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Okay, we are back with lecture 3.1 about the old regime. So what I'm going to talk about is first an introduction, I'll talk about what was the old regime and why should we care about it. And then I'll go to describe the kind of economic and social structure of the old regime and its culture. In the third part of the lecture, I'll talk about the political system, the politics of the old regime. And then I'll talk about how by the late 18th century this complicated and quite impressive edifice or system that had been in place for centuries started cracking indeed, when the revolution breaks out, the whole thing collapses in a few years. So I'm going to talk about cracks in the system in the late 18th century and end with a review of the main points I want you to take away from this lecture. So let's start with the introduction. What was the old regime and why should we care? Actually, I'm going to start with a document that I asked you to read, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. So on the 14th of July, 1789, several hundred Parisians, people of Paris, gathered outside of a fortress that at this time was kind of on the outskirts of the city of Paris. That fortress is called the Bastille. It served as a prison. And in that prison, the king, the king of France, could imprison people by issuing a special order. It's called a lettre de cachet. I can already see how the automatic translation is going to have a hell of a time translating my French words so I'll try not to say a lot of French words from now on. It's a hidden order basically, or a secret order. The king could imprison you with a secret order in the Bastille, could put you there without telling you what the charges against you and for an unspecified time. So that prison was kind of a symbol for the people of Paris of the nature of royal power. That it was kind of absolute, and arbitrary, the king could just kind of imprison you. That doesn't mean by the way, that the king didn't imprison people all the time. Absolutely not. But anyway, the Bastille is a symbol for the people of Paris. And on 14th of July, 1789, because of events that we will talk about later when I lecture on the French Revolution, the people of Paris find themselves gathering outside of this prison. And there's kind of a... how shall I say it? A build up to a conflict between them and the people who are guarding the prison. Eventually that conflict erupts. The people of Paris stormed the prison. They take it down. They killed the guards, and they liberate the prisoners right? By the way, at the time of liberation of this grand prison, there was only seven prisoners in the whole place, and one of them was an Irishman who, who claimed that he was Julius Caesar. Anyway. But so that's the, the storming of the Bastille is usually taken as the beginning of the French Revolution. And it is the day that still, the French people celebrate their Day of Independence, right? The, the equivalent in France on the Fourth of July is 14th of July. It's called the Bastille Day, it's a day of independent. So... and so there's a story that's kind of coming in my mind and I kinda wanna tell you, yeah, why not? I'll tell you. It's kinda think it's kinda funny, whatever. It's my dorky sense of humor. Anyway, I was in Paris once. I've been in Paris many times because that's where I do a lot of my research. So I was in Paris once and I stayed in a hotel, a small, not very great family run hotel that was very near a public square that's called Place de la Bastille. Bastille square, it's a square where the Bastille used to be. Right. So I came to the woman who owned the hotel, kind of an older lady. And half jokingly, I told her in English, "Listen madam. This is called Place de la Bastille. Where is the Bastille?" And she answered me in English. [heavy French accent] "We broke it." [normal] We broke it. I always love that. I love the fact that she said "we" and that it's still kind of alive in her memory, you know, "We broke it". Anyway. So let me move on. This was the beginning of the French Revolution. On the 14th of July, 1789. A little bit over a month after that, in August 26th, 1789, the members of the National Assembly, which was the assembly of representatives of the French people that basically launched the French Revolution. They adopted a declaration, a famous declaration, it's called the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. And, and that declaration is widely seen as one of the founding documents of human rights in world history. Now, it has 17 articles, I believe, and I've only quoted a few of them here. You were supposed to read this. And let me just read these and explain why. Article one, "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be based only on public utility." First of all, to the Americans among you, men are born and remain free and equal. That should ring a bell. Yes, that's right. The Declaration of Independence from your very own founding moment from the American Revolution, right? Was it life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? You know, men are born and remain free and equal. The ideal social distinctions that are only based on public utility. That sentence is directed at the old regime. Because in the old regime, social distinctions of social hierarchy, like which position you were in society was not based on what you contributed to society, but rather it was based on your birth. On basically on blood, who you were born, who are your parents. So here it says, no, in the new system, we are going to distinguish between different classes of citizen, based on what you contribute to the social order, okay? Second article. "The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and inalienable rights of man." So