The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4: The French Revolution, Volume 3 by Hippolyte A. Taine

     Indoctrination of mind and intellect.—Civil religion.
     —National education.—Egalitarian moral standards.
     —Obligatory civism.—The recasting and reduction of human
     nature to the Jacobin type.

Let not Man go astray, let us lead him on, let us direct minds and souls, and, to this end, let us enfold him in our doctrines. He needs general ideas and the daily experiences flowing out of them; he needs some theory explaining the origin and nature of things, one which assigns him his place and the part he has to play in the world, which teaches him his duties, which regulates his life, which fixes the days he shall work and the days he shall rest, which stamps itself on his mind through commemorations, festivals and ceremonies, through a catechism and a calendar. Up to this time Religion has been the power charged with this service, interpreted and served by the Church; now it is to be Reason, interpreted and served by the State.—In this connection, many among us, disciples of the encyclopedists, constitute Reason a divinity, and honor her with a system of worship; but it is plain that they personify an abstraction; their improvised goddess is simply an allegorical phantom; none of them see in her the intelligent cause of the world; in the depths of their hearts they deny this Supreme Cause, their pretended religion being merely a show or a sham.—We discard atheism, not only because it is false, but again, and more especially, because it is disintegrating and unwholesome.2193 We want an effective, consolatory and fortifying religion, and that religion is natural religion, which is social as well as true. "Without this,2194 as Rousseau has said, it is impossible to be a good citizen......The existence of divinity, the future life, the sacredness of the social contract and of the laws," all are its dogmas; "no one may be forced to believe in these, but whoever dares say that he does not believe in them, sets himself up against the French people, the human species and nature." Consequently, we decree that "the French people recognizes the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul."—The important thing now is to plant this entirely philosophic faith in all hearts. We introduce it into the civil order of things, we take the calendar out of the hands of the Church, we purge it of its Christian imagery; we make the new era begin with the advent of the Republic; we divide the year according to the metric system, we name the months according to the vicissitudes of the seasons, "we substitute, in all directions, the realities of reason for the visions of ignorance, the truths of nature for a sacerdotal prestige,"2195 the decade for the week, the décadi for Sundays, lay festivals for ecclesiastical festivals.2196 On each décadi, through solemn and appropriate pomp, we impress on the popular mind one of the highest truths of our creed; we glorify, in the order of their dates, Nature, Truth, Justice, Liberty, Equality, the People, Adversity, Humanity, the Republic, Posterity, Glory, Patriotism, Heroism, and other virtues. Besides this, we honor the important days of the Revolution, the taking of the Bastille, the fall of the Throne, the punishment of the tyrant, the expulsion of the Girondins. We, too, have our anniversaries, our relics, the relics of Chalier and Marat,2197 our processions, our services, our ritual,2198 and the vast system of visible pageantry by which dogmas are made manifest and propagated. But ours, instead of leading men off to an imaginary heaven, brings them back to a living patrimony, and, through our ceremonies as well as through our creed, we shall preach public-spiritedness (civism).

It is important to preach this to adults, it is still more important to teach it to children: for children are more easily molded than adults. Our hold on these still flexible minds is complete, and, through national education "we seize the coming generations."2199 Naught is more essential and naught is more legitimate.

"The country," says Robespierre, "has a right to bring up its own children; it cannot confide this trust to family pride nor to the prejudices of individuals, the eternal nourishment of aristocracies and of a domestic federalism which narrows the soul by keeping it isolated." We are determined to have "education common and equal for all French people," and "we stamp on it a great character, analogous to the nature of our government and the sublime doctrines of our Republic. The aim is no longer to form gentlemen (messieurs) but citizens."21100

We oblige21101 teachers, male and female, to present certificates of civism, that is to say, of Jacobinism. We close the school if "precepts or maxims opposed to revolutionary morality" are taught in it, that is to say, in conformity with Christian morals. Children will learn to read in the Declaration of Rights and in the Constitution of 1793. Republican manuals and catechisms will be prepared for their use.21102 "They must be taught the virtuous traits which most honor free men, and especially the traits characteristic of the French Revolution, the best calculated to elevate the soul and render them worthy of equality and liberty." The 14th of July, 10th of August, 2nd of September, 21st of January, and 31st of May must be lauded or justified in their presence. They must be taken to meetings of the municipalities, to the law courts,21103 and especially to the popular clubs; from these pure sources they will derive a knowledge of their rights, of their duties, of the laws, of republican morality," and, on entering society, they will find themselves imbued with all good maxims. Over and above their political opinions we shape their ordinary habits. We apply on a grand scale the plan of education drawn out by Jean-Jacques (Rousseau).21104 We want no more literary prigs; in the army, "the 'dandy' breaks down during the first campaign;21105 we want young men able to endure privation and fatigue, toughened, like Emile, "by hard work" and physical exercise.—We have, thus far, only sketched out this department of education, but the agreement amongst the various plans shows the meaning and bearings of our principle. "Children generally, without exception, says Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau,21106 the boys from five to twelve, the girls from five to eleven years of age, must be brought up in common at the expense of the Republic; all, under the sacred law of equality, are to receive the same clothing, the same food, the same education, the same attention "in boarding-schools distributed according to cantons, and containing each from four to six hundred pupils.

