388 Chapter XVI
Henry of Prussia, Frederick the Great’s brother, was a “Jacobin.” So were several
members of the English House of Lords. Cardinal Maury was a shoemaker’s son,
and an extreme conservative. In America the notable anti- Jacobin, Fisher Ames,
was offset by his brother Dr. Nathaniel Ames, one of the most convinced “Jaco-
bins” in Massachusetts. But though an individual could be anything, certain statis-
tical correlations are evident.
In simple and obvious terms, those who enjoyed high status under the old or
existing order were mainly anti- French. These included the nobilities and patrici-
ates and social elites of various countries. Governing elites, everywhere closely al-
lied to social elites, were generally in the same category: the parliamentary class in
Great Britain, the regent class in the Dutch Netherlands, members of governing
councils in Geneva or Bern, men who before 1789 had held seats in the French
parlements, those in general who belonged to the “constituted bodies” as described
in the earlier volume were overwhelmingly hostile to the principles of the Revolu-
tion. Those on the other hand who had served government in the role of experts, or
as career officials, or as ministers to “enlightened monarchs” with reforming pro-
grams that clashed with feudal or ecclesiastical or localistic urban interests, were
more likely to turn up as revolutionary sympathizers in the 1790’s; there were
many such cases in the Italian states, and some in the Austrian empire. Town no-
tables such as burgomasters and councillors in various countries, given the munici-
pal arrangements of Europe before the revolutionary era, enjoyed high and usually
inherited status, and were generally anti- French. Persons deriving status or mate-
rial and psychological satisfaction from historic craft and mercantile gilds were
conservative. Those living from forms of property- right that the Revolution threat-
ened were naturally opposed to it; these were mostly the European landowners
possessing manorial estates, receiving manorial or seignieurial rents, with a per-
petual family interest protected by various equivalents of primogeniture and entail.
Those drawing income and prestige from various public emoluments, the rich si-
necures of England and the numerous “offices” available in the Dutch, Swiss, and
other systems, looked with suspicion on administrative reforms. Churchmen of
established churches disliked the Revolution, which seems to have done more than
the Enlightenment to create a fellow feeling among Protestant and Catholic eccle-
siastics. There were exceptions, notably in France itself, where there seems to have
been more liberalism of mind among the higher clergy, and even among the émi-
gré bishops, than in corresponding levels of the Church of England or among
leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church established in the United Provinces.
Those of low status, or no status, or those who were politically too unawakened
to have any expectation of favorable change, generally remained indifferent or pre-
ferred to support their customary social superiors. Except in France itself, and in
the United States, where the social situation was very different, the day laborers of
town and country, and the farm populations in general, were hard to arouse or to
keep aroused for any length of time in favor of the new ideas. In France the peas-
antry had been genuinely revolutionary in 1789, and the Revolution had been
made possible by the mutual and simultaneous action of peasantry and middle
class, confirmed by the subsequent confiscation and re- sale of church- owned lands,
from which both peasantry and middle class substantially benefited. But it was one