The tragedy of Bastille Day

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Sunday, July 15. 2018

The tragedy of Bastille Day

Solzhenitsyn Mourned Bastille Day. So Should All Christians. The French Revolution invented radical nationalism and socialism, and launched the first modern genocide, aimed at Christians.

Posted by The Barrister in History at 15:14 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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What the author doesn't mention is that it took Bastille Day to end the Catholic Inquisition.

#1 jdgalt on 2018-07-15 17:09 (Reply)

The Catholic Inquisition was relatively bloodless compared to the new and improved Socialist Inquisition that is ongoing.

#2 indyjonesouthere on 2018-07-15 18:58 (Reply)

"The French Revolution invented radical nationalism and socialism, and launched the first modern genocide, aimed at Christians."

However, if we're playing the stream of events and consequences angle of history it could just as easily be argued that the success of your own revolution precipitated the French one.

So perhaps the "blame" could be placed at the door of the Continental Congress?

What was it Jefferson wrote again? Ah yes:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

#3 JJM on 2018-07-15 19:09 (Reply)

That's not easily argued at all. Many of the American Framers quickly recognized the flaws in the French Revolution. Paine was swept away in the movement and nearly lost his head over it. Washington gave him so many warnings and eventually washed his hands of Paine's involvement.

Mao, Lenin, Hitler all used the French Revolution as a case study. From their perspectives, the American Revolution was more of an example of what not to do.

#3.1 Jack Walter on 2018-07-15 22:08 (Reply)

I agree. The American revolution was dressed in nationalism while the French revolution degenerated into national socialism which it still engages in today. Two periods of which the French do not speak of is the Vendee massacre and the Vichy French of WWII.

#3.1.1 indyjonesouthere on 2018-07-16 15:01 (Reply)

Well, not so much. The church at that time was vying for power with the elite to the detriment of the common people. The revolution was not an attack on Christians it was an attack on the abuses of the church. One could even argue that the church attacked and harmed more Christians than any other ruling entity did. The church needed a swift kick in the ass. It got it. I say good, let them eat cake.

#4 OneGuy on 2018-07-15 19:30 (Reply)

I believe you are guilty of conflating Reformation with Revolution here.

In any event, the worst excesses of the Christian Church in all its permutations hardly match the routine excesses of revolutionaries in all of theirs.

#4.1 JJM on 2018-07-15 19:37 (Reply)

I think I touched nerve. That was not my intent. simply stating what i believe is clear in history. The church was a political organ throughout most of it's 2000 years. Sometimes they did more harm, sometimes they did less. But they always did harm. Did they do good? Sure!

#4.1.1 OneGuy on 2018-07-15 21:40 (Reply)

I'd say that the church's intent was always to save souls, and at times, perhaps wrongly, via a somewhat secular power. When religion and state were intermingled, separating the two was difficult. I just have to disagree that the church "always" did harm.

#4.1.1.1 Mark on 2018-07-15 23:05 (Reply)

In Europe the church was a spy organization favoring one country and sabotaging another. It destroyed kings and leaders and promoted those who were favorable to them. All of this controlled out of Rome and rife with intrigue and mystery. They sat beside kings, they conspired behind kings and they stole whatever wasn't nailed down. They caused wars and would often play both sides against each other. They were the elite and pampered in an age when everyone suffered. They discouraged the common man from learning Latin so they could better keep their secrets and their knowledge from them. And all the while they acted as a friend and father to the people.

#5 OneGuy on 2018-07-16 00:53 (Reply)

Your comment is histrionics, not history.

#5.1 JJM on 2018-07-16 06:31 (Reply)

But yet it is all there in history for all to see who are not blind.

#5.1.1 OneGuy on 2018-07-16 10:44 (Reply)

You are declaring the conventional wisdom, which all of us who have been to college (and now even high school), or read widely in the popular press, have heard. Unfortunately, it is less than half true. Beware of what "all the best people know" about anything.

Zachriel has this one right. Looking at only one side of the balance pan tends to mislead. The Catholic (and Protestant) Church did terrible things, but was also the foundation for everything we currently understand of morality, kindness, generosity, etc - and its opponents were, amazingly - much worse. https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2006/01/big-bad-three.html

Different things really are different.

#5.1.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2018-07-16 17:23 (Reply)

Understand I am not simply trying to denigrate the church. And I do not hold the people alive today responsible for acts they did not commit decades and even centuries ago. The simple fact is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and it did at every level on all church's and all political entities (not just religions). Just as I do not think the FBI should be destroyed for what a handful of left wing activists did under Obama I am not calling for any hate or anger at the church. BUT, it is what it is. "Mistakes were made."

A good example would be the subject of Ireland's famine. The church did some good as did England. But they could have done so much more. They had the money and they had the assets. They could have gotten the Irish through that tough time.

#5.1.1.1.1 OneGuy on 2018-07-16 17:33 (Reply)

True enough. Yet through all that they kept alive the idea that Ceasar wasn't a god, and that there was a higher force for good in the universe.

#5.2 Zachriel on 2018-07-16 09:13 (Reply)

And the Church also knitted Europe together, when it was still politically fractured.

#5.3 Zachriel on 2018-07-16 09:15 (Reply)

QUOTE:

The tragedy of Bastille Day

There is a fundamental difference between the French and American revolutions. The French monarchy had centered all power on itself, including the Church. When the monarchy fell, there were no institutions left untainted by association with the king. Everything was torn down. In the American experience, there were working legislatures before, during, and after the Revolution. The monarchy was removed, but most of the rest of the social and political institutions were left intact.

Nonetheless, while the French recognize the faults of the Revolution, they still celebrate it for its aspiration of liberté, égalité, fraternité.

QUOTE:

The French Revolution invented radical nationalism and socialism, and launched the first modern genocide, aimed at Christians.

Most scholars don't consider the War in the Vendée as genocide. There were religious overtones because the Church was politically associated with the monarchists. Brutal though it was — on both sides, once the war ended, there was no effort to eliminate the Vendéen people as a whole, some of whom were Bonapartists.

#6 Zachriel on 2018-07-16 09:09 (Reply)

The French Revolution invented radical nationalism and socialism, and launched the first modern genocide, aimed at Christians.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The Huguenots would differ. Why there are no Protestants in France.

#7 Jim on 2018-07-16 14:47 (Reply)

Additionally, the Church was not a political organ throughout most of its 2000 years without squinting and calling everything "political."

You have been sold history by people who have an agenda, far more than those they attack. To use CS Lewis's metaphor, you will unfortunately have to go back a long ways to get to the right path.

#8 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2018-07-16 17:30 (Reply)

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Sunday, July 15. 2018

The tragedy of Bastille Day