here, what this document says is there are rights that are natural, that all human beings have. By the way, when it says men here, presumably they mean also women. Although the issue of women's rights in the revolution is quite complicated and maybe I'll talk about it when I lecture on the revolution in the next lecture. But anyway, natural inalienable rights, this idea that all human beings have certain rights that no political regime can violate or take from you. They are yours by nature. That idea is enshrined here in this document. Article Three, "All sovereignty resides essentially in the nation." That document is... that article, sorry, is a direct arrow. [shooting arrow sound effect] A direct arrow at the heart of the old regime. And I want you to remember that because in the old regime, sovereignty means the source... Sovereignty is a complicated term. But I'll just say very briefly, it is the source of legitimacy, the source of political power. What gives you the right to claim political power? To say, "I'm The President", "I'm the king", "I'm the Prime Minister". What gives you that right? What gives you the power, right? And what this article says is the nation, that is the French people give you the power, right? That's very different from the old regime, because as we will see today in the old regime, the right of the king to rule did not come from the people, but from God. So here this article says, no, not from God, but from the people. This article basically establishes the idea of rule by consent or government by consent. That's democracy. We give the power to our government to govern over us. Today we do that with elections. But here in this article, they established that principle. And Article six is also kind of interesting. It says, "The law is the expression of the general will." The general will is an idea that comes from the philosophy of a man called Jean-Jacques Rousseau. And he wrote a book called The Social Contract. And it was kind of a best seller in 18th century. And one of the things that he said is he said, if all people in society use their mind, their brain, in the right way, they use their reason, they think rationally, and they do it in a proper way, they should all reach similar conclusions about what is good for the welfare of all of us, what is good for the benefit of all. And he called that idea "The General Will", the will of all people. And the idea here in Article Six is that we elect legislators. And the laws that the legislators adopt should be an expression of "The General Will", the will of the people, right? Okay. So that's a little bit of a few... of a few articles in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Now... Oh! I had these little social effects that I didn't use! Sorry, I didn't know they were here, I forgot they were here. But anyway, here is a visual representation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. You should notice, usually I do kind of a discussion with students about this document and about the visual representation. We analyze the visuals here, but I'll just tell you very quickly. First of all, you'll notice that it's structured like the Ten Commandments. Should remind you of the Ten Commandments. Second of all, I'll point out a few things you see here. This all seeing eye, that is a symbol that comes from the Freemasons. Many leaders of the French revolution were members of the Freemasons. Here. This here is a symbol of female allegory of the French Republic. She later gets her name, a name, Marianne. Yeah. But it's a symbol of the French Republic. And she's breaking the chains. You know, the chains that presumably she had on our hands under the old regime. And here you see a kind of a spear or pike. Here you see a bundle of sticks. And those bundles of sticks come from the Ancient Rome. That in ancient Rome they were called fasci. That's where the word fascism comes from. Fasci, a bundle of sticks and they symbolize the unity of the people. Justice comes from the unity of the people. The fasci ancient Rome or what the magistrates carried around, right. And here you see this little red cap, the red bonnet, That is a symbol of the radical people of Paris. The red bonnet. And, and this document is dedicated here. "Aux représentants du peuple Français", to the representatives of the French people. Now a historian, a historian who worked in the late 19th century and early 20th century, his name was Alphonse Aulard, he said the following thing about the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. He said, it is "The death certificate of the old regime." It basically killed the old regime. And so the question that I pose to you is, you know, why was this document the death certificate of the old regime? Now, I said that we should talk in the introduction about what was the old regime and why should we care? So the should we care part. I want to say something about it. I'm going to talk about the French Revolution and transitional justice. And remember, transitional justice is a transition from a moment or from a period of authoritarian rule, repressive rule, mass violations of human rights, to a period that's supposedly more liberal and democratic. So if we are to understand what about the French Revolution is kind of transitional justice, we need to understand what the transition is from. In other words, if the French Revolution overthrew the old regime, what was it that was overthrown there? And that's why we need to care. That's why we need to know about what the old regime was. Okay? So I'm going to stop here. And in the next segment we'll get more into what was the old regime and into its economic and social structure.

Lecture 3.1 - Part 1

From Ronen Steinberg September 22nd, 2020  

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