Two Parliaments Escape Reform

This chapter focuses on events in Europe in the years between 1774 and 1789, or between the beginnings of the American and of the French revolutions. During this period, the stresses and conflicts grew more acute. Events in America aroused the sense of a new era in Europe, encouraged a negative attitude in Europe toward European institutions, and induced a belief in the possibility of change in the directions desired by persons hitherto excluded from political life. The influence of America, and of much indigenous European development, operated in general in a democratic direction. But real events in Europe, as distinguished from the stirring up of ideas, seemed to be going the opposite way. There was a widespread aristocratic resurgence, or perhaps only a “surgence,” a rising bid for power and recognition, or successful offensive against antiaristocratic forces, whether monarchic or democratic, at the very time when other developments, such as the impact of the American Revolution, made a great many people less willing than ever to accept any such drift of affairs.