"Pupils will be made to submit every day and every moment to the same rigid rules... Their beds must be hard, their food healthy, but simple, their clothing comfortable, but coarse." Servants will not be allowed; children must help themselves and, besides this, they must wait on the old and infirm, lodged with or near them. "Among daily duties, manual labor will be the principal thing; all the rest will be accessory." Girls must learn to spin, sew and wash clothes; the boys will work the roads, be shepherds, ploughmen and work-hands; both will have tasks set them, either in the school-workshops, or in the fields and factories in the neighborhood; they will be hired out to surrounding manufacturers and to the tillers of the soil. Saint-Just is more specific and rigid.21107 "Male children from five to sixteen years of age, must be raised for their country. They must be clad in common cloth at all seasons, and have mats for beds, and sleep eight hours. They are to have common food only, fruits, vegetables, preparations of milk, bread and water. They must not eat meat before sixteen.. Their education, from ten to sixteen, is to be military and agricultural. They will be formed into companies of sixty; six companies make a battalion; the children of a district form a legion; they will assemble annually at the district town, encamp there and drill in infantry tactics, in arenas specially provided for the purpose; they will also learn cavalry maneuvers and every other species of military evolution. In harvest time they are to be distributed amongst the harvesters." After sixteen, "they enter the crafts," with some farmer, artisan, merchant or manufacturer, who becomes their titular "instructor," and with whom they are bound to remain up to the age of twenty-one, "under the penalty of being deprived for life of a citizen's rights.21108... All children will dress alike up to sixteen years of age; from twenty-one to twenty-five, they will dress as soldiers, if they are not in the magistracy."—Already we show the effects of the theory by one striking example; we founded the "Ecole de Mars;"21109 we select out of each district six boys from sixteen to seventeen and a half years old "among the children of sans-culottes;" we summon them to Paris, "to receive there, through a revolutionary education, whatever belongs to the knowledge and habits of a republican soldier. They are schooled in fraternity, in discipline, in frugality, in good habits, in love of country and in detestation of kings." three or four thousand young people are lodged at the Sablons, "in a palisaded enclosure, the intervals of which are guarded by chevaux de frises and sentinels."21110 We puts them into tents; we feed them with bran bread, rancid pork, water and vinegar; we drill them in the use of arms; we march them out on national holidays and stimulate them with patriotic harangues.—Suppose all Frenchmen educated in such a school; the habits they acquire in youth will persist in the adult, and, in each adult we shall find the sobriety, energy and patriotism of a Spartan or Roman.

Already, under the pressure of our decrees, civism affects customs, and there are manifest signs, on all sides, of public regeneration. "The French people," says Robespierre, "seems to have outstripped the rest of humanity, by two thousand years; one might be tempted to regard them, living amongst them, as a different species. In the rest of Europe, a ploughman, an artisan, is an animal formed for the pleasures of a noble; in France, the nobles are trying to transform themselves into ploughmen and artisans, but do not succeed in obtaining that honor."21111 Life in all directions is gradually assuming democratic forms Wealthy prisoners are prohibited from purchasing delicacies, or procuring special conveniences; they eat along with the poor prisoners the same ration, at the common mess21112. Bakers have orders to make but one quality of bread, the brown bread called equality bread, and, to obtain his ration, each person must place himself in line with the rest of the crowd. On holidays21113 everybody will bring his provisions down into the street and eat as one family with his neighbor; on décadi all are to sing and dance together, pell-mell, in the temple of the Supreme being. The decrees of the Convention and the orders of the representatives impose the republican cockade on women; public opinion and example impose on men the costume and appearance of sans-culottes we see even dandies wearing mustaches, long hair, red cap, vest and heavy wooden shoes.21114 Nobody calls a person Monsieur or Madame; the only titles allowed are citoyen and citoyenne while thee and Thou is the general rule. Rude familiarity takes the place of monarchical politeness; all greet each other as equals and comrades.21115 There is now only one tone, one style, one language; revolutionary forms constitute the tissue of speech, as well as of written discourse; thought now seems to consists entirely of our ideas and phrases.21116 All names are transformed, those of months and of days, those of places and of monuments, baptismal names and names of families: St. Denis has become Franciade; Peter Gaspard is converted into Anaxagoras, and Antoine-Louis into Brutus; Leroi, the deputy, calls himself Laloi, and Leroy, the jurist, calls himself August-Tenth.—By dint of thus shaping the exterior we reach the interior, and through outward civism we prepare internal civism. Both are obligatory, but the latter much more so than the former; for that is the fundamental principle,21117 "the incentive which sustains and impels a democratic and popular government." It is impossible to apply the social contract if everybody does not scrupulously observe the first clause of it, namely, the complete surrender of himself to the community; everybody, then, must give himself up entirely, not only actually but heartily, and devote himself to the public good, which public good is the regeneration of Man as we have defined it. The veritable citizen is he who thus marches along with us. With him, as with us, abstract truths of philosophy control the conscience and govern the will. He starts with our articles of faith and follows them out to the end; he endorses our acts, he recites our creed, he observes our discipline, he is a believing and practicing Jacobin, an orthodox Jacobin, unsullied, and without taint of heresy or schism. Never does he swerve to the left toward exaggeration, nor to the right toward toleration; without haste or delay he travels along the narrow, steep and straight path which we have marked out for him; this is the pathway of reason, for, as there is but one reason, there is but one pathway. Let no one swerve from the line; there are abysses on each side of it. Let us follow our guides, men of principles, the pure, especially Couthon, Saint-Just and Robespierre; they are choice specimens, all cast in the true mold, and it is this unique and rigid mold in which all French men are to be recast.

