Goodness Beyond Virtue: Jacobins During the French Revolution 0674470613, 9780674470613

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
Introduction
1. A Narrative of the French Revolution from a Jacobin Perspective
2. The Limitless Claims of Individual Liberty
3. The Indisputable Claims of Civil Society
4. The Limitless Claims of the Public Sphere
5. The Indisputable Claims of the Nation
6. Jacobins as the Free Citizens of a One-Party State
7. Social Reconciliation: Fraternity
8. Spreading the Word: Rhetorics of Harmony
9. Unifying Enmities at Home and Abroad
10. Applied Jacobinism: The Social Ecologies of Jacobin Principle
11. Looking Backward: On the Origins of Jacobin Sensibility
12. Looking Forward: Jacobinism in World History
Notes
Index

Citation preview

Goodness beyond Virtue

Goodness beyond Virtue Jacobins during the French Revolution

Patrice Higonnet

Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 19 9 8

About the cover: Jean-Baptiste Regnault’s Liberty or Death was painted during the Terror of 1793-1794 and was presented in the 1795 salon. The Genius of France, borne aloft by faintly tricolor wings, hovers in allegorically universal space far above the terrestrial globe. Opposite a blackened Death sits the serene, white-robed Ja ­ cobin Republic with bundled Roman fasces at her feet. In one hand, she holds the sans-culottes’ favored cap, the phrygian bonnet of lib­ erty, worn in ancient times by emancipated slaves. With the other, she lifts a masonic triangle, a symbol of equality. She rests on steps that lead perhaps to a celestial tribune the likes of which was used by orators in clubs and Convention alike. Innocent and Christlike, the naked Genius smilingly urges the virtuous but hesitant citizen-spectator to choose between Jacobin liberty and death, between good and evil.

Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library o f Congress Cataioging-in-Publication Data Higonnet, Patrice L. R. Goodness beyond virtue : Jacobins during the French Revolution / Patrice Higonnet. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-674-47061-3 (cloth : alk. paper). ISBN 0-674-47062-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) i . Jacobins—France. 2. France—History—Revolution, 17 8 9 -17 9 9 — Societies, etc. I. Title. D C 178.H 54 1998 944.04—dczi 9 8 -10 18 7

To the memory o f Clarence Crane Brinton, my predecessor in the teaching o f the French Revolution at H arvard University

Crane Brinton w as born in W insted, Connecticut, in 18 9 8 , the son o f Eva Josephine Crane and Clarence H aw thorne Brinton. Educated in public prim ary and secondary schools, he entered H arvard College in 19 15 and graduated summa cum laude in 19 19 . H e received his doctorate at O xford in 19 2 6 . H is book The Ja ­ cobins: A Study in the New History, a w ork o f enduring value that is often cited in these pages, w as published in 19 3 0 . A W ilsonian dem ocrat, Brinton had an abiding detestation o f the use o f force in dom estic and international affairs. Throughout his life, he rem ained loyal, in his ow n w ords, to “ the basic belief o f m y youth in the rightness . . . o f human reason.” D uring the Second W orld W ar, Crane Brinton served in the O ffice o f Strategic Ser­ vices. A w ise and learned m an, invariably polite and kind, Crane Brinton died, bravely, after a long illness in 19 6 8 .

Acknowledgments

M y thanks go to current and former students who were kind enough to read this book in manuscript: David Bell, Erika Dreifus, Christina Jurgens, Jerem y Kleiner, Gerard Livesey, Edouard M etrailler, Jerem y Popkin, M ichael Puri, Joel Rainey, Ron Schechter, and Celia W hitaker. I am grateful also to those colleagues and friends who took time to read all or some o f these pages: Keith Baker, Seyla Benhabib, Arthur Goldhammer, Anne Higonnet, Edward Keenan, Joan Landes, Richard Pipes, and Paolo V iola. I am especially grateful to Steven Kaplan for a detailed and informed reading. I owe a great deal—more than I should!—to Elizabeth Hurwit’s patient and invariably insightful editorial comments. M argaret Higonnet w ill find in the more thoughtful pages o f this book the echoes o f her own voice.

Contents

Introduction 1

1

A N arrative o f the French Revolution from a Jacobin Perspective

2 The Lim itless Claim s o f Individual Liberty

30 76

3 The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

101

4

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

125

5

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

144

6 Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

165

7

Social Reconciliation: Fraternity

183

8

Spreading the W ord: Rhetorics o f H arm ony

210

9 U nifying Enm ities at Hom e and A broad

240

10 Applied Jacobinism : The Social Ecologies o f Jacob in Principle

259

11

Looking Backw ard: O n the O rigins o f Jacob in Sensibility

289

12

Looking Forw ard: Jacobinism in W orld H istory

325

N otes

337

Index

379

H istory is the “ Place L a M orgue” where everyone seeks the dead kinsm en o f his heart. Jean-Paul Richter

Introduction What a terrible illusion it is to have to recognize and sanction in the rights o f man, modem bourgeois society, the society o f industry, o f uni* versal competition, o f private interest freely pursuing its aims o f anar­ chy, o f self-estranged natural and spiritual individuality, and at the same time to want to annul the manifestations o f the life o f this society in particular individuals and simultaneously to want to model the politi­ cal head o f that society in the manner o f antiquity. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family

/ / acobinism’s doubled message was o f individual becoming and altruistic involvement. Its core belief was that mankind could best realize its true self in the politicized context o f a universalist republic. Only in that ideal set­ ting could men and women, as individuals in their own right, fully become what nature and reason wished for them to be, namely, the free and active citizens o f a harmonious state. Jacobins praised heroes who had found themselves in universalist sacrifice on behalf o f a nation, humanity, or some imagined and enlightened community, for some truth larger than themselves. Jacobins easily experienced that spontaneous empathy which Rousseau described as the surest foundation o f virtuous sensibility. O f course, this book treats Jacobinism ’s decay into terrorism. But it re­ jects the idea that the essence o f Jacobin politics culminated in the immoral and useless Terror o f 17 9 3 -9 4 . It holds that Jacobinism can still be a model for modern democrats. It grants that the Jacobins’ terroristic choices were not fortuitous. Ja ­ cobins not only invented positive verbal and iconographie vocabularies o f

z

♦

Introduction

freedom and conciliation, they also concocted negative themes o f persecu­ tion that any fool might easily understand. A ll Jacobin patriotes some o f the time (and some, no doubt, all o f the time) were more intent on hound­ ing counterrevolutionary, and often mythical, aristocrates than on assert­ ing enlightened principles o f civility. Nonetheless, this book downplays the causal relevance o f terroristic mythologizing to Jacobin thought and action. The Jacobins’ drift to terror had less to do with either the excluding words o f Rousseau or the need to find practical solutions to immediate problems (such as w ar, civil w ar, and inflation) than with unthinking and intolerant instincts whose roots were buried in the depths o f their unconscious selves. Jacobins were enlightened libertarians who to their own uncomprehend­ ing dismay found themselves reenacting a past o f persecution that they des­ perately wanted to deny. They experienced as a living nightmare what the great counterrevolutionaries o f their times, Burke and de M aistre, fanta­ sized as a beloved dream: that the memory o f age-old values would prove stronger than the appeal o f universalizing reason. In the beginning, then, the Jacobins manifested a doubled and reconcil­ able but also unstable inspiration, at once individualistic and communitar­ ian. It is important to keep this division—and instability—in mind because it sets up the fram ework o f the two basic dimensions o f Jacobinism ’s history. First, as a divided ideology Jacobinism was inherently conditioned to se­ crete rhetorics o f reconciliation and compensatory enmities. Precisely be­ cause their worldview was dualistic Jacobins instinctively developed images o f togetherness, as well as unalloyed (and unifying) detestations o f those who refused their proffered friendship. Second, Jacobins automatically as­ sumed that Jacobinism could not stand still. Because its fragile and de­ manding nature did not allow for negotiation, because all problems as they arose were to be resolved ideologically and not pragm atically, Jacobin­ ism—thought the Jacobins—would either fall back or move forward. It re­ quired commitment. It could not pause. Time and time again, Jacobin poli­ tics excluded those revolutionaries (Monarchiens in 178 9 , Feuillants in 17 9 1, Girondins in 17 9 3 , Indulgents in 1794) who feared to go further. Depending on the moment, the arguments that were used to exclude did o f course vary in their focus (the monarchy in 17 9 1, the w ar in 17 9 z , the price o f bread in 17 9 3 , the Terror in 179 4). However, we should not place too much importance on any particular reason. Factionalization arose not from

Introduction

♦

3

its varied rationalizations but from a more simple issue: immobilization or dynamism. Would the Feuillants carry the Revolution with or without the king? Would the Gironde agree to deal with the populist sans-culottes or not? What really mattered w as that those Jacobins who reluctantly con­ cluded that the Revolution should stop ceased to be Jacobins; they were in­ stantaneously rejected by their former friends» however politically correct their committed past or their socially minded arguments might be. A las, the cure was worse than the disease. Jacobinism , or so true Ja ­ cobins intuited, had to move forw ard. But when it did so, this ecumenical worldview foundered on the issue o f class and class formation. From its essence, Jacobinism necessarily denied the existence o f class divisions. When these hurdles proved insuperable (as in Lyons in 17 9 3 and in Paris in early 179 4 ), Jacobinism faltered. And when it did so, the punitive instinct o f the Jacobins, derived from long habits o f absolutist politics and intolerant religion, w as to resort to terror. This trend bred even more enemies and served, in the long run, to make Jacobinism 's failure more certain. A red thread runs from Jacobinism 's dual structure, to the perpetual mo­ tion o f revolutionary politics, to the emergence o f class consciousness, and finally to the Terror. It is often (if somewhat exaggeratedly) said that historians, like cuckoos as it were, instinctively place their w ork in frames devised by more noble thinkers for some literary purpose, like epic, romance, comedy, or farce. Taken in that light, the story o f the Jacobins is like a tragedy, its main­ spring an instinctive and self-destructive desire o f the noble-minded to resolve by force the consequences o f contradictory desire and flawed ambition. Ideally, Jacobinism 's four trajectories (ideological, chronological, social, and atavistic) should be addressed on a single front. But we dissect to un­ derstand, and we murder to dissect. T o grasp the wholeness o f Jacobin thought, politics, failures, and solutions, I have disaggregated what a Michelet or a M acaulay would, no doubt, have effortlessly presented as an organic whole. The book therefore begins with an account o f events that tries to trace the Jacobins’ relentless, driving, and excluding pursuit o f their twinned and, at times, contradictory concerns: private rights and public good. But Chapter 1 has other incidental assignments as well. It sets signposts for the general reader. It serves as an introduction for the subsequent presentation

4

♦

Introduction

o f Jacobinism ’s divided ideals. And it also works backward to highlight the hidden agendas o f the Jacobins, which (in my view) a narrative o f events does not reveal directly but nonetheless relentlessly implies, namely, the lurking presence in Jacobin thinking o f both quasi-monarchic authoritari­ anism and quasi-religious, moralizing, and judgmental suspicions o f dis­ sent. In the next four chapters, the text goes on to describe the place o f indi­ vidualism and universalism in the Jacobins’ unformed sensibility before 17 9 0 -9 1 and in their consciously articulated ideology after that. At stake (as argued in Chapter z) were the rights and social space o f private per­ sons, male or female, rich or poor, white or black. Jacobins abolished slav­ ery on February 4, 179 4 . They also assumed the equal right o f women to inherit, rights that were complemented (as discussed in Chapter 3) with the rights and autonomy o f civil society vis-à-vis the state. “ Civil society” is a useful but vexingly fluid and originally Hegelian term. Here, it means those aspects o f social and public life— such as property rights and professional loyalties—that lay between the realm o f the purely private (the fam ily, es­ sentially) and the explicitly political (public institutions o f representation or administration). Chapters 4 and 5 describe the other and universalist half o f the Jacobins’ worldview, which centered on their driving concern for the nation and the public good. O verall, then, the point o f Chapters z through 5 is that Ja ­ cobins—though ensconced in a world o f “ bourgeois” values—were also able to soar above them, from time to time in any case. Jacobins often were at once utopian dreamers o f a kind and, in their day-to-day politics, practi­ cal, hard-hearted, or even cruel men o f affairs who ruled with a rod o f iron. (Why and how that doubled human condition could have come so sharply into being is left to the penultimate pages o f the book.) Chapters 6 through 9 describe the various contradictions and solutions that flowed from the Jacobins’ divided w ay o f looking at the world, simul­ taneously privatist and universalist, involved in the world and indifferent to its calls. A t stake here was the Jacobins’ paradoxical situation as the free-minded servants of a tyrannical, terrorizing state, as universalists who had become terrorists (see Chapter 6). After Jacobinism ’s theory, at once individualist and universalist, comes its increasingly schizophrenic and il­ liberal practice. At stake also were the many solutions the Jacobins instinctively devel­ oped to cope with a view o f life that was at odds with itself. A number o f

Introduction

♦

5

these palliatives were inclusive in their purpose, such as their belief in fa­ m ilial unity and in the natural unity o f creation (described in Chapter 7) or their rhetorics o f reconciliation and harmony (described in Chapter 8). Other stratagems, however, were darkly threatening. Jacobins loved their fellow men; but (as shown in Chapter 9) they also loved to hate the chosen “ enemies o f the people.” In the last chapters o f the book the argument circles back on itself. These pages provide a reflection on the distant causes and effects o f Jacobinism ’s contradictions and decay. In Chapter 10 the book locates a first cause for the breakdown o f Ja ­ cobinism’s fundamentally humane purpose in the differing shapes o f social life that prevailed in the different parts o f France. It moves from place to place but finds a common intersection in the varied interplay o f class for­ mation and Jacobin ideology. For Jacobin thoughts and words were more or less the same everywhere, though with different effects. The text con­ cludes (audaciously, perhaps) that in 17 9 3 -9 4 Jacobin ideology, regardless o f its stated words, worked well in those parts o f France where incipient class lines were muted, and foundered most completely where nascent lines o f class were amplified by revolutionary struggle. There, in Lyons, in Paris, Jacobinism became fierce and terroristic as ancient instincts provided hor­ rendous solutions to unforeseen contention. The penultimate chapter o f the book takes this insight on the social ecol­ ogy o f Jacobinism ’s failures and successes as the start o f a retrospective speculation on Jacobinism ’s close and distant origins in prerevolutionary French ways o f thinking about the relationship o f the self to public author­ ity. It argues that Jacobinism w as bom at a unique sociological moment in the social history o f the Western w orld, a moment set in France (and else­ where) between two points: one marked by the decay o f an older—tradi­ tional and hierarchic—society o f interlocking social orders and estates where the identities o f the king’s subjects were defined by the privileges o f the groups to which they belonged from birth or chance; and the other, or­ ganized around the modem—and warring—principles o f individual rights, divisive class consciousness, and democratic rale. Students o f other national histories w ill readily recognize this accessi­ ble—and even classic—sociological reasoning, since most societies (except for America, perhaps) are said to have moved or be now moving, each in its own w ay, through those selffam e stages, from organicist to mechanistic themes, from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft, from group allegiance to more

6

•

Introduction

individuated forms. (Blessed by the gods, nearly from the start Americans have lived in and conceived o f their society as one without a feudal past.) Chapter n also incorporates a line o f reasoning less sociological than political and cultural. Briefly stated, it argues that when absolutism sagged, gradually at first, after 17 5 0 , and then quite suddenly, in 17 8 7 -17 8 9 , French citizens showed themselves prone to thinking about public life in a unique and moralizing manner. Revolutionary Jacobinism , it asserts (and on faith, to be sure), emerged from this doubled and prerevolutionary con­ text o f classless, sociological transition and “ post-absolutist” definitions o f the private and the public. Regardless o f their wealth and rank, regardless o f circumstance also, Jacobins were moralizing and highly critical citizens who wanted blameless public and private lives to overlap equally and com­ pletely without reference to caste or class. In many w ays, this book follows the recent and brilliant revisionist argument o f François Furet, who saw revolutionary Jacobinism as a selfreferential ideology that moved with little regard to ambient social life. But it tries to extend and modulates that view in two ways. First, it argues that the relevant frame o f Jacobin politics goes beyond a free-floating ideology to involve the wider context o f lived and experienced Jacobin culture as well. In other words, Jacobins’ thinking, as regards both their private and public lives, encompassed not just the realm o f high ideas but also the broadest range o f human feelings, with all the passions that or­ dinary men and women ceaselessly chum over: hope, love, friendship, de­ sire, the joy o f achievement, the fears o f failure, disappointment, solitude, and death. O f course, Jacobinism can be approached (somewhat naively) as the ide­ ology o f a particular class at a particular moment in time or, more daringly and with extreme literary and theoretical sophistication, as a high, discur­ sive statement that moved from one symbolic trope to the next. But in the end, what historians have to say about the Jacobin project w ill have more force, I feel, if their description also brings into play the many yearnings and emotions—spoken and unspoken—that structure our banal, experien­ tial present and our more noble goals as well. T o describe that worldview, I have throughout relied on Jacobins’ own words as often as seemed feasible. About two hundred clubs are mentioned here. Much emphasis is placed in these pages not just on the self-conscious feats and speeches o f the Jacobin “ stars” in Paris, but on the accounts— oc­ casionally unpublished—of provincial Jacobins, that is to say on words

