People like to think that. I highly recommend the Revolutions podcast, especially the French revolution section, to disabuse anyone of this notion. The have-nots had a very rough time during that revolution, along with the nobles.
Well that's exactly my point. The French Revolution, like the American, was ultimately a victory for the merchant classes. Of course the nobles and peasants had a rough time, as you put it. Not all revolutions have the same character or, indeed, results.
The merchants had a very bad time too, between price controls that caused them to lose money (or their head), and eventually, total war against the rest of Europe, which made it every able man’s duty to go to war.
The American revolution was one of the very few that worked out the way people intended it to.
The French Revolution was a victory for the British.
The American Revolution was a victory for the French, which the French promptly squandered by having their own Revolution. Life in the colonies under the Articles of Confederation was incredibly precarious, and it wasn't until after the War of 1812 that the U.S. was established as a stable nation state. They were helped in that regard by all of Europe going up in flames thanks to Napoleon.
The French Revolution, like the American, was ultimately a victory for the merchant classes.
No, it really wasn't. Many died during the revolution during the purges, and those that survived the wars and life under the dictatorship of the emperor. There's a reason there was another middle class revolution 40 years later (1830) and it wasn't because the merchant classes were doing really well, either under napoleon or the restored king after. The revolution lead to decades of tumult, and it's really difficult to see whether it was a net benefit or a net negative for the country or the middle classes. I suppose you could say the 1830 one was a victory for the middle classes in the long run.
The winners in a revolution are usually the ones who stay out of it and swoop in to claim victory when all the other sides have exhausted themselves, or the ones who just leave for other places that are not revolting.
