit rather than who one's ancestors were. Napoleon enshrined this with a new aristocracy based on merit. Those who performed and contributed were rewarded. The new Princes, Dukes, and Barons were men who earned their titles, most often on the battlefield. A review of his Marshals would show that they came from all walks of life, including a barrel maker, a cabin boy, a former sergeant, and a minor noble. In addition to this, he created he Legion of Honor to recognize those who deeds merited it.
The French Revolution placed the state above the Church, an extremely revolutionary concept. The Revolution even went as far to ban organized religion. Napoleon was willing to heal the rift between the Catholic Church and the government, but only if the Church did not meddle in state affairs. The Church lost its right to run schools, and to have special taxes and privileges, however Napoleon did re-open the churches and was tolerant of all religions. He even invited the Pope Pius VII to his coronation to crown him the new Emperor of France. Napoleon's true feelings on his relationship with the Church were demonstrated by his actions at the coronation.
When the Pope went to place the crown on Napoleon's head, Napoleon took the crown out of the Pope's hands and crowned himself. Thus showing that he believed that since he embodied the State, the Pope had no legitimate right to crown him for in the new France the state was not subordinate to the Church. Prior to the Revolution, the state was symbolized by the monarch and the loyalty of the people was to ruler not to the state. The Revolution made the government the sovereign of the people. It was to this government the people owed their loyalties. "National interests transcend dynastic and all other interests.
Citizens are put in national armies and national schools. National flag and anthem supplant royal ensign and hymn. " (Hayes; 573). Napoleon built his Empire based on these concepts. It was his soldiers who ousted the old dynasties throughout Europe and gave rise to both German and Italian nationalism that eventually unified the numerous minor kingdoms, states, and principalities into the respective nations of Germany and Italy. After Brumaire (9 - 10 Nov. 1799) -- the coup data which first set Napoleon on the path to becoming the supreme executive of a French empire Napoleon declared, The Revolution is made fast on the principles on which it began; the Revolution is finished. Since this famous utterance came so soon after he gained power, it is clear that Napoleon was saying something significant about what the role of his new-born regime would be to those which had preceded it.
Like the man himself, this quote and the one at the head of this page are both highly complex and ambiguous. He is declaring that the new regime was both a break from the immediate past and part of a continuity with that past. What was Napoleons relationship to the Revolution? To what extent was he its heir or its betrayer?
Did he save the Revolution or liquidate it? To begin it is necessary to determine what one means by the Revolution. There was not one Revolution, but really a series of them which occurred as the French struggled to create a new political and social system. By the Revolution do we mean that of Barnave, or of Mirabeau, or Lafayette, or Brissot, or Danton, or Robespierre, or Hebert, or Tallien, of Babeuf, or Barras? All of these were men of the Revolution, yet they all held differing conceptions of what that Revolution was. Considering many of those fundamental principles, which guided most of these revolutionaries.
In general, these principles include equal treatment under the law, one degree or another of centralization of the government, elimination of feudal rights, religious tolerance and careers open to talent not birth. Seeing in enlightened despotism a reconciliation of authority with political and social reform, he became its last and most illustrious representative. In this sense he was the man of the Revolution. Napoleon considered the Jacobin government of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety the only serious government of the Revolutionary period. During the Reign of Terror Napoleon was strongly identified with the Jacobins. His dialogue published in 1793, LE SOUPER DE BEAUCAIRE, championed the Jacobins over the federalist Girondins.
What Napoleon admired were the Jacobins strong centralized government, their commitment to deal decisively with the problems facing the fledgling republic, and their attempt to forge a strong stable France while winning the war against its enemies. Napoleon clearly felt, like the Jacobins, that an energetic centralized state was essential to consolidate the advances achieved by the Revolution and, at the same time, he wished to bring about the stability many French longed for after the upheavals of the past decade. In his eyes this meant the need for a strong executive. From 1799 until his death on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, Napoleon spoke of himself as the man who had completed the Revolution. By this he meant that the basic goals of the Revolution enumerated above had been obtained and that now it was time to consolidate and institutionalize those gains.
France, after ten years of revolution, had still lacked the proper foundation upon which to institutionalize the revolutionary achievements until Napoleon provided it with his administrative framework. It was his boast that he did not belong to the race of the ideologues, that he saw facts through plain glass, and that he came to substitute and age of...
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Research essay sample on Political And Social French Revolution
