1. CHAPTER I
THE OPINIONS OF HISTORIANS CONCERNING THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION
1. The Historians of the Revolution.
THE most contradictory opinions have been expressed respecting
the French Revolution, and although only a century separates us
from the period in question it seems impossible as yet to judge
it calmly. For de Maistre it was “a satanic piece of
work,” and “never was the action of the spirit of
darkness so evidently manifested.” For the modern Jacobins
it has regenerated the human race.
Foreigners who live in France still regard it as a subject
to be avoided in conversation.
“Everywhere,” writes Barrett Wendell, “this
memory and these traditions are still endowed with such vitality
that few persons are capable of considering them dispassionately.
They still excite both enthusiasm and resentment; they are still
regarded with a loyal and ardent spirit of partisanship. The
better you come to understand France the more clearly you see
that even to-day no study of the
Revolution strikes any Frenchman as having been impartial.”
This observation is perfectly correct. To be
interpretable with equity, the events of the past must no
longer be productive of results and must not touch the
religious or political beliefs whose inevitable intolerance
I have denoted.
We must not therefore be surprised that historians express
very different ideas respecting the Revolution. For a long time
to come some will still see in it one of the most sinister events
of history, while to others it will remain one of the most
glorious. All writers on the subject have believed that they
have related its course with impartiality, but in general they
have merely supported contradictory theories of peculiar
simplicity. The documents being innumerable and contradictory,
their conscious or unconscious choice has readily enabled them to
justify their respective theories.
The older historians of the Revolution—Thiers, Quinet,
and, despite his talent, Michelet himself, are somewhat eclipsed
to-day. Their doctrines were by no means complicated; a historic
fatalism prevails generally in their work. Thiers regarded the
Revolution as the result of several centuries of absolute
monarchy, and the Terror as the necessary consequence of foreign
invasion. Quinet described the excesses of 1793 as the result of
a long-continued despotism, but declared that the tyranny of the
Convention was unnecessary, and hampered the work of the
Revolution. Michelet saw in this last merely the work of the
people, whom he blindly admired, and commenced the glorification
continued by other historians.
The former reputation of all these historians has
been to a great extent effaced by that of Taine. Although
equally impassioned, he threw a brilliant light upon the
revolutionary period, and it will doubtless be long before his
work is superseded.
Work so important is bound to show faults. Taine is
admirable in the representation of facts and persons, but he
attempts to judge by the standard of rational logic events which
were not dictated by reason, and which, therefore, he cannot
interpret. His psychology, excellent when it is merely
descriptive, is very weak as soon as it becomes explanatory. To
affirm that Robespierre was a pedantic “swotter” is not
to reveal the causes of his absolute power over the Convention,
at a time when he had spent several months in decimating it with
perfect impunity. It has very justly been said of Taine that he
saw well and understood little.
Despite these restrictions his work is highly remarkable
and has not been equalled. We may judge of his immense influence
by the exasperation which he causes among the faithful defenders
of Jacobin orthodoxy, of which M. Aulard, professor at the
Sorbonne, is to-day the high priest. The latter has devoted two
years to writing a pamphlet against Taine, every line of which is
steeped in passion. All this time spent in rectifying a few
material errors which are not really significant has only
resulted in the perpetration of the very same errors.
Reviewing his work, M. A. Cochin shows that M. Aulard has
at least on every other occasion been deceived by his quotations,
whereas Taine erred far more rarely. The same historian shows
also that we must not trust M. Aulard's sources.
“These sources—proceedings, pamphlets, journals,
and the speeches and writings of patriots—are precisely the
authentic publications of patriotism, edited by patriots, and
edited, as a rule, for the benefit of the public. He ought to
have seen in all this simply the special pleading of the
defendant: he had, before his eyes, a ready-made history of the
Revolution, which presents, side by side with each of the acts of
the `People,' from the massacres of September to the law of
Prairial, a ready-made explanation according to the republican
system of defence.”
