Tocqueville's Two Revolutions
Author(s): Alan Kahan
Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1985), pp. 585-596
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709547
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TOCQUEVILLE'S TWO REVOLUTIONS
BY ALAN KAHAN
It is a matter of consensus that Alexis de Tocqueville remains one of the
most interesting and important writers on the French Revolution. Yet most
scholars would find it difficult to agree about how Tocqueville understands the
Revolution. Tocqueville is a subtle and complex thinker. To contemplate his
work is to reveal the hidden tensions that lie beneath its seemingly transparent
surface. The task of understanding his thoughts about the Revolution is made
more difficult by the fragmentary state of his writings on it, after the period
covered by the first volume of L 'AncienRegime et la Revolution,the only volume
published during his lifetime and the only volume that has received serious
critical attention.
Tocqueville speaks of the Revolution as a "product of general causes that
local causes pushed beyond all bounds." He promises "to examine, to analyze
in depth" the Revolution and its causes.2 But such an analysis was exactly what
he was unable to provide us in years of hard work on the second volume. It
was characteristic of Tocqueville that his projects became larger and took more
time to complete than he at first expected, as was the case with De la Democratie
en Amerique. What is left in the fragments of volume 2 of the Ancien Regime,
is the tantalizing outline of Tocqueville's lines of inquiry, an outline whose
demarcation will always remain shadowy.
One explanation of Tocqueville's difficulty in completing his history of the
French Revolution is that it derives from contradictions within his thought
about the Revolution and its relation to both the ancien regime and the revolutionary future. Thus Frangois Furet notes that if the administrative process
of centralization had been completed by the Consulate, as Tocqueville thought,
there would be no need for the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 to come and
complete it. Thus the drive to centralize a chief revolutionary impulse treated
in L Ancien Regime, is dissipated. Since centralization could not explain later
revolutions, its status as the principal explanation of the revolution of 1789 fell
into doubt. According to Furet, this problem led Tocqueville to examine the
nature and effects of cultural changes, but he could never deal with them fully
because he was imprisoned by his theory of centralization.3
Is it just to see Tocqueville imprisoned by the great hypothesis of the first
volume of L'Ancien Regime? After all, Tocqueville hated to be trapped by
unicausal theories, even his own: "I hate, for my part, these absolute systems,
which make all the events of history depend on great first causes, linked by a
chain of fatality.... I find them narrow in their pretended grandeur, and false
"Produit de causes generales que des causes locales ont pousse au dela de toutes
bornes." (AR II p.226)
2
"a rechercher, a analyser jusqu'au fond ..." (AR II p.228)
3 Frangois, Furet,
Interpretingthe FrenchRevolution.Trans. by E. Forster. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. 162-3.
585
Copyright 1985 by JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, INC.
586
ALAN
KAHAN
in their pretensions to mathematical truth."4 Thus it seems to me that Tocqueville's difficulties in writing about the Revolution stemmed as much from the
many levels and kinds of relationships he saw embodied in it as from anything
else. Having demonstrated to the world, much to its surprise, how much of the
ancien regime not merely persisted but came to fulfillment in the Revolution,
he was faced with the difficult task of presenting both the old and the fundamentally new elements in the Revolution, and defining their interaction. Although we possess only the fragments of his definition, I believe that they justify
an attempt at reconstruction, and such is the purpose of this essay.
In order to grasp Tocqueville's view of the French Revolution we must
understand that for him there were two Revolutions involved, the first of which
had revealed its culminating victory to the world before the first meeting of the
Estates General in 1789. Tocqueville makes this point in several ways. The
struggle between Parlement and Crown in 1787 had already revealed that "if
the Parlement utilized new arguments in order to reestablish its old rights, the
government employed them no less in the defense of its ancient prerogatives."5
The government and the Parlements speak in terms of the first principles of
government and of the constitution, in the language of the Enlightenment, not
in that of the feudal regime. The individual Parlements in 1787 make many
differentattacks on the government'sproposals, but "if one considers the number
and diversity of their attacks, they are many, if one listens to the unity of their
language, they are one man."6 Even the nobles do not complain in terms of the
violation of their particular privileges, but in terms of the violation of their
general political rights, for "in that first epoch of the Revolution, when war
had not yet been declared between classes, the language of the nobility is in
everything comparable to that of the other classes."7 The government and the
Parlements could agree on only one thing-the establishment of new provincial
assemblies which "destroyed from top to bottom the old political system of
Europe and substituted with one sudden blow the democratic republic for that
which had remainedfeudal, democracy for aristocracy,the republic for royalty."8
Thus one must conclude that:
The old society was dead ... the union of all the Parlements was not only the
4 "je hais, pour ma part, ces systemes absolus, qui font dependre tous les evenements
de l'histoire de grandes causes premieres se liant les unes aux autres par une chaine
fatale. .. Je les trouve etroits dans leur pretendue grandeur, et faux sous leur air de
verite mathematique." In Tocqueville, Alexis de. Souvenirs in Oeuvres Completes. Ed.
