The Psychology of Revolution Part 24

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 a.s.sertion 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 pa.s.sions 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 inst.i.tutions 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 ma.s.sacres 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 inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.sumed 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 superst.i.tions.

[10] We may judge of the recent evolution of ideas upon this point by the following pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sionate 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 const.i.tute 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 mult.i.tudes 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 pa.s.sage: "Twenty years pa.s.sed 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 inst.i.tutions 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 const.i.tutional 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 Const.i.tution was opposed by the ultra-royalists. Returned emigres, they wanted the rest.i.tution 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 n.o.bles, 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 cla.s.s 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, a.n.a.logous 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 a.s.sembly of nine hundred members.

From the first days of its existence the new Government found itself the victim of socialistic manoeuvres and riots.