Introduction

♦

7

and facts that are quite mundane but have a ring o f authenticity. In that same frame o f mind, I have often juxtaposed statements o f great and ob­ scure Jacobins in small towns and in the capital. Though Jacobinism was hardly o f a piece, its various insights—and banalities—were, or so it seems to me, different sides o f a single truth. Second, this book departs from revisionist thought by emphasizing the idea that Jacobinism ’s decline into terrorism derived neither from its unde­ niable self-referentiality nor from the obvious contradictions o f Jacobin culture, but from an unconsciously internalized legacy o f intolerance. The Jacobins were voluntary activists, to be sure, but they were also prisoners o f a checkered and rejected past. M any historians w ill flatly deny this positive view o f Jacobinism ’s twinned essence and o f its revolutionary representativity. Looking forw ard, some modem revisionist historians w ill suggest that Ja ­ cobinism was far more lopsided than I have argued here. They w ill surmise that its individualist component w as inconsequential, and that the Jacobins’ decline into terror did not have that much to do with a clerico-monarchic past. They w ill say instead that the Jacobins’ monistic and Rousseauean in­ terpretation o f popular sovereignty fated them to destruction. Looking backward, other historians (less numerous, I believe) w ill argue that the Revolution was well under w ay before Jacobinism ever emerged. They w ill query my view on the overlap o f Jacobinism and L ’Esprit de la Révolution (as ran the title o f a small book written by Saint-Just in 17 9 1). The term “Jacobin,” after all, derives from the nickname that stuck to the Paris club after it leased its headquarters from some Jacobin monks, and this the clubbistes did not do until October 27, 178 9 . (A more serious point might be that there could not really be any Jacobins until the club network had acquired nationwide relevance, which only happened a year after the fall o f the Bastille, if then.) And in a different but equally disbelieving register, many historians who are prim arily interested in visible social forms w ill in one w ay or another insist on the fundamental idea o f M arxian eschatology, namely, that every successive “ class” which (supposedly) came to power between 178 9 and 17 9 3 (liberal nobles in 178 9 , upper middle class in 17 9 1, middle and lower middle class in 17 9 2 -9 3 , and so on) brought forward its own discontinu­ ous brand o f Jacobin ideas, each one strikingly different from the last. In sum, for some historians, we have Jacobinism distinct from the Revo­ lution; for the revisionists, we have Jacobinism as ongoing continuity to­

8

♦

Introduction

ward terror; and for the M arxists, we have any number o f Jacobinism s, each different from the others. By strong contrast, the basic assumption o f this book is that Jacobinism was the quintessence o f a single (if always changing), com plex, divided, but ultimately liberal sensibility—or esprit révolutionnaire—that was superim­ posed on threatening, inherited, and unspoken apprehensions which perniciously denied consciously held principles, and eventually over­ whelmed them. This book also holds that the roots o f Jacobin ideology existed latently as a sensibility before the Revolution, long before Jacobinism found physi­ cal embodiment in the clubs: Jacques-Louis David’s Oath o f the Horatii o f 17 8 5 prefigures 178 9 , just as his portrayal o f Brutus o f early 178 9 is itself a stepping stone toward the High Jacobin painting in late 179 3 o f David’s murdered hero, M arat. John Adams wrote that the American Revolution was first made in the hearts and minds o f the people; that is my view o f Jacobinism as well. Events may well have brought Jacobin sensibility to self-conscious, ideo­ logical crystallization, but they hardly created it. The overall narrative strategy o f this book, then, is to use an introduc­ tory and sequential account of revolutionary politics to highlight the dou­ bled, individuated, and communitarian goals of Jacobin sensibility. A con­ cern for the social and cultural ecology o f Jacobin ideas— both before and after 178 9 —w ill show how these happy tensions became irreconcilable contradiction that brought Jacobinism to catastrophe. M ore than half a century ago the intellectual historian Daniel M om et wrote that the origin o f the Revolution is one story and the history o f the Revolution is another. That is not the view I take. An insistence on the dy­ namic movement o f revolutionary politics, a focus on Jacobinism 's divided goals, a concern for nascent class lines, and a larger need to ruminate on hidden and ancient causes are the sequential frames o f this book. Finally, the last chapter denies the supposed connection o f 178 9 , a glori­ ous revolution, to the dismal Russian Revolution o f October 19 17 . By un­ derstanding the differences between these two revolutionary situations we can grasp better why 178 9 , unlike 19 17 , was a great and inspiring moment o f world history, a moment we should ponder and put to good use in the management o f our own affairs. In sum, we need to separate the nobility o f the Jacobins' message from the flaws, errors, and liabilities o f the Jacobins. Their bungled inception o f

Introduction

♦

9

parliamentary democracy—interesting in itself as a cautionary tale that all democrats should heed—is one thing. But Jacobinism 's complementary and democratic definition o f self and universalist community is something else indeed. If the French Revolution were over, as is often said today, then how dim would become Western culture’s expectation that willed and collective ac­ tion can meaningfully inflect the vast and grinding "im personal forces" which invariably bear down on our isolated private lives. The prospects o f such a failure are so discouraging that they cannot be true. Despite their gruesome failure, we are still today the heirs o f the Ja ­ cobins' hopes and disappointments, even as we see that their fall was fated. In the optic o f this book, to paraphrase Baudelaire, the Jacobins, for bet­ ter and for worse, are our models and our companions, the heralds o f our future, "nos semblables et nos frères."

1 A Narrative o f the French Revolution from a Jacobin Perspective The Revolution! An unutterable word. Who can claim to understand clearly and precisely that set o f events, alternatively glorious and de­ plorable, some o f them the fruit of genius and daring, or again, o f the most respectable integrity, and others bom o f the most perverse iniq­ uity. Jeanbon Saint-André (a member of the Committee of Public Safety)

How can one conceive o f an event like the French Revolution? François Furet, Penser la Révolution française

C T! / narrative o f Jacobinism 's revolutionary trajectory has two as­ signments. It exists in its own right. It aims to give a generally accessible ac­ count o f political unfolding. It emphasizes implicit causes (like cultural instincts or the Jacobins' sense o f the revolutionary dynamic). It does not de­ pend on an explicit but illusorily precise, quasi-theatrical presentation o f events. It remembers that most contemporaries lived the Revolution as an in­ comprehensible experience, as a volcanic eruption or as a torrent, to use an expression favored at the time by the Swiss writer Benjamin Constant and by many others. With hindsight, that is to say, with a knowledge o f the Revolution’s origins and conclusion, we can today present its history in an orderly w ay; but we must remain cautious and modest in our hopes o f recapturing the past “ as it really w as."

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

11

Another more critical assignment—and one that hardly overlaps with the first—is to introduce a thematic understanding o f Jacobinism ’s central problems: What was Jacobinism about? Who was a Jacobin? Why did it decline into terrorism? Was terror inherent in Jacobinism ’s goals? Was the dérapage—or “ sliding out” o f the Revolution—implicit in its ideological structure? Could a great man—M irabeau, for example, had he not died in early 17 9 1— have arrested the drift o f the Revolution in the years 17 9 2 -17 9 4 toward universalism run wild? Or was terror the result o f un­ spoken but painful cultural legacies (as I argue in this book)? In other words, does a clear and logically compelling line run directly from some flaw in the libertarian Declaration o f the Rights o f M an in August 178 9 to Robespierre’s authoritarian rule o f virtuous terror in 179 4? Here the first problem, o f course, is that even the plainest narrative o f the Revolution presupposes antecedent choices. Historians with a basically institutional and political agenda w ill distinguish three phases o f revolu­ tionary history: 1 . The breakdown in June and Ju ly 178 9 o f the old, simultaneously tra­ ditionalist and absolutist monarchy; 2. A constitutional phase in two parts: constitutional monarchism from June 2 0 ,17 8 9 , to August 1 0 ,17 9 2 , when the monarchy w as over­ thrown; and constitutional republicanism from August 17 9 2 to June

1,1793; 3. A democratic authoritarian republic that begins with the exclusion (on June 2 ,17 9 3 ) , travels through the arrest and execution o f the legally elected Girondin deputies, and ends with the fall o f Robes­ pierre on Ju ly 2 7 ,17 9 4 (9 Thermidor, Year II). Historians with a rigorous social agenda have a different scenario. Be­ cause they consider institutions superstructures that both express and con­ ceal deeper social layering, M arxist accounts o f revolutionary politics ordi­ narily identify four phases: 1 . The collapse o f a traditional, hierarchic, rural, and organicist society o f estates in the summer o f 178 9 with the fall o f the Bastille on Ju ly 14 and the abolition o f feudal privileges on the night o f August 4; 2. A fragile and unstable alliance during the years 17 8 9 -17 9 2 o f the en­ tire propertied class dominated by liberal landed nobles and the

12

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

upper-middle-class commercial notables (the Monarchiens and the Feuillants), culminating in the Le Chapelier law o f June 17 9 1, which outlawed trade unions and in effect defined labor as a commodity to be bought and sold like any other; 3. An alliance after the February 179 3 food riots in Paris o f the urban poor on the one hand and, on the other, the middle- or lower-middleclass, propertied, bourgeois Jacobin democrats, momentarily indiffer­ ent to the class interests o f the rich; 4. The gradual destruction o f the increasingly dangerous, sans-culotte, "popular movement” by the middle-class Jacobin democrats; N o­ vember 179 3 marks the beginning o f the process with the faltering o f the dechristianization campaign sponsored by the populist Hébertists; other phases include the execution o f these sans-culotte leaders in M arch 179 4 and the militarized destruction o f politicized populism in the spring o f 17 9 5 . By contrast, for the "m oderate left,” nationalist historians o f the late nineteenth century who wanted to disengage the French Revolution— which they saw as the inspiration o f the liberal-minded Third Republic— from worldwide revolutionary violence and terrorism, the most significant events o f the decade were the declaration o f w ar on April 2 0 ,17 9 2 , and its convoluting effects. Their sequential analysis also outlined four phases: 1 . Initial French defeats at Longwy and Verdun, which led to the fall o f the monarchy on August 10 ,17 9 2 , and to the September massacres from the second to the sixth; 2. Victory in late 17 9 2 , starting with the battle o f Valm y on September 20 and the consolidation o f the parliamentary republic; 3. Renewed defeat in the spring and summer o f 179 3 and the ensuing rise o f terror with the creation o f the Revolutionary Tribunal as a consequence o f events like the counterrevolutionary insurrection in the Vendée on M arch 1 3 ,1 7 9 3 , and the betrayal o f General Charles Dumouriez in the first week o f April; 4. Renewed m ilitary success with the victory at Fleurus on June 2 6, 17 9 4 , and the end o f the Terror in July. In this "Third Republican” view, the Terror had little to do with either the cultural shape o f French society at the time o f the Revolution or the

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

13

principles o f 178 9 . These nationalist historians blamed the Terror on France's sempiternal, malevolent, and reactionary enemies. Hide one o f two warring duelists from view, said the Protestant and Republican histo­ rian Charles Seignobos, and the learned feints o f the one visible combatant look like the incoherent gyrations o f a madman. The history o f Jacobinism presented in these pages by no means denies the relevance o f institutional, social, or m ilitary events to Jacobinism 's un­ folding. It matters, for example, that the harvest o f 179 0 , the quietest year o f the Revolution, was excellent. Conversely, the fear o f imminent defeat and terrible retribution that filled all hearts in August and September 17 9 a is also significant. Nonetheless, this narrative focuses much less on the “ material” or mili­ tary history o f the Revolution than on the ideologized development o f the Jacobins’ spoken and unspoken ways o f thinking. Revolutionary politics were politics o f passion and, as such, more cultural than social or eco­ nomic in their origins and unfolding, even if social and economic forms were both critical cause and effect o f cultural belief.1 This account describes Jacobinism 's starting point as a prerevolutionary sensibility, an unshaped but libertarian and modernizing aspiration re­ flected in the endlessly varied ways that human beings express the different sides o f their being (in their views, for example, o f fam ilial life, profes­ sional roles, property, sexual m orality, and the like). But it also holds that after 178 9 , Jacobinism grew more coherent and more politicized, gradually until 17 9 1, and rapidly so in 17 9 3 -9 4 when set at fever pitch in Paris. A t that point heretofore shapeless yearnings became the articulated parts o f a coherent, systemic, and dictatorial ideology. In the nation's capital, during the so-called Year II (from September 179 3 to September 179 4), Jacobinism had a base (the clubs), a votive fig­ ure (Rousseau), recognized martyrs (M arat among them), and, o f course, an overwhelming weapon: the militarized and terroristic—if chaotic—state machine that ruled over what was then in many ways the world’s most powerful and technologically advanced society. It was also then and there (in Paris, in 179 3-9 4 ) that triumphant Ja ­ cobinism began to self-destruct. The Jacobins created the Terror; but they despised it also, and with it, we can conjecture, themselves. But who were the Jacobins who carried this doctrine forward? By 178 8 tens o f thousands o f French men and women shared an unformed sensibil­ ity and unbeknownst to themselves were Jacobins-to-be. In the summer o f

14

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

178 9 , when political events first crystallized this enlightened and liberaliz­ ing mood, hostile to privilege and “ despotism,” as esprit révolutionnaire, and when royal officials vanished as if into thin air, hundreds o f thousands supported the aims o f the dedicated “ patriots,” many o f whom would soon become hard-core Jacobins. At the Festival o f the Federation, on Ju ly 14 , 179 0 , when the Revolu­ tion’s universalist goals seemed self-evidently practical and true, millions appeared to be Jacobinically inclined. The largely bloodless Revolution o f 178 9 -9 0 gave Jacobinism an almost universal audience. But in 17 9 2 -9 3 , as Jacobins grew more strident and militarized Jacobins were known as such—and feared—its appeal declined. Paradoxically, Jacobinism ’s sup­ port shrank as its power expanded and its principles sharpened. And in the summer o f 179 4 , when Jacobinism had become a highly self-conscious and tyrannous ideology, adamant Jacobins were fewer still. What the Revolu­ tion had granted, it also took aw ay. Finally, by late 179 9 , when Jacobinism had become an elaborate rhetoric o f deception and self-deception, almost no one still admitted to being a Jacobin. We cannot easily assign numbers to these estimates. At one time or an­ other, about six thousand Jacobin or popular societies came into being. Crane Brinton calculated that about one million people joined one o f these clubs, about half o f them in 17 9 3-9 4 . He also believed that perhaps as many as one half o f the clubbistes remained so for a long period from the time o f their signing on.2 (Louis Sébastien M ercier, a Conventionnel who lived through it all, was quite wrong to argue later that the Jacobins o f 179 4 were as different from those of 17 9 1 as the Spartans were from the Frenchmen o f his own times.)3 Brinton suggested that self-identified Ja ­ cobins (Jacobin sympathizers who at some point joined a club) may have numbered about z percent to 4 percent o f the French population taken as a whole. (Other estimates are only half as great.)4 A t M arseilles Jacobins counted for 4.4 percent o f the population, and around Rouen, 5 percent. Precise numbers are not to be had. Sources are incomplete or biased. M any membership roles were destroyed. A more evocative statistic is that as many perhaps as one adult French male in six or seven was at some mo­ ment committed to Jacobinism , an extraordinary figure for the times, and one that prefigures the mass political commitments o f our own day. H ow did Jacobinism develop? In the initial days o f the Revolution, which culminated in the Festival o f the Federation, ecumenical and re-

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

15

formist thought miraculously swept the field. Old institutions either van­ ished or blended harmoniously into the new, as happened with the coming together o f the ancient monarchy and the new Constituent Assembly. Then came two years or so o f anguished and rising contradiction begin­ ning in the summer o f 17 9 1 (with such awesome and earlier premonitions during the summer o f 17 9 0 as the divisive promulgation o f the Civil Con­ stitution o f the Clergy on Ju ly 12 ,17 9 0 ) . In this intermediate and still more or less constitutional phase, which ended in the late summer o f 17 9 3 , Ja ­ cobin sensibility developed ideologically. On the left, a countervailing pop­ ular consciousness also coalesced. The term “ sans-culotte” came into general use. And on the right, disenchanted Catholics broke with the Revo­ lution altogether. Within the Jacobin camp, anxieties likewise arose in some quarters as the Revolution continued. A key event in this drift from harmony to disharmony and from sensibility to ideology was the king’s flight to Varennes in late June 17 9 1. An open schism developed between progressive Jacobins and the more cautious Feuillant Jacobins. In late 17 9 1 the Revolution moved steadily to the left, toward greater universalism in both fact and symbol. Orthodox Jacobins were convinced that unless the Revolution moved forw ard, it would collapse, and with it their dream o f regenerated man. At the behest o f the Girondist Jacobins, in April 17 9 2 , w ar was declared against the reactionary Austrian and Prus­ sian monarchies. In the early summer o f 17 9 2 unexpected m ilitary failure precipitated on­ going ideological transformation. The Jacobins drifted to universalizing re­ publicanism. The monarchy’s fall on August 10 , 17 9 2 , accelerated the re­ pression o f the religious and political right. A special tribunal was created on August 17 , 17 9 2 , which decreed the first condemnations to the guillo­ tine. Then came the September massacres, which the M ontagnard Jacobins condoned. Another schism followed during the winter o f 17 9 2 -9 3 , this time between the Girondin Jacobins, who wished to stop the Revolution— just as the Feuillants had tried to do a year before—and the Montagnard Jacobins, who remained eager to work toward ideologically determined goals and who were ready to forge a political alliance with the Paris poor regardless o f the social cost. In the last moments o f this intervening period—that is to say, during the thirty months that stand between the harmony o f 178 9 -9 0 and the terror o f 17 9 3 -9 4 —Jacobinism in early 17 9 3 evolved steadily toward ever more

i6

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

ideologized and illiberal goals. These goals may have been embedded in it from the first, but at this point they began to take on dominant and hor­ rendous relevance. In Jacobinism as it had evolved by late 17 9 3 authoritarian universalisai crowded out the liberal-minded individualism that at first, in 178 9 , Ja ­ cobinism had intended to enhance. Nationalism prevailed over internation­ alism; terrorist intolerance over political liberty; and the use o f the French language over dialects. The women’s movement was broken. A third and frenetic phase o f revolutionary politics runs from the late fall o f 17 9 3 to Ju ly 179 4 . High Jacobinism , now a full-blown ideology best ex­ pressed by the intolerant orthodoxy o f its "great high priest,” Robespierre, eliminated all o f its rivals, left and right (terms that, incidentally, were in­ vented in Paris at this time). As it did so, Jacobinism also emptied from within, tom apart by its own contradictions and by its terrorist pursuit o f abstract and communitarian values, which appeared increasingly meaning­ less or positively dangerous to most French men and women. Here was universalism inverted and run wild. In M ay and June 179 4 the rule o f law was suspended with the "law s o f Prairial,” a denial o f humane legal principles that made it possible for the Jacobins to condemn their enemies at w ill, oftentimes by declaring them to be Girondins, a category damned not just in their fratricidal eyes but in the eyes o f the “ law .” Robespierre’s friend Georges Couthon explained it all in early June 17 9 4 , a few weeks before his own death. These new (and in fact outra­ geous) laws were, he said, perfectly fair and just. Under the Old Regime, arcane judicial procedures had served some purpose. A t that time, he added, "m oral proofs had counted for nothing.” But now, Jacobins were easily able to know in their conscience which o f their enemies were truly guilty o f counterrevolutionary offense. A final period in the explanation presented here runs from Robespierre’s fall in Ju ly 179 4 to Bonaparte’s rise to power on 18 Brumaire, Year VII (November 9, 1799). It centers on the alternatively pathetic and irritating efforts o f the chastened ex-Jacobins around Sieyès to muddle through by si­ multaneously affirm ing and denying their Jacobinical, Roman-Republican principles. Behind this communitarian screen, however, the late neoJacobin regime asserted unchecked individualism, in economic life espe­ cially. Communitarian universalism survived largely in increasingly menda­ cious symbols and in ever emptier and official forms.