J.-P. Mayer. Paris: Gallimard, 1954. P. 84.
5 "... si le Parlement se servait d'argumentsnouveaux pour retablirses anciens droits,
le gouvernement n'en employait pas de moins nouveaux pour la defense de ses antiques
prerogatives" (AR II p.60)
6 "si l'on considere le nombre et la diversite de leurs
attaques, c'est une foule; si l'on
ecoute l'unite du langage, c'est un seul homme" (AR II p.65)
7
"dans cette premiere epoque de la Revolution, ou la guerre n'est pas encore declaree
entre les classes, le langage de la noblesse est en tout semblablea celui des autres classes"
(AR II p.69)
8 "achevait de detruire de fond en comble le vieux systeme politique de l'Europe et
substituait tout a coup a ce qui restait feodal a la republiquedemocratique, a l'aristocratie
la democratie, la republique a la royaute" (AR II p.70)
TOCQUEVILLE'S TWO REVOLUTIONS
587
means of the Revolution, it was the sign of it. It supposed that the nation, in
the middle of the multitude of institutions that still seemed to divide it ... was
already one.... the whole nation already lived a common life, obeyed the same
interests, followed the same ideas, was similar.9
What does this mean? "This does not prove that a great revolution was near
but that a great revolutionhas already been made. "'l Or in another version of
this passage: "This unity of spirit which showed itself for the first time beneath
the diversity of acts, this not only announced a revolution, it was the sign
of a revolutionalready accomplished [emphasis added]."1 In fact, according to
Tocqueville, he is doing no more than justice to contemporary perception:
One often finds, among the authors who write before the end of 1788 these
words: Thus things happened before the Revolution. That astonishes us, we are
not used to hear talk of a revolution before 1789.... This was the effect of a
very great revolution but one which should soon lose itself in the immensity of
that which was to follow, and thus disappear from historical observation.2
This is the revolution whose origins were traced in L'Ancien Regime volume 1, the revolution of centralization which seemed to have been "the almost
natural outcome of the very social order it made such haste to destroy."13 It
was a revolution whose greatest achievements had revealed themselves not by
the time of the Consulate, but even before then, certainly by the time of the
calling of the Estates General. It was a revolution of interests and of ideas, of
society and of language. It exercised an immense influence on the French Revolution proper (i.e. 1789-1815-1830?-1848?-2000?)but it did not in and of itself
contain that Revolution, as Tocqueville recognized.
The "second revolution," which began sometime in the five months between
the call for the Estates General to meet and their election, "pushed the ideas
and the sentiments of the French towards the total subversion of society."14 It
was something new, something for which Tocqueville could not conjure up the
9 "l'ancienne societe etait morte dans le fond des
esprits qu'on s'en rendit compte ...
L'Union de tous les parlements n'etait pas seulement le moyen de la R6volution, c'en
etait le signe. Cela supposait que la nation au milieu de la multitude des institutions qui
semblaient encore la partager ... etait deja une ... toute la nation vivait deja d'une vie
commune, obeissait aux memes interets, suivait les memes idees, etait semblable"
(AR II pp.59-60)
'1"cela ne prouvait pas qu'une grande revolution etait proche mais qu'une grande
revolutionetait d6ej faite" (AR II p.67)
1 "cette unite
d'esprit qui se montre pour la premiere fois sous la diversite des actes,
cela n'annoncait pas seulement une revolution, c'etait le signe certain d'une revolution
deja accomplie" (AR II p.67)
12
"on rencontre souvent chez les auteurs qui ecrivent avant la fin de l'annee 1788
ces mots: les choses se passaient ainsi avant la Revolution. Cela nous etonne, nous ne
sommes pas habitues a entendre parler de revolution avant 1789 ... C'etait donc en effet
une tres grande revolution mais qui devait bient6t se perdre dans l'immensite de celle
qui allait suivre et disparaitre ainsi de devant les regards de l'histoire" (AR II p.76)
13
"sortie d'elle-meme de la societe qu'elle allait d6truire" (AR I p.72)
14
"entrainait les idees et les sentiments des Frangais vers la subversion totale de la
societe (AR II p.106)
ALAN KAHAN
588
slow maturation of centuries depicted in L'Ancien Regime. And although even
there he had recognized that the Revolution gave birth to a "new social order,"
this recognition appears much more forcefully in his later thought as embodied
in volume 2.15This is not to say that this new revolution was entirely independent
of the old-Tocqueville remained true to the fundamental insight of L'Ancien
Regime. But it required a new analysis, and even such new terms of analysis as
the discussion of French national temperament or of class war.
