CHAPTER XXII - THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Summary

‘Go calmly and look English.’ Bagehot's formula for immunity in Parisian insurrections might well serve as a guide to his countrymen who study the historiography of the French Revolution, for party strife and inherited prejudices have branded their mark upon most French histories of the Revolution, so that the Anglo-Saxon student automatically enjoys the advantage of comparative detachment. Yet it is dangerous to presume upon this immunity and overemphasise the relationship between the disagreements of French historians and their particular political prejudices. A good deal depends on what we choose to include in our definition of ‘historical writing’. If, on the one hand, we consider all the journalism which offers interpretations of the Revolution, or, on the other, confine ourselves to comparing the broad conclusions of general histories a close correlation with contemporary politics is bound to emerge, as surely as the cup from Benjamin's sack. By either of these methods, and indeed, by the mere concentration upon developing interpretations (which are the necessary themes of any historiographical study), a mass of research, opinion on details, and narrative slips through our net. The main corpus of real historical writing is useful to everybody. ‘Progressive’ historians remain indebted to the vast collections of information made by ‘reactionaries’ like Mortimer-Ternaux, Wallon and Lenôtre; Gaxotte's attack on the Revolution leans heavily on Mathiez's labyrinthine investigation of the underworld of corruption.

But the problem is still not solved by admitting that there exists a wide no-man's-land of ‘fact’. The strong personal opinions of an historian are not just his ‘bias’, to be discounted; very often they also constitute the essential groundwork of his originality and insight.