Essay on the emergence of bourgeois ideas [Archive]

2nd March 2006, 15:34

Originally posted by Object of the paper

In the decades that followed the defeat of Napoleon (1815), two distinct and contradictory political ideologies emerged. By using the documents assigned thus far in the course as evidence, describe the main aspects of early liberalism and conservativism. In addition, be sure to explain which particular social and political groups supported or opposed the respective ideologies.

The French and Industrial Revolutions: Liberalism and the Conservative Response

The French and Industrial Revolutions were two of the most influential events in modern history. These events radically changed society and caused the development of beliefs that today are universal. With the French Revolution came the abolition of feudalism and the birth of a new socio-economic system; with the Industrial Revolution came the consolidation of that system. At the culmination of these two events, capitalism became the new dominant force in human society.
As a result of this radical shift in the state of society, human consciousness was also affected in a radical way: “Being determines consciousness,” Marx would say . This extreme change in human consciousness created a wealth of new ideas. Political thought was revolutionized; liberalism was born. Liberals formed beliefs in civil liberties and economic freedom, while conservatives endeavored to maintain the current order and resisted change as much as possible.
The decay of the feudalist system can be traced back to the emergence of kings’ power. As kings gained power, they desired to wage their own wars, and needed a way to pay soldiers. Mercantilism was implemented as a solution to this problem. This gradually concentrated power in the hands of the high aristocracy, and nation-states began to develop. As the focus of labour shifted from the country to the cities, the emerging bourgeoisie gained power. The monarchs slowly slid into debt, causing a financial crisis, while the burgeoning bourgeoisie slowly accumulated wealth and power. This shift was materialized in the French Revolution. The French Revolution brought about a wealth of new ideas. Feudalism was officially abolished, mercantilism was ceased and the new ruling class – the bourgeoisie – took power.
In response to the immense financial crisis caused by mercantilism and various protectionist measures taken by the aristocracy, an Estates General was called. The peasantry believed that the cards were stacked against them, as the clergy and the nobility would both vote the same way, diminishing any power that the Third Estate had. A brilliant article by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, titled “What is the Third Estate?” had an enormous impact on the peasantry. Of the Third Estate Sieyes says, “What is the third estate? Everything; but an everything shackled and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? Everything, but an everything free and flourishing. Nothing can succeed without it, everything would be infinitely better without the others.” The rather obvious class antagonisms eventually led to the radicalization of the peasantry. Their demands became increasingly extreme, and soon after the Estates General political liberalism was born.
Political liberalism was born in 1789 with the drafting and adoption by the National Constituent Assembly of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. This document outlines all of the political demands of the third estate. Many of the demands have to do with making people as free from arbitrary power as possible. Freedom from arbitrary arrest, and freedom granted in a document, are two such examples of this. This lays out a concrete definition about what the government is and isn’t allowed to do and also the means by which things are done. Some other examples of this would be freedom of speech, writing, and printing. The Declaration also demands both freedom of religion and freedom from religion. It states that there should be a separation of church and state to keep one religion from being dominant over others. It even goes so far as to use the term “Supreme Being” in place of the Christian term “God”. Another of the main points is the stress of equality of all men. Article I of the Declaration states that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” Later, in article VI, participation in government is granted to all individuals. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was the founding document and the materialization of political liberalism in its infancy.