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

17

Jacobinism begins as divine comedy (17 8 9 -17 9 1), becomes tragedy (17 9 3), and ends as intermittently bloody farce (17 9 5 -17 9 9 ).

French Politics on the Eve of the Revolution That the Old Regime collapsed is in retrospect unsurprising. Nevertheless, its demise came as a shock to many contemporary pundits who remem­ bered that for over a century the Old Regime had lurched bumblingly but successfully enough horn one financial crisis to the next. Arthur Young, a failed English agronomist and self-styled oracle, predicted that the French aristocracy would emerge strengthened from this test. A fortiori, the dramatic rise o f Jacobin republicanism w as most definitely not in anyone’s mind at the time. Some events (like the revolutions o f 1848 or the coming o f the two world wars) confirm widespread expectations. But many others, like the fall o f communism in our own time or the rise o f Jacobinism in the period 17 8 9 -17 9 4 , come as complete surprises. The pattern o f day-to-day politics during the two decades o f the Old Regime contributed to contemporaries’ lack o f foresight. In 178 9 the forces o f immobilism seemed strong, although they were, in fact, quite weak. During the 17 7 0 s and 178 0 s the deeper but still invisible effect o f the monarchy’s intermittent cardiac arrests had been to widen the scope o f pre-Jacobin sensibilities. Their immediate effect, however, had been to strengthen the hand o f the absolutist m onarchy's most important (and, at that time, only organized) enemies. In the 178 0 s the nation’s highest and aristocratized law courts, the Parlements, were ideally situated to com­ plain. The noble Parlementaires had selfish goals, but a genuine hostility to absolutist "despotism ” motivated them. For some years the Parlementaires remained quite popular because their enemy—namely, royal absolutism— was also the enemy o f enlightened public opinion. The enemy o f my enemy is my friend. Incoherently managed, unable to pay its w ay, unable and unwilling to coerce, the monarchy in the summer and fall o f 178 8 had no choice but to turn to the nation and convoke the neomedieval Estates General, which had last been convened in 16 14 . Though brought together at Versailles on M ay 5 ,17 8 9 , as delegates o f the traditionally sanctioned three estates (the church w as the first; the nobles, second; with everyone else— rich or poor—third), the members o f the Third Estate, after weeks o f hesitations,

18 ♦

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

proclaimed themselves on June 17 , 178 9 , a sovereign National Assem bly, whose members were beyond the king's w rit. But that proclamation w as not fated to have occurred. Had the king’s first minister, Jacques Necker, been a wiser man and not allowed events to drift, who today would know the name o f Robespierre? In any instance, having crossed their Rubicon, and although elected as the mandated representatives o f traditionally defined corporate groups (provinces, baillages, estates, towns, guilds, and so on), the newly elected deputies easily fitted themselves into their new and more elevated role as national representatives. A few did suggest on Ju ly 7, 178 9 , that they should go back to their electorate to secure new instructions; but they were overruled. Henceforth, deputies were to vote not collectively as before, by order or estate, but one by one, as members o f a single, and in this in­ stance, self-appointed National Assembly (also called the Constituent A s­ sembly since it was drafting a constitution). The deputies' assumption that the whole o f popular sovereignty rested on the nation’s representatives (that is, themselves) ultimately became a cardinal principle o f Jacobin constitutional thinking, and one that, by way o f comparison, the American system explicitly denied. There, the thirteen constituent states of a federal republic continued to exercise some sover­ eignty. But the French instinctively reasoned quite differently. After desultorily staging an aimless political and m ilitary coup (by for­ bidding the deputies to meet as a National Assembly and by bringing mer­ cenary troops to Paris), the king called o ff his soldiers and yielded. The conservative majorities o f the first two estates also gave in. When the poorly defended Bastille (with its seven political prisoners) fell to a crowd o f Parisians and disaffected soldiers on Ju ly 14 , 17 8 9 , the king did noth­ ing about that either, rather to the surprise o f the deputies, who were at first distressed by the news o f this overt and popular attack on the monarch's fortress and prerogatives. They feared militarized retribution, but it did not come. In the following days the multisecular royal bureaucracy vanished. On Ju ly 2 3, 178 9 , two related royal officials, Louis Jean Bertier de Sauvigny and Joseph François Foulon, who had been peripherally involved with the Paris food supply and were suspected o f peculation, were murdered by a Parisian mob, just as the captured governor o f the Bastille and others had been lynched a week before. Future leaders of Jacobinism , Bam ave espe­ cially, exonerated the murderers, an ominous first step to the general sus-

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

19

pension o f the rule o f law in 179 4 . Were not the people sovereign? asked Bam ave in 178 9 . Were not these two officials somehow immoral? "W as not their blood impure?” (Looking forw ard, it is appropriate to note that Bam ave w as executed in November 17 9 3 , by which time he too had be­ come an “ enemy o f the people.” ) Then, in late Ju ly 17 8 9 , the Great Fear (Grande Peur, a rural panic) ran through the countryside. Though few were killed, many lordly castles were attacked and feudal parchments burned. French peasants did not want to pay feudal dues any longer. (In some regions, they were still quite burden­ some.) M any nobles sought refuge in the cities where new revolutionary authorities more or less maintained law and order. Hysterical rumors o f foreign invasion swept the nation. Georges Lefebvre in the 19 30 s described with memorable skill the con­ junction o f revolutions (urban, rural, aristocratic, and middle-class re­ formist) that made it impossible for the monarchy to resist these cotermi­ nous waves o f complaints.5 A ll over France, in the south, west, and northeast especially, new town administrations were created, as were municipal militias called National Guards. (In Paris these units took shape on Ju ly 1 3 ; in Angers, on the nine­ teenth.) N ow the deputies and their friends had actual power as well as theoretical sovereignty. In central Europe, after 18 4 8 , traditionalist monarchies could rely on both nobles and peasants to shore up their questioned cause. But in France during the early summer o f 178 9 political traditionalism, unmoumed and without an audience, decomposed in a matter o f days, not weeks, and across the board. The abrupt end o f the Old Regime in the summer o f 178 9 and the quasiunanimous acceptance o f a single and new national and popular sover­ eignty after that profoundly influenced the Jacobins’ revolutionary ways o f thinking. It mattered greatly to the Jacobins that the peasants had proved to be the allies o f the Revolution. And it mattered also that they had actu­ ally seen universalist political wholeness in action. In the summer o f 178 9 the Old Regime had died as if by magic, and the news o f its fall had rallied all hearts. The entire revolutionary career o f the Jacobins can be seen as an elaboration on a remembrance o f things just passed, as an effort to recreate the unanimity o f 178 9 -9 0 . Once again, then, who could be called a Jacobin in this early summer o f 1789 ? N o one, o f course, if we take the question in a strict sense. The word

20

♦

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

did not yet exist. It was only on September 2 1,1 7 9 2 , that the clubbistes o f­ ficially and defiantly took up as their own this insulting nickname, from the leased Jacobin convent where the Paris club settled in 178 9 . In the last days o f 178 9 , after six months o f Revolution, France still counted less than twenty societies or clubs that would later become part o f the Jacobin net­ work. And nearly one year later, in early September 179 0 , there were still no more than 14 0 towns with a club. (France in these same months w as re­ districted into 40,680 municipalities.) Card-carrying Jacobins (later in Paris they actually did carry red cards) at first numbered few. Strictly speaking, at this early date the only certified Jacobins were those committed deputies in the National Assembly who met as a kind o f club or lobby to coordinate parliamentary stratagems. And yet, in a large and truer sense, in 178 9 much o f the French nation, and certainly many o f the French citizens who called themselves patriotes, were "potential” Jacobins because Jacobinism was the essence o f the wider esprit révolutionnaire they shared. A ll patriots understood diffusely what Jacobins were beginning to under­ stand more precisely, namely, that absolutism was really despotism, that privilege was unnatural, that sovereignty was sited in a united, fraternal, and newly moralized nation-state whose aim was to empower every indi­ vidual citizen, and perhaps every citizeness as well.

1 7 8 9 - 1 7 9 1 : Universalism and Individualism Reconciled Immediately, in the summer o f 178 9 , the National Assembly interpreted the events at hand (the fall o f the Bastille, the Great Fear, the breakdown o f the older law and order) as the self-evident justification for a restructur­ ing o f every French political institution without exception. That goal, o f course, had certainly not been consciously formulated in the first weeks o f the year when the quite moderate and pro-monarchy cahiers de doléances, or grievance books, had been drawn up all over France as a guide to what the conjoined estates should do. But it was in the nature o f an ongoing Revolution—and o f many-layered Jacobinism —that they should always deepen and reinvent themselves as they moved from one critical moment to the next. In any case, all o f the great reforms o f 17 8 9 -17 9 1 reflected the synthesis o f individualist and communitarian values soon to become ex­ plicitly central to the Jacobin ideal.

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

21

The universalist nation was made more real, at the level o f symbol es­ pecially. Provincial borders were wiped out and departments created, each one o f these administrative entities small enough for every citizen to w alk to its capital or chef lieu and participate in local politics. France was given a national flag (the white o f the monarchy flanked by the blue and red o f Paris). The country also became a national customs union, as Britain had been for nearly a century and as the United States had just become. On September 13 the deputies decided that France, as one nation, could have but one representative assembly. A senate or a house o f peers was ruled out. French law , though not yet codified (that would not happen until 1804), was at least standardized and nationalized, as were eventually weights and measures. Citizenship became a meaningful public con­ cept. Sym bolically, on October 5, 178 9 , after women had marched to Ver­ sailles to secure bread (its cost in 178 9 w as nearly twice what it had been a year before), Louis, surrounded by sixty thousand people, was forcibly brought back from Versailles, the absolutist capital o f the kingdom, to Paris, the national capital o f France. (Orthodox Jacobins sometimes de­ scribed Paris as the nation's ville centrale, central city, because the term capitale, in the words o f the Girondin Jacobin Rabaut Saint-Étienne, "could not be accorded to the principles o f equality.” ) Popular sovereignty w as broadly acknowledged. In December four and a half million adult males (out o f France's approxim ately twenty-seven mil­ lion people) were given the vote, making the franchise broader in revolu­ tionary France than in many American states at the time. And in another universalistic move, on M ay 15 , 179 0 , the deputies refused to back Bour­ bon Spain, whose king w as Louis's cousin, in its quarrel with Britain over Vancouver Island. Instead, they declared peace, as it were, on the entire world: "The National Assembly declares that the French nation w ill refuse to undertake any w ar o f conquest and w ill never employ its forces against the liberty o f any people.” 6 The individuation o f French civil life in these early months was even more exaggerated. Indeed, so strong w as this unprecedented and ideologi­ cally motivated liberal drift that it stands as a first dérapage o f revolution­ ary politics. Enthused, the deputies set upon the rules in many domains: so­ cial, political, economic, industrial, commercial, artistic, fiscal, judicial, fam ilial, and matrimonial. The list o f corporate or ancient institutions that

22

* A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

were suppressed in the first twenty months or so o f the Revolution in­ cluded the law courts, guilds, estates, the privileged position o f the church, hospitals, universities, and associations o f all kinds. In every realm, the tra­ ditional hierarchies and corporate institutions that for centuries had en­ abled French men and women to define themselves were sacrificed in a bonfire o f inherited tradition without precedent in European history: “ W ar unto privileges and the privileged,” the marquis de M irabeau asserted on August 1 6. "Privileges are useful against kings, but they are hateful against nations, and ours w ill never have a public spirit until it has been delivered o f them.” Proudly, the Constitution of 17 9 1 began not with a description o f what it w as, but with a long, presentist, and antitraditional list o f over twenty institutions o f the Old Regime that were gone forever, starting with nobility and peerage, and ending with irrevocable religious vows and any "unnatural commitment.” True enough, the day-to-day workings o f ordinary life remained nearly unchanged. Landed property was not transferred from one social group to another. Rents were still due and bills had to be paid. Likewise, compensa­ tion was awarded to dispossessed owners of offices or privileges, to bish­ ops whose bishoprics had shrunk or vanished, to judges whose judgeships were suppressed, and so on. Yet, the legal bases of nearly every existing so­ cial arrangement were thoroughly transformed. The end o f the feudal system was a particularly important landmark in this individualization o f society. This close to a thousand years o f history was implicit in the juridical annihilation of the three estates on June 17 , 178 9 ; but it was made wholly explicit in the assembly’s decisions o f the night o f August 4, 178 9 (whose unfolding, as w ill be seen, had been pre­ pared in what became the first Jacobin club). In a partially orchestrated cascade o f self-denial, one privileged deputy after another renounced the feudal and traditional advantages that had been cherished for centuries by the entire possessing elite, noble and non-noble, o f the French nation. Within hours, some other deputies tried, fitfully, to limit in practice the application o f the drastically individuating principle they had just enacted. Distinctions were made between honorific feudal dues (which were once again declared abolished) and "real” feudal dues (which were converted into property rights), but to no avail. Successive Jacobin factions would abandon the defense o f these feudal remnants one by one and, eventually, without compensation. On Ju ly 13 , 17 9 3 , all feudal titles were ordered burned. On October 22, 17 9 3 , the Jacobin-dominated Convention also

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

23

made it illegal to recycle feudal dues as part o f a moneyed payment due by lessees to lessors. These were important decisions. By dissolving feudalism on terms favor­ able to the peasantry and deleterious to the landlords, the Jacobins guaran­ teed the neutrality and perhaps the loyalty o f most peasants to the cause o f the Revolution, if not precisely to their own version o f it. In 17 9 3 and 179 4 peasants hardly took up the cudgels for either Brissot or Robespierre (or for or against the Directory after them). But in the main, outside the Vendée, Britanny, and some small areas o f southern France, neither did the peasantry choose to fight against the Jacobins. This w as a great achievement, especially when set in world perspective, as the Italian M arxist philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci (18 9 1-19 3 7 ) wisely understood.7 By winning over some peasants and neu­ tralizing the rest (as nineteenth-century Italian liberals were not able to do) revolutionary Jacobinism laid the lasting foundations in France o f a pro­ gressive alliance between the urban middle class and a landowning peas­ antry, a means o f enlightened governance that came to fruition in the years 18 7 1-19 4 0 , during the Third French Republic. Another early landmark in the actuation o f the revolutionary defense o f individual rights was the Declaration o f the Rights o f M an, initially dis­ cussed on Ju ly 6, 178 9 (that is, more than a week before the fall o f the Bastille) and enacted on August 26, 178 9 . The inspiration for this docu­ ment, which defined the rights o f individual citizens, was mixed. Historians o f ideas have learnedly traced the wording o f the text to varied individual­ istic and libertarian sources: Locke, the Physiocrats, Cesare Beccaria, and Voltaire especially as regarded articles 7, 8, and 9 with their generous defi­ nition o f civil rights in criminal cases. The text also paid silent tribute to American precedents, to Virginian legislation especially. It differed, however, from the contemporaneous American Bill o f Rights in one all-important w ay. In the American Constitution, the Bill o f Rights was not free standing. It was instead conceived as a series o f amendments added in 179 0 to the Constitution o f 178 9 . To justify their principles, American libertarians from that day to our own have had to be constitu­ tionalists as well. Significantly, the Monarchiens, joined by M irabeau, also failed in their efforts to insert the French declaration within a larger—and limiting—con­ stitutional document,8 a failure that foretold the Jacobins’ eventual rejec­ tion o f constitutional procedure for the sake o f some higher truth.

