Jay Smith French Revolution Agency and Ideas

Wesleyan University
Between Discourse and Experience: Agency and Ideas in the French Pre-Revolution
Author(s): Jay M. Smith
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 40, No. 4, Theme Issue 40: Agency after Postmodernism (Dec.,
2001), pp. 116-142
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History and Theory,Thene Issue 40 (December2001), 116-142
C)WesleyanUniversity 2001 ISSN: 0018-2656
BETWEENDISCOURSE AND EXPERIENCE:

AGENCYAND IDEAS IN THE FRENCHPRE-REVOLUTION
JAYM. SMITH
ABSTRACT
Experience has recently reemergedas an importantanalytical category for historiansof

the Old Regime and the French Revolution. Reacting against the perceived excesses of
discourse analysis, which made political language independentof any social determinants, certain post-revisionists are now seeking to contextualize political language by
relating it to the experience of those who use it. Political agency, in these analyses, is
understoodto be the effect of particularformativeexperiences. This article suggests that
the searchfor an experientialantidoteto discourseis misconceived because it perpetuates
an untenabledichotomy between thought and reality.Access to the phenomenonof historical agency should be pursuednot throughexperienceor discoursebut throughthe category of consciousness, since the make-upof the subject'sconsciousness determineshow
he/she engages the world and decides to attemptchanging it. After a brief discussion of
an importantstudy that exemplifies both the allure and the functionalityof the notion of
experience, Timothy Tackett's Becoming a Revolutionary, the article focuses on the
evolving political consciousness of a man who became a revolutionaryagitatorin 1789,
J.-M.-A. Servan.Analysis of his writings between 1770 and 1789 shows that the way in
which his perspectivewas constructed,ratherthanthe lessons of experienceper se, determined the shape of his revolutionaryintentionsin 1789.
All historians wrestle with the difficulties of analyzing human agency, but the
interpretation of agency poses special problems to historians of revolutions.
Revolutions, by their very nature, stand for decisive change. They fire the passions. They harness the loyalty and optimism of millions of people. They inspire
great sacrifices and elicit enormous creative energy. They represent the pursuit of
a better world. Any historian who seeks to explain revolutionary events must
inevitably confront the conditions of their possibility. Why do participants in revolutions opt for dramatic change? What explains the timing of revolutionary
events? How do living conditions that previously seemed tolerable, and problems
that once seemed manageable, come to be perceived as insupportable? How do
ideas and projects articulated within prevailing frameworks of thought harden
into a revolutionary program?
1. I wish to express my gratitudeto my friends and colleagues Lloyd Kramer,Michael Kwass, and
Donald Reid, all of whom read the penultimatedraftof this articleon extremely shortnotice and provided invaluablereactionsand criticisms. Special thanksgo to TimothyTackett,who graciously took
time away from his own researchin Paris to respondpositively to an article he ostensibly had every
reason to dislike. Throughhis interactionwith this piece, he provideda model of collegial and constructiveintellectualexchange that would surpriseno one acquaintedwith his reputationin the field.
BETWEENDISCOURSEAND EXPERIENCE
117
In recentyears, many historiansof the FrenchRevolutionhave sought answers

to these questions in the bedrockof experience. Reacting against both traditional social explanations, which showed motivations springing from seemingly
objective class positions, and the revisionists' political/linguistic explanations,
which often deduced agency from the logics internalto discourses, historiansof
pre-Revolutionaryand RevolutionaryFrancehave begun to emphasize the decisive influenceof concreteexperiencesin the lives of individualsand groups.This
new work is based on the commonsense assumptionthat sensitive and thorough
empirical analysis of the lived experiences of the past will enable historiansof
political action to navigate between the equally unappealingalternativesof oldfashioned social determinism,on the one hand, and newfangled linguistic determinism, on the other hand.2
Contemplatingthe prospectof a post-revisionisthistory of eighteenth-century
France, Vivian Grudercalled in 1997 for a new political history "closely calibratedto the unfolding of events, the impact of concrete experience,"a form of
analysis more sensitive to the ways in which "conceptspresentin discursive language . . . summed up and crystallized multiple prior experiences." Gruder
describeda movementalreadyunderway,for as JackCenserobservedin a recent

review article, many historiansof the Revolution are now attemptingto leaven
theiranalysesof "linguisticconstructions"with an interestin "social conditions,"
"lived experience,"and the weighing of "reallife opportunities."3The examples
are numerous.William H. Sewell's analysis of the Abbe Sieyes's What is the
ThirdEstate? seeks to capturethe text as both discursive artifactand as "action
in a social world";Paul Hanson's work on monarchistpolitical clubs seeks to
show that real events and actions-"political experience, that is"-shaped the
David Andress's
discourse of both Revolutionariesand counter-Revolutionaries;
analysis of the Champs de Mars massacre concentrateson the political elite's
misunderstandingof populardissent and its failure to develop a vocabularythat
capturedand respondedto the unrestof 1791.4
Despite its renewed appealto historiansof eighteenth-centuryFrance,however, the concept of experience has been subjectedto a critical scrutinythat seems
2. Similarassumptionsobviously also lie behindthe continuedattractionof "microhistory"and the
history of "everydaylife." See the insightfulreview articleby Brad S. Gregory,"Is Small Beautiful?
Microhistoryand the History of EverydayLife," History and Theory38 (1999), 100-110. The essay
discusses The History of EverydayLife: ReconstructingHistorical Experiencesand Waysof Life, ed.
Alf Ludtke, transl. William Templer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), and Jeux
d'Echelles: La Micro-Analyseail'Expirience, ed. JacquesRevel (Paris:Gallimard,1996).
3. Vivian Gruder,"WhitherRevisionism? Political Perspectives on the Ancien R6gime,"French
Historical Studies 20 (1997), 254; Jack Censer, "Social Twists and Linguistic Turns:Revolutionary
Historiographya Decade afterthe Bicentennial,"French Historical Studies 22 (1999), 146.
4. William H. Sewell, Jr.,A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution:The Abbe Sieyes and Whatis the
ThirdEstate? (Durham,N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994), 36; Paul R. Hanson, "MonarchistClubs
and the PamphletDebate over Political Legitimacy in the Early Years of the French Revolution,"
French Historical Studies 21 (1998), 299-324, esp. 301; David Andress, "The Denial of Social
Conflict in the FrenchRevolution:Discourses aroundthe Champde Mars Massacre, 17 July 1791,"
French Historical Studies 22 (1999), 183-209.
118
JAY M. SMITH
only to intensifywith the passing of years.5In the field of laborhistory,for example, E. P. Thompson'snotion of "working-classexperience,"which he saw as the
crucible of workers' consciousness, spawned a complex and still smoldering
debateaboutthe implicit dividing line separatingexperiencefrom consciousness
in culturalhistories of the working class.6 Historians of gender and sexuality
have similarlycalled into question the correlationbetween identity and the personal experiencestypically assumedto have producedit. Joan Scott, in a muchcited article, trenchantlyobserved that since individual subjects never occupy a
neutralposition free of ideological constraintsand relationsof power, the meaning of the experiencesthey construeand process is always dependenton the perspectives, or subjectpositions, that they occupy.7 Meanwhile, post-structuralists
and studentsof narrativehave drawn attentionto the retrospectiveconstruction
of experience, and the inclination of both individuals and groups to read their
pasts as coherentstories built aroundmeaningful,life-alteringevents.8
This article responds not only to History and Theory'stimely call for essays
examining the issue of agency in historical analysis, but also to currentsof discussion now swirling about my own field of Old Regime and Revolutionary
France. Like other dix-huitiemistes,including many who celebrate the recent
5. For acute discussions of historians'ambivalentrelationshipto the notion of experience since the
linguistic turn,see BarryShank, "ConjuringEvidence for Experience:Imagininga Post-Structuralist
History,"AmericanStudies 36 (1995), 81-92; MartinJay, "The Limits of Limit-Experience:Bataille
and Foucault,"WorkingPaper 3.11, European Society and CultureResearch Group, University of
California at Berkeley (Berkeley, 1993); Miguel A. Cabrera,"Linguistic Approach or Return to
Subjectivism?In Search of an Alternativeto Social History,"Social History 24 (1999), 74-89; and
Michael Pickering,History,Experience,and CulturalStudies (New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1997).
6. The literaturedevoted to this aspect of Thompson's legacy is vast. For helpful reviews of the
main points of debate, see Sean Scalmer, "Experienceand Discourse: A Map of Recent Theoretical
Approachesto Labourand Social History,"Labour History vol. no.? (1996), 156-168, and Marc W.
Steinberg, "Culturally Speaking: Finding a Commons between Post-structuralism and the
ThompsonianPerspective,"Social History 21 (1996), 193-214. Also see E. P. Thompson:Critical
Perspectives,ed. HarveyJ. Kaye and Keith McClelland(Oxford:Polity, 1990 ), andRethinkingLabor
History: Essays on Discourse and Class Analysis, ed. LenardR. Berlanstein(Urbana,Ill.: University
of Illinois Press, 1993).
7. Joan W. Scott, "The Evidence of Experience,"Critical Inquiry 17 (1991), 773-797. See also
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble:Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge,
1990); and Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York:
Routledge, 1992). AlthoughI am sympathetic,and obviously indebted,to Scott's elegant and persuasive argument,in "TheEvidence of Experience,"againstthe foundationalismimplicit in the analysis
of experience, her own emphasis on the constitutive power of discourse leaves little space for the
exercise of individualagency. The present article builds on and supplementsScott's argumentin its
attemptto conceptualize the space between discourse and experience, the space where individuals
weigh options and make moral choices.
8. See, for example, Paul Ricoeur, Timeand Narrative, 3 vols., transl.KathleenMcLaughlinand
David Pellauer(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1984-1988), esp. vol. 3; idem, "Life in Quest
of Narrative," in On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation, ed. David Wood (London:
Routledge, 1991); Douglas Ezzy, "Lived Experience and Interpretationin Narrative Theory:
Experiences of Living with HIV/AIDS," QualitativeSociology 21 (1998), 169-179; Mark Freeman,
Rewritingthe Self: History,Memory,Narrative (London:Routledge, 1993); see also Freeman'sdiscussion of several different approaches in "Experience, Narrative, and the Relationship between
Them,"Journalof Narrativeand Life History 8 (1998),455-466; Donald Brenneis,"TellingTroubles:
Narrative,Conflict and Experience,"AnthropologicalLinguistics30 (1988), 279-291.
119
"revivalof the social," I yearn for a new mode of analysis that can accountboth
for the powerful influence of linguistic structuresand for the dramaof personal
decision-makingand sheer historicalcontingency.9But unlike the historianswho
eagerly seek an antidoteto the perceived excesses of postmodernism,I remain
deeply skepticalof the analysis of experience,which, thanksin partto the recent
groundswellof interest in solidly "social"phenomena,is now emerging as one
of the primaryalternativesto discourse analysis in eighteenth-centurystudies.10
My doubtsaboutthe concept of experiencederive in partfrom the same concerns
that historiansof labor, gender, and narrativehave alreadyarticulated,but I am
especially mistrustfulof the tendency to invoke experience as an explanationfor
purposeful political action, including revolution. I argue in this article that in
orderto understandhow subjectiveperceptionsof the world get transformedinto
political agency, historiansneed to resist the lure of the category of experience
and adopt a new approachto the study of human consciousness, an approach
designed to penetratestructuresof belief. Greaterappreciationfor the ways in
which worlds areboth sustainedandremadethroughbeliefs will ultimatelyyield
more satisfying explanations of how and why people act politically, and why
they sometimes even come togetherto make a revolution.
9. The phraseis from Censer,"Social Twists and LinguisticTurns,"161.
10. The search for new alternativesto discourse analysis has also involved many historiansand
social scientists sympatheticto at least some aspects of postmodernism,includingsome who are fully
awareof the analyticaldeficiencies of the categoryof experience.Virtuallyall of the new alternatives
they have articulated,however,ultimatelyoppose language/cultureto somethingostensibly morereal,
thus creatingnew interpretivedilemmas. See, for example, GarethStedmanJones's incisive critique
of Roger Chartier'scategories of "representation"and "practice,"in "The Determinist Fix: Some
Obstacles to the FurtherDevelopment of the Linguistic Approachto History in the 1990s," History
WorkshopJournal 42 (1996), 19-35, esp. 26-27. StedmanJones developed furtherthis line of criticism in his review of Les Formes de l'experience: une autre histoire sociale, ed. BernardLepetit
(Paris: A. Michel, 1995). See Stedman Jones, "Une autre histoire sociale?," Annales: Histoire,
Sciences Sociales 53 (1998), 383-392. RichardBiernacki'sattemptto distinguishbetween "signs"and
"practice"raises problems similar to those criticized by Stedman Jones. See Biernacki, "Language
and the Shift from Signs to Practicesin CulturalHistory,"History and Theory39 (2000), 289-3 10,
and the critical commentaryby Chris Lorenz in the same volume, "Some Afterthoughtson Culture
and Explanationin HistoricalInquiry,"Historyand Theory39 (2000), 348-363, esp. 359. The danger
in tryingto find new ways to bridge the supposedgap between lived "reality"and its interpretationor
representationis that the effort inevitably perpetuatesunhelpfulpolarities that divert attentionfrom
the central problem of consciousness. Kathleen Canning, for example, tries to get at the culturally
conditioned agency of working-class women by focusing on the body, "in both its discursive and
experientialdimensions" (Canning, "FeministHistory after the Linguistic Turn:Historicizing Discourse and Experience,"Signs 19 [1994], 368-404, esp. 386). William H. Sewell, Jr. has suggested
that analysis of social change must incorporateboth "semiotic explanation"and "mechanicalexplanation"that supposes the operationof non-semiotic logics ("demographic,technological, coercive,
institutional,and the like"); see Sewell, "Languageand Practicein CulturalHistory:Backing Away
from the Edge of the Cliff,"FrenchHistorical Studies 21 (1998), 241-254, esp. 252. GabrielleSpiegel
has similarlycalled for greaterattentionto the "social logic of the text," as distinct from its semiotic
logic ("History,Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages," Speculum 65
[1990], 59-86). These newer and subtler oppositions between basic realities and imaginative constructions, for all their ingenuity, still manage to cut short the analysis of consciousness and the
process of interpretation.In each of these formulations,the historianis spared the trouble of penetratingthe labyrinthof the mind because the productionof consciousness is tracedback to phenomena that supposedlypossess self-evident causative implications.
120
JAYM. SMITH
To clarifywhatis it at stakein historians'use of experienceas an analyticalcategory, the article begins with a necessarily detailed discussion of Timothy
Tackett's approach to the concept in his influential book, Becoming a
Revolutionary."Because of the force and clarity of the argumenthe pursues,
Tackett'sanalysis of the developing conflicts between deputies to the National
Assembly in 1789-1790 can be used to exemplify the experientialturnthatmarks
muchrecentworkon the eighteenthcentury.Afteridentifyingthe problemsinherent in this new orientationtoward experience, the article offers an alternative
approachto the study of political consciousness, an interpretationderivedfrom a
close readingof the words, and mind, of a single participantin the revolutionary
drama,the lawyer Joseph-Michel-AntoineServan (1737-1807).
I. EXPERIENCEAS A SOURCE OF IDEAS:
THE EXAMPLEOF BECOMINGA REVOLUTIONARY
The ensuing discussion requires a preliminarydisclaimer.Although I focus on

