Émilie: A Revolutionary Journal
The French revolution: a fight for equality and fraternity, a struggle for freedom and individuality, a quest for a country governed by the people. Bloodshed is for the better, loss is for gain, pain is for justice.
But this is not what Émilie sees. Married two years ago to the Chevrolets when she was only fifteen years of age, Émilie is the housewife of a peasant family. After a season of bad harvest and years of brutal taxation, she balances on a sharp edge, and when the match of revolution is struck and her husband joins the radicals—the balance breaks.
This is a story of a girl living in revolutionary France in the 18th century. It is a perspective that is rarely pondered when one looks at the violence and glory of the revolution. It is a story told separate from the brutality and revolts; it is a tale of the mind.
The French revolution started with simple goals. People were infuriated by the inhumane tax system under the King, and were suffering from famine and destitution. They were tired of being exploited by a government that never told them what their money and property was used for. They wanted a fight, because they had nothing to lose.
To me, it seems that this simplicity of the revolution often made it directionless. We only need to look at the most significant hallmarks of the fifteen years.
When the Declaration of the Rights of the Man was established, it was established by a small group of revolutionaries, and cowritten with the president of another country, Thomas Jefferson. When the Reign of Terror occurred, it occurred under the lead of a radical who saw unlimited slaughter as a justifiable cost of peace—Robespierre. When the Napoleonic Code was written, it was written by the jurors of a military genius who wanted dictatorship, not democracy.
Time after time, the wrong people led the revolution and took it in the wrong direction.
So, was it worth it? Well, the economy prospered under the Napoleonic Code. The country grew in size and fame because of the military successes of Napoleon. Transparency was ensured under a new government. France was declared a republic.
Still, the violence and loss that accompanied this chaotic revolution lingers in the back of minds. Thousands upon thousands of people killed on the guillotine because of a few spoken words. Millions of illegitimate children and women, stripped of rights. The country led by an extreme, cruel military general.
It is hard to judge the revolution’s worth, because it is always hard to tell if the world would have been better or worse if we simply erased a segment of its story. However, when we take a piece of black and white history, and paint it with the strokes of actual perspectives, we realize that perhaps too much has been given to achieve too little.