At first sight their success seems doubtful, for they are in a minority, and a very small one. At BesanÇon, in November, 1791, the revolutionaries of every shade of opinion and degree, whether Girondists or Montagnards, consist of about 500 or 600 out of 3,000 electors, and, in November, 1792, of not more than the same number out of 6,000 and 7,000.1241 At Paris, in November, 1791, there are 6,700 out of more than 81,000 on the rolls; in October, 1792, there are less than 14,000 out of 160,000.1242 At Troyes, in 1792, there are found only 400 or 500 out of 7,000 electors, and at Strasbourg the same number out of 8,000 electors.1243 Accordingly only about one-tenth of the electoral population are revolutionaries, and if we leave out the Girondists and the semi-conservatives, the number is reduced by one-half. Towards the end of 1792, at BesanÇon, scarcely more than 300 pure Jacobins are found in a population of from 25,000 to 30,000, while at Paris, out of 700,000 inhabitants only 5,000 are Jacobins. It is certain that in the capital, where the most excitement prevails, and where more of them are found than elsewhere, never, even in a crisis and when vagabonds are paid and bandits recruited, are there more than 10,000.1244 In a large town like Toulouse a representative of the people on missionary service wins over only about 400 persons.1245 Counting fifty or so in each small town, twenty in each large borough, and five or six in each village, we find, on an average, but one Jacobin to fifteen electors and National Guards, while, taking the whole of France, all the Jacobins put together do not amount to 300,000.1246—This is a small number for the enslavement of six millions of able-bodied men, and for installing in a country of twenty-six millions inhabitants a more absolute despotism than that of an Asiatic sovereign. Force, however, is not measured by numbers; they form a band in the midst of a crowd and, in this disorganized, inert crowd, a band that is determined to push its way like an iron wedge splitting a log.

And against sedition from within as well as conquest from without a nation may only defend itself through the activities of its government, which provides the indispensable instruments of common action. Let it fail or falter and the great majority, undecided about what to do, lukewarm and busy elsewhere, ceases to be a corps and disintegrates into dust. Of the two governments around which the nation might have rallied, the first one, after July 14, 1789, lies prostrate on the ground where it slowly crumbles away. Now its ghost, which returns, is still more odious because it brings with it the same senseless abuses and intolerable burdens, and, in addition to these, a yelping pack of claimants and recriminators. After 1790 it appears on the frontier more arbitrary than ever at the head of a coming invasion of angry ÉmigrÉs and grasping foreigners.—The other government, that just constructed by the Constituent Assembly, is so badly put together that the majority cannot use it. It is not adapted to its hand; no political instrument at once so ponderous and so helpless was ever seen. An enormous effort is needed to set it in motion; every citizen is obliged to give it about two days labor per week.1247 Thus laboriously started but half in motion, it poorly meets the various tasks imposed upon it—the collection of taxes, public order in the streets, the circulation of supplies, and security for consciences, lives and property. Toppled over by its own action, another rises out of it, illegal and serviceable, which takes its place and stands.—In a great centralized state whoever possesses the head possesses the body. By virtue of being led, the French have contracted the habit of letting themselves be led.1248 People in the provinces involuntarily turn their eyes to the capital, and, on a crisis occurring, run out to stop the mailman to know what government happens to have fallen, the majority accepts or submits to it.—Because, in the first place, most of the isolated groups which would like to overthrow it dare not engage in the struggle: it seems too strong; through inveterate routine they imagine behind it that great, distant France which, under its impulsion, will crush them with its mass.1249 In the second place, should a few isolated groups undertake to overthrow it, they are not in a condition to keep up the struggle: it is too strong. They are, indeed, not yet organized while it is fully so, owing to the docile set of officials inherited from the government overthrown. Under monarchy or republic the government clerk comes to his office regularly every morning to dispatch the orders transmitted to him.1250 Under monarchy or republic the policeman daily makes his round to arrest those against who he has a warrant. So long as instructions come from above in the hierarchical order of things, they are obeyed. From one end of the territory to the other, therefore, the machine, with its hundred thousand arms, works efficiently in the hands of those who have seized the lever at the central point. Resolution, audacity, rude energy, are all that are needed to make the lever act, and none of these are wanting in the Jacobin. 1251

First, he has faith, and faith at all times "moves mountains.1252 "Take any ordinary party recruit, an attorney, a second-rate lawyer, a shopkeeper, an artisan, and conceive, if you can, the extraordinary effect of this doctrine on a mind so poorly prepared for it, so narrow, so out of proportion with the gigantic conception which has mastered it. Formed for the routine and the limited views of one in his position, he is suddenly carried away by a complete system of philosophy, a theory of nature and of man, a theory of society and of religion, a theory of universal history,1253 conclusions about the past, the present, and the future of humanity, axioms of absolute right, a system of perfect and final truth, the whole concentrated in a few rigid formulae as, for example:

"Religion is superstition, monarchy is usurpation, priests are impostors, aristocrats are vampires, and kings are so many tyrants and monsters."

