French Revolution: Giving and Taking Term Paper

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When the revolutionary leaders confiscated Church land, they were restricting the rights of the French people to pursuer their religion and faith as they had done in the past. Even though the Church had, like the monarchy, imposed taxes on the French people, it was nonetheless their faith, which was, for a time, completely altered when the post Revolution elite confiscated those holdings.

For a long time, the historians of the French Revolution saw the revolutionary cults only as political endeavors appropriate to the circumstances. Reacting against this tendency, Albert Mathiez wanted to underscore the specifically religious character of these cults.2 Then it became a question of agreeing on the nature of the religious occurrence. On this question, Mathiez is a strict follower of Durkheim who affirms that it is essentially by their form that we recognize religious phenomena. Like his predecessors, Mathiez seems little concerned with studying the religious sentiment manifested by those who participated in the ceremonies of the revolutionary cults; it is there, however, that their nature can be discerned, whether political expediency or true religion (Soboul, 1988, p. 131)."

Summary

The French Revolution was an action brought about by despair, extreme poverty, and people who had been taxed to their limit by King Louis XVI. It was the bridge between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and it was the end of medieval feudalism. The people of France sought to have a Constitution that enumerated their freedoms, although those freedoms that were decreed on August 4, 1779, were significantly less than they might have expected them to be. The right to own land - confiscated from the wealthy royalty and nobility - had been won; but it still required that the land owner pay taxes, and find the means by which to support the land in ways that would allow them to work and harvest the land.

The people wanted, and won, a Constitution, but, as Mary Desaulniers (1995) points out in her book, citing Kenneth Burke, "If the Constitution is to be more than a paper machinery for reform, it has to get beyond mere galvanic measures; it has to change the fundamental nature of motivation itself (p. 83).

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" The Constitution could not, would not, guarantee them wealth, but could guarantee them free enterprise, and the opportunity to benefit from the fruits of their labor, and to be compensated for their labor performed on behalf of others. It was, in short, the end of the feudal system in France.

These are the rights that compelled the impoverished and disheartened to take up arms against Louis XVI. The people of France wanted to fashion themselves after a democracy, but really gave no thought to what they would surrender in that process. It probably did not occur to them that their relationship with the Catholic Church in Rome would be, at least periodically, altered. Or that their efforts would lead to the despotic reign of Napoleon Bonaparte.

However, having succeeded in their Revolution, having gained the right to own property - an enormous step forward as far as the rights of a citizen of France - there was always the prospect of asserting themselves yet again, which they subsequently did, in order to continue perfecting the government and in securing greater rights and equality on behalf of the citizens of France. It has to be said that much more was gained by the French, than surrendered or lost by them through the French Revolution......

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