This intervention of the people in conformity with the dogma of its sovereignty has provoked the respectful admiration of many historians of the Revolution.Even a superficial study of the psychology of crowds would speedily have shown them that the mystic entity which they call the people was merely translating the will of a few leaders.It is not correct to say that the people took the Bastille, attacked the Tuileries, invaded the Convention, &c., but that certain leaders--generally by means of the clubs--united armed bands of the populace, which they led against the Bastille, the Tuileries, &c.During the Revolution the same crowds attacked or defended the most contrary parties, according to the leaders who happened to be at their heads.A crowd never has any opinion but that of its leaders.
Example constituting one of the most potent forms of suggestion, the taking of the Bastille was inevitably followed by the destruction of other fortresses.Many chateaux were regarded as so many little Bastilles, and in order to imitate the Parisians who had destroyed theirs the peasants began to burn them.They did so with the greater fury because the seigneurial homes contained the titles of feudal dues.It was a species of Jacquerie.
The Constituent Assembly, so proud and haughty towards the king, was, like all the revolutionary assemblies which followed it, extremely pusillanimous before the people.
Hoping to put an end to the disorders of the night of August 4th, it voted, on the proposition of a member of the nobility, the Comte de Noailles, the abolition of seigneurial rights.Although this measure suppressed at one stroke the privileges of the nobles, it was voted with tears and embracings.Such accesses of sentimental enthusiasm are readily explained when we recall how contagious emotion is in a crowd, above all in an assembly oppressed by fear.
If the renunciation of their rights had been effected by the nobility a few years earlier, the Revolution would doubtless have been avoided, but it was now too late.To give way only when one is forced to do so merely increases the demands of those to whom one yields.In politics one should always look ahead and give way long before one is forced to do so.
Louis XVI.hesitated for two months to ratify the decisions voted by the Assembly on the night of the 4th of August.He had retired to Versailles.The leaders sent thither a band of 7,000or 8,000 men and women of the people, assuring them that the royal residence contained great stores of bread.The railings of the palace were forced, some of the bodyguard were killed, and the king and all his family were led back to Paris in the midst of a shrieking crowd, many of whom bore on the ends of their pikes the heads of the soldiers massacred.The dreadful journey lasted six hours.These events constituted what are known as the ``days'' of October.
The popular power increased, and in reality the king, like the whole assembly, was henceforth in the hands of the people--that is, at the mercy of the clubs and their leaders.This popular power was to prevail for nearly ten years, and the Revolution was to be almost entirely its work.
While proclaiming that the people constituted the only sovereign, the Assembly was greatly embarrassed by riots which went far beyond its theoretical expectations.It had supposed that order would be restored while it fabricated a Constitution destined to assure the eternal happiness of mankind.
We know that during the whole duration of the Revolution one of the chief occupations of the assemblies was to make, unmake, and remake Constitutions.The theorists attributed to them then, as they do to-day, the power of transforming society; the Assembly, therefore, could not neglect its task.In the meantime it published a solemn Declaration of the Rights of Man which summarised its principles.
The Constitution, proclamations, declarations, and speeches had not the slightest effect on the popular movements, nor on the dissentients who daily increased in number in the heart of the Assembly.The latter became more and more subjected to the ascendancy of the advanced party, which was supported by the clubs.Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and later Marat and Hebert, violently excited the populace by their harangues and their journals.The Assembly was rapidly going down the slope that leads to extremes.
During all these disorders the finances of the country were not improving.Finally convinced that philanthropic speeches would not alter their lamentable condition, and seeing that bankruptcy threatened, the Assembly decreed, on the 2nd of November, 1789, the confiscation of the goods of the Church.Their revenues, consisting of the tithes collected from the faithful, amounted to some L8,000,000, and their value was estimated at about L120,000,000.They were divided among some hundreds of prelates, Court abbes, &c., who owned a quarter of all France.
These goods, henceforth entitled is ``national domains,'' formed the guarantee of the assignats, the first issue of which was for 400,000,000 francs (L16,000,000 sterling).The public accepted them at the outset, but they multiplied so under the Directory and the Convention, which issued 45,000,000,000 francs in this form (L1,800,000,000 sterling), that an assignat of 100 livres was finally worth only a few halfpence.
Stimulated by his advisers, the feeble Louis attempted in vain to struggle against the decrees of the Assembly by refusing to sanction them.
Under the influence of the daily suggestions of the leaders and the power of mental contagion the revolutionary movement was spreading everywhere independently of the Assembly and often even against it.