Soon after political liberalism came economic liberalism. François Quesnay and the Physiocrats emerged and, while they aren’t very well known, their groundbreaking theories had an enormous impact on the formulation of bourgeois economics. Adam Smith, who is considered the Father of Economics, developed many of his theories from the Physiocrats. The Physiocrats emphasized three main points as the basis of their economics: the Natural Order, the Net Product and the Single Tax. From the principle of the Natural Order, laissez-faire was developed. This is because any regulation or interference with business was deemed as against the Natural Order. The principle of laissez-faire was one of the most important developments of the Physiocrats. One other important principle that should be quickly addressed is the Single Tax. This was an imposition of a single tax on land, which was a direct attack on the landowning aristocracy.
The year 1776 was a monumental one for economics. It was the year that Adam Smith’s book, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, was released for public utilization. This is considered the founding document of economics, and Adam Smith became the Father of Economics. Adam Smith developed many of his ideas from the Physiocrats. He believed in laissez-faire; he also believed, however, that government should have more of a role than the Physiocrats attributed to it. He believed the government should have three roles: defense of the country; police protection of individuals and property; and funding of public works if it is too expensive for the private sector.
After Adam Smith came two others, of which will complete the Classical School of economics until the 1840’s, when Karl Marx became prominent. Thomas Malthus’s essay, On Population, stated that the higher the growth of population, the more disaster occurs. Malthus’s depressing outlook on economics greatly influenced David Ricardo. Ricardo’s outlook on economics was very bourgeois. This can be seen very clearly in his Iron Law of Wages theory. This law states that wages can’t increase above subsistence level. If they do, the population will increase and wages will be returned to subsistence level. Ricardo, therefore, argued for subsistence wages only; an increase in wages above subsistence level or a shortening of the workday would only cause an increase in population, which would cause an increase in disaster.
Conservatism emerged in response to liberalism. It was a belief held by aristocrats, who fought to maintain power. As the bourgeoisie’s liberal point of view gained popularity, the aristocracy’s conservatism emerged to combat this growing threat. Conservatism was the belief that the current social order should be maintained, and that nothing should be changed unless it has to. Conservatives believed in tradition and of enforcing their ancestors’ beliefs and actions. Their motto was “Throne and Altar,” signifying the desire to maintain the monarchy as well as religious institutions. They also believed in mercantilism, a protectionist economic system based on maximizing exportation and minimizing importation. Mercantilism caused many economic problems, and eventually led to the downfall of the aristocracy. As the aristocracy slid into decline, so also did both conservatism and mercantilism.
Both political and economic liberalism were two different fields of thought that emerged from the French and Industrial Revolutions. Although the effects of early political liberalism are much more obvious in contemporary society, economic liberalism is much more useful in observing the rise of the bourgeoisie and the class antagonisms that develop between itself and the new working class, the proletariat. Laissez-faire economics developed in opposition to the mercantilist economics of the aristocracy. The bourgeoisie were rising business owners and, as such, they desired free trade. This gave them opportunity to maximize their profits. As mercantilism slid into decline, so did the aristocracy; and as the bourgeoisie rose to power, so did laissez-faire economics, allowing them to increase their wealth. As the bourgeoisie consolidated its power and as the aristocracy died off, the living conditions of the bourgeoisie rose, whereas the proletarian living conditions quickly fell. Of Manchester, one of the first industrial cities, Friedrich Engels calls it a “Hell upon Earth”. From these conditions new antagonisms developed. The new antagonisms are those based on the length of the workday, minimum wage, and various other topics that would increase the standard of living of the proletariat at the expense of the bourgeoisie.
Liberalism is the political belief of the bourgeoisie, whereas conservatism was the belief of the aristocracy. With the downfall of the aristocracy, liberalism – both political and economic – became the dominant theories. As liberalism grows older, along with capitalism, one can only wonder what the fate of these beliefs will be. With class antagonisms between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat becoming ever more hostile, this question is a very interesting one indeed.

