From the People to the Constitution. Inventing Democracy during the French Revolution

The constitutional debate during the French Revolution is based on the relationship between ‘traditions’ and ‘changes’, especially in its initial phase. The idea of an ancient-regime constitution (defended, for instance, by the monarchiens) was criticised by the “left wing” of the revolutionary men who proposed a new idea of constitution that criticised and stigmatised the ancien régime (definition “invented” during the French Revolution to underline the break between old and new). The revolutionary idea of constitution – as a limit to the power but also as a way to legitimise the power – found its ‘constituent moment’ in article 16th of the Declaration of rights of man and citizen, a manifesto of really modern constitutionalism. The idea of the separation of powers and guaranties of rights was (and is) a powerful instrument for the new regime to legitimise itself recurring to the English (invented?) tradition. However the problem was not only the interpretation of constitution, but its relationship with sovereignty and, in particular, with the new form of government. Starting from 1789, the new political and juridical subject was the nation that identified king and people of France, then, after the turn of 1793, the “empty throne” was occupied by the people. Anyway the fight during the whole revolutionary period was, in brief, based on the definition of the constitution and the people, interpreted in a continuous dialectic discourse between ‘past’ and ‘present’, ‘tradition’ and ‘change’.