Perhaps the fairest criticism that one can make of the
work of Taine is that it was left incomplete. He studied more
especially the rôle of the populace and its leaders
during the revolutionary period. This inspired him with pages
vibrating with an indignation which we can still admire, but
several important aspects of the Revolution escaped him.
Whatever one may think of the Revolution, an irreducible
difference will always exist between historians of the school of
Taine and those of the school of M. Aulard. The latter regards
the sovereign people as admirable, while the former shows us that
when abandoned to its instincts and liberated from all social
restraint it relapses into primitive savagery. The conception of
M. Aulard, entirely contrary to the lessons of the psychology of
crowds, is none the less a religious dogma in the eyes of modern
Jacobins. They write of the Revolution according to the methods
of believers, and take for learned works the arguments of virtual
theologians.
2. The Theory of Fatalism in respect of the
Revolution.
Advocates and detractors of the Revolution often
admit the fatality of revolutionary events. This theory is well
synthetised in the following passage from the
History of the
Revolution, by Emile Olivier:—
“No man could oppose it. The blame belongs neither to
those who perished nor to those who survived; there was no
individual force capable of changing the elements and of
foreseeing the events which were born of the nature of things and
circumstances.”
Taine himself inclines to this idea:—
“At the moment when the States General were opened the
course of ideas and events was not only determined but even
visible. Each generation unwittingly bears within itself its
future and its past; from the latter its destinies might have
been foretold long before the issue.”
Other modern authors, who profess no more indulgence for
the violence of the revolutionaries than did Taine, are equally
convinced of this fatality. M. Sorel, after recalling the saying
of Bossuet concerning the revolutions of antiquity:
“Everything is surprising if we only consider particular
causes, and yet everything goes forward in regular sequence,”
expresses an intention which he very imperfectly realises:
“to show in the Revolution, which seems to some the
subversion and to others the regeneration of the old European
world, the natural and necessary result of the history of Europe,
and to show, moreover, that this revolution had no result—not
even the most unexpected—that did not ensue from this history,
and was not explained by the precedents of the ancien
régime.”
Guizot also had formerly attempted to prove that our
Revolution, which he quite wrongly compared to that of England,
was perfectly natural and effected no innovations:—
“Far from having broken with the natural course of
events in Europe, neither the English revolution nor our own did,
intended, or said anything that had not been said, intended, and
done a hundred years before its outbreak.
“ . . . Whether we regard the general doctrines of the
two revolutions or the application made of them—whether we deal
with the government of the State or with the civil legislation,
with property or with persons, with liberty or with power, we
shall find nothing of which the invention can be attributed to
them, nothing that will not be encountered elsewhere, or that was
not at least originated in times which we qualify as normal.”
All these assertions merely recall the banal law that a
phenomenon is simply the consequence of previous phenomena. Such
very general propositions do not teach us much.
We must not try to explain too many events by the
principle of fatality adopted by so many historians. I have
elsewhere discussed the significance of such fatalities, and have
shown that the whole effort of civilisation consists in trying to
escape therefrom. Certainly history is full of necessities, but
it is also full of contingent facts which were, and might not
have been. Napoleon himself, on St. Helena, enumerated six
circumstances which might have checked his prodigious career. He
related, notably, that on taking a bath at Auxonne, in 1786, he
only escaped death by the fortuitous presence of a sandbank. If
Bonaparte had died, then we may admit that another general would
have arisen, and might have become dictator. But what would have
become of the Imperial epic and its consequences
without the man of genius who led our victorious armies into all
the capitals of Europe?
It is permissible to consider the Revolution as being
partly a necessity, but it was above all—which is what the
fatalistic writers already cited do not show us—a permanent
struggle between theorists who were imbued with a new ideal, and
the economic, social, and political laws which ruled mankind, and
which they did not understand. Not understanding them, they
sought in vain to direct the course of events, were exasperated
at their failure, and finally committed every species of
violence. They decreed that the paper money known as
assignats should be accepted as the equivalent of gold,
and all their threats could not prevent the fictitious value of
such money falling almost to nothing. They decreed the law of
the maximum, and it merely increased the evils it was intended to
remedy. Robespierre declared before the Convention “that all
the sans-culottes will be paid at the expense of the
public treasury, which will be fed by the rich,” and in spite
of requisitions and the guillotine the treasury remained empty.
