The Ancient Regime Part 1

The Ancient Regime.

Author: Hippolyte A. Taine.

INTRODUCTION

Why should we fetch Taine's work up from its dusty box in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the national library? First of all because his realistic views of our human nature, of our civilization and of socialism as well as his dark premonitions of the 20th century were proven correct. Secondly because we may today with more accuracy call his work:

"The Origins of Popular Democracy and of Communism."

His lucid a.n.a.lysis of the current ideology remains as interesting or perhaps even more interesting than when it was written especially because we cannot accuse him of being part in our current political and ideological struggle.

Even though I found him wise, even though he confirmed my own impressions from a rich and varied life, even though I considered that our children and the people at large should benefit from his insights into the innermost recesses of the political Man, I still felt it would be best to find out why his work had been put on the index by the French and largely forgotten by the Anglo-Saxon world. So I consulted a contemporary French authority, Jean-Francois Revel who mentions Taine works in his book, "La Connaissance Inutile." (Paris 1988). Revel notes that a socialist historian, Alphonse Aulard methodically and dishonestly attacked "Les Origines..", and that Aulard was specially recruited by the University of Sorbonne for this purpose. Aulard pretended that Taine was a poor historian by finding a number of errors in Taine's work. This was done, says Revel, because the 'Left' came to see Taine's work as "a vile counter-revolutionary weapon." The French historian Augustin Cochin proved, however, that Aulard and not Taine had made the errors but by that time Taine had been defamed and his works removed from the shelves of the French universities.

Now Taine was not a professional historian. Perhaps this was as well since most professional historians, even when conscientious and accurate, rarely are in a position to be independent. They generally work for a university, for a national public or for the ministry of education and their books, once approved, may gain a considerable income once millions of pupils are compelled to acquire these.

Taine initially became famous, not as a professional historian but as a literary critic and journalist. His fame allowed him to sell his books and articles and make a comfortable living without cow-towing to any government or university. He wrote as he saw fit, truthfully, even though it might displease a number of powerful persons.

Taine did not pretend to be a regular historian, but rather someone enquiring into the history of Public Authorities and their supporters.

Through his comments he appears not only as a decent person but also as a psychologist and seer. He describes mankind, as I know it from my life in inst.i.tutions, at sea and abroad in a large international organization. He describes mankind as it was, as it was seen by Darwin in 'THE EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS. Taine described the human being as he was and is and had the courage to tell the French about themselves, their ancient rulers, and the men of the Revolution, even if it went against the favorable opinion so many of his countrymen had of this terrible period. His understanding of our evolution, of mankind and of the evolution of society did not find favor with men who believed that they in the socialist ideology had found the solution to all social ills. Only recently has science begun to return to Darwin in order to rediscover the human being as Taine knew him. You can find Taine's views of humanity confirmed in Robert Wright's book 'THE MORAL ANIMAL.' (Why we are the way we are.)

Taine had full access to the files of the French National archives and these and other original doc.u.ments. Taine had received a French cla.s.sical education and, being foremost among many brilliant men, had a capacity for study and work which we no longer demand from our young.

He accepted Man and society, as they appeared to him, he described his findings without compa.s.sion for the hang-ups of his prejudiced countrymen. He described Man as a gregarious animal living for a brief spell in a remote corner of s.p.a.ce, whose different cultures and nations had evolved haphazardly in time, carried along by forces and events exceeding our comprehension, blindly following their innate drives.

These drives were followed with cunning but rarely with far-sighted wisdom. Taine, the prophet, has more than ever something to tell us.

He warned his countrymen against themselves, their humanity, and hence against their fears, anxieties, greed, ambitions, conceit and excessive imagination. His remarks and judgments exhort us to be responsible, modest and kind and to select wise and modest leaders. He warns us against young hungry men's natural desire to ma.s.s behind a tribune and follow him onwards, they hope, along the high road to excitement, fame, power and riches. He warns us against our readiness to believe in myth and metaphysics, demonstrating how Man will believe anything, even the most mystical or incomprehensible religion or ideology, provided it is preached by his leaders. History, as seen by Taine, is one long series of such adventures and horrors and nowhere was this more evident than in France before, during and after the Revolution in 1789.