24

* A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

With the end o f feudalism and the Declaration o f the Rights o f M an came yet another critical and individuating decision, in M arch and June 17 9 1. At the behest o f Isaac Le Chapelier—one o f the first Jacobins in June 178 9 and, as it happens, a victim o f the Jacobin guillotine in late 17 9 3 — the National Assembly, mostly drawn from liberal and nonindustrial professions (the law , the church, and the army)9 outlawed guilds, labor unions, and employers' associations. The Le Chapelier law o f June 14 , 17 9 1, which Karl M arx rightly de­ scribed as the most important piece o f social legislation o f the entire French Revolution, made o f labor a commodity bought and sold by workers and employers. Henceforth, in social and economic matters, the function o f the “ night-watchman” state would be to enforce rather than examine con­ tracts, as had been true before 178 9 for traditionalist reasons, and as would again be true in the middle decades o f the twentieth century for Keynesian reasons. Civil society was thus severed from both tradition and the state. In the­ ory if not yet in fact, unbridled individualism had become the Jacobin law of the land. A truism o f current political theory holds that all “ totalitarian” regimes (fascist or communist) detest intermediary bodies. (Pluralist democracies, by contrast, are o f their nature based on the cohabitation o f explicitly or implicitly distinct social, economic, or cultural groups.) In this context, Ja ­ cobins could indeed be seen as precursors o f the gulag except that they did not intend the abolition o f intermediary bodies— especially those o f feudal origin—to give a free hand to a more interfering state. They sought, through antitraditionalism, to widen the scope o f private consciousness within a free-standing civil society that by definition was protected from state action. The Jacobins’ decision to make o f French public life a tabula rasa clearly brings grist to the mill o f another recent trend, politico-philosophical inter­ pretations o f revolutionary politics. The indifference to the feudal past o f the deputies o f 178 9 also relates to current views on the discursive nature o f revolutionary French politics, to the “ invention” o f the French Revolu­ tion, and to the “ self-referentiality” o f Jacobin words. For the historicizing appropriators o f modem literary criticism, which often treats the words o f texts in relation to each other rather than to some external referent, the Jacobins' apparent disregard for society as it was and

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

25

had been serves to justify the notion o f Jacobin politics as some kind o f ab­ stract and free-floating “ discourse.'’ Much is to be said for this point o f view. Revisionist historians have a case that can be inflected and expanded, but which is difficult to confound.

From 1 7 9 0 - 9 1 to the Summer of 17 9 2 : Mistakes and Contradictions For more than a year, from the summer o f 178 9 to the summer o f 179 0 , proto-Jacobin patriotisme rallied nearly unanimous support. It crested with the Festival o f the Federation, on the anniversary o f the fall o f the Bastille, when National Guards and Jacobins from all over France converged to cel­ ebrate in the nation’s capital. But in late 17 9 0 -9 1 this unity so dear to the Jacobins began to crumble. Some o f the assembly’s legislation had a stabilizing effect: the abolition o f feudalism, as has been said, delivered to the Jacobins a peasant audi­ ence. Likewise, the Declaration o f the Rights o f M an o f August 178 9 was broadly accepted. Even during the Revolution’s darkest hour, its aura made it impossible to envisage a return to the unreconstructed w ays o f the traditionalist Old Regime, as royalists (vainly) advocated until 18 14 when they finally dropped most o f their obscurantist and anti-individualist pre­ tensions. But many other measures taken in these first months o f the Revolution were profoundly destabilizing. Some o f these upsetting reforms were un­ avoidable given the Jacobins’ worldview as children o f the Enlightenment. In M ay 17 9 1, for example, civic rights were extended to people o f color bom o f free parents; and in September 17 9 2 divorce by mutual consent was also recognized in law. The assembly likewise decreed in favor o f part­ ible inheritance not just for males but for females also. M any other decisions, however, were essentially provocations for those whose w ill and reason had accepted the Revolution but whose heart and imagination were still set in the ways o f the Old Regime. The deputies gained little, for instance, by abolishing titles and honorific distinctions in June 17 9 0 when it became illegal for Frenchmen to call themselves barons, counts, or dukes. (The same stipulation applied in the United States, but nobles were fewer even in Virginia than they were in the most modem

z6

♦

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

parts o f France.) Conservatives (like Necker, the de facto prime minister, preoccupied with material social distinctions) and radicals (like M arat, in­ tent on structural political and economic change) were either hostile or in­ different to this symbolic gesture. But the pointless abolition o f hallowed titles was much praised by key Jacobins like Brissot, who were more inter­ ested in symbolic fraternity than in the ongoing business o f daily life. The Civil Constitution o f the Clergy, which the assembly ratified on Ju ly iz , 179 0 , was especially destructive, indeed, disastrous. It brought out the Jacobins’ instinct o f intolerance and saddled them with endless problems. This “ constitution” brought together a series o f measures passed in the preceding months to regulate the place o f the Catholic Church in French life. It ended the church’s privileged place in public life, a change nearly everyone understood to be inevitable. But it went far beyond that. Reli­ gious vows were declared no longer binding. Contemplative orders were dissolved. The new arrangement also provided for the reshaping o f episco­ pal sees (some had been large and rich, others small and poor). Impor­ tantly, it also decreed the confiscation o f church lands in exchange for state stipends, reinforcing a decision made in November 178 9 . These formerly clerical lands, which in some departments accounted for as much as one quarter o f arable land, came up for sale as biens nationaux. Receipts were to guarantee the value o f the paper money, the assignats, which the patriotes had simultaneously decided to float. In some places many peasants, including poor ones, did manage to buy land. But city peo­ ple, many o f them Jacobins, got the lion’s share o f this booty. In western France especially, where church holdings were extensive, much bitterness surrounded these divisions. The revolutionaries had mixed motives in enacting this counterproduc­ tive legislation. Generally, patriotes felt that the church could not be al­ lowed to continue as a free-standing intermediary institution between state and citizen. Like every other body, the church would have to fit into the new cultural and political order o f unmediated citizenship. M any deputies also were freethinkers, who exaggerated the cultural and political weakness o f the church. They had taken note o f the brutal manip­ ulation o f the church elsewhere in Europe by Catholic and non-Catholic monarchs alike. Yet others were Gallican Catholics, religious nationalists o f a kind, who resented the pope’s influence on the French church. A few , finally, were doctrinally rebellious, neo-Calvinist Jansenists, among them Armand-Gaston Camus (a canonist), Henri-Baptiste Grégoire, and Jean-

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

27

Denis Lanjuinais, all o f them important Jacobins. Proudly, Grégoire noted in his memoirs that in Naples citizens used the terms “Jansenist” and “Ja ­ cobin” interchangeably.10 Needless to say, all o f these statements gave Catholics pause, as did the creation in September 179 0 o f a Jacobin club in the papal enclave o f Avignon. The church might have accepted the loss o f its privileges. On April 12 , 179 0 , the deputies had already refused to declare Catholicism the national religion.11 But devout Catholics could hardly live with a Civil Constitution that also provided for the election o f Catholic priests and bishops by all French citizens, including, o f necessity, Protestants, Jew s, and avowed free­ thinkers. On August 2 4 ,17 9 0 , as a public but not as a private person, the French king ratified the Civil Constitution. That is, Louis X V I agreed as a public official to accept its legality; but as a devout believer, he refused to accept the clerical ministrations o f priests who had agreed to it. (A nonjuring priest would accompany him to the scaffold in January 17 9 3.) A t first, a fearful pope also remained publicly silent, although he had pri­ vately condemned the Declaration o f the Rights o f M an in a secret consis­ tory on M arch 2 9 ,17 9 0 , a decision o f which the king had been privately apprised. But one year later, on April 1 3 , 17 9 1, the pope openly de­ nounced the new arrangements. For good measure, the pontiff also de­ nounced as “ monstrous” the revolutionaries’ defense o f liberty o f thought. En masse the Roman bishops rejected the reforms. When oaths were de­ manded o f priests and officials, a growing number o f intransigent priests and their peasant audience began to move against the Revolution. A generation ago, M arxist historians saw these rural choices as a function o f economic rather than religious options, but scholars today are less sure. In some parts o f western and eastern France, 85 percent o f local priests refused to comply. Law and order broke down in many areas. In February 17 9 1 thousands o f hostile Catholic National Guards met at Jalès, an omen o f future troubles. M atters worsened when the assembly (which in M ay 17 9 1 had reasserted the right o f adamantly Catholic, pro-papal, and nonjuring priests to say mass in private places) nonetheless and disquietingly ordered that lists o f “ nonjurors” be drawn up. Under pressure from the clubs and from the Paris sections (geographical divisions), the assembly also decided on November 2 7 ,17 9 0 , to require all priests to take an oath o f loyalty to the Revolution. In Nîmes intransigent Catholics were prose­

z8

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

cuted for inciting civil unrest. In Paris nonjuring nuns were whipped by crowds. On Ju ly n , 17 9 1, Voltaire's remains were transferred to the Pan­ theon, which, until shortly before, had been the Church o f Sainte Geneviève, dedicated to the capital's fifth-century patron saint. Some Jacobin-dominated regional authorities were even more truculent in their anticlericalism than were the nation’s highest officials. Everyone took sides. In the years to come more than 30,000 priests fled abroad. From 179 3 onward about a thousand more were executed. On the other shore hundreds of enlightened or impoverished and patriotic parish vicars and curates12 accepted the Civil Constitution regardless. M any o f them joined the clubs. M oreover, behind these revolutionary priests, the entire Jacobin machine swung into perfervid action, in the south and southeast especially. The Jacobins’ enthusiastic endorsement o f the abrogation o f the church’s right to manage its own affairs stands as the first, massive instance o f their fatal desire despotically to overextend the limits o f the public sphere. In 17 9 0 -9 1 the church was goaded into overt opposition to the Revolution, as w as the king, whose role had shrunk drastically. If the National Assem­ bly was everything, as it had declared in June and Ju ly 178 9 , what then was the king? The revolutionaries’ first response was opaque, but many worried royalists, Louis X V I included, could read between the lines. The bastard solution o f Jean-Joseph M ousnier (17 5 8 -18 0 6 ), a pro­ monarchist patriot, was to say, nebulously, that the king was the “ executive” branch o f the state; but according to the new constitution, which made the ministers he appointed largely powerless, Louis X V I’s only true prerogative (granted to him on September 15 by a vote o f 673 to 35 z) was an unworkable right to veto legislation suspensively, a surefire recipe for devastating unpopularity. As Robespierre put it on M ay 18 ,17 9 0 , the king was not the representative o f the nation but the “ commis et le délégué de la nation” (the clerk and delegate o f the nation). In September 179 0 M arat dared to attack the king openly. When in early 17 9 1 the monarch decided to exercise his veto powers, the Jacobin clubs became more radical. On January Z4, 17 9 1, the Paris Ja ­ cobins circularized their affiliates on the disturbing activities o f a conserva­ tive association, the Friends o f the Monarchic Constitution; and on M arch z8, 17 9 1, they succeeded in getting the Paris municipality to shut down this rival group, establishing a pattern of silencing and censorship that po­ litical progressives accepted as wholly normative.

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

29

In response to these Jacobin moves, not just the monarch but many con­ firmed patriots also began to feel that the Revolution w as going too far too fast. In the National Assembly Bam ave (still a Jacobin but soon to be a for­ mer one) urged that the clubs be denied the right to file petitions. Then, on M ay 9 ,1 7 9 1 , his friend and ally Le Chapelier (another soon-to-be former Jacobin) explained that the clubs, though wonderful instruments o f public and political education, ought not to become self-regarding “ corpora­ tions.” 13 In retaliation, in late M ay 17 9 1 in the Jacobin club, Robespierre tried to push Bam ave’s friends o ff the key Committee o f Correspondence. In short, by the summer o f 17 9 1, revolutionary left and Catholic right were far more aggressive than they had been a year before, and within the left, the Jacobin “ party” had begun to break up. To complicate matters, Louis began to demonstrate a newfound resolve. In December 179 0 the king had sounded out foreign monarchs to see if he could count on their help. By February 17 9 1 he was planning his escape. In April 17 9 1 the crowds that kept him from leaving Paris for the neighboring Chateau o f Saint-Cloud gave him further offense. Then, on June 5, the as­ sembly deprived him o f his right to pardon convicted felons. On June 20, 17 9 1, at midnight, the king fled from Paris, not to the northwest, toward Rouen, as M irabeau had sensibly advised the year be­ fore, on the grounds that from this provincial place he might rally some heretofore silent and monarchic m ajority that would be prorevolutionary and antifeudal but socially conservative and loyal to the king. Louis’s over­ sized carriage rolled instead (and very slowly) toward Austrian-controlled Belgium, then under the sway o f France’s national enemies. One day later he was ignominiously captured by locals in the town o f Varennes and brought back to the capital under the silent and condemnatory stare o f tens o f thousands o f Parisians. “ As poor peasants,” wrote Carlyle o f Louis and his w ife, “ how happy, worthy had ye two been! But by evil destiny, ye were made a King and Queen . . . and so, both an astonishment and a by­ word to all tim es.” 14 Louis w as form ally exonerated one month later by Bam ave and his dis­ concerted and waveringly Jacobin friends, who felt they had no choice but to use the monarch’s vestigial claims to sovereignty to stop the radicalization o f the Revolution. They suggested—absurdly—that Louis X V I had been kidnapped, although no one believed them. They also tried to empha­ size the role o f property. Only wealth, Bam ave reasoned in an un-Jacobinical sort o f w ay, could enable private persons to be impartial and civic-

30

♦

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

minded. (While awaiting execution in late 17 9 3 , Barnave was to write the first economistic explanation o f the French Revolution.) M ost Jacobins, however, reasoned quite differently from their erstwhile hero. Their tentative confidence in the monarchy was irretrievably dam­ aged. Where Barnave reacted to unexpected revolutionary dysfunction by reinforcing monarchism, his fellow Jacobins gravitated instead toward more universalism and popular sovereignty. Badly shaken, the Jacobin clubs convened special sessions. Some o f them met all night long. Wild ru­ mors swept their networks. Earlier in the year, in M arch 17 9 1, Louis had still been broadly popular. An illness of his had elicited a flurry o f concerned messages from loyalist Jacobin clubs. M oulins had declared him to be “ the best o f kings.” But by the summer the Jacobins’ royalist devotion had evaporated. M any clubs (Montpellier and Perpignan especially) openly argued for the proclamation o f a republic, as some o f the Parisian popular societies had been suggesting for a few weeks already. Some provincial clubs wanted to proclaim the de­ position o f the king in favor of his son, who would be advised by a council, a solution other more cautious clubs noisily decried. M any Jacobins began to think o f themselves as betrayed citizens who would have to punish an aberrant and devious father-king. A thread runs to the execution o f the king in January 179 3 (and hence­ forth, no doubt, to the Terror) from the Jacobins’ panicked reaction in 17 9 1 to Louis’s—for them—sudden decision to desert. For with the events o f the summer o f 17 9 1, and their eventual antimonarchic sequels, revolu­ tionary Jacobin politics came to its first m ajor crisis. True, already in the fall o f 1789— that is, before the clubs had come into being nationwide—the patriotic Monarchiens had dropped out o f the revo­ lutionary movement. Likewise, in M ay 179 0 , M irabeau and Lafayette had attempted to make o f their Society o f 178 9 a counterweight to the club. (About 10 percent o f the Parisian Jacobins had followed the two men into that disguised opposition.) But M irabeau had been careful not to break openly with the mother society, to which he later ostentatiously returned when his divisive maneuver fizzled. But on Ju ly 1 6, 17 9 1, Bam ave’s followers, the Feuillants, irrevocably broke aw ay. The next day a Republican crowd o f five thousand (small by Parisian standards but large as revolutionary crowds went) gathered at the Champ de M ars where the Eiffel Tower stands today. In response, Barnave's two most important allies, Lafayette, the commander o f the Paris