Having broken all human restraints, the men of the
Revolution finally discovered that a society cannot live without
them; but when they sought to create them anew they saw that even
the strongest society, though supported by the fear of the
guillotine, could not replace the discipline which the past had
slowly built up in the minds of men. As for understanding the
evolution of society, or judging men's hearts and minds, or
foreseeing the consequences of the laws they enacted, they
scarcely attempted to do so.
The events of the Revolution did not ensue from
irreducible necessities. They were far more the consequence of
Jacobin principles than of circumstances, and might have been
quite other than they were. Would the Revolution have followed
the same path if Louis XVI. had been better advised, or if the
Constituent Assembly had been less cowardly in times of popular
insurrection? The theory of revolutionary fatality is only
useful to justify violence by presenting it as inevitable.
Whether we are dealing with science or with history we
must beware of the ignorance which takes shelter under the
shibboleth of fatalism Nature was formerly full of a host of
fatalities which science is slowly contriving to avoid. The
function of the superior man is, as I have shown elsewhere, to
avert such fatalities.
3. The Hesitations of recent Historians of the
Revolution.
The historians whose ideas we have examined in the preceding
chapter were extremely positive in their special pleading.
Confined within the limits of belief, they did not attempt to
penetrate the domain of knowledge. A monarchical writer was
violently hostile to the Revolution, and a liberal writer was its
violent apologist.
At the present time we can see the commencement of a
movement which will surely lead to the study of the Revolution as
one of those scientific phenomena into which the opinions and
beliefs of a writer enter so little that the reader does not even
suspect them.
This period has not yet come into being; we are still in
the period of doubt. The liberal writers who used to be so
positive are now so no longer. One
may judge of this new state of mind by the following extracts
from recent authors:—
M. Hanotaux, having vaunted the utility of the Revolution,
asks whether its results were not bought too dearly, and adds:—
“History hesitates, and will, for a long time yet,
hesitate to answer.”
M. Madelin is equally dubious in the book he has recently
published:—
“I have never felt sufficient authority to form, even
in my inmost conscience, a categorical judgment on so complex a
phenomenon as the French Revolution. To-day I find it even more
difficult to form a brief judgement. Causes, facts, and
consequences seem to me to be still extremely debatable
subjects.”
One may obtain a still better idea of the transformation
of the old ideas concerning the Revolution by perusing the latest
writings of its official defenders. While they professed
formerly to justify every act of violence by representing it as a
simple act of defence, they now confine themselves to pleading
extenuating circumstances. I find a striking proof of this new
frame of mind in the history of France for the use of schools,
published by MM. Aulard and Debidour. Concerning the Terror we
read the following lines:—
“Blood flowed in waves; there were acts of injustice
and crimes which were useless from the point of view of national
defence, and odious. But men had lost their heads in the
tempest, and, harassed by a thousand dangers, the patriots struck
out in their rage.”
We shall see in another part of this work that the first
of the two authors whom I have cited is, in spite
of his uncompromising Jacobinism, by no means indulgent toward
the men formerly qualified as the “Giants of the
Convention.”
The judgments of foreigners upon our Revolution are
usually distinctly severe, and we cannot be surprised when we
remember how Europe suffered during the twenty years of upheaval
in France.
The Germans in particular have been most severe. Their
opinion is summed up in the following lines by M. Faguet:—
“Let us say it courageously and patriotically, for
patriotism consists above all in telling the truth to one's own
country: Germany sees in France, with regard to the past, a
people who, with the great words `liberty' and `fraternity' in
its mouth, oppressed, trampled, murdered, pillaged, and fleeced
her for fifteen years; and with regard to the present, a people
who, with the same words on its banners, is organising a
despotic, oppressive, mischievous, and ruinous democracy, which
none would seek to imitate. This is what Germany may well see in
France; and this, according to her books and journals, is, we may
assure ourselves, what she does see.”
