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PART IV

THE FRENCH DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE

CITIZEN

THE FRENCH DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN

CHAPTER X

FRANCE AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION

THE struggle of the American colonies for independence was watched by Europeans in general, and by the French in particular, with intense interest.

One must consider the views of the French in the eighteenth century in order to understand the sympathy they entertained for the Americans.

In the new world the ideas of Rousseau and of the other philosophers of that century seemed to be realized. There reason, simplicity, naturalness, and virtue were thought to reign.

The Count of Ségur tells us in his memoirs how intense the excitement was at Spa, a fashionable watering-place frequented by the aristocracy of Europe, when the news of the events in Boston in 1775 became known. "The first shot of the cannon fired in the new hemisphere," he writes, "resounded throughout Europe with the rapidity of lightning. "The courageous daring of the Americans electrified all spirits and excited a

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general admiration. . . . And in this little city of Spa... I was singularly surprised to see so lively and general an interest manifest itself for the revolt of a people against a king. The American insurrection spread everywhere like a fashion . . . and I was far from being the only one whose heart throbbed at the news of the awaking of liberty, striving to throw off the yoke of arbitrary power." He tells us that he found the same agitation prevailing in Paris, and that the envoys of the Americans, Deane, Lee, and Franklin, seemed to be the sage contemporaries of Plato, or republicans of the time of Cato and Fabius."

1

Many members of the noblest families of France hastened to the scene of conflict and fought with distinction at the side of Washington. Covered with glory they returned to their native land, ardent advocates of the American views of liberty and equality. These ideas spread widely, for they fell upon prepared ground. 3

Ségur tells us that as a result of the American Revolution "Everybody occupied himself with public affairs, and, seeing to what a point under monarchical forms views had become republican, it was not difficult for Rousseau to predict the approach of the epoch of great revolutions."4 Franklin had the constitutions of the several States, the Declaration of Independence, and other papers relating to American affairs, published and spread throughout the country in 1783.

A number of books had been written by Frenchmen 1 Ségur's Mémoires, I. pp. 51, 52.

2 Ibid., pp. 53, 69.

'Jefferson's Memoir, by Randolph, I. p. 56; Ségur, Mémoires, pp. 149, 165; Campan, Mémoires, I. p. 233, III. pp. 96, 116; De Staël, Considérations, I. p. 88.

4 Vol. I. p. 129.

which show what interest they took in American affairs. In 1787 was published a book entitled De la France et des États-Unis, by Clavière and Brissot. It deals with the prospects of commerce between France and America. In the introduction Brissot says that the American Revolution had occasioned the discussion of many points important for the public welfare, such as the social contract, civil liberty, the things that can render a people independent, and the circumstances which legitimatize an insurrection and cause a nation to take a place among the powers of the world. "What good," he writes, "have not done and will not do the codes of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, published and spread everywhere? They are not to be taken completely as models, but despotism, either through necessity or reason, will henceforth respect the Rights of Man so well known and so well established. Enlightened by this revolution the governments of Europe will be forced to reform their abuses and diminish their burdens." 1

The Abbé Mably had written an Impartial History of the Late War, which referred to American affairs.

The Abbé Raynal published in 1785 a series of letters he had written to John Adams, at the time the American ambassador to Paris, under the title, Observations on the Government and the Laws of the United States.

He does not agree on all points with the work of the Americans, but in general he speaks of the constitutions of the several States with great enthusiasm. "While nearly all the nations of Europe ignore the constitutive principles of society," he says, "and do not regard citizens as better than the beasts of a farm, which are governed for the particular good of their

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