Summary Political Thought of the French Revolution notes

Suggested supervision questions (from old Tripos papers):

1. Did the political theorists of the French Revolution re-define the concept of a republic?

2. In what sense, if any, did the political thinkers of the French Revolution believe the nation
to be ‘sovereign’?

3. ‘Political unity was the central problem facing political thinkers in the French Revolution.’
Discuss with reference to two or more authors.

4. Did any French Revolutionary thinker explain how to reconcile respect for universal ‘rights
of man and citizen’ with the constituent power of the people?

5. Which was more important to thinkers of the French Revolution, reason or virtue?

6. How important was the concept of equality to the political theorists of the French
Revolution?

7. ‘There must not be any confusion between a constituting power and a constituted power’
[SIEYÈS, Views of the Executive Means]. Why did subsequent political thinkers of the
French Revolution struggle to avoid this confusion?

8. Why did the political thinkers of the French Revolution object to the existence of
‘privileges’?

9. Why did many theorists of the French Revolution believe it necessary to ‘ingraft
representation upon democracy’ [PAINE, The Rights of Man]?

10. Why was the British political model rejected by many leading thinkers of the French
Revolution?

11. What, if anything, distinguished the rights of man from the rights of the citizen, for the
political theorists of the French Revolution?

12. What role did the political theorists of the French Revolution believe political theory
should play in revolutionary politics?

, Doyle, W., 2001. The French Revolution : a very short introduction,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Primary Reading
‘An Essay on Privileges’, available in eighteenth-century translation

Joseph Sieyès: The essential political writings, ed. by O.W. Lemke and
F. Weber, (Leiden, 2014)

General Info about Sieyes


“Saint–Just’s Speech on the King’s Fate (27 December 1792),”
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION,
accessed January 17, 2021, https://revolution.chnm.org/d/325


Secondary Reading
*K.M. Baker, ‘Political Languages of the French Revolution’ in Mark
Goldie and Robert Wokler (eds), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-
Century Political Thought (Cambridge 2006), ch. 22

● Competing discourses of the Old Regime: issue of national will and sovereignty
○ Discourse of justice drew on conceptual resources of French constitutional
tradition - argued for regular legal forms secured by magistrates
○ Increasing conflict with status quo, rise of the idea that constraints on royal
sovereignty belonged to a constitution alterable only by the nation as a
political identity. Parlementaire constitutionalism had been driven to
conception of sovereignty of nation defensively
○ Drew upon language of classical republicanism (rousseau, mably) - idiom
that defined collective order and identity in terms of will, liberty, choice not just
justice and law
○ Rise of discourse of reason - language of individual rights, idiom of
modernity (628)
● Revolutionary improvisation - repudiation of ancient constitution
○ Wanted more assemblies, but first issue was what was the nation itself to
which government might be accountable. Answered thru Sieyes what is 3rd
estate. This took place alongside meeting of estates & TC oath
■ S said exchange true bond of society not hierarchy
■ Said those not actively engaged should be excluded from citizenry, i.e.
aristocracy idleness. These ppl inherently refuse equality so excluded
■ Notion of rep: depart to rousseau bc said GW can expressed be
through rep, only possible bc complex soc. “General will could not be