POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN TRADITIONS ANDREVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES DURING THE LAST CENTURY1.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 various strata of society.
During the whole of this period the great majority of the people and the bourgeoisie rejected them, and their diffusion was effected only by a very limited number of apostles.But their influence, thanks principally to the faults of Governments, was sufficient to provoke several revolutions.We shall examine these briefly when we have examined the psychological influences which gave them birth.
The history of our political upheavals during the last century is enough to prove, even if we did not yet realise the fact, that men are governed by their mentalities far more than by the institutions which their rulers endeavour to force upon them.
The successive revolutions which France has suffered have been the consequences of struggles between two portions of the nation whose mentalities are different.One is religious and monarchical and is dominated by long ancestral influences; the other is subjected to the same influences, but gives them a revolutionary form.
From the commencement of the Revolution the struggle between contrary mentalities was plainly manifested.We have seen that in spite of the most frightful repression insurrections and conspiracies lasted until the end of the Directory.They proved that the traditions of the past had left profound roots in the popular soul.At a certain moment sixty departments were in revolt against the new Government, and were only repressed by repeated massacres on a vast scale.
To establish some sort of compromise between the ancien regime and the new ideals was the most difficult of the problems which Bonaparte had to resolve.He had to discover institutions which would suit the two mentalities into which France was divided.He succeeded, as we have seen, by conciliatory measures, and also by dressing very ancient things in new names.
His reign was one of those rare periods of French history during which the mental unity of France was complete.
This unity could not outlive him.On the morrow of his fall all the old parties reappeared, and have survived until the present day.Some attach themselves to traditional influences; others violently reject them.
If this long conflict had been between believers and the indifferent, it could not have lasted, for indifference is always tolerant; but the struggle was really between two different beliefs.The lay Church very soon assumed a religious aspect, and its pretended rationalism has become, especially in recent years, a barely attenuated form of the narrowest clerical spirit.Now, we have shown that no conciliation is possible between dissimilar religious beliefs.The clericals when in power could not therefore show themselves more tolerant towards freethinkers than these latter are to-day toward the clericals.
These divisions, determined by differences of belief, were complicated by the addition of the political conceptions derived from those beliefs.
Many simple souls have for long believed that the real history of France began with the year I.of the Republic.This rudimentary conception is at last dying out.Even the most rigid revolutionaries renounce it,[10] and are quite willing to recognise that the past was something better than an epoch of black barbarism dominated by low superstitions.
[10] We may judge of the recent evolution of ideas upon this point by the following passage from a speech by M.Jaures, delivered in the Chamber of Deputies: ``The greatness of to-day is built of the efforts of past centuries.France is not contained in a day nor in an epoch, but in the succession of all days, all periods, all her twilights and all her dawns.''
The religious origin of most of the political beliefs held in France inspires their adepts with an inextinguishable hatred which always strikes foreigners with amazement.
``Nothing is more obvious, nothing is more certain,'' writes Mr.
Barret-Wendell, in his book on France, ``than this fact: that not only have the royalists, revolutionaries, and Bonapartists always been mortally opposed to one another, but that, owing to the passionate ardour of the French character, they have always entertained a profound intellectual horror for one another.Men who believe themselves in possession of the truth cannot refrain from affirming that those who do not think with them are instruments of error.
``Each party will gravely inform you that the advocates of the adverse cause are afflicted by a dense stupidity or are consciously dishonest.Yet when you meet these latter, who will say exactly the same things as their detractors, you cannot but recognise, in all good faith, that they are neither stupid nor dishonest.''
This reciprocal execration of the believers of each party has always facilitated the overthrow of Governments and ministers in France.The parties in the minority will never refuse to ally themselves against the triumphant party.We know that a great number of revolutionary Socialists have been elected to the present Chamber only by the aid of the monarchists, who are still as unintelligent as they were at the time of the Revolution.
Our religious and political differences do not constitute the only cause of dissension in France.They are held by men possessing that particular mentality which I have already described under the name of the revolutionary mentality.We have seen that each period always presents a certain number of individuals ready to revolt against the established order of things, whatever that may be, even though it may realise all their desires.