what I considerto be an imperfectionof Becoming a Revolutionary,my purpose
is not to challenge the book's status as a landmarkwork. Becoming a Revolutionary stands as a monumentto careful research,and it performedthe overdue
task of putting people-rather than ideas, discourses, and cultures-back at the
centerof FrenchRevolutionarystudies.More specifically,Tackett'sbook provided a powerful empiricalchallenge to the common claim that nobles and wealthy
membersof the thirdestate formed a large and homogeneous elite on the eve of
the Revolution. He demonstrated,throughanalysis of incomes and careers, and
through the barbed comments of the deputies themselves, that differences in
materialconditionsand culturalperspectiveseparatedthe greatmajorityof noble
representativesfrom the great majorityof those representingthe thirdestate. At
the same time, he showed thatthe social animositiesdividingthe thirdestate from
the privilegedorderswere laced with uncertaintyand ambiguity.Forboth of these
reasons-his helpful reassessmentof the pre-Revolutionarymilieu the deputies
inhabited, and his emphasis on the unpredictability of the Revolutionary
moment-Tackett's evidence has added fuel to the many post-revisionistarguments being developed by others in the field, including my own.12 Becoming a
Revolutionaryhas been unanimouslypraisedby reviewers, it received a prestigious prize from the AHA, and it unquestionablydeserves its wide acclaim."3
11.TimothyTackett,Becominga Revolutionary:TheDeputiesof the FrenchNationalAssemblyand
the Emergenceof a RevolutionaryCulture(1789-1 790) (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1996).
12. See, for example, Jay M. Smith, "Social Categories, the Language of Patriotism, and the
Origins of the French Revolution: The Debate over Noblesse Commerqante,"Journal of Modern
History 72 (2000), 339-374, and "Recovering Tocqueville's Social Interpretationof the French
Revolution:Eighteenth-CenturyFranceRethinksNobility,"in Beyond Tocqueville:New Perspectives
on the Ancien Regime, ed. Robert Schwartzand Robert Schneider (Newark:University of Delaware
Press, 2002). both of which presentargumentsperfectly consistent with Tackett'sfindings.
13. The book received the Leo GershoyAwardin 1997 as the best book in early-modemwestern
Europeanhistory published in 1996. Among the many glowing reviews see, for example, those by
Gwynne Lewis, Times Literary Supplement(February28, 1997), 30; William Doyle, Journal of
ModernHistory 69 (1997), 852; Alan B. Spitzer,Annals of the AmericanAcademyof Political and
Social Science 566 (1999), 172; and SarahMaza, Journal of InterdisciplinaryHistory 28 (1997), 112.
121
One aspect of the book that requires close critical attention,however, is its
treatmentof the relationshipbetween consciousness and agency. In his introduction Tackett announced his frustrationwith the stale debate over whether the
Revolution had had "social" or "political" origins. The time had come, he
declared,to leave aside burdensomehistoriographicalagendasand "to focus ...
on the Revolutionaryexperience of the specific individualswho took partin and
embodied [the] Revolution. How did men and women become
Revolutionaries?"14Tackett explained that, because the book focused on the
rapidlychangingmentalityof the hundredsof deputieswho reportedto Versailles
in May, 1789, only to find themselves remakingthe nation a few weeks later,his
was essentially a study in collective psychology.
It follows, insofar as possible, the transformationof the deputies' values and mode of
thinking, . . . In so doing, however, it makes the assumptionthat cultureis 'produced'not
only throughintellectualexperience, but throughsocial and political experience as well,
and that it is impossible to understandhow individuals 'read' their world without a full
delineationof the contoursof their lives.15
In otherwords,Tackettaimed to providea balancedand measuredaccountof the

actual revolutionaryexperience, an account that would show why the revolutionariesbehaved as they did in the heat of the initial battles of the Revolution.
To many specialists, the tone of Tackett'sprose, and his evidently reasonable
objectives, came as a welcome change. In contrastto much of the work of the
1980s and early 1990s, which focused on semiotic systems, ideological constructions,and the many dimensionsof representation,Tackett'sanalysis seemed
to rest on straightforwardevidence and refreshing common sense. The initial
positive impressionis continuallyreinforcedby the author'sbecoming intellectual modesty and the painstakingresearchthatundergirdshis account.The attentive reader soon detects, however, that even Tackett's empirically grounded
argumentis rooted in a set of theoreticalsuppositions.By probingthose suppositions, especially as revealed in Tackett'sanalysis of the developing animosity
between noble and common deputies in the spring and summerof 1789, I hope
to demonstratethat his method of connecting experience to action actually
obscuresthe fundamentalcognitive processes that lie behind political choice.
The basis for Tackett's working assumptions about the nature of political
process can be found in his repudiationof discourseanalysis and the fully developed revisionism of the 1980s. In opposition to the now familiar argument,
advancedby FrangoisFuret and others, that the reign of Terrordeveloped logically and ineluctablyout of the Rousseauianrhetoricof the general will, Tackett
maintainedthatthe course of Revolutionaryevents, and the mentalitythat made
those events possible, grew out of political contingencies specific to the time.
Surveyingthe attitudesand early writingsof the third-estatedeputies who would
laterembraceRevolutionaryideals, Tackettobservedthat although"virtuallyall
were familiarwith some elements of the Enlightenment,. .. little evidence can
14. Tackett,Becoming, 7.
15. Ibid., 13.
122
JAY M. SMITH
be found before the Revolution of an oppositional ideology or 'discourse"';by

