4. The Results of Political Revolutions.
When a political party is triumphant it naturally seeks to
organise society in accordance with its interests. The
organisation will differ accordingly as the revolution has been
effected by the soldiers, the Radicals, or the Conservatives, &c.
The new laws and institutions will depend on the interests of the
triumphant party and of the classes which have assisted it—the
clergy for instance.
If the revolution has triumphed only after a violent
struggle, as was the case with the French Revolution, the victors
will reject at one sweep the whole arsenal of the old law. The
supporters of the fallen régime will be persecuted,
exiled, or exterminated.
The maximum of violence in these persecutions is attained
when the triumphant party is defending a belief in addition to
its material interests. Then the conquered need hope for no
pity. Thus may be explained the expulsion of the Moors from
Spain, the autodafés of the Inquisition, the executions of
the Convention, and the recent laws against the religious
congregations in France.
The absolute power which is assumed by the victors leads
them sometimes to extreme measures, such as the Convention's
decree that gold was to be replaced by paper, that goods were to
be sold at determined prices, &c. Very soon it runs up against a
wall of unavoidable necessities, which turn opinion against its
tyranny, and finally leave it defenceless before attack, as
befell at the end of the French Revolution. The
same thing happened recently to a Socialist Australian ministry
composed almost exclusively of working-men. It enacted laws so
absurd, and accorded such privileges to the trade unions, that
public opinion rebelled against it so unanimously that in three
months it was overthrown.
But the cases we have considered are exceptional. The
majority of revolutions have been accomplished in order to place
a new sovereign in power. Now this sovereign knows very well
that the first condition of maintaining his power consists in not
too exclusively favouring a single class, but in seeking to
conciliate all. To do this he will establish a sort of
equilibrium between them, so as not to be dominated by any one of
these classes. To allow one class to become predominant is to
condemn himself presently to accept that class as his master.
This law is one of the most certain of political psychology. The
kings of France understood it very well when they struggled so
energetically against the encroachments first of the nobility and
then of the clergy. If they had not done so their fate would
have been that of the German Emperors of the Middle Ages, who,
excommunicated by the Pope, were reduced, like Henry IV. at
Canossa, to make a pilgrimage and humbly to sue for the Pope's
forgiveness.
This same law has continually been verified during the
course of history. When at the end of the Roman Empire the
military caste became preponderant, the emperors depended
entirely upon their soldiers, who appointed and deposed them at
will.
It was therefore a great advantage for France that she was
so long governed by a monarch almost
absolute, supposed to hold his power by divine right, and
surrounded therefore by a considerable prestige. Without such an
authority he could have controlled neither the feudal nobility,
nor the clergy, nor the parliaments. If Poland, towards the end
of the sixteenth century, had also possessed an absolute and
respected monarchy, she would not have descended the path of
decadence which led to her disappearance from the map of Europe.
We have shewn in this chapter that political revolutions
may be accompanied by important social transformations. We shall
soon see how slight are these transformations compared to those
produced by religious revolutions.
