3. CHAPTER III
POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONFLICT
BETWEEN TRADITIONS AND REVOLUTIONARY
PRINCIPLES DURING THE LAST CENTURY
1. The Psychological Causes of the continued
Revolutionary Movements to which France has been subject.
IN examining, in a subsequent chapter, the evolution of
revolutionary ideas during the last century, we shall see that
during more than fifty years they very slowly spread through the
various strata of society.
During the whole of this period the great majority of the
people and the bourgeoisie rejected them, and their
diffusion was effected only by a very limited number of apostles.
But their influence, thanks 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
régime 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 emigrés, 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 régime
would be enough to provoke a general rebellion.
Unfortunately, his death, in I 824, 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
emigrés; 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 régime.
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 dubs
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 Vendée. 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 Hôtel
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 manœuvres 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 £40,000 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'État. The Assembly was dissolved; 30,000
persons were arrested, 10,000 deported, and a hundred deputies
were exiled.
This coup d'État, 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 Mac-Mahon. 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.
