How Did Rousseau Influence The French Revolution

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The French Revolution, dating from 789 until 1799, was a period of widespread social and political upheaval in France. The Revolution experienced violent periods of political turmoil in which revolutionaries overthrew the monarch and established a republic in its place. These events then culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond. While the exact causes of the French Revolution are widely debated by historians, it was Edmund Bourke who in 1789 first suggested that the the demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals put forward by the philosophes. These ideals are described by Kant as being an "emancipation from self-incurred tutelage", and are …show more content…
It can thus be argued that Rousseau had an indirect influence on the Revolution through his appeals to the emotions, enthusiasm, and a belief in the human perfectibility by serving the purposes of Robespierre. Robspierre used Rousseau’s language, and exploited several of his ideals in the course of the Terror, although he did appear to confuse Rousseau’s notion of general will with public liberty. Rousseau defines sovereignty as the exercise of will, not power. He attacks the traditional standing of the separation of powers which, since it defines sovereignty as power, can attribute different forms or domains of power to different instances within the state. He does have a form of separation of powers, but it is not a division of sovereignty. Thus, power in Rousseau’s state is based on the general will of the people, for only when people work for the common interest can they achieve any real freedom from autocracy. Those who do not want to submit to the general will or common interest of the people, they will be “forced to be free.” Therefore, to Rousseau, the government that represents the general will cannot be questioned, because the general will cannot be wrong. It is this notion that Robespierre misunderstands as public liberty. Nevertheless, Robespierre often eulogised Rousseau in public speech, “…one man, by the elevation of his soul and the grandeur of his character, showed himself worthy of the position teacher of the human race…Ah! If he had been witness to this revolution of which he was the precursor…”, but it is through His Cult of the Supreme Being, that Rousseau’s influence on Robespierre becomes
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