Friday, January 21, 2005
"Vive la Revolution" – Mark Steel

Unusual for a history of the French Revolution and Paris Terror, Mark Steel's “Vive la Revolution” can be found in the humour section of any good book store.

Steel’s foray into comic non-fiction is driven by his desire to cock a snoop at both the establishment’s conservative interpretation and it’s droll, regimental telling of history: “How did Vikings come to England? No you stupid boy, not in boats, in Hordes!”

A deeper understanding of many conflicts has benefited from a revisionist view of history – think Benny Morris’s “Righteous Victims” or the seething debates between the right and left (and now the revisionist right) on the attitudes and impact of white imperialism in Africa, the Americas and Australia.

But Revolutionary France is one conflict to which English language authors have continued to toe the conservative line – reinforcing narratives of hot-headed Frenchman, fanatical zealots chasing aristos out of their grand manor houses and, of course, the terror of the Guillotine.

This conventional narrative has its roots in 18th Century British opposition to the American Declaration of Independence and the establishment’s fear of the rapid redistribution of wealth and political power, which was occuring across Europe. In Britain, to that point, it had been proceeding at a typically disorganised genteel pace; far better for all concerned. This is summed up in long standing Tory opposition to republicanism, long epitomised in the seminal text of UK conservatism – "Reflections on the Revolution in France", by Ed Burke.

But for Mark Steel, the French Revolution was different. As an unashamed leftie, he zeros in on the progressive instincts of the Revolution, institutionalising secular, democratic and populist ideals and its success in ousting a Monarch, that until that moment, had reigned in the supreme belief that he had been chosen by god to rule his nation. (Sound like someone else?) Steel argues that the French Revolution was a genuinely popular movement, which for the first time gave every citizen – men and women – born outside the aristocracy an opportunity to experience agency and democracy and to achieve political power.

Sure, they blew it big time. But not before they had turned hundreds of years of despotic, cruel and seemingly timeless absolutist rule on its head.

Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Paine and Montesquei – the intellects and the orators of the Revolution - are venerated by Steel, not only as reforming idealists but also pragmatic politicians. This, despite their lampooning in conventional histories, from the celebrity TV historian to the most accessible kids TV program.

(He singles out Blue Peter’s* reverence of Marie Antoinette – “she liked beautiful clothes and fine shoes” but “violent revolutionaries sent her to the dreaded Guillotine”, for its particular role in shaping a generation’s views).

Steel has top-notch leftist credentials and is a veteran in manning the barricades - in true Parisian style - at G8 summit demos. It has given him a nuanced insight into how the empowered citizens that stormed the Bastille might have experienced it. He knows how it feels to face up to charging riot shields and batons whilst wiping tear gas from his eyes; the crackling tension, the sick feeling in the pit of your stomach from the adrenaline and the anticipation that something big is about to happen. (But also the damp squib wash-outs when everything just fizzles out and people drift off home.)

But any revisionist interpretation of Revolutionary France would have trouble with putting a positive spin on Paris’s descent into the desperate bloodlust of the Terror in 1793. Aware of this, Steel sensibly puts the Terror in context. The new Republic was still vulnerable. It remained at war with foreign reactionary armies seeking to reinstall an absolutist monarchy and quell the revolutionary zeal fermenting across Europe. It ran the risk of being undermined by the ‘wets’ (moderates) of the Girondin faction and the clergy who sought reconciliation with the Monarchy. And it was still unsure the state bureaucracy’s willingness to carry out the National Assembly’s wishes.

But the King had to go. He was in the untenable position of having declared war on Austria in order to manufacture a defeat for his own nation and death of his own people, on the understanding that victorious Austrian forces would reinstall his absolutist regime. This was tantamount to betraying the settlement and the defenders of the Republic would have faced death had they been defeated.

The beheading of political reactionaries, opponents of the Revolution and supporters of the monarchy, after no more due process than a kangaroo court, was undoubtedly where the popular tide began to turn against the Revolution. But Steel draws on sources which paint an even bloodier picture had the reactionary forces swept back to power – nothing less than a scorched earth policy of collective murderous punishment, doled out indiscriminately on all sympathisers before it.

This is the France in turmoil, that Steel reminds us Robespierre (who was incidentally known as “The Incorruptible”) found himself in as Head of the Committee of Public Safety – charged with defending the Rights of Man, the Constitution and the Republic. The Republic’s options were quickly narrowing and all competing factions and reactionary forces had proved themselves capable of murder. Undoubtedly, the elected leaders of the Revolution faced death themselves, if the Republic was defeated by the Royal armies of Prussia and Austria. As it was, Robespierre himself, eventually climbed the steps to lay his head on the block, following his friends and intellectual contemporaries, Marat and Danton.

Throughout Vive la Revolution, Steel’s prose marches to the beat of La Marseillaise (the book is only 260 pages) and he marshalls facts with surprising clarity - for those that have seen his TV appearances as a stand up. His narrative is littered with left-field contemporary parallels, which serve not only to carve out the genre of comic history but also to convey the sparkling humour and acidic satire that the colourful characters who found they had changed the world, undoubtedly possessed.

La Marseillaise

Let us go, children of the fatherland
Our day of Glory has arrived.
Against us stands tyranny,
The bloody flag is raised,
The bloody flag is raised.
Do you hear in the countryside
The roar of these savage soldiers
They come right into our arms
To cut the throats of your sons,
your country.

To arms, citizens!
Form up your battalions
Let us march, Let us march!
That their impure blood
Should water our fields

Blue Peter

For those who do not know of it (Aussies, perhaps), Blue Peter is a British institution: a TV magazine program for kids, which has educated and entertained generations of British children. It features factuals, arts and culture, gardening and cookery. But perhaps it is most infamous for inventing the phrase "And here’s one I made earlier", often said by the presenter as he/she pulls from under the counter a perfectly constructed Thunderbirds Action Base, Christmas Decoration or Homework bookshelf, made from everyday household objects, to replace their own attempt which more often than not resembled the contents of your average domestic waste bin, emptied out onto the table and held together by sellotape.

For parents, Blue Peter always raised the spectre of your child handing you three toilet roll tubes, crepe paper and some double sided sticky tape and demanding you construct a full-functioning Saturn V moon rocket, just like they did on TV.

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