THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:18 am

Chapter 6: The Armies of the Revolution

1. The Revolutionary Assemblies and the Armies.


If nothing were known of the revolutionary Assemblies, and notably of the Convention, beyond their internal dissensions, their weakness, and their acts of violence, their memory would indeed be a gloomy one.

But even for its enemies this bloodstained epoch must always
retain an undeniable glory, thanks to the success of its armies.
When the Convention dissolved France was already the greater by
Belgium and the territories on the left bank of the Rhine.

Regarding the Convention as a whole, it seems equitable to credit it with the victories of the armies of France, but if we analyse this whole in order to study each of its elements separately their independence will at once be obvious. It is at once apparent that the Convention had a very small share in the military events of the time. The armies on the frontier and the revolutionary Assemblies in Paris formed two separate worlds, which had very little influence over one another, and which regarded matters in a very different light.

We have seen that the Convention was a weak Government, which changed its ideas daily, according to popular impulse; it was really an example of the profoundest anarchy. It directed nothing, but was itself continually directed; how, then, could it have commanded armies?

Completely absorbed in its intestine quarrels, the Assembly had abandoned all military questions to a special committee, which was directed almost single-handed by Carnot, and whose real function was to furnish the troops with provisions and ammunition. The merit of Carnot consisted in the fact that besides directing over 752,000 men at the disposal of France, upon points which were strategically valuable, he also advised the generals of the armies to take the offensive, and to preserve a strict discipline.

The sole share of the Assembly in the defence of the country was the decree of the general levy. In the face of the numerous enemies then threatening France, no Government could have avoided such a measure. For some little time, too, the Assembly had sent representatives to the armies instructed to decapitate certain generals, but this policy was soon abandoned.

As a matter of fact the military activities of the Assembly were always extremely slight. The armies, thanks to their numbers, their enthusiasm, and the tactics devised by their youthful generals, achieved their victories unaided. They fought and conquered independently of the Convention.

2. The Struggle of Europe against the Revolution.

Before enumerating the various psychological factors which contributed to the successes of the revolutionary armies, it will be useful briefly to recall the origin and the development of the war against Europe.

At the commencement of the Revolution the foreign sovereigns regarded with satisfaction the difficulties of the French monarchy, which they had long regarded as a rival power. The King of Prussia, believing France to be greatly enfeebled, thought to enrich himself at her expense, so he proposed to the Emperor of Austria to help Louis on condition of receiving Flanders and Alsace as an indemnity. The two sovereigns signed an alliance against France in February, 1792. The French anticipated attack by declaring war upon Austria, under the influence of the Girondists. The French army was at the outset subjected to several checks. The allies penetrated into Champagne, and came within 130 miles of Paris. Dumouriez' victory at Valmy forced them to retire.

Although 300 French and 200 Prussians only were killed in this battle, it had very significant results. The fact that an army reputed invincible had been forced to retreat gave boldness to the young revolutionary troops, and everywhere they took the offensive. In a few weeks the soldiers of Valmy had chased the Austrians out of Belgium, where they were welcomed as liberators.

But it was under the Convention that the war assumed such
importance. At the beginning of 1793 the Assembly declared that
Belgium was united to France. From this resulted a conflict with
England which lasted for twenty-two years.

Assembled at Antwerp in April, 1793, the representatives of England, Prussia, and Austria resolved to dismember France. The Prussians were to seize Alsace and Lorraine; the Austrians, Flanders and Artois; the English, Dunkirk. The Austrian ambassador proposed to crush the Revolution by terror, ``by exterminating practically the whole of the party directing the nation.'' In the face of such declarations France had perforce to conquer or to perish.

During this first coalition, between 1793 and 1797, France had to fight on all her frontiers, from the Pyrenees to the north.

At the outset she lost her former conquests, and suffered several reverses. The Spaniards took Perpignan and Bayonne; the English, Toulon; and the Austrians, Valenciennes. It was then that the Convention, towards the end of 1793, ordered a general levy of all Frenchmen between the ages of eighteen and forty, and succeeded in sending to the frontiers a total of some 750,000 men. The old regiments of the royal army were combined with battalions of volunteers and conscripts.

The allies were repulsed, and Maubeuge was relieved after the victory of Wattigny, which was gained by Jourdan. Hoche rescued Lorraine. France took the offensive, reconquering Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine. Jourdan defeated the Austrians at Fleurus, drove them back upon the Rhine, and occupied Cologne and Coblentz. Holland was invaded. The allied sovereigns resigned themselves to suing for peace, and recognised the French conquests.

The successes of the French were favoured by the fact that the enemy never put their whole heart into the affair, as they were preoccupied by the partition of Poland, which they effected in 1793-5. Each Power wished to be on the spot in order to obtain more territory. This motive had already caused the King of Prussia to retire after the battle of Valmy in 1792.

The hesitations of the allies and their mutual distrust were extremely advantageous to the French. Had the Austrians marched upon Paris in the summer of 1793, ``we should,'' said General Thiebault, ``have lost a hundred times for one. They alone saved us, by giving us time to make soldiers, officers, and generals.''

After the treaty of Basle, France had no important adversaries on the Continent, save the Austrians. It was then that the Directory attacked Austria in Italy. Bonaparte was entrusted with the charge of this campaign. After a year of fighting, from April, 1796, to April, 1797, he forced the last enemies of France to demand peace.

3. Psychological and Military Factors which determined the Success of the Revolutionary Armies.

To realise the causes of the success of the revolutionary armies we must remember the prodigious enthusiasm, endurance, and abnegation of these ragged and often barefoot troops. Thoroughly steeped in revolutionary principles, they felt that they were the apostles of a new religion, which was destined to regenerate the world.

The history of the armies of the Revolution recalls that of the nomads of Arabia, who, excited to fanaticism by the ideals of Mohammed, were transformed into formidable armies which rapidly conquered a portion of the old Roman world. An analogous faith endowed the Republican soldiers with a heroism and intrepidity which never failed them, and which no reverse could shake When the Convention gave place to the Directory they had liberated the country, and had carried a war of invasion into the enemy's territory. At this period the soldiers were the only true Republicans left in France.

Faith is contagious, and the Revolution was regarded as a new era, so that several of the nations invaded, oppressed by the absolutism of their monarchs, welcomed the invaders as liberators. The inhabitants of Savoy ran out to meet the troops.

At Mayence the crowd welcomed them with enthusiasm planted trees of liberty, and formed a Convention in imitation of that of Paris.

So long as the armies of the Revolution had to deal with peoples bent under the yoke of absolute monarchy, and having no personal ideal to defend, their success was relatively easy. But when they entered into conflict with peoples who had an ideal as strong as their own victory became far more difficult.

The new ideal of liberty and equality was capable of seducing peoples who had no precise convictions, and were suffering from the despotism of their masters, but it was naturally powerless against those who possessed a potent ideal of their own which had been long established in their minds. For this reason Bretons and Vendeeans, whose religious and monarchical sentiments were extremely powerful, successfully struggled for years against the armies of the Republic.

In March, 1793, the insurrections of the Vendee and Brittany had spread to ten departments. The Vendeeans in Poitou and the Chouans in Brittany put 80,000 men in the field.

The conflicts between contrary ideals—that is, between beliefs in which reason can play no part—are always pitiless, and the struggle with the Vendee immediately assumed the ferocious savagery always observable in religious wars. It lasted until the end of 1795, when Hoche finally ``pacified'' the country. This pacification was the simple result of the practical extermination of its defenders.

``After two years of civil war,'' writes Molinari, ``the Vendee was no more than a hideous heap of ruins. About 900,000 individuals—men, women, children, and aged people—had perished, and the small number of those who had escaped massacre could scarcely find food or shelter. The fields were devastated, the hedges and walls destroyed, and the houses burned.''

Besides their faith, which so often rendered them invincible, the soldiers of the Revolution had usually the advantage of being led by remarkable generals, full of ardour and formed on the battle- field.

The majority of the former leaders of the army, being nobles, had emigrated so that a new body of officers had to be organised. The result was that those gifted with innate military aptitudes had a chance of showing them, and passed through all the grades of rank in a few months. Hoche, for instance, a corporal in 1789, was a general of division and commander of an army at the age of twenty-five. The extreme youth of these leaders resulted in a spirit of aggression to which the armies opposed to them were not accustomed. Selected only according to merit, and hampered by no traditions, no routine, they quickly succeeded in working out a tactics suited to the new necessities.

Of soldiers without experience opposed to seasoned professional troops, drilled and trained according to the methods in use everywhere since the Seven Years' War, one could not expect complicated manoeuvres.