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

31

National Guard, and Jean-Sylvain Bailly, a famous astronomer who had become the mayor o f Paris, ordered troops to fire on the people. Dozens o f Parisians were killed in this M assacre o f the Champ de M ars. Hundreds more were briefly arrested, and nearly all o f them resurfaced in the next years as militant sans-culottes. Danton, the most prominent o f the Parisian radicals, fled to Britain. Camille Desmoulins and M arat dropped out o f sight. On September 3, 17 9 1, a revised Bam avian constitution w as promul­ gated by a new Legislative Assembly (it had been elected on August 27, 17 9 1, all previously elected deputies being ineligible for reelection, as Robespierre had proposed). Louis accepted it two weeks later. Self-servingly, Jacques-Guillaume Thouret, a leading moderate and a fa­ mous jurist and publicist, explained that uthe revision [of the Constitution] is complete. It may cause the privileged classes to complain because not a sin­ gle abuse has been restored. But it w ill satisfy all the enlightened partisans o f monarchic government.” (Thouret too was executed in 179 4.) Meanwhile a Feuillant newspaper in Lyons summed up Bam ave’s moderate and antiJacobin line: “ The people are sovereign; but it would be injurious for it to ex­ ercise that sovereignty.” 15 Thus the Jacobin network split apart. A t first, in Ju ly 17 9 1, a mere fifteen clubs nationwide sided with the left Jacobins against Barnave’s dissident Jacobins. M any Jacobins simply with­ drew. Participation in national and local elections fell from one-half to one-fourth o f the electorate. By late September 17 9 1, however, nearly all o f the provincial societies had changed their minds and rallied behind Brissot, Jérôm e Pétion de V il­ leneuve, and Robespierre, now working in close accord. Translated, this leftward shift o f the clubs meant that after the king's flight in June 17 9 1, most Jacobins at large had instinctively concluded that the solution to rev­ olutionary dysfunction was not to stop the Revolution, and consolidate its individualistic achievements, but to move it forw ard, toward more univer­ salista goals. They did not believe Bam ave when he warned that doing so would threaten property rights. An untoward sign for the Feuillants came in November 17 9 1 when Pé­ tion (along with Robespierre considered the great héros o f the Paris Ja ­ cobins) was elected mayor o f Paris over the once immensely popular Lafayette. (Pétion, a future Girondin, was to commit suicide in June 179 4.) Constitutional monarchy rapidly lost its aura. The club at Lim oux ex­ pressed most Jacobins’ new point o f view when it wrote to the Legislative

32

* A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

Assembly in Paris that it could recognize the king but could neither love nor respect him.16 When Louis once again in November 17 9 1 decided to use his veto power (as it happens, to protect the rights o f individual émi­ grés to come and go as they pleased), the clubs sprang back to life. Another galvanizing event was the assem bly's decision to release the once mutinous "soldiers o f Chateau vieux,” who had been condemned to hard labor by their mercenary—and reactionary—Swiss commanders in 179 0 . Louis had been slow in acquiescing to their pardon. In late February 17 9 2 at the seaport o f Brest, where they were imprisoned, ten thousand people joined the local clubbistes in a celebratory march to their prison. The popular sans-culotte movement, which was to the left o f even the left Jacobins, strengthened day by day. After the M assacre o f the Champ de M ars, far-left journalists like M arat had had to go underground. But in the early winter o f 17 9 1-9 2 M arat and Danton, who had returned from abroad, were once again deeply involved in Parisian politics. True, when the new Legislative Assembly met in Paris in October 17 9 1, 264 deputies joined the Feuillants and only 13 6 , the Jacobin d u b .17 M ore to the point, however, in the provincial clubs Barnave’s Jacobin audience was consistently shrinking. M ore able to influence opinion, the left-jacobin Brissotins launched a press and propaganda campaign for an objective they thought would help them control the revolutionary state: war. Ostensibly they aimed to attack Austria and punish it for protecting counterrevolutionary noble émigrés, the bêtes noires o f the clubbistes. (The club at Tain had urged the seques­ tration o f their property in November 179 0 already.)18 In reality, however, the left Jacobins hoped to use w ar fever to unite the nation behind their universalizing program. In and out o f the Paris club, Brissot, Henri-Maximin Isnard, and JeanLouis Carra (a w ild journalist and convicted thief) pushed hard for warlike measures, a daring and desperately foolish policy that their fellow Jacobin Robespierre (a resolute antimilitarist) was unable to resist. Gradually nearly all the leading Jacobins o f the day (Pierre Vergniaud, Armand Gensonné, Marguerite-Elie Guadet, Claude Fauchet, and Condorcet, a con­ vinced pacifist!) fell in step behind Brissot. In early 17 9 2 five clubs, includ­ ing Dijon, Clermont, and Caen, circularized other societies for support.19 Ninety percent o f the clubs that are known to have expressed views on this issue were pro-war.20

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

33

The Civil Constitution o f the Clergy was the patriotes’ biggest mistake. Declaring w ar on April 20, 17 9 2 , w as their second-worst move. The w ar went badly. Unexpected m ilitary defeats stoked radical feeling. Govern­ mental receipts had been catching up with expenses but the w ar soon dis­ rupted state finances hopelessly. Refractory, nonjuring priests were ordered deported. In M ay 17 9 2 François de Neufchâteau, an ordinarily conserva­ tive man, urged the Paris club to demand that suspects be disarmed with­ out due process. Robespierre denounced courtiers and noble-bom army of­ ficers, who were—he said—conspiring against liberty. Influence slipped aw ay from the Legislative (still called National) Assem­ bly, where the left Jacobins composed only a small minority o f the patriote party and drifted instead toward the Paris Jacobin club, from which Barnave had long since been excluded and where, in the early summer o f 17 9 2 , Robespierre w as gradually displacing Brissot as the leading radical Jacobin. Another phase o f political change—or decomposition—opened in midJune 17 9 2 , when Louis X V I, who in M arch 17 9 2 had named a Girondin cabinet (known at the time as "the Jacobin m inistry” ) in order to expose its incompetence, dismissed these Jacobin ministers. (An insolent letter sent by the minister Jean M arie Roland but drafted by his wife had triggered the monarch’s indignation.) In defiant response to the king’s show o f inde­ pendence, on June 20, 17 9 2 , a crowd, abetted by the Girondin Jacobin m ayor o f Paris, Pétion, forced its w ay into the royal palace and demanded that Louis put on a red Phrygian bonnet, o f the kind worn in ancient times by freed slaves, now a symbol o f patriotic zeal. Some clubs (Rouen and Le Havre) protested; but most o f them defended the Parisians and the Girondins. The size o f the Jacobin club network reached a new peak. Only in 17 9 4 , with state help, would it rise to that same level o f intensity. Appalled, Lafayette asked the assembly on June 2 8 ,17 9 2 , to dissolve the Jacobin clubs, but to no avail. The assembly’s Feuillant m ajority, hesitant, discredited, and powerless, neither blamed nor supported him. In the clubs provincial Jacobins, as might be expected, reviled their former hero. A t Tulle a ciubbiste declared Lafayette all at once Crom well, M arius, and Sulla.21 By the summer o f 17 9 2 , all patriots understood that the constitutional monarchy was in its death throes. So, for that matter, did the king and queen, but they persistently and foolishly believed that matters had to worsen before they could improve. Nearly fifty clubs called for the king to

34

♦

A. N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

yield and bring back Roland and the Jacobin ministry. Then, on Ju ly 2 5 , 17 9 2 , the poorly advised commander o f the invading Prussian army, the duke o f Brunswick, signed a manifesto (written by a French noble émigré) threatening to destroy Paris if the royal fam ily were harmed in any w ay. Four days later, Robespierre, in the Paris club, asked for the removal o f the king and the calling o f a new constitutional convention. On August 3 , 17 9 2 , forty-seven o f the forty-eight Paris sections also demanded the re­ moval o f the king. The role during the next two weeks o f the Jacobins in the actual over­ throw o f the monarchy is not clear. They appear to have been guided by a directoire secret (secret directory committee). But some Jacobins at least were decidedly instrumental in this second revolution. Jacobins were espe­ cially active in winning over to insurrection the thousands o f provincial volunteers who had headed for the capital in response to the dubiously legal call o f many local clubs to march and “ defend freedom.” (The ones from M arseilles had set o ff on Ju ly 2, 17 9 2 , singing a hymn that has ever since borne their name.) In the first week o f August 17 9 2 the fédéré militiamen, the Paris crowd, and the radicalized Jacobin clubs acted in harmony. On August 9 the al­ ready Revolutionized Paris Commune or municipality, which exercised au­ thority over the capital’s National Guard, was deposed and replaced by an even more radical Commune where sans-culottes played an important role. Together, fédérés, Jacobins, and the new Commune forced the hand o f the disoriented, bewildered ex-Jacobin Feuillants in the National Assembly. On August 10 , 17 9 2 , the monarchy fell in a minibattle that ironically began more or less by accident, well after the king had yielded and been marched o ff to safety—and prison. Six hundred soldiers died—most o f them Swiss guards murdered by the Parisian crowd after they had surren­ dered. Four hundred attackers also died, an unwanted and unforeseen human cost that made it impossible to let bygones be bygones. A less bloody battle might have made the mere déposai o f the king feasible. But the ferocity o f this urban conflict made revenge and, in its wake, the Terror far more likely. It bears mentioning that o f all the figures o f the revolutionary decade who had m ilitary force at their disposal, Louis X V I alone consistently re­ fused to use it. The Jacobins, who claimed to be the modem party o f hu­ manity, were in practice more than matched by Louis and his ancient Christian scruples.

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

35

At the front, a dismayed and disillusioned Lafayette went over to France’s Austrian enemies, who ironically imprisoned him for five years as a dangerous revolutionary. (George Washington, president o f the newly re­ constituted American republic, vainly pleaded for the release o f this hon­ orary American citizen whose child w as his godson.) Jacobinism had turned another com er. Royalist newspapers were shut down. Jacobins decided that only Jacobins had the right to speak. As SaintJust would later explain, henceforth, only the friends o f liberty had the right to enjoy the fruits o f liberty.

From August 1 7 9 2 to June 1 7 9 3 : The Jacobins’ Rise to Power To kill a king, and become the horror o f respectable nations and persons? But then also, to save a king; to lose one's footing with the decided P atriot. . . The dilemma presses sore; and between the horns o f it, you wiggle round and round. Decision is nowhere, save in the M other Society and her Sons. These have decided, and go forw ard; the others wriggle round uneasily with their dilemma-horns, and make w ay no wither. Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

The Jacobins cheered the end o f the monarchy. Tw o hundred and fifty so­ cieties sent messages to the newly elected Convention to hail the proclama­ tion o f the new republic on September 22, 179z. Nonetheless, the politics o f August-September 17 9 z occasioned the sec­ ond great split in the Jacobin clubs. The Feuillants o f course were long gone; but a new struggle pitted against each other the two wings o f what had been in the fall o f 17 9 1 a unified Jacobin left. This second internal split o f late 17 9 2 -9 3 , between the Girondins and M ontagnards, was felt more deeply by the provincial clubs than even the painful division o f 17 9 1 be­ tween the Feuillants and the Paris Jacobins. Since the spring o f 17 9 2 the left-leaning Girondin Jacobins had either steered the revolutionary state or been close to doing so. The fall o f the monarchy, although not their doing, did not displease them. The king after all had tried to force them out in June. M oreover, in September many Girondins were returned to power, among them Roland, who was once again made minister o f the interior. N or did the Girondin Jacobins mind the forced sale o f émigré estates, the placing o f their relatives under policy surveillance, the removal o f the king's name from all documents, or the

36

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

suppression o f religious orders. The Girondins also supported the suspen­ sion on August 25, 17 9 2 , o f the earlier laws that provided for the compen­ satory repayment o f canceled feudal dues. But the Girondin Jacobins, who had in the past steadily pushed for the radicalization o f revolutionary politics, grew increasingly worried about the continued leftist drift o f events. Ideological extremists were accumulat­ ing power, they thought, at the expense o f the legal authorities (that is, themselves) and this trend they did not like, although they themselves had been ideological extremists when out o f power only the year before. Late in the summer o f 17 9 2 the Girondins were increasingly troubled by the scattered arrests o f their former enemies, the Feuillants, whose un­ happy fate suddenly seemed relevant to their own. Troubling also for the Girondins was the creation on August 17 , 17 9 2 , at the prompting o f the new sans-culotte-dominated Paris Commune, o f a special tribunal to judge crimes supposedly committed by the (constitutionally sanctioned) royalists during the (illicit) overthrow o f the monarchy. This first wave o f terror was not extensive, but a number o f prominent conservative figures and journal­ ists were nonetheless executed. These Parisian developments made the Girondins anxious, just as the first massacre o f counterrevolutionaries in Avignon in October 17 9 1 had. The threatened Girondins did not approve when Danton, the new minister o f justice in Paris, who derived his true power from his links to the new self-appointed and populist Paris Communal government, granted amnesty to the man in charge o f that initial slaughter, “ Coupe-tête” (head-chopper) Jourdan. (Jourdan was so wild that he was ordered executed by his fellow Robespierrist administrators in M ay 179 4.) N or did the Girondins like Danton’s egalitarian rhetoric. They worried about a greater and destabilizing involvement o f the poor in public affairs. The Girondins were dead set against the Paris Commune, or municipal government, which some weeks back had fallen into the hands o f truculent sans-culottes. Rural unrest was also much more widespread in 17 9 2 than it had been in 17 9 0 or 17 9 1. Like the Feuillants in the late summer o f 17 9 1, the Girondins o f late 17 9 2 decided that the Revolution had gone too far. As a former m ayor o f Lyons wrote in November to Roland: “ The scene has changed: laws which before the 10th o f August were favorable only to our enemies are now the [last] safeguard of liberty.” 22

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

37

The September massacres in Paris (and by imitation in many other cities like Versailles and Reims) were the very heavy straw that broke the Girondins* eroded patience. About thirteen hundred prisoners, many o f them apolitical common criminals and prostitutes, were hacked to death. (Rates o f execution from jail to jail varied between 1 percent and 97 per­ cent.) It is difficult to ascertain the deeper causes o f this horrible blood­ shed, which was unimaginable before it occurred. One possibility is to see it as a populist throwback to ancient destructive habits: under the pressure o f events, consciously phrased principle yielded to primitive blood lust, the likes o f which had not been seen in France since the messianic wars o f reli­ gion in the late sixteenth century. If set in that context o f inherited impulse, the September massacres of 17 9 a were for the sans-culottes what the Terror o f 179 4 was to be for the more educated and propertied Jacobins. In any instance, what mattered politically w as that most left Jacobins reacted passively to these massacres. When urged to protect these victims, Danton is said to have responded, “ Fuck the prisoners.” 23 One might add in passing that although often represented in literature and film—especially in their German variants (notably by the playwright Büchner in his Death o f Danton o f 1834 )— as a fatalist and preromantic victim o f Robespierrist tyranny, Danton was in fact a sensual, vulgar, the­ atrical, unprincipled, and venal man, an atypical Jacobin in most respects except for his nationalism and his cult o f dynamism. His obvious energy and his genuine oratorical talents brought him to early prominence, but in an ideologically determined setting, the man was no match for M axim ilian Robespierre, his doctrinal and triumphant nemesis. The September massacres and the left Jacobins* tolerance o f them mattered a great deal to the Girondins, not because such acts o f popular vi­ olence particularly offended their quasi-populist principles but, more sim­ ply, because they had nearly been its victims. On September a, 17 9 a , Robespierre and M arat had tried to have Brissot and thirty o f his friends arrested. Without Danton’s grudging interference, the Girondins would have been in jail during the massacre, and they would surely have been killed as well. To make matters worse, after the fact, the left M ontagnard Jacobins did not condemn the massacres at all. Far from it, as shall be seen below, Robespierre explained that these murderous attacks had been the w ork o f

38

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

“ un mouvement populaire et non une sédition partielle” (a popular move­ ment and not a seditious riot as has been ridiculously supposed).24 Even a moderate Jacobin like Grégoire shunted responsibility for these dreadful acts away from the actors and toward an exculpating cultural context in­ herited from the Old Regime. The massacres, he explained some months later, had been “ the fruit o f a government without m orality, and the de­ pravity o f a court that had raised its scandalous triumphs on the debris o f m orality.” 25 For a few days after the slaughter the Girondins continued to hesitate. Should they break with the Jacobin movement altogether? At first, Carra and Antoine-Joseph Gorsas, their leading journalists, defended the mas­ sacres as a welcomed, necessary, and purging step. But gradually the Girondins, as the Feuillants had before them, turned to the right in order to stop the Revolution and to consolidate their hold over national politics. Their new immobilizing resolve was strengthened by echoes o f yet more killings in the provinces, and by the victory o f Valmy two weeks later on September zo, 17 9 2 , which stopped the allies’ invasion o f France and made further radicalization seem less necessary. Also relevant to the Girondins’ newly found determination to halt the Revolution was the convening o f the recently elected and more prestigious Convention on the next day.26 By late September 17 9 2 , then, the leading Girondins had made up their minds to speak out on behalf of law and order. Like those other ex-Ja­ cobins, the Feuillants o f September 17 9 1, the Girondins had become in September 17 9 2 defenders o f the revolutionary status quo. On October 29, 17 9 2 , Jean-Baptiste Louvet assailed Robespierre as an “ insolent dema­ gogue.” As w ill be seen, the split between Girondin Jacobins and M ontagnard Ja ­ cobins is a set piece o f a M arxist revolutionary historiography that high­ lights economic interest and class analysis. M any historians have insisted that the two groups were different on other grounds as well (religion, for example). Nonetheless, a close reading o f their fundamental opinions (rather than o f their opportunistic statements) reveals that Girondins were no less Republican than Montagnards and no less anticlerical (indeed, with some exceptions, they were perhaps more hostile to the nonconstitutional, populist church than was the Montagne). N or were Girondins more consti­ tutional and legalistic. When out o f power, they had passively allowed the crowds (then favorable to them) to invade the Tuileries Palace in April

