Abolition of French Feudalism: August 4-5 and 11, 1789

Per Scriptum E. Wesley -- Mackinac Center Intern

On August 4 and 5 of 1789, the French feudal system was abolished in a night session on the National Assembly, and the decree was revised and published on August 11^th. The abolition of feudalism in France had mixed results. On the positive side, it delegitimized the status of nobility, made the common populous somewhat able to compete politically, and erased serfdom. However, the speed and sloppiness of alterations in authority would give France civil war, mobocracy, and an erosion of the rule of law. Chivalric codes of decency and loyalty were replaced with murder at Bastille, and revelry in the grotesque. The guillotine replaced the sword as the instrument of “justice.” However, the document proclaims the ominous changes better than I could...

Image sources:

www.ameliaseyssel.com and www.solarnavigator.net (The Crowning of Charlemagne and The National Assembly)