CHAPTER VII

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE LEADERS OF THE REVOLUTION

1. Mentality of the Men of the Revolution. The respective

Influence of Violent and Feeble Characters.

Men judge with their intelligence, and are guided by their

characters. To understand a man fully one must separate these

two elements.

During the great periods of activity--and the revolutionary

movements naturally belong to such periods--character always

takes the first rank.

Having in several chapters described the various mentalities

which predominate in times of disturbance, we need not return to

the subject now. They constitute general types which are

naturally modified by each man's inherited and acquired

personality.

We have seen what an important part was played by the mystic

element in the Jacobin mentality, and the ferocious fanaticism to

which it led the sectaries of the new faith.

We have also seen that all the members of the Assemblies were not

fanatics. These latter were even in the minority, since in the

most sanguinary of the revolutionary assemblies the great

majority was composed of timid and moderate men of neutral

character. Before Thermidor the members of this group

voted from fear with the violent and after Thermidor with the

moderate deputies.

In time of revolution, as at other times, these neutral

characters, obeying the most contrary impulses, are always the

most numerous. They are also as dangerous in reality as the

violent characters. The force of the latter is supported by the

weakness of the former.

In all revolutions, and in particularly in the French Revolution,

we observe a small minority of narrow but decided minds which

imperiously dominate an immense majority of men who are often

very intelligent but are lacking in character

Besides the fanatical apostles and the feeble characters, a

revolution always produces individuals who merely think how to

profit thereby. These were numerous during the French

Revolution. Their aim was simply to utilise circumstances so as

to enrich themselves. Such were Barras, Tallien, Fouche,

Barrere, and many more. Their politics consisted simply in

serving the strong against the weak.

From the outset of the Revolution these ``arrivists,'' as one

would call them to-day, were numerous. Camille Desmoulins wrote

in 1792: ``Our Revolution has its roots only in the egotism and

self-love of each individual, of the combination of which the

general interest is composed.''

If we add to these indications the observations contained in

another chapter concerning the various forms of mentality to be

observed in times of political upheaval, we shall obtain a

general idea of the character of the men of the Revolution. We

shall now apply the principles already expounded to the

most remarkable personages of the revolutionary period.

2. Psychology of the Commissaries or Representatives ``on

Mission.''

In Paris the conduct of the members of the Convention was always

directed, restrained, or excited by the action of their

colleagues, and that of their environment.

To judge them properly we should observe them when left to

themselves and uncontrolled, when they possessed full liberty.

Such were the representatives who were sent ``on mission'' into

the departments by the Convention.

The power of these delegates was absolute. No censure

embarrassed them. Functionaries and magistrates had perforce to

obey them.

A representative ``on mission'' ``requisitions,'' sequestrates,

or confiscates as seems good to him; taxes, imprisons, deports,

or decapitates as he thinks fit, and in his own district he is a

''pasha.''

Regarding themselves as ``pashas,'' they displayed themselves

``drawn in carriages with six horses, surrounded by guards;

sitting at sumptuous tables with thirty covers, eating to the

sound of music, with a following of players, courtezans, and

mercenaries. . . .'' At Lyons ``the solemn appearance of Collot

d'Herbois is like that of the Grand Turk. No one can come into

his presence without three repeated requests; a string of

apartments precedes his reception-room, and no one approaches

nearer than fifteen paces.''

One can picture the immense vanity of these dictators as

they solemnly entered the towns, surrounded by guards, men whose

gesture was enough to cause heads to fall.

Petty lawyers without clients, doctors without patients,

unfrocked clergymen, obscure attorneys, who had formerly known

the most colourless of lives, were suddenly made the equals of

the most powerful tyrants of history. Guillotining, drowning,

shooting without mercy, at the hazard of their fancy, they were

raised from their former humble condition to the level of the

most celebrated potentates.

Never did Nero or Heliogabalus surpass in tyranny the

representatives of the Convention. Laws and customs always

restrained the former to a certain extent. Nothing restrained

the commissaries.

``Fouche,'' writes Taine, ``lorgnette in hand, watched the

butchery of 210 inhabitants of Lyons from his window. Collot,

Laporte, and Fouche feasted on days of execution (fusillades),

and at the sound of each discharge sprang up with cries of joy,

waving their hats.''

Among the representatives ``on mission'' who exhibit this

murderous mentality we may cite as a type the ex-cure Lebon,

who, having become possessed of supreme power, ravaged Arras and

Cambrai. His example, with that of Carrier, contributes to show

what man can become when he escapes from the yoke of law and

tradition. The cruelty of the ferocious commissary was

complicated by Sadism; the scaffold was raised under his windows,

so that he, his wife, and his helpers could rejoice in the

carnage. At the foot of the guillotine a drinking-booth was

established where the sans-culottes could come to drink.

To amuse them the executioner would group on the pavement, in

ridiculous attitudes, the naked bodies of the decapitated.

``The reading of the two volumes of his trial, printed at Amiens

in 1795, may be counted as a nightmare. During twenty sessions

the survivors of the hecatombs of Arras and Cambrai passed

through the ancient hall of the bailiwick at Amiens, where the

ex-member of the Convention was tried. What these phantoms in

mourning related is unheard of. Entire streets dispeopled;

nonagenarians and girls of sixteen decapitated after a mockery of

a trial; death buffeted, insulted, adorned, rejoiced in;

executions to music; battalions of children recruited to guard

the scaffold; the debauchery, the cynicism, the refinements of an

insane satrap; a romance by Sade turned epic; it seems, as we

watch the unpacking of these horrors, that a whole country, long

terrorised, is at last disgorging its terror and revenging itself

for its cowardice by overwhelming the wretch there, the scapegoat

of an abhorred and vanished system.''

The only defence of the ex-clergyman was that he had obeyed

orders. The facts with which he was reproached had long been

known, and the Convention had in no wise blamed him for them.

I have already spoken of the vanity of the deputies ``on

mission,'' who were suddenly endowed with a power greater than

that of the most powerful despots; but this vanity is not enough

to explain their ferocity.

That arose from other sources. Apostles of a severe faith, the

delegates of the Convention, like the inquisitors of the Holy

Office, could feel, can have felt, no pity for their victims.

Freed, moreover, from all the bonds of tradition and law,

they could give rein to the most savage instincts that primitive

animality has left in us.

Civilisation restrains these instincts, but they never die. The

need to kill which makes the hunter is a permanent proof of this.

M. Cunisset-Carnot has expressed in the following lines the grip

of this hereditary tendency, which, in the pursuit of the most

harmless game, re-awakens the barbarian in every hunter:--

``The pleasure of killing for killing's sake is, one may say,

universal; it is the basis of the hunting instinct, for it must

be admitted that at present, in civilised countries, the need to

live no longer counts for anything in its propagation. In

reality we are continuing an action which was imperiously imposed

upon our savage ancestors by the harsh necessities of existence,

during which they had either to kill or die of hunger, while to-

day there is no longer any legitimate excuse for it. But so it

is, and we can do nothing; probably we shall never break the

chains of a slavery which has bound us for so long. We cannot

prevent ourselves from feeling an intense, often passionate,

pleasure in shedding the blood of animals towards whom, when the

love of the chase possesses us, we lose all feeling of pity. The

gentlest and prettiest creatures, the song-birds, the charm of

our springtime, fall to our guns or are choked in our snares, and

not a shudder of pity troubles our pleasure at seeing them

terrified, bleeding, writhing in the horrible suffering we

inflict on them, seeking to flee on their poor broken paws or

desperately beating their wings, which can no longer support

them. . . . The excuse is the impulse of that imperious

atavism which the best of us have not the strength to resist.''

At ordinary times this singular atavism, restrained by fear of

the laws, can only be exercised on animals. When codes are no

longer operative it immediately applies itself to man, which is

why so many terrorists took an intense pleasure in killing.

Carrier's remark concerning the joy he felt in contemplating the

faces of his victims during their torment is very typical. In

many civilised men ferocity is a restrained instinct, but it is

by no means eliminated.

3. Danton and Robespierre.

Danton and Robespierre represented the two principal personages

of the Revolution. I shall say little of the former: his

psychology, besides being simple, is familiar. A club orator

firstly, impulsive and violent, he showed himself always ready to

excite the people. Cruel only in his speeches, he often

regretted their effects. From the outset he shone in the first

rank, while his future rival, Robespierre, was vegetating almost

in the lowest.

At one given moment Danton became the soul of the Revolution, but

he was deficient in tenacity and fixity of conduct. Moreover, he

was needy, while Robespierre was not. The continuous fanaticism

of the latter defeated the intermittent efforts of the former.

