The French Revolution has long been re garded as a unique and heroic event in human history, but recent analysis has proved it to be but a final phase of the reactions of the Com mercial Revolution upon France. Henry IV, Richelieu and Mazarin, with the aid of the new middle-class, had destroyed the political power of feudalism, but had successfully stifled the growth of representative or democratic institu tions in France. The French Revolution marked that stage of development in which the bourgeoisie ended even the economic and social vestiges of feudalism and terminated irrespon sible royal despotism. The social revolution achieved by the French between 1789 and 1795 consisted mainly in the despoiling of the feudal landlords and the elevation of the middle or business class. The latter not only attained unto political power, but also secured legisla tion giving far greater freedom to business en terprise. No other class profited materially from the Revolution, while the nobility and the clergy were greatly reduced in wealth, power and prestige. The programs of social reform put forth during this movement varied all the way from the advocacy of limited constitutional monarchy by Lafayette and Sieycs to the fan tastic radicalism of the Mountain and the openly avowed socialistic proposals of Francois Baboeuf, which might be quite properly classed as akin to the utopias of the preceding century. But in spite of some radical programs of social reform and some mob-violence by the prole tariat, the lower classes, both agrarian and in dustrial, failed to profit to any marked degree through the French Revolution, which was above all a bourgeois movement. For the ele
vation of the proletariat in France, three subse quent revolutions and the growth of modern industrialism were required.
One of the most important and far-reaching effects of the Commercial Revolution upon so cial history was its preparation of Europe for the more sweeping transformation in the Indus trial Revolution. By breaking up the feudal system and agrarian isolation, by stimulating commerce andthe growth of capital, by inviting colonial enterprise and the development of for eign trade, and by developing constitutional gov ernment to give business liberty and security, the Commercial Revolution paved the way for the coming of the Industrial Revolution. That the latter came first in England is to be ex plained by the fact that England had partici pated most extensively in the Commercial Rev olution, that her industries and natural resources were best adapted to the adoption of a mechani cal system of manufacturing, and that she had developed to the greatest degree of any country in Europe that constitutional and legal protec tion to industrial and commercial enterprise which was indispensable to any extensive expan sion of business.