This second revolution, which began sometime between the call for the
Estates General and their election, was itself divided into two stages in Tocqueville's analysis. The first, which I call the Revolution of Liberty, lasted until no
later than the journee of October 6, 1789, when the King and the National
Assembly were brought from Versailles to Paris by the fishwives of the Faubourg
St. Antoine. The second stage, the Revolution of Equality, lasted from then
until the 18th Brumaire. These two stages correspond in part to the two phases
Tocqueville defines in the Foreword to L'Ancien Regime: "One in which the
sole aim of the French nation seemed to be to make a clean sweep of the past;
and a second, in which attempts were made to salvage fragments from the
wreckage of the old order."16However, I believe that the two stages named
above were the ideas that most interested Tocqueville. Certainly the idea of a
division between a stage of Liberty and a stage of Equality appears in embryo
in that same Foreword: "I shall begin with that first era of '89, when the love
of equality and the love of liberty divided equally the heart of the French
nation."17 An era which sought not merely democratic institutions and the
destruction of privilege,but also "freeinstitutions" and the recognition of rights.18
Tocqueville notes that in the anti-government agitation of 1787-1789, it was
not the lower classes that took the lead: "It was not the hatred of social
inequalities but the hatred of despotism which showed itself at first. And that
hatred makes itself evident among the members of the upper class and in the
heart of the most elevated bodies. For these classes had more than others the
means to resist the King and the hope of dividing his power [among themselves]."19Yet the moment before the meeting of the National Assembly was
characterizedby class unity, not merely by a self-interested agitation by the first
estate: "Nobles, priests, bourgeois, all saw clearly then that it was not a matter
of modifying ... but of ... regenerating France."20 In fact, the Revolution,
insofar as it was a revolution against despotism, could occur only on the basis
of class unity, a class unity whose presuppositions had been created by the
15
"societe nouvelle" (AR I p.72)
"la premiere pendant laquelle les francais semblent vouloir tout abolir dans le passe;
la seconde ou ils vont y reprendre une partie de ce qu'ils y avaient laisse" (AR I p.71)
17
"je parcourraid'abord avec eux cette premiereepoque de 89, ou l'amour de Pl'galite
16
et celui de la liberte partagent leur coeur ..."
8 "institutions libres"
(AR I p.72)
(AR I p.72)
19
"ce fut non la haine des inegalites sociales mais la haine du despotisme qui se
montra d'abord. Et elle se fit voir parmi les membres des hautes classes et dans le sein
des corps les plus eleves. Car ces classes ... avaient plus que d'autres le moyen de lui
[le roi] resister et l'esperance de partager son pouvoir" (AR p.48)
20 "nobles, pretres, bourgeois, tous s'apercoivent alors clairement qu'il ne s'agit point
de modifier ...
mais ...
