Madame De Sta(?)l’s Reflections On The Exploration Of The Representative Government In The French Revolution(1789-1814)

This paper focuses on Madame de Sta(?)l(1766-1817),the mistress of the salons during the French Revolution,and examines the historical context of the French Revolution in the light of Madame Sta(?)l reflections on the practice of representative government at different stages of the revolution.As an eyewitness to the Revolution,the evolution of Madame Sta(?)l political thought has always been intertwined with the revolutionary process.In the early years of the revolution,Madame Sta(?)l supported the transition from Absolutism monarchy to Constitutional monarchy in France,and after the trampling of representative government by the Jacobin Terror,she joined the republican camp to defend the Republic.In fact,Madame Sta(?)l submission to republicanism was more pragmatic than principled.The limitations of the 1795 constitution led to frequent coups and allowed Napoleon to establish an imperial regime.Napoleon went to great lengths to destroy the representative system in order to establish his personal dictatorship.At the end of her life,during the Bourbon Restoration,Madame Sta(?)l defended the principle of representative government,believing that the time had come for the monarch to enter into a contract with the people and thus acquire a source of legitimacy for the regime.Throughout her life,she thought about how to avoid tyranny and how to ensure that freedom could be achieved in an institutional way.She constantly defended the principle of representative government and tried to find a representative constitution for France.The essence of the principle of representative government is the limitation of power and the guarantee of individual right and liberty.The changing nature of her choice of political system is a reflection of her political pragmatism.The practice and exploration of representative government in France has been repeatedly frustrated,reflecting the difficulties of the liberal cause.Although Madame Sta(?)l was unable to see France’s political aspirations for representative government come to fruition,it was through the combined efforts of the successors to the cause of liberty that representative government became the political practice of the post-revolutionary era.