How Did Society Change After The French Revolution

After all was said and done, just how revolutionary was the French Revolution? To answer this question, one must reflect on France before 1789 to assess what needed to be changed.
Historically, France rose from a feudal society in the middle ages to one of key class distinctions. First, there was the monarchy, ruled at the time of the Revolution by Louis XVI. Within some limits, King Louis was a law unto himself, answerable only to himself and to the Deity. He and the royal family had a life far above the common peasant and lived in opulence from the wealth accumulated from his predecessors and during his reign. Beneath the king, resided the clergy or the first estate. The clergy was largely a well-healed group serving both pope and king in

“Minimalists” or “Revisionists” would say “no.” While there were significant changes early on, the conflicts both within and outside the country caused harm (especially to religious life) but made no fundamental changes other than to political life and institutions.[3] Others, like the “Maximalists” would say “yes,” and I tend to agree with this position. “The Revolution was pivotal in facilitating the development of a capitalist society which would ultimately lay the economic basis for a future socialist revolution, this time by industrial workers and their allies.”[4] The Revolution had a profound impact on the French and created a nation-state that would be based upon uniform administration, free markets, and national identity by a people. Unresolved was the issue of changes the “noirs,” the slaves, and for women, who were very much instrumental in the Revolution. As with the issue of slavery in the United States, these issues were dealt with subsequently and, as with the United States, not without bloodshed. The American Civil War led to the emancipation of blacks and the slave revolt in St. Domingue (now independent Haiti) was instrumental in France. Napoleon Bonaparte and his empire, while reinstating a “nobility,” implemented progressive reforms such as his Napoleonic or Civil Code, welcoming back Émigrés, and his Concordat with the church, all of which outweighed the bad

“In terms of subsequent history, it is plain that there is no way that the essential changes brought by the Revolution can be rolled back and any ruler that tries to in fact incurs the wrath of the French people.”[5] Coming out of the Revolution and into the Napoleonic era, France was coming into a new world. While society was in a shambles initially, the stage was set for a France completely different from the past replacing privilege and disproportionate wealth with merit and a fair distribution of wealth based upon that merit. Minimalists are wrong in thinking it was only a political change to society. The country would now be ruled rightly by the vast majority of the people through popularly elected representatives and uniformly administered. Religious denominations were more widely accepted and would not be just based on the Roman Catholic Church or a state church. The stage was also set for the emancipation of slaves and women, which would not have been conceivable under the