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

39

17 9 2 and the National Assembly in June 17 9 2 . Likewise, in April 17 9 3 , they would try to impeach M arat, who was at the time both the president o f the Paris Jacobins and an authentically elected deputy as well. And years later, in September 17 9 7 , those o f them who survived accepted the mildly leftist m ilitary coup d’état that led to the illegal purge o f a representative assembly whose control they had lost to constitutional monarchists in the previous and fair elections. Indeed, many Girondins lived on to serve Bona­ parte’s autocratic militarism as well. N or were the Girondins more rich, more bourgeois, more interested in industrial development, or, in a word, more capitalist than their rivals. The essence o f the problem was elsewhere. Specifically, in the fall o f 17 9 2 the Girondin Jacobins, who were linked to one another by ties o f friendship and mutual interest, were then governing and instinctively as­ sumed that the Revolution would have to be stabilized to be saved, whereas the M ontagnard Jacobins (then in opposition) thought that salva­ tion lay in a move toward intransigent universalism, with popular help if need be. For the Feuillants, after the flight o f the king to Varennes in June 17 9 1, slowing down the Revolution suddenly seemed imperative. In the fall o f 17 9 2 , after the September massacres, the Girondins made a sim ilar deci­ sion. They had changed their mind. The best w ay to preserve Jacobin ideals, they now thought, was for the Revolution to stand still. Indeed, the Girondins’ conservative turnabout o f late 17 9 2 not only echoed Barnave’s reversal in 17 9 1, it also heralded Robespierre’s own future course, when in the winter o f 17 9 3 -9 4 he too attempted to slow the dynamic o f revolution­ ary change by disengaging Jacobinism from its sans-culotte allies. By the fall o f 17 9 2 issues in the capital were clearly drawn, even more so than in 17 9 1 because the Parisian popular movement had a tighter struc­ ture. Girondin insiders who still controlled the government after the elec­ tion o f the new Convention on September 2 1, 17 9 2 , decided to confront the Montagnards directly. On October 8 ,17 9 2 , the Girondins (backed by several provincial clubs) proposed both the creation o f a departmental guard for the Convention and an official inquiry on the origins o f the September massacres. They attacked Danton, whom they rightly suspected o f having stolen public monies. But the Montagnards were equally determined to impose their interpre­ tation o f the massacres. On October 8 ,17 9 2 , the Journal de la correspon­ dance des Jacobins claimed that the prisoners had been responsible for the

40

* A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

September massacres because they had intended to escape and kill the com­ panions o f absent volunteers: "you can understand that when the horrible plot was discovered the people wreaked a terrible vengeance.” 27 On N o­ vember 5, 17 9 2 , Robespierre asked rhetorically if the revolutionaries had wanted a “ Revolution without revolution. . . Who can indicate with preci­ sion,” he asked, “ the point where the flood o f popular insurrection must break? And if that is a price to be paid, what people could then ever shake the yoke o f despotism?” 28 On November 3 0 ,17 9 2 , the Paris club decided that the September mas­ sacres had saved the Revolution. Jacobin orators defended the sans­ culotte-dominated Paris Commune. They attacked the Girondins, once their fellow Jacobins. Jean-M arie Collot d’Herbois went one step further: without the massacres, he said, liberty would not exist. In a famous debate with Louvet, on the Convention floor, Robespierre managed to convince the hesitant members o f the Plaine—the silent and undecided m ajority that was afraid o f popular violence but did not want the Revolution to falter—that on this issue the Gironde was wrong and the Montagne w as right. The deputies tabled the Girondins’ proposed inquiry into the cause o f the massacres; Robespierre made a triumphal entry into the Paris Jacobin club that same day. The Jacobins o f Nîmes likewise resolved that an Adresse à tous les Républicains de France o f Brissot, who had recently been excluded from the Paris club, was motivated by a “ secret intrigue.” 29 Then in late 17 9 2 came the trial o f the king. Pierre Louis Bentabole, a deranged Jacobin extremist, soon to become a violent terrorist, had already in October asked for the death penalty for Louis. On November 20 secret and incriminating documents were discovered in an iron safe that had been hidden by order o f the monarch in a w all o f the Tuileries Palace the year before. On December 2 ,17 9 2 , the popular revolutionaries o f the Paris sec­ tions—and many provincial clubs as well—urged the Convention to pro­ ceed with the trial, as did Robespierre on December 3. The Girondins did not want to bring the king to trial. To do so would only radicalize the Revolution, which was what they wished to avoid above all else. But they had no choice. Opinion went against them. On De­ cember i i , 17 9 2 , the inexorable procedure w as set into motion. The Girondins hedged their arguments. They agreed the king was guilty. Should he be executed? N o, they argued. But if he were condemned to die,

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

41

should the execution be ratified by a plebiscite that the partisans o f the death penalty might lose? Yes, they responded. By implication, the desperate Girondins found themselves denying the Convention’s right to rule as a wholly sovereign body. For Pierre Vergniaud, the Gironde’s greatest orator and a former president o f the Paris Ja ­ cobin club, the deputies as representatives o f the sovereign people had many prerogatives, but those did not include the power to try the king. Brissot described the M ontagnards, who rejected the idea o f a plebiscite, as "am bitious imbéciles” bent on violating the sovereignty o f the people. Gensonné attacked the Jacobins as a "faction” that encouraged sectional insurrection against the sovereign nation. But Vergniaud, like many Girondins, went on to vote for the death penalty. The uncommitted dep­ uties o f the Plaine took note o f the Girondins’ inability to act forcefully and in concert. W ordsworth, who was in Paris at the time, later wrote eloquendy o f Brissot’s friends in his Prelude, "T hat Heaven’s best aid is wasted upon men who to themselves are false.” Given the Jacobins’ confused interpretations o f popular sovereignty, the Montagne’s retort to the Girondins’ call for a popular vote was pre­ dictable. If the Convention had had the right to proclaim a republic on September 2 2 ,17 9 2 , why did it not have the right to condemn the king in January 17 9 3 ? The Montagnards loftily refuted the Gironde’s evocation o f popular sovereignty and its call for a referendum, a stance they surely un­ derstood completely since it had been their own in the recent past: Danton and Robespierre, for example, had both argued for that selfsame democra­ tic and consultative solution in the summer o f 17 9 1 after the king’s flight to Varennes, when they hoped to mobilize the electorate against the N a­ tional Parliament so as to dethrone the king. By January 17 9 3 , however, times had apparently changed. A popular vote, they explained, w as at that moment practically undesirable because the provincial electoral assemblies were already in disarray. If Louis’s fate were referred to these local assemblies, they concluded, more confusion would ensue. Proposing a plebiscite was a counterrevolutionary measure. Needless to say, the Montagnards also concluded that the Girondins had themselves become factional aristocrates. Clearly, the different words spoken by these two warring groups o f Ja ­ cobins must hold our close attention. But Jacobins, especially in Paris, in

42

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

both club and Convention, were highly educated men who could with ease rattle o ff this Voltairean idea o f toleration or that idea o f Rousseauean general w ill. To justify what really mattered to them—first, the advance­ ment or the retrogression o f the Revolution at any given moment; and sec­ ond, the suppression or encouragement o f popular revolutionaries— both progressive and regressive Jacobins knew precisely which kind o f argument they should use. During the trial o f the king, some “ pre-Freudian” Jacobins might choose to say that the king was a mythic figure whose body had to die if the nation were to live. But other Jacobins could conclude instead that rationally ap­ praised, his death would cause more problems than it would resolve. On January 20, 17 9 3 , Louis X V I, “ the last king o f France” as Jacobins liked to say, w as condemned to death. He was executed the next day. T w o days later, a noble-bom Jacobin, Louis Michel Le Peletier, who had voted for his execution, was in turn assassinated by a suicidal royalist. The first months o f 179 3 were a period o f intense psychological radical­ izaron and institutional disorganization. Financial credit dried up. The dis­ tribution and transportation o f food to Paris (never well organized) w as made more difficult by the cavalry’s requisition of draft animals. Domestic and international problems piled up as well. On February 1 ,1 7 9 3 , France declared w ar on England and, for good measure, on the Netherlands and Spain, too. (Russia, Naples, and Turkey would also join the anti-French coalition.) Inside France, in the west, the peasants o f the Vendée rose up in revolt on M arch 1 1 ,1 7 9 3 . M any local patriots were brutally murdered by the rebels. In the first week o f April 17 9 3 , General Dumouriez, the com­ manding, pro-Girondin general on the Belgian front, went over to the enemy. He w as, after Lafayette in August 17 9 2 , the second commander-in­ chief to defect in less than a year. At this juncture, the M ontagnards’ instinctive response— namely, to speak in more universalist and audacious terms—seemed to make increas­ ing sense to desperately anxious pro-revolutionaries and, in the Conven­ tion, to the hesitant, fearful deputies o f the Plaine. M ontagnard Jacobins everywhere vociferously advocated arresting more people. They also wished to give more leeway to the crowd. In ordinary times law and order and the free exchange o f goods and money would have been their strong preference. But now an ancient instinctive thought took hold, namely, that m ilitary repression was the best w ay to deal with

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

43

what they considered an anomalous penury o f supply. It increasingly seemed to the propertied, ordinarily enlightened Montagnards that the un­ committed rich were being selfish. They were not virtuous. As Saint-Just said o f those Conventionnels who did not want to kill the king, “ they lacked energy.” They deserved punishment. Inside the Convention the uncommitted deputies o f the Plaine inclined to that same view. They too were hostile to direct popular involvement in pol­ itics, but they also thought that the Girondins were pusillanimous and du­ plicitous men who had changed their mind too often, on the rights o f crowds, the sanctity o f the law , virtue, energy, and the proper embodiment o f sovereignty. On October 1 1 , 1 7 9 2 , the Girondins had still managed to secure nearly every place on the prestigious Constitutional Committee. But after the death o f the king on January 2 1, 17 9 3 , the moderate allies o f the Giron­ dins increasingly gave them up for lost. It seemed more than ever unthink­ able to the Plaine that the Revolution could be saved if it did not go for­ w ard, as the Montagnards had been arguing all along (and as the Girondins, o f course, had also argued from late 17 9 1 into early 179 2). Paradoxically, then, in the spring and summer o f 17 9 3 , many moderate revolutionaries o f the Plaine concluded that they had no choice but to accept temporary measures o f extralegal coercion in order to uphold the parliamen­ tarian and individualist values they had earnestly proclaimed in 178 9 . On February 2 2 ,17 9 3 , the M arseilles club circularized the network and asked for the recall o f the Girondin Conventionnels. The Limoges society, which had sided with the Gironde on January 28, 17 9 3 , moved back to­ ward the Montagne on February 2 5.30 O f course, it was difficult at first for left M ontagnard Jacobins and right Girondin Jacobins to see one another as mortal enemies. They had been like brothers only a few months before. On M arch 17 , 17 9 3 , four days after the creation o f an extraordinary Revolutionary Tribunal, which the Girondins had fully supported, François Buzot and Robespierre met once again. For a brief time, it seemed as if the rift between the two camps had been bridged, fraternally. But accord among these varying left and right Ja ­ cobins was impossible. The Revolution could not simultaneously go for­ ward and stop. T o mark their new stance o f conservative resistance, in April 17 9 3 the Girondins tried (and failed) to convict M arat, who had been elected to the

44 * A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective Convention by the city o f Paris. A point o f no return now ensued. On M ay 3 1 , and once again on June a, the Parisian crowds and militia (eighty thou­ sand men in all) organized by the sans-culotte-dominated Paris Commune and abetted by the Jacobins, surrounded the Convention hall. A few weeks before, on March 8, the authorities had easily dissolved a similar sans-culotte move against that same assembly, which the Jacobins had not encouraged. In June, however, the unchecked sans-culottes suc­ cessfully demanded the expulsion and arrest o f the legally elected Girondin deputies. After some hesitation, the centrist deputies o f the Plaine gave in. Key Girondins were expelled. Some escaped. Others were placed under house arrest. M ost were executed five months later. Attendance in the clubs, which had slackened a bit, picked up once again as the tempo o f radicalized politics quickened also. Jacobinism had reached another important turning point. In August 179 z Jacobins had decided that only they could speak, and so it was that on December 4, 179z, the Girondins had made it a crime for newspapers to advocate a return to the monarchy. But now, in June 1793, the victorious left Jacobins decided that only some o f the clubbistes could speak. After Ju ly Z3, 1793, it became an offense to obstruct their meetings. The ancient and illiberal side o f the Jacobin sensibility was given free rein.

From July 1 7 9 3 to July 17 9 4 : Jacobin Politics in a Social Void Thus, in M ilton, did the monsters o f the deep devour with rabid greed the breast o f the very being that had given them life. José Marchena, a Spanish liberal imprisoned in France as a friend of the Girondins, speaking of the rivalry between the Girondins and the Montagnards

In the summer o f 179 3 many provincial Jacobins whose lives were still un­ perturbed found it hard to grasp the various issues and events in Paris. “ How w ill you establish laws on foundations that are constantly thrown up by the volcano o f anarchy?” asked the Vedette de Besançon. M[How can you place laws] on the uncertain bases o f a public opinion that is excited or corrupted at w ill by the party that masters it?” 31 Provincial Jacobins be­ lieved the republicanized Revolution should go forw ard legally. They asked two related questions: Was it legal to exclude legally elected deputies? The

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

45

answer was clearly “ no.* And were the Montagnards a faction, or were they the voice o f Jacobin opinion? Here answers were more varied. In many parts o f France, in western France and Normandy especially, local clubs, nearly without exception, sided with the legally elected Girondins. Likewise, in the southwest, where the local clubs sided with the Montagnards in Paris, many disgruntled Girondin Jacobins (as at M ar­ seilles) managed to ensconce themselves in the sections. In central and east­ ern France, by contrast, where Girondin opposition was unstructured, most o f the clubbistes responded quite quickly to the M ontagnards’ call for a deepening o f revolutionary ideology. Local conflicts and proxim ity to the power o f the capital were keenly rel­ evant to these divergent provincial options, which were also affected by an­ tecedent cultural and social provincial contexts. In southeastern France, for example, where sociability was intense and densely organized, and where the Civil Constitution o f the Clergy had been overwhelmingly accepted by the local clergy, entire communities went over to the side o f the more pro­ gressive, activist M ontagnards. There, civil w ar divided not leftist M onta­ gnards and rightist Girondins, but mainstream local Jacobins and the pop­ ulist far left that was allied to the Paris Jacobins for tactical reasons. Likewise, in modernizing cities and protoindustrial centers where social differences o f class were consciously apprehended and institutionally em­ bodied in rival clubs that had different social profiles (as in Bordeaux, Arles, A ix, and Nîmes) the M ontagnards' decision to go forward and real­ ize their ideological worldview, in momentary tandem with the sans­ culottes, struck a leftist chord with some people at least. On balance, however, provincial middle-of-the-road Jacobin clubs were, at first, indignant; and ensuing divisions deepened when anti-Parisian Ja ­ cobin revolutionaries were joined in opposition to the Montagne by all those—royalists or Republicans—who, since the summer o f 178 9 , had been nursing a silent grievance o f some kind against all Jacobins o f the right or o f the left. It was as if a dam had broken. The intra-Jacobin, Parisian quarrel o f Girondins and Montagnards over making a deal with or against the Paris crowd left in its wake a slew o f m ini-civil wars whose social and cultural origins were very broad. In M arch 179 3 Vendéen peasants had been the first to organize a serious rebellion. Then, on Ju ly 1 3 , 17 9 3 , Charlotte Corday murdered M arat. Robespierre had despised the utterly unrespectable M arat, who was less

46

* A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

convinced about the merits o f individualism than were most Jacobins. B ut his death muted this discordant past and made o f M arat the premier m ar­ tyr o f the Jacobin Revolution. After this came the news that at Lyons the momentarily victorious an tiJacobins had executed Joseph Chalier, the M ontagnard m ayor o f the c ity , whose image now joined that of M arat and Le Peletier in the Jacobins* imaginary pantheon. On July 23 the city o f Mayence, on the Rhine, w hich the French had occupied and garrisoned in October 17 9 2 , surrendered. F i­ nally, on August 2 7 ,17 9 3 , the naval base and fleet at Toulon went over to the invading English. Different places produced different kinds o f anti-M ontagnard coalitions (as will be seen in Chapter 10). In the west peasant rebels had since M arch 179 3 co-opted reluctant nobles, and had in turn been co-opted ideologi­ cally by glib royalists and nonjuring clergymen. In Lyons the anti-Jacobin enemies of the Montagne, though confirmed Republicans for the m ost part, remained well to the right o f mainstream Jacobins. In M arseilles, by contrast, the local foes of the lower-middle-class Montagnard Jacobins in the club were the genuine (if middle-class) Jacobins in the sections w ho were real revolutionaries in most respects but were nonetheless determined to resist Parisian interference in their local affairs. And yet, in the space o f weeks, the indomitable Paris-directed Jacobin Montagnards pushed back all of their enemies. Thinking in absolute terms gives one a transcendental indifference to the odds of failure. The Jacobins had become the architects o f a "m ythic present.” 32 Henceforth, explained one o f their numbers at Bourg-sur-Rhône, "w e w ill not have to grub through the history o f Greece and Rome to find legislators and heroes.” 33 On the one hand, Jacobin leaders really did struggle heroically. Universal military conscription (the levée en masse) was decreed on August 2 3 ,1 7 9 3 . Lyons was recaptured. The English were beaten in the north; the Span­ iards, in the south. Thanks to a young Corsican artillery officer with a funny name, Napoleone de Buonaparte, Toulon was besieged and retaken on December 19 . On December 23, 17 9 3 , the Vendéen army in the west was broken up. On the other hand, with resistance came terror. In the summer o f 17 9 3 the ingredients o f rampant state-decreed terrorism began to coalesce. Its ostensible cause w as the sense that "these were the times that tried men’s souls.” W ar and civil w ar made the Jacobins’ collective dictatorship seem

