Elements of The French Revolution

Writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, Lefebvre says,

The Declaration in proclaiming the rights of man appeals at the same time to discipline freely consented to, to sacrifice if need be, to cultivation of character and to the mind. Liberty is by no means an invitation to indifference or to irresponsible power; nor is it the promise of unlimited well-being without a counterpart of toil and effort (220).

The author argues effectively that the revolution was the result of forces---economic, political, social, historical---which could not be stopped as they drove to transform France in the late 18th century. However, the author's argument should not be seen as Marxist in any sense of the word. To the contrary, Lefebvre sees the French Revolution as a triumph of democracy in its early stages, and

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d individual reading his book fifty years after its writing. Perhaps Lefebvre sensed the Nazi horrors which were shortly to be visited upon the same France about which the author was writing. It is not fair, in any case, to judge the book simply on its idealistic, even romantic, view of the French Revolution and its impact on the evolution of democracy and freedom around the world. The author has fashioned a thorough historical account of what remains one of the seminal events in Western Civilization. It is a detailed report which presents the conflicts and leading personalities in a dynamic, if scholastic. approach. Lefebrve is certainly not out to entertain the general masses with his book. He is an historian whose loyalties are first to the accuracy of the facts he is reporting, and this loyalty is expressed in the straightforward style of his work. The book is rich in historical, political, and cultural details: The nobility also enjoyed privileges, some "honorific," such as the right to carry the sword, others "useful," such as exemption from the tax known as taille and from obligations for road service and quartering troops; but it was less favored than the clergy, not forming an organized body and being subject to the pol
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Approximate Word count = 1512
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)