and large they were practicalmen who read law, history,and science, and had no
inclination toward "abstractphilosophy."16On the eve of the Revolution their
political culture "was shaped less by books and essays than by their concrete
17 They went on to make
political and social experience underthe Old Regime."
their ideological choices in light of "specific political contingencies and social
interactionswithin the Assembly and between the Assembly and the population
as a whole."18But how did these various "concrete"and "contingent"phenomena actually affect the thinkingof the deputies?Tackettaddressesthat question
by outlining a two-stage process of coming-to-consciousness, a process that
looks plausible only if one accepts the propositionthat experience happensoutside the mind and carriesinherentlyrecognizablemeanings.
Tackettunderstandablysees the Revolution as a transformativeevent, a radical break with what came before, but because of the analyticaltraditionagainst
which he is reacting-what Gruderhas called "the argumentof discourse"-he
is anxious to establishthatthe events of the Revolution were not inscribedwithin the political debates of the Old Regime.19Few of the future members of the
ConstituentAssembly, he writes, "hadanticipatedthe transformationsthat were
about to take place" when they convened at Versailles in May, 1789. "For the
great majority,it was only afterMay 5, in the extraordinarilycreativeprocess of
the Assembly itself, that a 'Revolution of the Mind' came about."20This argument comes perilously close to tautology-the revolutionariesare made revolutionaryby the revolutionthat they themselves are making-but Tackettnarrowly avoids the tautologicaltrapby evoking two differentkinds of experience, one
correspondingto what might be called social formation,the other to immediate
sensory perception.21The key to the process of causation in Tackett's analysis
lies in the convergenceof these two forms of experience, which become mutually reinforcingand thus culturallyproductive.
As one would expect, the formative aspects of experience occupy Tackett's
attentionin the chaptersdevoted to pre-RevolutionaryFrance. Judging from a
whole range of objective measures,the social backgroundsof the deputies representing the third estate differed markedlyfrom the social backgroundof the
privileged orders,and especially that of the nobility.Tackettbegins the book by
filling out the social profiles of the noble and commoner deputies-incomes,
careers,dowries, educationallevels, status,institutionalaffiliations-and he goes
16. Ibid., 14.
17. Ibid., 305.
18. Ibid., 76.
19. Gruder,"WhitherRevisionism?,"247.
20. Tackett,Becoming, 307.
21. Tackett'sbifurcatedtreatmentof experience is strikinglysimilar to Wilhem Dilthey's analytical distinctionbetween Erlebnis(which can be translatedroughlyas "immediatesensory experience")
and Erfahrung("knowledge gained from lived experience"), though Tackett makes no allusion to
Dilthey. For discussion of Dilthey's categoriessee Pickering,History,Experience,94-124; MartinJay,
"Experience without a Subject: Walter Benjamin and the Novel," New Formations: A Journal of
Culture/Theory/Politics20 (1993), 145-155; and Jay, "The Limits of Limit-Experience,"5-6.
123
on to assertthatthe respective social worlds establishedby those objective parameters instilled in the deputies distinctive values and habits of thought. After
assessing the backgroundsof the noble deputies, for example, Tackett places
emphasison their nearly universalattachmentto the military.
Even if a minorityof deputies had revolted against militaryvalues, the critical formative
years spent in the armedforces, from the mid-teens to the early twenties, invariablyhad
an impact.Trainingin swordplayand horsemanship,in militarydiscipline, in the ideals of
honor,hierarchicalcommand,and devotion to the king, all left a stampthat would clearly distinguishthe corps of the Second Estatefrom theircolleagues in the Commons.It was
an influencethat would strongly affect many membersof the Nobility in their fundamental assumptionsaboutthe natureof society and social relationships-despite the common
veneer of eighteenth-century urban culture which touched both Nobles and
Commoners.22
Tackettsees proof of this instinctive attachmentto the values instilled by experience in the political positions later articulatedby noble deputies, which reflected, he says, their "underlyingpolitical cultureand the military-aristocraticethos
which informedthat culture."23
The deputiesof the thirdestate looked less socially homogeneousthanthe representativesof the nobility, but Tackettargues that they, too, had come from a
distinctivemilieu that shapedtheir thinkingin subtle ways. More thanhalf came
from the legal profession, and at least two-thirds"hadprobablyreceived training
in the law."24Most were respectable propertyowners, and "a substantialand
influentialsegment of the deputies had acquiredpracticein collective politics at
the town, provincial, and even national levels."25For the most part these were
deliberate,practical,responsible men whose writings "alludedmore frequently
to historyand the classics, thanto reason and the general will or to Rousseau and
Voltaire."In fact, they later evinced little interest in the various strands of
Enlightenmentdiscourse, which seemed irrelevantto the "concrete problems
facing them in the Assembly."26At the outset of the Revolution, the deputies of
the thirdestate were conciliatoryand conservative-mindedreformers,not angry
firebrands.
Tackettsuggests, however, thatin some respectsthe experienceof living under
the Old Regime had preparedthe deputies of the third estate, at some vaguely
subconscious level, to pursue radical social transformationwhen the opportunity arose. Because they possessed a less exalted statusthan most membersof the
nobility in the pre-Revolutionarysocial hierarchy,and because their wealth,
thoughoften considerable,placed them well below the level of materialsplendor
enjoyed by great aristocrats,Tackettinfers that their lives involved "a potential
for frustrationand tension."Ambitiousin theircareers,and often desirousof possessing noble status for themselves or their progeny,many futuredeputies con22. Tackett,Becoming, 34-35.
23. Ibid., 136. Italics added.
24. Ibid., 36.
25. Ibid., 100.
26. Ibid., 65.
JAY M. SMITH
124
frontedin their daily routines the irreduciblesocial differences separatingthem

fromthe establishednobility.Tackettassumesthatawarenessof these differences
must have fostered discontent."Forsome individualdeputies [their]ambiguous
social standing had undoubtedlyengendered a sense of humiliation and anger
thatremainedclose to the surface."27
A "deep-seated"anti-aristocraticbitterness,
''engenderedby the social and legal system in which they lived," would affect the
political posture of representativesof the thirdestate in ways that most of them
did not anticipate.Feelings of jealousy, injustice, and bitternesswere "presentin
the hearts"of many deputiesof the thirdestate when they convened at Versailles
in May, 1789, and this bitterness "was to be a central element .
. in the emer-
gence of a revolutionaryconsciousness within that Estate at the beginning of

June 1789."28 Although Tackettfinds little evidence of revolutionaryconsciousness preceding the Revolution, a revolutionaryconsciousness sprang readily
from the frustratedminds of the thirdestate once political confrontationprovided the necessaryprovocation.
The experiencesassociatedwith theirrespective social formationshad imparted to the deputies of the second and thirdestates certainunderlyingattitudes-a
commitmentto honor and statusfor the nobles, largely unarticulatedresentment
for the commoners. But in Tackett's narrative,these attitudes hardened into
uncompromisingpolitical agendas only after the deputies enduredanotherkind
of experience in the spring and summerof 1789, namely, the protracteddebate
over voting proceduresin the assembly. Since the last weeks of 1788, liberals
from all the ordershad been arguingfor a symbolic mergerof the three estates,
common deliberationsin the assembly, and voting by head ratherthan by order.
All of these key proceduralissues had been left unresolved by the king, and
many deputies had hoped to reach a workable compromise at the opening sessions of the Estates-General.
Tackett emphasizes that the deputies of the third estate, despite their high
hopes, found themselves confrontinga "cultureof intransigence"on the part of
the nobility.29"ProvincialandParisian,titled and untitled,robe and sword,young
and old, the great majorityof all Nobles were aggressively hostile to the liberals
The political choic[of the Second Estate] and the position they represented."30
es of the noble deputies, Tackett writes, "were determinedless by inter-estate
rivalries than by the ideological positions and culturalvalues sharedby a great
The majorityremained"deeplyconvinced
many nobles at all levels in society.'"31
of their innate superiority."They were "stronglypenetratedwith a military,even
feudal sense of honor and duty."One even finds them referring"to models of
noble courage and chivalry from the past," and using a "chivalricvocabularyof
defending one's honor and proving one's loyalty to the king."32Offendedby the
27. Ibid., 46.
28. Ibid., 109-110.
29. Ibid., 132.
30. Ibid., 134.
31. Ibid., 133.
32. Ibid., 136-137.
125
constitutionalclaims of the third estate, and rallied by conservative spokesmen

such as D'Antraigues and Cazales, the great majority of the deputies of the
Second Estate stubbornlydefended the prerogativesof their order and rejected
what they regardedas unconstitutionalproceduralinnovations.
The deputies of the thirdestate, accordingto Tackett,felt frustrationand outrage in the face of the nobles' inflexibility.For some, the nobility's unexpected
obstinacyled to a "wrenchingexperience,entailingan agonizingre-evaluationof
a value system to which they had long acquiesced."For others, noble stubbornness "arousedlong-held sentimentsof animosity and resentment,feelings which
most had labored to suppress in the name of unity, in the pious hope that they
might now be regardedas equals."Tackettcontends that the deputies' frustrated
hopes released "a deep-seated revulsion for the years of condescension and
scorn"and producedan "all-consumingpassion"to win recognitionof the third
estate's rights.33In the first weeks of June, following a month of fruitless negotiations carried out by committees of the three orders, the third estate moved
rapidly to constitute itself as the nation's true representativeassembly. By the
morningof June 17, the deputiesof the thirdestate had voted overwhelminglyto
adopt the name "National Assembly" and to assume sovereign powers once
reservedfor the king. For Tackett,these firsttwo and a half weeks in Junerepresent a "dramatictransformation"in thinking,a revolutionarymoment"bornof a
complex convergence of factors, some long developing and rooted in the social
and culturalstructuresof the Old Regime and their consequenteffects on noblecommonerrelations,some relatedto the contingentlack of leadershipand to the
deputies' immediateexperience in the Estates-Generaland the actions and reactions of ThirdEstateand Nobility" in the weeks afterthe opening session of May
5.34 The converging lessons of experience ultimatelyproducedan awarenessof
irreconcilabledifferencesand set the thirdestate on an unanticipatedrevolutionary course.
For Tackett,then, the Revolution, and the antagonismsthat set it in motion,
should be seen not as a discursive event, but as an event born of experienceboth the long-term "social" experience of status, wealth, and career that had
shapedthe lives of the deputies,and the immediate"political"experienceof confrontationin 1789. For the nobles, theirtime in the schools and camps of the militaryhad left a "stamp,"made an "impact,"exercised an "influence"that,Tackett
believes, establishedfor them a kind of default ideology, a latent counter-revolutionaryconsciousness, thatthe political claims of the thirdestate in 1788-1789
inevitablyactivated.At the same time, the thirdestate's posturetowardthe noble
deputies in late May and early June reflected not so much "an intellectualposition" but "an instinctive and visceral antipathy"brought to the surface by the
deliberative process itself, which served to "crystallize and intensify social
antagonisms, making many deputies far more self-conscious of those antagonisms than ever before."35The revolutionaryconsciousness developed by the
33. Ibid., 144.
34. Ibid., 145, 147-148.
35. Ibid., 308.
126
JAY M. SMITH
third estate was a direct expression of immediate experience, a consciousness