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

47

more acceptable, to them in any case. Its precedent was the execution o f the king in January. Its means were the gradual suspension o f law . Its dri­ ving motive was the hatred o f faction. Its mainspring was the moralization o f politics and the demonization o f Jacobinism 's enemies, critical themes to which I w ill often return. Its words came from the hegemonic assemblage o f formulaic recipes that were taking on a demonic life o f their own. And once state-sponsored terror began in earnest, in October o f 17 9 3 , nothing could arrest it. Desmoulins wept at the trial o f the Girondins, but in vain. Terror now fed on its own self. As Paul Barras (a noble-born Ja ­ cobin terrorist) pithily explained, “ Il faut terroriser ou s’attendre à l'être” (Your choice is to be terrorized or to become a terrorist). Cowed, galvanized, silenced, or enthused, millions decided to follow the lead o f the militant Jacobins, who at this point composed surely no more than a small minority o f the urban possessing class. On August 2 3, 17 9 3 , the Jacobins decreed that the resources o f the entire country would be mo­ bilized behind the faltering w ar effort, whose organization was directed by Carnot, a Jacobin o f sorts. International trade, mining, and metallurgy all came under state control. Sym bolically, the single state manufacture o f ri­ fles in Paris in 179 4 produced more than five hundred weapons daily, a huge number by the standards o f the day. By September 179 4 the armies o f the republic numbered over a million men. The Jacobin m ajority o f the Convention also reorganized the revolution­ ary government once again, but in a manner far removed from what had just been voted on August 10 , 17 9 3 , with the enactment o f a new consti­ tution. In theory, the new Jacobin charter was latitudinarian: it had an unusual libertarian clause that allowed rebellion in the name o f violated freedom (the "law must protect public and private liberties against oppression by those who govern” ). But more to the point was the Jacobins' decision not to apply this constitution until the w ar had stopped. In the summer and fall o f 17 9 3 , constitutional procedure was not the Jacobins' first concern. Some o f these changes had already begun in the spring o f 17 9 3 . On April 5 the Revolutionary Tribunal, established in M arch, had seen its powers extended to enable it to prosecute more or less at w ill. Likewise, on A pril 6 the Convention, Girondins included, decreed the creation o f an om­ nipotent Committee o f Public Safety (CPS), backed by a Committee o f General Security (CGS).34 That delegation o f powers to the CPS and the

48

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

CGS was o f course required by the Jacobins’ belief that the single and elected assembly held all sovereignty and that executive power could be ex­ ercised only dependently by a committee which—in theory—remained a mere branch o f the unicameral legislature. Then, in midsummer 17 9 3 , the left Jacobins turned the screws tighter yet. They managed to pack all o f the Convention’s key committees. On Ju ly 27, 17 9 3 , Robespierre joined the CPS, which he never (despite ap­ pearances) tyrannized but whose spokesman he nonetheless became. The Robespierrist and neoclassical painter David was the most famous member o f the neighboring CGS. To make sure that the w rit o f the Jacobins in Paris would not be ignored, eighty-two Conventionnels en mission—most o f them Montagnards—were delegated as pro-consuls in the provinces. Provi­ sioning Paris was handed over to a Subsistence Commission with power to purchase grain abroad and to requisition it at home. Ironically, this mod­ ernizing step elaborated ancient monarchic and patriarchal practices rather than reversing what had existed before 178 9 . (Tocqueville in the 18 50 s would take historical note o f such continuities.) In the provinces the administrative business o f government was in theory still entrusted to local and elected representatives; but revolutionary busi­ ness (suspects, the controlled economy, requisitions o f goods and services, provisioning the army) was increasingly placed in the hands o f appointed officials who ordinarily worked with the clubs. These in turn became cogs in the Parisian Jacobins’ new system o f government, which had been offi­ cially decreed on Ju ly 25, 17 9 3 . Together with the Committees o f Surveil­ lance, created in M arch o f 179 3 (whose membership often overlapped with that of the clubs), the Jacobin societies became the provincial mainstay o f the national state-machine, a complete turnabout from what had been their self-defined role o f 178 9 -9 0 , when the clubs had presented themselves as removed and impartial critics, as friendly, nonparticipating observers. In brief, France in late 179 3 approximated a single-party state, with the Jacobin clubs as its fundamental cells. The arithmetic o f club foundations is eloquent on this score. They were few at first in 179 0 . M any more came into being around the time o f the king's flight to Varennes. And in the spring o f 179 4 they reached their high-water mark. January 179 0 : August 179 0 : November 179 0 :

less than 50 9 0 -15 0 200

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦ December 179 0 : M arch 17 9 1: M ay 17 9 1: Ju ly 17 9 1: September 17 9 1: December 17 9 1: December 17 9 2 : December 17 9 3 : Spring o f 179 4 :

49

300 543 745 833 1,0 00 1,2 5 0 1,5 0 0 2,000 6,000

These clubs, though all known in 179 4 as "popular societies” or sociétés populaires, were not all o f the same ilk. Quite varied in membership and motivation, they reflected the instability o f Jacobin ideological intensity and membership. Some o f the popular societies o f 179 4 really were clubs, the linear de­ scendants o f the private societies o f 178 9 . In the countryside, however, many were no more than ephemeral village assemblies that met only a few times, probably at the behest o f visiting administrators. At Melun an offi­ cial remarked in late 179 4 that "the larger part o f the societies that were set up in rural communes were only there in name.” 35 M ore important, in the larger cities (like M arseilles, Lyons, and Lille) many o f the new clubs were not clubs at all; they began as popular assemblies whose aim, ironi­ cally, w as, if not to struggle against the more bourgeois Jacobin clubs, at least to make known their own distinct and non-Jacobin voice. Overall, then, three different types o f associations were originally at stake: (1) the Jacobin clubs proper, where Jacobin ideology was gradually articulated and applied; (2) the original sociétés populaires, which at first were also voluntary but had a different social base and whose definition would change completely in the spring o f 179 4 ; and (3) the official assem­ blées sectionnaires (or sections, for short), which also had a popular audi­ ence— at first—but which were legally empowered associations. Thus, in essence the clubs, societies, and sections were initially quite dis­ tinct entities. The Jacobin clubs and the original sociétés populaires, which more or less opposed them, were private associations. They might claim to represent the nation as a whole, but that claim was derided by antiJacobins. By contrast, the assemblées sectionnaires, which corresponded to the of­ ficially created geographical sections, were legally constituted, representa-

jo

* A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

tive assemblies. They were town meetings o f a kind where any citizen had the legal right to speak. Indeed, in September 17 9 3 , when the Jacobins were eager to slow down popular participation in Parisian politics, atten­ dance at such meetings was paradoxically subsidized by the state in a kind o f collective and compensatory bribe to the militant sans-culottes, whose political autonomy was in fact being reduced, appearances notwith­ standing. But the identification o f these various associations, which is important to a clear narration o f events, is often baffling because the two principles at hand—namely, political choice and relationship to public authority—did not necessarily overlap. "Private” clubs might be to the right or the left o f the "public” sections. Lineups varied from place to place. In Paris the as­ semblées sectionnaires were to the left o f the Jacobins; but that was not the case in many other parts of France. In Lyons, for example, anti-Jacobin so­ cially conservative Republicans took over the sections. And M arseilles was even more complex. The Parisian Jacobins, had they focused on finding sim ilarly minded class allies in that city, should have sided against the local club, which had fallen into the hands o f local Hébertists o f a kind, and with the M arseillais sections, whose members were socially more like themselves. But (as w ill be seen in Chapter 10) be­ cause the petit bourgeois M arseillais Hébertists were highly efficacious, and because the bourgeois Jacobins o f the M arseillais sections had fool­ ishly sided with the Girondins in Paris, the bourgeois Parisian Jacobins who were sent to M arseilles decided to side with their "class enemy” for the sake o f tactical success, a fact which reminds us that the cooperation o f the (bourgeois) Jacobin clubbistes in Paris with the (lower-middle-class populist) clubbistes in M arseilles (which at first glance seems straightfor­ ward institutionally) represented a complex arrangement. Indeed, a seem­ ingly commonsensical statement (that the Parisian clubbistes "naturally” supported their peers in Marseilles) necessarily conceals a basic aspect o f Jacobin politics, namely, that to maintain the dynamic o f Revolution mat­ tered more to the Parisian Jacobins than did the establishment o f classbased alliances. Overall, then, an involved situation existed until early 179 4 , when it was drastically simplified: first, because in the late summer and early fall o f 17 9 3 the Jacobins m ilitarily repressed the bourgeois-dominated sections o f the southern cities; and, second, because in the winter o f 17 9 3 -9 4 the

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

51

Parisian Jacobins all but destroyed the leftist sans-culottes and Hébertistdominated popular societies and sections o f the capital. At this point, the differences among clubs, sections, and popular soci­ eties—which because o f their different social audiences had been so impor­ tant a few months before—lost their relevance. In Paris, some voluntary popular associations had already fused o f their own accord with the domesticated and paid assemblées sectionnantes. (A few o f them, even before the king’s flight to Varennes in 17 9 1, had volun­ tarily affiliated themselves to the club.) In 17 9 3 -9 4 others were forced to do so. In other northern cities like Reims and Rouen, popular associations were likewise absorbed into Jacobin-controlled bodies or shut down. Expressive o f their new subservience, all subsisting entities—whether Ja ­ cobin clubs, popular associations, or urban sections—were without excep­ tion given a sim ilar regulated status and ordered to take on the name so­ ciétés populaires. In sum, the term sociétés populaires, which was commonly used to de­ scribe the clubs in the spring o f 17 9 4 , had meant something quite different a few months before, and hence the oft-cited statistic o f "six thousand soci­ eties” is much less clear than one might think.36 From late 179 3 to Ju ly 179 4 terror increasingly became the Jacobins’ chief means o f government. It w as on September 5 ,17 9 3 , that the Convention— ostensibly to placate the sans-culottes—decided that "T error w as the order o f the day.” The power o f the Revolutionary Tribunal dram atically expanded on September 17 , when the Convention approved a "law o f suspects” so vaguely defined that it might apply to anyone. Eventually, as many, per­ haps, as 800,000 people were so designated. Without a certificat de civis­ me, which Committees o f Surveillance and Jacobin clubs could withhold at w ill, ordinary people became defenseless. Further landmarks came with the execution o f the former queen, M arie Antoinette, on October 1 6 ,1 7 9 3 , despite the absence o f proof against her. Jacobins thrilled to the news o f the death o f the "Austrian M essalina,” as at Angoulême, on the following Sunday: [T]o the cries of "Long Live the Republic, Long Live the Mountain,” the popular society and the people who are constantly in attendance at its

52

♦

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective

meetings went to the foot of the Tree of Liberty to give thanks to the di­ vinity that has rid France of this fury. A choir sang the sacred hymn [“ La Marseillaise” ] and citizens whose hearts were still oppressed by the weight of the existence of this monster withdrew, singing cries of joy whose same refrain always was “ Long Uve the Republic! Long Live the Mountain!” 37 The Girondins who had been under mere house arrest since June were also executed in late October 17 9 3 . After that, Jacobin terror swelled unchecked, and on June 10 , 179 4 (22 Prairial, Year II)—at the united prompting o f Robespierre, Couthon, and Barère—the Convention in essence suspended the rule o f law everywhere. Trials became a cruel travesty. On M ay 10 , 179 4 , the king's sister, a wholly insignificant person, was executed for no reason whatsoever. One or two clubs asked for the execution o f the king's ten-year-old son! In the summer o f 17 9 3 eleven people had been put to death monthly. That figure rose to 13 4 in early 179 4 and 800 in M ay, June, and Ju ly 179 4 . In Paris 1 ,2 5 1 men and women were condemned to death between M arch 179 3 and June 19 7 4 , and 1,3 7 6 more between June 10 and Ju ly 2 7 ,17 9 4 . Small and insignificant numbers by the standards o f our own times, but an extra­ ordinary and, o f course, ominous departure from previous norms. All in all, about 20,000 people were guillotined or shot “ legally.” H alf a million more were arrested at one point or another. M ore people yet died in the course o f m ilitary repression, more than 250,000 in the Vendée alone,38 many o f them in ways so horrible as to conjure for us the death camps and massacres o f modem times. On Decem­ ber 10 , 17 9 3 , for example, Carrier in a report to the Convention wrote that “ 58 individuals, designated by the name o f refractory priests, arrived at Nantes from Angers; they were immediately imprisoned on a boat on the Loire; and last night, were swallowed up by that river. What a Revolu­ tionary torrent the Loire is!” 39 After January 179 4 sadistically punitive Republican expeditions, many o f them headed by generals close to the Parisian sans-culottes, ravaged this hapless area, ostensibly to make sure that it would not rise again. Republican soldiers made collars with the ears o f their victims. Children were bayonetted to death. Vendéens were called a race de brigands. In some places the size o f population fell by nearly one half. Even the countryside o f the Vendée w as demonized. Though flat in actual fact, Barère portrayed this landscape as mountainous and threaten-

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

53

ing, deserving somehow o f punishment. In their punitive zeal, the Republi­ can troops destroyed even some pro-Republican villages. The Jacobins also used terror retroactively, as it were, to punish the no­ torious enemies o f the people, a vast category that ranged from the very rich and much despised tax farmers, who had collected the indirect taxes o f the Old Regime, to the friends o f yesterday, like the Feuillants or the Girondins. And in a drastic reversal o f the pattern o f Jacobin-sans-culotte cooperation that had prevailed from April to September 17 9 3 , the Terror also claimed victims among the leaders o f the popular movement. Relations between the Jacobins and the Parisian sans-culottes, always complicated, had improved by April o f 179 3 with an alliance over food policy. When in December 17 9 2 the Conventionnels decided that inflation was the root cause o f the nation’s economic woes, they engaged in price setting, but only as a temporary measure. Isolated Conventionnels en mis­ sion, like Nicolas M aure, a M ontagnard Jacobin, had likewise sporadically "taxed” food, but only to maintain local law and order. The Jacobins' basic preference for laissez-faire was quite plain, and on June 3 ,17 9 2 , they sym bolically and collectively participated in a fête honoring Jacques Simoneau, the m ayor o f a market town close to Paris who had been mur­ dered by a price-fixing mob. It was therefore unsurprising that in February 179 3 the Jacobins, including even M arat, once again criticized sans-culotte involvement in the food riots o f the day. Robespierre declared such mun­ dane concerns to be "unw orthy” o f a Republican people. On M ay 4, 17 9 3 , however, at the height o f the M ontagnards’ struggle against the Gironde and a time o f bread shortages and sharply rising prices, the Paris club reversed itself and began to actively support the en­ actment o f price controls for food. At stake, no doubt, was Robespierre’s genuine (if calculating) sympathy for all those who (like himself) had once been poor, humiliated, or scorned. But more present in his thinking and in that o f his fellow M ontagnard Jacobins was the realization that the defense o f the free trade o f grain had become politically and socially destructive. Jacobins who refused to accept this shift were pushed aside. Striking a bar­ gain with the Parisian crowd became the point o f reference for the ortho­ dox Jacobins. Hie Rhodus, hie salta! Other decisions followed from that new and fundamental choice. Public welfare was secularized, and on M arch 1 9 ,1 7 9 3 , the Convention decreed the creation o f a caisse nationale de prévoyance, the first—if shadowy—

54

*

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

scheme for a modern guaranteed minimum wage. On April n , 17 9 3 , the forced circulation o f paper money was decreed. On M ay 4, when the Girondins had not yet been excluded, the Convention, after another popu­ lar demonstration, decided to control the price o f wheat and flour. Traders were required by law to register their stocks. On Ju ly 2 6 the death penalty for hoarders was instituted. On September 5 crowds invaded the Conven­ tion to demand yet more. On September 1 1 and 29, that chamber passed a general maximum price (the maximum) for every commodity. Few o f these rules were ever enforced, but prices were set at 33 percent above those o f 179 0 and wages at 50 percent above the 179 0 level. On February 24, 17 9 4 , a national schedule o f prices was created, a set o f laws that were in the main to be repealed half a year or so after the fall of Robespierre in De­ cember 179 4 . Bread was rationed. Jacobins and sans-culottes alike kept a close watch on bakeries. In these same weeks (on June 1 4 ,1 7 9 3 , specifically) the Convention also recognized every citizen’s right to instruction and to material help in cases o f extreme need. Jacobins likewise agreed to a forced loan on the rich and to the creation o f the sans-culotte militias, the fifty-odd armées révolution­ naires. Staffed by militants and city thugs, a number o f them from the fringes o f the middle classes, these armed units, which numbered forty thousand, prowled through the countryside, pressuring the peasants for food. They often worked in close collaboration with local sans-culottes and were particularly active “ dechristianizers” in the fall o f 17 9 3 . And yet, though they thought they had no choice but to work with the sans-culottes, the Jacobins were nonetheless quite determined not to share power with these people. Jacques Billaud-Varennes, though close to the sans-culottes, warned, Mit is in the Convention that national drives must begin.” “ The sword o f Damocles,” he reminded one and all, “ must hence­ forth hover over the entire surface o f the nation.” 40 The Jacobins’ urge to domination did not wane. They and only they, in the Convention and in the clubs, were entitled to act as the repositories o f the people’s w ill. The Jacobins’ desire to reassert their authority grew in direct response to the rising voices o f the sans-culottes. Old Regime administrators had considered the plebs a hungry beast. It might be cajoled but it was always dangerous. The Jacobins’ instinct was to favor the crowd instead. But like their monarchic predecessors, they had no intention o f ever losing control o f the social and political machine.

