This dogma was composed of an aggregate of somewhat inconsistent elements.Nature, the rights of man, liberty, equality, the social contract, hatred of tyrants, and popular sovereignty formed the articles of a gospel which, to its disciples, was above discussion.The new truths had found apostles who were certain of their power, and who finally, like believers all the world over, sought to impose them by force.No heed should be taken of the opinion of unbelievers; they all deserved to be exterminated.
The hatred of heretics having been always, as we have seen, in respect of the Reformation, an irreducible characteristic of great beliefs, we can readily comprehend the intolerance of the Jacobin religion.
The history of the Reformation proves also that the conflict between two allied beliefs is very bitter.We must not, therefore, be astonished that in the Convention the Jacobins fought furiously against the other republicans, whose faith hardly differed from their own.
The propaganda of the new apostles was very energetic.To convert the provinces they sent thither zealous disciples escorted by guillotines.The inquisitors of the new faith would have no paltering with error.As Robespierre said, ``The republic is the destruction of everything that is opposed to it.'' What matter that the country refused to be regenerated?
It should be regenerated despite itself.``We will make a cemetery of France,'' said Carrier, ``rather than fail to regenerate it in our own way.''
The Jacobin policy derived from the new faith was very simple.
It consisted in a sort of equalitarian Socialism, directed by a dictatorship which would brook no opposition.
Of practical ideas consistent with the economic necessities and the true nature of man, the theorists who ruled France would have nothing to say.Speech and the guillotine sufficed them.Their speeches were childish.``Never a fact,'' says Taine, ``nothing but abstractions, strings of sentences about Nature, reason, the people, tyrants, liberty: like so many puffed-out balloons uselessly jostling in space.If we did not know that it all ended in practical and dreadful results, we should think they were games of logic, school exercises, academical demonstrations, ideological combinations.''
The theories of the Jacobins amounted practically to an absolute tyranny.To them it seemed evident that a sovereign State must be obeyed without discussion by citizens rendered equal as to conditions and fortune.
The power with which they invested themselves was far greater than that of the monarchs who had preceded them.They fixed the prices of merchandise and arrogated the right to dispose of the life and property of citizens.
Their confidence in the regenerative virtues of the revolutionary faith was such that after having declared war upon kings they declared war upon the gods.A calendar was established from which the saints were banished.They created a new divinity, Reason, whose worship was celebrated in Notre-Dame, with ceremonies which were in many ways identical with those of the Catholic faith, upon the altar of the ``late Holy Virgin.'' This cult lasted until Robespierre substituted a personal religion of which he constituted himself the high priest.
The sole masters of France, the Jacobins and their disciples were able to plunder the country with impunity, although they were never in the majority anywhere.
Their numbers are not easy to determine exactly.We know only that they were very small.Taine valued them at 5,000 in Paris, among 700,000 inhabitants; in Besancon 300 among 300,000; and in all France about 300,000.
``A small feudality of brigands, set over a conquered France,''
according to the words of the same author, they were able, in spite of their small numbers, to dominate the country, and this for several reasons.In the first place, their faith gave them a considerable strength.Then, because they represented the Government, and for centuries the French had obeyed those who were in command.Finally, because it was believed that to overthrow them would be to bring back the ancien regime, which was greatly dreaded by the numerous purchasers of the national domains.Their tyranny must have grown frightful indeed to force so many departments to rise against them.
The first factor of their power was very important.In the conflict between powerful faiths and weak faiths victory never falls to the latter.A powerful faith creates strong wills, which will always overpower weak wills.That the Jacobins themselves did finally perish was because their accumulated violence had bound together thousands of weak wills whose united weight overbalanced their own strong wills.
It is true that the Girondists, whom the Jacobins persecuted with so much hatred, had also well-established beliefs, but in the struggle which ensued their education told against them, together with their respect for certain traditions and the rights of others, scruples which did not in the least trouble their adversaries.
``The majority of the sentiments of the Girondists,'' writes Emile Ollivier, ``were delicate and generous; those of the Jacobin mob were low, gross, and brutal.The name of Vergniaud, compared with that of the `divine' Marat, measures a gulf which nothing could span.''
Dominating the Convention at the outset by the superiority of their talents and their eloquence, the Girondists soon fell under the domination of the Montagnards--worthless energumens, who carried little weight, but were always active, and who knew how to excite the passions of the populace.It was violence and not talent that impressed the Assemblies.
3.Mental Characteristics of the Convention.
Beside the characteristics common to all assemblies there are some created by influences of environment and circumstances, which give any particular assembly of men a special physiognomy.