Karl Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...preface-abs.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm)
Joseph Emmanuel Sieyes, What is the Third Estate?, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sieyes.html
French National Assembly, Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm
Mervyn Crobaugh, Economics for Everybody: From the Pyramids to the Sit-Down Strike (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1942), 71.
Ibid., 72.
Ibid., 74.
Edwin Cannan, Introduction to An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Random House, 1937), vii.
Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, http://marxists.org/reference/subject/econ...lthus/index.htm (http://marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/malthus/index.htm)
David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, http://marxists.org/reference/subject/econ...o/tax/index.htm (http://marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/ricardo/tax/index.htm)
Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1844engels.html
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Let me know what you think. It's due Tuesday, and I'm going to rewrite it, so let me know what you think of it.

Monty Cantsin

2nd March 2006, 16:20

started writing somthing about the french revoltution too...havent finished it yet but have alook if you want.
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The Ancien Régime and Revolution.

The foundation stone of any society is the individual human-being and societies are just the total sum of relationship between those particular individuals. The different forms of relations and thus societies emanate from the needs and wants of particular individuals grouped in a totality of relations during different historical situations. The volition of particular individuals in an economic system restrained by scarcity leads necessarily to conflict in the relationships between those individuals in the economic sphere. Human-beings are social-beings and while society is not a gestalt we organise along relations of production and exchange for mutual benefit or in the case of a slave because the treat of force coerces their natural volition. Development of these relations of production and exchange leads to the organisation of societies along class lines and a division of labour. Hitherto relations of production and exchange developed unequally because the economic situation was that of scarcity leading to the clash of volition both of individuals and the classes they comprise. Societies organised and divided along class lines because of scarcity inevitably have class conflict and class struggles over the factors of production. Antagonism between classes leads to a particular class’s hegemony over other classes but not necessarily in absolute form combining concessions and power sharing arrangements. Class hegemony maintains itself with state-power but also with ideological apparatus, Theories predicated regarding social and class relations are so because of the interests they represent and thus competing theories represent competing interests. This does not mean to say that all particular individual toting a social theory do so because it is in their best interests, Individuals can be deluded on this point. A person can be trapped in an unlocked room because the sign on the door reads pull and they do not think to push. Theses struggles in consciousness and relations of production and exchange have an existential underpinning the struggle for self-actualisation, autonomy and meeting one’s basic physiological needs in hostile situations.

One such struggle was the French revolution of 1789 which has long been the subject of debates over its very nature, what kind of revolution was it? The many responses to this question indicate the answers position in the spectrum of value systems i.e. their Weltanschauung. The eruption that was the revolution grew out of the fractures of interests between classes but also schisms within classes. The liquid magma that breached the so-called solid crust of French society was building up since before the death of the ‘Grand monarch’. The power and economic structures of Louis the XVI’s regime were by and large the same structures of relationships which existed under Louis the XIV’s regime and thus his regime is an appropriate point to start the investigation into the reason behind class struggle and revolution.

The dominate theories regarding political economy during the grand monarchs reign were transferred into policies by his “contrôleur général"(finance minister) Jean Baptiste Colbert. Colbert’s economics are considered generally to be Mercantilist in nature believing that the expansion of commerce and auspicious balance of payments are paramount to state wealth. Louis XIV and Colbert “resolved to establish a council particularly devoted to commerce, to be held every fortnight in our presence, in which all the interest of merchants and the means conducive to the revival of commerce shall be considered and determined upon, as well as all that which concerns manufactures.”(1) Though Colbert saw value in the expansion of trade his polices favoured the big export and import bourgeois and left farmers and small bourgeois with a heavy tax burden. Internal trade under Colbert’s polices suffered from high tariffs stifling small manufactures advancement under high costs from government regulation. Even if Colbert had seen more value in internal trade there is little he could have done. The fiscal problems of the ancient regime were caused by a schism within the aristocratic class widespread discontent with absolutism and taxes. The Sovereign’s response was to bend to the parliament regarding taxation of aristocrats, leaving the tax burden to the third estate.

The fiscal system of Colbert maintained by subsequent administrations sought to buy off the aristocratic class by burdening the lower classes. Within the bourgeois class there developed a split because of theses policies. Larger manufactures and merchants were able to circumvent incurring the internal tariff costs. Thus the larger bourgeoisie accumulated more capital buying their way into privileged status with the attainment of titles. While the smaller bourgeoisies were artificially trapped within medieval circumstances denying them access to larger markets. The development of larger markets according to Adman Smith leads to growth in production and thus growth in profit. The restrictions on the smaller bourgeoisies to grow in their economic means also excluded them from the status that larger bourgeoisies could attain as nobles of the robe. In manipulating the fiscal system against the lower classes the monarchy and aristocrats used their class hegemony to maximise their own profits.

