ite and the new commercial Middle Class reached a violent outburst in the French Revolution. Why it happened there and then, will be explained later in this chapter. In general, the French Revolution was not the only European social upheaval that replaced the old elite by a new one. Historians remark on the contrast between France and England at that time, but England had its revolution about 150 years before the French. It was no less bloody; it was accompanied by a long drawn out Civil War, which was ended by the decapitation of the king, just as it was done in France. The French Revolution is better known because it was comparatively recent. However, placid England was probably more cruel to its aristocracy than France. Starting from the War of the Roses, through the change of religion under the Tudors, the civil war under Charles I and the Glorious Revolution at the end of the 17th century, the ranks of the original English aristocracy must have been pretty well thinned out. In France, the process what in England was played out in hundreds of years was compressed into a few, violent years. In central and eastern Europe there were different processes to allow the new people to take part in government, with a semblance of social equality. Why was it necessary to replace the old elite, apart of the pressure of the Middle Class for social equality and political rights. There was an important trigger and De Gaulle best expressed it. General de Gaulle has written in his m...