reinforcedby half-suppressedmemories of earlierantipathies.
Historiansof eighteenth-centuryFrancenow agreethatthe phenomenaTackett
seeks to capture through his focus on experience, such as vocational training,
material comfort, status anxieties, and the give and take of political debate,
deserve more attentionthan they received in revisionist analysis afterthe 1970s.
Unfortunately,though,Tackett'scommitmentto experience as a discrete analytical category-a category comprising "concrete"matterthat stands apartfrom
discourses, ideologies, and ideas-drives him inevitably toward a dubious definition of consciousness. For Tackett,the function of consciousness is to record,
and eventually to distill, the meanings of experience. While merely recording
experience-that is, when the mind is assimilatingmore or less unreflectivelythe
externalrealitiesthat shape it- consciousness is partlysuppressedand manifests
itself primarilyin culture.When actuallydistilling experience-that is, when the
mind finally engages and pronouncesthe meanings derived from those external
realities-consciousness rises to the surface and leads to action.
Tackettcertainlyacknowledges the role of ideas in the developmentof a revolutionary consciousness, especially after the deputies passed the point of no
returnin June 1789.36But by emphasizingthe decisiveness of the experience of
political conflict, he necessarilyoverlooks the intricateinteriorprocess by which
the deputiesworkedthroughtheir ideas and values, thus enablingthem to assimilate the events of 1789, as well as earlier developments, to an evolving but
coherentpicture of the world. As Michael Oakeshottshrewdly observed, in his
classic work on experience and perception,experiences, whether they take the
shape of encounters, events, developments, or routines, do not present themselves to the apprehendingmind in splendidisolation, announcingtheirown significance and performingthe work of the decipheringeye. Experiences acquire
theirmeaning,andregistertheirexistence, only throughtheirincorporationwithin a larger world of related meanings, a world whose tenuous coherence and
unity dependson the active thinkingof the interpretingagent.37When people sort
throughthe individual strandsof word, deed, and encounterthat constitute the
fabric of their lives, they confrontthese phenomenanot as "concrete"materials
that renderjudgment unnecessary,but as half-formed impressions that emerge
over the conceptual horizon, dim silhouettes that achieve their definition only
through the process of filtering and ordering that necessarily characterizesall
thought. The key to uncovering the connection between consciousness and
agency lies not in the analysis of experienceper se, but in the processes of inter36. Tackett'ssecond chapterprovidesa survey of the variousintellectualinfluencesthathad helped
to shape the deputies' attitudesat the outset of the Revolution. But he suggests that the very "complexity and ambiguityof their outlook"preventedthem from being disposed in any particulardirection before the Revolution began. Only after the events of spring and summer 1789, he observes, did
referencesto the philosopher begin to appearin the writings of the deputies (63-64).
37. Michael Oakeshott, Experience and its Modes [1933] (Cambridge:Cambridge University
Press, 1966). "Judgmentand experience are inseparable;wherever there is judgment there is inference, and immediacy has given place to mediation.And the claim of sensation to be, on account of
its immediacy,a form of experience exclusive of thought,must be said to have failed" (17).
127
pretation that inevitably intersect the phenomena one regards as the subject's
experience.38To go where the action is, and to find the motors that drive historical change, the historianneeds to dissect the interpretivedispositionsthat determine how people engage, process, and learn from all that occurs in their lives.
The analytical instinct to derive thought from forces external to the subject,
such as discourse or experience, succeeds only in masking the creativity and
moral determinationthat characterizethe active human consciousness. Tackett,
for example, assumes that because the deputies had apparentlynot undergonea
previous "Revolutionof the Mind"that could be attributedto a particularideology, "discourse"is ruled out as an explanationfor their actions, leaving "social
and political experience"as the likeliest source for the third estate's impatience
in 1789. But this either-orchoice, which focuses one's attentionoutside the mind
of the subject, is misconceived. Interpretivedispositions are composed not of
discourses, but of constellationsof beliefs, ideas, and values that are often fragmented, disconnected, composite, and even contradictory.Unlike discourses,
which are defined by their structuralunity and which take shape only when an
outside observer abstractsthem from the processes of cognition and communication and reifies them for analytical purposes, interpretivedispositions are as
untidy and unfixed as any human interaction,despite the structuresthat frame
them. They are inherently dynamic and susceptible to change because they
reflect the multiple convictions and commitments on which the subject bases
his/her sense of self, as well as the disparatebeliefs and assumptionsthat inform
those commitments. People exercise agency during every "event" or "experience," including the fleeting and the random as well as the dramaticand the
enduring,because their interpretivedispositions shift to meet every contingency.
They refine their inclinations as their beliefs interact with the divergent and
unsettlingpotentialitiesof their world, creatinga desire for moral coherence and
the search for a new center of gravity in the layers of their consciousness. This
inescapably cognitive process reflects neither the instrumentaluse of putative
"discourses"nor the "instinctiveand visceral"reactions to supposedly unmediated experiences, but the subject's creative and ongoing reformulationof values
and priorities.
The revolutionaryargumentsof 1789 reflectednot a suddenpolitical awakening but the final, and momentous, rearrangementof conceptual resources long
familiarto both the deputiesto the Estates-Generaland theirconstituents.Tackett
38. Cf. StanleyFish's useful concept of "interpretivecommunities,"as developed in Is Therea Text
in this Class? (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1980). Fish's critics arerightthathe goes
too far in declaring that texts do not exist "priorto interpretation."Fish's interpretingsubject possesses a conceptual grid so coherentand self-replicatingthat it resists all challenges to its organizational principles,and thereforehas no real need for contact with a world outside itself. But the more
limited claim that emerges out of Fish's discussion, namely,that interpretiveassumptionsare always
inescapable,both for groups and for the individualswho comprise them, seems incontrovertible.For
on
critical discussion of Fish's concept of interpretivecommunities,see GeraldGraff,"Interpretation
Tlhn: A Response to Stanley Fish," New LiteraryHistory 17 (1985), 109-117, followed by a reply
from Fish, "Resistance and Independence:A Reply to Gerald Graff," 119-127. See also Robert
Scholes, TextualPower (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1985).
128
JAY M. SMITH
representsthe attitudesof the deputies on the eve of the Revolution as a product

of the Old Regime's "social and legal system,"a naturaloutgrowthof the "social
and cultural structures"of the age. For Tackett, the common deputies' angry
response to the nobility's defense of its prerogativeswas a sign of their resentment againstthe "condescensionand scorn"thathad characterizedtheirrelations
with the Second Estate for many years.39But can the "system"or "structure"of
the Old Regime really be creditedwith bestowing on futuredeputies of the third
estate the "pious hope" that they would soon be regardedas the equals of the
nobility?How so? Systems and structures,no matterhow hierarchical,are never
inherentlyunfair,and experienceof them thereforecannot simply be expected to
produceresentmentand indignation.What requiresclose attentionis the process
that, in some minds, had renderedobjectionablethe claims associated with the
existing social system. What had preparedthe thirdestate, or at least some of its
representatives,to construe the nobles' assertions of their social superiorityas
"condescension and scorn?" How, within the context of the traditionalsocial
order,did spokesmenfor the thirdestate ever come to believe thatthey were entitled to equality? If many members of the third estate had harboredfeelings of
"frustration,""humiliation,"and "animosity"towardthe nobility for years, why
had they not condemnedthe inequitiesof the system in greaternumbersand with
greaterfrequency before 1789? How can their lingering respect for the institution of nobility, which Tackett rightly emphasizes, be reconciled with their
impassioneddenunciationsof the society of ordersin 1789 and after?
To answerall of these questions adequately,one would need to rewritethe history of pre-Revolutionarypolitical consciousness in France-an objective far
beyond the scope of a journal article. In the pages that remain,however, I want
at least to begin the task of scrutinizingthe long-term thought processes that
enabled the futurerevolutionariesto envision peaceful and multilateralpolitical
reform, on the one hand, and to capture and articulatereasons for powerful
resentments,on the other hand. Especially pertinentto the dramaticconfrontations of the early Revolution are the diverse opinions concerninghierarchy,status, and the social order articulatedbetween roughly 1750 and 1789.40 These
opinions, expressed by many membersof both the second and thirdestates, and
writtenfor variouspurposes,make clear the contestationthatsurroundedthe idea
of nobility in the years leading up to the Revolution. The variety of the views
expressed, ranging from reactionaryassertions of noble power to bold affirma39. To supporthis account, Tackettcites many instances of bitternessand resentmenton the part
of the deputies.The deputy Jean-GabrielGallot, for example, adoptedan exceptionally stridenttone.
In a letter to his wife, he wrote of the noble deputies, "After their abominablebehavior,this noble
scum, with all their coats of arms, deserves to be humiliated"(109). The Lyon deputy Jean-Andre
P6risse Du Luc reportedconfrontingone of his fellow freemasons,a noble of conservativepolitical
persuasion,with the declarationthat "hereditarynobility was a political monstrosity"(110).
40. For indicationsof this fermentin social thought,see Smith, "Social Categories;"John Shovlin,
"Towarda Reinterpretationof RevolutionaryAntinobilism:The Political Economy of Honor in the
Old Regime",Journal of ModernHistory 72 (2000), 35-66; and Rafe Blaufarb,"Noble Privilege and
Absolutist State Building: French Military Administrationafter the Seven Years' War," French
Historical Studies 24 (2001), 223-246.
129
tions of the equality of all citizens, make it difficult to believe that the future
deputies to the Estates-General could have entered the period of preRevolutionaryturmoil utterly unawareof the potential for intransigenceon the
partof theirpolitical opponents.Yet the open-endedness,the conceptualfluidity,
and the multivalency of the proposals communicatedin the pre-Revolutionary
decades also suggest that the key issue that separatedthe deputies of the second
and thirdestates-the natureof the differencebetween noble and non-noble status-remained far from settled in most minds down to the early stages of the
constitutionalcrisis of 1788-1789. The events of 1789 were implicit in the political consciousness of the Old Regime, but it was only the acceleratedreevaluation of prioritiesand the refinementof varying structuresof belief, thatmade the
conflicts of that year finally unavoidable.
II. BALANCING IDEAS AND ENGAGINGTHE WORLD:
THE EVOLVINGMIND OF J.-M.-A. SERVAN
The writings of Joseph-Michel-AntoineServan provide an ideal point of entry