2101 (return)
[ This and the following text are taken from the "Contrat-Social" by Rousseau. Cf. "The ancient Régime," book III., ch.. IV.]

2102 (return)
[ This idea, so universally prevalent and precocious, is uttered by Mirabeau in the session of the 10th of August, 1789. (Buchez et Roux, II., 257.) "I know of but three ways of maintaining one's existence in society, and these are to be either a beggar, a robber or a hireling. The proprietor is himself only the first of hirelings. What we commonly call his property is nothing more than the pay society awards him for distributing amongst others that which is entrusted to him to distribute through his expenses and through what he consumes; proprietors are the agents, the stewards of the social body."]

2103 (return)
[ Report by Roland, January 6, 1793, and by Cambon, February 1, 1793.]

2104 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 311. Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year II., and decree in conformity therewith.]

2105 (return)
[ Decree of 13 Brumaire, year II.—Report by Cambon, Feb. 1, 1793. Cambon estimates the property alone of the order of Malta and of the colleges at four hundred million livres.]

2106 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 419 and 486. Reports by Cambon, Brumaire 22 and Frimaire 1st, year II. "Let us begin with taking possession of the leased domains, notwithstanding preceding laws."]

2108 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," II., 19. Moniteur, XVIII., 565. (Report by Cambon, 11 Frimaire, year II.) Requested to do so by a popular club of Toulouse, the department of Haute-Garonne has ordered all possessors of articles in gold or silver to bring them to the treasuries of their districts to be exchanged for assignats. This order has thus far brought into the Toulouse treasury about one million five hundred thousand or one million six hundred thousand livres in gold and silver. The same at Montauban and other places. "Several of our colleagues have even decreed the death penalty against whoever did not bring their gold and silver within a given time."]

2109 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF. II., 106. (Order by representative Beauchamp, l'Isle Jourdan, Pluviose 2, year II.) "All blue and green cloaks in the departments of Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Landes, Gers and others, are put in requisition from the present day. Every citizen possessing blue or green cloaks is required to declare them at the depot of municipality or other locality where he may chance to be." If not, he is considered "suspect" is treated as such.—Ibid., AF.II., 92 (Order issued by Taillefer, Brumaire 3, year II., at Villefranche-l'Aveyron).—De Martel, "Etude sur Fouché," 368. (Order by Fouché, Collot d'Herbois and Delaporte: Lyons, Brumaire 21, year II.)—Moniteur, XVIII., 384. (Session of 19th Brumaire. Letter of Barras and Fréron, dated at Marseilles.)—Moniteur XVIII., 513 (Orders by Lebon and Saint-Just, at Strasbourg, Brumaire 24 and 25, year II.) Letter of Isoré to the minister Bouchotte, November 4, 1793. (Legros, "La Revolution telle qu'elle est.") The principle of these measures was laid down by Robespierre in his speech on property (April 24, 1793), and in his declaration of rights unanimously adopted by the Jacobin Club (Buchez et Roux, XXVI., 93 and 130).]

2111 (return)
[ Report by Cambon, Pluviose 3, year III., p.3. "One fifth of the active population is employed in the common defense."—Decree of May 12, and Aug. 23, 1793.—Decree of November 22, 1793.—Order of the Directory, October 18, 1798.]

2112 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX., 631. Decree of Ventôse 14, year II. Archives Nationales, D.SI., 10. (Orders by representatives Delacroix, Louchet and Legendre; Pont-Audemer, Frimaire 14, year II.)—Moniteur, XVIII, 622.—(Decree of Frimaire 18, year II.)]

2113 (return)
[ Lenin must have read Taine's text during his long studious stay in Paris. He and Stalin did, in any case try to let the USSR function in accordance with such central allocated planning. (SR.)]

2114 (return)
[ Decree of 15-18 Floréal, year II. Decree of September 29, 1793, (in which forty objects of prime necessity are enumerated.—Article 9 decrees three days imprisonment against workmen and manufacturers who "without legitimate reason, shall refuse to do their ordinary task."—Decrees of September 16 and 20, 1793, and that of September 11, articles 16,19, 20 and 21.]

2115 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF. II., III. Order of the representative Ferry; Bourges, 23 Messidor, year II.—Ibid., AF. II., 106. Order of the representative Dartigoyte, Auch, Prairial 18, year II.]

