Historia Civilis just put out a new video on the July Revolution in France. I always look forward to Historia Civilis videos and this one immediately got me thinking about the role of legislature and the possibility of revolution. Of course, he had to throw in an anti-American crack but I get it, Europe had one good idea so they have to make the most of it.
This real short-sightedness does play into an issue I have with Historia Civilis, and it’s one I’ll circle back to. What I feel he does well is bringing together sources and tracking the path of legislative and political debate, and making the process and results of those debates very legible and engaging. Being able to visualize the process, both literally and figuratively, helps to get a good bearing on events that might be hard to put in order in a less accessible format.
On the question of revolution, what interested me is the paramilitary aspect of it. Revolutions in France, in particular, hinged a great deal on Paris and controlling it. Abdicating Paris was almost always seen as a death blow, while holding Paris gave one the right to form governments, run the country, etc. Of course, there were always conflicts like the fighting in the Vendee which went along what happened in Paris, but it’s a very common opinion that the control of Paris is a primary necessity. In the case of the July Revolution, as HC lays out, King Charles X’s withdrawal of the military from Paris was noted by Talleyrand as the precise moment when his reign ended.
Let’s try and port that over to the United States. This line of thinking will hold for many modern countries as well, likely including modern France, but the U.S. is a clearer example. To be blunt: I do not think that a revolutionary force simply taking and holding Washington D.C. would be the end of the government.
But why? That’s what interests me here. What are the differences between Paris in 1830 and modern capitals that would make this strategy untenable?
I don’t think that the reason is an increase in military loyalty, readiness, or technology. Even in 1830, it would have been trivial for the French military — if committed to destroying the protesters — to wipe out their opposition. As is laid out by HC, it isn’t as if the military in Paris was not prepared to fight the opposition. Their defections, according to the telling, largely coincided with a loss of confidence in their current situation. If the garrison of Paris had been at their full strength, and if they hadn’t been caught quite so off guard, perhaps they would have simply suppressed the revolution.
The United States is particularly unsuited to this sort of thing because of how large and spread out it is. It has major institutions located throughout the country, in an area too large for one single uprising to take over in a short period. If we are considering this purely a matter of how easy it would be to physically capture the government and force it to turn over power, this is fairly improbable to happen in a modern country simply from an uprising in the capital.
Prestige is part of it but not the main part. A lot of times, people give too little credence to ideas like prestige, but other times they give too much. HC doesn’t really touch on it but I wanted to just to make sure it isn’t left out. The prestige of holding the capital ensures that anybody who wants to cement their rule will have to take it, but just losing it won’t be the death of someone’s legitimacy.
I don’t think “raw economics” is the answer either. My study of the economy of France is non-existent outside of mentions when reading about the Revolution, so I will simply put my trust in HC and say that if economics had been a prime factor, I believe that more of the story would have focused on strikes and economic measures, when in fact the story primarily focused on the legislature (which I’ll get to).
I think the main difference between Paris in 1830 and modern capitals is that during the July Revolution, the vast majority of relationship connections within France ran through Paris. The standard-bearer for these types of connections is the press, and we can often see how governments try to control these connections through controlling the press, but it isn’t just them. It also includes direct communication between people that know each other, fliers and mailers, speeches, etc. Most important things in France will go through Paris, which was certainly true more in 1830 than it was today.
Because of that weight of the connective network, those who controlled Paris became representative of the country, in a metonymic or substituting relationship. It’s not that Paris was administrative capital, it was also the traditional capital, the cultural capital, the military capital, the information capital, the opinion capital, the food capital, and so on. Moreover, it was not challenged in a great degree in any of these fields. Everyone saw Paris as the center of French existence along many different lines. It’s for that reason that a revolution which took Paris often had the leverage to reshape the government in a way that a modern capital’s capture probably would not.
Washington D.C., for instance, is not nearly as central to the American culture as Paris or even London. More than that, important institutions are not based in Washington D.C. and don’t necessarily rely on running through D.C. Again, if a revolution captured D.C., the government would put all power into taking it back, but this would not be the same kind of loss of legitimacy.
I think this is significant because a similar strategy was followed in Russia, so it may become (or have become) a common opinion that taking the capital would be enough. I think modern governments are much more insulated against this type of approach than past ones were. If we are to take any hints from the July Revolution in particular, I think it should be that centers of connection — whether they be locations or institutions — should be the focus of identification and capture. Seizing “chokepoints” can serve, but the idea of what a chokepoint is should evolve from simply being points on a map.
As regards the legislature, what interests me is exactly how it serves as one of these centers. In my opinion, the primary value of the legislature is not legal expertise (which it generally does not boast) but representation. The fact that the representative assembly almost always forms the legislature is a coincidence coming from the fact that this is the work best suited for this kind of body: a group of non-experts who will meet in relatively short sessions. They will set broad policy which must be then given over to experts in order to execute and interpret. The fact that, in some situations, representative assemblies take over all the functions of governments, while in others they serve as legislators or as legislative advisors, suggests my point.
