Steven P. BarrettBASTILLE DAY, JULY 14, 2008 -- WAS IT WORTH IT: ALL THE BLOOD AND TERROR?
July 14th 2008 07:50
Steven Barrett
As American's we're naturally inclined to side with the underdog, and many of us would perhaps side with the poor French sweltering in crowded cities of France during the final days of the Bourbon Dynasty.
Let's face it, the nobles indeed lived a much better life than those whose lives they rode roughshod over for hundreds and hundreds of years. And when their day of judgment came during the Revolution, which was far more explosive than ours, the results were inevitable. Perhaps one major reason why our revolution did not result in the kind of upheaval France endured was that our revolution was a top-down affair.
Let's never forget that the quality of life in the American colonies was much better than what our fellow British citizens enjoyed in the Mother Country when the first shots were fired on the Lexington (MA) Common. And, with the exception of Benedict Arnold, our revolution was also led by men of honor, particularly Washington, who earned King George III's praise as the "greatest man in the world" for living up to his promise to relinquish military power after the war was over.
Contrast our revolution to that of the French bloodbath and near total transformation of society. What kept our revolution from spinning out of control was the inclusion of our clergy and reliance on God. What did the French do? They went beyond deposing not only the Bourbons, but they banned God as well. And when God is removed, unspeakable crimes become commonplace. Look at the Russian Revolution. Look at Germany's Brownshirt revolution of Hitler's and Blackshirt revolution of Mussolini's.
God was "removed" from Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral and His priest was replaced by a prostitute who performed her line of work on the center altar.
So was it any surprise that the blood flowed long after the Bastille was taken and the Bourbons surrendered and tried to cooperate before trying to escape?
Here in the former colonies, we came awfully close to a situation like France's during the Shays rebellion that first involved horrifically financially oppressed farmers in western Massachusetts and other inland areas that were financially beholden to the merchants and bankers along the shoreline. What Dan'l Shays started at the Hampshire County Courthouse in Northampton, MA, soon spread throughout New England and the rest of the northeast. Thomas Jefferson, hearing about it in Paris, remarked "it was good to have a revolution every now and then."
But the difference was that after Shays was defeated at the Springfield MA armory, he and his men soon afterwards called it a day, the new Constitution was ratified and our previous loose confederation became the United States of America.
The Bourbons fell in part because they used our revolution to get even with the Brits after the Seven Years War (French and Indian over here) and they lacked the money to recover their expenses, even though they were on the winning side. They also didn't learn from the lessons we taught the Brits about taxation without representation. What peasant had any voice with his local noble or the court in Versailles? The French, too, arose up in arms, but as we know, the results were much different. and not always for the betterment of mankind.
Le Marseillaise
Joseph Rouget de Lisle
The War Song for the Army of the Rhine
Forward children of the homeland!
The day of glory has arrived;
Against us, tyranny's bloody standard
Has been raised.
Do you hear the roar of ferocious soldiers
Coming from the countryside?
They are coming into your very homes
To slaughter your sons and wives!
Refrain:
To arms, citizens, form your battalions,
March on, march on, let impure
blood water our furrows.
(Until they met real armies on the Rhine in 1870 and 1940 -- The Prussians and Germans.)
As American's we're naturally inclined to side with the underdog, and many of us would perhaps side with the poor French sweltering in crowded cities of France during the final days of the Bourbon Dynasty.
Storming the Bastille
Let's face it, the nobles indeed lived a much better life than those whose lives they rode roughshod over for hundreds and hundreds of years. And when their day of judgment came during the Revolution, which was far more explosive than ours, the results were inevitable. Perhaps one major reason why our revolution did not result in the kind of upheaval France endured was that our revolution was a top-down affair.
Let's never forget that the quality of life in the American colonies was much better than what our fellow British citizens enjoyed in the Mother Country when the first shots were fired on the Lexington (MA) Common. And, with the exception of Benedict Arnold, our revolution was also led by men of honor, particularly Washington, who earned King George III's praise as the "greatest man in the world" for living up to his promise to relinquish military power after the war was over.
Contrast our revolution to that of the French bloodbath and near total transformation of society. What kept our revolution from spinning out of control was the inclusion of our clergy and reliance on God. What did the French do? They went beyond deposing not only the Bourbons, but they banned God as well. And when God is removed, unspeakable crimes become commonplace. Look at the Russian Revolution. Look at Germany's Brownshirt revolution of Hitler's and Blackshirt revolution of Mussolini's.
God was "removed" from Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral and His priest was replaced by a prostitute who performed her line of work on the center altar.
So was it any surprise that the blood flowed long after the Bastille was taken and the Bourbons surrendered and tried to cooperate before trying to escape?
Here in the former colonies, we came awfully close to a situation like France's during the Shays rebellion that first involved horrifically financially oppressed farmers in western Massachusetts and other inland areas that were financially beholden to the merchants and bankers along the shoreline. What Dan'l Shays started at the Hampshire County Courthouse in Northampton, MA, soon spread throughout New England and the rest of the northeast. Thomas Jefferson, hearing about it in Paris, remarked "it was good to have a revolution every now and then."
But the difference was that after Shays was defeated at the Springfield MA armory, he and his men soon afterwards called it a day, the new Constitution was ratified and our previous loose confederation became the United States of America.
Versailles Palace
The Bourbons fell in part because they used our revolution to get even with the Brits after the Seven Years War (French and Indian over here) and they lacked the money to recover their expenses, even though they were on the winning side. They also didn't learn from the lessons we taught the Brits about taxation without representation. What peasant had any voice with his local noble or the court in Versailles? The French, too, arose up in arms, but as we know, the results were much different. and not always for the betterment of mankind.
Le Marseillaise
Joseph Rouget de Lisle
The War Song for the Army of the Rhine
Forward children of the homeland!
The day of glory has arrived;
Against us, tyranny's bloody standard
Has been raised.
Do you hear the roar of ferocious soldiers
Coming from the countryside?
They are coming into your very homes
To slaughter your sons and wives!
Refrain:
To arms, citizens, form your battalions,
March on, march on, let impure
blood water our furrows.
(Until they met real armies on the Rhine in 1870 and 1940 -- The Prussians and Germans.)
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by Anonymous
By and large the French people (I really believe) still are believers and want to be believers, openly , too. Remember the reaction of the French media to John Paul II's World Youth Day? They never got over it (nor for that matter, forgave him.) But the people turned out in droves. It's the intellectuals that ruined the first revolution in the 1789 and somewhat in 1848, (which was then fueled by the nascent beginnings of Marxism, and of course the revolution of the commune which I believe brought the Prussians in, thus allowing Kaiser Wilhelm to establish the First German Reich in Versailles Palace of all places.
As horrible as Hitler was, he spoke the truth about the Versailles Treaty and what it did to Germany and had considerable grounds for using it to promote German nationalism again considering that the French used that place for one reason: to rub Germany's nose in the ground for a war it was equally responsible for instigating (i.e. WWI) since all the nations were on hair-trigger alerts with intricate plans to-boot the very moment the word was given.
This in no way excuses Germany's other excesses or murderous war crimes and crimes of genocide committed during WWII, but it wouldn't hurt if more people were to understand a little history or show as much desire as you do.
So don't hang up on V.Hugo. His story is stupendous for its demonstration of God's power of forgiveness in the face of great oppression, deceit, misuse of office, and blind obedience to dubious pursuits. But this wouldn't or couldn't have happened had it not been for the return of the clergy after the excesses of La Revolution!, and Bonaparte. Even Napoleon in exile on St. Helena admitted to God's power.