Theories of representative government against democracy during the French Revolution

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the French Revolution, both advocates of a constitutional monarchy and proponents of a representative republic firmly rejected “democracy,” considering it not merely as an impractical but also as an undesirable form of governance for modern France. However, the rationale and methods employed in opposing and evading “democracy” remain insufficiently elucidated. Historical understanding of this rejection of democracy can be refined significantly if careful attention is paid to preventing the conflation of past terminology with that of our current era. Instead of lamenting the mystic empty core of democracy and the absence of representative principles therein, this article endeavors to approach the eighteenth-century and revolutionary dichotomy of democracy and representation through a historical lens, incorporating insights from the history of historiography. This analysis of representative government theorists seeks to illuminate their apprehensions and aversion to democracy, as well as their conceptualization of a viable path toward liberty under modern conditions. Two strands of thought in revolutionary France will be sketched out that locate the hope for liberty either in the model of British monarchy or in the French revolutionary republic neither monarchical nor democratic. This study thereby attempts to show why and how the notion of representative government was pitted against that of democracy in the French Revolution.