PREFACE
ASTROLOGERS tell us that the history of the world moves in cycles ; that from time to time the same forces arise producing eras that strangely resemble one another. Between these eras a close affinity exists, and so it is that we, in looking back to the past from the world crisis of to-day, realize that periods which in times of peace have soothed or thrilled us have now lost their meaning, that the principles which inspired them have no place in our philosophy. The Renaissance is dead ; the Reformation is dead ; even the great wars of bygone days seem dwarfed by the immensity of the recent conflict. But whilst the roar of battle dies down another sound is heard—the angry murmur that arose in 1789 and that, though momentarily hushed, has never lost its force. Once more we are in the cycle of revolution.
The French Revolution is no dead event ; in turning over the contemporary records of those tremendous days we feel that we are touching live things ; from the yellowed pages voices call to us, voices that still vibrate with the passions that stirred them more than a century ago—here the desperate appeal for liberty and justice, there the trumpet-call of “ King and Country ” ; now the story told with tears of death faced gloriously, now a maddened scream of rage against a fellow-man. When in all the history of the world until the present day has human nature shown itself so terrible and so sublime ? And is not the fascination that amazing epoch has ever since exercised over the minds of men owing to the fact that the problems it held are still unsolved, that the same movements which originated with it are still at work amongst us ? “ What we learn to-day from the study of the Great Revolution,” the anarchist Prince Kropotkin wrote in 1908, “ is that it was the source and origin of all the present communist, anarchist, and socialist conceptions.” Indeed Kropotkin goes so far as to declare that “ up till now, modern socialism has added absolutely nothing to the ideas that were circulating among the French people between 1789 and 1794, and which it was tried to put into practice in the year II. of the Republic (i.e. in the Reign of Terror). Modern socialism has only systematised those ideas and found arguments in their favour,” etc. Now since the French Revolution still remains the one and only occasion in the history of the world when those theories were put into practice on a large scale, and carried out to their logical conclusion—for the experiment in Russia is as yet unfinished—it is surely worth while to know the true facts about that first upheaval. So far, in England, the truth is not known ; we have not even been told what really happened. “ As to a real history of the French Revolution,” Lord Cromer wrote to me a few months before his death, “ no such thing exists in the English language, for Carlyle, besides being often very inaccurate and prejudiced, produced merely a philosophical rhapsody. It is well worth reading, but it is not history.” Yet it is undoubtedly on Carlyle’s rhapsody that our national conceptions of the Revolution are founded ; the great masterpiece of Dickens was built up on this mythological basis, whilst the old histories of Alison and Morse Stephens, and even the illuminating Essays of Croker, lack the power to rouse the popular imagination.[1] Thus the legend created by Carlyle has never been dispelled.
During the last few years the French Revolution has become less a subject for historical research than the theme of the popular journalist who sees in that lurid period material to be written up with profit. This being so, accuracy plays no part in his scheme. For the art of successful journalism is not to illuminate the public mind but to reflect it, to tell it in even stronger terms what it thinks already, and therefore to confirm rather than to dispel popular delusions.
But if the Revolution is to be regarded as the supreme experiment in democracy, if its principles are to be held up for our admiration and its methods advocated as an example to our own people, is it not time that some effort were made to counteract that “ conspiracy of history ” that in France also, as M. Gustave Bord points out, has hitherto concealed the real facts concerning it ? Shall we not at last cease from rhapsody and consider the matter calmly and scientifically in its effects on the people ? This, after all, is the main issue—how was the experiment a success from the people’s point of view ? Strangely enough, though it was in their cause that the Revolution was ostensibly made, the people are precisely the portion of the nation that by Royalist and Revolutionary writers alike have been most persistently overlooked—the Royalists occupying themselves mainly with the trials of the monarchy and aristocracy, the Revolutionaries losing themselves in panegyrics on the popular leaders. Thus Michelet was a Dantoniste, Louis Blanc a Robespierriste ; Lamartine was a Girondiste ; Thiers and Mignet were Orleanistes, not only as historians but as politicians, for their exoneration of the Duc d’Orleans was only a part of their policy for placing his son Louis Philippe on the throne of France,—and consequently to all these men the people were a matter only of secondary importance. So far no one has written the history of the movement from the point of view of the people themselves.
