Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Reflections on the Revolution in France, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Use and Abuse of History
Nature, Tradition, and Wisdom
Revolution and Reform
Theory vs. Practicality
Summary
Analysis
Burke moves into a narrative of the events of October 6, 1789. History, he says, will record that on that morning, France’s king and queen, “after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter,” lay down to a troubled sleep. The queen was startled from sleep by the cry of her sentinel, who was quickly killed. A band of “cruel ruffians and assassins” then broke into the queen’s chamber and slashed her bed with their bayonets—the queen had fled “almost naked” in search of her husband at the last moment.
Here Burke turns abruptly from more abstract discussion to a colorful narrative of the events of the March on Versailles, a significant turning point in the masses’ favor. His use of dramatic, even sordid, detail is meant to gain sympathy for the plight of the queen as a human being. This goes along with the points he’s just been making about abstraction versus human nature.
Themes
Literary Devices
The king, queen, and their children were then forced to flee their palace, which was “swimming in blood,” and brought into Paris. Two randomly selected members of the king’s bodyguard were publicly executed and their heads stuck on spears while the royal family was paraded through the city among “infamous contumelies.” After a 12-mile journey, they were lodged in the Bastille.
The events of October 6, 1789, while a dramatic moment in the Revolution, were probably not as blood-soaked as Burke portrays them here. Interestingly, Burke employs history to try to evoke a particular emotional response from his audience—a tactic he cautions against elsewhere.
Themes
Literary Devices
Burke asks, “Is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars?” He assures Depont that, while the Revolution Society might applaud these events, most people in England do not. Burke says that although “this great history-piece of the massacre of innocents” remains unfinished, some “hardy pencil of a great master, from the school of the rights of men,” will finish it hereafter. He tells Depont that he is “influenced by the inborn feelings of my nature,” “not […] illuminated by a single ray of this new-sprung modern light,” and so has no taste for the “exultation” this occasion called forth among revolutionaries.
Burke tries to get Depont, and his audience in general, to consider the events of the rRvolution in a more human light, assuming that this will prompt people to reconsider its excesses. He also predicts that worse violence will yet befall France—a prophecy proven true by the later execution of the king and queen and the Reign of Terror, in which many perceived to be anti-revolutionary were publicly executed. Burke argues that inborn human nature, not theories, should enable a person to see what’s wrong with the Revolution.
Themes
Burke offers an encomia on the queen of France. He saw her 16 or 17 years ago, when she was the dauphiness at Versailles. “Surely never lighted on this orb,” says Burke, “a more delightful vision.” He never imagined that she should someday “carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom,” while living in “a nation of men and honor and of cavaliers.” However, “the age of chivalry is gone”; in its place has come “that of sophisters, economists, and calculators.”
Burke continues with his technique of humanizing the queen, even flattering her in romantic terms, to undermine the revolution’s excesses. Notably, he implies that the queen carried a knife so that she could commit suicide rather than be assaulted or otherwise disgraced—something that would be unthinkable in a chivalrous age, but which inhumane revolution has rendered necessary.
Themes
Literary Devices
Get the entire Reflections on the Revolution in France LitChart as a printable PDF.
Burke argues that chivalry, “this mixed system of opinion and sentiment,” is what has given modern Europe its distinctive character. It is important because, “without confounding ranks,” it “produced a noble equality,” subduing pride, “[obliging] sovereigns to submit to […] social esteem,” and elevating manners.
Burke argues that chivalry is a kind of natural sensibility that recognizes different ranks in society and allows those ranks to respect one another and interact harmoniously. Such a “natural” state of things has been upended by the Revolution.
Themes
Now, all this has changed, says Burke. “All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and […] harmonized the different shades of life […] are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason,” a development Burke likens to “the decent drapery of life [being] rudely torn off.” As an example of this new outlook, “a queen is but a woman; a woman is but an animal”; “regicide […] and sacrilege, are but fictions of superstition,” and even regicide is excusable if it benefits the people in some way.
Burke argues that when bald theories replace traditional sensibilities, the foundations of society are threatened. This is precisely what has led to the queen’s tenuous position, and the people’s willingness to tolerate something as extreme as the possibility of regicide, the killing of a king.
Themes
Burke critiques this new sensibility by calling it a “mechanic philosophy” which fails to cultivate any affection for one’s country. Institutions, for example, can no longer be “embodied […] in persons,” inspiring love and loyalty. This “reason which banishes the affections is incapable of filling their place.” “To make us love our country,” argues Burke, “our country ought to be lovely,” but the new outlook allows for nothing to make it so.
Burke argues that philosophy doesn’t inspire love. For example, his narrative of Queen Marie Antoinette was meant to inspire affection in a specific person. Bare “reason” offers nothing specific toward which to direct one’s affections. Burke’s comments on loveliness are also a play on the title of Price’s sermon, “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country.”
Themes
Burke argues that when the spirit of “fealty” is dead, “preventive murder” will reign in its place: “Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle.”
Traditionally, fealty preserved mutual loyalty and protection between subjects and monarchs. But when this system is destroyed, the void will be filled by something more destructive.
Themes
Two principles—“the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion”—have sustained European civilization up to this time. They preserved learning. Now that the nobility and clergy are scorned in France, “learning will be cast into the mire.” Burke fears that, like education, things like commerce and trade might also falter in the absence of “their natural protecting principles.” France will be left with “stupid, ferocious […] barbarians, destitute of religion, honor, or manly pride.”
Burke argues that, as the building blocks of traditional society are toppled, many unintended consequences will follow, to the detriment of society and culture as a whole. Things like nobility and religion are not arbitrary, but “natural” structures that allow for the flourishing of society.
Themes
Burke says that England has always gotten its manners from France, and that when France’s “fountain is choked up and polluted, the stream will not run long […] with us.” This is one reason why all of Europe must be concerned about what’s happening in France, and why Burke has dwelt so long on “a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions” which, in his opinion, dates from October 6, 1789.
Though Burke has been adamant that most people in England are not susceptible to revolutionary sentiments, he also recognizes France’s longstanding cultural influence and therefore holds that what happens to France should be of concern to all.
Themes
