Reflections On The Revolution In France

Initially, Burke expresses shock that France does not adopt a more modified route. He writes, “They have seen the French rebel against a mild and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than ever any people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary tyrant” (38-39). Using his earlier justifications for a revolution, he does not condone one in this case. He describes Louis XVI as a relatively benign king, and one the French could easily reform under. However, instead of preserving the innate aspects of their monarchy and inheritable rights under modification, the French place faith in a government of lawyers and merchants—men Burke characterizes as that of low character. He predicts they soon will fail the people, based on their track record: “Who could conceive, that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious disposition and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, unprofitable chicane?” (43).

Burke does acknowledge that some of the men have talent, but he believes the men lack experience in politics; currently, Burke states that France faces a large national debt and great instability because the country lacks a centralizing force. Therefore, the choices men make now must be of the highest caliber because France is in its most precarious position. He believes that England and France survive today because of their strong national identity: “Because among all their massacres they had not slain the mind in their country. A conscious dignity, a noble pride, a generous sense of glory and emulation, was not extinguished” (48). He no longer believes France clearly understands her natural character.

While his radical contemporaries find his politics too conservative and sluggish, Burke states that it may not be lofty, but it’s realistic and his is a theory that provides some semblance of order and provision for citizens. Given the choice between some radical division of power and resources, he maintains, “But it is better that the whole should be imperfectly and anomalously answered, than that, while some parts are provided for with great exactness, some might be totally neglected or perhaps materially injured by the over-care of a favorite member” (62). Burke responds to his critics’ extreme measures with conservative solutions. Here, Burke reminds readers how conservatism yields safety and less bloodshed. He states, “Plots, massacres, assassinations, seem to some people a trivial price for obtaining a revolution” (64).