Political Compass: French Revolution Edition

Aux armes, citoyens! Vive la Revolution! Welcome, citizen, to Revolutionary France. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was frankly the most alarming of times, as Madame Guillotine cast her long shadow over Europe.

From the first stirrings of the Estates-General to the Terror, it was a political rollercoaster. More clubs, factions and glorified drinking societies were founded than you can shake a liberty cap at. This quiz allows you to give your answers to the huge questions facing France between 1789 and 1794, and work out which faction you’d have been a member of. What should we do with Louis Capet? Is Terror your bag? What are your chances of avoiding an appointment with the National Razor? Are you a Catholic loyalist or a bloodthirsty sans-culotte nutter? Let’s find out. Enjoy the quiz – but remember, don’t get too excited and lose your head!

Created by: Capel Lofft/A.Walsh

Who is your political hero?
- Montesquieu, for his inspired analysis of the British constitution, a model to us all!
- Rousseau: he taught us about equality, rights and duties. Let the general will rule!
- Diderot: Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest!
- Marat: Partly in the sense you hate taking a bath, mainly in the sense that you're a zealot
- King in the streets, Pope in the sheets
- Thomas Jefferson: now that's what I call revolution '76
What should we do about the Catholic Church?
- Christianity is just so passe darling, we need a civil religion and the Cult of the Supreme Being.
- Purge every trace of Christianity from la patrie! France will only be free when the streets flow with priestly blood!
- Pope and King! Ultramontanism for the win!
- We should abolish tithes, nationalise Church property, institute the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, but leave it at that. Tame the Church, don't destroy it.
- Burn it down. Melt their bells. Seize their lands. We have assignats to fund, and a war to win.
- I support the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, but in the context of other Church reform, I don't think we should go much further.
'Popular insurrection is a legitimate form of political action'. Do you agree?
- Mais oui, if you're a Catholic peasant in the Vendee fighting against the republican hordes.
- It's a bit academic really, I just want to avoid my own appointment with the mob and the National Razor
- Obviously. 'If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror.'
- Not really. Although the nation is the people, the constitution should constrain popular sovereignty.
- Yes, but at some point we need to consolidate the revolution and set up a stable, legitimate government.
- Yes! Slaughter the hoarders! Execute the nobles! Massacre the priests! Up the sans-culottes!
What is your favourite item of clothing?
- The White Cockade is most dashing.
- The Bonnet Rouge has a certain jaunty appeal
- You try wearing knee breeches when you're slogging your guts out on the farm all day!
- A Tricolor Cockade, citizen!
- I think I'd better attach a Tricolor Cockade on my rather stylish bicorne hat. That'll fox them.
- Does my bum look big in this flayed skin of an aristocrat?
What should we do about Louis XVI?
- Absolutely nothing at all, you impertinent little man! He is the Lord's Anointed.
- We should persuade him to follow the English model of a mixed and balanced constitution.
- Cut his power down to size, but retain him as a ceremonial head of state with some limited veto power.
- We should try Citizen Louis Capet, but we shouldn't execute him. Send him to the galleys and establish the new republic peacefully!
- What else can you do with traitors and tyrants? Kill him, and the Austrian whore as well.
Should we 'make terror the order of the day'?
- Yes! The Terror is the only way to secure the revolution and root out the enemy within.
- It's not the best idea, but I'll just keep my head down and go along with it, it's all about survival now.
- No. We should stabilise the revolution through legitimate government and restrain the power of the Committee of Public Safety.
- Yes! Stick the nobles' heads on spikes! Drink the blood of the looters!
- Yes, if by that you mean murder every republican traitor and blasphemer against the Holy Catholic Church.
How centralised should the Republic be?
- We need to retain central sovereignty, but give the provinces some say.
- A country as large and diverse as France needs a complex federal or confederal constitution with a graduate system of checks and balances.
- The Republic is the People! The Convention is the voice of the People!
- Parisians are the beating heart of the revolution. Secure the food supply! Screw the provinces!
- Pah, I will never accept the existence of this Republic. The only thing worth centralising is absolutist monarchy.
Should we abolish slavery?
- Too right! I'm a card-carrying member of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, I am!
- Abolishing slavery doesn't go far enough! We should give former slaves full citizenship.
- Yeah, probably. Whatever helps me avoid a dalliance with Madame Guillotine.
- No, it'll destroy French commerce.
- Yeah, but it's not a priority. First we need to consolidate the Revolution.
- You must be joking, I don't even support emancipation for white peasants.
What should be the Republic's economic policy?
- Shoot the looters! Requisition their grain! Fully mechanised luxury communism now!
- I support the 'Le Chapelier' law, which bans guilds and the right to strike. We must preserve private property and secure free enterprise.
- In the short term, we must feed the masses. They have a right to subsistence. However, we can't abolish private enterprise altogether.
- What was so wrong with feudalism anyway?
Do you support the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen?
- Yes, instituting the universal natural rights of man is working pretty darn well in America. A prior declaration of rights is the first step to social peace.
- No, the King protects our welfare. Rights are for anarchist nutters.
- Yes, but we demand that any declaration of rights include a statement of duties as well, to ensure stability.
- It doesn't go far enough! It should be the Rights of Man AND Woman. Female suffrage now! Up the women! And while we're at it, it should apply to ex-slaves.
- Yes, but it should uphold the democratic rights of all men. Ain't nobody got time to distinguish between active and passive citizens.
- Who cares. The right to food is the only one that matters.
Should the Republic wage war on its Royalist European enemies?
- We've been gathering the forces of Prussia and Austria to restore the King. Bring it on, infidels!
- No, for heaven's sake. Let's just calm down and live and let live.
- Not yet, we should consolidate the Revolution first. There are plenty of enemies within to deal with before we get to the enemies without. But then we must export the Revolution and free the peoples of Europe.
- Yes, immediately. We must grasp the nettle, seize the initiative, and free Europe! Aux armes, citoyens!
- I mean, I suppose so. If you think it's best, Monsieur Brissot.

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