Attacks were delivered simply by great masses of troops. Thanks to the numbers of the men at the disposal of their generals, the considerable gaps provoked by this efficacious but barbarous procedure could be rapidly filled.

Deep masses of men attacked the enemy with the bayonet, and quickly routed men accustomed to methods which were more careful of the lives of soldiers. The slow rate of fire in those days rendered the French tactics relatively easy of employment. It triumphed, but at the cost of enormous losses. It has been calculated that between 1792 and 1800 the French army left more than a third of its effective force on the battle-field (700,000 men out of 2,000,000).

Examining events from a psychological point of view, we shall continue to elicit the consequences from the facts on which they are consequent.

A study of the revolutionary crowds in Paris and in the armies presents very different but readily interpreted pictures.

We have proved that crowds, unable to reason, obey simply their impulses, which are always changing, but we have also seen that they are readily capable of heroism, that their altruism is often highly developed, and that it is easy to find thousands of men ready to give their lives for a belief.

Psychological characteristics so diverse must naturally, according to the circumstances, lead to dissimilar and even absolutely contradictory actions. The history of the Convention and its armies proves as much. It shows us crowds composed of similar elements acting so differently in Paris and on the frontiers that one can hardly believe the same people can be in question.

In Paris the crowds were disorderly, violent, murderous, and so changeable in their demands as to make all government impossible.

In the armies the picture was entirely different. The same multitudes of unaccustomed men, restrained by the orderly elements of a laborious peasant population, standardised by military discipline, and inspired by contagious enthusiasm, heroically supported privations, disdained perils, and contributed to form that fabulous strain which triumphed over the most redoubtable troops in Europe.

These facts are among those which should always be invoked to show the force of discipline. It transforms men. Liberated from its influence, peoples and armies become barbarian hordes.

This truth is daily and increasingly forgotten. Ignoring the fundamental laws of collective logic, we give way more and more to shifting popular impulses, instead of learning to direct them.

The multitude must be shown the road to follow; it is not for them to choose it.
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:19 am

Chapter 7: 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.
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:19 am

Book 3: The Conflict Between Ancestral Influences and Revolutionary Principles

Chapter 1: 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.
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:20 am

Chapter 2: 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]

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.

_______________

Notes:

[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.''
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:20 am

Chapter 3: 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.

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]

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.

_______________

Notes:

[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.''

[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.''
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:21 am

Part 3: The Recent Evolution of the Revolutionary Principles

Chapter 1: 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.

The various restorations which followed the Empire caused men at first to become somewhat forgetful of the principles of the Revolution. For fifty years this propagation was far from rapid. One might almost have supposed that the people had forgotten them. Only a small number of theorists maintained their influence. Heirs to the ``simplicist'' spirit of the Jacobins, believing, like them, that societies can be remade from top to bottom by the laws, and persuaded that the Empire had only interrupted the task of revolution, they wished to resume it.

While waiting until they could recommence, they attempted to spread the principles of the Revolution by means of their writings. Faithful imitators of the men of the Revolution, they never stopped to ask if their schemes for reform were in conformity with human nature. They too were erecting a chimerical society for an ideal man, and were persuaded that the application of their dreams would regenerate the human species.

Deprived of all constructive power, the theorists of all the ages have always been very ready to destroy. Napoleon at St. Helena stated that ``if there existed a monarchy of granite the idealists and theorists would manage to reduce it to powder.''

Among the galaxy of dreamers such as Saint-Simon, Fourier, Pierre Leroux, Louis Blanc, Quinet, &c., we find that only Auguste Comte understood that a transformation of manners and ideas must precede political reorganisation.

Far from favouring the diffusion of democratic ideas, the projects of reform of the theorists of this period merely impeded their progress. Communistic Socialism, which several of them professed would restore the Revolution, finally alarmed the bourgeoisie and even the working-classes. We have already seen that the fear of their ideas was one of the principal causes of the restoration of the Empire.

If none of the chimerical lucubrations of the writers of the first half of the nineteenth century deserve to be discussed, it is none the less interesting to examine them in order to observe the part played by religious and moral ideas which to-day are regarded with contempt. Persuaded that a new society could not, any more than the societies of old, be built up without religious and moral beliefs, the reformers were always endeavouring to found such beliefs.

But on what could they be based? Evidently on reason. By means of reason men create complicated machines: why not therefore a religion and a morality, things which are apparently so simple? Not one of them suspected the fact that no religious or moral belief ever had rational logic as its basis. Auguste Comte saw no more clearly. We know that he founded a so-called positivist religion, which still has a few followers. Scientists were to form a clergy directed by a new Pope, who was to replace the Catholic Pope.

All these conceptions—political, religious, or moral—had, I repeat, no other results for a long time than to turn the multitude away from democratic principles.

If these principles did finally become widespread, it was not on account of the theorists, but because new conditions of life had arisen. Thanks to the discoveries of science, industry developed and led to the erection of immense factories. Economic necessities increasingly dominated the wills of Governments and the people and finally created a favourable soil for the extension of Socialism, and above all of Syndicalism, the modern forms of democratic ideas.

2. The Unequal Influence of the Three Fundamental Principles of the Revolution.

The heritage of the Revolution is summed up in its entirety in the one phrase—Liberty, equality, and Fraternity. The principle of equality, as we have seen, has exerted a powerful influence, but the two others did not share its lot.

Although the sense of these terms seems clear enough, they were comprehended in very different fashions according to men and times. We know that the various interpretation of the same words by persons of different mentality has been one of the most frequent causes of the conflicts of history.

To the member of the Convention liberty signified merely the exercise of its unlimited despotism. To a young modern ``intellectual'' the same word means a general release from everything irksome: tradition, law, superiority, &c. To the modern Jacobin liberty consists especially in the right to persecute his adversaries.

Although political orators still occasionally mention liberty in their speeches, they have generally ceased to evoke fraternity. It is the conflict of the different classes and not their alliance that they teach to-day. Never did a more profound hatred divide the various strata of society and the political parties which lead them.

But while liberty has become very doubtful and fraternity has completely vanished, the principle of equality has grown unchecked. It has been supreme in all the political upheavals of which France has been the stage during the last century, and has reached such a development that our political and social life, our laws, manners, and customs are at least in theory based on this principle. It constitutes the real legacy of the Revolution. The craving for equality, not only before the law, but in position and fortune, is the very pivot of the last product of democracy: Socialism. This craving is so powerful that it is spreading in all directions, although in contradiction with all biological and economic laws. It is a new phase of the interrupted struggle of the sentiments against reason, in which reason so rarely triumphs.

3. The Democracy of the ``Intellectuals'' and Popular Democracy.

All ideas that have hitherto caused an upheaval of the world of men have been subject to two laws: they evolve slowly, and they completely change their sense according to the mentalities in which they find reception.

A doctrine may be compared to a living being. It subsists only by process of transformation. The books are necessarily silent upon these variations, so that the phase of things which they establish belongs only to the past. They do not reflect the image of the living, but of the dead. The written statement of a doctrine often represents the most negligible side of that doctrine.

I have shown in another work how institutions, arts, and languages are modified in passing from one people to another, and how the laws of these transformations differ from the truth as stated in books. I allude to this matter now merely to show why, in examining the subject of democratic ideas, we occupy ourselves so little with the text of doctrines, and seek only for the psychological elements of which they constitute the vestment, and the reactions which they provoke in the various categories of men who have accepted them.

Modified rapidly by men of different mentalities, the original theory is soon no more than a label which denotes something quite unlike itself.

Applicable to religious beliefs, these principles are equally so to political beliefs. When a man speaks of democracy, for example, must we inquire what this word means to various peoples, and also whether in the same people there is not a great difference between the democracy of the ``intellectuals'' and popular democracy.

In confining ourselves now to the consideration of this latter point we shall readily perceive that the democratic ideas to be found in books and journals are purely the theories of literary people, of which the people know nothing, and by the application of which they would have nothing to gain. Although the working- man possesses the theoretical right of passing the barriers which separate him from the upper classes by a whole series of competitions and examinations, his chance of reaching them is in reality extremely slight.

The democracy of the lettered classes has no other object than to set up a selection which shall recruit the directing classes exclusively from themselves. I should have nothing to say against this if the selection were real. It would then constitute the application of the maxim of Napoleon: ``The true method of government is to employ the aristocracy, but under the forms of democracy.''

Unhappily the democracy of the ``intellectuals'' would simply lead to the substitution of the Divine right of kings by the Divine right of a petty oligarchy, which is too often narrow and tyrannical. Liberty cannot be created by replacing a tyranny.

