Edmund Burke

One of the most notable evaluators of the French Revolution was the British statesman and orator Edmund Burke. In 1790 he published the book Reflections on the Revolution in France. In the following viewpoint, excerpted from that work, Burke criticizes the decision of the French citizenry to revolt against the monarchy of Louis XVI. According to Burke, starting the French Revolution was a rash and irrational act. He contends that France should have built upon its existing constitution and society instead of turning to violence against a lawful king. The immediate result of the revolution, according to Burke, was to impoverish the French people and plunge them into chaos.

[The English] political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed...