Schiller and the French Revolution

# Schiller and the French Revolution ## The Honorary Citizenship (August 1792) Friedrich Schiller was made an honorary French citizen by the Revolutionary government on August 26, 1792. The decree was signed by Georges Danton in his capacity as Minister of Justice. This honor was extended to several prominent figures deemed "friends of humanity" and supporters of revolutionary ideals. [[W]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Schiller#French_citizenship) [[GS]](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q="Schiller"+French+citizenship+1792) [[French National Archives on honorary citizens]](https://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/) [Schmidt, 2009]: On 1 March 1798 an official letter from the French National Convention arrived in the German residential town of Weimar. It had been circulating for six years until it finally reached its destination because the label 'To Monsieur Gille' at best vaguely resembled the name of its real addressee, the German writer Friedrich Schiller. Schiller's friend Johann Wolfgang Goethe instantly called it 'a decree from the realm of the dead'. Indeed, its authors, Roland, Danton, Clavière and Custine, had been dead for years — executed during the Terreur in 1793 and 1794. The content of this letter is well known. It bestowed the honour of French citizenship on Schiller by the decree of the26 August 1792. Classified as publiciste Allemand, the poet was thereby praised as one of those who 'have defended the cause of the people against the despotism of kings' and 'with their writings have served the cause of freedom and prepared the liberation of the nations'. ## Planned Defense of Louis XVI [Batt, 1897] describes in some detail Schiller's planned defense of Louis XVI. [[GS]](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Schiller+learned+citizenship+1798) [[JSTOR]](https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=Schiller+French+Revolution) Unfortunately, while Batt has material on the circumstances surrounding the planned defense, he does not seem to have much on the planned content of the defense. There is this interesting tension: S was awarded an honorary citizenship for defending "the cause of the people against the despotism of kings" but was then horrified by the kings execution and had even planned to write a defense of the king that he hoped might be considered by the French. **Question:** What is known about the deeper reasons S was so horrified by the execution of the king and the arguments he wanted to raise in his defense? I start with Claude's answer, list further thoughts and list some of the scholarly literature I had a look at. ## Claude's Answer Some suggestions from an attempted answer by Claude may be worth exploring: ### Reconstructing Schiller's Likely Arguments for Louis XVI - **The Moral Immaturity Argument** From the Aesthetic Letters: > "Es waren also nicht freie Menschen, die der Staat unterdrückt hatte, nein, es waren blosz wilde Thiere, die er an heilsame Ketten legte" Schiller likely argued that the French people weren't morally developed enough for republicanism - that executing the king was the act of a mob, not free citizens capable of self-governance. - **The Premature Revolution Argument** > "derjenige noch nicht reif ist zur bürgerlichen Freiheit, dem noch so vieles zur menschlichen fehlt" He probably would have argued that political freedom requires moral/aesthetic education first - that the Revolution put the cart before the horse. - **The Humanitarian Argument** His horror at the violence ("diese elenden Schindersknechte") suggests he would have made a basic humanitarian plea against bloodshed, distinguishing between removing a king from power and killing him. ### Why Was Schiller So Deeply Disturbed? - **The Betrayal of Enlightenment Ideals** Schiller was initially made an honorary French citizen as a "Freiheitsdichter" (freedom poet). The execution represented a perversion of the very ideals that had honored him: Freedom became license. Reason became mob rule. Liberation became terror. - **The Failure of His Philosophical Project** As an Idealist influenced by Kant, Schiller believed in human perfectibility through aesthetic education. The execution proved that: > "die politische Regeneration, die man so nahe glaubte, nichts als ein schöner philosophischer Traum bleiben" This wasn't just regicide - it was the murder of his optimistic philosophy about human nature. - **The Mob vs. The People** The text mentions Schiller's distinction between "the mob and the people" (from his later works). The execution represented: Raw passion overcoming reason. "rohe gesetzlose Triebe" (raw lawless drives) unleashed. The very opposite of the aesthetic education he believed necessary for true freedom - **Personal Identification** Consider the timing: December 1792 Plans to visit Paris with Humboldt. January 1793: Louis XVI executed. February 1793: Abandons both his defense and apparently his Paris plans. The execution transformed Paris from a place of intellectual pilgrimage into what his friend called "jenem Vulkan aller empörten Leidenschaften" (that volcano of all rebellious passions). - **The Prophetic Horror**. His prediction to von Hoven shows his deeper fear: > "wird [über kurz oder lang] in einen Zustand der Anarchie übergehen, und später oder früher wird ein geistvoller kräftiger Mann... sich nicht nur zum Herrn von Frankreich, sondern vielleicht auch von einem groszen Theile von Europa machen" The execution wasn't just about Louis XVI - it was the beginning of a cycle of violence that would end in