Cosmopolitanism during the French Revolution (J.-R. Surrateau)
It is common to oppose the cosmopolitanism – or universalism – of the Enlightenment to the national spirit which developed itself on the eve of the French Revolution. Cosmopolitanism was widespread in the enlightened classes: the aristocracy of birth or of the robe, the great bourgeoisie living nobly ; in the bourgeoisie of the business, a certain change was perceptible at the end of the 18th century. The hegemony of the French language, a universalist language, was undermined by the progress of the English language, the language of economic relations, but this movement was only about to begin. The small bourgeoisie was considerably less prone to universalism due to reasons of language, milieu or trade. As to the common people, it was withdrawn on its microcosm, hardly educated and even still illiterate.
The load of the words cosmpolitisme-cosmopolite, universalisme-universaliste has been studied well. If, in the 18th century, many praised their universal spirit, others gave a pejorative sense to it. For the first ones, the cosmopolitan is the citizen of the world, ahead of his time, despising vulgarity. The idea of a patriotism that encompasses all of humanity can already be found in Bossuet's Politique tirée de l'écriture sainte: « The sharing of goods among humans and the division of humans into peoples must not alter the general society of the human kind », and in Fénelon who, in his dialogue Socrate et Alcibiade, made the Athenian philosopher say: « Everyone owes infinitely more to the human kind, which is the great patrie, than to the particular patrie within which one is born » ; in the 18th century, Mably, in the Entretiens avec Phocion, thinks that « a virtue that is superior to the love of the patrie, that is the love of humanity », and the Marquis de Caraciolo expressed himself in similar terms. For others, on the contrary, the cosmopolitan is an indifferent person, a cynic who scornfully refuses to become attached to his native country « because he despises the whole universe » (Monbron) and for Rousseau, « these so-called cosmopolitans boast to love the whole world in order to have the right to love nobody ». These distinctions, as intellectual as they may seem, would not be without repercussions on the reactions of the leaders of the revolutionary era, as soon as the dominant classes, arising from the Enlightenment, would be succeeded as the head of the State by what Michelet calls the « people », i.e. a heterogeneous group involving survivors of the nobility or of the bonne bourgeoisie and of the small bourgeois, men of the law, small proprietors, artisans, shopkeepers as well as the « sans-culottes » of the cities. This is not and will not be the case with country dwellers – more than 75% of the French – because the French language is not even an universal language within the hexagon. In many provinces one only spoke French in certain literate zones, more in the East than in the West or in the South-East. And one hardly read there, and often only almanacs.
Outside of France, the French language would be imported by force during the Revolution and therefore would appear as the language of the conqueror to the small people who, evidently, suffered most from the coercions of a « liberation » which more and more manifested itself as an occupation. Italy offers the most complete example of opposition between the enlightened classes, which are universalists since an Italian national language did not exist, and the mass of the urban and, even more, the rural, illiterate, backward and superstitious people, dominated by a fanatical and retrograde clergy. But the cosmopolitans of the Illuminismo, the elites as well as the intellectuals of the Caffè de Milan, were only a handful. In Germany, the picture is more nuanced because, even in the elevated spheres, the victories of Frederick the Great developed a certain « preussisch-deutsch » pride which would result in the Nationalgeist of Herder.
In the 1780s, the years separating the deaths of Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot from the beginning of the Revolution, cosmopolitanism-universalism was attacked repeatedly. From one side of the Atlantic to the other, liberation movements emerged which, while not initially and essentially being directed against « l'étranger », ended up exacerbating a certain nationalist sentiment that was particularist and sometimes xenophobic. The anti-colonialist movement of the Americans, the patriot Revolution of the Dutch against a leader who was one of them but who called in foreigners, the uprising of the inhabitants of Brabant and Liège against an administration that was foreign or supported by foreigners ran counter to universalism which their own aristocracy, immodest in the eyes of the rebels, professed. In Germany, within an interval of four years, the two greatest geniuses, Kant and Herder, expressed themselves quite differently. In 1780, the philosopher of Königsberg defined a democratic society without borders as his ideal, linked to universal fraternity, which would be the future Schillerian-Beethovian leitmotif ; Herder, in 1784, exalted national individualism because, for him, « every nation, every era possesses an own truth, no man, no country, no history are identical ». In France, the reformer party, which also would soon come to reject the universalism of the Enlightenment, gradually radicalised in a manner that seemed to move away every hope for reform.