Popular democracy by no means aims at manufacturing rulers. Dominated entirely by the spirit of equality and the desire to ameliorate the lot of the workers, it rejects the idea of fraternity, and exhibits no anxiety in respect of liberty. No government is conceivable to popular democracy except in the form of an autocracy. We see this, not only in history, which shows us that since the Revolution all despotic Governments have been vigorously acclaimed, but also in the autocratic fashion in which the workers' trades unions are conducted.

This profound distinction between the democracy of the lettered classes and popular democracy is far more obvious to the workers than to the intellectuals. In their mentalities there is nothing in common; the two classes do not speak the same language. The syndicalists emphatically assert to-day that no alliance could possibly exist between them and the politicians of the bourgeoisie. This assertion is strictly true.

It was always so, and this, no doubt, is why popular democracy, from Plato's to our own times, has never been defended by the great thinkers.

This fact has greatly struck Emile Faguet. ``Almost all the thinkers of the nineteenth century,'' he says, ``were not democrats. When I was writing my Politiques et moralistes du XIXe siecle this was my despair. I could not find one who had been a democrat; yet I was extremely anxious to find one so that I could give the democratic doctrine as formulated by him.''

The eminent writer might certainly have found plenty of professional politicians, but these latter rarely belong to the category of thinkers.

4. Natural Inequalities and Democratic Equalisation.

The difficulty of reconciling democratic equalisation with natural inequalities constitutes one of the most difficult problems of the present hour. We know what are the desires of democracy. Let us see what Nature replies to these demands.

The democratic ideas which have so often shaken the world from the heroic ages of Greece to modern times are always clashing with natural inequalities. Some observers have held, with Helvetius, that the inequality between men is created by education.

As a matter of fact, Nature does not know such a thing as equality. She distributes unevenly genius, beauty, health, vigour, intelligence, and all the qualities which confer on their possessors a superiority over their fellows.

No theory can alter these discrepancies, so that democratic doctrines will remain confined to words until the laws of heredity consent to unify the capacities of men.

Can we suppose that societies will ever succeed in establishing artificially the equality refused by Nature?

A few theorists have believed for a long time that education might effect a general levelling. Many years of experience have shown the depth of this illusion.

It would not, however, be impossible for a triumphant Socialism to establish equality for a time by rigorously eliminating all superior individuals. One can easily foresee what would become of a people that had suppressed its best individuals while surrounded by other nations progressing by means of their best individuals.

Not only does Nature not know equality, but since the beginning of the ages she has always realised progress by means of successive differentiations—that is to say, by increasing inequalities. These alone could raise the obscure cell of the early geological periods to the superior beings whose inventions were to change the face of the earth.

The same phenomenon is to be observed in societies. The forms of democracy which select the better elements of the popular classes finally result in the creation of an intellectual aristocracy, a result the contrary of the dream of the pure theorists, to beat down the superior elements of society to the level of the inferior elements.

On the side of natural law, which is hostile to theories of equality, are the conditions of modern progress. Science and industry demand more and more considerable intellectual efforts, so that mental inequalities and the differences of social condition which spring from them cannot but become accentuated.

We therefore observe this striking phenomenon: as laws and institutions seek to level individuals the progress of civilisation tends still further to differentiate them. From the peasant to the feudal baron the intellectual difference was not great, but from the working-man to the engineer it is immense and is increasing daily.

Capacity being the principal factor of progress, the capable of each class rise while the mediocre remain stationary or sink. What could laws do in the face of such inevitable necessities?

In vain do the incapable pretend that, representing number, they also represent force. Deprived of the superior brains by whose researches all workers profit, they would speedily sink into poverty and anarchy.

The capital role of the elect in modern civilisation seems too obvious to need pointing out. In the case of civilised nations and barbarian peoples, which contain similar averages of mediocrities, the superiority of the former arises solely from the superior minds which they contain. The United States have understood this so thoroughly that they forbid the immigration of Chinese workers, whose capacity is identical with that of American workers, and who, working for lower wages, tend to create a formidable competition with the latter. Despite these evidences we see the antagonism between the multitude and the elect increasing day by day. At no period were the elect more necessary, yet never were they supported with such difficulty.

One of the most solid foundations of Socialism is an intense hatred of the elect. Its adepts always forget that scientific, artistic, and industrial progress, which creates the strength of a country and the prosperity of millions of workers, is due solely to a small number of superior brains.

If the worker makes three times as much to-day as he did a hundred years ago, and enjoys commodities then unknown to great nobles, he owes it entirely to the elect.

Suppose that by some miracle Socialism had been universally accepted a century ago. Risk, speculation, initiative—in a word, all the stimulants of human activity—being suppressed, no progress would have been possible, and the worker would have remained as poor as he was. Men would merely have established that equality in poverty desired by the jealousy and envy of a host of mediocre minds. Humanity will never renounce the progress of civilisation to satisfy so low an ideal.
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:22 am

Chapter 2: The Results of Democratic Evolution

1. The Influence upon Social Evolution of Theories of no Rational Value.


We have seen that natural laws do not agree with the aspirations of democracy. We know, also, that such a statement has never affected doctrines already in men's minds. The man led by a belief never troubles about its real value.

The philosopher who studies a belief must obviously discuss its rational content, but he is more concerned with its influences upon the general mind.

Applied to the interpretation of all the great beliefs of history, the importance of this distinction is at once evident. Jupiter, Moloch, Vishnu, Allah, and so many other divinities, were, no doubt, from the rational point of view, mere illusions, yet their effect upon the life of the peoples has been considerable.

The same distinction is applicable to the beliefs which prevailed during the Middle Ages. Equally illusory, they nevertheless exercised as profound an influence as if they had corresponded with realities.

If any one doubts this, let him compare the domination of the Roman Empire and that of the Church of Rome. The first was perfectly real and tangible, and implied no illusion. The second, while its foundations were entirely chimerical, was fully as powerful. Thanks to it, during the long night of the Middle Ages, semi-barbarous peoples acquired those social bonds and restraints and that national soul without which there is no civilisation.

The power possessed by the Church proves, again, that the power of certain illusions is sufficiently great to create, at least momentarily, sentiments as contrary to the interests of the individual as they are to that of society—such as the love of the monastic life, the desire for martyrdom, the crusades, the religious wars, &c.

The application to democratic and socialistic ideas of the preceding considerations shows that it matters little that these ideas have no defensible basis. They impress and influence men's minds, and that is sufficient. Their results may be disastrous in the extreme, but we cannot prevent them.

The apostles of the new doctrines are quite wrong in taking so much trouble to find a rational basis for their aspirations. They would be far more convincing were they to confine themselves to making affirmations and awakening hopes. Their real strength resides in the religious mentality which is inherent in the heart of man, and which during the ages has only changed its object.

Later on we shall consider from a philosophical point of view various consequences of the democratic evolution whose course we see accelerating. We may say in respect of the Church in the Middle Ages that it had the power of profoundly influencing the mentality of men. Examining certain results of the democratic doctrines, we shall see that the power of these is no less than that of the Church.

2. The Jacobin Spirit and the Mentality created by Democratic Beliefs.

Existing generations have inherited, not only the revolutionary principles but also the special mentality which achieves their success.

Describing this mentality when we were examining the Jacobin spirit, we saw that it always endeavours to impose by force illusions which it regards as the truth. The Jacobin spirit has finally become so general in France and in other Latin countries that it has affected all political parties, even the most conservative. The bourgeoisie is strongly affected by it, and the people still more so.

This increase of the Jacobin spirit has resulted in the fact that political conceptions, institutions, and laws tend to impose themselves by force. Syndicalism, peaceful enough in other countries, immediately assumed in France an uncompromising and anarchical aspect, which betrayed itself in the shape of riots, sabotage, and incendiarism.

Not to be repressed by timid Governments, the Jacobin spirit produces melancholy ravages in minds of mediocre capacity. At a recent congress of railway men a third of the delegates voted approval of sabotage, and one of the secretaries of the Congress began his speech by saying: ``I send all saboteurs my fraternal greeting and all my admiration.''

This general mentality engenders an increasing anarchy. That France is not in a permanent state of anarchy is, as I have already remarked, due to the fact that the parties by which she is divided produce something like equilibrium. They are animated by a mortal hatred for one another, but none of them is strong enough to enslave its rivals.

This Jacobin intolerance is spreading to such an extent that the rulers themselves employ without scruple the most revolutionary tactics with regard to their enemies, violently persecuting any party that offers the least resistance, and even despoiling it of its property. Our rulers to-day behave as the ancient conquerors used; the vanquished have nothing to hope from the victors.