Taine became, upon reading 'On the Origins of the Species' a convinced Darwinian and was, the year after Darwin, honored by the University of Oxford with the t.i.tle of doctor honoris causa in jure civili for his 'History of English Literature'. Taine was not a methodical ideologist creating a system. He did not defend any particular creed or current. He was considered some kind of positivist but he did not consider himself as belonging to any particular school.

The 6 volumes of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" appeared one after the other in Paris between 1875 and 1893. They were translated into English and published in New York soon afterwards. They were also translated into German. Taine's direct views displeased many in France, as the Royalists, the bonapartist and the Socialists felt hurt. Still, the first edition of Volume II of "LE ReGIME MODERNE" published by Hachette in 1894 indicated that "L'ANCIEN REGIME" at that time had been printed in 18 editions, "LA ReVOLUTION" volume I in 17 editions, volume II in 16 editions and volume III in 13 editions. "LE ReGIME MODERNE"

volume I had been printed in only 8 editions. Photographic reprints appeared in the US in 1932 and 1962.

Taine's description and a.n.a.lysis of events in France between 1750 and 1870 are, as you will see colorful, lucid, and sometimes intense. His style might today appear dated since he writes in rather long sentences, using parables to drive his points firmly home. His books were widely read in academic circles and therefore influenced a great many political students in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lenin, who came to Paris around 1906, might well have profited by Taine's a.n.a.lysis. Hitler is also likely to have profited by his insights. Lenin was like so many other socialists of his day a great admirer of Robespierre and his party and would undoubtedly have tried to find out how Robespierre got into power and why he lost his hold on France the way he did. Part of Taine's art was to place himself into the place of the different people and parties who took part in the great events. When pretends to speak for the Jacobins, it so convincingly done, that it is hard to know whether he speaks on 'their' behalf or whether he is, in fact, quoting one of them.

Taine, like the Napoleon he described, believed that in order to understand people you are aided if you try to imagine yourself in their place. This procedure, as well as his painstaking research, make his descriptions of the violent events of the past ring true.

Taine knew and described the evil inherent in human nature and in the crowd. His warnings and explanations did not prevent Europe from repeating the mistakes of the past. The 20th century saw a replay of the French Revolution repeated in all its horror when Lenin, Mao, Hoxa, and Pol Pot followed the its script and when Stalin and Hitler made good use of Napoleon's example.

Taine irritated the elite of the 3rd French republic as well as everyone who believed in the popular democracy based on one person one vote. You can understand when you read the following preface which was actually placed in front of "The Revolution" volume II. Since it clarifies Taine's aims and justifications, I have moved and placed it below.

Not long before his death Taine, sensing that his wisdom and deep insights into human nature and events, no longer interested the elite, remarked to a friend that "the scientific truth about the human animal is perhaps unacceptable except for a very few".[0001] Now, 100 years later, after a century of ideological wars between ambitious men, I am afraid that the situation remains unchanged. Mankind remains reluctant to face the realities of our uncontrolled existence! A few men begin, however, to share my misgivings about the future of a system which has completely given up the respect for wisdom and experience preferring a system of elaborate human rights and new morals. There is reason to recall Macchiavelli's words:

"In times of difficulty men of merit are sought after, but in easy times it is not men of merit, but such as have riches and powerful relations, that are most in favor."

And let me to quote the Greek historian Polybius' observations[0002]

about the cyclic evolution of the Greek city states:

". . . What then are the beginnings I speak of and what is the first origin of political societies? When owing to floods, famines, failure of crops or other such causes there occurs such a destruction of the human race as tradition tells us has more than once happened, and as we must believe will often happen again, all arts and crafts perishing at the same time, when in the course of time, when springing from the survivors as from seeds men have again increased in numbers and just like other animals form herds--it being a matter of course that they too should herd together with those of their kind owing to their natural weakness--it is a necessary consequence that the man who excels in bodily strength and in courage will lead and rule over the rest. We observe and should regard as a most genuine work of nature this very phenomenon in the case of the other animals which act purely by instinct and among who the strongest are always indisputable the masters--I speak of bulls, boars, c.o.c.ks, and the like. It is probable then that at the beginning men lived thus, herding together like animals and following the lead of the strongest and bravest, the ruler's strength being here the sole limit to his power and the name we should give his rule being monarchy.

But when in time feelings of sociability and companionship begin to grow in such gatherings of men, then kingship has truck root; and the notions of goodness, justice, and their opposites begin to arise in men.