Nevertheless, it was an amazing spectacle to see so powerful a

tribune sent to the scaffold by his pale, venemous enemy and

mediocre rival.

Robespierre, the most influential man of the Revolution and the

most frequently studied, is yet the least explicable. It is

difficult to understand the prodigious influence which

gave him the power of life and death, not only over the enemies

of the Revolution but also over colleagues who could not have

been considered as enemies of the existing Government.

We certainly cannot explain the matter by saying with Taine that

Robespierre was a pedant lost in abstractions, nor by asserting

with the Michelet that he succeeded on account of his principles,

nor by repeating with his contemporary Williams that ``one of the

secrets of his government was to take men marked by opprobrium or

soiled with crime as stepping-stones to his ambition.''

It is impossible to regard his eloquence as the cause of his

success. His eyes protected by goggles, he painfully read his

speeches, which were composed of cold and indefinite

abstractions. The Assembly contained orators who possessed an

immensely superior talent, such as Danton and the Girondists; yet

it was Robespierre who destroyed them.

We have really no acceptable explanation of the ascendancy which

the dictator finally obtained. Without influence in the National

Assembly, he gradually became the master of the Convention and of

the Jacobins. ``When he reached the Committee of Public Safety

he was already,'' said Billaud-Varennes, ``the most important

person in France.''

``His history,'' writes Michelet, ``is prodigious, far more

marvellous than that of Bonaparte. The threads, the wheels, the

preparation of forces, are far less visible. It is an honest

man, an austere but pious figure, of middling talents, that

shoots up one morning, borne upward by I know not what cataclysm.

There is nothing like it in the Arabian Nights. And in a moment

he goes higher than the throne. He is set upon the altar.

Astonishing story!''

Certainly circumstances helped him considerably. People turned

to him as to the master of whom all felt the need. But then he

was already there, and what we wish to discover is the cause of

his rapid ascent. I would willingly suppose in him the existence

of a species of personal fascination which escapes us to-day.

His successes with women might be quoted in support of this

theory. On the days when he speaks ``the passages are choked

with women . . . there are seven or eight hundred in the

tribunes, and with what transports they applaud! At the

Jacobins, when he speaks there are sobs and cries of emotion, and

men stamp as though they would bring the hall down.'' A young

widow, Mme. de Chalabre, possessed of sixteen hundred pounds a

year, sends him burning love-letters and is eager to marry him.

We cannot seek in his character for the causes of his popularity.

A hypochondriac by temperament, of mediocre intelligence,

incapable of grasping realities, confined to abstractions, crafty

and dissimulating, his prevailing note was an excessive pride

which increased until his last day. High priest of a new faith,

he believed himself sent on earth by God to establish the

reign of virtue. He received writings stating ``that he

was the Messiah whom the Eternal Being had promised to reform

the world.''

Full of literary pretensions, he laboriously polished his

speeches. His profound jealousy of other orators or men of

letters, such as Camille Desmoulins, caused their death.

``Those who were particularly the objects of the tyrant's rage,''

writes the author already cited, ``were the men of letters. With

regard to them the jealousy of a colleague was mingled with the

fury of the oppressor; for the hatred with which he persecuted

them was caused less by their resistance to his despotism than by

their talents, which eclipsed his.''

The contempt of the dictator for his colleagues was immense and

almost unconcealed. Giving audience to Barras at the hour of his

toilet, he finished shaving, spitting in the direction of his

colleague as though he did not exist, and disdaining to reply to

his questions.

He regarded the bourgeoisie and the deputies with the same

hateful disdain. Only the multitude found grace in his eyes.

``When the sovereign people exercises its power,'' he said, ``we

can only bow before it. In all it does all is virtue and truth,

and no excess, error, or crime is possible.''

Robespierre suffered from the persecution mania. That he had

others' heads cut off was not only because he had a mission as an

apostle, but because he believed himself hemmed in by enemies and

conspirators. ``Great as was the cowardice of his colleagues

where he was concerned,'' writes M. Sorel, ``the fear he had of

them was still greater.''

His dictatorship, absolute during five months, is a striking

example of the power of certain leaders. We can understand that

a tyrant backed by an army can easily destroy whom he pleases,

but that a single man should succeed in sending to death a large

number of his equals is a thing that is not easily explained.

The power of Robespierre was so absolute that he was able to send

to the Tribunal, and therefore to the scaffold, the most eminent

deputies: Desmoulins, Hebert, Danton, and many another. The

brilliant Girondists melted away before him. He attacked even

the terrible Commune, guillotined its leaders, and replaced it by

a new Commune obedient to his orders.

In order to rid himself more quickly of the men who displeased

him he induced the Convention to enact the law of Prairial, which

permitted the execution of mere suspects, and by means of which

he had 1,373 heads cut off in Paris in forty-nine days. His

colleagues, the victims of an insane terror, no longer slept at

home; scarcely a hundred deputies were present at sessions.

David said: ``I do not believe twenty of us members of the

Mountain will be left.''

It was his very excess of confidence in his own powers and in the

cowardice of the Convention that lost Robespierre his life.

Having attempted to make them vote a measure which would permit

deputies to be sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal, which

meant the scaffold, without the authorisation of the Assembly, on

an order from the governing Committee, several Montagnards

conspired with some members of the Plain to overthrow him.

Tallien, knowing himself marked down for early execution, and

having therefore nothing to lose, accused him loudly of tyranny.

Robespierre wished to defend himself by reading a speech which he

had long had in hand, but he learned to his cost that although it

is possible to destroy men in the name of logic it is not

possible to lead an assembly by means of logic. The

shouts of the conspirators drowned his voice; the cry ``Down with

the tyrant!'' quickly repeated, thanks to mental contagion, by

many of the members present, was enough to complete his downfall.

Without losing a moment the Assembly decreed his accusation.

The Commune having wished to save him, the Assembly outlawed him.

Struck by this magic formula, he was definitely lost.

``This cry of outlawry,'' writes Williams, ``at this period

produced the same effect on a Frenchman as the cry of pestilence;

the outlaw became civilly excommunicated, and it was as though

men believed that they would be contaminated passing through the

air which he had breathed. Such was the effect it produced upon

the gunners who had trained their cannon against the Convention.

Without receiving further orders, merely on hearing that the

Commune was `outside the law,' they immediately turned their

batteries about.''

Robespierre and all his band--Saint-Just, the president of the

Revolutionary Tribunal, the mayor of the Commune, &c.,--were

guillotined on the 10th of Thermidor to the number of twenty-one.

Their execution was followed on the morrow by a fresh batch of

seventy Jacobins, and on the next day by thirteen. The Terror,

which had lasted ten months, was at an end.

The downfall of the Jacobin edifice in Thermidor is one of the

most curious psychological events of the revolutionary period.

None of the Montagnards who had worked for the downfall of

Robespierre had for a moment dreamed that it would mark the end

of the Terror.

Tallien, Barras, Fouche, &c., overthrew Robespierre as he had

overthrown Hebert, Danton, the Girondists, and many others.

But when the acclamations of the crowd told them that the death

of Robespierre was regarded as having put an end to the Terror

they acted as though such had been their intention. They were

the more obliged to do so in that the Plain--that is, the great

majority of the Assembly--which had allowed itself to be

decimated by Robespierre, now rebelled furiously against the

system it had so long acclaimed even while it abhorred it.

Nothing is more terrible than a body of men who have been afraid

and are afraid no longer. The Plain revenged itself for being

terrorised by the Mountain, and terrorised that body in turn.

The servility of the colleagues of Robespierre in the Convention

was by no means based upon any feeling of sympathy for him. The

dictator filled them with an unspeakable alarm, but beneath the

marks of admiration and enthusiasm which they lavished on him out

of fear was concealed an intense hatred. We can gather as much

by reading the reports of various deputies inserted in the

Moniteur of August 11, 15, and 29, 1794, and notably that on

``the conspiracy of the triumvirs, Robespierre, Couthon, and

Saint-Just.'' Never did slaves heap such invectives on a fallen

master.

We learn that ``these monsters had for some time been renewing

the most horrible prescriptions of Marius and Sulla.''

Robespierre is represented as a most frightful scoundrel; we are

assured that ``like Caligula, he would soon have asked the French

people to worship his horse . . . He sought security in

the execution of all who aroused his slightest suspicion.''

These reports forget to add that the power of Robespierre

obtained no support, as did that of the Marius and Sulla to whom

they allude, from a powerful army, but merely from the repeated

adhesion of the members of the Convention. Without their

extreme timidity the power of the dictator could not have lasted

a single day.