2117 (return)
[ Gouvion Saint Cyr, "Mémoires sur les campagnes de 1792 à la paix de Campo-Formio," I., 91-109: "Promotion, which every one feared at this time."... Ibid. 229. "Men who had any resources obstinately held aloof from any kind of advancement." Archives Nationales, DS. I, 5. (Mission of representative Albert in L'Aube and La Marne, and especially the order issued by Albert, Chalons, Germinal 7, year III., with the numerous petitions of judges and town officers soliciting their removal.—Letter of the painter Gosse (published in Le Temps, May 31, 1872), which is very curious, showing the trials of those in private life during the Revolution: "My father was appointed charity commissioner and quartermaster for the troops; at the time of the Reign of Terror it would have been imprudent to have refused any office"—Archives Nationales, F7, 3485. The case of Girard Toussaint, notary at Paris, who "fell under the sword of the law, Thermidor 9, year II." This Girard, who was very liberal early in the revolution, was president of his section in 1789, but, after the 10th of August, he had kept quiet. The committee of the section of the "Amis de la Patrie," "considering that citizen Girard.... came forward only at the time when the court and Lafayette prevailed against the sans-culottes;" that, "since equality was established by the Revolution he has deprived his fellow citizens of his knowledge, which, in a revolution, is criminal, unanimously agree that the said citizen is "suspect" and order "him to be sent to the Luxembourg."]

2118 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, "Histoire de la Constitution civile du clergé," IV., 131, 135. (Orders issued by Dartigoyte and de Pinet).—"Recueil de pieces authentiques serrant à l'histoire de la révolution à Strasbourg." Vol. I. p. 230. (Speech by Schneider at Barr, for marrying the patriot Funck.) Schneider, it appears, did still better on his own account. (Ibid., 317).]

2119 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 160. (Report of Saint-Just, October 20, 1793.) "You have to punish not only traitors, but even the indifferent; you must punish all in the Republic who are passive and do nothing for it."]

2120 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 338. Report of the Convention on the theory of democratic government, by Billaud-Varennes (April 20, 1794).]

2121 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 270. Report by Robespierre, on the principles which should guide the National Convention in the internal administration of the Republic, February 5, 1794.—Cf. "The ancient Régime," 227-230, the ideas of Rousseau, of which those of Robespierre are simply a recast.]

2122 (return)
[ Ibid., 270.—The pretension of reforming men's sentiments is found in all the programs. Ibid., 305. (Report of Saint-Just, February 26, 1794.) "Our object is to create an order of things establishing a universal inclination toward the good, and to have factions immediately hurled upon the scaffold." Ibid., 337. (Report of Saint-Just, March 13, 1794.—Ibid., 337. (Report of Saint-Just, March 13, 1794.) "We see but one way of arresting the evil, and that is to convert the revolution into a civil power and wage war on every species of perversity, as designedly created amongst us for the enervation of the republic."]

2123 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXV., 276. (Institutions, by Saint-Just.—Ibid., 287.)—Moniteur, XVIII., 343. Meeting of the Jacobin Club, Brumaire 13, year II., speech by Baudot.]

2124 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXIX, 142. (Speech by Jean Bon St. André in the Convention, Sep. 25, 1793.) "We are said to exercise arbitrary power, we are charged with being despots. We, despots!... Ah, no doubt, if despotism is to secure the triumph of liberty, such a despotism is political regeneration." (Applause.)—Ibid, XXXI., 276. (Report by Robespierre, Pluviose 17, year, II.) "It has been said that terror is the incentive of despotic government. Does yours, then, resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword which flashes in the hands of the heroes of liberty, resembles that with which the satellites of tyranny are armed..... The government of the Revolution is the despotism of freedom against tyranny."]

2125 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXII, 353. Decree of April 1791. "The Convention declares, that, supported by the virtues of the French people, it will insure the triumph of the democratic revolution and show no pity in punishing its enemies."]

2126 (return)
[ In the following portrayal of the ancient régime, the bombast and credulity of the day overflows in the most extravagant exaggerations (Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 300, Report, by Saint-Just, February 26, 1794.): "In 1788, Louis XVI. Caused eight thousand persons of both sexes and of every age to be sacrificed in the rue Meslay and on the Pont-Neuf. These scenes were repeated by the court on the Champs de Mars; the court had hangings in the prisons, and the bodies of the drowned found in the Seine were its victims. These were four hundred thousand prisoners in confinement; fifteen thousand smugglers were hung in a year, and three thousand men were broken on the wheel; there were more prisoners in Paris than there are now... Look at Europe. There are four millions of people shut up in Europe whose shrieks are never heard."—Ibid., XXIV., 132. (Speech by Robespierre, May 10, 1793). "Up to this time the art of governing has simply consisted in the art of stripping and subduing the masses for the benefit of the few, and legislation, the mode of reducing these outrages to a system."]

2127 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 353. (Report by Robespierre to the Convention, May 7, 1794.) "Nature tells us that man is born for freedom while the experience of man for centuries shows him a slave. His rights are written in his heart and history records his humiliation."]

2128 (return)
[ Ibid., 372. "Priests are to morality what charlatans are to medical practice. How different is the God of nature from the God of the priests! I know of nothing which is so much like atheism as the religions they have manufactured." Already, in the Constituent Assembly, Robespierre wanted to prevent the father from endowing a child. "You have done nothing for liberty if yours laws do not tend to diminish by mild and effective means the inequality of fortunes." (Hamel, I., 403.)]

