The Psychology of Revolution, Gustave le Bon [top 100 books of all time checklist txt] 📗

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.