Robespierre was one of the most odious tyrants of history, but he

is distinguished from all others in that he made himself a tyrant

without soldiers.

We may sum up his doctrines by saying that he was the most

perfect incarnation, save perhaps Saint-Just, of the Jacobin

faith, in all its narrow logic, its intense mysticism, and its

inflexible rigidity. He has admirers even to-day. M. Hamel

describes him as ``the martyr of Thermidor.'' There has been

some talk of erecting a monument to him. I would willingly

subscribe to such a purpose, feeling that it is useful to

preserve proofs of the blindness of the crowd, and of the

extraordinary docility of which an assembly is capable when the

leader knows how to handle it. His statue would recall the

passionate cries of admiration and enthusiasm with which the

Convention acclaimed the most threatening measures of the

dictator, on the very eve of the day when it was about to cast

him down.

4. Fouquier-Tinville, Marat, Billaud-Varenne, &c.

I shall devote a paragraph to certain revolutionists who were

famous for the development of their most sanguinary instincts.

Their ferocity was complicated by other sentiments, by

fear and hatred, which could but fortify it.

Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor of the Revolutionary

Tribunal, was one of those who have left the most sinister

memories. This magistrate, formerly reputed for his kindness,

and who became the bloodthirsty creature whose memory evokes such

repulsion, has already served me as an example in other works,

when I have wished to show the transformation of certain natures

in time of revolution.

Needy in the extreme at the moment of the fall of the monarchy,

he had everything to hope from a social upheaval and nothing to

lose. He was one of those men whom a period of disorder will

always find ready to sustain it.

The Convention abandoned its powers to him. He had to pronounce

upon the fate of nearly two thousand accused, among whom were

Marie-Antoinette, the Girondists, Danton, Hebert, &c. He had

all the suspects brought before him executed, and did not scruple

to betray his former protectors. As soon as one of them fell

into his power--Camille Desmoulins, Danton, or another--he would

plead against him.

Fouquier-Tinville had a very inferior mind, which the Revolution

brought to the top. Under normal conditions, hedged about by

professional rules, his destiny would have been that of a

peaceable and obscure magistrate. This was precisely the lot of

his deputy, or substitute, at the Tribunal, Gilbert-Liendon.

``He should,'' writes M. Durel, ``have inspired the same horror

as his colleague, yet he completed his career in the upper ranks

of the Imperial magistracy.''

One of the great benefits of an organised society is that it does

restrain these dangerous characters, whom nothing but social

restraints can hold.

Fouquier-Tinville died without understanding why he was

condemned, and from the revolutionary point of view his

condemnation was not justifiable. Had he not merely zealously

executed the orders of his superiors? It is impossible to class

him with the representatives who were sent into the provinces,

who could not be supervised. The delegates of the Convention

examined all his sentences and approved of them up to the last.

If his cruelty and his summary fashion of trying the prisoners

before him had not been encouraged by his chiefs, he could not

have remained in power. In condemning Fouquier-Tinville, the

Convention condemned its own frightful system of government. It

understood this fact, and sent to the scaffold a number of

Terrorists whom Fouquier-Tinville had merely served as a faithful

agent.

Beside Fouquier-Tinville we may set Dumas, who presided over the

Revolutionary Tribunal, and who also displayed an excessive

cruelty, which was whetted by an intense fear. He never went out

without two loaded pistols, barricaded himself in his house, and

only spoke to visitors through a wicket. His distrust of

everybody, including his own wife, was absolute. He even

imprisoned the latter, and was about to have her executed when

Thermidor arrived.

Among the men whom the Convention brought to light, Billaud-

Varenne was one of the wildest and, most brutal. He may be

regarded as a perfect type of bestial ferocity.

``In these hours of fruitful anger and heroic anguish he

remained calm, acquitting himself methodically of his task--and

it was a frightful task: he appeared officially at the massacres

of the Abbaye, congratulated the assassins, and promised them

money; upon which he went home as if he had merely been taking a

walk. We see him as president of the Jacobin Club, president of

the Convention, and member of the Committee of Public Safety; he

drags the Girondists to the scaffold: he drags the queen thither,

and his former patron, Danton, said of him, `Billaud has a dagger

under his tongue.' He approves of the cannonades at Lyons, the

drownings at Nantes, the massacres at Arras; he organises the

pitiless commission of Orange; he is concerned in the laws of

Prairial; he eggs on Fouquier-Tinville; on all decrees of death

is his name, often the first; he signs before his colleagues; he

is without pity, without emotion, without enthusiasm; when others

are frightened, hesitate, and draw back, he goes his way,

speaking in turgid sentences, `shaking his lion's mane'--for to

make his cold and impassive face more in harmony with the

exuberance that surrounds him he now decks himself in a yellow

wig which would make one laugh were it on any but the sinister

head of Billaud-Varenne. When Robespierre, Saint-Just, and

Couthon are threatened in turn, he deserts them and goes over to

the enemy, and pushes them under the knife. . . . Why? What is

his aim? No one knows; he is not in any way ambitious; he

desires neither power nor money.''

I do not think it would be difficult to answer why. The thirst

for blood, of which we have already spoken, and which is very

common among certain criminals, perfectly explains the

conduct of Billaud-Varennes. Bandits of this type kill for the

sake of killing, as sportsmen shoot game--for the very pleasure

of exercising their taste for destruction. In ordinary times men

endowed with these homicidal tendencies refrain, generally from

fear of the policeman and the scaffold. When they are able to

give them free vent nothing can stop them. Such was the case

with Billaud-Varenne and many others.

The psychology of Marat is rather more complicated, not only

because his craving for murder was combined with other elements--

wounded self-love, ambition, mystic beliefs, &c.--but also

because we must regard him as a semi-lunatic, affected by

megalomania, and haunted by fixed ideas.

Before the Revolution he had advanced great scientific

pretensions, but no one attached much importance to his

maunderings. Dreaming of place and honour, he had only obtained

a very subordinate situation in the household of a great noble.

The Revolution opened up an unhoped-for future. Swollen with

hatred of the old social system which had not recognised his

merits, he put himself at the head of the most violent section of

the people. Having publicly glorified the massacres of

September, he founded a journal which denounced everybody and

clamoured incessantly for executions.

Speaking continually of the interests of the people, Marat became

their idol. The majority of his colleagues heartily despised

him. Had he escaped the knife of Charlotte Corday, he certainly

would not have escaped that of the guillotine.

5. The Destiny of those Members of the Convention who survived

the Revolution.

Beside the members of the Convention whose psychology presents

particular characteristics there were others--Barras, Fouche,

Tallien, Merlin de Thionville, &c.--completely devoid of

principles or belief, who only sought to enrich themselves.

They sought to build up enormous fortunes out of the public

misery. In ordinary times they would have been qualified as

simple scoundrels, but in periods of revolution all standards

of vice and virtue seem to disappear.

Although a few Jacobins remained fanatics, the majority renounced

their convictions as soon as they had obtained riches, and became

the faithful courtiers of Napoleon. Cambaceres, who, on

addressing Louis XVI. in prison, called him Louis Capet, under

the Empire required his friends to call him ``Highness'' in

public and ``Monseigneur'' in private, thus displaying the

envious feeling which accompanied the craving for equality in

many of the Jacobins.

``The majority of the Jacobins,'' writes M. Madelin ``were

greatly enriched, and like Chabot, Bazire, Merlin, Barras,

Boursault, Tallien, Barrere, &c., possessed chateaux and

estates. Those who were not wealthy as yet were soon to become

so. . . In the Committee of the year III. alone the staff of the

Thermidorian party comprised a future prince, 13 future counts, 5

future barons, 7 future senators of the Empire, and 6 future

Councillors of State, and beside them in the Convention there

were, between the future Duke of Otranto to the future Count

Regnault, no less than 50 democrats who fifteen years

later possessed titles, coats of arms, plumes, carriages,

endowments, entailed estates, hotels, and chateaux.

Fouche died worth L600,000.''

The privileges of the ancien regime which had been so

bitterly decried were thus very soon re-established for the

benefit of the bourgeoisie. To arrive at this result it was

necessary to ruin France, to burn entire provinces, to multiply

suffering, to plunge innumerable families into despair, to

overturn Europe, and to destroy men by the hundred thousand on

the field of battle.

In closing this chapter we will recall what we have already said

concerning the possibility of judging the men of this period.

Although the moralist is forced to deal severely with certain

individuals, because he judges them by the types which society

must respect if it is to succeed in maintaining itself, the

psychologist is not in the same case. His aim is to understand,

and criticism vanishes before a complete comprehension.

The human mind is a very fragile mechanism, and the marionettes

which dance upon the stage of history are rarely able to resist

the imperious forces which impel them. Heredity, environment,

and circumstances are imperious masters. No one can say with

certainty what would have been his conduct in the place of the

men whose actions he endeavours to interpret.

BOOK III

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ANCESTRAL INFLUENCES AND REVOLUTIONARY

PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER I

THE LAST CONVULSIONS OF ANARCHY--THE DIRECTORY

1. The Psychology of the Directory.

As the various revolutionary assemblies were composed in part of

the same men, one might suppose that their psychology would be

very similar.

At ordinary periods this would have been so, for a constant

environment means constancy of character. But when circumstances

change as rapidly as they did under the Revolution, character

must perforce transform itself to adapt itself thereto. Such was

the case with the Directory.

The Directory comprised several distinct assemblies: two large

chambers, consisting of different categories of deputies, and one

very small chamber, which consisted of the five Directors.

The two larger Assemblies remind one strongly of the Convention

by their weakness. They were no longer forced to obey popular

riots, as these were energetically prevented by the Directors,

but they yielded without discussion to the dictatorial

injunctions of the latter.

The first deputies to be elected were mostly moderates. Everyone

was weary of the Jacobin tyranny. The new Assembly dreamed of

rebuilding the ruins with which France was covered, and

establishing a liberal government without violence.

But by one of those fatalities which were a law of the

Revolution, and which prove that the course of events is often

superior to men's wills, these deputies, like their predecessors,

may be said always to have done the contrary of what they wished

to do. They hoped to be moderate, and they were violent; they

wanted to eliminate the influence of the Jacobins, and they

allowed themselves to be led by them; they thought to repair the

ruins of the country and they succeeded only in adding others to

them; they aspired to religious peace, and they finally

persecuted and massacred the priests with greater rigour than

during the Terror.

The psychology of the little assembly formed by the five

Directors was very different from that of the Chamber of

Deputies. Encountering fresh difficulties daily, the directors

were forced to resolve them, while the large Assemblies, without

contact with realities, had only their aspirations.

The prevailing thought of the Directors was very simple. Highly

indifferent to principles, they wished above all to remain the

masters of France. To attain that result they did not shrink

from resorting to the most illegitimate measures, even annulling

the elections of a great number of the departments when these

embarrassed them.

Feeling themselves incapable of reorganising France, they left

her to herself. By their despotism they contrived to dominate

her, but they never governed her. Now, what France needed more

than anything at this juncture was to be governed.

The convention has left behind it the reputation of a strong

Government, and the Directory that of a weak Government. The

contrary is true: it was the Directory that was the strong

Government.

Psychologically we may readily explain the difference between the

Government of the Directory and that of the preceding Assemblies

by recalling the fact that a gathering of six hundred to seven

hundred persons may well suffer from waves of contagious

enthusiasm, as on the night of the 4th of August, or even

impulses of energetic will-power, such as that which launched

defiance against the kings of Europe. But such impulses are too

ephemeral to possess any great force. A committee of five

members, easily dominated by the will of one, is far more

susceptible of continuous resolution--that is, of perseverance in

a settled line of conduct.

The Government of the Directory proved to be always incapable of

governing, but it never lacked a strong will. Nothing

restraining it, neither respect for law nor consideration for the

citizens, nor love of the public welfare, it was able to impose

upon France a despotism more crushing than that of any Government

since the beginning of the Revolution, not excepting the Terror.

Although it utilised methods analogous to those of the

Convention, and ruled France in the most tyrannical manner, the

Directory, no more than the Convention, was never the master of

France.

This fact, which I have already noted, proves once more the

impotence of material constraint to dominate moral forces. It

cannot be too often repeated that the true guide of mankind is

the moral scaffolding erected by his ancestors.

Accustomed to live in an organised society, supported by codes

and respected traditions, we can with difficulty represent to

ourselves the condition of a nation deprived of such a basis. As

a general thing we only see the irksome side of our environment,

too readily forgetting that society can exist only on condition

of imposing certain restraints, and that laws, manners, and

custom constitute a check upon the natural instincts of barbarism

which never entirely perishes.

The history of the Convention and the Directory which followed it

shows plainly to what degree disorder may overcome a nation

deprived of its ancient structure, and having for guide only the

artificial combinations of an insufficient reason.

2. Despotic Government of the Directory. Recrudescence of the

Terror.

With the object of diverting attention, occupying the army, and

obtaining resources by the pillage of neighbouring countries, the

Directors decided to resume the wars of conquest which had

succeeded under the Convention.

These continued during the life time of the Directory. The

armies won a rich booty, especially in Italy.

Some of the invaded populations were so simple as to suppose that

these invasions were undertaken in their interest. They were not

long in discovering that all military operations were

accompanied by crushing taxes and the pillage of churches, public

treasuries, &c.

The final consequence of this policy of conquest was the

formation of a new coalition against France, which lasted until

1801.

Indifferent to the state of the country and incapable of

reorganising it, the Directors were principally concerned in

struggling against an incessant series of conspiracies in order

to keep in power.

This task was enough to occupy their leisure, for the political

parties had not disarmed. Anarchy had reached such a point that

all were calling for a hand powerful enough to restore order.

Everyone felt, the Directors included, that the republican system

could not last much longer.

Some dreamed of re-establishing royalty, others the Terrorist

system, while others waited for a general. Only the purchasers

of the national property feared a change of Government.

The unpopularity of the Directory increased daily, and when in

May, 1797, the third part of the Assembly had to be renewed, the

majority of those elected were hostile to the system.

The Directors were not embarrassed by a little thing like that.

They annulled the elections in 49 departments; 154 of the new

deputies were invalidated and expelled, 53 condemned to

deportation. Among these latter figured the most illustrious

names of the Revolution: Portalis, Carnot, Tronson du Coudray,

&c.

To intimidate the electors, military commissions condemned to

death, rather at random, 160 persons, and sent to Guiana 330, of

whom half speedily died. The emigres and priests who

had returned to France were violently expelled. This was known

as the coup d'etat of Fructidor.

This coup, which struck more especially at the moderates, was

not the only one of its kind; another quickly followed. The

Directors, finding the Jacobin deputies too numerous, annulled

the elections of sixty of them.

The preceding facts displayed the tyrannical temper of the

Directors, but this appeared even more plainly in the details of

their measures. The new masters of France also proved to be as

bloodthirsty as the most ferocious deputies of the Terror.

The guillotine was not re-established as a permanency, but

replaced by deportation under conditions which left the victims

little chance of survival. Sent to Rochefort in cages of iron

bars, exposed to all the severities of the weather, they were

then packed into boats.

``Between the decks of the Decade and the Bayonnaise,''

says Taine, ``the miserable prisoners, suffocated by the lack of

air and the torrid heat, bullied and fleeced, died of hunger or

asphyxia, and Guiana completed the work of the voyage: of 193

taken thither by the Decade 39 were left alive at the end of

twenty-two months; of 120 taken by the Bayonnaise 1 remained.

Observing everywhere a Catholic renascence, and imagining that

the clergy were conspiring against them, the Directors deported

or sent to the galleys in one year 1,448 priests, to say nothing

of a large number who were summarily executed. The Terror was in

reality completely re-established.

The autocratic despotism of the Directory was exercised in all

the branches of the administration, notably the finances. Thus,

having need of six hundred million francs, it forced the

deputies, always docile, to vote a progressive impost, which

yielded, however, only twelve millions. Being presently in the

same condition, it decreed a forced loan of a hundred millions,

which resulted in the closing of workshops, the stoppage of

business, and the dismissal of domestics. It was only at the

price of absolute ruin that forty millions could be obtained.

To assure itself of domination in the provinces the Directory

caused a so-called law of hostages to be passed, according to

which a list of hostages, responsible for all offences, was drawn

up in each commune.

It is easy to understand what hatred such a system provoked. At

the end of 1799 fourteen departments were in revolt and forty-six

were ready to rise. If the Directory had lasted the dissolution

of society would have been complete.

For that matter, this dissolution was far advanced. Finances,

administration, everything was crumbling. The receipts of the

Treasury, consisting of depreciated assignats fallen to a

hundredth part of their original value, were negligible. Holders

of Government stock and officers could no longer obtain payment.

France at this time gave travellers the impression of a country

ravaged by war and abandoned by its inhabitants. The broken

bridges and dykes and ruined buildings made all traffic

impossible. The roads, long deserted, were infested by brigands.

Certain departments could only be crossed at the price of buying

a safe-conduct from the leaders of these bands. Industry

and commerce were annihilated. In Lyons 13,000 workshops and

mills out of 15,000 had been forced to close. Lille, Havre,

Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, &c., were like dead cities. Poverty

and famine were general.