regenerer la France" (AR II pp.130-1)
TOCQUEVILLE'S TWO REVOLUTIONS
589
first, centralizing revolution chronicled in L'Ancien Regime and culminating in
1787-8:
The King could not have created his uncontrolled power except by dividing the
classes, in isolating each class in prejudices,jealousies, and hatreds which were
particular to itself ... It sufficed for the French who formed these different
classes, lowering for one moment the barriers that had been erected between
them ... to find each other in order to resist together ... for the absolute
monarchy to be in their power.21
The nation was conscious of its need for unity in the great regeneration that
it confidently expected to see emerge from the Estates General; "one suddenly
saw a concord which one was far from expecting."22Everyone demanded the
destruction of arbitrary power, the rights of the citizen, a long list of essential
libertes.23Tocqueville cannot stress enough the absence of class divisions at this
point:
The obvious and sincere rapprochement was but the principal symptom, but it
was nothing but a symptom of that admirable effort of minds to prepare themselves for the task which they were going to have to fulfill in their devotion to
the great cause ... The contempt for material interests,... for life, was the
supreme sign of it.24
A common joy filled all the so-divided hearts and united them, one moment
before they separated forever (pourjamais).25
One must recognize the pain as well as the significance with which Tocqueville
wrote those two concluding words 'pourjamais. " France at that time was filled
with a boundless confidence in itself:
There was then not one Frenchman who was not convinced that he was not
only going to change the government of France, but introduce into the world
new principles of government applicable to all peoples and destined to entirely
change the face of human affairs.... That lasted but a moment, but I doubt
21
"le roi n'avaient pu creer cette puissance sans controle qu'en divisant les classes,
en isolant chacune d'elles au milieu des prejuges, des jalousies, des haines qui lui etaient
particulieres... Il suffisait que les Francais que formaient ces differentesclasses, abaissant
un moment les barrieres qu'on avait elevees ... se rencontrassent pour resister en commun ... pour que le gouvernement absolu fut a leur discretion" (AR II p.77)
22
"on vit soudain une concorde qu'on etait loin d'attendre" (AR II p.133)
23
See AR II p.133
24
"le rapprochement apparent et sincere des classes n'est que le principal sympt6me,
mais ce n'est qu'un sympt6me de cet admirable effort des ames pour se preparer a la
tache qu'ils vont avoir a remplir par le d6vouement a la grande cause ... le mepris du
bien-etre, ... de la vie, n'en est que le dernier effort" (AR II p.131)
25 "une joie commune remplit tous les coeurs si divises et les rapprocha un moment
avant qu'ils se separassent pour jamais" (AR II p. 133)
ALAN KAHAN
590
that anything similar has ever happened in the life of any people.26
This tremendous confidence, born of the Enlightenment and the incredible
national elan created by the new-found unity of all Frenchmen, was to suffer
sadly at the hands of experience:
Then the enlightened classes had none of that fearful and servile nature that
revolutions have since given them. For a long time they had ceased to fear the
royal power and they had not yet learned to tremble before the people.... The
desire for material welfare which would finish by mastering all other desires,
was then but a subordinate and powerless passion.27
But until the time when the enlightened classes learned to fear the people and
the spirit of self-interest returned, the spectacle was magnificent. Tocqueville
allows himself to grow almost as lyrical on this point as Michelet does about
the Fete des Federations. In fact, Tocqueville says that "the Fete des Federations
was for the union of the bourgeoisie and the people what the elections of '89
had been for the nobility and the bourgeoisie!"28This is how Tocqueville describes
his supreme moment:
I do not think that any moment in history has seen, anywhere on earth, a
comparable number of men so sincerely impassioned for the public good. The
spectacle was short, but it was of incomparable beauty. It will never disappear
from the memory of man. I daresay that there is but one people on earth who
could produce such a spectacle. I know my nation.... Only it could wish to
embrace ... the common cause of humanity.... No other people will ever attain
that.29
Unfortunately, even at the moment of unity, the seed of disunity was sprouting.
Soon, "the true mother passion of the revolution, the passion of class that the
Parlement did not represent, took pre-eminence ... [emphasis added]."30This
26
"il n'y avait donc pas un Frangais qui ne fut convaincu qu'il n'allait pas seulement
s'agir de changer le gouvernement de la France, mais d'introduire dans le monde de
nouveaux principes de gouvernement applicablesa tous les peuples et destines a renouveler
la face entiere des affaires humaines. ... Ce ne fut qu'un moment; mais je doute qu'il
s'en soit jamais rencontre de pareil dans la vie d'aucun peuple" (AR II p.132)
27 "les classes eclaires n'avaient rien alors de ce naturel craintif et servile que leur ont
donne les revolutions. II y avait longtemps qu'elles ne craignaient plus le pouvoir royale
et elles n'avaient encore appris a trembler devant le peuple. ... Le gout du bien-etre qui
devait finir par maitriser tous les autres goufts,ne fut alors qu'une passion subalterne et
impuissante" (AR II p.132)
28"la federation fut pour l'union de la bourgeoisie et du peuple ce que l'lection de
89 avait ete pour la noblesse et les bourgeois" (AR II p.205)
29"je ne crois pas qu'a aucun moment de l'histoire, on ait vu, sur aucun point de la
terre, un pareil nombre d'hommes si sincerement passiones pour le bien public ... Ce
spectacle fut court, mais il eut des beautes incomparables. Il ne sortira jamais de la
memoire des hommes ... J'ose dire qu'il n'y a qu'un peuple sur la terre qui peut donner
un tel spectacle. Je connais ma nation ...