2129 (return)
[ Decree of Frimaire 18, year II.—Note the restrictions: "The convention, in the foregoing arrangement, has no idea of derogating from any law or precaution for public safety against refractory or turbulent priests, or against those who might attempt to abuse the pretext of religion in order to compromise the cause of liberty. Nor does it mean to disapprove of what has thus far been done by virtue of the ordinances of representatives of the people, nor to furnish anybody with a pretext for unsettling patriotism and relaxing the energy of public spirit."]

2130 (return)
[ Decrees of May 27, and August 26, 1792, March 18, April 21 and October 20, 1793, April 11, and May 11, 1794.—Add (Moniteur, XIX., 697) the decree providing for the confiscation of the possessions of ecclesiastics "who have voluntarily left or been so reported, who are retired as old or inform, or who have preferred transportation to retirement."—Ibid., XVIII., 492, (session of Frimaire 2). A speech by Forester. "As to the priesthood, its continuation has become a disgrace and even a crime."—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 36. (An order by Lequinio, representative of the people of Charante-Inférieur, la Vendée and Deux-Sèvres, Saintes, Nivose 1, year II.) "In order that freedom of worship may exist in full plenitude it is forbidden to all whom it may concern to preach or write in favor of any form of worship or religious opinion whatsoever." And especially "it is expressly forbidden to any former minister, belonging to any religious sect whatever, to preach, write or teach morality under penalty of being regarded as a suspect and, as such, immediately put under arrest.. .. Every man who undertakes to preach any religious precepts whatsoever is, by that fact, culpable before the people. He violates ... social equality, which does not permit the individual to publicly raise his ideal pretensions above those of his neighbor."]

2131 (return)
[ Ludofic Sciout, "Histoire de la Constitution Civile du clergé," vols. III. and IV., passim.—Jules Sauzay, "Histoire de la persécution révolutionaire dans le Doubs," vols. III., IV., V., and VI., particularly the list, at the end of the work, of those deported, guillotined, sent into the interior and imprisoned.]

2132 (return)
[ Order of the day of the Convention September 17, 1792; circular of the Executive Council, January 22, 1793; decrees of the Convention, July 19, August 12, September 17, November 15, 1793.—Moniteur, October, and November, 1793, passim. (November 23, Order of the Paris Commune, closing the churches.)—In relation to the terror the constitutional priests were under, I merely give the following extracts (Archives Nationales, F7,31167): "Citizen Pontard, bishop of the department of Dordogne, lodging in the house of citizen Bourbon, No. 66 faubourg Saint-Honoré, on being informed that there was an article in a newspaper called "le Republican" stating that a meeting of priests had been held in the said house, declares that he had no knowledge of it; that all the officers in charge of the apartments are in harmony with the Revolution; that, if he had had occasion to suspect such a circumstance, he would have move out immediately, and that if any motive can possibly be detected in such a report it is his proposed marriage with the niece of citizen Caminade, an excellent patriot and captain of the 9th company of the Champs-Elysées section, a marriage which puts an end to fanaticism in his department, unless this be done by the ordination of a priest à la sans-culotte which he had done yesterday in the chapel, another act in harmony with the Revolution. It is well to add, perhaps, that one of his curés now in Paris has called on him, and that he came to request him to second his marriage. The name of the said curé is Greffier Sauvage; he is still in Paris, and is preparing to be married the same time as himself. Aside from these motives, which may have given rise to some talk, citizen Pontard sees no cause whatever for suspicion. Besides, so thoroughly patriotic as he, he asks nothing better than to know the truth, in order to march along unhesitatingly in the revolutionary path. He sighs his declaration, promising to support the Revolution on all occasions, by his writings as well as by his conduct. He presents the two numbers of his journal which he has had printed in Paris in support of the principles he adheres to. At Paris, September 7, 1793, year II. Of the Republic, one and indivisible. F. Pontard, bishop of the Republic in the department of Dordogne."—Dauban La Demagogie en 1793, p. 557. Arrest of representative Osselin, letter his brother, curé of Saint-Aubin, to the committee of section Mutius Scoevola, Brumaire 20, year II.,"Like Brutus and Mutius Scoevola, I trample on the feelings with which I idolised my brother! O, truth, thou divinity of republicans, thou knowest the incorruptibility of may intentions!" (and so on for fifty-three lines). "These are my sentiments, I am fraternally, Osselin, minister of worship at Saint-Aubin."—P.S. "It was just as I was going to answer a call of nature that I learned this afflicting news." (He keeps up this bombast until words fail him, and finally, frightened to death, and his brain exhausted, he gives this postscript to show that he was not an accomplice.)]

2133 (return)
[ A term denoting the substitution of ten instead of seven days as a division of time in the calendar, and forced into use during the Revolution.]

2134 (return)
[ "Recuil de pieces authentiques servant à l'histoire de la revolution à Strasbourg," II., 299. (A district order.)]

2135 (return)
[ Later, when Lenin and Stalin resurrected Jacobinism, they placed the headquarters of any subversive movement outside the country where it operated. (SR.)]