The moral disorganisation was no less terrible. Luxury and the

craving for pleasure, costly dinners, jewels, and extravagant

households were the appanage of a new society composed entirely

of stock-jobbers, army contractors, and shady financiers enriched

by pillage. They gave Paris that superficial aspect of luxury

and gaiety which has deluded so many historians of this period,

because the insolent prodigality displayed covered the general

misery.

The chronicles of the Directory as told in books help to show us

of what lies the web of history is woven. The theatre has lately

got hold of this period, of which the fashions are still

imitated. It has left the memory of a joyous period of re-birth

after the gloomy drama of the Terror. In reality the drama of

the Directory was hardly an improvement on the Terror and was

quite as sanguinary. Finally, it inspired such loathing that the

Directors, feeling that it could not last, sought themselves for

the dictator capable of replacing it and also of protecting them.

3. The Advent of Bonaparte.

We have seen that at the end of the Directory the anarchy and

disorganisation were such that every one was desperately calling

for the man of energy capable of re-establishing order. As early

as 1795 a number of deputies had thought for a moment of re-

establishing royalty. Louis XVIII., having been tactless

enough to declare that he would restore the ancien regime in

its entirety, return all property to its original owners, and

punish the men of the Revolution, was immediately thrown over.

The senseless expedition of Quiberon finally alienated the

supporters of the future sovereign. The royalists gave a proof

during the whole of the Revolution of an incapacity and a

narrowness of mind which justified most of the measures taken

against them.

The monarchy being impossible, it was necessary to find a

general. Only one existed whose name carried weight--Bonaparte.

The campaign in Italy had just made him famous. Having crossed

the Alps, he had marched from victory to victory, penetrated to

Milan and Venice, and everywhere obtained important war

contributions. He then made towards Vienna, and was only twenty-

five leagues from its gates when the Emperor of Austria decided

to sue for peace.

But great as was his renown, the young general did not consider

it sufficient. To increase it he persuaded the Directory that

the power of England could be shaken by an invasion of Egypt, and

in May, 1798, he embarked at Toulon.

This need of increasing his prestige arose from a very sound

psychological conception which he clearly expounded at St.

Helena:--

``The most influential and enlightened generals had long been

pressing the general of Italy to take steps to place himself at

the head of the Republic. He refused; he was not yet strong

enough to walk quite alone. He had ideas upon the art of

governing and upon what was necessary to a great nation

which were so different from those of the men of the

Revolution and the assemblies that, not being able to act alone,

he feared to compromise his character. He determined to set out

for Egypt, but resolved to reappear if circumstances should arise

to render his presence useful or necessary.''

Bonaparte did not stay long in Egypt. Recalled by his friends,

he landed at Frejus, and the announcement of his return provoked

universal enthusiasm. There were illuminations everywhere.

France collaborated in advance in the coup d'etat prepared

by two Directors and the principal ministers. The plot was

organised in three weeks. Its execution on the 18th of Brumaire

was accomplished with the greatest ease.

All parties experienced the greatest delight at being rid of the

sinister gangs who had so long oppressed and exploited the

country. The French were doubtless about to enter upon a

despotic system of government, but it could not be so intolerable

as that which had been endured for so many years.

The history of the coup d'etat of Brumaire justifies all

that we have already said of the impossibility of forming exact

judgments of events which apparently are fully understood and

attested by no matter how many witnesses.

We know what ideas people had thirty years ago concerning the

coup of Brumaire. It was regarded as a crime committed by the

ambition of a man who was supported by his army. As a matter of

fact the army played no part whatever in the affair. The little

body of men who expelled the few recalcitrant deputies were not

soldiers even, but the gendarmes of the Assembly itself. The

true author of the coup d'etat was the Government itself, with

the complicity of all France.

4. Causes of the Duration of the Revolution.

If we limit the Revolution to the time necessary for the conquest

of its fundamental principles--equality before the law, free

access to public functions, popular sovereignty, control of

expenditures, &c.--we may say that it lasted only a few months.

Towards the middle of 1789 all this was accomplished, and during

the years that followed nothing was added to it, yet the

Revolution lasted much longer.

Confining the duration to the dates admitted by the official

historians, we see it persisting until the advent of Bonaparte, a

space of some ten years.

Why did this period of disorganisation and violence follow the

establishment of the new principles? We need not seek the cause

in the foreign war, which might on several occasions have been

terminated, thanks to the divisions of the allies and the

constant victories of the French; neither must we look for it in

the sympathy of Frenchmen for the revolutionary Government.

Never was rule more cordially hated and despised than that of the

Assemblies. By its revolts as well as by its repeated votes a

great part of the nation displayed the horror with which it

regarded the system.

This last point, the aversion of France for the revolutionary

regime, so long misunderstood, has been well displayed by

recent historians. The author of the last book published on the

Revolution, M. Madelin, has well summarised their opinion in the

following words:--

``As early as 1793 a party by no means numerous had seized upon

France, the Revolution, and the Republic. Now, three-quarters of

France longed for the Revolution to be checked, or rather

delivered from its odious exploiters; but these held the unhappy

country by a thousand means. . . . As the Terror was essential

to them if they were to rule, they struck at whomsoever seemed at

any given moment to be opposed to the Terror, were they the best

servants of the Revolution.''

Up to the end of the Directory the government was exercised by

Jacobins, who merely desired to retain, along with the supreme

power, the riches they had accumulated by murder and pillage, and

were ready to surrender France to any one who would guarantee

them free possession of these. That they negotiated the coup

d'etat of Brumaire with Napoleon was simply to the fact that

they had not been able to realise their wishes with regard to

Louis XVIII.

But how explain the fact that a Government so tyrannical and so

dishonoured was able to survive for so many years?

It was not merely because the revolutionary religion still

survived in men's minds, nor because it was forced on them by

means of persecution and bloodshed, but especially, as I have

already stated, on account of the great interest which a large

portion of the population had in maintaining it.

This point is fundamental. If the Revolution had remained a

theoretical religion, it would probably have been of short

duration. But the belief which had just been founded very

quickly emerged from the domain of pure theory.

The Revolution did not confine itself to despoiling the monarchy,

the nobility, and the clergy of their powers of government. In

throwing into the hands of the bourgeoisie and the large

numbers of peasantry the wealth and the employments of the old

privileged classes it had at the same stroke turned them into

obstinate supporters of the revolutionary system. All those who

had acquired the property of which the nobles and clergy had been

despoiled had obtained lands and chateaux at low prices, and

were terrified lest the restoration of the monarchy should force

them to make general restitution.

It was largely for these reasons that a Government which, at any

normal period, would never have been endured, was able to survive

until a master should re-establish order, while promising to

maintain not only the moral but also the material conquests of

the Revolution. Bonaparte realised these anxieties, and was

promptly and enthusiastically welcomed. Material conquests which

were still contestable and theoretical principles which were

still fragile were by him incorporated in institutions and the

laws. It is an error to say that the Revolution terminated with

his advent. Far from destroying it, he ratified and consolidated

it.

CHAPTER II

THE RESTORATION OF ORDER. THE CONSULAR REPUBLIC

1. How the Work of the Revolution was Confirmed by the

Consulate.

The history of the Consulate is as rich as the preceding period

in psychological material. In the first place it shows us that

the work of a powerful individual is superior to that of a

collectivity. Bonaparte immediately replaced the bloody anarchy

in which the Republic had for ten years been writhing by a period

of order. That which none of the four Assemblies of the

Revolution had been able to realise, despite the most violent

oppression, a single man accomplished in a very short space of

time.

His authority immediately put an end to all the Parisian

insurrections and the attempts at monarchical resistance, and re-

established the moral unity of France, so profoundly divided by

intense hatreds. Bonaparte replaced an unorganised collective

despotism by a perfectly organised individual despotism.

Everyone gained thereby, for his tyranny was infinitely less

heavy than that which had been endured for ten long years. We

must suppose, moreover, that it was unwelcome to very few, as it

was very soon accepted with immense enthusiasm.

We know better to-day than to repeat with the old historians that

Bonaparte overthrew the Republic. On the contrary, he retained

of it all that could be retained, and never would have been

retained without him, by establishing all the practicable work of

the Revolution--the abolition of privileges, equality before the

law, &c.--in institutions and codes of law. The Consular

Government continued, moreover, to call itself the Republic.

