Here is a disturbing, highly revealing article by the great Erik von Keuhnelt-Liddhin about the various forces which exploded into the violence of the French Revolution. Louis XVI was
not a Freemason, but his brothers were, even Artois, for a short time. However, the fact that some people thought Louis was a mason shows how "liberal" he was, not the obscurantist idiot reactionary that politically correct historians try to make him out to be. The following is an excerpt; it is worth reading in
its entirety, just beware the graphic violence:
The vulgar interpretation of the French Revolution (not unlike that of the Russian Revolution) is based on the theory of the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. The impoverished and oppressed people, led by highly intelligent idealists shook off the unbearably oppressive rule of monarchs, aristocrats, and priests and created a new order, in which Liberty, Fraternity and Equality were realized. Hadn't Goethe already told us that legislators and revolutionaries who announce Freedom and Equality simultaneously are frauds and charlatans? When there is no such thing as a "natural equality," it can only be brought about by raw violence. In order to bring equality to a hedge, one needs garden shears. Equality, the left-wing ideal, is closely bound up with identity. One hundred pennies makes a dollar, but each dollar of a certain year isn't identical with every other dollar printed at that time.
The first phase of the French Revolution, which played itself out as economic boom, as well as state financial crisis and a series of liberal reforms, had a predominately aristocratic character. The "new ideas" of the first enlightenment - the misunderstood American war of independence, Anglomania, the visions of Rousseau, Voltaire's (a man who held the common man in contempt) critique of religion, and the still turbulent Jansenist controversy - all this had confused the spirit of the upper classes. Freemasonry, newly imported from England, also played a role in this transformation. It is possible that even Louis XVI was a freemason. Beyond a doubt he was a devoted reader of the Encyclopédie. As a result a huge vacuum of belief came into existence, which was quickly filled by radical left-wing ideology, which just as quickly infected large segments of the population. The left-wing "Intelligentsia " acted as the ice- breaker for the revolution in such a way that, at the beginning at least, the monarchy's existence was hardly questioned, while aristocracy and clergy abdicated and "married" the bourgeoisie.
The signal event of the French revolution wasn't so much the alliance between the estates after the meeting at Jeu des Paumes as the storming of the Bastille, in which one man played a role every bit as crucial in the course of events as that of Rousseau: I'm talking about the Marquis de Sade....
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4 comments:
Oh!
This is truly horrible...but true, unfortunately. Those years of Revolution were a summary of what it has to come in the next centuries.
Indeed, yes!
Very enlightening....get it Enlightening. Did not the period of so called 'Enlightment' follow this? My history is not that adequate.
Actually, the Enlightenment preceded the period of darkness. In many ways it was not an "enlightening" but a "darkening."
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