1789: the « people » had the floor. The Cahiers not only expressed much more than grievances, but also « the profound aspirations, the mentalities of their authors » (J. Godechot). This would lead to Sieyès who, in his famous Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat?, appealed to the national spirit against the stateless aristocracy which claimed to descend from to conquering Franks and which one had to « send back into the forests of Franconia ». And yet this was not new, this interdiction, this curse reused the old feud, which, having emerged more than one century before, had opposed the Germanist aristocrats (Boulainvilles, Saint-Simon, Fénelon), who imprudently exalted the supremacy of the conquering race, brandished like a weapon against monarchic absolutism, to the Romanists, who exalted royal absolutism. Montesquieu himself had followed suit. Sieyès shifted the blame, not in the service of absolutism, but in order to affirm the supremacy of the bourgeoisie ; dominating the economy, it also wanted to dominate politics.
Thus, at the time where the Estates-General assembled, the separation appeared between the cosmopolitanism of the enlightened classes and the mentality of the small bourgeois – even if, like Sieyès, some belonged to the clergy in terms of the sociéte d'ordres – who thought « nationally ». One must not be fooled by the balance of power « seen from above » because all of those who wrote, who made their ideas known and whose ideology was known, were men of the elites, cosmopolitans and others. Those whom Sieyès addressed undoubtedly also belonged to them. But the men of the « people » did not write, they did not bequeath anything to us, they were only receptive and, until then, mute. But they would come to act…
The people was mobilised in July 1789, the one of Paris against the Bastille, the one of the countryside, during the Great Fear, against the « aristocratic plot », later the ensemble of the people against the émigrés. One knew the worries of Arthur Young in L'Isle-sur-le-Doubs. Nonetheless, among the leaders, universalism retained its supporters, at least until 1791. On 18 May 1790, Volney proposed that the Constituent Assembly should « regard the universality of the human kind as only forming a single and identical society whose purpose is peace and the happiness of each and every one of its members ». On 20 June, Danton declared during a banquet of the Société du Jeu de Paume that « patriotism should not have any limits but the universe », and Mirabeau, on 25 August, called for « the federation of the human kind ». But all of this would change later, particularly after Varennes ; the vehement movement against universalism, which could quickly become xenophobic, developed against all « foreign agents », Swiss mercenaries from Marseille or the Tuileries on 10 August, against the Brunswick Manifesto, signed by a German prince who spoke and wrote in French. Later, it was the affair of the delivery of Verdun to the enemy, the popular indignation against those who colluded with « nos amis les ennemis », those who delivered our places to these « barbarian hordes (who) are coming right into our arms to cut the throats of our children and our women ». While the revolutionary movement further democratised and radicalised itself, the people went into action against the « foreign plot », a sentiment that was no longer merely national but nationalist, chauvinist and xenophobic, and one even witnessed the reappearance of anti-Semitism, which had always been underlying.
One can measure the progress even on the level of the representatives when one compares the decree of 26 August 1792, through which the Legislative Assembly had granted French citizenship to 17 illustrious « foreigners », to the Convention's measures of proscription which struck foreigners from August 1793 onwards and even more in 1794. The last cosmopolitan (and what a cosmopolitan!) was Anacharsis Cloots…What did he say? « I defy anyone to ever make a good French constitution because a republic [that is] surrounded by great enemy powers is not free unless one says that a bird in an aviary is free ; I [will] see to making a good universal constitution for you. » He went so far as to demand « the suppression of the name Français following the example of Bourguignon, of Normand or of Gascon ». These somewhat delirious exaggerations condemned cosmopolitanism. Cloots and his friends were included in the fight against the « foreign plot ». It was not welcome then to speak another language than French, because one was quickly counted among the « agents of Pitt or of Coburg », two foreigners who also spoke and wrote in our language, perfect cosmopolitans just like Thugut, Coblenz, Metternich and Tsar Alexander.
It was therefore the resilience of class which was dominant. The deputies themselves were strongly influenced by popular emotions. Robespierre, still in Ventôse Year II, found universalist accents in one of his speeches. But the national sentiment, having been exacerbated in 1793 and in the beginning of Year II by the defeats of our armies, would be even more so in 1795 by the triumphalism which victory, « revenue sous nos drapeaux », brought about.
And already, from a certain point of view, Necker, innocently, had foreseen the force of this profound popular sentiment when, in the provincial Assemblies which he wanted to set up, he witnessed a standardisation which, in the state wherein France found itself, could not be realised by the top but by the bottom ; and this bottom, which the Revolution would reveal and which would come to terrify Necker, was evidently not the one he had encouraged.