These ideas flood a mind of his stamp like a vast torrent precipitating itself into a narrow gorge; they upset it, and, no longer under self-direction, they sweep it away. The man is beside himself. A plain bourgeois, a common laborer is not transformed with impunity into an apostle or liberator of the human species.—For, it is not his country that he would save, but the entire race. Roland, just before the 10th of August, exclaims "with tears in his eyes, should liberty die in France, she is lost the rest of the world forever! The hopes of philosophers will perish! The whole earth will succumb to the cruelest tyranny!"1254—GrÉgoire, on the meeting of the Convention, obtained a decree abolishing royalty, and seemed overcome with the thought of the immense benefit he had conferred on the human race.

"I must confess," said he, "that for days I could neither eat nor sleep for excess of joy!"

One day a Jacobin in the tribune declared: "We shall be a nation of gods!"—Fancies like these bring on lunacy, or, at all events, they create disease. "Some men are in a fever all day long," said a companion of St. Just; "I had it for twelve years..."1255 Later on, "when advanced in life and trying to analyze their experiences, they cannot comprehend it."1256 Another tells that, in his case, on a "crisis occurring, there was only a hair's breadth between reason and madness."—"When St. Just and myself," says Baudot, "discharged the batteries at Wissenbourg, we were most liberally thanked for it. Well, there was no merit in that; we knew perfectly well that the shot could not do us any harm."—Man, in this exalted state, is unconscious of obstacles, and, according to circumstances, rise above or falls below himself, freely spilling his own blood as well as the blood of others, heroic as a soldier and atrocious as a civilian; he is not to be resisted in either direction for his strength increases a hundredfold through his fury, and, on his tearing wildly through the streets, people get out of his way as on the approach of a mad bull.

If they do not jump aside of their own accord, he will run at them, for he is unscrupulous as well as furious.—In every political struggle certain kinds of actions are prohibited; at all events, if the majority is sensible and wishes to act fairly, it repudiates them for itself. It will not violate any particular law, for, if one law is broken, this tends to the breaking of others. It is opposed to overthrowing an established government because every interregnum is a return to barbarism. It is opposed to the element of popular insurrection because, in such a resort, public power is surrendered to the irrationality of brutal passion. It is opposed to a conversion of the government into a machine for confiscation and murder because it deems the natural function of government to be the protection of life and property.—The majority, accordingly, in confronting the Jacobin, who allows himself all this,1257 is like a unarmed man facing one who is fully armed.1258 The Jacobin, on principle, holds the law in contempt, for the only law, which he accepts is arbitrary mob rule. He has no hesitation in proceeding against the government because, in his eyes, the government is a clerk which the people always has the right to remove. He welcomes insurrection because, through it, the people recover their sovereignty with no limitations.—Moreover, as with casuists, "the end justifies the means."1259 "Let the colonies perish," exclaims a Jacobin in the Constituent Assembly, "rather than sacrifice a principle." "Should the day come," says St. Just, "when I become convinced that it is impossible to endow the French with mild, vigorous, and rational ways, inflexible against tyranny and injustice, that day I will stab myself." Meanwhile he guillotines the others. "We will make France a graveyard," exclaimed Carrier, "rather than not regenerating it our own way!"1260 They are ready to risk the ship in order to seize the helm. From the first, they organize street riots and jacqueries in the rural districts, they let loose on society prostitutes and ruffians, vile and savage beasts. Throughout the struggle they take advantage of the coarsest and most destructive passions, of the blindness, credulity, and rage of an infatuated crowd, of dearth, of fear of bandits, of rumors of conspiracy, and of threats of invasion. At last, having seized power through a general upheaval, they hold on to it through terror and executions.—Straining will to the utmost, with no curb to check it, steadfastly believing in its own right and with utter contempt for the rights of others, with fanatical energy and the expedients of scoundrels, a minority may, in employing such forces, easily master and subdue a majority. So true is that, with faction itself, that victory is always on the side of the group with the strongest faith and the least scruples. Four times between 1789 and 1794, political gamblers take their seats at a table where the stake is supreme power, and four times in succession the "Impartiaux," the "Feuillants," the "Girondins," and the "Dantonists," form the majority and lose the game. Four times in succession the majority has no desire to break customary rules, or, at the very least, to infringe on any rule universally accepted, to wholly disregard the teachings of experience, the letter of the law, the precepts of humanity, or the suggestions of pity.—The minority, on the contrary, is determined beforehand to win at any price; its views and opinion are correct, and if rules are opposed to that, so much the worse for the rules. At the decisive moment, it claps a pistol to its adversary's head, overturns the table, and collects the stakes.

