This fact, which I have already noted, proves once more the impotence of material constraint to dominate moral forces. It cannot be too often repeated that the true guide of mankind is the moral scaffolding erected by his ancestors.
Accustomed to live in an organised society, supported by codes and respected traditions, we can with difficulty represent to ourselves the condition of a nation deprived of such a basis. As a general thing we only see the irksome side of our environment, too readily forgetting that society can exist only on condition of imposing certain restraints, and that laws, manners, and custom constitute a check upon the natural instincts of barbarism which never entirely perishes.
The history of the Convention and the Directory which followed it shows plainly to what degree disorder may overcome a nation deprived of its ancient structure, and having for guide only the artificial combinations of an insufficient reason.
2. Despotic Government of the Directory. Recrudescence of the Terror.
With the object of diverting attention, occupying the army, and obtaining resources by the pillage of neighbouring countries, the Directors decided to resume the wars of conquest which had succeeded under the Convention.
These continued during the life time of the Directory. The armies won a rich booty, especially in Italy.
Some of the invaded populations were so simple as to suppose that these Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 151
invasions were undertaken in their interest. They were not long in discovering that all military operations were accompanied by crushing taxes and the pillage of churches, public treasuries, etc.
The final consequence of this policy of conquest was the formation of a new coalition against France, which lasted until 1801.
Indifferent to the state of the country and incapable of reorganising it, the Directors were principally concerned in struggling against an incessant series of conspiracies in order to keep in power.
This task was enough to occupy their leisure, for the political parties had not disarmed. Anarchy had reached such a point that all were calling for a hand powerful enough to restore order. Everyone felt, the Directors included, that the republican system could not last much longer.
Some dreamed of re-establishing royalty, others the Terrorist system, while others waited for a general. Only the purchasers of the national property feared a change of Government.
The unpopularity of the Directory increased daily, and when in May, 1797, the third part of the Assembly had to be renewed, the majority of those elected were hostile to the system.
The Directors were not embarrassed by a little thing like that. They annulled the elections in 49 departments; 154 of the new deputies were invalidated and expelled, 53 condemned to deportation. Among these latter figured the most illustrious names of the Revolution: Portalis, Carnot, Tronson du Coudray, etc.
To intimidate the electors, military commissions condemned to death, rather at random, 160 persons, and sent to Guiana 330, of whom half speedily died.
The emigrés and priests who had returned to France were violently expelled.
This was known as the coup d’État of Fructidor.
This coup, which struck more especially at the moderates, was not the only one of its kind; another quickly followed. The Directors, finding the Jacobin deputies too numerous, annulled the elections of sixty of them.
The preceding facts displayed the tyrannical temper of the Directors, but this appeared even more plainly in the details of their measures. The new masters of France also proved to be as bloodthirsty as the most ferocious deputies of the Terror.
The guillotine was not re-established as a permanency, but replaced by deportation under conditions which left the victims little chance of survival.
Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 152
Sent to Rochefort in cages of iron bars, exposed to all the severities of the weather, they were then packed into boats.
“Between the decks of the Décade and the Bayonnaise,” says Taine, “the miserable prisoners, suffocated by the lack of air and the torrid heat, bullied and fleeced, died of hunger or asphyxia, and Guiana completed the work of the voyage: of 193 taken thither by the Décade 39 were left alive at the end of twenty-two months; of 120 taken by the Bayonnaise 1 remained.
Observing everywhere a Catholic renascence, and imagining that the clergy were conspiring against them, the Directors deported or sent to the galleys in one year 1,448 priests, to say nothing of a large number who were summarily executed. The Terror was in reality completely re-established.
The autocratic despotism of the Directory was exercised in all the branches of the administration, notably the finances. Thus, having need of six hundred million francs, it forced the deputies, always docile, to vote a progressive impost, which yielded, however, only twelve millions. Being presently in the same condition, it decreed a forced loan of a hundred millions, which resulted in the closing of workshops, the stoppage of business, and the dismissal of domestics. It was only at the price of absolute ruin that forty millions could be obtained.
To assure itself of domination in the provinces the Directory caused a so-called law of hostages to be passed, according to which a list of hostages, responsible for all offences, was drawn up in each commune.
It is easy to understand what hatred such a system provoked. At the end of 1799 fourteen departments were in revolt and forty-six were ready to rise. If the Directory had lasted the dissolution of society would have been complete.
