A Continent Poised for Change

The late 1780s found Europe in a state of remarkable political ferment. Across the continent, established authorities faced unprecedented challenges from reformist and revolutionary movements. The American colonies had successfully thrown off British rule, Ireland had rebelled against English authority, and in the Dutch Republic, the Patriot movement sought to strip the quasi-monarchical powers from the House of Orange. Yet few could have predicted that the mighty French monarchy would be the next domino to fall.

Observers of the era might have reasonably expected the Habsburg Empire to collapse before Bourbon France. Emperor Joseph II’s restless reforms in his German lands aimed at creating a rationalized military despotism, and his interventions in Hungary and the Southern Netherlands had already sparked unrest. Meanwhile, France under Foreign Minister Vergennes actively encouraged these various rebellions abroad while maintaining strict authoritarianism at home – a contradiction that would soon prove untenable.

The Gathering Storm in France

The first signs of France’s declining international position emerged in September 1787 when the kingdom proved unable to support its Dutch Patriot allies against Prussian intervention. European chancelleries noted this sudden weakness with schadenfreude. As the British ambassador at The Hague remarked: “If Providence means to punish their sins by making them feel in their own persons what they have made others suffer, how shall I admire the justice of God!”

Over the next four years, France’s growing preoccupation with domestic crises led to a dramatic erosion of its international influence. For the first time in centuries, European diplomacy could proceed without considering French interests or reactions. The monarchy’s obvious inability to restore financial or administrative stability shocked or delighted observers across the continent – at least until the summer of 1789 when the storming of the Bastille made clear the revolutionary nature of France’s transformation.

The Continental Reaction to Revolution

News of the Bastille’s fall sent shockwaves across Europe. People flocked to bookshops and reading rooms clamoring for details. A German woman lamented: “I long to see these great tidings but know not where to find accounts of them.” Intellectual leaders like Kant, Herder, Klopstock, Hölderlin, and Wieland greeted the news with euphoria. Even more skeptical figures like Goethe and Schiller initially welcomed developments in France.

The revolutionary fervor spread rapidly:
– In Italy, intellectuals rejoiced to see Europe’s most stable monarchy transformed by popular uprising
– In Stockholm, young poet Kellgren wrote: “Tell me, in history, even in Rome or Greece, was there ever anything more sublime?”
– In St. Petersburg, Count Stroganov declared: “The cry of liberty resounds in my ears…If I could one day see Russia reborn in such a revolution, it would be the finest day of my life.”

Britain alone seemed immune to revolutionary contagion, celebrating in 1788 the centenary of its own Glorious Revolution. Whig leader Charles Fox called the Bastille’s fall “the greatest and best event that ever happened in the world,” reflecting widespread initial British sympathy for the French cause.

Revolutionary Diasporas and International Networks

The French Revolution energized political exiles across Europe. Dutch Patriots who had fled Prussian repression in 1787 found refuge in France, with about 1,500 families receiving small pensions from Louis XVI. When power passed to French Patriots advocating broader political participation, these exiles took heart, forming clubs and National Guard units in French Flanders.

Similarly, Genevan democrats whose 1782 uprising had been crushed now hoped Paris would abandon their oligarchic opponents. Belgian rebels resisting Joseph II’s reforms found common cause with French revolutionaries, adopting tricolor cockades (though in black, yellow, and red). However, tensions soon emerged between French revolutionary universalism and Belgian particularism when the United Belgian States declared independence in January 1790.

The Intellectual Battle Over Revolution

As revolutionary enthusiasm cooled across Europe after the October Days of 1789, a profound intellectual debate emerged. In November 1790, Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, attacking the revolutionaries for disregarding historical continuity and warning of impending chaos. His work became an international sensation, translated into multiple languages within months.

Burke’s polemic sparked vigorous responses, most notably Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (February 1791), which sold an astonishing 200,000 copies. This ideological battle polarized British politics, reinvigorating the reform movement and leading to the formation of radical societies like the Sheffield Constitutional Society and London Corresponding Society.

The Gathering Counter-Revolution

By 1791, European monarchs grew increasingly alarmed by revolutionary developments, particularly after Louis XVI’s failed flight to Varennes. Émigré nobles established courts-in-exile at Coblenz and Mainz, plotting counter-revolution with foreign support. While Gustav III of Sweden actively prepared for war against the “great ape of Europe,” most rulers remained cautious, with Catherine II of Russia focusing instead on suppressing what she saw as Jacobinism in Poland.

Governments across Europe implemented new censorship measures:
– Spain’s Inquisition banned all revolutionary literature as early as September 1789
– Sweden prohibited French publications by 1792
– In Russia, Alexander Radishchev received a death sentence (later commuted) for his travelogue criticizing serfdom

The Revolution’s Uncertain Legacy

As the French constitutional monarchy struggled to stabilize in 1791, its impact continued reverberating across Europe. The revolution’s universalist claims inspired reformers while terrifying established powers. Political exiles from Geneva, Holland, and Belgium increasingly pushed France toward confrontation with Europe’s monarchies, though the Legislative Assembly remained wary of foreign adventures.

The stage was set for a dramatic confrontation between revolutionary France and the old European order. As one contemporary observed, the days when Europe could watch French developments with detachment had ended. The revolutionaries would soon attempt to solve their domestic problems by exporting them to neighboring states – with consequences that would reshape the continent for generations to come.

This period from 1788-1791 marked the transformation of the French Revolution from a national event into a European phenomenon, sparking ideological battles, political realignments, and social upheavals that would dominate the continent’s history for decades. The revolution’s principles of liberty, equality, and popular sovereignty had escaped their national container, becoming both an inspiration and a threat to governments across Europe.