Seule elle peut vouloir embrasser ...
la cause
commune de l'humanite ... qu'un autre peuple n'atteindra jamais" (AR II pp.133-4)
30"la veritable passion mere de la revolution, la passion de classe que le parlement
ne representait pas, prenait le pas" (AR II p.100)
TOCQUEVILLE'S TWO REVOLUTIONS
591
passion would in the end triumph, and by triumphing lead from the Revolution
of Liberty to the Revolution of Equality. Thus: "The tie of a common passion
had kept all classes together for a moment. The moment when that tie was
released, they separated;and the real figure of the Revolution, until then veiled,
suddenly revealed itself."31Once the Estates General had met, the nation would
be faced sooner or later with "the class struggle which was inevitable."32
It would be easy to assume from the above that class and class struggle,
however undefined, were for Tocqueville the prime or even the sole causes of
the second revolution. But this would be once more to imprison Tocqueville
within a unicausal theory of the sort he hated, and moreover one that it is easy
to disprove from the text at hand: "What strikes me, is less the class passions
which animated that whole polemic ..., the struggle of contrary interests which
occurs there, than the basis of opinions (and it is always to that that one returns
and which makes the final result of revolutions)."33
Tocqueville notes that no one at the time of the Revolution thought of
politics in terms of the representationof different legitimate interests, of different
kinds of men whose voices should be valued according to their wealth or condition. And to him these ideas were crucial to the Revolution's development.
He wrote in a note to himself: "To penetrate into that idea and to show that
the Revolution had been there still more than in the facts; that it was as impossible
that the ideas being such, the facts were not similar to those which one saw."34
Tocqueville wrote a chapter on the effects of the Enlightenment:
The idea of the grandeur of man in general, of the all-powerfulness of his reason ... had penetrated all minds and filled them; with that superb notion of
humanity in general was mingled an unnatural contempt for the particular time
in which one lived and for the society of which one was part.... In all Europe
... one philosophized, one dogmatized among all the enlightened classes.35
The thirst for liberty, which began in the upper classes and among the enlightened, penetrated gradually into the lower ranks of society; thus "the writing of
the Cahiers made the idea of a radical revolution penetrate profoundly into the
"le lien d'une passion commune avait tenu un moment ensemble toutes les classes.
Du moment ou ce lien ce relacha, elles se separerent;et la veritable figure de la R6volution
jusque-la voilee, se decouvrit tout a coup" (AR II p.104)
32 "la lutte des classes qui etait inevitable" (AR II p.106)
33 "ce
qui me frappe, c'est moins encore les passions des classes qui animent toute
cette polemique ... la lutte des int6rets contraires qui s'y voient, que le fond des opinions
(et c'est toujours a cela qu'on revient et qui fait le resultat final des revolutions)"
(AR II p.117).
34
"penetrer dans cette id6e et montrer que la R6volution a ete la plus encore que
dans les faits; qu'il etait comme impossible que les idees etant telles, les faits ne fussent
pas a peu pres ce qu'on a vu. (AR II p.117)
35"l'idee de la grandeur de l'homme en general, de la toute-puissance de sa raison
... avait penetre tous les esprits et les remplissait; a cette notion superbe de l'humanite
en general, se melait un mepris contre nature pour le temps particulier dans lequel on
vivait et pour la societe dont on faisait partie ... Dans toute l'Europe,... on philosophait,
on dogmatisait au sein de toutes les classes eclairees" (AR II p. 33-7)
31
592
ALAN KAHAN
mind of the people."36It is the idea which is essential. At one point Tocqueville
even subordinates the effects of governmental centralization to a trait of character: "the cause of this phenomenon is still more permanent and profound, it
is not an institution, it is a trait of character."37As Tocqueville has spoken of
class as the "mother passion" of the Revolution, he speaks of the "mother ideas
which form the basis of the whole new system in matters of society and government."38It was not the lack of ideas which lost the nation in '89, i.e. turned
it from the road of liberty to the road of equality, it was "... the absence of
accepted ideas that were just or realizable without revolution."39This is to pose
Tocqueville's great question, "Could the ancien regime have fallen without
Revolution?"40on the level of ideas rather than on the level of class. This does
not stop Tocqueville from regarding the Constituent Assembly as "the most
dangerous moder assembly which one could conceive"41not because its members were filled with the ideas of the Enlightenment, but because:
One created a body apart from all the great proprietors ... under the pretext
of creating separate chambers for them, the third Estate found itself reduced to
choosing only outside the ranks of the proprietors ... thus ... it resulted that
the power to make laws fell almost uniquely into the hands of those who lacked
the conservative spirit that landed property gives.... It [the Constituent Assembly] had been elected to represent a class [the bourgeoisie] and not the
nation.42
Tocqueville in the above passages is much clearer on why the nation passed
from the road to Liberty to the road to Equality than he ever is on why the
nation ever pursued Liberty in the first place. This is characteristic of Tocqueville's attitude towards Liberty throughout his work-he is always much clearer
about why men forsake it than why they pursue it.