For that matter, this dissolution was far advanced. Finances, administration, everything was crumbling. The receipts of the Treasury, consisting of depreciated assignats fallen to a hundredth part of their original value, were negligible. Holders of Government stock and officers could no longer obtain payment.
France at this time gave travellers the impression of a country ravaged by war and abandoned by its inhabitants. The broken bridges and dykes and ruined buildings made all traffic impossible. The roads, long deserted, were infested by brigands. Certain departments could only be crossed at the price of buying a safe-conduct from the leaders of these bands. Industry and commerce were Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 153
annihilated. In Lyons 13,000 workshops and mills out of 15,000 had been forced to close. Lille, Havre, Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, etc., were like dead cities. Poverty and famine were general.
The moral disorganisation was no less terrible. Luxury and the craving for pleasure, costly dinners, jewels, and extravagant households were the appanage of a new society composed entirely of stock-jobbers, army contractors, and shady financiers enriched by pillage. They gave Paris that superficial aspect of luxury and gaiety which has deluded so many historians of this period, because the insolent prodigality displayed covered the general misery.
The chronicles of the Directory as told in books help to show us of what lies the web of history is woven. The theatre has lately got hold of this period, of which the fashions are still imitated. It has left the memory of a joyous period of rebirth after the gloomy drama of the Terror. In reality the drama of the Directory was hardly an improvement on the Terror and was quite as sanguinary. Finally, it inspired such loathing that the Directors, feeling that it could not last, sought themselves for the dictator capable of replacing it and also of protecting them.
3. The Advent of Bonaparte.
We have seen that at the end of the Directory the anarchy and disorganisation were such that every one was desperately calling for the man of energy capable of re-establishing order. As early as 1795 a number of deputies had thought for a moment of re-establishing royalty. Louis XVIII, having been tactless enough to declare that he would restore the ancien régime in its entirety, return all property to its original owners, and punish the men of the Revolution, was immediately thrown over. The senseless expedition of Quiberon finally alienated the supporters of the future sovereign. The royalists gave a proof during the whole of the Revolution of an incapacity and a narrowness of mind which justified most of the measures taken against them.
The monarchy being impossible, it was necessary to find a general. Only one existed whose name carried weight — Bonaparte. The campaign in Italy had just made him famous. Having crossed the Alps, he had marched from victory to victory, penetrated to Milan and Venice, and everywhere obtained important war contributions. He then made towards Vienna, and was only twenty-five Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 154
leagues from its gates when the Emperor of Austria decided to sue for peace.
But great as was his renown, the young general did not consider it sufficient.
To increase it he persuaded the Directory that the power of England could be shaken by an invasion of Egypt, and in May, 1798, he embarked at Toulon.
This need of increasing his prestige arose from a very sound psychological conception which he clearly expounded at St. Helena: —
“The most influential and enlightened generals had long been pressing the general of Italy to take steps to place himself at the head of the Republic. He refused; he was not yet strong enough to walk quite alone. He had ideas upon the art of governing and upon what was necessary to a great nation which were so different from those of the men of the Revolution and the assemblies that, not being able to act alone, he feared to compromise his character. He determined to set out for Egypt, but resolved to reappear if circumstances should arise to render his presence useful or necessary.” Bonaparte did not stay long in Egypt. Recalled by his friends, he landed at Frejus, and the announcement of his return provoked universal enthusiasm.
There were illuminations everywhere. France collaborated in advance in the coup d’État prepared by two Directors and the principal ministers. The plot was organised in three weeks. Its execution on the 18th of Brumaire was accomplished with the greatest ease.
All parties experienced the greatest delight at being rid of the sinister gangs who had so long oppressed and exploited the country. The French were doubtless about to enter upon a despotic system of government, but it could not be so intolerable as that which had been endured for so many years.
The history of the coup d’État of Brumaire justifies all that we have already said of the impossibility of forming exact judgments of events which apparently are fully understood and attested by no matter how many witnesses.
We know what ideas people had thirty years ago concerning the coup of Brumaire. It was regarded as a crime committed by the ambition of a man who was supported by his army. As a matter of fact the army played no part whatever in the affair. The little body of men who expelled the few recalcitrant deputies were not soldiers even, but the gendarmes of the Assembly itself. The true author of the coup d’État was the Government itself, with the complicity of all France.
Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 155
4. Causes of the Duration of the Revolution.
If we limit the Revolution to the time necessary for the conquest of its fundamental principles — equality before the law, free access to public functions, popular sovereignty, control of expenditures, etc. — we may say that it lasted only a few months. Towards the middle of 1789 all this was accomplished, and during the years that followed nothing was added to it, yet the Revolution lasted much longer.
