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Why the French Revolution was so Revolutionary
owners to have direct representation in the government.6
As the political structure of France was being replaced the economic practice of Mercantilism was being replaced by free trade. Mercantilism was the economic system that the Ancien Regime adopted during the fall of feudalism. Liberalists’ after the revolution replaced mercantilism with laissez faire or free trade economics. Free trade economics means that the government does not interfere in any way with trading; there are no taxes regarding trade. This was the area where there was the most conflict between different liberalism minded groups. There were some who believed that the government should have no part in trade, while others believed that trade needed, at the very least, to be monitored. Free trade taking the place of mercantilism was a revolutionary economic step in European history.8
The economic, political, and social practices of liberalism made the French people feel a connection to France because they now controlled it in a way. This idea of a new found patriotism for ones country was called Nationalism. Nationalism was a product of the French Revolution brought on by the need for France to come together against the rest of Europe. Even while the revolution was tearing France apart it was forming a French national identity.9 The French began to see themselves not as separate social groups but as a unified country. This new outlook ameliorated the process of creation a new government because social groups worked together to rebuild France. France’s old social structure fell during the French Revolution and a new one based on liberalism and nationalism came to power.
The Ancien Regime was not easily replaced by liberalism though. There were many difficulties in the implementation of liberalism’s ideas and practices. There was almost no difficulty in applying social changes to France because the bourgeois ran the government and could make any policy changes they wanted. The nobility that may have posed a threat to this either had sided with the bourgeois or had fled the country leaving policy making in the hands of the bourgeois. There was difficulty in implementing political changes in France because of the struggle between the sans culottes and the bourgeois. The difficulty in nationalism taking hold in France lay in the hatred between the nobility and the peasants. For nationalism to truly work the peasants and the nobility had to unite together under a common cause.
The French Revolution was revolutionary because the ideologies of liberalism and nationalism replaced the government, economy, and society of France. Liberalism’s ideas of equality and individuality brought down the feudal system of manorialism. France’s absolute government was replaced with a constitutional monarchy with direct representation of all males. France’s mercantilist economy was replaced by liberalisms free trade. During and following the revolution a new sense of nationalism united France. The French revolution was such a significant point in history because of the change from the Ancien Regime to a country managed [next page]