It is infinitely probable that without the Consulate a

monarchical restoration would have terminated the Directory, and

would have wiped out the greater part of the work of the

Revolution. Let us suppose Bonaparte erased from history. No

one, I think, will imagine that the Directory could have survived

the universal weariness of its rule. It would certainly have

been overturned by the royalist conspiracies which were breaking

out daily, and Louis XVIII. would probably have ascended the

throne. Certainly he was to mount it sixteen years later, but

during this interval Bonaparte gave such force to the principles

of the Revolution, by establishing them in laws and customs, that

the restored sovereign dared not touch them, nor restore the

property of the returned emigres.

Matters would have been very different had Louis XVIII.

immediately followed the Directory. He would have brought with

him all the absolutism of the ancien regime, and fresh

revolutions would have been necessary to abolish it. We know

that a mere attempt to return to the past overthrew Charles X.

It would be a little ingenuous to complain of the tyranny

of Bonaparte. Under the ancien regime Frenchmen had

supported every species of tyranny, and the Republic had created

a despotism even heavier than that of the monarchy. Despotism

was then a normal condition, which aroused no protest save when

it was accompanied by disorder.

A constant law of the psychology of crowds shows them as creating

anarchy, and then seeking the master who will enable them to

emerge therefrom. Bonaparte was this master.

2. The Reorganisation of France by the Consulate.

Upon assuming power Bonaparte undertook a colossal task. All was

in ruins; all was to be rebuilt. On the morrow of the coup of

Brumaire he drafted, almost single-handed, the Constitution

destined to give him the absolute power which was to enable him

to reorganise the country and to prevail over the factions. In a

month it was completed.

This Constitution, known as that of the year VIII., survived,

with slight modifications, until the end of his reign. The

executive power was the attribute of three Consuls, two of whom

possessed a consultative voice only. The first Consul,

Bonaparte, was therefore sole master of France. He appointed

ministers, councillors of state, ambassadors, magistrates, and

other officials, and decided upon peace or war. The legislative

power was his also, since only he could initiate the laws, which

were subsequently submitted to three Assemblies--the Council of

State, the Tribunate, and the Legislative Corps. A fourth

Assembly, the Senate, acted effectually as the guardian of

the Constitution.

Despotic as he was and became, Bonaparte always called the other

Consuls about him before proceeding with the most trivial

measure. The Legislative Corps did not exercise much influence

during his reign, but he signed no decrees of any kind without

first discussing them with the Council of State. This Council,

composed of the most enlightened and learned men of France,

prepared laws, which were then presented to the Legislative

Corps, which could criticise them very freely, since voting was

secret. Presided over by Bonaparte, the Council of State was a

kind of sovereign tribunal, judging even the actions of

ministers.[9]

[9] Napoleon naturally often overruled the Council of State, but

by no means always did so. In one instance, reported in the

Memorial de Sainte-Helene, he was the only one of his own

opinion, and accepted that of the majority in the following

terms: ``Gentlemen, matters are decided here by majority, and

being alone, I must give way; but I declare that in my conscience

I yield only to form. You have reduced me to silence, but in no

way convinced me.''

Another day the Emperor, interrupted three times in the

expression of his opinion, addressed himself to the speaker who

had just interrupted him: ``Sir, I have not yet finished; I beg

you to allow me to continue. After all, it seems to me that

every one has a perfect right to express his opinion here.''

``The Emperor, contrary to the accepted opinion, was so far from

absolute, and so easy with his Council of State, that he often

resumed a discussion, or even annulled a decision, because one of

the members of the Council had since, in private, given him fresh

reasons, or had urged that the Emperor's personal opinion had

influenced the majority.''

The new master had great confidence in this Council, as it was

composed more particularly of eminent jurists, each of whom dealt

with his own speciality. He was too good a psychologist not to

entertain the greatest suspicion of large and incompetent

assemblies of popular origin, whose disastrous results had been

obvious to him during the whole of the Revolution.

Wishing to govern for the people, but never with its assistance,

Bonaparte accorded it no part in the government, reserving to it

only the right of voting, once for all, for or against the

adoption of the new Constitution. He only in rare instances had

recourse to universal suffrage. The members of the Legislative

Corps recruited themselves, and were not elected by the people.

In creating a Constitution intended solely to fortify his own

power, the First Consul had no illusion that it would serve to

restore the country. Consequently, while he was drafting it he

also undertook the enormous task of the administrative, judicial,

and financial reorganisation of France. The various powers were

centralised in Paris. Each department was directed by a prefect,

assisted by a consul-general; the arrondissement by a sub-

prefect, assisted by a council; the commune by a mayor, assisted

by a municipal council. All were appointed by the ministers, and

not by election, as under the Republic.

This system, which created the omnipotent State and a powerful

centralisation, was retained by all subsequent Governments and is

preserved to-day. Centralisation being, in spite of its

drawbacks, the only means of avoiding local tyrannies in a

country profoundly divided within itself, has always been

maintained.

This organisation, based on a profound knowledge of the soul of

the French people, immediately restored that tranquillity and

order which had for so long been unknown.

To complete the mental pacification of the country, the political

exiles were recalled and the churches restored to the faithful.

Continuing to rebuild the social edifice, Bonaparte busied

himself also with the drafting of a code, the greater part of

which consisted of customs borrowed from the ancien regime.

It was, as has been said, a sort of transition or compromise

between the old law and the new.

Considering the enormous task accomplished by the First Consul in

so short a time, we realise that he had need, before all, of a

Constitution according him absolute power. If all the measures

by which he restored France had been submitted to assemblies of

attorneys, he could never have extricated the country from the

disorder into which it had fallen.

The Constitution of the year VIII. obviously transformed the

Republic into a monarchy at least as absolute as the ``Divine

right'' monarchy of Louis XIV. Being the only Constitution

adapted to the needs of the moment, it represented a

psychological necessity.

3. Psychological Elements which determined the Success of the

Work of the Consulate.

All the external forces which act upon men--economic, historical,

geographical, &c.--may be finally translated into psychological

forces. These psychological forces a ruler must understand in

order to govern. The Revolutionary Assemblies were completely

ignorant of them; Bonaparte knew how to employ them.

The various Assemblies, the Convention notably, were composed of

conflicting parties. Napoleon understood that to dominate them

he must not belong to any one of these parties. Very well aware

that the value of a country is disseminated among the superior

intelligences of the various parties, he tried to utilise them

all. His agents of government--ministers, priests, magistrates,

&c.--were taken indifferently from among the Liberals, Royalists,

Jacobites, &c., having regard only to their capacities.

While accepting the assistance of men of the ancien regime,

Bonaparte took care to make it understood that he intended to

maintain the fundamental principles of the Revolution.

Nevertheless many Royalists rallied round the new Government.

One of the most remarkable feats of the Consulate, from the

psychological point of view, was the restoration of religious

peace. France was far more divided by religious disagreement

than by political differences. The systematic destruction of a

portion of the Vendee had almost completely terminated the

struggle by force of arms, but without pacifying men's minds. As

only one man, and he the head of Christianity, could assist in

this pacification, Bonaparte did not hesitate to treat with him.

His concordat was the work of a real psychologist, who knew that

moral forces do not use violence, and the great danger of

persecuting such. While conciliating the clergy he contrived to

place them under his own domination. The bishops were to

be appointed and remunerated by the State, so that he would still

be master.

The religious policy of Napoleon had a bearing which escapes our

modern Jacobins. Blinded by their narrow fanaticism, they do not

understand that to detach the Church from the Government is to

create a state within the State, so that they are liable to find

themselves opposed by a formidable caste, directed by a master

outside France, and necessarily hostile to France. To give one's

enemies a liberty they did not possess is extremely dangerous.

Never would Napoleon, nor any of the sovereigns who preceded him,

have consented to make the clergy independent of the State, as

they have become to-day.

The difficulties of Bonaparte the First Consul were far greater

than those he had to surmount after his coronation. Only a

profound knowledge of men enabled him to triumph over them. The

future master was far from being the master as yet. Many

departments were still in insurrection. Brigandage persisted,

and the Midi was ravaged by the struggles of partisans.

Bonaparte, as Consul, had to conciliate and handle Talleyrand,

Fouche, and a number of generals who thought themselves his

equal. Even his brothers conspired against his power. Napoleon,

as Emperor, had no hostile party to face, but as Consul he

had to combat all the parties and to hold the balance equal among

them. This must indeed have been a difficult task, since during

the last century very few Governments have succeeded in

accomplishing it.

The success of such an undertaking demanded an extremely subtle

mixture of finesse, firmness, and diplomacy. Not feeling

himself powerful enough as yet, Bonaparte the Consul made a rule,

according to his own expression, ``of governing men as the

greater number wish to be governed.'' As Emperor he often

managed to govern them according to his own ideal.