Confining the duration to the dates admitted by the official historians, we see it persisting until the advent of Bonaparte, a space of some ten years.
Why did this period of disorganisation and violence follow the establishment of the new principles? We need not seek the cause in the foreign war, which might on several occasions have been terminated, thanks to the divisions of the allies and the constant victories of the French; neither must we look for it in the sympathy of Frenchmen for the revolutionary Government. Never was rule more cordially hated and despised than that of the Assemblies. By its revolts as well as by its repeated votes a great part of the nation displayed the horror with which it regarded the system.
This last point, the aversion of France for the revolutionary régime, so long misunderstood, has been well displayed by recent historians. The author of the last book published on the Revolution, M. Madelin, has well summarised their opinion in the following words: —
“As early as 1793 a party by no means numerous had seized upon France, the Revolution, and the Republic. Now, three-quarters of France longed for the Revolution to be checked, or rather delivered from its odious exploiters; but these held the unhappy country by a thousand means.... As the Terror was essential to them if they were to rule, they struck at whomsoever seemed at any given moment to be opposed to the Terror, were they the best servants of the Revolution.”
Up to the end of the Directory the government was exercised by Jacobins, who merely desired to retain, along with the supreme power, the riches they had accumulated by murder and pillage, and were ready to surrender France to any one who would guarantee them free possession of these. That they negotiated the coup d’État of Brumaire with Napoleon was simply to the fact that they had not been able to realise their wishes with regard to Louis XVIII.
But how explain the fact that a Government so tyrannical and so dishonoured Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 156
was able to survive for so many years?
It was not merely because the revolutionary religion still survived in men’s minds, nor because it was forced on them by means of persecution and bloodshed, but especially, as I have already stated, on account of the great interest which a large portion of the population had in maintaining it.
This point is fundamental. If the Revolution had remained a theoretical religion, it would probably have been of short duration. But the belief which had just been founded very quickly emerged from the domain of pure theory.
The Revolution did not confine itself to despoiling the monarchy, the nobility, and the clergy of their powers of government. In throwing into the hands of the bourgeoisie and the large numbers of peasantry the wealth and the employments of the old privileged classes it had at the same stroke turned them into obstinate supporters of the revolutionary system. All those who had acquired the property of which the nobles and clergy had been despoiled had obtained lands and châteaux at low prices, and were terrified lest the restoration of the monarchy should force them to make general restitution.
It was largely for these reasons that a Government which, at any normal period, would never have been endured, was able to survive until a master should re-establish order, while promising to maintain not only the moral but also the material conquests of the Revolution. Bonaparte realised these anxieties, and was promptly and enthusiastically welcomed. Material conquests which were still contestable and theoretical principles which were still fragile were by him incorporated in institutions and the laws. It is an error to say that the Revolution terminated with his advent. Far from destroying it, he ratified and consolidated it.
Chapter II: The Restoration of Order. The Consular Republic.
1. How the Work of the Revolution was Confirmed by the Consulate.
The history of the Consulate is as rich as the preceding period in psychological material. In the first place it shows us that the work of a powerful individual is superior to that of a collectivity. Bonaparte immediately replaced the bloody anarchy in which the Republic had for ten years been writhing by a period of order. That which none of the four Assemblies of the Revolution had been able to realise, despite the most violent oppression, a single man accomplished in a very short space of time.
Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 157
His authority immediately put an end to all the Parisian insurrections and the attempts at monarchical resistance, and re-established the moral unity of France, so profoundly divided by intense hatreds. Bonaparte replaced an unorganised collective despotism by a perfectly organised individual despotism. Everyone gained thereby, for his tyranny was infinitely less heavy than that which had been endured for ten long years. We must suppose, moreover, that it was unwelcome to very few, as it was very soon accepted with immense enthusiasm.
We know better to-day than to repeat with the old historians that Bonaparte overthrew the Republic. On the contrary, he retained of it all that could be retained, and never would have been retained without him, by establishing all the practicable work of the Revolution — the abolition of privileges, equality before the law, etc. — in institutions and codes of law. The Consular Government continued, moreover, to call itself the Republic.