2136 (return)
[ Thermidor refers to the a very important day and event during the French Revolution: the day Robespierre fell: Thermidor 9, year II, (July 27, 1794), Robespierre's fall, effective the 10, was prepared by his adversaries, Tallien, Barras, Fouché etc., essentially because they feared for their lives. Robespierre and 21 of his followers were executed on the evening of the 10th of Thermidor year II. (SR.).]

2137 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, IV., 426. (Instructions sent by the Directory to the National Commissions, Frimaire, year II.)—Ibid., ch. X. to XVIII.]

2138 (return)
[ Ibid., IV., 688.An order of the Director, Germinal 14, year VI.—"The municipal governments will designate special days in each decade for market days in their respective districts, and not allow, in any case, their ordinance to be set aside on the plea that the said market days would fall on a holiday. They will specially strive to break up all connection between the sales of fish and days of fasting designated on the old calendar. Every person exposing food or wares on sale in the markets on days other than those fixed by the municipal government will be prosecuted in the police court for obstructing a public thoroughfare."—The Thermidorians remain equally as anti-Catholic as their predecessors; only, they disavow open persecution and rely on slow pressure. (Moniteur, XIII., 523. Speech by Boissy d'Anglas, Ventôse 3, year II.) "Keep an eye on what you cannot hinder; regulate what you cannot prohibit.... It will not be long before these absurd dogmas, the offspring of fear and error, whose influence on the human mind has been so steadily destructive, will be known only to be despised.... It will not be long before the religion of Socrates, of Marcus Aurelius and Cicero will be the religion of the whole world."]

2139 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVI., 646. (The King's trial.) Speech by Robespierre: "the right of punishing the tyrant and of dethroning him is one and the same thing."—Speech by Saint-Just: "Royalty is an eternal crime, against which every man has the right of taking up arms... To reign innocently is impossible!"]

2140 (return)
[ Epigraph of Marat's journal: Ute readapt miseries, abet Fortuna superb is.]

2141 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 323. (Report of Saint-Just, Germinal 21, year II., and a decree of Germinal 26-29, Art. 4, 13, 15.)—Ibid., 315.]

2142 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, (Report of Saint-Just, October 10, 1793.) "That would be the only good they could do their country.... It would be no more than just for the people to reign over its oppressors in its turn, and that their pride should be bathed in the sweat of their brows."]

2143 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXI., 309. (Report of Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year II.)]

2144 (return)
[ Ibid., XXVI. 435. (Speech by Robespierre on the constitution, May 10, 1793.) "What were our usages and pretended laws other than a code of impertinence and baseness, where contempt of men was subject to a sort of tariff, and graduated according to regulations as odd as they were numerous? To despise and be despised, to cringe in order to rule, slaves and tyrants in turn, now kneeling before a master, now trampling the people under foot—such was the ambition of all of us, so long as we were men of birth or well educated men, whether common folks or fashionable folks, lawyers or financiers, pettifoggers or wearing swords."—Archives Nationales, F7, 31167. (Report of the observatory Chaumont, Nivôse 10, year II.)—"Boolean's effigy, placed in the college of Lisle, has been lowered to the statues of the saints, the latter being taken out of their niches. There is now no kind of distinction. Saints and authors are of the same class."]

2145 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux., 296. ("Institutions" by Saint-Just.)—Meillan, "Mémoires," p. 17.—Anne Plumptre, "A narrative of three years' residence in France, from 1802 to 1805," II., 96. At Marseilles: "The two great crimes charged on those who doomed to destruction, were here as elsewhere, wealth and aristocracy... It had been decreed by the Terrorists that no person could have occasion for more than two hundred livres a year, and that no income should be permitted to exceed that sum."]

2146 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, F7, 4437. (Address of the people's club of Caisson (Gard), Messidor 7, year II.) "The Bourgeoisie, the merchants, the large land-owners have all the pretension of the ex-nobles. The law provides no means for opening the eyes of the common people in relation to these new tyrants. The club desires that the revolutionary tribunal should be empowered to condemn this proud class of individuals to a prompt partial confinement. The people would then see that they had committed a misdemeanor and would withdraw that sort of respect in which they hold them." A note in the hand-writing of Couthon: "Left to the decision of popular commissions."]

2147 (return)
[ Gouvernor Morris, in a letter of January 4, 1796, says that French capitalists have been financially ruined by assignats, and physically by the guillotine.—Buchez et Roux, XXX., 26. (Notes written by Robespierre in June, 1793.) "Internal dangers come from the bourgeois... who are our enemies? The vicious and the rich."]

2148 (return)
[ Narrative by M. Sylvester de Sacy (May 23, 1873): His father owned a farm bringing in four thousand francs per annum; the farmer offered him four thousand francs in assignats or a hog; M. de Sacy took the hog.]

2149 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 441. (Report by Cambon on the institution of the grand livre of public debt, August 15, 1793.)]