This power and economic dynamic established as compromises between the monarchy and the aristocracy was not favoured by all in the privileged classes. After the death of Louis XV from smallpox in 1774 a new reformist contrôleur général was appointed, Jacques Turgot. Turgot was an economic liberalist who directly influenced Adam Smith during his stay in France during the 1760s being responsible for some
Ideas contained within Smith’s 1776 book ‘The Wealth of Nations’. Turgot objective was to curve and keep in check government spending while helping to foster the growth of private enterprise. Therefore according to Turgot tax revenues would increase and the kingdom would be saved from bankruptcy. To do this though he believed he had not only to overturn protectionist and interventionist policies of Colbert but to over turn medieval institutions all of which held back free trade and competition. In 1774 he started slowly improving transport, key industries and paying state debt. In 1775 he abolished internal tariffs on the trade of grain unfortunately the potential benefit of this policy was overshadowed by crop failures. The riots that followed were tagged the “flour wars” and for Turgot’s role in the suppression of the rioters he was dreaded by the general population. 1776 saw more sweeping reforms but also his dismissal because he crossed Queen Marie Antoinette. His ‘six edicts’ of that year were a radical change to the system, the fifth edict abolished the guild system and the sixth abolished the mandatory labour owed to the state by peasants and implemented a tax upon land. The aristocracy we’re outraged and opposed Turgot in parliament; he had managed to in a few short years alienate everyone except for the Physiocrats. His reforms though were rough medicine needed to save the monarchy from financial collapse, while Turgot was an economic liberal he was also a royalist.

Jacques Necker replaced Turgot (without the same title because Necker was Protestant and a foreigner) and proceed to reverse the reforms of his predecessor. Necker more interested in the stability of his own position in parliament then the state of the nation took on no policy of grand reform but rather borrowing millions to mean the cost of administration and war. By Necker’s own account he loaned a total sum of 530 million livres which the historian Albert Cobban considers a “considerable understatement” (2). This of course did nothing to save the state financial situation but worsened it Along with the regressive tax system the 1700’s saw successive wars for France which put strain on the finances of the state and by 1787 because of the American war the royal treasury was bankrupt.

The Financial costs of the American war were not the only cost incurred through France’s involvement; it increased her exposure to democratic and republican ideas. The intellectual movement during the 1700s is popularly known as the enlightenment and philosophies vary widely but centre around the conception of reason and sovereignty. The concept which medieval monarchies rested on was that in our prelapsarian state the king’s authority was given by god, therefore kings had a divine right to carry out divine law. In the border Age of Reason conceptions of sovereignty began to change finding their place within the natural conditions of mankind, Hobbes provides us with an illustration. Thomas Hobbes an Englishman writing during his countries civil wars finished his work “Leviathan” while in France in 1651 the same year supporters of Charles the II were defeated by the parliamentarians. The Leviathan while a book of political absolutism shifted the notion of sovereignty from a divine spark to the human condition. The human condition according to Hobbes is one marred by scarcity, individual battling for limited resources which they have ever liberty too take. But the greatest fear of the individual is a violent death so the ‘war of all against all’ is not in the individual’s best interest. Therefore the individuals submit some liberties to gain rights in peaceful society under the authority of the Leviathan (originally a biblical sea monster but in this context it’s the absolute powers of state with no separation of powers). Hobbes conceived a social contract based on a perception of human nature distinct from divinity, while a royalist he represented only the first wave of ‘The Age of Reason’.

The second wave of ‘The Age of Reason’ come during the 1700s and is characterised as ‘The enlightenment’. Second wave philosophies varied in goals and perceived limitations, Voltaire mocked democrats and believed reason could not abolition but only lighten the tyranny of political absolutism. Jean Jacques Rousseau political philosophy represents a different end of the enlightenment spectrum. Rousseau developed a social contract for a direct democracy rather then a parliamentarian system of representation, which influences modern libertarian communists today. This is one of the more ambitious programs of the French enlightenment intellectuals which is attributed more influence then due in the events of the revolution. ‘The Conspiracy of the Equals’ led by Buonarroti and Babeuf organised their failed insurrection to implement ideals heavily influenced by Rousseau. But outside the few comprisal organisations and ‘Secret Directories’ the real directory used a representative system rather direct control by the people. These counterpoised political philosophies varied widely but held an underlying unity; Immanuel Kant elucidated the concept of enlightenment in the “Berlinische Monatsschrift” as follows:

“Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage s man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!"- that is the motto of enlightenment.”(3)

This movement centred on the autonomy of the individual’s reason, the individual as thinker rather then devotee. Kant continued that the achievement of an ‘enlightened’ state was not an easy feat and result restricted by the old tutelage’s limitations:-

“Statutes and formulas, those mechanical tools of the rational employment or rather misemployment of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting tutelage. Whoever throws them off makes only an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch because he is not accustomed to that kind of free motion. Therefore, there are few who have succeeded by their own exercise of mind both in freeing themselves from incompetence and in achieving a steady pace.” (4)