6. The manner in which these notions come into being is as follows. Men being all naturally inclined to s.e.xual intercourse, and the consequence this being the birth of children, whenever one of those who have been reared does not on growing up show grat.i.tude to those who reared him or defend them, but on the contrary takes to speaking ill of them or ill-treating them, it is evident that he will displease and offend those who have been familiar with his parents and have witnessed the care and pains they spent on attending to and feeding their children. For seeing that men are distinguished from the other animals possessing the faculty of reason, it is obviously improbable that such a difference of conduct should escape them, as it escapes the other animals: they will notice the thing and be displeased at what is going on, looking to the future and reflecting that they may all meet with the same treatment. Again when a man who has been helped or succored when in danger by another does not show grat.i.tude to his preserver, but even goes to the length of attempting to do him injury, it is clear that those who become aware of it will naturally be displeased and offended by such conduct, sharing the resentment of their injured neighbor and imagining themselves in the same situation. From all this there arises in everyone a notion of the meaning and theory of duty, which is the beginning and end of justice.

Similarly, again, when any man is foremost in defending his fellows from danger, and braves and awaits the onslaught of the most powerful beasts, it is natural that he should receive marks of favor and honor from the people, while the man who acts in the opposite manner will meet with reprobation and dislike. From this again some idea of what is base and what is n.o.ble and of what const.i.tutes the difference is likely to arise among the people; and n.o.ble conduct will be admired and imitated because advantageous, while base conduct will be avoided. Now when the leading and most powerful man among people always throws the weight of his authority the side of the notions on such matters which generally prevail, and when in the opinion of his subjects he apportions rewards and penalties according to desert, they yield obedience to him no longer because they fear his force, but rather because their judgment approves him; and they join in maintaining his rule even if he is quite enfeebled by age, defending him with one consent and battling against those who conspire to overthrow his rule. Thus by insensible degrees the monarch becomes a king, ferocity and force having yielded the supremacy to reason.

7. Thus is formed naturally among men the first notion of goodness and justice, and their opposites; this is the beginning and birth of true kingship. For the people maintain the supreme power not only in the hands of these men themselves, but in those of their descendants, from the conviction that those born from and reared by such men will also have principles like to theirs. And if they ever are displeased with the descendants, they now choose their kings and rulers no longer for their bodily strength and brute courage, but for the excellency of their judgment and reasoning powers, as they have gained experience from actual facts of the difference between the one cla.s.s of qualities and the other. In old times, then, those who had once been chosen to the royal office continued to hold it until they grew old, fortifying and enclosing fine strongholds with walls and acquiring lands, in the one case for the sake of the security of their subjects and in the other to provide them with abundance of the necessities of life. And while pursuing these aims, they were exempt from all vituperation or jealousy, as neither in their dress nor in their food and drink did they make any great distinction, but lived very much like everyone else, not keeping apart from the people. But when they received the office by hereditary succession and found their safety now provided for, and more than sufficient provision of food, they gave way to their appet.i.tes owing to this superabundance, and came to think that the rulers must be distinguished from their subjects by a peculiar dress, that there should be a peculiar luxury and variety in the dressing and serving of their viands, and that they should meet with no denial in the pursuit of their amours, however lawless. These habits having given rise in the one case to envy and offence and in the other to an outburst of hatred and pa.s.sionate resentment, the kingship changed into a tyranny; the first steps towards its overthrow were taken by the subjects, and conspiracies began to be formed. These conspiracies were not the work of the worst men, but of the n.o.blest, most high-spirited, and most courageous, because such men are least able to brook the insolence of princes.

8. The people now having got leaders, would combine with them against the ruling powers for the reasons I stated above; king-ship and monarchy would be utterly abolished, and in their place aristocracy would begin to grow. For the commons, as if bound to pay at once their debt of grat.i.tude to the abolishers of monarchy, would make them their leaders and entrust their destinies to them. At first these chiefs gladly a.s.sumed this charge and regarded nothing as of greater importance than the common interest, administering the private and public affairs of the people with paternal solicitude. But here again when children inherited this position of authority from their fathers, having no experience of misfortune and none at all of civil equality and liberty of speech, and having been brought up from the cradle amid the evidences of the power and high position of their fathers, they abandoned themselves some to greed of gain and unscrupulous money-making, others to indulgence in wine and the convivial excess which accompanies it, and others again to the violation of women and the rape of boys; and thus converting the aristocracy info an oligarchy aroused in the people feelings similar to those of which I just spoke, and in consequence met with the same disastrous end as the tyrant.