2150 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXI., 311. Report by Saint-Just, February 26, 1794, and decree in accordance therewith, unanimously adopted. See, in particular, article 2.—Moniteur, 12 Ventôse, year II. (meeting of the Jacobin club, speech by Collot d'Herbois). "The Convention has declared that prisoners must prove that they were patriots from the 1st of May 1789. When the patriots and enemies of the Revolution shall be fully known, then the property of the former shall be inviolable and held sacred, while that of the latter will be confiscated for the benefit of the republic."]

2151 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXVI., 455 (Session of the Jacobin Club, May 10, 1793, speech by Robespierre.)—Ibid., (Report by Saint-Just, Feb. 26, 1794.) "He who has shown himself an enemy of his country cannot be one of its proprietors. Only he has patrimonial rights who has helped to free it."]

2152 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 93 and 130. (Speech by Robespierre on property, and the declaration of rights adopted by the Jacobin club.) Decree of Sept. 3, 1793 (articles 13 and 14).]

2153 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII., 719. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.) "At Bordeaux Raba has been sentenced to pay a fine of 1,200,000 francs, Pechotte to pay 500,000 francs, Martin-Martin to 300,000 francs."—Cf. Rodolphe Reuss, "Séligmann Alexandre ou les Tribulations d'un israélite de Strasbourg."]

2154 (return)
[ Ibid., XVIII., 486. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 1, year II.) "The egotists who, some time ago, found it difficult to pay for the national domains they had acquired from the Republic, even in assignats, now bring us their gold... Collectors of the revenue who had buried their gold have come and offered to pay what they owe the nation in ingots of gold and silver. These have been refused, the Assembly having decreed the confiscation of these objects."]

2155 (return)
[ Decree of Brumaire 23, year II. On taxes and confiscations in the provinces see M. de Martel, "Etude sur Fouché et Pieces authentiques servant à l'histoire de la revolution à Strasbourg." And further on the details of this operation at Troyes.—Meillan, 90: "At Bordeaux, merchants were heavily taxed, not on account of their incivism, but on account of their wealth."]

2157 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 274, decrees of Brumaire 4, and ibid, 305, decree of Brumaire 9, year II., establishing equal partition of inheritances with retroactive effect to July 14, 1789. Adulterous bastards are excepted. The reporter of the bill, Cambacèrés, laments this regrettable exception.]

2158 (return)
[ Rights of inheritance allowed to the descendants of a deceased person who never enjoyed these rights, but who might have enjoyed them had he been living when they fell to him.—Tr.]

2159 (return)
[ Fenet, "Travaux du Code civil." (Report by Cambacèrés on the Code civil, August 9, 1793). The spokesman for the committee that had framed the bill makes excuses for not having deprived the father of all the disposable portion. "The committee believed that such a clause would seriously violate our customs without being of any benefit to society or of any moral advantage. We assured ourselves, moreover, that there should always be a division of property." With respect to donations: "It is repugnant to all ideas of beneficence to allow donations to the rich. Nature is averse to the making of such gifts so long as our eyes dwell on misery and misfortune. These affecting considerations have determined us to fix a point, a sort of maximum, which prohibits gifts on the part of those who have reached that point."]

2160 (return)
[ Moniteur, XII., 730, (June 22, 1792), speech by Lamarque.—But this principle is encountered everywhere. "Equality, indeed, (is) the final aim of social art." (Condorcet, 'Tableau des progrès de l'esprit humain," II., 59.—"We desired," writes Baudot, "to apply to politics the equality which the Gospel awards to Christians." (Quinet, "Revolution Française, II., 407.)]

2161 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXV, 296 (The words of Saint-Just.)—Moniteur, XVIII, 505 (Ordinance of the Paris Commune, Frimaire 3, year II). "Wealth and Poverty must alike disappear under the régime of equality."]

2162 (return)
[ Ib. XXXV, 296 ("Institutions" by Saint-Just). "A man is not made for trades, nor for a workhouse nor for an alms-house; all this is frightful."—Ibid., XXXI., 312. (Report of Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year II.) "Let all Europe see that you will not allow a miserable man on French territory!... Happiness is a new idea in Europe."]

2164 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX, 444 ( Report by Barère, Floreal 22, year II). "Mendicity is incompatible with popular government."]

2167 (return)
[ Ibid., XIX., 568. (Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, and decree of Ventôse 13.) "The Committee of Public Safety will report on the means of indemnifying the unfortunate with property belonging to the enemies of the Revolution."]

2168 (return)
[ Ibid., XIX., 484. (Report by Barère, Ventôse 21, year II.)—Ibid., XX., 445. (Report by Barère, Floréal 22, year II.)—Decrees on public assistance, June 28, 1793, July 25, 1793, Frimaire 2, and Floréal 22, year II.)—this principle, moreover, was set forth in the Constitution of 1793. "Public help is a sacred obligation; society owes a subsistence to unfortunate citizens, whether by providing work for them, or by ensuring the means of existence to those who are not in a condition to work."—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 39. The character of this measure is very clearly expressed in the following circular of the Committee of Public Safety to its representatives on mission in the departments, Ventôse, year II. "A summary act was necessary to put the aristocracy down. The national Convention has struck the blow. Virtuous indigence had to recover the property which crime had encroached upon. The national Convention has proclaimed its rights. A general list of all prisoners should be sent to the Committee of General Security, charged with deciding on their fate. The Committee of Public Safety will receive the statement of the indigent in each commune so as to regulate what is due to them. Both these proceedings demand the utmost dispatch and should go together. It is necessary that terror and justice be brought to bear on all points at once. The Revolution is the work of the people and it is time they should have the benefit of it."]