1201 (return)
[ See the figures further on.]

1202 (return)
[ Mallet du Pan, II. 491. Danton, in 1793, said one day to one of his former brethren an advocate to the Council.: "The old rÉgime made a great mistake. It brought me up on a scholarship in Plessis College. I was brought up with nobles, who were my comrades, and with whom I lived on familiar terms. On completing my studies, I had nothing; I was poor and tried to get a place. The Paris bar was very expensive, and it required extensive efforts to be accepted. I could not get into the army, having neither rank nor patronage. There was no opening for me in the Church. I could purchase no employment, for I hadn't a cent. My old companions turned their backs on me. I remained without a situation, and only after many long years did I succeed in buying the post of advocate in the Royal Council. The Revolution came, when I, and all like me, threw themselves into it. The ancient rÉgime forced us to do so, by providing a good education for us, without providing an opening for our talents." This applies to Robespierre, C. Desmoulins, Brissot, Vergniaud, and others.]

1203 (return)
[ Religious order founded in Rome in 1654 by saint Philippe Neri and who dedicated their efforts to preaching and the education of children. (SR)]

1204 (return)
[ Dauban, "La Demagogie À Paris en 1793," and "Paris in 1794." Read General Henriot's orders of the day in these two works. Comparton, "Histoire du Tribunal RÉvolutionaire de Paris," a letter by Trinchard, I. 306 (which is here given in the original, on account of the ortography): "Si tu nest pas toute seulle et que le compagnion soit a travailler tu peus ma chaire amie ventir voir juger 24 mesieurs tous si devent prÉsident ou conselier au parlement de Paris et de Toulouse. Je t'ainvite a prendre quelque chose aven de venir parcheque nous naurons pas fini de 3 hurres. Je t'embrase ma chaire amie et Épouge."-Ibid. II. 350, examination of AndrÉ Chenier.—Wallon, "Hist. Du Trib. RÉv.", I, 316. Letter by Simon. "Je te coitte le bonjour mois est mon est pousse."]

1205 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution," page 60.]

1206 (return)
[ Cf. On this point the admissions of the honest Bailly ("MÉmoires," passim)]

1207 (return)
[ RÉtif de la Bretonne: "Nuits de Paris," 11Éme nuit, p. 36. "I lived in Paris twenty-five years as free as air. All could enjoy as much freedom as myself in two ways—by living uprightly, and by not writing pamphlets against the ministry. All else was permitted, my freedom never being interfered with. It is only since the Revolution that a scoundrel could succeed in having me arrested twice."]

1208 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution," vol. I. p.264.]

1209 (return)
[ Moniteur, IV. 495. (Letter from Chartres, May 27, 1790.)]

1210 (return)
[ Sauzay, I.147, 195 218, 711.]

1211 (return)
[ Mercure de France, numbers of August 7, 14, 26, and Dec. 18, 1790.]