In studying the Revolution as an experiment in democracy, we must clear our minds of all predilections for certain individuals. Just as the author of a treatise on the discovery of tuberculin or on the antidote to hydrophobia devotes no space to recording the sufferings of the unhappy guinea-pigs and rabbits sacrificed in the cause of science, or in dilating on the virtuous private life of Koch or Pasteur, but concerns himself solely with the exact process adopted and the symptoms exhibited by the subjects with a view to proving or disproving the efficacy of the serums employed, so, if we would examine the Revolution as a scientific experiment, King, noblesse, and revolutionary leaders alike must be considered only in their relation to the cause of democracy ; we must concern ourselves with the people only, with the ills from which they suffered, with the means employed for their relief, with the part they themselves played in the great movement, and finally the results that were achieved. By this means alone we shall do justice to that brave and brilliant people by whose side we have fought to-day ; we shall come to understand that they were not the blind unreasoning herd portrayed by Taine, the enraged “ hyenas ” of Horace Walpole, nor yet, as revolutionary writers would have us believe, a nation of slaves brought by long years of oppression to a pitch of exasperation that found a vent in the crimes and horrors of the Revolution.
It is on this last theory that popular opinion in England on the Revolution is founded, and that might, I think, be epitomized thus : “ The French Revolution was in itself a purely beneficial movement, inspired by the desire for liberty and justice : unhappily it went too far and produced excesses which, though deplorable, were nevertheless the unavoidable accompaniment to the regeneration of the country.” Now this statement is as illogical as it is unjust ; how could a movement that was purely beneficial “ go too far ” ? How could the desire of the people for liberty and justice be carried to excess and produce cruelty and bloodshed such as the civilized world had never seen before ? If this were true, then the only opinion at which a thinking human being could arrive would be that the French Revolution was the reductio ad absurdum of the proposition of democracy, a proposition that, once worked out to its tragic and grotesque conclusion, should have proved for all time that to give power into the hands of the people is to create a tyranny more terrible than any despotism can produce. But it was not so ; it was not the desire of the people for liberty and justice that produced these horrors ; it was not the movement for reform that “ went too far ” ; the crimes and excesses of the Revolution sprang from totally distinct and extraneous causes that must be understood if justice is to be done to the people of France. It is by the revolutionary writers that the people have been most maligned, for since, as I have pointed out, these writers were not the advocates of the people but of certain revolutionary leaders, their method is to absolve their heroes from all blame and heap the whole responsibility upon the people. For this purpose a legend has been woven around all the great outbreaks of the Revolution and the role of the people persistently misrepresented.
Now if we study carefully the course of the revolutionary movement we shall find that the role of the people is in the main passive ; only on these great days of tumult do they play an active part. Between these outbreaks the fire of revolution smoulders, at moments almost flickers out, then suddenly for no apparent reason bursts again into flame, and it is only by long and patient search amongst contemporary documents that we can begin to understand the causes of these conflagrations. “ The popular Revolution,” said St. Just, “ was the surface of a volcano of extraneous conspiracies,” and consequently the actions of the people seen from the surface only can never be understood. Thus the story of the Revolution, as it is usually told us, with its pointless crimes, its unreasoning violence, and its hideous waste of life, is simply unintelligible—“ a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”
If, then, we would discover the truth about these great revolutionary outbreaks, we must dig down far below the surface, we must trace the connection between the mine and the explosion, between the actions of the people and the causes that provoked them.[2] For, as Mr. Croker truly observed, “ It is doubtless a very remarkable—though hitherto very little remarked—feature of the whole Revolution, that not one, not a single one, of the tumults which now had its successive stages, from the Affaire Reveillon to the September massacres, had any real connection with the pretext under which it was executed.” These great moments of crisis, five in number, are like the five acts of a tremendous drama ; through them all we see the same methods at work, the same actors under different disguises, the same tangled threads of intrigue leading up to the tremendous cataclysm of the Terror. The Siege of the Bastille—the March on Versailles—the two Invasions of the Tuileries—the Massacres of September—and finally the Reign of Terror—these form the history of the French people throughout the Revolution. The object of this book is, therefore, to relate as accurately as conflicting evidence permits the true facts about each great crisis, to explain the motives that inspired the crowds, the means employed to rouse their passions, and thereby to throw a truer light on the role of the people, and ultimately on the Revolution as the great experiment in democracy.