If this is the case, why does the legislature still carry influence even when its results are rigged? If it did not carry influence, then every king who wanted to rule autocratically would simply abolish their constitutions and rule by decree. Kings who sought to totally control constitutional governments seem not to have done this often, though. King Charles X of France for instance did nullify an election but he immediately held new ones. Rigged ones, which gave him a result he wanted. Of course, this act led to a revolution, but similar acts both in France and elsewhere had not. Sometimes, manipulating the rules and even outright restricting the vote did not lead to the fall of the government.
Why does this happen? This is what I can’t quite decide. As HC points out, it isn’t as if the people didn’t notice when the results were rigged or didn’t care about it. Even in prior years, when the rules simply weighted the results unfairly for the conservatives, regular people were not happy. They were, however, able to accept it. Why?
The major hurdle which any anti-government group has to overcome is political antipathy. People do not want to think about politics or to engage in politics. This makes people vulnerable because, in order to fill in the gap, they start to believe certain delusions about the government. The gap exists because people do understand that politics — as in, the process of figuring out what issues are and deciding how they should be dealt with — is important, so they have to give an excuse as to why they aren’t paying attention or getting involved.
The number one excuse people have given throughout time is “the government knows best”. This does not mean that people automatically agree with the government. However, they will tell themselves that if the government wants to restrict voting, there must be some good reason for it, and it will not completely ruin someone’s investment in the process or the result. This way, they don’t have to consider whether or not they should do something about the fact that voting was restricted.
You might think that people’s main excuse is “that’s just the way it is” but that’s the same thing as what I said. It’s just a fatalistic acceptance that the government is some unchangeable and unopposable force.
The prestige and influence of the legislature comes out of its being a representative body. It may not represent all of the people, but it represents who it needs to represent in order to make decisions that keep the peace. In the early English Parliament, as in places throughout Europe and the world, membership was severely restricted to titled nobility and the wealthy. This is because these groups, through their other connections, had enough weight to decide whether or not the country would work with or resist the government. Once established, however, those represented are likely to surrender some amount of credulity to the legislature. This makes the legislature vulnerable, but it is also what makes it a center of connection, and why even anti-government groups (which is to say against the current government) often put out a great deal of effort to gain seats in and control such a body. It’s why parliamentary maneuvering and such is important. If the legislature (and the government in general) takes an action, that act is more likely to become precedent than it is to be challenged.
However, these are to some degree abstractions. What this obscures is that there are real issues at stake. Leading up to the July Revolution, the king and the conservatives were willing to fully dispossess the poor simply in order to re-establish the conservative social order. Those who resisted the king were not simply resisting for nothing, they were resisting so that they could retain their livelihoods. Those who supported the king did not want nothing, they wanted the restoration of their fortunes and the knock-on effects of widespread poverty: namely, an easier (and cheaper) time getting others to do their bidding. These elements are ultimately lost in Historia Civilis’s analyses.
Near the end of the episode, HC says “The interesting thing about France in 1830 is that it provides a sobering example of what happens when conservative governments try to freeze out incremental progress… This all could have been avoided if… France had just allowed the liberals to win an election.” And yes, he may be right that this would have been avoided if the liberals had been allowed to win, but that’s just the point: the conservatives didn’t want to do that. They had specific things they wanted to achieve which would have, at the time or later, created conditions similar to those which led to the revolution in 1830.
Historia Civilis’s conclusions often end up being akin to a strategy in a 4X nation-building game like Europa Universalis. He says “elections are a release valve”. That’s a strange thing to say. It implies that either the point of elections are to eventually be overridden — after the pressure has been released, more pressure can be applied — or that what the government should want is a simple reduction in pressure. This ignores that what the conservatives wanted was to destroy the new post-revolutionary social order. I am not saying that Historia Civilis completely ignores this point, as he mentions this, the substance of laws being changed, etc. What I am saying is that his ending analysis has almost nothing to do with the substance of what happened. It is entirely focused on a kind of abstract statecraft where one wins by controlling the country for as long as possible. I’m not saying that, if King Charles X could have seen the future, he wouldn’t have changed course so he could retain his power. I’m saying that I think analysis of what happened here needs to focus more on the substance. Our conclusion should have more to do either with the substantive elements of policy or with the specific mechanics of the revolution, as I spoke about earlier when I talked about the connective networks and the role of the legislature.
The episode answers the question of why did the July Revolution happen, but I think this is a less interesting and less useful question than why did the July Revolution succeed, and I don’t think much light is shed on that in the episode. If any particular thing had turned another way, the revolution would have fallen apart, and we don’t really learn why they didn’t turn another way.