We have travelled a long way since the time when historians, in

their singular blindness, and great poets, who possessed more

talent than psychology, would hold forth in indignant accents

against the coup d'etat of Brumaire. What profound

illusions underlay the assertion that ``France lay fair in

Messidor's great sun''! And other illusions no less profound

underlay such verdicts as that of Victor Hugo concerning this

period. We have seen that the ``Crime of Brumaire'' had as an

enthusiastic accomplice, not only the Government itself but the

whole of France, which it delivered from anarchy.

One may wonder how intelligent men could so misjudge a period of

history which is nevertheless so clear. It was doubtless because

they saw events through their own convictions, and we know what

transformations the truth may suffer for the man who is

imprisoned in the valleys of belief. The most luminous facts are

obscured, and the history of events is the history of his dreams.

The psychologist who desires to understand the period which we

have so briefly sketched can only do so if, being attached to no

party, he stands clear of the passions which are the soul of

parties. He will never dream of recriminating a past which was

dictated by such imperious necessities. Certainly Napoleon has

cost France dear: his epic was terminated by two invasions, and

there was yet to be a third, whose consequences are felt

even to-day, when the prestige which he exerted even from the

tomb set upon the throne the inheritor of his name.

All these events are narrowly connected in their origin. They

represent the price of that capital phenomenon in the evolution

of a people, a change of ideal. Man can never make the attempt

to break suddenly with his ancestors without profoundly affecting

the course of his own history.

CHAPTER III

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN TRADITIONS AND

REVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES DURING THE LAST CENTURY

1. The Psychological Causes of the continued Revolutionary

Movements to which France has been subject.

In examining, in a subsequent chapter, the evolution of

revolutionary ideas during the last century, we shall see that

during more than fifty years they very slowly spread through the

various strata of society.

During the whole of this period the great majority of the people

and the bourgeoisie rejected them, and their diffusion was

effected only by a very limited number of apostles. But their

influence, thanks principally to the faults of Governments, was

sufficient to provoke several revolutions. We shall examine

these briefly when we have examined the psychological influences

which gave them birth.

The history of our political upheavals during the last century is

enough to prove, even if we did not yet realise the fact, that

men are governed by their mentalities far more than by the

institutions which their rulers endeavour to force upon them.

The successive revolutions which France has suffered have been

the consequences of struggles between two portions of the

nation whose mentalities are different. One is religious and

monarchical and is dominated by long ancestral influences; the

other is subjected to the same influences, but gives them a

revolutionary form.

From the commencement of the Revolution the struggle between

contrary mentalities was plainly manifested. We have seen that

in spite of the most frightful repression insurrections and

conspiracies lasted until the end of the Directory. They proved

that the traditions of the past had left profound roots in the

popular soul. At a certain moment sixty departments were in

revolt against the new Government, and were only repressed by

repeated massacres on a vast scale.

To establish some sort of compromise between the ancien

regime and the new ideals was the most difficult of the

problems which Bonaparte had to resolve. He had to discover

institutions which would suit the two mentalities into which

France was divided. He succeeded, as we have seen, by

conciliatory measures, and also by dressing very ancient things

in new names.

His reign was one of those rare periods of French history during

which the mental unity of France was complete.

This unity could not outlive him. On the morrow of his fall all

the old parties reappeared, and have survived until the present

day. Some attach themselves to traditional influences; others

violently reject them.

If this long conflict had been between believers and the

indifferent, it could not have lasted, for indifference is

always tolerant; but the struggle was really between two

different beliefs. The lay Church very soon assumed a religious

aspect, and its pretended rationalism has become, especially in

recent years, a barely attenuated form of the narrowest clerical

spirit. Now, we have shown that no conciliation is possible

between dissimilar religious beliefs. The clericals when in

power could not therefore show themselves more tolerant towards

freethinkers than these latter are to-day toward the clericals.

These divisions, determined by differences of belief, were

complicated by the addition of the political conceptions derived

from those beliefs.

Many simple souls have for long believed that the real history of

France began with the year I. of the Republic. This rudimentary

conception is at last dying out. Even the most rigid

revolutionaries renounce it,[10] and are quite willing to

recognise that the past was something better than an epoch of

black barbarism dominated by low superstitions.

[10] We may judge of the recent evolution of ideas upon this

point by the following passage from a speech by M. Jaures,

delivered in the Chamber of Deputies: ``The greatness of to-day

is built of the efforts of past centuries. France is not

contained in a day nor in an epoch, but in the succession of all

days, all periods, all her twilights and all her dawns.''

The religious origin of most of the political beliefs held in

France inspires their adepts with an inextinguishable hatred

which always strikes foreigners with amazement.

``Nothing is more obvious, nothing is more certain,'' writes Mr.

Barret-Wendell, in his book on France, ``than this fact: that not

only have the royalists, revolutionaries, and Bonapartists

always been mortally opposed to one another, but that, owing to

the passionate ardour of the French character, they have always

entertained a profound intellectual horror for one another. Men

who believe themselves in possession of the truth cannot refrain

from affirming that those who do not think with them are

instruments of error.

``Each party will gravely inform you that the advocates of the

adverse cause are afflicted by a dense stupidity or are

consciously dishonest. Yet when you meet these latter, who will

say exactly the same things as their detractors, you cannot but

recognise, in all good faith, that they are neither stupid nor

dishonest.''

This reciprocal execration of the believers of each party has

always facilitated the overthrow of Governments and ministers in

France. The parties in the minority will never refuse to ally

themselves against the triumphant party. We know that a great

number of revolutionary Socialists have been elected to the

present Chamber only by the aid of the monarchists, who are still

as unintelligent as they were at the time of the Revolution.

Our religious and political differences do not constitute the

only cause of dissension in France. They are held by men

possessing that particular mentality which I have already

described under the name of the revolutionary mentality. We have

seen that each period always presents a certain number of

individuals ready to revolt against the established order of

things, whatever that may be, even though it may realise all

their desires.

The intolerance of the parties in France, and their desire to

seize upon power, are further favoured by the conviction, so

prevalent under the Revolution, that societies can be remade by

means of laws. The modern State, whatever its leader, has

inherited in the eyes of the multitudes and their leaders the

mystic power attributed to the ancient kings, when these latter

were regarded as an incarnation of the Divine will. Not only the

people is inspired by this confidence in the power of Government;

all our legislators entertain it also.[11]

[11] After the publication of an article of mine concerning

legislative illusions, I received from one of our most eminent

politicians, M. Boudenot the senator, a letter from which I

extract the following passage: ``Twenty years passed in the

Chamber and the Senate have shown me how right you are. How many

times I have heard my colleagues say: `The Government ought to

prevent this, order that,' &c. What would you have? there are

fourteen centuries of monarchical atavism in our blood.''

Legislating always, politicians never realise that as

institutions are effects, and not causes, they have no virtue in

themselves. Heirs to the great revolutionary illusion, they do

not see that man is created by a past whose foundations we are

powerless to reshape.

The conflict between the principles dividing France, which has

lasted more than a century, will doubtless continue for a long

time yet, and no one can foresee what fresh upheavals it may

engender. No doubt if before our era the Athenians could have

divined that their social dissensions would have led to the

enslavement of Greece, they would have renounced them; but how

could they have foreseen as much? M. Guiraud justly writes: ``A

generation of men very rarely realises the task which it

is accomplishing. It is preparing for the future; but this

future is often the contrary of what it wishes.''

2. Summary of a Century's Revolutionary Movement in France.

The psychological causes of the revolutionary movements which

France has seen during the past century having been explained, it

will now suffice to present a summary picture of these successive

revolutions.

The sovereigns in coalition having defeated Napoleon, they

reduced France to her former limits, and placed Louis XVIII., the

only possible sovereign, on the throne.

By a special charter the new king accepted the position of a

constitutional monarch under a representative system of

government. He recognised all the conquests of the Revolution:

the civil Code, equality before the law, liberty of worship,

irrevocability of the sale of national property, &c. The right

of suffrage, however, was limited to those paying a certain

amount in taxes.

This liberal Constitution was opposed by the ultra-royalists.

Returned emigres, they wanted the restitution of the national

property, and the re-establishment of their ancient privileges.

Fearing that such a reaction might cause a new revolution, Louis

XVIII. was reduced to dissolving the Chamber. The election

having returned moderate deputies, he was able to continue to

govern with the same principles, understanding very well that any

attempt to govern the French by the ancien regime would be

enough to provoke a general rebellion.