AN immense advantage offered to the historian by the modern and popular way of writing history lies in the fact that he is able to dispense with any reference to the authorities he has consulted. Both public and critics object to notes and quotations which interrupt the flow of the narrative ; therefore notes and quotation marks have gone out of fashion. This convenient plan not only facilitates enormously the author’s task, since it enables him to write down anything that comes into his head without troubling to remember where he read it, but also provides the unscrupulous historian with unlimited scope for misrepresentation, for by pandering to this popular prejudice he is able to propound theories absolutely at variance with fact, to attribute to historical personages sentiments they never entertained, and even words they never uttered, and so to present a period in precisely the colours that best suit his purpose.
In this book, however, at the risk of giving to its pages a ponderous appearance, I have reverted to the old-fashioned system of notes, since my object is not to weave fanciful word pictures around the great scenes of the Revolution, but to tell as simply and clearly as possible what really happened. Now since the whole story of these great revolutionary days is a series of disputed points, no book on the subject is of the slightest historical value that does not give chapter and verse for every controversial statement. Further, it is essential to indicate the political faction to which the authorities quoted belonged, and also the value of their evidence. For to condemn an individual or a party on the word of their enemies, or to absolve them on the testimony of their accomplices, is as absurd as if one were to accept evidence at a trial without inquiring into the identities of the witnesses. Criminology plays no small part in understanding the true causes of the revolutionary outbreaks, and for this purpose contemporaries alone must be consulted, and the identity of these contemporaries must be clearly defined. The following résumé will show the political standpoint of the authorities quoted most frequently throughout the course of this book, whilst the policy of those referred to on particular events will be given in the context :—
CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES (REVOLUTIONARY)
1. Histoire de la Révolution par Deux Amis de la Liberté, in nineteen volumes.—The first six volumes, violently revolutionary in tone and filled with grotesque fables current at the time, have been attributed to the bookseller Clavelin, and to Kerverseau, but this surmise rests on no evidence whatever (see Bibliographie de la Révolution, by Maurice Tourneux, i. 3). Montjoie stated that the work was dictated and paid for by the Duc d’Orléans (Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 97), and it is no doubt strongly Orléaniste in its point of view. After the sixth volume, however, it makes a complete volte-face and becomes moderate, even Royalist in opinion, and at the same time less interesting. As an anonymous publication the history of the Deux Amis carries none of the weight that attaches to signed work, but since it was on the early part of the series that Carlyle mainly based his account of the first stages of the Revolution, and also his accusations against the Old Régime, it should be read if one would realize how flimsy was the evidence that Carlyle blindly accepted as the truth.
2. The Moniteur, a journal edited by Panckoucke, first made its appearance on November 24, 1789. The numbers relating to events anterior to this date were written up afterwards, and the accounts of the great revolutionary tumults in July 1789 are copied verbatim from the Deux Amis. Its policy throughout the Revolution is always that of the dominating party—at first Orléaniste, then Girondiste, and finally Montagnard.
3. Prudhomme.—The paper known as Révolutions de Paris, published weekly throughout the whole course of the Revolution by this indefatigable journalist, is the most genuinely democratic record of the period, since it attaches itself to no political party, but identifies itself with the revolutionary element amongst the people and supports the demagogues only as representative of the popular cause. Later on, however, Prudhomme realized that he had been duped by these men, and in his Histoire impartiale des Crimes et des Erreurs de la Révolution Française, published in 1797, completely gave away his former associates and showed up the intrigues of the Revolution more thoroughly than any Royalist has done. The former work—Les Révolutions de Paris—is freely quoted by revolutionary writers ; on the second—Crimes de la Révolution—they are strangely silent.
4. The Histoire Parlementaire, by Buchez et Roux, contains reports of the debates that took place in the Assembly (mainly abbreviated from the Moniteur), and also in the Jacobin Club, besides reprints of various contemporary pamphlets, etc. But the opinion of the authors, strongly biassed in favour of the revolutionary leaders rather than of the people, should be accepted with caution.
CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES (ROYALIST)
1. Montjoie.—Félix Christophe Louis Ventre de la Touloubre (1756-1816), known as Galart de Montjoie (or Montjoye), was the author of an Histoire de la Révolution de France et de l’Assemblée Nationale which appeared in the Royalist journal L’Ami du Roi, of a history of the Orléaniste conspiracy, Histoire de la Conjuration de Louis Philippe Joseph d’Orléans (1796), and of an inferior work, L’Histoire de la Conjuration de Maximilien Robespierre. Montjoie as an eye-witness of the earlier revolutionary tumults is extremely interesting, but owing to his violent animosity towards the Orléanistes his accusations against them should not be accepted unless confirmed by other contemporary evidence. In most instances, however, this is forthcoming. Both by Taine and by Jules Flammermont, a strongly revolutionary writer, Montjoie is regarded as an important authority on the period.[3]
2. Beaulieu.—Claude François Beaulieu (1754-1827) edited several papers during the Revolution, and, according to Dauban, was the author of the Diurnal, of which Dauban reprinted a large part in La Demagogie à Paris en 1793. But this is not conclusively proved. In 1803 Beaulieu published his history of the French Revolution in six volumes, entitled Essais historiques sur les Causes et les Effets de la Révolution de France. This is undoubtedly the best contemporary work on the subject, and is quoted by historians of every party. Although a Royalist, Beaulieu displays the greatest impartiality ; he advances nothing without proof. Personally acquainted with most of the leading Revolutionaries, he speaks of what he himself saw and heard, and never allows himself, like Montjoie, to be carried away by his feelings. Beaulieu was arrested on the 29th of October 1793, and imprisoned first at the Conciergerie, then at the Luxembourg, from which he was released after the fall of Robespierre. Between 1813 and 1827 he collaborated with Michaud in compiling the great Biographie Universelle, for which he wrote articles on several of the Revolutionaries he had known.
3. Ferrières.—The Mémoires of the Marquis de Ferrières, though more frequently quoted by English writers than the Essais de Beaulieu, are of far less original value, as they are largely composed of quotations from the writings of other contemporaries. Ferrières was a disaffected noble, and, although a Royalist, does not err on the side of over-indulgence for the Court, but as an ardent anti-Orléaniste throws an interesting light on the intrigue at work behind the earlier revolutionary movement.
The above are the authorities mainly consulted for the purpose of this book ; the evidence of historians is only quoted in the case of those who had access to the archives of France or other contemporary documents not to be found in this country. In this respect Taine, Granier de Cassagnac, Mortimer Ternaux, Edmond Bire, Gustave Bord, Chassin, Dauban, Wallon, Campardon, and Adolphe Schmidt are particularly valuable. The opinion of M. Louis Madelin is also occasionally referred to as being founded on the most recent researches, and as representing the last word in modern French thought on the vexed questions of the Revolution.
1 No English writer was better acquainted with the dessous des caries of the French Revolution than John Wilson Croker. Born in 1780, he talked with people who had taken part in the movement, and spent many years in forming and studying the magnificent collections of revolutionary pamphlets that he afterwards sold to the British Museum. In 1816 the publisher, John Murray, offered him the sum of 2500 guineas to write the complete history of the Revolution, but Croker never found time to do this, and his Essays, reprinted from the Quarterly Review, are all that he has left us of his stores of knowledge. These, though too controversial to appeal to the general public, throw more light on the hidden causes of the revolutionary movement than any book in the English language.
2 Lord Acton in his Essays on the French Revolution apparently caught a stray glimmer of this truth when he wrote these words : “ The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult but the design. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organization. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked ; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first. They had been active in the riots of Paris, and they were again active in the provincial risings.” Having delivered himself, however, of this profound reflection, Lord Acton seems to have lost it from sight, for he proceeds to describe all the tumults of the Revolution without any further reference to organization or design—his chief concern being to absolve all the leaders from complicity.
3 “ Montjoie is a party man, but he dates and specifies, and his evidence, when elsewhere confirmed, deserves to be admitted ” (Taine, La Révolution, iii. 37). M. Flammermont draws an interesting comparison between Montjoie and the Deux Amis de la Liberté, pointing out that the latter is in reality a patchwork of current rumours, the authors “have no settled system, they have not criticized each of the sources of which they have made use ; on every point they content themselves with choosing the version which seems to them most likely, thereby arriving at the strangest contradictions. . . . En résumé, this considerable work has no original value, at any rate for the narrative of the 14th of July. In Galart de Montjoye we meet at last a man who has the courage of his opinions, and who signs his work, which was not without danger at the period when he published it. Indeed, he loudly proclaims he is a Royalist, and takes up his stand as a declared adversary of the Revolution, but at the same time he is nearly always moderate in his language, and he takes pains to support his opinions and his judgements by the most authoritative testimony ” (La Journée du 14 Juillet, p. cxxxvii). See also the opinion of the English contemporary, John Adolphus, Biographical Memoirs of the French Revolution, ii. 205.