Antonia Fraser was the partner of the late genius playwright Harold Pinter ,as well as the highly talented daughter of Lord Pakenham , more commonly known as Lord Longford.
This biography is of an excellent order , relying on well researched facts allied to a knowledge of the inner workings of elite society and social movements alike.
A very startling observation , shared by many non-dogmatic historians today , is that the French Revolution was a middle to upper class revolt against the pace of distribution of wealth and privileges from the Centre to the neo-estate.
A more accurate reading of the continuum of historical events from the end of the reign of the Sun King until the aftermath of the rise of Napoleon is that France was not in a position to wage expansive military campaigns against their neighbours in order to increase wealth for the ever burgeoning middle class.Between the paying of debts to the creditors ( 41% of GDP) and the expense of the Royal Estate ( 7% of GDP) nearly half of the French economy at the time disappeared into the black hole of repayments , the cost of the Royal Estate is not particularly excessive when you compare that the Mogul Court a century earlier would spend the extent of about 28% of Indias GDP on itself , but the crucial difference was the Mogul court has surplus funds whilst France , the loser in the development of Empire was in debt to an extent which would match many African third world nations today.France was in a constrained zone between being too weak to forcefully acquire the wealth of neighbours and being just about strong enough to defend itself from encroachment from neighbouring empires.The net result was an internal implosion leading to civil revolt and collapse of the Royals which took about an year to be stabilised by the middle classes from the hiatus of the romantic revolutionaries.
The most concerning aspect of the period is that France did manage to effect a change over to becoming an expansionist power and reverted back to military domination of the region to cure domestic economic shortcomings.The poor were always out of the equation of this process and hardly featured in any central aspect of the period.Even the famous march of the poor to Versailles which has been romanticised into some great movement of the working class to bring down the elite was actually a march to plead with the King to open up the bakeries which had ceased to function in the confusion of the situation in Paris so that they could have something to eat.As soon as the King gave the order for the granaries to be opened they dispersed out of the scene.
One major shortcoming in the otherwise excellent high standards of factual discretion Antonia employs is when she completely abandons her exemplary thresholds in the matter of Antoinette highly unlikely affair with Fersen.As has been correctly pointed out by historians there were so many courtiers in attendance at any time word of an affair would have been known to several individuals if it had ever occurred.Other evidence to counter the claim is that not even the enemies of Antoinette or foreign intervention conspiracy theorists at the time made use of a charge which would have served their interests very well.But the best evidence to counter is provided by Fraser herself , she states that the physical health of the extremely ill and drained Antoinette at the time was such that a non platonic relationship would almost have certainly led to her death.
No comments:
Post a Comment