Pourquoi la revolution d'Angleterre a-t-elle reussi. Discours
sur l'histoire de la revolution d'Angleterre, Paris, 1850.[10]
The object of M. Guizot's pamphlet is to show why Louis Philippe and
Guizot's policy ought not to have been overthrown on the 24th February
1848, and how the reprehensible character of the French is to blame for
the fact that the July monarchy of 1830 ignominiously collapsed after
eighteen years of laborious existence and was not blessed with the
security of tenure enjoyed by the English monarchy since 1688.
From this pamphlet it may be seen how even the ablest individuals of
the ancien régime, how even people who in their own way are not
devoid of historical talent have been so completely thrown off their
balance by the fatal event of February (1848) as to have lost all
historical comprehension, even the comprehension of their former
behaviour. Instead of being impelled by the February Revolution to
study more closely the wholly different historical conditions, and the
wholly different positions occupied respectively by the various classes
of society in the French monarchy of 1830 and in the English monarchy
of 1688, M. Guizot gets rid of the entire difference between the two
situations in a few moral phrases and asserts in conclusion that the
policy overthrown on the 24th February “can alone master revolutions,
as it can sustain States.”
The question which M. Guizot professes to answer may be precisely
formulated as follows: Why has middle-class society developed in
England under the form of a constitutional monarchy for a longer period
than in France?
The following passage serves to show the nature of M. Guizot's
acquaintance with the course of middle-class development in England:
“Under the reigns of George I and George II, public opinion veered in
another direction; foreign policy ceased to be its chief concern;
internal administration, the maintenance of peace, questions of
finance, of the colonies, of trade, the development and the struggles
of the parliamentary régime, became the dominant preoccupations of the
Government and of the public” (p. 168).
M. Guizot discovers only two factors in the reign of William III
that are worthy of mention: the maintenance of the equilibrium between
Parliament and the Crown, and the maintenance of the European
equilibrium by means of the struggle against Louis XIV. Under the
Hanoverian dynasty, public opinion suddenly “veered in another
direction,” nobody knows how and why.
It is obvious that M. Guizot has applied the most banal platitudes
of French parliamentary debate to English history, believing he has
thereby explained it. Similarly, when he was Minister, M. Guizot
imagined he was balancing on his shoulders the pole of equilibrium
between Parliament and the Crown, whereas in reality he was only
jobbing the whole of the French State and the whole of French society
bit by bit to the Jewish financiers of the Paris Bourse.
M. Guizot does not think it worth the trouble to mention that the
wars against Louis XIV were purely wars of competition for the
destruction of French commerce and of French sea power; that under
William III, the rule of the financial middle class received its first
sanction through the establishment of the Bank of England, and the
introduction of the national debt; that a new upward impetus was given
to the manufacturing middle class through the consistent enforcement of
the protective fiscal system.
For him only political phrases have importance. He does not even
mention that under Queen Anne the ruling parties could only maintain
themselves and the constitutional monarchy by forcibly prolonging the
life of Parliament to seven years, thus almost entirely destroying
popular influence over the government.
Under the Hanoverian dynasty England had already progressed so far
as to be able to wage competitive war against France in the modern
form. England herself combated France only in America and the East
Indies, whilst on the Continent she was content to pay foreign princes
like Frederick II to wage war against France. When, therefore, foreign
politics assumed another aspect, M. Guizot says: “foreign policy ceased
to be a chief concern” and its place was taken by “the maintenance of
peace.” The extent to which “the development and the struggles of the
parliamentary régime became the dominant preoccupation of the
Government and of the public” may be inferred from the bribery stories
about the Walpole ministry, which at any rate bear a close resemblance
to the scandals which came to light under M. Guizot.
Why the English Revolution entered on a more prosperous career than
the French Revolution subsequently did is explained by M. Guizot from
two causes: first, from the fact that the English Revolution bore a
thoroughly religious character, and therefore broke in no way with the
traditions of the past, and secondly from the fact that from the outset
it did not wear a destructive, but a constructive aspect, Parliament
defending the old existing laws against the encroachments of the Crown.
As regards the first point, M. Guizot forgets that the free thought
of the French Revolution, which makes him shudder so convulsively, was
imported into France from no other country than England. Locke was its
father, and in Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke it assumed that lively form
which later underwent such a brilliant development in France.
Thus we reach the strange result that the same free thought upon
which, according to M. Guizot, the French Revolution came to grief was
one of the most essential products of the religious English Revolution.
With respect to the second point, M. Guizot forgets that at the
outset the French Revolution was just as conservative as the English,
if not more so. Absolutism, especially in the guise which it had
latterly assumed in France, was an innovation even there, and against
this innovation the parliaments arose and defended the old laws, the
us et coutumes of the old estates-of-the-realm monarchy. And
whereas the first step of the French Revolution was the revival of the
Estates General which had been extinct since Henry IV and Louis XIII,
the English Revolution has no feature of an equally classical
conservative nature to exhibit.
According to M. Guizot, the chief result of the English Revolution
was this, that it was made impossible for the king to govern against
the will of Parliament and of the House of Commons in Parliament. The
entire revolution may be summed up by saying that at the commencement
both sides, the Crown and Parliament, overstepped their limits and went
too far until under William III they reached the proper equilibrium and
neutralized each other. That the subjection of the monarchy was its
subjection to the rule of a class M. Guizot deems it superfluous to
mention.