1212 (return)
[ Ibid. number of November 26, 1790. PÉtion is elected mayor of Paris by 6,728 out of 10,632 voters. "Only 7,000 voters are found at the election of the electors who elect deputies to the legislature. Primary and municipal meetings are deserted in the same proportion."—-Moniteur, X. 529 (Number of Dec. 4, 1791). Manuel is elected Attorney of the Commune by 3,770 out of 5,311 voters.—Ibid. XI. 378. At the election of municipal officers for Paris, Feb.10 and 11, 1792, only 3,787 voters present themselves; Dussault, who obtains the most votes, has 2,588; Sergent receives 1,648.—Buchez et Roux, XI. 238 (session of Aug.12, 1791). Speech by Chapelier; "Archives Nationales," F.6 (carton), 21. Primary meeting of June 13, 1791, canton of BÈze (Cote d'Or). Out of 460 active citizens, 157 are present, and, on the final ballot, 58.—Ibid., F7, 3235, (January, 1792). Lozerre: "1,000 citizens, at most, out of 25,000, voted in the primary meetings. At. Saint-ChÈly, capital of the district, a few armed ruffians succeed in forming the primary meeting and in substituting their own election for that of eight parishes, whose frightened citizens who withdrew from it... At Langogne, chief town of the canton and district, out of more than 400 active citizens, 22 or 23 at most—just what one would suppose them to be when their presence drove away the rest—alone formed the meeting."]

1213 (return)
[ This power, with its gratifications, is thus shown, Beugnot, I. 140, 147. "On the publication of the decrees of August 4, the committee of surveillance of Montigny, reinforced by all the patriots of the country, came down like a torrent on the barony of Choiseul, and exterminated all the hares and partridges... They fished out the ponds. At Mandres we find, in the best room of the inn, a dozen peasants gathered around a table decked with tumblers and bottles, amongst which we noticed an inkstand, pens, and something resembling a register.—'I don't know what they are about,' said the landlady, 'but there they are, from morning till night, drinking, swearing, and storming away at everybody, and they say that they are a committee.'"]

1214 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, I. 206, 242.—The first meeting of the revolutionary committee of Troyes in the cemetery of St. Jules, August, 1789. This committee becomes the only authority in the town, after the assassination of the mayor, M. Huez (Sept 10, 1790).]

1215 (return)
[ "The French Revolution," Vol.I. pp. 235, 242, 251.—Buchez et Roux, VI, 179.—Guillon de MontlÉon, "Histoire de la Ville de Lyon pendant la Revolution," I. 87.—Guadet, "Les Girondins."]

1216 (return)
[ Michelet, "Histoire de la RÉvolution," II.47.]

1217 (return)
[ The rules of the Paris club state that members must "labor to establish and strengthen the Constitution, according to the spirit of the club."]

1218 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Aug.11, 1790.—"Journal de la SociÉtÉ des Amis la Constitution," Nov.21, 1790.—Ibid., March, 1791.—Ibid., March, 1791.—Ibid., Aug.14, 1791 (speech by Roederer)—Buchez et Roux, XI. 481.]

1219 (return)
[ Michelet, II. 407.—Moniteur, XII 347 (May 11, 1792), article by Marie-Joseph ChÉnier, according to whom 800 Jacobin clubs exist at this date.—Ibid., XII. 753 (speech by M. Delfaux session of June 25, 1792).—Roederer, preface to his translation of Hobbes.]

1220 (return)
[ "Les RÉvolutions de Paris," by Prudhomme, number 173.]

1221 (return)
[ Constant, "Histoire d'un Club Jacobin en province, "passim (Fontainbleau Club, founded May 5, 1791).—Albert Babeau, I.434 and following pages (foundation of the Troyes Club, Oct 1790).—Sauzay, I 206 and following pages (foundation of the BesanÇon Club Aug. 28, 1790).—Ibid., 214 (foundation of the Pontarlier Club, March, 1791)]

1222 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 214 (April 2, 1791)]

1223 (return)
[ "Journal des Amis de la Constitution," I. 534 (Letter of the "CafÉ National" Club of Bordeaux, Jan.29, 1791). Guillon de MonthlÉon, I. 88.-"The French Revolution," vol. I. 128, 242.]

1224 (return)
[ Here we have a complete system of propaganda and organizational tactics identical to those used by the NAZIS, the Marxist-Leninists and other 'children' of the original communist-Jacobins. (SR.)]

1225 (return)
[ EugÈne Hatin, "Histoire politique et littÉraire de la presse," IV. 210 (with Marat's text in "L'Ami L'Ami du peuple," and FrÉron's in "l'Orateur du peuple").]

1226 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Nov. 27, 1790.]

1227 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Sept. 3, 1791 (article by Mallet du Pan). "On the strength of a denunciation, the authors of which I knew, the Luxembourg section on the 21st of June, the day of the king's departure, sent commissaries and a military detachment to my domicile. There was no judicial verdict, no legal order, either of police-court, or justice of the peace, no examination whatever preceding this mission... The employees of the section overhauled my papers, books and letters, transcribing some of the latter, and carried away copies and the originals, putting seals on the rest, which were left in charge of two fusiliers."]

