The Psychology of Revolution Part 16

Thanks to its weakness, it was as incapable as the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly of exercising any power, and allowed itself to be dominated by the Commune and the clubs, which were directed by such influential leaders as Hebert, Tallien, Rossignol, Marat, Robespierre, &c.

Until Thermidor, 1794, the insurrectionary Commune const.i.tuted the chief power in the State, and behaved precisely as if it had been charged with the government of Paris.

It was the Commune that demanded the imprisonment of Louis XVI. in the tower of the Temple, when the a.s.sembly wished to imprison him in the palace of the Luxembourg. It was the Commune again that filled the prisons with suspects, and then ordered them to be killed.

We know with what refinements of cruelty a handful of some 150 bandits, paid at the rate of 24 livres a day, and directed by a few members of the Commune, exterminated some 1,200 persons in four days. This crime was known as the ma.s.sacre of September. The mayor of Paris, Petion, received the band of a.s.sa.s.sins with respect, and gave them drink. A few Girondists protested somewhat, but the Jacobins were silent.

The terrorised a.s.sembly affected at first to ignore the ma.s.sacres, which were encouraged by several of its more influential deputies, notably Couthon and Billaud-Varenne. When at last it decided to condemn them it was without attempting to prevent their continuation.

Conscious of its impotence, the Legislative a.s.sembly dissolved itself a fortnight later in order to give way to the Convention.

Its work was obviously disastrous, not in intention but in fact. Royalist, it abandoned the monarchy; humanitarian, it allowed the ma.s.sacres of September; pacific, it pushed France into a formidable war, thus showing that a weak Government always ends by bringing ruin upon its country.

The history of the two previous revolutionary a.s.semblies proves once more to what point events carry within them their inevitable consequences. They const.i.tute a train of necessities of which we can sometimes choose the first, but which then evolve without consulting us. We are free to make a decision, but powerless to avert its consequences.

The first measures of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly were rational and voluntary, but the results which followed were beyond all will or reason or foresight.

Which of the men of 1789 would have ventured to desire or predict the death of Louis XVI., the wars of La Vendee, the Terror, the permanent guillotine and the final anarchy, or the ensuing return to tradition and order, guided by the iron hand of a soldier?

In the development of events which ensued from the early actions of the revolutionary a.s.semblies the most striking, perhaps, was the rise and development of the government of the crowd-of mob rule.

Behind the facts which we have been considering-the taking of the Bastille, the invasion of Versailles, the ma.s.sacres of September, the attack on the Tuileries, the murder of the Swiss Guards, and the downfall and imprisonment of the king-we can readily perceive the laws affecting the psychology of crowds and their leaders.

We shall now see that the power of the mult.i.tude will progressively increase, overcome all other powers, and finally replace them.

CHAPTER III

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CONVENTION

1. The Legend of the Convention.

The history of the Convention is not merely fertile in psychological doc.u.ments. It also shows how powerless the witnesses of any period and even their immediate successors are to form an exact idea of the events which they have witnessed, and the men who have surrounded them.

More than a century has elapsed since the Revolution, and men are only just beginning to form judgments concerning this period which, if still often doubtful enough, are slightly more accurate than of old.

This happens, not only because new doc.u.ments are being drawn from the archives, but because the legends which enveloped that sanguinary period in a magical cloud are gradually vanishing with the pa.s.sage of time.

Perhaps the most tenacious legend of all was that which until formerly used to surround the personages to whom our fathers applied the glorious epithet, "the Giants of the Convention."

The struggles of the Convention against France in insurrection and Europe in arms produced such an impression that the heroes of this formidable struggle seemed to belong to a race of supermen or t.i.tans.

The epithet "giant" seemed justified so long as the events of the period were confused and ma.s.sed together. Regarded as connected when it was simply simultaneous, the work of the armies was confounded with that of the Convention. The glory of the first recoiled upon the second, and served as an excuse for the hecatombs of the Terror, the ferocity of the civil war, and the devastation of France.