Tocqueville sees all the factors that led to the Revolution's second stage in
embryo in the first stage. Precisely when the first stage, the stage of Liberty,
ended, was a matter about which he gave contradictory indications. While it
was no later than October 6, 1789, he sometimes implies that it was much earlier,
that this first stage of Liberty and unity lasted no longer than the five months
between the call for the Estates General and their first meeting.
Part of the reason for Tocqueville's difficulty lies in the multi-level explan36"la redaction des Cahiers acheva de faire penetrer l'idee d'une revolution radicale
jusqu'au plus profond de l'esprit du peuple" (AR II p.123)
37"la cause de ce phenomene est plus permanente et profonds encore, ce n'est pas
une institution, c'est un trait de caractere" (AR II p.332)
38"idees meres qui forment le fond de tout le systeme nouveau en matiere de societe
et de gouvernement" (AR II p.197)
39"l'absence d'idees arretes justes ou realisables sans revolution" (AR II p.198)
40"l'ancien regime pouvait-il tomber sans R6volution?" (AR II p.174)
41 "l'assemblee modere la plus dangereuse qui se puisse concevoir (AR II p.175)
42
... on faisait un corps a part de tous les grands proprietaires ... sous pretexte
d'en faire des chambres separees, le tiers etat se trouve reduit a ne choisir que hors des
rangs des proprietaires ... ensuite ... il en resulta que le pouvoir de faire les lois tomba
presque uniquement dans les mains de ceux qui n'avaient pas l'esprit conservateur que
la propriete donne ... Elle [la Constituante] n'avait ete elue que pour representer une
classe et non une nation" (AR II p.175)
TOCQUEVILLE'S TWO REVOLUTIONS
593
atory scheme that he created to explain the change. It proved impossible to
make the levels of class and ideology march in time, to the beat of the same
tocsin. This is to say nothing of the secondary causes he also discusses, for
example, the bad harvest of 1788, the unusually cold winter of 1789, and the
general political inexperience of the nation. This last is a fault that he complained
of in the France of before 1848. It also played a role in changing the character
of the Revolution: "It is further because of that [political inexperience] that the
movement which had been until then liberal suddenly took on its real character,
and the struggle against despotism became the class struggle."43Thus "one
precipitates oneself towards the idea of pure democracy."44In the realm of ideas
this was accompanied by the switch from Montesquieu to Rousseau, who "became and is going to remain the unique preceptor of the Revolution in its first
epoch."45This sounds as if for Tocqueville the Revolution had already changed
its character forever. But he later implies otherwise. Speaking of the administration of Paris after the Fall of the Bastille, he says: "The spirit of the body
seemed very moderate. One scented there rather the bourgeoisie who had prepared the Revolution than the works of the masses who accomplished it. One
spoke with respect of the upper classes there.... It is the bourgeoisie of the
ancien regime who govern."46But after the Fall of the Bastille, "One sees ...
