Of the three principles of the revolutionary device, equality was most fruitful of consequences.We shall see in another part of this book that it is almost the only one which still survives, and is still productive of effects.
It was certainly not the Revolution that introduced the idea of equality into the world.Without going back even to the Greek republics, we may remark that the theory of equality was taught in the clearest fashion by Christianity and Islamism.All men, subjects of the one God, were equal before Him, and judged solely according to their merits.The dogma of the equality of souls before God was an essential dogma with Mohammedans as well as with Christians.
But to proclaim a principle is not enough to secure its observation.The Christian Church soon renounced its theoretical equality, and the men of the Revolution only remembered it in their speeches.
The sense of the term ``equality'' varies according to the persons using it.It often conceals sentiments very contrary to its real sense, and then represents the imperious need of having no one above one, joined to the no less lively desire to feel above others.With the Jacobins of the Revolution, as with those of our days, the word ``equality'' simply involves a jealous hatred of all superiority.To efface superiority, such men pretend to unify manners, customs, and situations.All despotisms but that exercised by themselves seem odious.
Not being able to avoid the natural inequalities, they deny them.
The second Declaration of Rights, that of 1793, affirms, contrary to the evidence, that ``all men are equal by nature.''
It would seem that in many of the men of the Revolution the ardent desire for equality merely concealed an intense need of inequalities.Napoleon was obliged to re-establish titles of nobility and decorations for their benefit.Having shown that it was among the most rabid revolutionists that he found the most docile instruments of domination, Taine continues:--``Suddenly, through all their preaching of liberty and equality, appeared their authoritative instincts, their need of commanding, even as subordinates, and also, in most cases, an appetite for money or for pleasure.Between the delegate of the Committee of Public Safety and the minister, prefect, or subprefect of the Empire the difference is small: it is the same man under the two costumes, first en carmagnole, then in the braided coat.''
The dogma of equality had as its first consequence the proclamation of popular sovereignty by the bourgeoisie.This sovereignty remained otherwise highly theoretical during the whole Revolution.
The principle of authority was the lasting legacy of the Revolution.The two terms ``liberty'' and ``fraternity'' which accompany it in the republican device had never much influence.
We may even say that they had none during the Revolution and the Empire, but merely served to decorate men's speeches.
Their influence was hardly more considerable later.Fraternity was never practised and the peoples have never cared much for liberty.To-day our working-men have completely surrendered it to their unions.
To sum up: although the Republican motto has been little applied it has exerted a very great influence.Of the French Revolution practically nothing has remained in the popular mind but the three celebrated words which sum up its gospel, and which its armies spread over Europe.