Far from being peculiar to the lower orders, intolerance is equally prominent among the ruling classes. Michelet remarked long ago that the violence of the cultivated classes is often greater than that of the people. It is true that they do not break the street lamps, but they are ready enough to cause heads to be broken. The worst violence of the revolution was the work of cultivated bourgeoisie—professors, lawyers, &c., possessors of that classical education which is supposed to soften the manners. It has not done so in these days, any more than it did of old. One can make sure of this by reading the advanced journals, whose contributors and editors are recruited chiefly from among the professors of the University.

Their books are as violent as their articles, and one wonders how such favourites of fortune can have secreted such stores of hatred.

One would find it hard to credit them did they assure us that they were consumed by an intense passion for altruism. One might more readily admit that apart from a narrow religious mentality the hope of being remarked by the mighty ones of the day, or of creating a profitable popularity, is the only possible explanation of the violence recommended in their written propaganda.

I have already, in one of my preceding works, cited some passages from a book written by a professor at the College of France, in which the author incites the people to seize upon the riches of the bourgeoisie, whom he furiously abuses, and have arrived at the conclusion that a new revolution would readily find among the authors of such books the Marats, Robespierres, and Carriers whom it might require.

The Jacobin religion—above all in its Socialist form—has all the power of the ancient faiths over feeble minds Blinded by their faith, they believe that reason is their guide, but are really actuated solely by their passions and their dreams.

The evolution of democratic ideas has thus produced not only the political results already mentioned, but also a considerable effect upon the mentality of modern men.

If the ancient dogmas have long ago exhausted their power, the theories of democracy are far from having lost theirs, and we see their consequences increasing daily. One of the chief results has been the general hatred of superiority.

This hatred of whatever passes the average in social fortune or intelligence is to-day general in all classes, from the working- classes to the upper strata of the bourgeoisie. The results are envy, detraction, and a love of attack, of raillery, of persecution, and a habit of attributing all actions to low motives, of refusing to believe in probity, disinterestedness, and intelligence.

Conversation, among the people as among the most cultivated Frenchmen, is stamped with the craze for abasing and abusing everything and everyone. Even the greatest of the dead do not escape this tendency. Never were so many books written to depreciate the merit of famous men, men who were formerly regarded as the most precious patrimony of their country.

Envy and hatred seem from all time to have been inseparable from democratic theories, but the spread of these sentiments has never been so great as to-day. It strikes all observers.

``There is a low demagogic instinct,'' writes M. Bourdeau, ``without any moral inspiration, which dreams of pulling humanity down to the lowest level, and for which any superiority, even of culture, is an offence to society. . . it is the sentiment of ignoble equality which animated the Jacobin butchers when they struck off the head of a Lavoisier or a Chenier.

This hatred of superiority, the most prominent element in the modern progress of Socialism, is not the only characteristic of the new spirit created by democratic ideas.

Other consequences, although indirect, are not less profound. Such, for example, are the progress of ``statism,'' the diminution of the power of the bourgeoisie, the increasing activity of financiers, the conflict of the classes, the vanishing of the old social constraints, and the degradation of morality.

All these effects are displayed in a general insubordination and anarchy. The son revolts against the father, the employee against his patron, the soldier against his officers. Discontent, hatred, and envy reign throughout.

A social movement which continues is necessarily like a machine in movement which accelerates its motion. We shall therefore find that the results of this mentality will become yet more important. It is betrayed from time to time by incidents whose gravity is daily increasing—railway strikes, postmen's strikes, explosions on board ironclads, &c. A propos of the destruction of the Liberte, which cost more than two million pounds and slew two hundred men in the space of a minute, an ex-Minister of Marine, M. de Lanessan, expresses himself as follows:—

''The evil that is gnawing at our fleet is the same as that which is devouring our army, our public administrations, our parliamentary system, our governmental system, and the whole fabric of our society. This evil is anarchy—that is to say, such a disorder of minds and things that nothing is done as reason would dictate, and no one behaves as his professional or moral duty should require him to behave.''

On the subject of the catastrophe of the Liberte, which followed that of the Iena, M. Felix Roussel said, in a speech delivered as president of the municipal council of Paris:—

``The causes of the evil are not peculiar to our day. The evil is more general, and bears a triple name: irresponsibility, indiscipline, and anarchy.''

These quotations, which state facts with which everyone is familiar, show that the staunchest upholders of the republican system themselves recognise the progress of social disorganisation.[12] Everyone sees it, while he is conscious of his own impotence to change anything. It results, in fact, from mental influences whose power is greater than that of our wills.

3. Universal Suffrage and its Representatives.

Among the dogmas of democracy perhaps the most fundamental of all and the most attractive is that of universal suffrage. It gives the masses the idea of equality, since for a moment at least rich and poor, learned and ignorant, are equal before the electoral urn. The minister elbows the least of his servants, and during this brief moment the power of one is as great as the others.

All Governments, including that of the Revolution, have feared universal suffrage. At a first glance, indeed, the objections which suggests themselves are numerous. The idea that the multitude could usefully choose the men capable of governing, that individuals of indifferent morality, feeble knowledge, and narrow minds should possess, by the sole fact of number, a certain talent for judging the candidate proposed for its selection is surely a shocking one.

From a rational point of view the suffrage of numbers is to a certain extent justified if we think with Pascal.

``Plurality is the best way, because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed; it is, however, the advice of the less able.''

As universal suffrage cannot in our times be replaced by any other institution, we must accept it and try to adapt it. It is accordingly useless to protest against it or to repeat with the queen Marie Caroline, at the time of her struggle with Napoleon: ``Nothing is more dreadful than to govern men in this enlightened century, when every cobbler reasons and criticises the Government.''

To tell the truth, the objections are not always as great as they appear. The laws of the psychology of crowds being admitted, it is very doubtful whether a limited suffrage would give a much better choice of men than that obtained by universal suffrage.

These same psychological laws also show us that so-called universal suffrage is in reality a pure fiction. The crowd, save in very rare cases, has no opinion but that of its leaders. Universal suffrage really represents the most limited of suffrages.

There justly resides its real danger. Universal suffrage is made dangerous by the fact that the leaders who are its masters are the creatures of little local committees analogous to the clubs of the Revolution. The leader who canvasses for a mandate is chosen by them.

Once nominated, he exercises an absolute local power, on condition of satisfying the interests of his committees. Before this necessity the general interest of the country disappears almost totally from the mind of the elected representative.

Naturally the committees, having need of docile servants, do not choose for this task individuals gifted with a lofty intelligence nor, above all, with a very high morality. They must have men without character, without social position, and always docile.

By reason of these necessities the servility of the deputy in respect of these little groups which patronise him, and without which he would be no one, is absolute. He will speak and vote just as his committee tells him. His political ideal may be expressed in a few words: it is to obey, that he may retain his post.

Sometimes, rarely indeed, and only when by name or position or wealth he has a great prestige, a superior character may impose himself upon the popular vote by overcoming the tyranny of the impudent minorities which constitute the local committees.

Democratic countries like France are only apparently governed by universal suffrage. For this reason is it that so many measures are passed which do not interest the people and which the people never demanded. Such were the purchase of the Western railways, the laws respecting congregations, &c. These absurd manifestations merely translated the demands of fanatical local committees, and were imposed upon deputies whom they had chosen.

We may judge of the influence of these committees when we see moderate deputies forced to patronise the anarchical destroyers of arsenals, to ally themselves with anti-militarists, and, in a word, to obey the most atrocious demands in order to ensure re-election. The will of the lowest elements of democracy has thus created among the elected representatives manners and a morality which we can but recognise are of the lowest. The politician is the man in public employment, and as Nietzsche says:—

``Where public employment begins there begins also the clamour of the great comedians and the buzzing of venomous flies. . . . The comedian always believes in that which makes him obtain his best effects, in that which impels the people to believe in him. To- morrow he will have a new faith, and the day after to-morrow yet another. . . . All that is great has its being far from public employment and glory.''

4. The Craving for Reforms.

The craze for reforms imposed suddenly by means of decrees is one of the most disastrous conceptions of the Jacobin spirit, one of the formidable legacies left by the Revolution. It is among the principal factors of all the incessant political upheavals of the last century in France.

One of the psychological causes of this intense thirst for reforms arises from the difficulty of determining the real causes of the evils complained of. The need of explanation creates fictitious causes of the simplest nature. Therefore the remedies also appear simple.

For forty years we have incessantly been passing reforms, each of which is a little revolution in itself. In spite of all these, or rather because of them, the French have evolved almost as little as any race in Europe.