Under the penetrating scrutiny of modern criticism, the heterogeneous ma.s.s of events has been slowly disentangled. The armies of the Republic have retained their old prestige, but we have been forced to recognise that the men of the Convention, absorbed entirely by their intestine conflicts, had very little to do with their victories. At the most two or three members of the committees of the a.s.sembly were concerned with the armies, and the fact that they were victorious was due, apart from their numbers and the talents of their young generals, to the enthusiasm with which a new faith had inspired them.

In a later chapter, devoted to the revolutionary armies, we shall see how they conquered Europe in arms. They set out inspired by the ideas of liberty and equality which const.i.tuted the new gospel, and once on the frontiers, which were to keep them so long, they retained a special mentality, very different from that of the Government, which they first knew nothing of and afterwards despised.

Having no part whatever in their victories, the men of the Convention contented themselves with legislating at hazard according to the injunctions of the leaders who directed them, and who claimed to be regenerating France by means of the guillotine.

But it was thanks to these valiant armies that the history of the Convention was transformed into an apotheosis which affected several generations with a religious respect which even to-day is hardly extinct.

Studying in detail the psychology of the "Giants" of the Convention, we find their magnitude shrink very rapidly. They were in general extremely mediocre. Their most fervent defenders, such as M. Aulard, are obliged to admit as much.

This is how M. Aulard puts it in his History of the French Revolution:- "It has been said that the generation which from 1789 to 1799 did such great and terrible things was a generation of giants, or, to put it more plainly, that it was a generation more distinguished than that which preceded it or that which followed.

This is a retrospective illusion. The citizens who formed the munic.i.p.al and Jacobin or nationalist groups by which the Revolution was effected do not seem to have been superior, either in enlightenment or in talents, to the Frenchmen of the time of Louis XV. or of Louis Philippe. Were those exceptionally gifted whose names history has retained because they appeared on the stage of Paris, or because they were the most brilliant orators of the various revolutionary a.s.semblies? Mirabeau, up to a certain point, deserved the t.i.tle of genius; but as to the rest- Robespierre, Danton, Vergniaud-had they truly more talent, for example, than our modern orators? In 1793, in the time of the supposed `giants,' Mme. Roland wrote in her memoirs: `France was as though drained of men; their dearth during this revolution is truly surprising; there have scarcely been any but pigmies.' "

If after considering the men of the Convention individually we consider them in a body, we may say that they did not shine either by intelligence or by virtue or by courage. Never did a body of men manifest such pusillanimity. They had no courage save in their speeches or in respect of remote dangers. This a.s.sembly, so proud and threatening in its speech when addressing royalty, was perhaps the most timid and docile political collectivity that the world has ever known. We see it slavishly obedient to the orders of the clubs and the Commune, trembling before the popular delegations which invaded it daily, and obeying the injunctions of the rioters to the point of handing over to them its most brilliant members. The Convention affords the world a melancholy spectacle, voting, at the popular behest, laws so absurd that it is obliged to annul them as soon as the rioters have quitted the hall.

Few a.s.semblies have given proof of such weakness. When we wish to show how low a popular Government can fall we have only to point to the Convention.

2. Results of the Triumph of the Jacobin Religion

Among the causes that gave the Convention its special physiognomy, one of the most important was the definite establishment of a revolutionary religion. A dogma which was at first in process of formation was at last finally erected.

This dogma was composed of an aggregate of somewhat inconsistent elements. Nature, the rights of man, liberty, equality, the social contract, hatred of tyrants, and popular sovereignty formed the articles of a gospel which, to its disciples, was above discussion. The new truths had found apostles who were certain of their power, and who finally, like believers all the world over, sought to impose them by force. No heed should be taken of the opinion of unbelievers; they all deserved to be exterminated.

The hatred of heretics having been always, as we have seen, in respect of the Reformation, an irreducible characteristic of great beliefs, we can readily comprehend the intolerance of the Jacobin religion.

