Comment by peignoir | Hacker News Reader

Comment by peignoir | Hacker News Reader

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I’m French too and never read this letter before. But I don’t see much difference in the letter with who she was. She s just saying goodbye and ask for redemption as any catholic would. I don’t agree with the article who tries to focus on her personality and manner. She was wether she liked it out not a ruler, the French did not kill her and the king because of their manners and their personality (the king was a nice guy too) They did because of the course of history and because so many were suffering at the time and a greater effort was asked from them (paying debt / while Marie Antoinette kept burning cash)

It was awful and bloody and many revolutionary were awful people uneducated and prompt to bloodbath. But it soon inspired so many nations to move towards democracy that sometimes if not always history shows that awful people can build great things (pirates in New York etc..)

I remember she hated Lafayette for example to put some USA perspective she must have hated Washington too.

Rulers should be judged indeed on victory or defeat this current fashion of looking back at history to say individuals had good or bad personalities is dangerously capable of transforming the worst people into adorable ones.

Her story is the story of the Romanov in Russia or the Shah in Iran. People who loved to party and who had great education would be people You would love to hang out with today for sure.

But they did so while their own people were on the verge of collapsing... I don’t see a parallel with Hillary neither, if Hillary was burning millions of dollars when her husband was in power and partying all the time in the poorest city with people dying in the street then you would have had Marie Antoinette but Hillary acted as a ruler and worked hard to help her country (wether you like her politics or not)

How many nations became democracies specifically because of the French Revolution?

I would argue that in many cases, the French Revolution might have had the opposite effect. Everyone was so scared of another reign of terror and the devastating revolutionary and Napoleonic wars that it directly led to the conservatism of Metternich and supported the conservative crackdowns in 1848. Monarchism in much of Europe - except France - was abolished after WWI, not after the French Revolution.

In the places where democracy was later established - say, Latin America - I think the US were much more of an influence than France.

I think the french revolution turned republicanism and nationalism from fringe idea into mainstays of european political thought. I'm not sure if those trends led to democracy, but they certainly led to a democratization - even with the crackdowns and Metternich, if you count the number of states with e.g. a constitution, europe was more democratic after 1848 than it was before it, not less.

The revolutionary wars were devastating, but they also demonstrated the power of a republican state - a sort of power that even reactionaries (e.g. Bismark) wanted to harness.

For sure I don't want to diminish the importance of the French Revolution, which is probably the single most important event in the span between 1700-1900. I just question that its influence necessarily was that of establishing democracy.

As for after 1848, I don't think that Europe was much more democratic than before 1789 (except for France, and the second republic was kind of DOA anyway). More states did have a constitution (in comparison to 1789, not necessarily to before 1848), so there was maybe a little bit more protection against absolute tyranny, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there was much effective parliamentary participation.

Although I will admit that the idea of liberalism was definitely in the air and maybe it wouldn't have been without the French Revolution, but that's hard to say (as said, the USA were always more of a poster child because their republic actually lasted).

I'm not sure if the revolutionary wars demonstrated the power of republicanism as much as they demonstrated the power of nationalism to someone like Bismarck, and nationalism is definitely something that was heavily influenced by the French Revolution.

I think maybe I was thinking of 'the democracy' as a by-word for 'modern european state'. On second thought, this isn't all that reasonable. I think the modern european state is nationalist first, liberal second, and democratic (usually) as a distant third - that is, in order of how likely any characteristic is to break down under pressure.

It feels to me if you look at the trajectory from the start of the french revolution to the modern european state, even in periods of reaction, the arrow doesn't really turn much. Reactionaries usually see the advantages of nationalism, bourgeois the advantages of liberalism, and workers the advantages of democracy - and all of the three trends get reversed at points, but if you sum them, then it's a pretty steady gain. For instance, while the dissolution of the Frankfurt parliment was a blow against democracy, I think it probably pushed nationlism forward by putting so much power in Prussian hands.

So I'd credit the French Revolution with spawning and intensively testing the triad of political views that have ended up being totally dominant in Europe - you're right that this triad is not identical with democracy, but I think it is identical with what we generally call democracy in Europe today.

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