9. For whenever anyone who has noticed the jealousy and hatred with which they are regarded by the citizens, has the courage to speak or act against the chiefs of the state he has the whole ma.s.s of the people ready to back him. Next, when they have either killed or banished the oligarchs, they no longer venture to set a king over them, as they still remember with terror the injustice they suffered from the former ones, nor can they entrust the government with confidence to a select few, with the evidence before them of their recent error in doing so. Thus the only hope still surviving unimpaired is in themselves, and to this they resort, making the state a democracy instead of an oligarchy and a.s.suming the responsibility for the conduct of affairs. Then as long as some of those survive who experienced the evils of oligarchical dominion, they are well pleased with the present form of government, and set a high value on equality and freedom of speech. But when a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at pre-eminence; and it is chiefly those of ample fortune who fall into this error. So when they begin to l.u.s.t for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities, they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way. And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the ma.s.ses an appet.i.te for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence.

For the people, having grown accustomed feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the honors of office by his poverty, inst.i.tute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces ma.s.sacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.

Such is the cycle of political revolution, the course pointed by nature in which const.i.tutions change, disappear, and finally return to the point from which they started. Anyone who clearly perceives this may indeed in speaking of the future of any state be wrong in his estimate of the time the process will take, but if his judgment is not tainted by animosity or jealousy, he will very seldom be mistaken to the stage of growth or decline it has reached, and as to the form into which it will change. And especially in the case of the Roman state will this method enable us to arrive at a knowledge of its formation, growth, and greatest perfection, and likewise of the change for the worse which is sure follow some day. For, as I said, this state, more than any other, has been formed and has grown naturally, and will undergo a natural decline and change to its contrary. The reader will be able to judge of the truth of this from the subsequent parts this work."

The modern reader may think that all this is irrelevant to him, that the natural sciences will solve all his problems. He would be wise to recall that the great Roman republic in which Polybius lived more than 2200 years ago, did indeed become transformed into tyranny and, in the end, into anarchy and oblivion. No wonder that the makers of the American const.i.tution keenly studied Polybius. Not only has Taine's comments and factual description of the cyclic French political history much to teach us about ourselves and the dangers which lie ahead, but it also shows us the origins and weakness of our political theories. It is obvious that should ask ourselves the question of where, in the political evolution we are now? Are we still ruled by the corrupt oligarchs or have we reached the stage where the people has become used to be fed on the property of others? If so dissolution and anarchy is just around the corner.

"The Revolution, Vol. II, 8th ed.

Svend Rom. Hendaye, France. February 2000.

PREFACE:

In this volume, as in those preceding it and in those to come, there will be found only the history of Public Authorities. Others will write that of diplomacy, of war, of the finances, of the Church; my subject is a limited one. To my great regret, however, this new part fills an entire volume; and the last part, on the revolutionary government, will be as long.

I have again to regret the dissatisfaction I foresee this work will cause to many of my countrymen. My excuse is, that almost all of them, more fortunate than myself, have political principles which serve them in forming their judgments of the past. I had none; if indeed, I had any motive in undertaking this work, it was to seek for political principles. Thus far I have attained to scarcely more than one; and this is so simple that will seem puerile, and that I hardly dare express it.

Nevertheless I have adhered to it, and in what the reader is about to peruse my judgments are all derived from that; its truth is the measure of theirs. It consists wholly in this observation: that

HUMAN SOCIETY, ESPECIALLY A MODERN SOCIETY, IS A VAST AND COMPLICATED THING.

Hence the difficulty in knowing and comprehending it. For the same reason it is not easy to handle the subject well. It follows that a cultivated mind is much better able to do this than an uncultivated mind, and a man specially qualified than one who is not. From these two last truths flow many other consequences, which, if the reader deigns to reflect on them, he will have no trouble in defining.

Paris 1881.

NOTES:

[Footnote 0001: Page XLVI of the Introduction to the Edition by Robert Lafont in 1986 by "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine".]

[Footnote 0002: From "HISTORIES", BOOK VI. 3. 3-4. 1 FROM LOEB'S CLa.s.sICAL LIBRARY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS.]

THE ANCIENT REGIME