1228 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Aug. 27, 1791 (report by Duport-Dutertre, Minister of Justice).—Ibid., Cf. numbers of Sept. 8, 1790, and March 12, 1791.]

1229 (return)
[ Sauzay, I.208. (Petition of the officers of the National Guard of BesanÇon, and observations of the municipal body, Sept. 15, 1790.—Petition of 500 national guards, Dec. 15, 1790).—Observations of the district directory, which directory, having authorized the club, avows that "three-quarters" of the national guard and a portion of other citizens "are quite hostile to it."—Similar petitions at Dax, Chalons-sur-SaÔne, etc., against the local club.]

1230 (return)
[ "Lettres" (manuscript) of M. RoullÉ, deputy from Pontivy, to his constituents (May 1, 1789).]

1231 (return)
[ A rule of the association says: "The object of the association is to discuss questions beforehand which are to be decided by the National Assembly,... and to correspond with associations of the same character which may be formed in the kingdom."]

1232 (return)
[ GrÉgoires, "MÉmoires," I. 387.]

1233 (return)
[ Malouet, II. 248. "I saw counselor Duport, who was a fanatic, and not a bad man, with two or three others like him, exclaim: 'Terror! Terror! What a pity that it has become necessary!'"]

1234 (return)
[ Lafayette, "MÉmoires" (in relation to Messieurs de Lameth and their friends).—According to a squib of the day: "What Duport thinks, Barnave says and Lameth does"—This trio was named the Triumvirate. Mirabeau, a government man, and a man to whom brutal disorder was repugnant, called it the Triumgueusat. (A trinity of shabby fellows)]

1235 (return)
[ Moniteur, V.212, 583. (Report and speech of Dupont de Nemours, sessions of July 31 and September 7, 1790.)—Vagabonds and ruffians begin to play their parts in Paris on the 27th of April, 1789 (the RÉveillon affair).—Already on the 30th of July, 1789, Rivarol wrote: "Woe to whoever stirs up the dregs of a nation! The century Enlightenment has not touched the populace!"—In the preface of his future dictionary, he refers to his articles of this period: "There may be seen the precautions I took to prevent Europe from attributing to the French nation the horrors committed by the crowd of ruffians which the Revolution and the gold of a great personage had attracted to the capital."—"Letter of a deputy to his constituents," published by Duprez, Paris, in the beginning of 1790 (cited by M. de SÉgur, in the Revue de France, September 1, 1880). It relates to the maneuvers for forcing a vote in favor of confiscating clerical property. "Throughout All-Saints' day (November 1, 1789), drums were beaten to call together the band known here as the Coadjutors of the Revolution. On the morning of November 2, when the deputies went to the Assembly, they found the cathedral square and all the avenues to the archbishop's palace, where the sessions were held, filled with an innumerable crowd of people. This army was composed of from 20,000 to 25,000 men, of which the greater number had no shoes or stockings; woollen caps and rags formed their uniform and they had clubs instead of guns. They overwhelmed the ecclesiastical deputies with insults, as they passed on their way, and shouted that they would massacre without mercy all who would not vote for stripping the clergy... Near 300 deputies who were opposed to the motion did not dare attend the Assembly... The rush of ruffians in the vicinity of the hall, their comments and threats, excited fears of this atrocious project being carried out. All who did not feel courageous enough to sacrifice themselves, avoided going to the Assembly." (The decree was adopted by 378 votes against 346.)]

1236 (return)
[ Cf. "The Ancient RÉgime," p. 51.]

1237 (return)
[ Malouet, 1.247, 248.—"Correspondence (manuscript) of M. de StaËl," Swedish Ambassador, with his court, copied from the archives at Stockholm by M. LÉouzon-le-Duc. Letter from M. StaËl of April 21, 1791: "M. Laclos, secret agent of this wretched prince, (is a) clever and subtle intriguer." April 24: "His agents are more to be feared than himself. Through his bad conduct, he is more of a nuisance than a benefit to his party."]

1238 (return)
[ Especially after the king's flight to Varennes, and at the time of the affair in the Champ de Mars. The petition of the Jacobins was drawn up by Laclos and Brissot.]

1239 (return)
[ Investigations at the Chatelet, testimony of Count d'Absac de Ternay.]

