Common Sense

"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."

Thomas Paine began his pamphlet Common Sense with the paragraph above. The essay was incredibly influential in Colonial America and helped to stir up revolutionary fervor against Britain that would be instrumental to starting the American Revolution. In it, Paine rails against monarchy in general and the British monarchy specifically, while espousing the virtues of the colonies and urging them to fight against the motherland.

Oddly enough, Paine was born in England and only arrived in the colonies in 1774, before promptly beginning to raise hell. He was a revolutionary through and through, and in the 1790s he found himself in France, you guessed it, to take part in yet another Revolution. He was elected to the National Convention, but managed to get on Robespierre's bad side and was arrested. This was no unusual event at the time (see: The Reign of Terror) and Paine only barely avoided painting, with the help of a little contraption called the guillotine, the Paris streets with his blood.

I was unaware of Paine's involvement in the French Revolution and it only increases my already high opinion of him. The man was an idealist and a rabble-rouser, pure and simple. You don't go around sticking your nose in other people's Revolutions unless you believe in them or are suicidal.

But, perhaps the most interesting nugget of information I discovered about his life, was that while in France, Paine developed a menage a trois with Nicholas Bonnevile and his wife. They slept together for several years and when Paine returned to America, Bonnevile sent his wife and children (who were Paine's godchildren) along with him. From what I was able to gather, this had something to do with Bonneville having been arrested by Napoleon, and though now free, he was still under heavy surveillance.

Throughout his life, Paine always followed his convictions, even if they were unpopular. He was a deist who opposed organized religion, a revolutionary who opposed monarchy and a great firebrand. I think it is overlooked just how radical these movements were in a European age of absolute monarchs. Men like Paine were anathema to the social and political order, because they were against everything that it stood for. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness... liberty, equality, fraternity... sovereignty deriving from the people... these concepts were so fundamentally opposed to the established order that Revolutionary France was at war with every major power in Europe. To put it simply, Paine was a hero, who fought not for himself, but for the ideals that he so strongly believed in.

Note: Most of the information here is gleaned from years spent studying history as well as several classes I have taken. The information about Paine's personal life comes from a few short notes in Fire int he Minds of Men by James H. Billington, a wonderful study of revolutionary movements in Europe, but probably not a book for those not already well-versed in the history of 18th and 19th century Europe.