The slowness of our actual evolution may be seen if we compare the principal elements of our social life—commerce, industry, &c.—with those of other nations. The progress of other nations—of the Germans especially—then appears enormous, while our own has been very slow.

Our administrative, industrial, and commercial organisation is considerably out of date, and is no longer equal to our new needs. Our industry is not prospering; our marine is declining. Even in our own colonies we cannot compete with foreign countries, despite the enormous pecuniary subventions accorded by the State. M. Cruppi, an ex-Minister of Commerce, has insisted on this melancholy decline in a recent book. Falling into the usual errors, he believed it easy to remedy this inferiority by new laws.

All politicians share the same opinion, which is why we progress so slowly. Each party is persuaded that by means of reforms all evils could be remedied. This conviction results in struggles such as have made France the most divided country in the world and the most subject to anarchy.

No one yet seems to understand that individuals and their methods, not regulations, make the value of a people. The efficacious reforms are not the revolutionary reforms but the trifling ameliorations of every day accumulated in course of time. The great social changes, like the great geological changes, are effected by the daily addition of minute causes. The economic history of Germany during the last forty years proves in a striking manner the truth of this law.

Many important events which seem to depend more or less on hazard—as battles, for example—are themselves subject to this law of the accumulation of small causes. No doubt the decisive struggle is sometimes terminated in a day or less, but many minute efforts, slowly accumulated, are essential to victory. We had a painful experience of this in 1870, and the Russians have learned it more recently. Barely half an hour did Admiral Togo need to annihilate the Russian fleet, at the battle of Tsushima, which finally decided the fate of Japan, but thousands of little factors, small and remote, determined that success. Causes not less numerous engendered the defeat of the Russians—a bureaucracy as complicated as ours, and as irresponsible; lamentable material, although paid for by its weight in gold; a system of graft at every degree of the social hierarchy, and general indifference to the interests of the country.

Unhappily the progress in little things which by their total make up the greatness of a nation is rarely apparent, produces no impression on the public, and cannot serve the interests of politicians at elections. These latter care nothing for such matters, and permit the accumulation, in the countries subject to their influence, of the little successive disorganisations which finally result in great downfalls.

5. Social Distinctions in Democracies and Democratic Ideas in Various Countries.

When men were divided into castes and differentiated chiefly by birth, social distinctions were generally accepted as the consequences of an unavoidable natural law.

As soon as the old social divisions were destroyed the distinctions of the classes appeared artificial, and for that reason ceased to be tolerated.

The necessity of equality being theoretical, we have seen among democratic peoples the rapid development of artificial inequalities, permitting their possessors to make for themselves a plainly visible supremacy. Never was the thirst for titles and decorations so general as to-day.

In really democratic countries, such as the United States, titles and decorations do not exert much influence, and fortune alone creates distinctions. It is only by exception that we see wealthy young American girls allying themselves to the old names of the European aristocracy. They are then instinctively employing the only means which will permit a young race to acquire a past that will establish its moral framework.

But in a general fashion the aristocracy that we see springing up in America is by no means founded on titles and decorations. Purely financial, it does not provoke much jealousy, because every one hopes one day to form part of it.

When, in his book on democracy in America, Toqueville spoke of the general aspiration towards equality he did not realise that the prophesied equality would end in the classification of men founded exclusively on the number of dollars possessed by them. No other exists in the United States, and it will doubtless one day be the same in Europe.

At present we cannot possibly regard France as a democratic country save on paper, and here we feel the necessity, already referred to, of examining the various ideas which in different countries are expressed by the word ``democracy.''

Of truly democratic nations we can practically mention only England and the United States. There, democracy occurs in different forms, but the same principles are observed—notably, a perfect toleration of all opinions. Religious persecutions are unknown. Real superiority easily reveals itself in the various professions which any one can enter at any age if he possesses the necessary capacity. There is no barrier to individual effort.

In such countries men believe themselves equal because all have the idea that they are free to attain the same position. The workman knows he can become foreman, and then engineer. Forced to begin on the lower rungs of the ladder instead of high up the scale, as in France, the engineer does not regard himself as made of different stuff to the rest of mankind. It is the same in all professions. This is why the class hatred, so intense in Europe, is so little developed in England and America.

In France the democracy is practically non-existent save in speeches. A system of competitions and examinations, which must be worked through in youth, firmly closes the door upon the liberal professions, and creates inimical and separate classes.

The Latin democracies are therefore purely theoretical. The absolutism of the State has replaced monarchical absolutism, but it is no less severe. The aristocracy of fortune has replaced that of birth, and its privileges are no less considerable.

Monarchies and democracies differ far more in form than in substance. It is only the variable mentality of men that varies their effects. All the discussions as to various systems of government are really of no interest, for these have no special virtue of themselves. Their value will always depend on that of the people governed. A people effects great and rapid progress when it discovers that it is the sum of the personal efforts of each individual and not the system of government that determines the rank of a nation in the world.

_______________

Notes:

[12] This disorder is the same in all the Government departments Interesting examples will be found in a report of M. Dausset to the Municipal Council:—

``The service of the public highways, which ought above all to be noted for its rapid execution, is, on the contrary, the very type of red-tape, bureaucratic, and ink-slinging administration, possessing men and money and wasting both in tasks which are often useless, for lack of order, initiative, and method—in a word, of organisation.

Speaking then of the directors of departments, each of whom works as he pleases, and after his own fashion, he adds:—

``These important persons completely ignore one another; they prepare and execute their plans without knowing anything of what their neighbours are doing; there is no one above them to group and co-ordinate their work.'' This is why a road is often torn up, repaired, and then torn up again a few days later, because the departments dealing with the supply of water, gas, electricity, and the sewers are mutually jealous, and never attempt to work together. This anarchy and indiscipline naturally cost enormous sums of money, and a private firm which operated in this manner would soon find itself bankrupt.
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:22 am

Chapter 3: The New Forms of Democratic Belief

1. The Conflict between Capital and Labour.


While our legislators are reforming and legislating at hazard, the natural evolution of the world is slowly pursuing its course. New interests arise, the economic competition between nation and nation increases in severity, the working-classes are bestirring themselves, and on all sides we see the birth of formidable problems which the harangues of the politicians will never resolve.

Among these new problems one of the most complicated will be the problem of the conflict between labour and capital. It is becoming acute even in such a country of tradition as England. Workingmen are ceasing to respect the collective contracts which formerly constituted their charter, strikes are declared for insignificant motives, and unemployment and pauperism are attaining disquieting proportions.

In America these strikes would finally have affected all industries but that the very excess of the evil created a remedy. During the last ten years the industrial leaders have organised great employers' federations, which have become powerful enough to force the workers to submit to arbitration.

The labour question is complicated in France by the intervention of numerous foreign workers, which the stagnation of our population has rendered necessary.[13] This stagnation will also make it difficult for France to contend with her rivals, whose soil will soon no longer be able to nourish its inhabitants, who, following one of the oldest laws of history, will necessarily invade the less densely peopled countries.

These conflicts between the workers and employers of the same nation will be rendered still more acute by the increasing economic struggle between the Asiatics, whose needs are small, and who can therefore produce manufactured articles at very low prices, and the Europeans, whose needs are many. For twenty-five years I have laid stress upon this point. General Hamilton, ex- military attache to the Japanese army, who foresaw the Japanese victories long before the outbreak of hostilities, writes as follows in an essay translated by General Langlois:—

``The Chinaman, such as I have seen him in Manchuria, is capable of destroying the present type of worker of the white races. He will drive him off the face of the earth. The Socialists, who preach equality to the labourer, are far from thinking what would be the practical result of carrying out their theories. Is it, then, the destiny of the white races to disappear in the long run? In my humble opinion this destiny depends upon one single factor: Shall we or shall we not have the good sense to close our ears to speeches which present war and preparation for war as a useless evil?

``I believe the workers must choose. Given the present constitution of the world, they must cultivate in their children the military ideal, and accept gracefully the cost and trouble which militarism entails, or they will be let in for a cruel struggle for life with a rival worker of whose success there is not the slightest doubt. There is only one means of refusing Asiatics the right to emigrate, to lower wages by competition, and to live in our midst, and that is the sword. If Americans and Europeans forget that their privileged position is held only by force of arms, Asia will soon have taken her revenge.''

We know that in America the invasion of Chinese and Japanese, owing to the competition between them and the workers of white race, has become a national calamity. In Europe the invasion is commencing, but has not as yet gone far. But already Chinese emigrants have formed important colonies in certain centres— London, Cardiff, Liverpool, &c. They have provoked several riots by working for low wages. Their appearance has always lowered salaries.