The history of the Reformation proves also that the conflict between two allied beliefs is very bitter. We must not, therefore, be astonished that in the Convention the Jacobins fought furiously against the other republicans, whose faith hardly differed from their own.

The propaganda of the new apostles was very energetic. To convert the provinces they sent thither zealous disciples escorted by guillotines. The inquisitors of the new faith would have no paltering with error. As Robespierre said, "The republic is the destruction of everything that is opposed to it." What matter that the country refused to be regenerated? It should be regenerated despite itself. "We will make a cemetery of France," said Carrier, "rather than fail to regenerate it in our own way."

The Jacobin policy derived from the new faith was very simple. It consisted in a sort of equalitarian Socialism, directed by a dictatorship which would brook no opposition.

Of practical ideas consistent with the economic necessities and the true nature of man, the theorists who ruled France would have nothing to say. Speech and the guillotine sufficed them. Their speeches were childish. "Never a fact," says Taine, "nothing but abstractions, strings of sentences about Nature, reason, the people, tyrants, liberty: like so many puffed-out balloons uselessly jostling in s.p.a.ce. If we did not know that it all ended in practical and dreadful results, we should think they were games of logic, school exercises, academical demonstrations, ideological combinations."

The theories of the Jacobins amounted practically to an absolute tyranny. To them it seemed evident that a sovereign State must be obeyed without discussion by citizens rendered equal as to conditions and fortune.

The power with which they invested themselves was far greater than that of the monarchs who had preceded them. They fixed the prices of merchandise and arrogated the right to dispose of the life and property of citizens.

Their confidence in the regenerative virtues of the revolutionary faith was such that after having declared war upon kings they declared war upon the G.o.ds. A calendar was established from which the saints were banished. They created a new divinity, Reason, whose worship was celebrated in Notre-Dame, with ceremonies which were in many ways identical with those of the Catholic faith, upon the altar of the "late Holy Virgin." This cult lasted until Robespierre subst.i.tuted a personal religion of which he const.i.tuted himself the high priest.

The sole masters of France, the Jacobins and their disciples were able to plunder the country with impunity, although they were never in the majority anywhere.

Their numbers are not easy to determine exactly. We know only that they were very small. Taine valued them at 5,000 in Paris, among 700,000 inhabitants; in Besancon 300 among 300,000; and in all France about 300,000.

"A small feudality of brigands, set over a conquered France," according to the words of the same author, they were able, in spite of their small numbers, to dominate the country, and this for several reasons. In the first place, their faith gave them a considerable strength. Then, because they represented the Government, and for centuries the French had obeyed those who were in command. Finally, because it was believed that to overthrow them would be to bring back the ancien regime, which was greatly dreaded by the numerous purchasers of the national domains. Their tyranny must have grown frightful indeed to force so many departments to rise against them.

The first factor of their power was very important. In the conflict between powerful faiths and weak faiths victory never falls to the latter. A powerful faith creates strong wills, which will always overpower weak wills. That the Jacobins themselves did finally perish was because their acc.u.mulated violence had bound together thousands of weak wills whose united weight overbalanced their own strong wills.

It is true that the Girondists, whom the Jacobins persecuted with so much hatred, had also well-established beliefs, but in the struggle which ensued their education told against them, together with their respect for certain traditions and the rights of others, scruples which did not in the least trouble their adversaries.

"The majority of the sentiments of the Girondists," writes Emile Ollivier, "were delicate and generous; those of the Jacobin mob were low, gross, and brutal. The name of Vergniaud, compared with that of the `divine' Marat, measures a gulf which nothing could span."

Dominating the Convention at the outset by the superiority of their talents and their eloquence, the Girondists soon fell under the domination of the Montagnards-worthless energumens, who carried little weight, but were always active, and who knew how to excite the pa.s.sions of the populace. It was violence and not talent that impressed the a.s.semblies.

3. Mental Characteristics of the Convention.