The Psychology of Revolution, Gustave le Bon [top 100 books of all time checklist txt] 📗
- Author: Gustave le Bon
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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.
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ANCESTRAL INFLUENCES AND REVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES
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
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