But these problems belong to the future, and those of the present are so disquieting that it is useless at the moment to occupy ourselves with others.

2. The Evolution of the Working-Classes and the Syndicalist Movement.

The most important democratic problem of the day will perhaps result from the recent development of the working-class engendered by the Syndicalist or Trades Union movement.

The aggregation of similar interests known as Syndicalism has rapidly assumed such enormous developments in all countries that it may be called world-wide. Certain corporations have budgets comparable to those of small States. Some German leagues have been cited as having saved over three millions sterling in subscriptions.

The extension of the labour movement in all countries shows that it is not, like Socialism, a dream of Utopian theorists, but the result of economic necessities. In its aim, its means of action, and its tendencies, Syndicalism presents no kinship with Socialism. Having sufficiently explained it in my Political Psychology, it will suffice here to recall in a few words the difference between the two doctrines.

Socialism would obtain possession of all industries, and have them managed by the State, which would distribute the products equally between the citizens. Syndicalism, on the other hand, would entirely eliminate the action of the State, and divide society into small professional groups which would be self-governing.

Although despised by the Syndicalists and violently attacked by them, the Socialists are trying to ignore the conflict, but it is rapidly becoming too obvious to be concealed. The political influence which the Socialists still possess will soon escape them.

If Syndicalism is everywhere increasing at the expense of Socialism, it is, I repeat, because this corporative movement, although a renewal of the past, synthetises certain needs born of the specialisation of modern industry.

We see its manifestations under a great variety of circumstances. In France its success has not as yet been as great as elsewhere. Having taken the revolutionary form already mentioned, it has fallen, at least for the time being, into the hands of the anarchists, who care as little for Syndicalism as for any sort of organisation, and are simply using the new doctrine in an attempt to destroy modern society. Socialists, Syndicalists, and anarchists, although directed by entirely different conceptions, are thus collaborating in the same eventual aim—the violent suppression of the ruling classes and the pillage of their wealth.

The Syndicalist doctrine does not in any way derive from the principles of Revolution. On many points it is entirely in contradiction with the Revolution. Syndicalism represents rather a return to certain forms of collective organisation similar to the guilds or corporations proscribed by the Revolution. It thus constitutes one of those federations which the Revolution condemned. It entirely rejects the State centralisation which the Revolution established.

Syndicalism cares nothing for the democratic principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The Syndicalists demand of their members an absolute discipline which eliminates all liberty.

Not being as yet strong enough to exercise mutual tyranny, the syndicates so far profess sentiments in respect of one another which might by a stretch be called fraternal. But as soon as they are sufficiently powerful, when their contrary interests will necessarily enter into conflict, as during the Syndicalist period of the old Italian republics—Florence and Siena, for example—the present fraternity will speedily be forgotten, and equality will be replaced by the despotism of the most powerful.

Such a future seems near at hand. The new power is increasing very rapidly, and finds the Governments powerless before it, able to defend themselves only by yielding to every demand—an odious policy, which may serve for the moment, but which heavily compromises the future.

It was, however, to this poor recourse that the English
Government recently resorted in its struggle against the Miners'
Union, which threatened to suspend the industrial life of
England. The Union demanded a minimum wage for its members, but
they were not bound to furnish a minimum of work.

Although such a demand was inadmissible, the Government agreed to propose to Parliament a law to sanction such a measure. We may profitably read the weighty words pronounced by Mr. Balfour before the House of Commons:—

``The country has never in its so long and varied history had to face a danger of this nature and this importance.

``We are confronted with the strange and sinister spectacle of a mere organisation threatening to paralyse—and paralysing in a large measure—the commerce and manufactures of a community which lives by commerce and manufacture.

``The power possessed by the miners is in the present state of the law almost unlimited. Have we ever seen the like of it? Did ever feudal baron exert a comparable tyranny? Was there ever an American trust which served the rights which it holds from the law with such contempt of the general interest? The very degree of perfection to which we have brought our laws, our social organisation, the mutual relation between the various professions and industries, exposes us more than our predecessors in ruder ages to the grave peril which at present threatens society. . . . We are witnesses at the present moment of the first manifestation of the power of elements which, if we are not heedful, will submerge the whole of society. . . . The attitude of the Government in yielding to the injunction of the miners gives some appearance of reality to the victory of those who are pitting themselves against society.''

3. Why certain modern Democratic Governments are gradually being transformed into Governments by Administrative Castes.

Anarchy and the social conflicts resulting from democratic ideas are to-day impelling some Governments towards an unforeseen course of evolution which will end by leaving them only a nominal power. This development, of which I shall briefly denote the effects, is effected spontaneously under the stress of those imperious necessities which are still the chief controlling power of events.

The Governments of democratic countries to-day consist of the representatives elected by universal suffrage. They vote laws, and appoint and dismiss ministers chosen from themselves, and provisionally entrusted with the executive power. These ministers are naturally often replaced, since a vote will do it. Those who follow them, belonging to a different party, will govern according to different principles.

It might at first seem that a country thus pulled to and fro by various influences could have no continuity or stability. But in spite of all these conditions of instability a democratic Government like that of France works with fair regularity. How explain such a phenomenon?

Its interpretation, which is very simple, results from the fact that the ministers who have the appearance of governing really govern the country only to a very limited extent. Strictly limited and circumscribed, their power is exercised principally in speeches which are hardly noticed and in a few inorganic measures.

But behind the superficial authority of ministers, without force or duration, the playthings of every demand of the politician, an anonymous power is secretly at work whose might is continually increasing the administrations. Possessing traditions, a hierarchy, and continuity, they are a power against which, as the ministers quickly realise, they are incapable of struggling.[14] Responsibility is so divided in the administrative machine that a minister may never find himself opposed by any person of importance. His momentary impulses are checked by a network of regulations, customs, and decrees, which are continually quoted to him, and which he knows so little that he dare not infringe them.

This diminution of the power of democratic Governments can only develop. One of the most constant laws of history is that of which I have already spoken: Immediately any one class becomes preponderant—nobles, clergy, army, or the people—it speedily tends to enslave others. Such were the Roman armies, which finally appointed and overthrew the emperors; such were the clergy, against whom the kings of old could hardly struggle; such were the States General, which at the moment of Revolution speedily absorbed all the powers of government, and supplanted the monarchy.

The caste of functionaries is destined to furnish a fresh proof of the truth of this law. Preponderant already, they are beginning to speak loudly, to make threats, and even to indulge in strikes, such as that of the postmen, which was quickly followed by that of the Government railway employees. The administrative power thus forms a little State within the State, and if its present rate of revolution continues it will soon constitute the only power in the State. Under a Socialist Government there would be no other power. All our revolutions would then have resulted in stripping the king of his powers and his throne in order to bestow them upon the irresponsible, anonymous and despotic class of Government clerks.

To foresee the issue of all the conflicts which threaten to cloud the future is impossible. We must steer clear of pessimism as of optimism; all we can say is that necessity will always finally bring things to an equilibrium. The world pursues its way without bothering itself with our speeches, and sooner or later we manage to adapt ourselves to the variations of our environment. The difficulty is to do so without too much friction, and above all to resist the chimerical conceptions of dreamers. Always powerless to re-organise the world, they have often contrived to upset it.

Athens, Rome, Florence, and many other cities which formerly shone in history, were victims of these terrible theorists. The results of their influence has always been the same—anarchy, dictatorship, and decadence.

But such lessons will not affect the numerous Catilines of the present day. They do not yet see that the movements unchained by their ambitions threaten to submerge them. All these Utopians have awakened impossible hopes in the mind of the crowd, excited their appetites, and sapped the dykes which have been slowly erected during the centuries to restrain them.

The struggle of the blind multitudes against the elect is one of the continuous facts of history, and the triumph of popular sovereignties without counterpoise has already marked the end of more than one civilisation. The elect create, the plebs destroys. As soon as the first lose their hold the latter begins its precious work.

The great civilisations have only prospered by dominating their lower elements. It is not only in Greece that anarchy, dictatorship, invasion, and, finally, the loss of independence has resulted from the despotism of a democracy. Individual tyranny is always born of collective tyranny. It ended the first cycle of the greatness of Rome; the Barbarians achieved the second.

________________

Notes:

[13] Population of the Great Powers:— 1789. 1906.

Russia … … 28,000,000 129,000,000
Germany … … 28,000,000 57,000,000
Austria … … 18,000,000 44,000,000
England … … 12,000,000 40,000,000
France … … 26,000,000 39,000,000

[14] The impotence of ministers in their own departments has been well described by one of them, M. Cruppi, in a recent book. The most ardent wishes of the minister being immediately paralysed by his department, he promptly ceases to struggle against it.
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:23 am

Conclusions

The principal revolutions of history have been studied in this volume. But we have dealt more especially with the most important of all—that which for more than twenty years overwhelmed all Europe, and whose echoes are still to be heard.

