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.”
