Pierre-Louis Rœderer and the Debate on Forms of Government in Revolutionary France

Abstract

The French Revolution raised the problem of how to construct a modern republic under conditions of acute political conflict. The debate over the forms of government was at its most intense before the outbreak of the Terror in 1793, when there seemed to be no alternative to instituting a republic, but there was serious disagreement over what this entailed. The problem was considered in terms of the political thought of Hobbes, Locke, Bayle, Voltaire, Helvetius, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Sieyès. The urgent political and constitutional need to reconcile accountable with effective government was central to the use made of both inherited and new ideas about the republican form of government. This parallels Madison's concern to reconcile accountable with effective government during the constitutional debates of the American Revolution.