2171 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 505. (Orders of Fouché and Collet d'Herbois, dated at Lyons and communicated to the commune of Paris, Frimaire 3, year II.)—De Martel, "Etude sur Fouché," 132. Orders of Fouché on his mission in the Nievre, Sept. 19, 1793. "There shall be established in each district town a Committee of Philanthropy, authorized to levy on the rich a tax proportionate to the number of the indigent."]

2172 (return)
[ Decree of April 2-5, 1793. "There shall be organized in each large commune a guard of citizens selected from the least fortunate. These citizens shall be armed and paid at the expense of the Republic."]

2174 (return)
[ Ibid., XIX., 689. (Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 23, year II.) "We spoke of happiness. It is not the happiness of Persepolis we have offered to you. It is that of Sparta or Athens in their best days, the happiness of virtue, that of comfort and moderation, the happiness which springs from the enjoyment of the necessary without the superfluous, the luxury of a cabin and of a field fertilized by your own hands. A cart, a thatched roof affording shelter from the frosts, a family safe from the lubricity of a robber—such is happiness!"]

2177 (return)
[ Ibid., XXVI., 93 and 131. (Speech by Robespierre on property, April 24, 1793, and declaration of rights adopted by the Jacobin Club.)—Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," I., 401. (Address of a deputation from Gard.) "Material wealth is no more the special property of any one member of the social body than base metal stamped as a circulating medium."]

2178 (return)
[ Moniteur, VIII., 452. (Speech by Hébert in the Jacobin Club, Brumaire 26, year II.) "Un Séjour en France de 1792 à 1795," p.218. (Amiens, Oct. 4, 1794.) "While waiting this morning at a shop door I overheard a beggar bargaining for a slice of pumpkin. Unable to agree on the price with the woman who kept the shop he pronounced her 'corrupted with aristocracy.' 'I defy you to prove it!' she replied. But, as she spoke, she turned pale and added, 'Your civism is beyond all question—but take your pumpkin.' 'Ah,' returned the beggar, 'what a good republican!'"]

2179 (return)
[ Ibid., XVIII., 320. (Meeting of Brumaire 11, year II. Report by Barère.)—Meillan, 17. Already, before the 31st May: "The tribune resounded with charges against monopoly, every man being a monopolist who was not reduced to living on daily wages or on alms."]

2180 (return)
[ Decrees of July 26, 1793, Sept. 11 and 29; Brumaire 11, and Ventôse 6, year II.]

2181 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 359. "Brumaire 16, year II. Sentence of death of Pierre Gourdier, thirty-six years of age, stock-broker, resident in Paris, rue Bellefond, convicted of having monopolized and concealed in his house a large quantity of bread, in order to bread scarcity in the midst of abundance." He had gastritis and could eat nothing but panada made with toast, and the baker who furnished this gave him thirty pieces at a time (Wallon, II., 155).]

2182 (return)
[ Journal of the debates of the Jacobin Club, No. 532, Brumaire 20, year II. (Plan of citizen Dupré, presented in the Convention by a deputation of the Arcis Club.)—Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p. 483 (a project similar to the former, presented to the Committee of Public Safety by the Jacobin Club of Montereau, Thermidor, year II.)]

2183 (return)
[ These proposals should come to haunt western civilization for a long time. (SR.)]

2185 (return)
[ These ideas were still powerful even before Taine wrote these words in 1882. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations cites a declaration made by 47 anarchists on trial after their uprising in Lyons in 1870: "We wish, in a word, equality—equality in fact as corollary, or rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs; that is what we wish sincerely and energetically."]

2186 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 273, (Report by Robespierre, Pluviôse17, year II. (7 Feb. 1794).]

2187 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX (Rapport by Barère, Ventôse 21, an II). "You should detect and combat federalism in all your institutions, as your natural enemy....A grand central establishment for all the work of the Republic is an effective means against federalism."—Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 351, et XXXII, 316 (Rapports by Saint-Just, Ventôse 23 et Germinal 26, year II). "Immorality is a federalism in the civil state...Civil federalism, by isolating all parts of the state, has dried up abundance."]

2188 (return)
[ Decree of Germinal 26-29, year II. "Financial companies are and hereby remain suppressed. All bankers, commission merchants, and other persons, are forbidden to form any establishment of this order under any pretext or under any denomination."]

2189 (return)
[ "Memoires de Carnot," I., 278 (Report by Carnot). "That is not family life. If there are local privileges there will soon be individual privileges and local aristocracy will bring along in its train the aristocracy of inhabitants."]

2190 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX., 683 (Rapport by Barère, Ventôse 21, year II).—This report should be read in full to comprehend the communistic and centralizing spirit of the Jacobins. (Undoubtedly Lenin, during his years in Paris, had read Taine's footnote and asked the national library for a copy of this rapport. SR.)]

VIII. Indoctrination of mind and intellect.