It is infinitely probable that without the Consulate a monarchical restoration would have terminated the Directory, and would have wiped out the greater part of the work of the Revolution. Let us suppose Bonaparte erased from history. No one, I think, will imagine that the Directory could have survived the universal weariness of its rule. It would certainly have been overturned by the royalist conspiracies which were breaking out daily, and Louis XVIII would probably have ascended the throne. Certainly he was to mount it sixteen years later, but during this interval Bonaparte gave such force to the principles of the Revolution, by establishing them in laws and customs, that the restored sovereign dared not touch them, nor restore the property of the returned emigrés.
Matters would have been very different had Louis XVIII immediately followed the Directory. He would have brought with him all the absolutism of the ancien régime, and fresh revolutions would have been necessary to abolish it. We know that a mere attempt to return to the past overthrew Charles X.
It would be a little ingenuous to complain of the tyranny of Bonaparte. Under the ancien régime Frenchmen had supported every species of tyranny, and the Republic had created a despotism even heavier than that of the monarchy.
Despotism was then a normal condition, which aroused no protest save when it was accompanied by disorder.
A constant law of the psychology of crowds shows them as creating anarchy, Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 158
and then seeking the master who will enable them to emerge therefrom.
Bonaparte was this master.
2. The Reorganisation of France by the Consulate.
Upon assuming power Bonaparte undertook a colossal task. All was in ruins; all was to be rebuilt. On the morrow of the coup of Brumaire he drafted, almost single-handed, the Constitution destined to give him the absolute power which was to enable him to reorganise the country and to prevail over the factions. In a month it was completed.
This Constitution, known as that of the year VIII, survived, with slight modifications, until the end of his reign. The executive power was the attribute of three Consuls, two of whom possessed a consultative voice only. The first Consul, Bonaparte, was therefore sole master of France. He appointed ministers, councillors of state, ambassadors, magistrates, and other officials, and decided upon peace or war. The legislative power was his also, since only he could initiate the laws, which were subsequently submitted to three Assemblies — the Council of State, the Tribunate, and the Legislative Corps.
A fourth Assembly, the Senate, acted effectually as the guardian of the Constitution.
Despotic as he was and became, Bonaparte always called the other Consuls about him before proceeding with the most trivial measure. The Legislative Corps did not exercise much influence during his reign, but he signed no decrees of any kind without first discussing them with the Council of State.
This Council, composed of the most enlightened and learned men of France, prepared laws, which were then presented to the Legislative Corps, which could criticise them very freely, since voting was secret. Presided over by Bonaparte, the Council of State was a kind of sovereign tribunal, judging even the actions of ministers.9
The new master had great confidence in this Council, as it was composed more particularly of eminent jurists, each of whom dealt with his own speciality. He was too good a psychologist not to entertain the greatest suspicion of large and incompetent assemblies of popular origin, whose disastrous results had been obvious to him during the whole of the Revolution.
Wishing to govern for the people, but never with its assistance, Bonaparte accorded it no part in the government, reserving to it only the right of voting, Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 159
once for all, for or against the adoption of the new Constitution. He only in rare instances had recourse to universal suffrage. The members of the Legislative Corps recruited themselves, and were not elected by the people.
In creating a Constitution intended solely to fortify his own power, the First Consul had no illusion that it would serve to restore the country. Consequently, while he was drafting it he also undertook the enormous task of the administrative, judicial, and financial reorganisation of France. The various powers were centralised in Paris. Each department was directed by a prefect, assisted by a consul-general; the arrondissement by a sub-prefect, assisted by a council; the commune by a mayor, assisted by a municipal council. All were appointed by the ministers, and not by election, as under the Republic.
This system, which created the omnipotent State and a powerful centralisation, was retained by all subsequent Governments and is preserved to-day.
Centralisation being, in spite of its drawbacks, the only means of avoiding local tyrannies in a country profoundly divided within itself, has always been maintained.
This organisation, based on a profound knowledge of the soul of the French people, immediately restored that tranquillity and order which had for so long been unknown.
To complete the mental pacification of the country, the political exiles were recalled and the churches restored to the faithful.
Continuing to rebuild the social edifice, Bonaparte busied himself also with the drafting of a code, the greater part of which consisted of customs borrowed from the ancien régime. It was, as has been said, a sort of transition or compromise between the old law and the new.
Considering the enormous task accomplished by the First Consul in so short a time, we realise that he had need, before all, of a Constitution according him absolute power. If all the measures by which he restored France had been submitted to assemblies of attorneys, he could never have extricated the country from the disorder into which it had fallen.
The Constitution of the year VIII obviously transformed the Republic into a monarchy at least as absolute as the “Divine right” monarchy of Louis XIV.
