Customer Reviews

The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon

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About 13 years ago Colin Jones published a fascinating article in a collection of essays edited by Colin Lucas entitled "Bourgeois Revolution Revivified". In contrast to the powerful revisionist historiography of the French Revolution Jones argued that the old explanation of the rise of the bourgeoisie could not be easily ignored. He pointed out such tendencies as the rise of consumerism, economic growth in both the agricultural and foreign trade sectors, as well as the increase in the bourgeoisie's numbers. He also looked at certain professions and discussed the rise of a non-noble ideology of "civic professionalism." Jones then followed up this article with a number of others, one of which looked at how the emerging medical profession helped to develop an advertising market, and another looked at the practice of dentistry. Now Jones has provided the monograph that such articles are usually the prelude to. It is a largely political history of France which covers the same period as the first volume of Alfred Cobban's 40 year old history of France. Jones' thesis can be seen in his title. During this time France was a great nation, did increase its prosperity and had an increasingly self-confident bourgeoisie. Indeed it was they, and to a lesser extent the peasantry, who were the main beneficiary of the revolution. France's political history should be seen in its own right, and not simply through from the vantage point of 1799. The best parts of it detail the same themes as "Bourgeois Revolution Revivified." They do not add much more to them, but we learn about increasing literacy and there is a good chapter on the rise of the Enlightenment.

We also get more detail about the bureaucratic structures and the controversies over Jansenism than in Cobban's work. Jones also follows the Figes/Schama tendency to spice up his work with interesting anecdotes. We start off by learning about the dying Louis XIV and the truly horrifying state of his teeth. We learn how many times Louis XV consummated his marriage on his wedding night (seven). We learn not only that Louis XVI fell under the thrall of his wife during the French Revolution, but that she also beat him at billiards. On the other hand the book gets few footnotes, and the bibliography, forty years after Cobban, is cursory at best. Unfortunately, the discussion of the French Revolution itself, which takes roughly the last third of the book, is a disappointment. There is little new or original here that has not been said by other historians. Rather strikingly, while Jones gives us a portrait of each of the three monarchs of the time, none of the revolutionaries get the same treatment. One can only contrast this with Cobban's picture of the Committe of Public Safety. Moreover, by the end of the revolution the struggles between neo-Jacobin and Directorials, anti-Clericals and Catholics, republicans and monarchists appear to be equally useless struggles between equally fanatical people. One feels that Europe's first attempt at democratic government deserves more sympathy.

Colin Jones's The Great Nation is history of the grand narrative type. In one long roller-coaster ride, its takes the reader from the death of Louis XIV to the seizure of power by Napoleon in 1799. Jones's emphasis is on continuity, his theory that France remained a country centred around the glory and brilliance of its court and rulers.

Within this theme, anecdotes and boudoir history are especially highlighted, making this generally fun to read while of course not avoiding more conventionally political or constitutional events. But Jones's version of the old regime and the revolution are very current, very fashionable, dwelling on court intrigue and the importance of an emerging `public sphere'. This makes for a certain kind of writing, which while amusing as a story - Jones obviously loves his subject, and has entertaining titles and chapters like `diamonds: not a queen's best friend', taking us to Versailles's gardens at night and then onto the vitriolic Paris pamphleteer's scene - is sometimes short on analysis. Students interested in, say, the monarchy's fiscal problems will have to look elsewhere for data. Jones's view is that old regime France's fragility had to do with court faction, dependence on foreign policy success, and a critical public opinion. Everyone is free to disagree.

Got this in class. Its NOT an easy read. Its not horrible, its just that he throws in all the facts of all the political intrigues, including things that ended in political dead ends.... and you find your self getting bogged up in details that make it harder to follow the story line. When he's discussing scandals etc, the book gets much much easier to read and enjoyable.

Its pretty dense, in other words. But as assigned books go, not bad. I learned alot about pre revolutionary France reading this, and I had no interest in the subject when I signed up for the course (I was just fulfilling a requirement).

Poor organization and the absence of historical FACTS combined with analysis without insight make this book an exercise in pseudo-intellectual flight from reality.