This can be seen within the variations of political philosophy debating over which ditch they can jump. During the late 1700’s though with the American war of independence France rallied for the change to inflict damage to the British Empire, this Anglophobia motivated by imperial jealousy romanticised for some the American struggle. This struggle energised those more optimistic elements which held republican and democratic ideals. Marquis de Lafayette writer of the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” was one of many whom joined the American struggle gaining a new perspective. The ideals of enlightenment did not dominate the intellectual climate in conscious form; the leading Jacobins were raised on the classics coupled with nostalgia for Lycurgus’s Sparta and hatred of Caesar. Plato was their philosopher not Rousseau and as follows plutocracy not democracy was their aim.

The struggle of the aristocratic order against the king and his political absolutism destabilised the traditional governmental systems and afforded the bourgeoisie of the third estate with opportunities of agitation and more political power. Napoleon dates the start of the revolution form the affair of the diamond necklace in 1785, a conspiracy by parliamentarians to depict the monarchy and in particular Queen Marie Antoinette as decadent and squanders of the state’s coffers. The struggle between the aristocratic order and the King over the regressive taxation system which need reform to deal with the state’s debts came to a deadlock with the first and second estates unwilling to accept higher taxation. With this impasse the Parliaments were suspended on 8 may 1788, this lead to open resistance the noblesse having the support of the church and Duc d' Orléans representative of the next in line for succession to the thrown. The resistance lead to rioting being organised throughout the providences under such pressure the royal authority capitulated and the states-general (i.e. all three estates, clergy, noblesse and the rest) summoned to meet on first of May 1789.

During these developments the third estate which constituted 98% of French society on the eve of the revolution was realising the falsity of lies peddled by aristocrats who talked of the nation but their meaning was by word for themselves. Pamphleteers such as Abbé Sieyes viewed the third estate as everything and the other orders as mere leeches. Sieyes wrote during this time “Such are the efforts which sustain society. Who puts them forth? The Third Estate” (5). The leadership of the third estate came from the bourgeois class, the class of economic development whose exploits depend upon being able to harness and manage others activity. The immediate aim’s of the bourgeois representatives of the third estate was to double their number of delegates within the parliament. This was achieved on 27 December 1788 when the royal council approved the doubling of representation. The logic of Necker (reinstated after the disturbances that year) was that the king could find an alliance in the third estate to combat the aristocrat opposition to tax reform. When the time came for the king to prove his alliances he sided with the aristocracy calling upon aristocrats to forgo their tax exemptions but leaving the decision to each particular estate on which issues the states-general would vote on. Effectively blocking tax reform, this lead the third estate reaction was the refusal to participate in the political process until it had a majority to meet its demands. On 17 June the third estate done with waiting declared its assembly the ‘national assembly’ insinuating as sieyes had taught that is was everything. The royal session was to be due on the 23 June, though reorganisation of the hall was needed to accommodate the different orders no one informed the third estate. When the third estates representatives arrived for their meeting to find a detachment of troops were guarding the building they assumed their assembly had been dissolved by force. Find shelter in a nearby indoor tennis court the representatives took the famous ‘tennis court oath’ for unity in the furtherance of their aims.

On the 23 of June the royal session took place in Necker’s absence. A plan was laid out for the conversation of France to a constitutional monarchy, but key reforms had been refused or watered down. The taxation reforms were based on aristocratic acceptance thus only on their own terms not a general tax applied to all. The old division of the three orders was not dissolved and the17 June pronouncement of the third estate was declared null and void. 25 June though saw a number of liberal nobles and the majority of the clergy joined the third estate supporting their reformist policies. On 27 June the king capitulated to the third estate and ordered the higher orders to join in unity with the lower estate, while sending of secret orders for 20,000 troops from the provinces. The government’s troop’s lead by Marshal De Broglie started to infiltrate Paris and Versailles showing their strength but the assembly reconstituted itself into the “National Constituent Assembly” in defiance of royal authority on July 9th. King Louis on the 11th of July under the advice of conservative noble sacked the reformist Necker, many considered this to be a royal coup d'etat and thus the class struggle developed into full-blown rebellion and civil war. This period is from July to August 1789 is known as ‘la Grande Peur’ or ‘The Great Fear’ when peasants sacked the castles of nobles and burn documentation regarding their feudal responsibilities along with wide spread grain riots. It was also during this time that the Bastille was stormed by a Parisian mod and renegade soldiers. The Bastille prison was a symbol of tyranny of the ancient regime and the site of numerus riots; one was caused a couple of weeks earlier by the Marquis de Sade shouting from a window that they were killing prisoners. The king on the 27th on July accepted a tricolour cockade a symbol of the revolutionaries thus the king and his military supporters submitted to the revolutionary authority for the time being. Over the next couple of months 20,000 passports were issued, the reactionary aristocrats had proven incapable of deafening themselves their power was shown as mere illusion predicated on the illusion of power.