1240 (return)
[ Malouet I. 247, 248. This evidence is conclusive. "Apart from what I saw myself," says Malouet, "M. de Montmorin and M. Delessart communicated to me all the police reports of 1789 and 1790."]

1241 (return)
[ Sauzay, II.79 (municipal election, Nov.15, 1791).—III. 221 (mayoralty election, November, 1792). The half-way moderates had 237 votes, and the sans-culottes, 310.]

1242 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Nov. 26, 1791 (PÉtion was elected mayor, Nov.17, by 6,728 votes out of 10,682 voters).—Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 95. (Oct 4, 1792, PÉtion was elected mayor by 13,746 votes out of 14,137 voters. He declines.—Oct. 21, d'Ormessan, a moderate, who declines to stand, has nevertheless, 4,910 votes. His competitor, Lhuillier, a pure Jacobin, obtains only 4,896.)]

1243 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II. 15. (The 32,000 inhabitants of Troyes indicate about 7,000 electors. In December, 1792, Jacquet is elected mayor by 400 votes out of 555 voters. A striking coincidence is found in there being 400 members of the Troyes club at this time.)—Carnot, MÉmoires," I. 181. "Dr. Bollmann, who passed through Strasbourg in 1792, relates that out of 8,000 qualified citizens, only 400 voters presented themselves.]

1244 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VI. 21. In February, 1793, Pache is elected mayor of Paris by 11,881 votes.—Journal de Paris, number 185. Henriot, July 2, 1793, is elected commander-in-chief of the Paris national guard, by 9,084, against 6,095 votes given for his competitor, Raffet. The national guard comprises at this time 110,000 registered members, besides 10,000 gendarmes and federates. Many of Henriot's partisans, again, voted twice. (Cf. on the elections and the number of Jacobins at Paris, chapters XI. and XII. of this volume.)]

1245 (return)
[ Michelet, VI. 95. "Almost all (the missionary representatives) were supported by only, the smallest minority. Baudot, for instance, at Toulouse, in 1793, had but 400 men for him."]

1246 (return)
[ For example, "Archives Nationales," Fl 6, carton 3. Petition of the inhabitants of Arnay-le-Duc to the king (April, 1792), very insulting, employing the most familiar language; about fifty signatures.—Sauzay, III. ch. XXXV. and XXXIV. (details of local elections).—Ibid., VII. 687 (letter of GrÉgoire, Dec. 24, 1796).—Malouet, II. 531 (letter by Malouet, July 22, 1779). Malouet and GrÉgoire agree on the number 300,000. Marie-Joseph ChÉnier (Moniteur, XII, 695, 20 avril 1792) carries it up to 400,000.]

1247 (return)
[ Cf. "The French Revolution," Vol. I. book II. Ch. III.]

1248 (return)
[ Cf. "The Ancient RÉgime," p.352.]

1249 (return)
[ "Memoires de Madame de Sapinaud," p. 18. Reply of M. de Sapinaud to the peasants of La VendÉe, who wished him to act as their general: "My friends, it is the earthen pot against the iron pot. What could we do? One department against eighty-two—we should be smashed!"]

1250 (return)
[ Malouet, II. 241. "I knew a clerk in one of the bureaus, who, during these sad days, September, 1792), never missed going. as usual, to copy and add up his registers. Ministerial correspondence with the armies and the provinces followed its regular course in regular forms. The Paris police looked after supplies and kept its eye on sharpers, while blood ran in the streets."—Cf. on this mechanical need and inveterate habit of receiving orders from the central authority, Mallet du Pan, "MÉmoires," 490: "Dumouriez' soldiers said to him: 'F—, papa general, get the Convention to order us to march on Paris and you'll see how we will make mince-meat of those b—in the Assembly!'"]

1251 (return)
[ With want great interest did any aspiring radical politicians read these lines, whether the German socialist from Hitler learned so much or Lenin during his long stay in Paris around 1906. Taine maybe thought that he was arming decent men to better understand and defend the republic against a new Jacobin onslaught while, in fact, he provided them with an accurate recipe for repeating the revolution. (SR).]

1252 (return)
[ At. Matthew, 17:20. (SR.)]

