Burke’s Reaction to the French Revolution

Abstract

Having briefly outlined the official policy of the British government regarding the Revolution, I now turn to an examination of Burke’s more radical alternative. This chapter will show that Burke’s conservative crusade is fueled by a particular understanding of the Revolutionary threat and its wider implications for the stability of the Commonwealth of Europe. For Burke, 1789 signifies more than a mere shift in personnel within the French state which other European powers can watch with impartiality. Unlike the Glorious Revolution of 1688 or the American Revolution of 1776, both of which Burke supports as revolutions “within a tradition”, he conceives the French upheaval as a complete “revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions”.¹ In its proclamation of Jacobinism, Atheism, and Regicide, the French Revolution seeks to undermine the very foundations of European civilisation, as outlined in Chapter 3. Further, the transnational character of its ideological challenge means that the Revolution will necessarily expand beyond the borders of its country of origin to infect all other members of the Commonwealth. And finally, because the revolutionaries adopt the non-military means of sedition and subversion to propagate their principles, the “example of the conduct of France during peacetime” is even more dangerous to the European powers “than a state of open war”.²