For the rest, whatever the worth of the verdicts
pronounced upon the French Revolution, we may be certain that the
writers of the future will consider it as an event as
passionately interesting as it is instructive.
A Government bloodthirsty enough to guillotine old men of
eighty years, young girls, and little children: which covered
France with ruins, and yet succeeded in repulsing Europe in arms;
an archduchess of Austria, Queen of France, dying on the
scaffold,
and a few years later another archduchess, her relative,
replacing her on the same throne and marrying a sub-lieutenant,
turned Emperor—here are tragedies unique in human history. The
psychologists, above all, will derive lessons from a history
hitherto so little studied by them. No doubt they will finally
discover that psychology can make no progress until it renounces
chimerical theories and laboratory experiments in order to study
the events and the men who surround us.
7
4. Impartiality in History.
Impartiality has always been considered as the most essential
quality of the historian. All historians since Tacitus have
assured us that they are impartial.
In reality the writer sees events as the painter sees a
landscape—that is, through his own temperament; through his
character and the mind of the race.
A number of artists, placed before the same landscape,
would necessarily interpret it in as many different fashions.
Some would lay stress upon details neglected by others. Each
reproduction would thus be a personal work—that is to say, would
be interpreted by a certain form of sensibility.
It is the same with the writer. We can no more speak of
the impartiality of the historian than we can speak of the
impartiality of the painter.
Certainly the historian may confine himself to the
reproduction of documents, and this is the present tendency. But
these documents, for periods as near us as the Revolution, are so
abundant that a man's whole life would not suffice to go through
them. Therefore the historian must make a choice.
Consciously sometimes, but more often unconsciously, the
author will select the material which best corresponds with his
political, moral, and social opinions.
It is therefore impossible, unless he contents himself
with simple chronologies summing up each event with a few words
and a date, to produce a truly impartial volume of history. No
author could be impartial; and it is not to be regretted. The
claim to impartiality, so common to-day, results in those flat,
gloomy, and prodigiously wearisome works which render the
comprehension of a period completely impossible.
Should the historian, under a pretext of impartiality,
abstain from judging men—that is, from speaking in tones of
admiration or reprobation?
This question, I admit, allows of two very different
solutions, each of which is perfectly correct, according to the
point of view assumed—that of the moralist or that of the
psychologist.
The moralist must think exclusively of the interest of
society, and must judge men only according to that interest. By
the very fact that it exists and wishes to continue to exist a
society is obliged to admit a certain number of rules, to have an
indestructible standard of good and evil, and consequently to
create very definite distinctions between vice and virtue. It
thus finally creates average types, to which the man of the
period approaches more or less closely, and from which he cannot
depart very widely without peril to society.
It is by such similar types and the rules derived from
social necessities that the moralist must judge the men of the
past. Praising those which were useful and blaming the rest, he
thus helps to form the moral types which are indispensable to the
progress of civilisation and which may serve others as models.
Poets such as Corneille, for example, create heroes superior to
the majority of men, and possibly inimitable; but they thereby
help greatly to stimulate our efforts. The example of heroes
must always be set before a people in order to ennoble its mind.
Such is the moralist's point of view. That of the
psychologist would be quite different. While a society has no
right to be tolerant, because its first duty is to live, the
psychologist may remain indifferent. Considering things as a
scientist, he no longer asks their utilitarian value, but seeks
merely to explain them.
His situation is that of the observer before any
phenomenon. It is obviously difficult to read in cold blood that
Carrier ordered his victims to be buried up to the neck so that
they might then be blinded and subjected to horrible torments.
Yet if we wish to comprehend such acts we must be no more
indignant than the naturalist before the spider slowly devouring
a fly. As soon as the reason is moved it is no longer reason,
and can explain nothing.
The functions of the historian and the psychologist are
not, as we see, identical, but of both we may demand the
endeavour, by a wise interpretation of the facts, to discover,
under the visible evidences, the invisible forces which determine
them.