1253 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXVIII 55. Letter by Brun-Lafond, a grenadier in the national guard, July 14, 1793, to a friend in the provinces, in justification of the 31st of May. The whole of this letter requires to be read. In it are found the ordinary ideas of a Jacobin in relation to history: "Can we ignore, that it is ever the people of Paris which, through its murmurings and righteous insurrections against the oppressive system of many of our kings, has forced them to entertain milder sentiments regarding the relief of the French people, and principally of the tiller of the soil?.. Without the energy of Paris, Paris and France would now be inhabited solely by slaves, while this beautiful soil would present an aspect as wild and deserted as that of the Turkish empire or that of Germany," which has led us "to confer still greater lustre on this Revolution, by re-establishing on earth the ancient Athenian and other Grecian republics in all their purity. Distinctions among the early people of the earth did not exist; early family ties bound people together who had no ancient founders or origin; they had no other laws in their republics but those which, so to say, inspired them with those sentiments of fraternity experienced by them in the cradle of primitive populations."]

1254 (return)
[ Barbaroux, "MÉmoires" (Ed. Dauban), 336.—GrÉgoire, "MÉmoires," I. 410.]

1255 (return)
[ "La RÉvolution FranÇaise," by Quinet (extracts from the unpublished "MÉmoires" of Baudot), II. 209, 211, 421, 620.—Guillon de MontlÉon I. 445 (speech by Chalier, in the Lyons Central Club, March 23, 1793). "They say that the sans-culottes will go on spilling their blood. This is only the talk of aristocrats. Can a sans-culotte be reached in that quarter? Is he not invulnerable, like the gods whom he replaces on this earth?"—Speech by David, in the Convention, on Barra and Viala: "Under so fine a government woman will bring forth without pain."—Mercier "Le Nouveau Paris," I. 13. "I heard (an orator) exclaim in one of the sections, to which I bear witness: 'Yes, I would take my own head by the hair, cut it off, and, presenting it to the despot, I would say to him: Tyrant, behold the act of a free man!'"]

1256 (return)
[ Now, one hundred years later, I consider the tens of thousands of western intellectuals, who, in their old age, seem unable to understand their longtime fascination with Lenin, Stalin and Mao, I cannot help to think that history might be holding similar future surprises in store for us. (SR).]

1257 (return)
[ And my lifetime, our Jacobins the communists, have including in their register the distortion, the lie and slander as a regular tool of their trade. (SR).]

1258 (return)
[ Lafayette, "MÉmoires," I.467 (on the Jacobins of August 10, 1792). "This sect, the destruction of which was desired by nineteen-twentieths of France."—Durand-Maillan, 49. The aversion to the Jacobins after June 20, 1792, was general. "The communes of France, everywhere wearied and dissatisfied with popular clubs, would gladly have got rid of them, that they might no longer be under their control."]

1259 (return)
[ The words of Leclerc, a deputy of the Lyons committee in the Jacobin Club at Paris May 12, 1793. "Popular machiavelianism must be established... Everything impure must disappear off the French soil... I shall doubtless be regarded as a brigand, but there is one way to get ahead of calumny, and that is to exterminate the calumniators."]

1260 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIV. 204 (testimony of FranÇois Lameyrie). "Collection of authentic documents for the History of the Revolution at Strasbourg," II. 210 (speech by Baudot, Frimaire 19, year II., in the Jacobin club at Strasbourg). "Egoists, the heedless, the enemies of liberty, the enemies of all nature should not be regarded as her children. Are not all who oppose the public good, or who do not share it, in the same case? Let us, then, utterly destroy them... Were they a million, would not one sacrifice the twenty-fourth part of one's self to get rid of a gangrene which might infect the rest of the body?..."For these reasons, the orator thinks that every man who is not wholly devoted to the Republic must be put to death. He states that the Republic should at one blow cause the instant disappearance of every friend to kings and feudalism.—Beaulieu, "Essai," V. 200. M. d'Antonelle thought, "like most of the revolutionary clubs, that, to constitute a republic, an approximate equality of property should be established; and to do this, a third of the population should be suppressed."—"This was the general idea among the fanatics of the Revolution. "—LarevelliÈre-LÉpaux, "MÉmoires," I.150 "Jean Bon St. AndrÉ... suggested that for the solid foundation of the Republic in France, the population should be reduced one-half." He is violently interrupted by LarevelliÈre-LÉpeaux, but continues and insists on this.—Guffroy, deputy of the Pas-de-Calais, proposed in his journal a still larger amputation; he wanted to reduce France to five millions of inhabitants.]