into the evolving political consciousness of the pre-Revolutionaryand Revolutionaryyears. On the one hand, his own political trajectoryin 1788-1789 seems
to exemplify the process chartedby Tackett.A champion of the constitutional
claims of the thirdestate, Servaninitially sought common groundwith the nobility before becoming embitteredin December 1788.41Angeredby what he clearly perceived as noble arrogance,he wrote a series of pamphletsfiercely critical
of the Second Estate in 1789, and he fully supportedthe revolutionaryinitiatives
in June of that year. In other words, the path Servan followed in "becoming"a
revolutionaryseems to have paralleledthat describedby Tackettin his analysis
of the deputies to the Estates-General.But on the other hand, the evidence illuminating Servan's life and mind in the years before 1788 makes it difficult to
attributehis radicalizationeitherto the experienceof his own social stationunder
the Old Regime or to the experience of political debate in 1788-1789. Although
Servan clearly identifiedwith the thirdestate, both as an authorand as a political figure, he actually came from a Dauphinois family of minor but securely
establishednobility.42As a respectedmagistratein the parlementof Grenoble,he
41. For an example of Servan's moderationbefore late 1788, see Petit colloque limnentaireentre
Mr.A et Mr. B. Sur les abus, le droit, la raison, les Etats-Giniraux, les parlements & tout ce qui
s'ensuit. Par un vieuxjurisconsulte allobroge (n. p., 1788). The interlocutorsof the pamphletappeal
to the conscience of both the First and Second Estates and remainhopeful that the.privileged orders
will see that the common interestdemands an end to fiscal abuses.
42. Servan'sfather,the owner of a modest seigneurie, sent his two sons into the customarynoble
professions of the law and the military.Despite being placed in the conventionalcareerpaths of the
socially ascendant,both Servan and his youngerbrother,Joseph Servande Gerbey,actually acquired
theirreputationsby the pen, calling for the enlightenedreformof theirown respectiveinstitutionsand
for the overall regenerationof Frenchsociety. Both became enthusiasticsupportersof the Revolution;
Servan de Gerbey would go on to serve as Ministerof Warin 1792. For background,see Biographie
universelle ancienne et moderne, ed. Joseph-FrangoisMichaud, 45 vols. (Paris: A. T. Desplaces,
1854-1865), 39: 139-142; Dictionnaire historique de la revolutionfrancaise, ed. Albert Soboul
(Paris:Presses universitairesde France, 1989), 981; DictionnaireNapoleion,ed. Jean Tulard,2 vols.,
130
JAY M. SMITH
would have enduredvery little condescension or scorn in his pre-Revolutionary

professionallife. Moreover,analysis of his intellectualevolution in the decades
priorto the Revolution shows that neitherthe ideas nor the passions to which he
gave voice in 1789 derived suddenly from the heat of unexpectedconflicts. The
political positions he articulatedin the early stages of the Revolution, though
clearly more radicalthan anythinghe had producedbefore, grew naturallyout of
the complex of ideas thathad filled his mind and exercised his attentionfor years.
He had earlierrefrainedfrom pushing the most anti-aristocraticimplicationsof
his moral assumptionsbecause those assumptionshad been convoluted and at
least partiallyconflicting.His decision to press for full political equality in 1789
reflected the subordinationof some of his beliefs, the reformulationof others,
and the envisioning of a new social world whose coherence demanded civic
equality.
To make sense of Servan's choices in 1789, one needs to understandhis
immersion in the moral debates and conceptual experimentationthat characterized the entire second half of the eighteenth century.Like many writers of the
1760s and 1770s, Servan sought a general moral reform of French society, and
this desire inspiredon his part sustainedcontemplationof the propercharacteristics of the citizen. Alarmedby the egoism, lassitude, and luxuryhe saw around
him, Servan tried to inspire patrioticfeeling in the French by encouragingthe
cultivationof privatevirtue. "Privatelife is a continuallesson in public life," he
wrote in his Discours sur les moeurs (Discourse on Morals) of 1769. Strikinga
distinctly Rousseauian chord, Servan asserted that the citizen who developed
sound personal habits inevitably would find that "his own heart is his legislator."43Servanhoped to use the mediumof print,and the "contagionof the imagination," to impress upon all well-intentioned men (the "honnetes gens") the
need for moral self-discipline and civic spirit.44He assumed that the revival of
moralrigorandFrenchpatriotismin a corrupteighteenthcenturyrequired,above
all, stellarexamples of rectitudeand selflessness thatreadersand citizens at large
could learn from and emulate.
Also like many of his contemporaries,Servan expressed great admirationfor
the exploits of patriotsfrom ancientGreece and Rome.45If one could only travel throughtime to visit the households of Aristides and Cato, true "sanctuariies]
of morals,"one could "contemplatethese great and virtuousmen" and cultivate
"the immortal desire of imitating them."46But Servan preferredto search for
(Paris:Fayard,1999), 2: 766; Dictionnaire Historique et Biographique de la Revolution et de
lEmpire, 1789-1815, ed. Jean-Frangois-EugeneRobinet, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairiehistorique de la
revolutionet de empire, 1899), 2: 749.
43. Joseph-Michel-AntoineServan, Discours sur les moeurs (Lyon: Chez Joseph-SulpiceGrabit,
1769).
44. Ibid. The audienceof "honnetesgens" is identifiedon p. 2; the "contagionof the imagination"
appearson p. 109.
45. For a useful discussion of the main features of classical republicanthinking in Old Regime
France, see Keith Michael Baker, "Transformationsof Classical Republicanism in EighteenthCenturyFrance,"Journal of ModernHistory 73 (2001), 32-53, esp. 35-42.
46. Servan,Discours sur les moeurs, 30-31.
131
good examples closer to home, on the principlethatfamiliarexamples command

greater attention. In spite of Montesquieu's assertion, widely repeated in the
decades that followed publication of the Spirit of the Laws (1748), that honor
and virtue representeddistinct and opposing moralprinciplesappropriateto different political systems, Servan's admirationfor ancientpolitical virtue directed
his attention especially toward the honor-boundFrench nobility of the later
Middle Ages. "In our history, if I were to choose the most glorious age for our
morals ... I would select ... the time from Charlesthe Wise to the braveFrancis
I. Those were the glory days of our valorous nobility, the days of that praiseworthy and brilliantchivalry,where an abundanceof virtues overshadowedour
faults." Nobles then possessed a "singularmelange" of characteristicsthat lent
their behavior"a certainindefinablenoble and virtuousqualitythat calls out for
It was no coincidence, according to Servan, that the fourteenth
admiration."47
throughsixteenth centurieshad given birthto reverednationalheroes. "Wethen
saw the Montmorency,the Chastillon,the Dunois, the La Tremoille,the Bayard,
the Brissac, the Soubise; names cherishedforever,true ancestorsof the nation."
Their inculcationof a code of honor that took precedence over all externallaws
or commands was especially commendable.Noble behavior,in that still uncultivated age, could not be regulated "except by honor." "The French genius,"
Servanintoned, "was in its virility; those were times of proudand generous sentiments."48 "The French spirit speaks to us throughour great men," he concluded, and the spirit they representedshould be studied and imitatedby all.49
Servan certainly did not see himself as an apologist or spokesman for the
nobility.In fact, the contemporarynobility never appearsin his text, neitheras a
distinct target within his expected reading audience nor as a subject of critical
commentary.He addressedhis moralprescriptionsto all "honnetesgens," and he
even went to the troubleof constructingallegoricallyan image of "politicalman"
that amalgamatedthe professions of commerce, the law, and the military.50
Servan admired the qualities representedby the nobility in its days of glory
because he believed that those qualities expressed a "Frenchgenius," a "French
spirit"that could serve as the basis for a generalpatrioticrenewal. By emulating
nobles who had once "caredonly for honor,"all citizens of the nation-or at
least, all literateand politically engaged citizens of the nation-could reconnect
to an authenticallyFrench and virtuous past, and thereby overcome the moral
depredationsof modem culture. In effect, Servan's invocation of the nation's
noble "ancestors"projecteda futurenobility without nobles, a spiritualnobility
comprisingall right-mindedcitizens who performedtheircivic andprivateduties
zealously and consistently.With respect and admiration,he appropriateda nearly forgotten"French"traditionof aristocratichonor and turnedit to nationaland
moralpurposesthat seemed to transcendboundariesof class.
47. Ibid., 34, 37.
48. Ibid., 37-38.
49. Ibid., 83.
50. Ibid., 59-60. For furtherdiscussion of Servan's rhetoric, see my "RecoveringTocqueville's
forthcoming.
Social Interpretation,"
132
JAYM.SMITH
The implicit contrast, in Servan's thinking, between the spiritual nobility