tyranny (Napoleon), making the whole revolutionary project self-defeating. - **The Philosophical Stakes** For Schiller, this wasn't merely political violence but a **civilizational failure**. His statement that he couldn't read French newspapers anymore ("so ekeln diese elenden Schindersknechte mich an") suggests a visceral disgust at humanity's failure to rise above its basest instincts. The execution proved that without aesthetic education to create truly moral beings, political revolution would always devolve into barbarism. ## Further Thoughts How can one measure the difference between the left and the right through literary analysis? The different reactions to the French Revolution could be one criterion. Contemporaries who crossed the line from support to rejetion during their lifetimes are of particular interest. Edmund Burke is another example. These thinkers become even more interesting if one assumes that they have been consistent in their assessments and didn't change their opinions or framework: They saw a pendulum swinging from one extreme to another and commented on that perceptively. But then, what were their deeper values? Maybe a comparison[^SchillerBurke] of Schiller and Burke could be interesting. [[GS: "Schiller" "Edmund Burke" "French Revolution"]](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22Schiller%22+%22Edmund+Burke%22+%22French+Revolution%22&btnG=), [[GS: "Schiller" "Edmund Burke" "comparison"]](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22Schiller%22+%22Edmund+Burke%22+%22comparison%22&btnG=), [[GS: "Schiller" "Edmund Burke" "political philosophy"]](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22Schiller%22+%22Edmund+Burke%22+%22political++philosophy%22&btnG=) [^SchillerBurke]: Claude summarizes as follows. **Burke**: Valued organic social evolution, accumulated wisdom, the "partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." His horror at the Revolution stemmed from its attempt to remake society from abstract principles. **Schiller**: Valued human moral development through aesthetic education. His horror stemmed from seeing that political freedom without inner freedom creates barbarism. ## References - Schiller's Attitude Towards the French Revolution Author(s): Max Batt Source:The Journal of Germanic Philology , 1897, Vol. 1, No. 4 (1897), pp. 482-493Published by: University of Illinois PressStable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27699033 - 'Wenn die Franzosen mich um meine Hoffnungen bringen, so kann es mir einfallen mir bei den Franzosen selbst bessere zu schaffen.' Strange as it may seem, therewas actually a plan on foot, according to which Schiller, in the company of Wilhelm von Humboldt, was to journey to Paris. - - - Briefwechsel zw. Schiller und Humboldt, Dec. 7, 1792 - "the leading French Revolutionists considered him a Freiheitsdichter, one in perfect accord with their ideas. No wonder,then, that he was made a citoyen of the French Republic" - - - According to a law passed by the National Assembly, Aug. 26, 1792; - "Schiller's interest in the developments of the FrenchRevolution reached its height when, in the beginning of the year 1793, he began to write his defence of Louis XVI" - - - from p. 488, the article contains some details - "Schiller hatte diese Begebenheiten schon bei ihrem ersten Entstehen ernst und ahnungsvoll aufgenommen; er hielt die Franzosen fuer kein Volk, dem echt republikanische Gesinnungen eigen werden koennten" - - - interesting - The liberty of the ancients? Friedrich Schiller and aesthetic republicanism A Schmidt - History of Political Thought, 2009 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26224102?seq=1 - "Schiller's political thought has been subject to conflicting interpretations ... this article locates him more precisely within the context of eighteenth-century debates on republicanism and moral philosophy ... how they comply with man's sensual and passionate nature ... he dissociated himself from Rousseau and repudiated classical republican models. Instead, Schiller sided with modest proponents of luxury and progress ... Schiller developed his own aesthetic model of cultivating senses and passions to achieve a free society. Despite significant liberal elements, he thereby remained true to the republican principle that freedom and self-realization can only be achieved in the political community." - Robbing the Robbers: Schiller, Xenophobia and the Politics of British Romantic Translation P Mortensen - Literature & History, 2002 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.7227/LH.11.1.3 - Has interesting details about the conservative fear of the reception of German and French theater in Britain in the 1790s Further References - On the execution of Louis XVI: [[GS]](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Schiller+"Louis+XVI"+execution) [[W]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Louis_XVI) - [Google Scholar: "Schiller biography" Safranski](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Schiller+biography+Safranski) - [Gallica (French National Library) - Revolutionary decrees](https://gallica.bnf.fr/) - [SEP: Friedrich Schiller](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schiller/) - [Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Körner](https://www.friedrich-schiller-archiv.de/briefe/briefwechsel-mit-gottfried-koerner/) (especially letters from Nov. 26, 1792; Feb. 8, 1793) - Michelsen, A. L. I., ed. [Briefe von Schiller an Herzog von Augustenburg](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Briefe_von_Schiller_an_Herzog_Friedrich/ihMYAAAAIAAJ) (Berlin, 1876)