Reflections on the Revolution in France: Section 11 Summary & Analysis

Burke believes that France’s “new monied interest” is allied with “the political Men of Letters,” who have long been planning “the destruction of the Christian religion.” They have used their own literary fame and “the medium of opinion” to try to monopolize “avenues to opinion” regarding religion. They have succeeded more by “intrigue” than by genuine wit. They claimed concern for the poor, while exaggerating their critique of the nobility and clergy, and allying themselves with “obnoxious wealth,” Burke claims.

Burke questions why the properties of the clergy alone are being confiscated, and not those of financiers, bankers, wealthy nobles, and others. He believes the revolutionaries have been motivated by a “spirit of revenge” and not of justice. Eventually, the confiscated Church properties became the government’s sole resource. The government ensured full participation in their confiscation scheme by requiring all payments be made in a paper currency founded on the eventual sale of Church lands. However, it was later decided that these lands wouldn’t actually be sold, but would be “delivered to the highest bidder,” with the full payment not to be made for a dozen years, “held on the feudal tenure of zeal to the new establishment.”

Burke argues that, once these various confiscations and tyrannies have been carried out, “shock[ing] the moral sentiments of all virtuous and sober minds,” France’s new “philosophic” leaders turn to denunciation of the old monarchical government—and anyone who disapproves of their own abuses is then denounced, in turn, as a partisan of the old system. They act as though no third option is possible.

Burke says he’s unsure how to classify France’s current ruling class. Though it claims itself to be a pure democracy, it appears to be becoming “a mischievous and ignoble oligarchy.” In any case, Burke does not disapprove of any form of government on the basis of abstract principles alone. However, there is no historical precedent for a large-scale democracy, just ancient city-states. He is inclined to concur with Aristotle and other classical authors that a pure democracy is a degenerate form of a republic. The problem with such a form of government is that the majority will often oppress the minority far more harshly than a monarch would do.

Burke questions whether the French monarchy was so bad that it was beyond the possibility of reform, that “the whole fabric should be at once pulled down, and the area cleared for the erection of a theoretic experimental edifice in its place.” He argues that France had a different opinion at the beginning of 1789, and that representatives to the states-general, though hardly ignorant of existing abuses, were then seeking reform, not revolution. He asserts that France was “a despotism rather in appearance than in reality.”

To prove this statement, Burke argues that, as of 1780, France’s population was still increasing, and that, whatever the precise factors in this growth, France’s political institutions could not have been the world’s worst. As of 1785, its wealth was also growing. No “positively destructive government” could allow for such. And when France’s architectural beauties, infrastructure, fortifications, cultivation, and many other aspects are considered—to say nothing of her learned and literary achievements—then how can it be said that France’s government was so thoroughly corrupt “as to be utterly unfit for all reformation”? Burke thinks it unlikely that France will be improved by the Revolution, and that, in fact, it will take years for it to regain its previous stature in population and wealth.

Burke points out that Paris is currently burdened by high unemployment and mendicancy (begging), while “the leaders of the legislative clubs and coffee-houses are intoxicated with admiration” at themselves and look down on both their own poor and the rest of the world, taking comfort in being “a nation of philosophers.” Burke says that, while “virtuous poverty” with liberty is to be preferred to “wealthy servitude,” one should be sure that the “liberty” that accompanies such poverty was worth the price.