acquiredthroughcivic virtues and the legal nobility acquiredby birth or titles
emerges more clearly in a text writtenroughly a decade after the Discourse on
Morals. In the latertext, a Discourse on the Progress of HumanKnowledgepresented to the Academy of Lyon in 1781, Servancontinuedto emphasizethe need
to form virtuous and patriotic citizens. His discussion of what he called "the
apprenticeshipof the Citizen" differed in subtle ways, however, from the arguments advancedin the Discourse on Morals. Good examples and conscious emulation of those examples still stood out as the indispensable ingredientsof the
moraleducationof the citizen, but Servanalso drew attentionto the mechanisms
of recognitionand recompensethat are necessary to sustainthe citizen's emulation over time. "Ina state,"he wrote, "theartof makingmen is also that of offering merit its just rewards."But "whathave we done in France?We have sought
to purchasewith gold what we should have rewardedwith a glance of recognition; [consequently,]the statehas exhaustedits treasury,andqualitiesof heartare
debased."51Servan applaudedthe king's decision to commission public statues
of some of France's greatest men-he specifically identified the noble writers
and jurists Fenelon, l'Hopital, d'Aguesseau, and Montesquieu-because the
building of public monumentsrevived a highly effective Roman practice.52The
ancientshad shown that"a greatcharacter,afterobservinga [heroon a] pedestal,
can no longer remain bound to the earth;he must raise himself to that higher
level, or die trying."53Servan feared, however, that the king's efforts would not
bear fruit unless the governmentdeveloped a more general strategyfor rewarding patrioticemulation.
Withinthe context of this broaddiscussion of patriotism,selflessness, and the
propermeans of rewardingthem, Servaneventuallybroachedthe relatedsubjects
of law and nobility."Oh,if only all respectablemen (gens de bien) could rely on
a body of laws that provide recompense for virtue! But where are these laws?"
Servan noted the other common subdivisions of jurisprudence,such as martial
law, canon law, and criminallaw, and he expressed exasperationat the absence
of what he termed"remunerativelaw."
Imagine! One has to create a name for the most noble subject of human legislation! We
have neitherthe word nor the thing.All across Europewe have signs and colors thatprove
that a man was born into the Nobility; we have others that prove that he served in the
army;we have othersthatprove nothingat all. But by what signs, what marks,do we recognize the enlightened zeal of the ecclesiastic, the vigilance and integrity of the magistrate,the heroic valor of the soldier,the good faith of the merchant,the industryof the artisan, the talent of the artist?
The legal marks of nobility-parchments,
titles, epaulettes-were
always
clear and, moreover, frequently meaningless. Other "gens de bien," however, fell
51. Servan, Discours sur le progre'sdes connoissances humainesen general, de la morale, et de
la legislation en particulier; lu dans une Assemblie publique de l'Acadjmie de Lyon (n. p., 1781),
109-110.
52. Servan,Discours sur le progris, 111.
53. Ibid., 109.
133
into a vast and undifferentiatedcrowd, where "all meritis obscured,happymerely to escape persecution,happierstill to avoid extinction."54Yet in spite of the
flaws in the currentsystem, Servanreportedthathe could "hearthe humanheart
cry out from all directions:Look at me, and I will do well; praise me, and I will
do better." Servan argued that the king, if he wished to command "citizens"
ratherthanmere "subjects,"must managecarefullythe signs of public esteem so
thatgenuine merit and civic virtueswould receive the encouragementand recognition they needed. By dispensing official honors widely, conspicuously, and
fairly,the king would inspirein his subjectsa "deliriousenthusiasm"and help to
provide "publicinstruction"in the virtuesof citizenship.That last point deserved
emphasis, because "good public education"was "the only plank left amid the
universalshipwreckof morals"confrontingFrenchsociety.55
The Discours of 1781 can be seen as an elaborationof ideas first expressed in
the Discours of 1769. The ultimateobjective of both texts is to reformboth individual morals and the broaderpolitical cultureof the eighteenthcentury.Servan
hoped to replace luxury and egoism with civic spirit and virtue, and to that end,
he used both of his texts to highlightappropriateobjects of emulationfor the conscientious citizen-ancient patriots,statuesof greatmen, and the heroic and honorable nobility of earlier centuries. In both of his discourses, moreover,Servan
looked past the standardcategories of profession or estate to address all rightminded citizens, the "honnetesgens" in 1769, the neglected "gens de bien" in
1781. In short, the purposes and general characteristicsof the moral reformthat
Servancravedchangednot at all between 1769 and 1781; the two discoursesdiffered only in the techniquesof reformthat they recommended.In 1769, Servan
had encouragedself-examinationand patrioticintrospection.56By 1781, he had
become persuadedthat the "contagionof the imagination"on which he had earlier based his hopes also needed structuralreinforcement.Individualgood will
and initiative remained important,but the monarchy'smethods of recognizing
excellence had to change to accommodatethe broad imperativeof forming virtuous and patrioticcitizens. Whereasthe Discourse on morals worked from the
groundup by urging readersto strive for a nobility of virtue in their own lives,
the Discourse on theprogress of humanknowledgeworkedfrom the otherdirection and urged the crown to acknowledge formally the demonstratedspiritual
nobility of the patriot.
Given his penchantfor inclusive rhetoric,and his own apparentability to craft
a kind of hybridmoralidentity,how should Servan'scontributionsto the debates
of 1789 be understood?Although he had previously shown no overt hostility
54. Ibid., 107.
55. Ibid., 124-125.
56. Moral self-relianceis one of the overridingthemes of the Discours sur les moeurs.After detailing the plentiful evidence of modern corruption, Servan lamented that "all the wisdom of the
Governmentis powerless in the face of evils so great. How unjustwe are! We accuse those who govern us [of moralfailure], and yet we fail to see that their faults are our own" (52). He had opened the
discourseby distinguishingmorals [moeurs]from mere positive law, which he claimed had only limited effects on behavior."Morals,"he wrote, "are the true foundationof the prosperityof Empires;
morals can accomplish anything,even without laws, but laws without morals can do nothing"(2).
134
JAY M. SMITH
toward the Second Estate, his writings of the "pre-Revolution"established an

unmistakableand uncharacteristicrhetoricaloppositionbetween the nobility and
commoners.In one piece he identifiedhimself, with mock humility,and a certain
disingenuousness,as a "mere bourgeois."57Another essay bore the title "commentaryof a commoner."58Several pamphletsdecried the "dangerousaristocracy" of the high nobility and magistracy.59In a pamphletthat addressedthe political interestsof the thirdestate, he expresseddisdainfor "thosewho dareto scorn
you."60Servan's steady stream of anti-aristocraticrhetoric in 1789 no doubt
helps to explain why he was chosen by two different electoral districts of
Dauphine to representthe third estate of his province at the coming EstatesGeneral,an honorhe politely declined.6'Whatexplains the change in tone? Were
Servan's fighting words producedby the shock of political conflict? His pamphlets certainly commented on and responded to dramaticevents, such as the
declarationsof the second Assembly of Notables, and the Parlementof Paris's
announcementof its supportfor the Notables' conservativeconstitutionalarguments.62 If one focused strictly on the apparentpolitical dynamics of the year
1789, one could well interpretServan'sheated rhetoricas reflectinga change of
consciousness broughtaboutby stunningevents and unanticipatedexperiences.
But just as Servan'scritiqueof Frenchlaws in 1781 had reflectedhis specific
and personal preoccupationwith the challenge of cultivating citizenship in an
age of corruption,so his interventions in the constitutional debates of 1789
reflectedthe fermentationand evolution of his own thoughtson the political and
social order.Some of the vocabularyemployed in his argumentsmay have been
provided by the immediate issues that framed the conflict-"aristocracy" and
"commoners,""despotism"and "abuses"-but the perspectivecommunicatedin
Servan's pamphlets was perfectly consistent with, and had obviously grown
from, attitudeshe had expressed consciously in earlieryears. To be sure, tension
had been evident in those earlierreflections.He had praisedthe "nobility"while
also stressing the universal category of the "citizen;"he admired aristocratic
honor at the same time thathe urgedthe recoveryof virtueand "antiquemorals;"
he acknowledgedthe legitimacy of traditionalhonorific marks even as he recommendedthe creationof new distinguishingmarksto rewardthe merits of all
subjects.63Servan had been able to balance these distinct and potentially conflicting ideas because of his faith in the common moralgroundthatlinked the traditions of the nobility to the aspirationsof all right-thinkingsubjects of the third
57. Glose et Remarquessur l'Arret du Parlement de Paris, du 5 decembre 1788 (London:n. p.,
1789), 5.
58. Commentaireroturier,sur le noble Discours adresse, par Monseigneurle prince de Conti, a
Monsieur,frere du Roi, dans l'Assemnblee
des Notables de 1788 (Paris:H6tel de Conti, 1789).
59. See Glose et Remarques,9; Commentaireroturier, 12.
60. Avis salutaire au TiersEtat. Sur ce qu'ilfut, ce qu'il est, & ce qu'il peut etre (n p., 1789), 27.
61. Michaud, Biographie universelle, 39:140. Servan penned a total of seventeen pamphlets in
1788-1789, all of them sympatheticto the claims of the ThirdEstate.The pamphletsaredistinguished
from one anothermainly by their level of vitriol.
62. See, for example, both Commentaireroturierand Glose et Remarques.
63. On his admirationfor "antiquemorals,"see Discours sur le progre's,125.
135
estate. From the transcendentideals of patriotism, he evidently hoped, there

would ultimately spring a new kind of universal nobility, one rooted in the
virtuesof citizenship and differentiatedinternallyonly by the honorificemblems
of patrioticzeal.
In the fall of 1788, the Second Estate's gradualarticulationof a more exclusive and traditionaldefinitionof nobility, one that preservedthe corps's legal as
well as its symbolic superiority within the French social order, contradicted
Servan'sevolving conception of the propercomposition of a patrioticcommunity. Consequently,Servan felt impelled to iron out the apparentlyirreconcilable
commitmentsin his developing conceptualscheme. Recognizing the limits of the
nobility's fraternalembrace of its patrioticbrethren,Servanreprisedand elaboratedone of the subordinatethemes of his earlierwork;he now foregroundedthe
negative moral consequences that arose from the existence of a nobility whose
institutionrested on mere legal formula.
The decrees of the Parlementand the Assembly of Notables, as well as the
recent agitation in provinces such as Brittanyand Languedoc, had shown that,
although "nobles are common, nobility is quite rare."64The position of the
majorityof the nobility since the parliamentarydecree of September25, 1788that the Estates General must convene in accordancewith the "ancientforms"
that gave preeminenceto the privileged orders-invited Servan's returnto the
importantsubjectof Frenchand aristocratichistory.His remarkssoundedechoes
from his earlierwritings."If the greatlords of the clergy,of the sword, and of the
robe cling obstinately to their demand for an Estates-Generalaccording to the
ancient forms, the Third Estate, for its part, may very well demand Bishops,
Magistrates,and Gentilshommesconsistent with ancientforms. From the nobility, they will expect men such as Duguesclin, Dunois, and Bayard; from the
Parlements,they will expect Cuquieres,d'Orgemont,Lavaquerie,l'Hopital ...
all of whom," he noted sarcastically, "observed ancient forms." Servan's
rehearsalof this rosterof Frenchheroes betrayedhis recent mental effort to reconcile the principlesof honor and virtue and to recuperatefor modernuses past
examples of noble patriotism.Believing thathe had found submergedin France's
noble history the foundations of a unifying and universal civic ethos, he
inevitably regardedthe Second Estate's own appeal to tradition as a narrow,
faulty, and selfish reading of the nation's past. He expressed surprise that the
nobility would opt for an interpretationof political history that violated its own
interests,properlyunderstood,in additionto those of the nation at large. If one
looked beyond the ancient forms that governedpast meetings of the Estates and
observedthe "ancientand eternalforms of integrity,public virtue,and social justice Uusticeparticuliere]," the nobility would happily find itself liberatedfrom
the dominationof wicked ministers, and the people would find itself enjoying
"the sacredrights of man and of the citizen."65
64. Servan, Commentaireroturier,38.

