“To break sharply with the past is to court the madness that may follow the shock of sudden blows or mutilation.”

—Will Durant

In the 1780s, France arrived at a critical juncture in history. It was at the apex of its geopolitical power, but also at the nadir of its social cohesion. Although it was not the absolute hegemon of the world as the Romans and the Arabs once were, France was a dominant imperial power of Western Europe, its domain encompassing millions of citizens and its king ranked amongst the most prestigious and powerful of Christian monarchs. For the first time in history, dramatic transformation within the state was catalysed not by changes in geopolitical circumstance, but by forces that had come to accelerate humanity’s progress following the Enlightenment. The absolute monarch and the ancien regime, built in the dark ages to rule over a feudal society, had begun fading into obsolescence as power began to be dispersed from the centre. The people, like the farmer-warriors of Classical Hellas and Rome, became the most basic economic unit: the cornerstone upon which the nation depended. As the bounties of empire brought about the diversification of economy and introduced unstable elements into the European society, the foundation upon which the House of Bourbon and its aristocrats established their legitimacy and primacy was gradually eroded. Economic crisis, popular resentment, harvest failures, seditious ideas, political discord, and foreign hostility had converged in a proverbial perfect storm in 1789 to destroy the ancien regime and give birth to the French Revolution.

What the revolution ultimately became was a nexus through which the myriad social issues of France emerged at the forefront of political discourse, manifesting as explosive social phenomena. It removed the system and ideology which had once unified the people of France, but failed to install a new, more sustainable country in its stead. The DORMAC and the Constitution had legitimised all the divergent threads of French political outlook, for they were all classified under the umbrella term of “general will”, which the new nation had been established to represent, and the liberal policies of the new government, combined with the powerful technology in the printing press, gave these problems popular expression. They are as follow:

1. Civil Constitution vs Divine Absolutism
2. Centralisation vs Federalism
3. Poor vs Rich
4. Utilitarianism vs Corporate Privileges
5. Strong Government vs Laissez-Faire
6. Tolerance vs Intolerance
7. France vs Europe

Everything which occurred during the revolution can be categorised as the actualisation of one or several of the dominant societal discourses listed above. As the system which had once enforced harmony and discipline was removed, these conflicts quickly took on primal forms. The rapid devolution of French politics into cycles of purges and counter-purges could be attributed to the question of legitimacy at the heart of the new nation. Where once the King derived power from beyond the cosmos—having been appointed by God to rule over his prosperous kingdom—the new National Constituent Assembly was raised to power by an act of popular violence: the Storming of the Bastille. Absolute monarchy had been the norm for so long that no one could remember how it was first established. Its longevity and the hazy nature of cultural memory had endowed it with a mystical sense of legitimacy that was unrivalled and unchallenged. But since the National Constituent Assembly was elevated due to the armed intervention of the mob, the people of France were granted the same legitimising power which once belonged to the divine. In an ideal circumstance, the people could act as a stable foundation for a democratic representative government, but the necessary structures to facilitate such a transition were absent, not to mention the lack of a monolithic general will. France was such a diverse and divided nation that following the fall of the ancien regime, every faction felt rightfully entitled to regenerate and govern France in accordance to their own ideology and interest. They can be categorised as follow:

1. The Monarchiens. These were supporters of the ancien regime and cherished memories of the King. Their close ties to the old traditions of the corporate society meant that they were often also fervent supporters of papal authority and divine legitimacy. Their power was actualised in the Vendee Rebellion, which began in 1783 following the King’s execution in January of the same year. Many surviving aristocrats remained among their ranks. Others fled the nation as emigres to plot their eventual return to restore the House of Bourbon to power.
2. The Jacobins. This faction was formed by many of the original deputies of the Estates-General and championed more radical forms of Enlightenment ideals. They represented the stalwart elite leaders of the revolution who wished to protect the revolution at all cost and opposed the privileges which had once allowed the aristocracy to supercede the bourgeois despite their economic equity. It was for this reason that they advocated a definitive rupture through republicanism.
3. The Feuillants. Comprised of the same bourgeois elites as the Jacobins, they were more moderate in their political outlook and prioritised social stability and political reality over ideology. They opposed the deposition, and then execution, of the crown, and sought instead to build a conciliatory constitutional monarchy to unite the disparate elements of French society. Supporters of this faction included recusant members of the aristocracy and experienced leaders.
4. The Girondins. They shared many of the Jacobins’ views and values, but were less Paris-centric in their outlook. Instead, they were generally federalist who believed in regional identity. They were also more moderate than the Jacobins, having opposed the King’s execution and supported the constitutional monarchy. They were seen to have shown greater concern over the unity of France and the preservation of harmony between the various interest groups of the nation. They were still radicals.
5. The Sans-Culottes. These were the urban poor, menu-people of the Parisian streets, dispossessed and disillusioned, they were at the mercy of government handouts of bread. The violence which had begun the revolution and the ideology which they propagated empowered the weakest of the old society to rise to the top in the new France and dominate politics at the very top. This potent force was subject to demagoguery and were responsible for radicalising the revolution at several critical junctures.