The French Revolution is an inexhaustible mine of psychological documents. No period of the life of humanity has presented such a mass of experience, accumulated in so short a time.

On each page of this great drama we have found numerous applications of the principles expounded in my various works, concerning the transitory mentality of crowds and the permanent soul of the peoples, the action of beliefs, the influence of mystic, affective, and collective elements, and the conflict between the various forms of logic.

The Revolutionary Assemblies illustrate all the known laws of the psychology of crowds. Impulsive and timid, they are dominated by a small number of leaders, and usually act in a sense contrary to the wishes of their individual members.

The Royalist Constituent Assembly destroyed an ancient monarchy; the humanitarian Legislative Assembly allowed the massacres of September. The same pacific body led France into the most formidable campaigns.

There were similar contradictions during the Convention. The immense majority of its members abhorred violence. Sentimental philosophers, they exalted equality, fraternity, and liberty, yet ended by exerting the most terrible despotism.

The same contradictions were visible during the Directory. Extremely moderate in their intentions at the outset, the Assemblies were continually effecting bloodthirsty coups d'etat. They wished to re-establish religious peace, and finally sent thousands of priests into imprisonment. They wished to repair the ruins which covered France, and only succeeded in adding to them.

Thus there was always a complete contradiction between the individual wills of the men of the revolutionary period and the deeds of the Assemblies of which they were units.

The truth is that they obeyed invisible forces of which they were not the masters. Believing that they acted in the name of pure reason, they were really subject to mystic, affective, and collective influences, incomprehensible to them, and which we are only to-day beginning to understand.

Intelligence has progressed in the course of the ages, and has opened a marvellous outlook to man, although his character, the real foundation of his mind, and the sure motive of his actions, has scarcely changed. Overthrown one moment, it reappears the next. Human nature must be accepted as it is.

The founders of the Revolution did not resign themselves to the facts of human nature. For the first time in the history of humanity they attempted to transform men and society in the name of reason.

Never was any undertaking commenced with such chances of success. The theorists, who claimed to effect it, had a power in their hands greater than that of any despot.

Yet, despite this power, despite the success of the armies, despite Draconian laws and repeated coups d'etat, the Revolution merely heaped ruin upon ruin, and ended in a dictatorship.

Such an attempt was not useless, since experience is necessary to the education of the peoples. Without the Revolution it would have been difficult to prove that pure reason does not enable us to change human nature, and, consequently, that no society can be rebuilt by the will of legislators, however absolute their power.

Commenced by the middle classes for their own profit, the Revolution speedily became a popular movement, and at the same time a struggle of the instinctive against the rational, a revolt against all the constraints which make civilisation out of barbarism. It was by relying on the principle of popular sovereignty that the reformers attempted to impose their doctrines. Guided by leaders, the people intervened incessantly in the deliberations of the Assemblies, and committed the most sanguinary acts of violence.

The history of the multitudes during the Revolution is eminently instructive. It shows the error of the politicians who attribute all the virtues to the popular soul.

The facts of the Revolution teach us, on the contrary, that a people freed from social constraints, the foundations of civilisation, and abandoned to its instinctive impulses, speedily relapses into its ancestral savagery. Every popular revolution which succeeds in triumphing is a temporary return to barbarism. If the Commune of 1871 had lasted, it would have repeated the Terror. Not having the power to kill so many people, it had to confine itself to burning the principal monuments of the capital.

The Revolution represents the conflict of psychological forces liberated from the bonds whose function it is to restrain them. Popular instincts, Jacobin beliefs, ancestral influences, appetites, and passions unloosed, all these various influences engaged in a furious mutual conflict for the space of ten years, during which time they soaked France in blood and covered the land with ruins.

Seen from a distance, this seems to be the whole upshot of the Revolution. There was nothing homogeneous about it. One must resort to analysis before one can understand and grasp the great drama and display the impulses which continually actuated its heroes. In normal times we are guided by the various forms of logic—rational, affective, collective, and mystic—which more or less perfectly balance one another. During seasons of upheaval they enter into conflict, and man is no longer himself.

We have by no means undervalued in this work the importance of certain acquisitions of the Revolution in respect of the rights of the people. But with many other historians, we are forced to admit that the prize gained at the cost of such ruin and bloodshed would have been obtained at a later date without effort, by the mere progress of civilisation. For a few years gained, what a load of material disaster, what moral disintegration! We are still suffering as a result of the latter. These brutal pages in the book of history will take long to efface: they are not effaced as yet.

Our young men of to-day seem to prefer action to thought. Disdaining the sterile dissertations of the philosophers, they take no interest in vain speculation concerning matters whose essential nature remains unknown.

Action is certainly an excellent thing, and all real progress is a result of action, but it is only useful when properly directed. The men of the Revolution were assuredly men of action, yet the illusions which they accepted as guides led them to disaster.

Action is always hurtful when, despising realities, it professes violently to change the course of events. One cannot experiment with society as with apparatus in a laboratory. Our political upheavals show us what such social errors may cost.

Although the lesson of the Revolution was extremely categorical, many unpractical spirits, hallucinated by their dreams, are hoping to recommence it. Socialism, the modern synthesis of this hope, would be a regression to lower forms of evolution, for it would paralyse the greatest sources of our activity. By replacing individual initiative and responsibility by collective initiative and responsibility mankind would descend several steps on the scale of human values.

The present time is hardly favourable to such experiments. While dreamers are pursuing their dreams, exciting appetites and the passions of the multitude, the peoples are every day arming themselves more powerfully. All feel that amid the universal competition of the present time there is no room for weak nations.

In the centre of Europe a formidable military Power is increasing in strength, and aspiring to dominate the world, in order to find outlets for its goods, and for an increasing population, which it will soon be unable to nourish.

If we continue to shatter our cohesion by intestine struggles, party rivalries, base religious persecutions, and laws which fetter industrial development, our part in the world will soon be over. We shall have to make room for peoples more solidly knit, who have been able to adapt themselves to natural necessities instead of pretending to turn back upon their course. The present does not repeat the past, and the details of history are full of unforeseen consequences; but in their main lines events are conditioned by eternal laws.
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Re: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, by Gustave le Bon

Postby admin » Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:23 am

Index

Absolute monarchy, the
Acceleration of forces of violence
Administrations, real ruling forces
Affective logic
Affirmation, power of
Alexander I of Russia
Alsace loss of
Ambition, as a motive of revolution
Anarchy, followed by dictatorship; mental
Ancestral soul
Ancien regime, bases of the; inconveniences of; life under;
dissolution of
Ancients, Council of
Anti-clerical laws
Armies, of the Republic; character of; victories of; causes of
success
Army, role of, in revolution; in 1789
Assemblies, the Revolutionary; psychology of; obedient to the
clubs; see National, Constituent, Legislative Assemblies,
Convention, &c.
Assignats
Augustine, St.
Aulaud, M.
Austria, revolution in; royalist illusions as to her attitude;
attacks the Republic

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., on coal strike
Barras
Barrere
Bartholomew, St., Massacre of; European rejoicing over
Bastille, taking of the
Battifol, M.
Bayle, P.
Beaulieu, Edict of
Bedouin, executions at
Belgium, invasion of
Beliefs, affective and mystic origin of; intolerance of;
justification of; intolerance greatest between allied beliefs;
intolerance of democratic and socialistic beliefs
Berquin, executed by Sorbonne
Berry, Duchess de
Billaud-Varenne
Bismarck
Blanc, Louis
Blois, States of
Bonaparte, see Napoleon
Bonnal, General
Bossuet
Bourdeau, M.
Bourgeoisie, their jealousy of the nobles causes the Revolution;
their thirst for revenge; the real authors of the Revolution;
philosophic ideas of
Brazilian Revolution, the
Britanny, revolt in
Broglie, de
Brumaire, coup d'etat of
Brunswick, Duke of, his manifesto
Buddhism
Bureaucracy in France