65. Ibid., 32-33.
JAYM. SMITH
136
As Servan articulatedhis new political stance, his mind continued to pivot

aroundthe concept of the citizen. The existence of the "citizen,"whose moral
formationhad occupied Servan'sattentionfor decades, now served as the underlying premisefor his critiqueof noble privilege and exclusivism. Counteringthe
nobility's argumentsfor retainingand even strengtheningthe society of orders,
Servandeclaredthat it is "only the Orderof the Citizen that forms the state and
sustains it."66Commonershad only to become conscious of their moral worth
and of the rights to which their moral worth entitled them. In the past, he noted,
"certaindisdainfulpeople, wearing swords, told you that you were not men, and
you believed it; they claimedthatthey were more thanmen, and you believed it."
People of the third estate had been taught to regard themselves as "serfs . . . vil-
lagers, peasants, laborers,bourgeois, or, as the men of quality like to say, the
lower sort. Citizens we [were] not."The time had arrivedto recognize that "you
are citizens, gentlemen of the third estate, in spite of yourselves, in spite of the
men of quality, and in spite of Jean-Jacques,who saw citizens only in Plato's
Republic, or in his own [republicof Geneva.]"67At the collective level at least,
the "apprenticeshipof the Citizen"had evidently come to an end, and members
of the third estate stood ready to assume the patriotic roles that the nation
assigned them.
Subtly inverting the argumentof the Discourse on Morals, which had suggested that the path to virtuouscitizenship lay in the emulation of the historical
nobility, Servannow assertedthat noble status necessarilyrested on the anterior
virtues of the citizen. When confrontedwith the arrogantclaims of the nobility,
he advised his readersamong the thirdestate, "do not hesitate to ask the nobility if [noble status]can have any legitimateorigin otherthanthe civil virtues;ask
next what privileges derive from the civil virtues, and if one of these privileges
consists of the right to harmthe state."The nobles now needed to hear common
citizens utterthat "sweet and powerful word, equality,the cry of reason andjustice....
[Tell them] that without equality, all morality is a chimera, and justice
is nothingbut an insolubleproblem."68
The equalitythathad implicitly unitedall
"honnetesgens" in the Discourse on Morals, an equality that had placed honor
and moral excellence theoreticallywithin the reach of all, had now to become a
formal featureof Frenchpolitical culture.Servanhastenedto add, however, that
the third estate should specify the natureof the equality it claimed. "Point out
that you are asking not for an equality of conditions, wealth, power, or honors
that would be incompatiblewith monarchy.... Note that the equality you claim
is only an equality of rights."69 Here Servan surprisingly combined a
Rousseauian recognition of natural rights with a Montesquieuianrespect for
monarchicalforms, a gesture that could easily be construedas a tactical maneuver designed to placate sympatheticreaderswithin the Second Estate.
66. Ibid., 34-35.
67. Servan,Avis salutaire, 2-3.
68. Ibid., 29-30.
69. Ibid., 29.
137
But more than mere political strategy, Servan's qualification of the third
estate's claims to equality seemed to express nervous second thoughtsaboutthe
radicalcourse that he and otherswere now proposing.To justify "becomingrevolutionary,"the deputies and voters of the thirdestate would need simultaneously to show a capacityto "become"citizens, and Servanwas unableto expel from
his mind nagging doubts about the quality and effectiveness of the preliminary
"apprenticeshipof the citizen" that his fellow patriotshad served. His exhortation to the thirdestate to claim its rights as equal citizens came laced with apprehensions about its moral preparedness.The occasionally shrill rhetoric that he
directedagainstthe nobility seems to have been intendedless to relieve pent-up
hatredsthanto arousethe thirdestate to self-consciousness ("Awakenfrom your
thousand-year lethargy . . ."), and to inspire the passion and moral determination
requiredof the properly patriotic citizen.70Still persuadedby his own earlier

argumentthat the citizen's moral disposition matteredmore than the specific
laws that governed the polity, Servan concluded his Avis salutaire au TiersEtat
(SalutaryAdvice for the ThirdEstate) with warnings about the stiff moral challenges confrontinghis readers."Inmost governments,men can be neitherentirely free nor entirely enslaved; when [men] evince sufficientcourage to fight their
servitude,they still lack the virtues necessary for liberty.The reform of morals
must always precede, or at least accompany,the reformof laws. To provide a liberatingconstitutionto a corruptedpeople is like lowering anchorfar from shore
and into a bottomless sea."71Servan's trepidationconcerning the sudden establishment of civic equality, and his willingness to envision some version of an
inequality of "conditions,"undoubtedlyreflected his lingering affinity for the
concept of a spiritual nobility, one that could express and exemplify patriotic
virtues,establish a widely advantageousobject of emulation,and enjoy deserved
marksof public recognition.
This assumptionaboutthe justice and utility of the concept of nobility, which
even included an abidingrespect for the chivalric traditionsof aristocraticfamilies, helps to explain why Servanhimself had probablylong harboredthe "pious
hope" that the second and third estates might eventually reach a patrioticcompromiseregardingthe foundationsof the social andpolitical order.Servanwould
have been well awarethat, ever since the 1750s, a great many noble writersand
reformershad defined themselves as patriots,identifiedwith the virtues of citizenship, and sought new ways to reconcile the traditionsof the Frenchmonarchy
with ancient civic models and a more inclusive national spirit.72Servan, and
70. Ibid., 27. Referringto the feudal past, Servan remindedhis common readersthat "you were
bound and gagged by men who styled themselves great barons, [men] who violated your daughters,
caressedyour wives, emptiedyour stores of wine, and pillaged your harvest,afterfirsttramplingyour
fields with their packs of hounds"(11).
71. Servan,Avis Salutaire, 32.
72 .For examples of the creative thinkingof nobles of the sword, see Victor de Riquetti,marquis
de Mirabeau,L'Amides Hommes;ou, Traitjde la population (Avignon:n. p., 1756); Charles-Gaspard
Toustainde Richebourg,Pr&is historique,moral et politique sur la noblessefran oise (Amsterdam:
Chez Marc-MichelRey, 1777); GuillaumeBarthezde Marmorieres,Nouveaux essais sur la noblesse
(Neuchatel:Soci&t6Typographique,1781); Louis Gabrieldu Buat-Nanqay,Eliments de la politique,
138
JAY M. SMITH
many otherslike him, must have assumedthat the articulationof a shareddefinition of patriotismin 1788-1789 would eventually produce a more fluid, more
edifying, and more mutually acceptable social order reflecting the values and
aspirationsof all conscientious nobles and commoners.
But the fermentationof patrioticthinkingin the decades before the Revolution
had simultaneouslyopened several new vistas to the self-styled patriots of the
reformingOld Regime. Some of those vistas had reserved an importantrole for
a reinvigoratedcorporatenobility,one thatwould drawpurposefullyfrom its distinctive traditionsto institute the ultimate model of moral excellence and to
encourageall royal subjectsto performthe duties specific to theirproperspheres.
Takingas theirprimetargetsthe destabilizingeffects of luxury,the reflexive pursuit of profit,and the decline of Frenchself-discipline, these patrioticvisionaries
shared much in common with advocates of more expansive reforms, including
Servan.73But despite the existence of this common ground,the decision of the
Second Estate (or at least its leading spokesmen) to espouse a conservative and
limiting version of patriotism,one that constructeda far narrowerbridge linking
chivalric honor to modem virtue, prompted Servan to conclude that "without
equality, all morality is a chimera."Interpretingthe nobles' apparentretrenchment as an unfortunatebetrayalof common patrioticobjectives, he exercised his
agency in 1789 by giving priorityto the objective of equal opportunity,and by
partially suppressing, at least temporarily,his conceptually troubling commitment to the existence of a moral nobility.74Servan had come to realize, through
a dialectical realignmentof his beliefs concerningjustice and community,that
formalrecognitionof the inherentworth and dignity of the "citizen"stood as the
sine qua non of meaningful political reform.
III. IDEAS AND THE EXERCISEOF AGENCY:
LESSONS FROMTHE FRENCHREVOLUTION
What does the case of J.-M.-A. Servan reveal about the emergence of a revolutionary consciousness in 1789? And why is his story instructivefor those seekou recherchedes vrais principes de l'iconomie sociale, 6 vols. (London:n. p., 1773); and PhilippeAuguste de Sainte-Foix,chevalierd'Arc, La noblesse militaire,opposc'ea La noblesse commerCante:
Ou le patriotefranCais(London:n. p., 1756).
73. "Patriotic"plans sympatheticto the corporateclaims of the nobility can be found in Toustain
de Richebourg, Pricis historique; Buat-Nanqay, Eliments de la politique; and the comte
d'Antraigues, Discours prononci par le comte d'Antraigues, depute aux Etats-Generauxdans la
Chammbrede la noblesse le 11 mai 1789 (n. p., n. d.).
74. For furtherevidence thatServan'sargumentsin 1789 reflectedonly a rearrangementof existing
priorities,and not a spontaneoustransformationof consciousness, one need only look to later developments. Servan's enduringinclinationto search for conceptualcommon groundbetween the commoner and the noble helps to explain why later, in the spring of 1790, he found himself denying the
"democratic"intentionsof writerssuch as Rousseau,Mably,and Voltaire,and simultaneouslyfending
off the stigmatizinglabel of aristocrat. See two anonymous pieces attributedto Servan: Seconde
Lettrea M. Rabaudde St.-Etienne,sur la raison et la logique. Par un aristocrat sans le savoir (n. p.
Par un aristocrats sans le
n. d.), 36, 39; TroisiemeLettrea M. Rabaudde St.-Etiennesur l'humanitW.
savoir (n. p. n. d.), 3-4. By 1792, Servanhad become so disillusionedby the course of the Revolution
that he went into exile in Switzerland, returningonly in 1802 after making his peace with the
Napoleonic regime. See Tulard,DictionnaireNapoljon, 2: 766.
139
ing new approachesto the study of humanagency? For specialists of the French
Revolution and for historiansin general, Servan's personaljourney throughthe
world of eighteenth-centurypolitical thought highlights the explanatoryinadequacies of two frayed arrowsin the historian'squiver,the terms experience and
discourse. Servan's anger towardthe institutionof the nobility, an institutionto
which he afterall technicallybelonged, cannotbe ascribedto his having suffered
throughthe fractioussocial relationsbetween estates underthe Old Regime. And
analysis of the perceptionsand convictions that Servan broughtwith him to the
crisis of the "pre-Revolution"proves thatthe componentsof his egalitarianpolitical argumentshad taken shape in his mind well before 1788-1789 and the conflicts over voting procedures in the Estates-General.The decisive factor in
Servan'sown revolutionaryitinerarywas not the natureof his "social and political experience,"but the various ideas with which he assigned meaning to the
experienceshe assimilatedto his pictureof the world.
In assessing the words and deeds of Servan, one finds that discourse works no
betterthan experience as an explanatorydevice. Withinthe voluminous writings
of Servan,one sees traces of many alleged discourses, including those of classical republicanism, aristocratic constitutionalism, anti-commercial moralism,
enlighteneddespotism, Voltaireanrationalismand tolerance, and the Rousseauian generalwill. But none of these putativediscoursesexercised hegemonic control over Servan'sthinking,and the logic of his political outlook dependedon his
own orderingof prioritiesratherthan on premises supplied by already existing
discursive structures.Arguments by Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Mably,
Beccaria, Mirabeaupere, and many others certainly influenced Servan's thinking, but the range of his reflectionswas not limited to the numberof discretediscourses available on the eighteenth century's intellectual menu. He combined,
dismantled,expanded,and modifiedthe ideas of thephilosophes for reasons specific to his own moral conscience and evolving sensibilities. The concept of discourse is not sufficiently agile to shed light on the inner operationsof Servan's
mind;nor can it capturethe moraldeterminationthatinspiredhis work both as a
thinkerand as a political agent.
Servan's path to a revolutionaryconsciousness is best understoodin light of
the diverse, multi-faceted,and not always fully formed ideas that he broughtto
bear in his interactions with the events that crowded his conscience and his
world. Like most people in most phases of their lives, Servan had simultaneous
commitmentsto many ideas, including some thatcould prove to be incompatible
within certain kinds of contexts. Moved by a perception of moral decline and
nationalmalaise-a perceptionthathad undoubtedlybeen producedby an earlier chain of ideas and moraldecision-makingbeyond the purviewof this articlefor decades before the Revolution, Servanhad promoteda cultureof citizenship,
envisioned a system that grantedequal access to honor, and contemplatedthe
redefinitionof nobility. His developing political philosophy contained a tradition-tingedimage of moral hierarchy,which he understoodto be both useful and
necessary to any healthy political culture, and a longing for a fraternalform of
140
JAY M. SMITH
civic equality, which he considered prerequisiteto the patriotic renewal that