Consequently, he does not feel it incumbent on him to ascertain how
this class acquired the power necessary to make the Crown its servant.
He appears to think that the whole struggle between Charles I and
Parliament related to purely political privileges. For what purpose
Parliament and the class represented therein needed these privileges we
are not told. Neither does M. Guizot refer to the direct interferences
of Charles I with free competition, which rendered the commerce and the
trade of England increasingly impossible; or the dependence upon
Parliament into which Charles fell ever more hopelessly, through his
continuous financial distress, the more he tried to defy Parliament.
According to M. Guizot, therefore, the whole Revolution is to be
explained by the evil intent and religious fanaticism of a few
disturbers of the peace who could not content themselves with a
moderate freedom. M. Guizot has just as little enlightenment to furnish
with regard to the connection of the religious movement with the
development of middle-class society. Of course, the Republic was
likewise the mere work of a number of ambitious, fanatical, and
malevolent spirits. That simultaneously efforts were being made to
introduce the Republic in Lisbon, Naples, and Messina, as in England,
under the influence of the Dutch example, is a fact which is not
mentioned at all.
Although M. Guizot never loses sight of the French Revolution, it
does not occur to him that the transition from absolute to
constitutional monarchy is everywhere effected only after violent
struggles and after passing through the stage of the Republic, and that
even then, the old dynasty, being useless, must give way to a usurping
collateral branch. Consequently, he has nothing but the most trivial
commonplaces to utter respecting the overthrow of the English restored
monarchy. He does not even cite the proximate causes: the fears
entertained by the great new landowners, who had been created by the
Reformation, at the prospect of restoration of Catholicism, when they
would have been obliged to surrender all the former Church property
which had been stolen, which meant that the ownership of seven-tenths
of the entire soil of England would have changed hands; the horror of
the trading and industrial middle class at Catholicism, which by no
means suited its commerce; the nonchalance with which the Stuarts had
sold, for their own advantage and that of the Court nobility, the whole
of English industry and commerce, that is, had sold their own country,
to the Government of France, which was then maintaining a very
dangerous, and in many respects, successful competition with the
English.
As M. Guizot everywhere leaves out the most important factors, there
is nothing for him to do but to present an extremely inadequate and
banal narration of merely political events.
The great riddle for M. Guizot, which he can only solve by pointing
to the superior intelligence of the English, the riddle of the
conservative character of the English Revolution, is explained by the
continuous alliance which united the middle class with the largest
section of the great landowners, an alliance that essentially
distinguishes the English Revolution from the French Revolution, which
destroyed large landed property by parcelling out the soil. This class
of large landowners, which had originated under Henry VIII, unlike the
French feudal land-ownership in 1789, did not find itself in conflict
but rather in complete harmony with the conditions of life of the
bourgeoisie. Its land-ownership, in fact, was not feudal, but middle
class. On the one hand, it placed at the disposal of the middle class
the necessary population to carry on manufactures, and on the other
hand, it was able to impart to agriculture a development which
corresponded to the state of industry and of commerce. Hence its common
interests with the middle class, hence its alliance with the latter.
With the consolidation of the constitutional monarchy in England,
English history comes to a full stop, as far as M. Guizot is concerned.
All that follows is for him confined to a pleasant sea-saw between
Tories and Whigs, and this means the great debate between M. Guizot and
M. Thiers.
In reality, however, the colossal development and transformation of
commercial society in England began with the consolidation of the
English monarchy. Where M. Guizot sees only soft repose and idyllic
peace, the most violent conflicts, the most drastic revolutions, were
in reality developing. First of all, under the constitutional monarchy
manufactures underwent an expansion hitherto undreamed of, in order
then to make way for the great industry, the steam-engine, and the
gigantic factories. Whole classes of the population disappeared, new
classes took their place, with new conditions of life and new needs. A
large new middle class emerged; while the old bourgeoisie fought the
French Revolution, the new captured the world market. It became so
all-powerful that even before the Reform Act placed political power
directly in its hands, it had compelled its opponents to legislate
almost solely in its interests and according to its needs. It captured
direct representation in Parliament and utilized it for the destruction
of the last vestiges of real power which remained to landed property.
Lastly, it is at this moment engaged in razing to the ground the
splendid structure of the English constitution before which M. Guizot
stands in admiration.
And while M. Guizot congratulates the English that among them the
noxious growths of French social life, republicanism and socialism,
have not undermined the foundation pillars of the unique all-blessing
monarchy, the class antagonisms in English society have been developing
to a point that is without example in any other country. A middle class
without rival in wealth and productive forces confronts a proletariat
which is likewise without rival in power and concentration. The tribute
which M. Guizot pays to England finally resolves itself into this: that
there under the protection of the constitutional monarchy the elements
making for social revolution have developed to a far greater extent
than in all the other countries of the world put together.
When the threads of English development get entangled in a knot,
which he seemingly can no longer cut by more political phrases, M.
Guizot takes refuge in religious phrases, in the armed intervention of
God. Thus the spirit of God suddenly comes over the Army and prevents
Cromwell from proclaiming himself king, etc. M. Guizot saves himself
from his conscience through God, and from the profane public through
his style.
In fact, it is not merely a case of les rois s'en vont, but
also of les capacités de la bourgeoisie s'en vont.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Why the English Revolution was successful. A lecture on the
history of the English Revolution, Paris, 1850.