[Sidenote: Militarism and the Close of the Revolution]
The coup d'état of 18 Brumaire virtually ended the Revolution in France. Within the space of ten and a half years from the assembling of the Estates-General at Versailles, parliamentary and popular government fell beneath the sword. The predictions of Marat and Robespierre were realized: militarism had supplanted democracy.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789-1799)
It may now be possible for us to have some idea as to the real meaning of these ten years of Assemblies, constitutions, insurrections, and wars, which have marked the period of the French Revolution. A present- day visitor in Paris will be struck by the bold letters which stand out on the public buildings and churches: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. These were the words which the revolutionaries spelled out on their homes, which they thought embodied the true meaning of the Revolution.
As to the meaning of these words, there were certainly quite contradictory views. To the royalists and rigid Catholics—to the privileged nobility and clergy—to many a surprised peasant—to all the reactionaries, they meant everything that was hateful, blasphemous, sordid, inhuman, and unpatriotic. To the enlightened altruistic bourgeois—to the poverty-stricken workingman of the city—to many a dreamer and philanthropist—to all the extreme radicals, they were but a shadowy will-of-the-wisp that glimmered briefly and perhaps indicated faintly the gorgeousness of the great day that much later might break upon them. Between these extremes of reaction and radicalism fell the bulk of the bourgeoisie and of the peasantry—the bulk of the nation— and it is in their sense that we shall try to make clear the meaning of the three symbolical words.
[Sidenote: "Liberty">[
"Liberty" implied certain political ideals. Government was henceforth to be exercised not autocratically by divine right, but constitutionally by the sovereign will of the governed. The individual citizen was no longer to be subject in all things to a king, but was to be guaranteed in possession of personal liberties which no state or society might abridge. Such were liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, liberty of speech, liberty of publication. The liberty of owning private property was proclaimed by the French Revolution as an inherent right of man.
[Sidenote: "Equality">[
"Equality" embraced the social activities of the Revolution. It meant the abolition of privilege, the end of serfdom, the destruction of the feudal system. It pronounced all men equal before the law. It aspired, though with little success, to afford every man an equal chance with every other man in the pursuit of life and happiness.
[Sidenote: "Fraternity">[