Caesar, on division amid the Gauls
Caesarism
Caesars follow anarchy and dominate mobs
Cahiers, the
Calvin; compared to Robespierre
Carnot
Carrier; crimes of, and trial
Catechism of the Scottish Presbyterians
Catherine de Medicis
Catholic League
Cavaignac, General
Chalandon
Champ-de-Mars, affair of the
Charles IX
Charles X
China, revolution in
Chinese labour
Christian Revolution, the
Christians, mutual hatred of
Church, confiscation of goods of the
Civil War
Clemenceau, M.
Clergy; civil constitution of
Clubs, the, 24- psychology of the; obeyed by the Assemblies;
closed; increasing power of the; see Jacobins
Coalition, the
Cochin, A.
Colin, M.
Collective ideas; collective logic
Collot d'Herbois
Commissaries of the Convention, psychology of
Committees, the Governmental
Commune of Paris, the; in insurrection; chief power in State;
orders massacre of September; tyranny of
Commune of 1871
Communes, the revolutionary
Comte, A.
Concordat, the
Condorcet
Constituent Assembly, the; psychology of the; its fear of the
people; temporarily resists the people; loses power; its last
action
Constitution of 1791; of 1793; of 1795; of the year VIII
Constitutions, faith in
Constraints, social, necessity of
Consulate, the
Contagion, mental; causes of; in crowds
Contrat Social, the
Convention, giants of the; inconsistency of; decimates itself;
psychology of the; cowardice of; mental characteristics of;
composition of; fear in the; besieged by the Commune; surrenders
Girondists; Government of the; abolishes royalty; dissolved
Council of State
Couthon
Criminal mentality
Cromwell
Crowd, Psychology of the
Crowds in the French Revolution
Cruppi, M.
Cuba
Cunisset-Carnot
Currency, paper

Danton
Darwin, Charles
Dausset, M.
``Days,''of May 31; June 2; of June 20; of Aug. 10; of June 2; of
Oct. 5
Debidour, M.
Declaration of Rights, the
Democracy; intellectual and popular
Departmental insurrections
Desmoulins, Camille
Dictatorship follows anarchy
Diderot
Directory, the, failure of; closes clubs; psychology of the;
government of the; deportations under
Discontent, result of
Dreux-Breze
Drinkmann, Baron
Dubourg, Anne, burned
Dumas, President of the Revolutionary Tribunal
Dumouriez
Durel

Ego, analysis of the
Elchingen, General
Elizabeth, Empress of Russia
Emigres, banished
Empire, the Second
Encyclopaedists, the
England, coal strike in
English Revolution; Constitution
Enthusiasm
Envy
Equality
Evolution

Faguet, E.
Fatalism, historians on
Faubourgs, disarmed
Fear
Federation
Ferrer, notes on anniversary of execution of
Fersen
Five Hundred, the
Fontenelle
France, kings of; artificial unity of
Francis I
Franco-Prussian war
Fraternity
Freethinkers, intolerance of
French Revolution, the, revision of ideas concerning; generally
misunderstood; a new religious movement; origins of; religions
nature of; descends to lower classes; causes of; opinions of
historians concerning; becomes a popular government; causes of
democratisation; causes of the Revolution; a struggle of instinct
against reason
Fouche, at Lyons
Fouquier-Tinville
Freron

Galileo
German Emperors
``Giants'' of the Convention; mediocrity of
Gilbert-Liendon
Girondists, the; late of the; surrendered by the Convention; vote
for Louis' death
Glosson, Professor, experiment in crowd psychology
Governments, feeble resistance of, to revolution; best tactics to
pursue; revolutions effected by
Greek Revolution
Gregoire
Gregory XIII
Guillotine, regeneration by
Guiraud, M.
Guise, Duke of
Guizot

Hamel, M.
Hamilton, General
Hanotaux, G.
Hanriot
Hatred, value of
Haxo, General
Hebert
Hebertists
Helvetius
Henri II
Henri III
Henri IV
Henry IV of Germany
Henry VIII of England

Historians, mistaken views of, re French Revolution; opinions of;
concerning
Hoche, General
Holbach
Holland, invasion of
Hugo, Victor
Huguenots, massacre of
Humboldt
Hunter's ancestral instinct of carnage

Iena, explosion on board of
Impartiality, impossibility of
Incendiarism, of Commune of 1871
Inequality, craving for
Inquisition, the
Islam
Italy, revolution in

Jacobinism; failure of; modern; its craze for reforms Jacobins, the; real protagonists of the Revolution; claim to reorganise France in name of pure reason; they rule France; results of their triumph; theories of; small numbers of; the clubs closed,; downfall of Jourdan, General

La Bruyere
La Fayette
Lanessan, M.
Langlois, General
Latin mind, the
Lavisse
Lavoisier
Leaders, popular, psychology of
Lebon
Lebrun, Mme. Vigee
Legendary history
Legislation, faith in
Legislative Assembly, the psychology of; character of; timidity
of
Lettres de cachet
Levy, General
Liberte, the, explosion on board
``Liberty, Equality, Fraternity''
Lippomano
Logics, different species of
Louis XIII
Louis XIV; poverty under
Louis XVI; flight and capture; his chance; powers restored,; a
prisoner;regarded as traitor; suspended; trial of;execution of, a
blunder
Louis XVII
Louis XVIII
Louis-Philippe
Luther

MacMahon, Marshal
Madelin
Mohammed
Maistre, de
Malesherbes
Marat
Marie Antoinette; influence of
Marie Louise
Massacres, during wars of religion; during the French Revolution;
see September, Commissaries, &c.
Mentalities prevalent in time of revolution
Merlin
Michelet
Midi, revolt in the
Mirabeau
Monarch, position of, under the Reformation
Monarchical feeling
Montagnards
Montesquieu
Montluc
Moors in Spain
Mountain, the
Mystic logic
Mystic mentality

Nantes, Edict of; revoked
Nantes, massacres at
Napoleon; in Russia; on fatalism; on the 5th of October; in
Italy; in Egypt; returns; as Consul; reorganises France; defeated
Napoleon III
National Assembly, the
National Guard
Nature, return to, illusions respecting
Necker
Noailles, Comte de
Nobles renounce privileges; emigrate

October, ``days'' of
Olivier, E.
Opinions and Beliefs
Oppede, Baron d'
Orleans, Duc d'

Paris, her share in the Revolution. See People
Pasteur
Peasants, condition of, before Revolution; burn chateaux
People, the, in revolution; never directs itself; supposed part
of; the reality; analysis of; the base populace; commences to
terrorise the Assemblies; the sections rise
Peoples, the Psychology of
Persecution, religious
Personality, transformation of, during revolution
Peter the Great
Petion
Philip II
Philippines
Philosophers, influence of
Plain, the
Poissy, assembly of
Poland, decadence of; revolution in; partition of
Political beliefs
Pope, the
Portuguese Revolution
Positivism
Predestination
Presbyterian Catechism
Protestants, martyrs; persecute Catholics; exodus of; mentality
of
Prussia, invades France
Public safety, committee of

Quinet

Racial mind, stability of the
Rambaud, M.
Rational logic, seldom guides conduct; original motive in French
Revolution
Reason, Goddess of
Reformation, the; rational poverty of doctrines
Reforms, Jacobin craving for
Religion, the French republic a form of
Religion, wars of, the
Repetition, value of
Republic, the first; the second; the third
Revision, necessity of
Revolution of 1789; see French Revolution; of 1836; of 1848; of
1870
Revolutions, classification of; origin of; usual object of
Revolutions, political; results of
Revolutions, religious
Revolutions, scientific
Revolutionary army
Revolutionary communes
Revolutionary mentality
Revolutionary municipalities
Revolutionary tribunals
Robespierre; compared to Calvin; High Pontiff; pontiff; reigns
alone; sole master of the Convention; psychology of; his fall
Rochelle
Roland, Mme.
Roman Empire
Rossignol
Rousseau
Roussel, F.
Russia
Russian Revolution
Russo-Japanese war

Saint-Denis, destruction of tombs at
Saint-Just
Sedan
September, massacres of
Sieyes
Social distinctions
Socialism; hates the elect
Sorel, A.
Spain, revolution in
States General
Sulla
Suspects, Law of
Syndicalism

Tacitus
Taine; on Jacobinism; his work
Taxes, pro-revolutionary
Terror, the; motives of;psychology of; executions during;
stupefying effect of; in the provinces; in the departments
Thermidor, reaction of
Thiebault, General
Thiers; President
Third Estate, jealousy of the
Tocqueville

Tolerance, impossible between opposed or related beliefs
Togo, Admiral
Toulon; fall of
Tradition
Tsushima
Tuileries, attacked; Louis prisoner in; attacked by populace
Turenne
Turgot
Turkey, revolution in

United States
Universal suffrage

Valmy
Vanity, cause of revolution
Varennes, flight to
Vasari
Vendee, La
Vergniaud
Versailles, attack on
Violence, causes of
Voltaire

Wendell, Barrett
Williams, H.

Young, Arthur
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