that the people rise against the bourgeoisie, and make themselves feared. One
sees, in that first phase of the Revolution, the bourgeoisie make a great simultaneous effort against both those above and those below."47
The precious unity of those early months was already lost forever, but
Tocqueville could not quite decide whether the bourgeoisie by itself could not
have served as the bearer of Liberty. Contrasting the actions of the cities with
those of the villages, the communes, during the rural unrest between July 14
and October 6, 1789, he notes: "the bourgeoisie wanting political rights, the
people material gain," the abolition of feudal dues, not the vote.48Perhaps a
shade of Guizot's influence over Tocqueville lingers over this perception. In any
case the journee of October 6 made the people of Paris master of the assembly
and of the nation, for a time:
Journee where one saw, as on the fourteenth July, but much better, these classes
[the middle class] and that assembly at the same time saved and dominated by
the people of Paris, called or not refused as defenders, and at the same time
submitted to as master.... I do not know if in all the Revolution there was an
"c'est d'ailleurspar la [political inexperience]que le mouvement qui avait etejusqu'la
liberal prit tout a coup son veritable caractere, et la lutte contre le despotisme est devenue
lutte des classes" (AR II p.105)
44"on se precipite vers l'idee de la pure democratie" (AR II p. 107)
45"est devenu et il va rester le precepteur unique de la R6volution dans son premier
age" (AR II p.107)
46"l'esprit du corps parait fort modere. On y sent plutot la bourgeoisie qui a prepare
la Revolution que les oeuvres du peuple qui l'accomplit. On y parle avec egard des hautes
classes; ... c'est la bourgeoisie de l'ancien regime qui gouverne" (AR II p.202)
47 "on voit ...
que le peuple se souleve contre les bourgeois, fait grand peur a ceuxci. On voit, dans cette premiere phase de la Revolution, la bourgeoisie faire un grand
effort en meme temps contre le dessus et le dessous" (AR II p.208)
48"la
bourgeoisie voulant des droits politiques, le peuple du bien-etre"(AR II p.214)
43
594
ALAN KAHAN
event more fatal than that of the sixth October; it was, it is true, easy to foresee.
But that does not diminish the regret that it must cause. It achieved the destruction of the royal power and put the assembly into dependence on the people
of Paris.... It happened contrary to the wishes of the majority of the assembly
and that of the country, perhaps the first example of that, which was going to
be seen so frequently.49
Thus the sixth of October, at the very latest, marks the end of the first stage,
the stage of Liberty, of the French Revolution.
What characterized the second stage of the Revolution, the Revolution of
Equality? "There is the final word of the Revolution: We will try to be free
while becoming equals, but better to cease being free than to remain or to become
unequals."50
The processes that led to the second stage had their origin in the first, as
demonstrated above. In the struggles of the elections to the Estates General the
class struggle, finding "an unlimited field and able to nourish itself from general
ideas, quickly took on a character of singular audacity... ."51 The aristocracy,
which had so lately been united with the rest of the nation in the struggle against
absolutism, found itself unable to reply to the attacks made on it. It too had
been penetrated by the spirit of the Enlightenment, and "it recognized with
surprise, in the ideas which were used to attack it, its own ideas."52It was only
natural that the aristocracy be surprised, in Tocqueville's view, because: "For
the first time, perhaps, since the beginning of the world, one sees superior classes
which are so isolated ... that one may ... put them aside.... Middle classes
whose effort is not to mingle themselves with the superior classes, but on the
contrary to preserve themselves with a jealous diligence from contact with
them... ."53This isolation was of course the product of the long process of the
destruction of the society of orders, described in L'Ancien Regime.
The divided aristocracy thus found itself facing a united third estate in the
Estates General, a third estate that would become absolute master "for it will
march united against two bodies not only divided against each other, but divided
49"journee,ou l'on voit, comme au 14 juillet, mais bien mieux, ces classes [the middle
classes] et cette assemblee tout a la fois secourue et dominee par le peuple de Paris, appele
ou non refuse comme defenseur, et en meme temps subi comme maitre ... Je ne sais si
dans toute la R6volution il y a eu un evenement plus funeste que celui du 6 Octobre; il
etait, il est vrai, facile a prevoir. Mais cela ne diminue pas le regret qu'il doit donner. Il
acheve de detruire le pouvoir royal et de mettre l'assembleedans la dependence du peuple
de Paris,... il arrive, contrairement au voeu de la majorite de l'assemblee et de celle du
pays, premier exemple peut-etre de ce qui allait se voir si souvent" (AR II p.220-2)
50 "voila le mot final de la R6volution: tichons d'etre libres en devenant egaux, mais
plutot cesser d'etre libres que rester ou devenir inegaux" (AR II p.169)
51 "un
champ sans limite et pouvant se nourrir d'id6es generales, prit en peu de temps
un caractere d'audace singuliere" (AR II p.106)
52 "elle reconnaissait avec
surprise dans les idees dont on se servait pour la frapper,
ses idees memes" (AR II p.109)
53"pour la premiere fois peut-etre depuis le commencement du monde, on voit des
classes superieures qui se sont tellement isolees ... qu'on peut ... les mettre a part,...