Being the only Constitution adapted to the needs of the moment, it represented a psychological necessity.
Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 160
3. Psychological Elements which determined the Success of the Work of the Consulate.
All the external forces which act upon men — economic, historical, geograph-ical, etc. — may be finally translated into psychological forces. These psychological forces a ruler must understand in order to govern. The Revolutionary Assemblies were completely ignorant of them; Bonaparte knew how to employ them.
The various Assemblies, the Convention notably, were composed of conflicting parties. Napoleon understood that to dominate them he must not belong to any one of these parties. Very well aware that the value of a country is disseminated among the superior intelligences of the various parties, he tried to utilise them all. His agents of government — ministers, priests, magistrates, etc. — were taken indifferently from among the Liberals, Royalists, Jacobites, etc., having regard only to their capacities.
While accepting the assistance of men of the ancien régime, Bonaparte took care to make it understood that he intended to maintain the fundamental principles of the Revolution. Nevertheless many Royalists rallied round the new Government.
One of the most remarkable feats of the Consulate, from the psychological point of view, was the restoration of religious peace. France was far more divided by religious disagreement than by political differences. The systematic destruction of a portion of the Vendée had almost completely terminated the struggle by force of arms, but without pacifying men’s minds. As only one man, and he the head of Christianity, could assist in this pacification, Bonaparte did not hesitate to treat with him. His concordat was the work of a real psychologist, who knew that moral forces do not use violence, and the great danger of persecuting such. While conciliating the clergy he contrived to place them under his own domination. The bishops were to be appointed and remunerated by the State, so that he would still be master.
The religious policy of Napoleon had a bearing which escapes our modern Jacobins. Blinded by their narrow fanaticism, they do not understand that to detach the Church from the Government is to create a state within the State, so that they are liable to find themselves opposed by a formidable caste, directed by a master outside France, and necessarily hostile to France. To give one’s enemies a liberty they did not possess is extremely dangerous. Never Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 161
would Napoleon, nor any of the sovereigns who preceded him, have consented to make the clergy independent of the State, as they have become to-day.
The difficulties of Bonaparte the First Consul were far greater than those he had to surmount after his coronation. Only a profound knowledge of men enabled him to triumph over them. The future master was far from being the master as yet. Many departments were still in insurrection. Brigandage persisted, and the Midi was ravaged by the struggles of partisans. Bonaparte, as Consul, had to conciliate and handle Talleyrand, Fouché, and a number of generals who thought themselves his equal. Even his brothers conspired against his power. Napoleon, as Emperor, had no hostile party to face, but as Consul he had to combat all the parties and to hold the balance equal among them. This must indeed have been a difficult task, since during the last century very few Governments have succeeded in accomplishing it.
The success of such an undertaking demanded an extremely subtle mixture of finesse, firmness, and diplomacy. Not feeling himself powerful enough as yet, Bonaparte the Consul made a rule, according to his own expression, “of governing men as the greater number wish to be governed.” As Emperor he often managed to govern them according to his own ideal.
We have travelled a long way since the time when historians, in their singular blindness, and great poets, who possessed more talent than psychology, would hold forth in indignant accents against the coup d’État of Brumaire. What profound illusions underlay the assertion that “France lay fair in Messidor’s great sun”! And other illusions no less profound underlay such verdicts as that of Victor Hugo concerning this period. We have seen that the “Crime of Brumaire” had as an enthusiastic accomplice, not only the Government itself but the whole of France, which it delivered from anarchy.
One may wonder how intelligent men could so misjudge a period of history which is nevertheless so clear. It was doubtless because they saw events through their own convictions, and we know what transformations the truth may suffer for the man who is imprisoned in the valleys of belief. The most luminous facts are obscured, and the history of events is the history of his dreams.
The psychologist who desires to understand the period which we have so briefly sketched can only do so if, being attached to no party, he stands clear of the passions which are the soul of parties. He will never dream of recrimi-Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 162
nating a past which was dictated by such imperious necessities. Certainly Napoleon has cost France dear: his epic was terminated by two invasions, and there was yet to be a third, whose consequences are felt even to-day, when the prestige which he exerted even from the tomb set upon the throne the inheritor of his name.
All these events are narrowly connected in their origin. They represent the price of that capital phenomenon in the evolution of a people, a change of ideal. Man can never make the attempt to break suddenly with his ancestors without profoundly affecting the course of his own history.
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 va