This period of turmoil had seen the power of the mob in its ability to influence political events and gain a form of power through collective action. It was this power that gave the National Constituent Assembly authority and it was this power that controlled and was controlled by the Assembly and its various factions of demagogues. The factions within the Assembly spaned from far-right royalist opposed to the revolution to far-left republicans who wanted nothing less then for the king to ascend the scaffolds finding his head beneath the blade of the guillotine. Necker was reinstated for a short while allied with the centre-right ‘royalist democrats’ but public opinion soon went against him. Outside of the assembly a commune was sent up as the local government of Paris lead by Jean-Sylvain Bailly (once leader of the national assembly at the time of the tennis court oath).The National Guard also becoming a power lead by Lafayette of centre-left persuasion with membership consisting largely of petty-bourgeoisie.

The Constituent Assembly’s next major step is dubbed as the abolition of Feudalism; August 4, 1789 saw seigneurial rights revoked, including the forms of ownership, taxes and judicial authority associated with the seigneurial system. Between the period called the “abolition of feudalism” and the war on Austria many substantial changes such as the removal of internal trade barriers among others. The anarchist Peter Kropotkin argued the enthusiastic pronouncements of that day actually held back the abolishment of feudal rights until august 1793; revisionist historians have argued that feudalism was long dead before the constituent assembly’s actions. The foundations of capitalism, the primitive accumulation of capital, the decline of artisans and the process of proletarianization had been a long time developing; the French revolution was not a clean and total break with the past. The Thesis, Antithesis, synthesis progression described by Johann Fichte when applied to movements in history incorrectly gives the impression of definite stages, ossified then overturned rather then a dialectical movement of conflicting volitions and forces in a constant state of flux and flow.

This flow, a combination of many streams propelled revolutionary France into many factions and to war with Austria. Liberal republicans of the Girondists faction and constitutional monarchists of the Feuillants faction united under a pro-war agenda. The Girondists lead by Brissot supported the police of a revolutionary war exporting liberal republicanism throughout Europe. The Feuillants supported war on the basis it would increase the popularity of the king or alternatively if the war ended in defeat end the revolution in France. Oppositionists to the war came from the radical republicans and Democrats, Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat favoured consolidation of the revolution at home and feared that militarism favoured reactionary elements. Declaring war on April 20, 1792 indicial battles went against France which contributed to agitation against the Girondists and Feuillants.

The allies(fist coalition) advance against revolutionary France lead to decreasing public confidence in the Girondists and Feuillants factions, leading to auspiciously timed events for the radical republicans with the insurrection of august 10th 1792. The Cordeliers a political club associated with the Jacobins is thought to be the main agitators behind the august insurrection. Georges Danton a leading member of the Cordeliers, had a sudden rise to power as minister of justice which supports the thesis of his and their (the Cordeliers) importance in the insurrectionary movement against the constitutional monarchy. Danton considered the greatest orator of the revolution declared in a1792 speech to the national assembly, “To conquer we need to dare, to dare again, ever to dare!”(6). this romantic and idealistic rhetoric emblematic of the period captured the harts and minds of the multitude. Agitated and disaffected with the king’s actions during the proceeding months on the morning of august 10th the Persian people organised into columns assaulted Tuileries after forming an insurrectionary commune in the preceding days. The radical republican’s agitation and use of the mob effectively ended the monarchy in France. The proceeding chaos which lasted for six weeks included the September Massacres in which started after news reached Paris that Verdun had fallen to the first coalition. The insurrectionary commune remained de facto government until September 20th 1792, when the newly created convention declared abolition of the monarchy and founded the first republic.