Francedesperatelyneeded. Servan had little troubleholding some semblanceof
these distinct ideas in harmoniousbalance until the shifting context of political
argumentchallengedhim to refine and reiteratehis beliefs.
When in 1788 the nobility claimed the right to retain at least some of its formal privileges in the social and political order,Servan reprocessedhis working
assumptions.Thanksto his own priorreflections,and to the wide-rangingpublic
discussions in which he had previouslybeen engaged, he was preparedto assimilate the nobility's claims to a networkof ideas that made clear the implications
of aristocraticparticularismfor the prospects of moral reform in France.Those
aristocraticclaims, thoughthey were articulatedaroundmany of the same points
of reference cherishedby non-noble reformers,failed to correspondwith some
of the expectations that Servan had integrated into his semi-coherent moral
vision. Now sensing counter-productivepotentialin some of the ideas to which
he had long been attached,Servan exercised agency by deciding what mattered
most to him and by thereforeacting on the world with a newly clarifiedsense of
moral purpose.Workingthroughthe familiarcategory of the citizen, and drawing on resourcesalreadypresentin his mind, he expandedandpromotedthe egalitarianimplicationsof his patrioticdesires, while downplaying, and even vehemently reversing,the implicit aristocraticsympathiesalso integralto his earlier
political vision. Having filteredthe confrontationof estates throughthe complex
of ideas that he had used to make sense of the existing social and political order,
Servan outgrew one interpretivedisposition and salvaged from its remains the
resourcesappropriateto another.According to the terms of this new disposition,
claims to legal distinctivenesswere necessarily rejectedas a selfish and unpatriotic affrontto the inherentdignity of all Frenchcitizens.
Because of his intellectual sophistication,his impressive literaryoutput, and
his enjoyment of a kind of "dual citizenship" straddlingthe Second and Third
Estates, Servan can hardly be taken as a representativefigure of the Revolutionarygeneration.But his atypicalstatusdoes not mean thatthe trajectoryof his
changing consciousness lacks general significancefor the history of eighteenthcenturyFrance.Because they were dialecticallyengaged with the kinds of shared
categories that structurelife in any community,Servan'sreflectionswere necessarily intersubjectiveas well as subjective.In fact one may reasonablyconclude
that,for both Servanand for the readerswho absorbedandrespondedto his writings, his ideas could be construedas having moral importprecisely because of
theirbearingon the natureof social relationsin France.Much evidence suggests
that the kinds of social, moral, and political concernsthat occupied Servanfrom
the 1760s to the 1780s-the role of the nobility, the meaning of citizenship, the
relationshipbetween honor and virtue,the relative merits of ancient and modern
political cultures,the characteristicsof a specifically Frenchpatriotism- attracted the attentionof countless writersandreadersin the years precedingthe French
Revolution.5 The generalprocess by which Servannegotiatedthe passage from
75. I hope to communicatesome of the intensityof these concerns in a forthcomingbook on conceptions of patriotismin eighteenth-centuryFrance.
141
pre-Revolutionaryto Revolutionarymodes of thoughtmust have been replicated

in the minds of hundredsor thousands,if not hundredsof thousands,of French
subjects who innocently yearned for a more just and equitable world. Needless
to say, the kinds of conceptualcompromisesmade by other individualsin other
milieus may have differed significantly from those of Servan. But the rich and
complex case of this exceptionally thoughtfulDauphinoislawyer helps to delineate the cognitive space out of which incipient Revolutionaries collectively
derivedtheir political agency. To explain the shape of the Revolution createdby
the contingencies of 1788-1789-to understand,for example, why representatives of the ThirdEstate moved from expressions of admirationand awe for the
nobility toward impassioned denunciation of all the Second Estate's pretensions-one must examine the intricate relationships and multiple dynamics
inherentin the complex of ideas embracedby the deputies at the outset of the
Revolution.As the individualcase of Servandemonstrates,their agency consisted in the resolutionof the conflictingmoralprioritiesthatmediatedbetween their
ideas and their world.
A brief word should be said about one of the conceivable objections to the
approachadvocatedin this article-namely, thatit limits historicalanalysisto the
studyof intellectuals.An approachemphasizingprocessesof moralreasoningand
the play of ideas will inevitablydirecthistoricalattentiontowardintellectualsand
other elites who leave behind a reservoirof writtenevidence providingclues to
the operationof their minds. But this path of least resistanceis not the only path
open to those who would investigatethe sources of historicalagency.As numerous social and cultural historians have shown over the past generation, the
resourcefulhistorianhas the capacityto discernbeliefs, ideas, and values in evidence that does not take immediatewritten form-for example, in rituals, gestures, songs, customs, acts of resistance, court testimony,police investigations,
and associationallife. Throughjudicious use of inferenceand induction,one can
profile the likely principlesand operatingassumptionsof both collective entities
and relatively inarticulateindividuals. By using a wide array of clues onceremoved from the subject,and by avoiding the reifying temptationbuilt into the
labels "mentalities"and "world views," the historiancan infer the existence of
supple structuresof belief, attemptto trace their evolution over time, and make
reasonable assertions regarding the connections between belief, thought, and
action. In any case, the difficultiesof ascertainingthe thinkingor motivationsof
subjects who leave behind little writtenevidence, though frustratingand disappointing,does not justify the historian'sresortingto the anonymousand mysterious force of "experience"to accountfor agency or social change. It is far better
to admithonestly the limits of historicalknowledge thanto ask readersto accept
on faiththe mentalimpactsupposedlyexertedby forces outsidethe self. Attention
shouldbe focused not on experience,but on the composition,and decomposition,
of the interpretivedispositionsthat inevitablyframehistoricalagency.
The historian should conceive of an interpretivedisposition as a set of disparate beliefs and assumptions whose cumulative effect produces a general
142
JAY M. SMITH
moral sense and a particularview of the world.76But because one's moral sense
is never fixed, monolithic, or immune to transformationfrom within, one's
understandingof justice can be tested when interlocutorswith whom one shares
certain premises and organizing concepts make divergent or seemingly incongruous moral assertions-as seems to have happenedin 1788, when the Second
Estatedefendedthe justice of its privileges within an atmosphereof patrioticfraternity.On such occasions, the will to reestablishcoherence leads to the refinement of meaningsand the rearrangementof priorities.The very act of sortingout
and explaininga sense of justice whose moralforce has not previouslybeen fully
evident, either to the speaker or to the community,gives expression to a new
hierarchyof beliefs and a new interpretivedisposition. If that disposition is sufficiently consonant,in most of its particulars,with the belief systems of othersin
the community,it may compel the adherenceof other minds and give shape to a
political project. In 1789, the new filtering capacity of the concept of the citizen-its sudden ability to stand for several salient commitments-signaled the
emergenceof a revolutionaryprogram.From the perspectiveof many advocates
of the Third Estate, the word "citizen"expressed revolutionaryintent in a way
that seemed consistentwith aspirationsand values contemplatedmuch earlierby
many common subjects of the crown. For J.-M.-A. Servan, the focus on the
rightsof the citizen, in the chargedpolitical battlesof 1789, merely continuedthe
conceptual agency he had been exercising for years, duringthe slow revolution
of his mind.
Universityof North Carolina at Chapel Hill
76. Cf. Stedman Jones's argumentlinking linguistic disputation to notions of "right"in "The
DeterministFix," 31. Althoughhe is rightto stress thatpolitical disagreementsrest on conflictingperceptions of the right and the just, his explanationof the emergenceof conflicting claims is tied to the
operationsof discourseitself-either the inherentinstabilityof its meaningsor its vulnerabilityto displacementby other discourses. To avoid reifying discourse, I preferto see notions of right as giving
rise to the linguistic patternsthat express them.

Jay Smith French Revolution Agency and Ideas

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Wesleyan University

History and Theory,Thene Issue 40 (December2001), 116-142

C)WesleyanUniversity 2001 ISSN: 0018-2656

BETWEENDISCOURSE AND EXPERIENCE:

Experience has recently reemergedas an importantanalytical category for historiansof

In recentyears, many historiansof the FrenchRevolutionhave sought answers

describeda movementalreadyunderway,for as JackCenserobservedin a recent

The ensuing discussion requires a preliminarydisclaimer.Although I focus on

In otherwords,Tackettaimed to providea balancedand measuredaccountof the

be found before the Revolution of an oppositional ideology or 'discourse"';by

frontedin their daily routines the irreduciblesocial differences separatingthem

gence of a revolutionaryconsciousness within that Estate at the beginning of

constitutionalclaims of the third estate, and rallied by conservative spokesmen

third estate was a direct expression of immediate experience, a consciousness

representsthe attitudesof the deputies on the eve of the Revolution as a product

The writings of Joseph-Michel-AntoineServan provide an ideal point of entry

would have enduredvery little condescension or scorn in his pre-Revolutionary

good examples closer to home, on the principlethatfamiliarexamples command

The implicit contrast, in Servan's thinking, between the spiritual nobility

toward the Second Estate, his writings of the "pre-Revolution"established an

estate. From the transcendentideals of patriotism, he evidently hoped, there

64. Servan, Commentaireroturier,38.

As Servan articulatedhis new political stance, his mind continued to pivot

requiredof the properly patriotic citizen.70Still persuadedby his own earlier

civic equality, which he considered prerequisiteto the patriotic renewal that

pre-Revolutionaryto Revolutionarymodes of thoughtmust have been replicated

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