Unfortunately, his death, in 1824, placed Charles X., formerly

Comte d'Artois, on the throne. Extremely narrow, incapable of

understanding the new world which surrounded him, and boasting

that he had not modified his ideas since 1789, he prepared a

series of reactionary laws--a law by which an indemnity of forty

millions sterling was to be paid to emigres; a law of sacrilege;

and laws establishing the rights of primogeniture, the

preponderance of the clergy, &c.

The majority of the deputies showing themselves daily more

opposed to his projects, in 1830 he enacted Ordinances dissolving

the Chamber, suppressing the liberty of the Press, and preparing

for the restoration of the ancien regime.

The effect was immediate. This autocratic action provoked a

coalition of the leaders of all parties. Republicans,

Bonapartists, Liberals, Royalists--all united in order to raise

the Parisian populace. Four days after the publication of the

Ordinances the insurgents were masters of the capital, and

Charles X. fled to England.

The leaders of the movement--Thiers, Casimir-Perier, La Fayette,

&c.--summoned to Paris Louis-Philippe, of whose existence the

people were scarcely aware, and declared him king of the French.

Between the indifference of the people and the hostility of the

nobles, who had remained faithful to the legitimate dynasty, the

new king relied chiefly upon the bourgeoisie. An electoral law

having reduced the electors to less than 200,000, this class

played an exclusive part in the government.

The situation of the sovereign was not easy. He had to struggle

simultaneously against the legitimist supporters of Henry

V. the grandson of Charles X., and the Bonapartists, who

recognised as their head Louis-Napoleon, the Emperor's nephew,

and finally against the republicans.

By means of their secret societies, analogous to the clubs of the

Revolution, the latter provoked numerous riots at various

intervals between 1830 and 1840, but these were easily repressed.

The clericals and legitimists, on their side, did not cease their

intrigues. The Duchess de Berry, the mother of Henry V., tried

in vain to raise the Vendee. As to the clergy, their demands

finally made them so intolerable that an insurrection broke out,

in the course of which the palace of the archbishop of Paris was

sacked.

The republicans as a party were not very dangerous, as the

Chamber sided with the king in the struggle against them. The

minister Guizot, who advocated a strong central power, declared

that two things were indispensable to government--``reason and

cannon.'' The famous statesman was surely somewhat deluded as to

the necessity or efficacy of reason.

Despite this strong central power, which in reality was not

strong, the republicans, and above all the Socialists, continued

to agitate. One of the most influential, Louis Blanc, claimed

that it was the duty of the Government to procure work for every

citizen. The Catholic party, led by Lacordaire and Montalembert,

united with the Socialists--as to-day in Belgium--to oppose the

Government.

A campaign in favour of electoral reform ended in 1848 in a fresh

riot, which unexpectedly overthrew Louis-Philippe.

His fall was far less justifiable than that of Charles X. There

was little with which he could be reproached. Doubtless he was

suspicious of universal suffrage, but the French Revolution had

more than once been quite suspicious of it. Louis-Philippe not

being, like the Directory, an absolute ruler, could not, as the

latter had done, annul unfavourable elections.

A provisional Government was installed in the Hotel de Ville,

to replace the fallen monarchy. It proclaimed the Republic,

established universal suffrage, and decreed that the people

should proceed to the election of a National Assembly of nine

hundred members.

From the first days of its existence the new Government found

itself the victim of socialistic manoeuvres and riots.

The psychological phenomena observed during the first Revolution

were now to be witnessed again. Clubs were formed, whose leaders

sent the people from time to time against the Assembly, for

reasons which were generally quite devoid of common sense--for

example, to force the Government to support an insurrection in

Poland, &c.

In the hope of satisfying the Socialists, every day more noisy

and exigent, the Assembly organised national workshops, in which

the workers were occupied in various forms of labour. In these

100,000 men cost the State more than L40,000 weekly. Their

claim to receive pay without working for it forced the Assembly

to close the workshops.

This measure was the origin of a formidable insurrection, 50,000

workers revolting. The Assembly, terrified, confided all

the executive powers to General Cavaignac. There was a four-days

battle with the insurgents, during which three generals and the

Archbishop of Paris were killed; 3,000 prisoners were deported by

the Assembly to Algeria, and revolutionary Socialism was

annihilated for a space of fifty years.

These events brought Government stock down from 116 to 50 francs.

Business was at a standstill. The peasants, who thought

themselves threatened by the Socialists, and the bourgeois,

whose taxes the Assembly had increased by half, turned against

the Republic, and when Louis-Napoleon promised to re-establish

order he found himself welcomed with enthusiasm. A candidate for

the position of President of the Republic, who according to the

new Constitution must be elected by the whole body of citizens,

he was chosen by 5,500,000 votes.

Very soon at odds with the Chamber, the prince decided on a coup

d'etat. The Assembly was dissolved; 30,000 persons were

arrested, 10,000 deported, and a hundred deputies were exiled.

This coup d'etat, although summary, was very favourably

received, for when submitted to a plebiscite it received

7,500,000 votes out of 8,000,000.

On the 2nd of November, 1852, Napoleon had himself named Emperor

by an even greater majority: The horror which the generality of

Frenchmen felt for demagogues and Socialists had restored the

Empire.

In the first part of its existence it constituted an absolute

Government, and during the latter half a liberal Government.

After eighteen years of rule the Emperor was overthrown by the

revolution of the 4th of September, 1870, after the capitulation

of Sedan.

Since that time revolutionary movements have been rare; the only

one of importance was the revolution of March, 1871, which

resulted in the burning of many of the monuments of Paris and the

execution of about 20,000 insurgents.

After the war of 1870 the electors, who, amid so many disasters,

did not know which way to turn, sent a great number of Orleanist

and legitimist deputies to the Constituent Assembly. Unable to

agree upon the establishment of a monarchy, they appointed M.

Thiers President of the Republic, later replacing him by Marshal

MacMahon. In 1876 the new elections, like all those that have

followed, sent a majority of republicans to the Chamber.

The various assemblies which have succeeded to this have always

been divided into numerous parties, which have provoked

innumerable changes of ministry.

However, thanks to the equilibrium resulting from this division

of parties, we have for forty years enjoyed comparative quiet.

Four Presidents of the Republic have been overthrown without

revolution, and the riots that have occurred, such as those of

Champagne and the Midi, have not had serious consequences.

A great popular movement, in 1888, did nearly overthrow the

Republic for the benefit of General Boulanger, but it has

survived and triumphed over the attacks of all parties.

Various reasons contribute to the maintenance of the present

Republic. In the first place, of the conflicting factions

none is strong enough to crush the rest. In the second place,

the head of the State being purely decorative, and possessing no

power, it is impossible to attribute to him the evils from which

the country may suffer, and to feel sure that matters would be

different were he overthrown. Finally, as the supreme power is

distributed among thousands of hands, responsibilities are so

disseminated that it would be difficult to know where to begin.

A tyrant can be overthrown, but what can be done against a host

of little anonymous tyrannies?

If we wished to sum up in a word the great transformations which

have been effected in France by a century of riots and

revolutions, we might say that individual tyranny, which was weak

and therefore easily overthrown, has been replaced by collective

tyrannies, which are very strong and difficult to destroy. To a

people avid of equality and habituated to hold its Governments

responsible for every event individual tyranny seemed

insupportable, while a collective tyranny is readily endured,

although generally much more severe.

The extension of the tyranny of the State has therefore been the

final result of all our revolutions, and the common

characteristic of all systems of government which we have known

in France. This form of tyranny may be regarded as a racial

ideal, since successive upheavals of France have only fortified

it. Statism is the real political system of the Latin peoples,

and the only system that receives all suffrages. The other forms

of government--republic, monarchy, empire--represent empty

labels, powerless shadows.

PART III

THE RECENT EVOLUTION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER I

THE PROGRESS OF DEMOCRATIC BELIEFS SINCE THE REVOLUTION

1. Gradual Propagation of Democratic Ideas after the Revolution.

Ideas which are firmly established, incrusted, as it were, in

men's minds, continue to act for several generations. Those

which resulted from the French Revolution were, like others,

subject to this law.

Although the life of the Revolution as a Government was short,

the influence of its principles was, on the contrary, very long-

lived. Becoming a form of religious belief, they profoundly

modified the orientation of the sentiments and ideas of several

generations.

Despite a few intervals, the French Revolution has continued up

to the present, and still survives. The role of Napoleon

was not confined to overturning the world, changing the map of

Europe, and remaking the exploits of Alexander. The new rights

of the people, created by the Revolution and established by its

institutions, have exercised a profound influence. The military

work of the conqueror was soon dissolved, but the revolutionary

principles which he contributed to propagate have survived him.