orious victory of unarmed citizens overthe forces of tyranny, or so the newspapers and history later said."11 TheFrench Revolution had begun.Despite the bloodshed at the Bastille and the riots in Paris, there wassome clear-headed thinking. Mirabeau wanted to keep the Crown but restrainit. "We need a government like England's," he said.4 The French would neveraccept it though, for they hated anything to do with the English. OnOctober 5, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man andthe Citizen, a good document all right, but only if it were followed.Twenty-eight days later, the Assembly showed they had no intention of doingso: all church property in France was confiscated by the government. It wasthe wrong way to go about creating a free society. Certainly the Church wasresponsible for some abuses, but to seek to build a free society byundermining property rights is like cutting down trees to grow a forest.Such confiscation only sets a precedent for further violation of propertyrights, which in turn violates individual rights, the very rights of manand the citizen the new government was so loudly proclaiming. Byconfiscating church property, no matter how justified, France'sRevolutionary leaders showed that they weren't interested in a true freesociety, only in one created in the image of their own philosophers.Soon France began to descend into a state of anarchy in which it wouldremain for the next 25 years. In towns where royalist mayors were stillpopular, bands of men invaded town halls and killed city magistrates.Thousands of people sold their homes and fled the country, taking with themprecious skills and human capital. Francois Babeuf, the first moderncommunist, created a Society of Equals dedicated to the abolition ofprivate property and the destruction of all those who held property. Theking's guards were eventually captured and killed. The Marquis de Sade,from whom we get the term sadism, was released from prison. ...