des classes moyennes dont l'effort n'est pas de se meler aux classes superieures, mais au
contraire de se preserver avec un soin jaloux de leur contact" (AR II p.108)
TOCQUEVILLE'S TWO REVOLUTIONS
595
within themselves."54This was the situation that took shape during the first
stage of the Revolution. The second stage saw the once united third estate itself
divided, a process which culminated in an open struggle between "le peuple"
and the bourgeoisie, in which eventually "le gout du bien-etre"and the demand
for equality erased liberty. In this situation, in which everyone had realized from
the first that unity was crucial, it was fatal for the public to perceive an individual
or group as destroying that unity. The discourse about who embodied the people
or the nation, so prominent in the Revolution, was a necessary result. In that
discourse, as early as Sieyes' Qu'est-ceque le Tiersetat?, the nobility was expelled
from the nation. Later on Dantonistes and H6bertistes would be rhetorically
annexed to the nobility and physically expelled from the (living) nation. Tocqueville enables us to understand something more about the unitary rhetoric of the
Terror, by attaching it to a generally accepted idea about the necessity of unity
for liberty, an idea that dated back to 1789.
Tocqueville never provided a real description of the breakdown of the third
estate. The key episode in that process was the Terror, about which Tocqueville
left only a few sketchy notes. Tocqueville recognized that the class hatreds
manifest in the Revolution did not stem simply from the situation which preceded
it, but grew and took on new shapes in the course of the struggle itself.55He
was not interested however in depicting them; for him, "the Republic had been
nothing ... but an agitated servitude."56
The story he wished to tell about the dialogue of Liberty and Equality at
the beginning of the Revolution had moved and interested Tocqueville profoundly. The later period of the Revolution held much less attraction for him.
Faced with the difficult task of carrying on his complex analytical framework
into this epoch of the Revolution, Tocqueville faltered. The two complete chapters he did write about the end of the Directory (early writings that are the
remnants of his original conception of writing about Napoleon I as the bringer
of Equality and murderer of Liberty, analogously perhaps to Napoleon III),
simply provide Liberty with a decent burial at the end of its long exposure to
the vultures: "The French, who had loved, or rather had believed themselves
to love liberty passionately in 1789, no longer loved it in '99, without having
attached their heart to anything else."57France was morally exhausted. Tocqueville adds in a note: "The end of great passions is always sad."58
Tocqueville, regardless of what he thought of the second stage of the Revolution, remained a defender of 1789. Speaking of the Revolution, he said: "I
do not know if one could cite in history a single event of this kind which has
contributedmore to the well-being of the generation which followed it and more
54
"car il marcherauni contre deux corps non seulement divises entre eux, mais divises
dans leur propre sein" (AR II p.111)
55
see AR II p. 336.
56 "la
R6publique n'avait ete, ... qu'une servitude agitee" (AR II p.276)
57 "les Frangais, qui avaient aime, ou plutot avaient cru aimer passionement la libert6
en 1789, ne 1'aimaientplus en 99, sans avoir attach6s leur coeur a rien autre chose"
(AR II p. 276)
58
"la fin des grandes passions est toujours triste" (AR II p. 276)
ALAN KAHAN
596
demoralized the generation which produced it."59Tocqueville will defend 1789
and the Declaration of the Rights of Man to the last: "That declaration ... had
as object liberty much more than equality; which shows how the character of
1789 is liberal, whatever certain publicists of today may say."60
Tocqueville's allegiance to Liberty did not waver, whatever may be said of
the Revolution he chronicled.
University of Chicago.
Note on Translationsand Abbreviations
All translations from L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, volume 1, have been
taken from the standard Stuart Gilbert translation. All translations from the
second volume are my own, with the original given in footnotes.
The following abbreviationshave been used in the footnotes: AR I-Tocqueville, Alexis de, L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, Tome I, in Tocqueville,
OeuvresCompletes,ed. J.-P. Mayer (Paris, 1953). AR II-Tocqueville, Alexis de.
L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, Tome II, in Tocqueville, OeuvresCompletes,
ed. J.-P. Mayer. Paris: Gallimard, 1953.
59
"je ne sais si l'on pourrait citer dans l'histoire un seul evenement de ce genre qui
ait plus contribue au bien-etre des generations qui la suivirent et plus demoralise la
generation qui l'avait produit" (AR II p.275)
60 "cette declaration etablit la liberte
plus encore que l'egalite. Ce qui montre bien
comme ce caracterede 89 est liberal, quoi qu'en disent certaines publicistes d'aujourd'hui"
(AR II p.216)