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

55

On 14 Frimaire (December 4 ,17 9 3 ) the Jacobinized Convention decided to appoint national agents to enforce the Convention's w ill in the prov­ inces. The number o f officials employed in the central ministries— about four thousand—w as by now eight times what it had been in 178 9 . The Ja ­ cobin clubs were also brought under closer Parisian control. "The popular societies must be the arsenals o f public opinion,” explained the Committee o f Public Safety, "but it is up to the Convention and it alone to set the goal where opinion strikes."41 The sans-culottes, for the first o f two times, misjudged their situation. They became more rather than less truculent, and with predictable results. The first spokesmen o f the popular movement to feel the wrath o f the Ja ­ cobins were the enragés, the most authentic leaders o f the Parisian poor, who denounced daily the misdeeds o f the aristocratie bourgeoisie, the new aristocracy o f wealth, which they thought the Jacobins should punish more severely. Earlier in 17 9 3 the enragé leader Jacques Roux had justified the food riots, which Robespierre had then decried. As spring turned to summer, R oux’s speeches became more insistent, more inclined to divide the world into poor and rich (some o f whom were Jacobins) than to see it as a bat­ tleground between moral and immoral men as the Jacobins still did: "L ib ­ erty is a hollow sham ," he wrote, " if one class can deprive another o f food with impunity. Liberty is meaningless where the rich may exercise the power o f life and death over their fellow men with im punity."42 Roux de­ manded that the death penalty be decreed against usurers and stock­ jobbers. On June 3 0 ,17 9 3 , twelve prominent Jacobins went to the Cordelier club and bullied its members into expelling Roux and his ally Jean Théophile Leclerc. Hébert and M arat joined in. Roux, said the Friend o f the People, was "un homme très dangereux," and his fellow enragé Jean Varlet was an "intrigant cupide." Then, in the fall o f 17 9 3 , Roux was arrested, released, and rearrested. He committed suicide in jail on February 10 , 17 9 4 , after embracing the public prosecutor: the man after all was only doing his Re­ publican duty. In a parallel move, in late October 17 9 3 , the Parisian women’s clubs in Paris, which had close links to the sans-culottes (especially the Society o f Revolutionary Citizenesses, which had worked with the enragés), were also shut down. Though straightforward political strategy was probably upper­

56

♦

A Narrative front a Jacobin Perspective

most in their minds, the Jacobins also decided that the involvement o f women in politics ran against nature’s dictates. Anatomy w as political des­ tiny. “ Each o f the two sexes,” explained the M ontagnard Jacobin Jean Pierre Amar (who had recently fathered an illegitimate child), ais called to a particular type o f occupation . . . Its sphere o f action is circum scribed within that circle which it cannot cross, because nature, which has set these limits to man, imperiously demands it.” 43 The struggle over dechristianization in November and December 17 9 3 was yet another step in the Jacobins’ reassertion o f their right to rule over their sans-culotte allies. Anti-Catholic dechristianization had many roots, from a generalized anti-clericalism to local and specific hatreds o f the church, as in the Nièvre, in north-central France, for example.44 Its effects were widespread. In Paris the sans-culotte-dominated and dechristianizing Commune ordered the capital’s churches to be closed. The constitutional bishop o f Paris publicly renounced his priesthood. All over France, priests were humiliated, ridiculed, beaten, or imprisoned. Twenty thousand o f them abjured, o f whom six thousand chose to marry. To many Jacobins, this anticlerical and roughly institutionalized popular violence, though more or less tolerable doctrinally, seemed politically threat­ ening. On this matter Danton and Robespierre for once were o f one mind. Robespierre attacked Hébert directly on this issue on November 9, 17 9 3 , on the floor o f the Paris club. Eight days later he underscored the diplomatic problems that dechristianization was creating for the Revolu­ tion. On November z i, he attacked atheism, and on December 8, 17 9 3 , the Convention reminded the nation that freedom o f religion was recog­ nized by law . Henceforth, in principle at least, forced dechristianization gradually lapsed. (In the anticlerical south it went on and peaked in the early spring o f 179 4.) The CPS and the clubs sought to subdue rather than destroy the sans­ culottes. Once victorious, the Jacobins were eager to forgive their populist rivals. But the handwriting was on the w all. For the second time the leaders o f the Parisian sans-culotterie misread their cues. On M arch 4 ,17 9 4 , the Cordelier club proclaimed the need for yet another insurrection. At first, the Jacobins responded generously. They visited their rivals to arrange a reconciliation. But when the Cordeliers de­ cided to continue their insurrectionary propaganda, the Jacobin CPS struck back and easily won the day. The Hébertists had limited appeal, whereas that o f the Convention, which stood for the nation’s w ill, w as great.45

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

57

On M arch 2 4 ,17 9 4 , Hébert was executed. On M arch 27, Barère, on be­ half o f the CPS» asked for the dissolution o f the armées révolutionnaires. The export o f many commodities was once again allowed. The govern­ ment’s right to control wages was reasserted, and in state-owned works pay packets were actually lowered. The value o f paper money, which had risen in late 17 9 3 , now declined again. Thirty-nine Parisian popular soci­ eties were shut down. Those that remained often became cautious, espe­ cially as the more conservative Parisians, sensing the w ay the wind was blowing, began to return to the section meetings they had feared to attend.4* Sans-culottes were purged from state institutions, particularly the ministry o f w ar, where many o f them had found employment in 17 9 3 . Ja ­ cobin Conventionnels en mission openly criticized the effect o f the maxi­ mum. Price controls, they argued, disrupted the workings o f supply and demand, and providing for the militarized nation’s needs w as a priority that mattered more than wages. In early M ay the Paris Commune was packed with friends o f Robes­ pierre. In m id-July the Incorruptible One also denounced a series o f ban­ quets the sans-culottes had organized. A t the Jacobin club Couthon dared to say o f the forty-eight populist and Parisian assemblées sectionnaires that they were like the "spectacle hideux du fédéralisme.” When Robespierre’s moment o f need rolled around in Thermidor (July 179 4), the popular movement’s w ill to struggle had for many weeks been broken, as he then found out to his great dismay. The sans-culottes were bewildered by the Jacobins’ about-face. At first, they complained vociferously, unable to understand why their fam iliar words could no longer convince. Then, discouraged, they fell mute, espe­ cially as they were worn down by months and years o f cold and hunger. They felt they had been betrayed. In these dark moments, it is true, the Jacobins were still able to act in hu­ mane and constructive w ays. On December 19 , 17 9 3 , the Convention voted to create free, public, and subsidized prim ary education, France being the first modem nation to do so. M ore grandly yet, on February 4, 17 9 4 , France abolished slavery; again, it w as the first modem nation to do so, and at a time when the enslavement o f blacks was a recognized part o f American constitutional arrangements. Indeed, the liberalism and human­ ity o f the Jacobinism on this issue is particularly eloquent since many o f the most radical philosophes had been strangely ambiguous or silent on the abomination o f black slavery. (All o f them condemned, by contrast, the en-

58

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

slavement o f whites by whites.) It w as also in these early days o f 17 9 4 that the festivals o f the republic reached their apogee. But terrorism was a cancer that wasted all o f Jacobinism ’s achievements. As one w ay out o f the dilemma they faced, the Jacobins could have stopped the Terror. M any o f them contemplated such a course. From Feb­ ruary 179 4 to the end o f their rule in late Ju ly 17 9 4 , Robespierre and his closest friends often spoke o f the need to stabilize the Revolution. M an y people expected Robespierre to take this initiative, especially at the tim e o f the Festival o f the Supreme Being in M ay 179 4 . Indeed, some Jacobins around Danton and Desmoulins, the so-called In­ dulgents, openly proclaimed their opposition to an ongoing terror w hose first steps they had praised. Their aim, from early December 179 3 onw ard, was to silence the populist extremists and to return to legal normalcy, w ith freedom o f the press especially. For many weeks, in the winter o f 17 9 3 -9 4 , during the struggle with the popular left especially, Robespierre and his closest orthodox Jacobin associates hesitated about this growing force o f moderate opposition. Should they destroy it or accept its message? But if the Terror stopped, what would follow? They too might be swept aside. Besides, many were suspicious o f Danton’s dishonest demagogy and o f Desmoulins’s superficiality. In the spring o f 179 4 the hard-core Jacobins Robespierre spoke for fi­ nally decided to treat the Indulgents not as ideological allies (which they were, basically) but as members of yet another faction unconcerned about the public good even when they seemed to be working for it. If the Dantonists had ever been right, the Robespierrists concluded, it was for the wrong reasons. On January 10 , 17 9 4 , Desmoulins had almost been excluded from the Jacobin club. Robespierre rescued him on that day o f troubles: they had known each other for years and were both graduates o f the lycée Louis-leGrand in Paris. But afterward the Indulgents lost ground steadily. One o f their chief allies, Philippe Fabre d’Eglantine, was arrested on a justified charge o f corruption, and some weeks later the hard-core Jacobins in the CPS finally decided that Danton’s and Desmoulins’s (and Fabre’s) execu­ tions could no longer be avoided. It took place on April 5 ,17 9 4 . Jacobinism , though seemingly more efficient, was grinding to a spiritual halt. Frenetic persecution everywhere engendered leaden and factitious or­ thodoxy. In the eloquent words o f Saint-Just, the Revolution was “ frozen.” Within the provincial clubs, no one dared openly to oppose the theatrical

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

59

posturing o f the Robespierrists. By the thousands, however, rank-and-file Jacobins voted silently, with their feet. Attendance in the clubs fell o ff sharply.47 The “ nondeeds” o f ordinary provincial Jacobins became a silent language more eloquent than the highly articulate but formulaic speeches o f High Jacobins in Paris. Robespierre himself w as unable to decide. For many weeks in June and Ju ly 179 4 he stopped attending the meetings o f the CPS, as if unwilling to go either forward to more Terror or backward to the rule o f law . M any Ja ­ cobins, we can wager, felt these same doubts. Everyone feared for his life and safety, and property owners feared for their possessions as well. Even confirmed Jacobins thought they might at any moment become suspects. Everyone w as disgusted by the bloodshed o f terrorist repression, which repentant Jacobins at Tulle later (in the Year III) described, no doubt sincerely, as “ un système anti-social et anti-humain.” 48 M ilitary events, which had been an ostensible justification o f the Ter­ ror's inception in the summer o f 17 9 3 , also began to w ork in reversed gear when, on June 26, 17 9 4 , a French army won a decisive victory over the Austrians at Fleurus in Belgium. For years the Jacobins had detested factions and lived in fear o f dire con­ spiracy. Ironically, they were about to be proved right but, as it happens, by their own covert ministrations, because the Revolution’s only conse­ quential conspiracy was the one that was staged against Robespierre by his fellow Jacobins in the fourth week o f Ju ly 179 4 . The plot to overthrow Robespierre brought together four groups: (1) left Jacobins like Collot d’Herbois, a failed playwright who had been close to the executed Hébertists and to the popular revolutionaries; (2) terrorist Jacobins notorious for their brutality and cruelty like Joseph Fouché, Barras, Carrier, and Jean Tallien, who had been excluded from the Paris club on June 14 , a sure sign o f impending doom; (3) neo-Jacobin technocrats like Lazare Carnot and Jean-Baptiste Lindet, who had accepted Jacobinism less for the power o f its ideology than for its organizational energy; and (4) Barère, "the Anacreon o f the Revolution," a former Feuillant and a former Girondin, who had made his mark as the all-purpose impresario o f Jacobin unity.49 On 8 Thermidor (July 2 6 ,17 9 4 ) the plotters, acting in concert, attacked Robespierre verbally on the Convention floor. That night, he defended himself one last time—and quite successfully so— in the Paris Jacobin club; but given the bureaucratized nature o f the club’s membership, that success no longer meant very much.

6o

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

The next day the conspirators set on Robespierre once more on the Con­ vention floor. Disoriented and confused, he voluntarily abandoned the podium. The Convention then ordered him arrested. Later that night he was released by order o f the Paris Commune, which had been purged ear­ lier in the year o f militant sans-culottes and was staffed by Robespierre’s supporters, as was the Paris club. By leaving jail, Robespierre made o f him­ self an outlaw who had defied the Convention. If captured, he would no longer have to be tried. But even at this juncture, rebellion was clearly hard for him. Jacobins, after all, were men o f order. While signing an insurrectionary manifes­ to, Robespierre, ever dutiful, paused, and turned to ask: “ but in whose name?” Couthon, his friend, then sighed: "N ous n’avons plus qu’à mou­ rir” (All that is left for us to do is die). When the Convention’s troops burst into the Paris City H all at two in the morning o f io Thermidor, a number o f Jacobins (including, it was said, Robespierre) killed themselves or tried to do so. M ore impassively, on his w ay to execution later that day, Saint-Just turned toward a poster o f the 179 3 Constitution and said, "Y es, but I am the one who made that.” The defeated leaders o f Jacobin orthodoxy were mocked by the crowd as their tumbril worked its way to the Place de la Révolution. From 178 9 onward, the Revolution had been lived day by day as an in­ coherent succession o f unforeseeable events—often as a melodrama and at times as a buffoonery. N ow , suddenly, with the death of Robespierre-thetyrant, in an unexpected moment o f Aristotelian anagnorisis, of epiphany, the events o f the Revolution became all at once and retroactively a linear and plotted tragedy that had come to an inescapable turning point. Ther­ midor, thought the remaining Jacobins, would enable them to find their way at last; but of course it signaled their imminent fall instead.

From Thermidor, Year II (July 17 9 4 ) to 17 9 9 : The Irresistible Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte The Paris club that had supported Robespierre on 8 Thermidor endured several days o f disarray after his sudden overthrow and demise. But in the provinces, without exception and often enthusiastically, local Jacobins welcomed the fall o f the hated "tyrant.” In hundreds o f clubs Robespierre was denounced in late Ju ly and early August 179 4 as the hyp­ ocritical, feline, bloodthirsty incarnation o f every evil, as a modem Satan.

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

61

It was Jacobins who had raised Robespierre and his friends to power and it was Jacobins also who unseated him. Robespierrist terrorism was over­ thrown not by an anti-Jacobin ground swell o f opinion but by the men and women who had once been convinced o f its necessity. In the summer o f 179 4 the more honest and successful anti-Robespierrist conspirators thus aimed to reverse the sinister application o f Jacobin prin­ ciples but not to abandon the principles themselves. The individualism o f private life harnessed to the universalism o f public life remained their cher­ ished goal. At M illau the clubbistes decided quite logically that since they too had been oppressed by Robespierrist tyranny, they should use his fall as an opportunity uto become more energetic and to come out o f th a t. . . paralysis and compression in which popular societies had been placed by the system o f terror and despotism o f the faction that has just failed.” 50 And yet, o f course, 9 Thermidor marked the beginning o f the end for Ja ­ cobinism. Its death throes would haltingly structure the antidim actic poli­ tics o f the late 179 0 s, through the last year o f the Convention, which broke up in the fall o f 17 9 5 , and through the Directory, which subsisted until Bonaparte’s m ilitary coup o f 18 Brumaire (November 9 ,17 9 9 ). During these four years, Jacobins and former Jacobins fell into three groups. The most important is identified with the name o f Sieyès, although the author o f What Is the Third Estate? became a ruling director only in the so-called Second Directory o f 17 9 7 -17 9 9 . Ideologically, Sieyès helped develop and articulate Jacobin doctrine. (He had initially been a fairly active member o f Bonneville’s Cercle Social.)51 But the practical working out after 178 9 o f the principles he had voiced earlier caused him growing anguish. Institutionally, Sieyès had refused to take sides when the Feuillants split from the Paris club in 17 9 1. This was an offense that was hard to forgive in 17 9 3 -9 4 , and the man probably owed his life to the vote he had cast in favor o f the execution of Louis X V I in January 17 9 3 . Sieyès and his friends hoped to steer a middle course between the other two groups, the resurgent royalist right and the ultrademocratic, explicitly communistic left. "Pour éviter carybde, ne tombons pas dans scylla.” 52 In addition to irreconcilable royalists, to the right o f Sieyès’s neo-Jacobins stood the réacteurs or Thermidorian opportunists, former Jacobins (indeed, some o f them former and brutal terrorists like Tallien) who were ready to do just about anything (including making a deal with the royalists) to remain in power, keep their money, and save their skins. M any o f these sinister

6z

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

ex-Jacobins hit upon the happy idea o f distinguishing themselves from the Robespierrists by focusing on the issue o f vandalism. Robespierre clearly had been one, they said (this was not true); and just as clearly, they added, they had never agreed to the desecration o f France’s past (which was true o n ly in the sense that they had never been consulted about this issue). Citing their noninvolvement in vandalism, the réacteurs attempted to make others be­ lieve that they had really been anti-Robespierrists all along. To the left o f Sieyès remained hard-core Jacobins, still completely taken with the universalist and ideological message o f 17 9 3 -9 4 , a message th at, idealistically, they intended to carry out in a nonterrorist parliam entary w ay. M any provincial clubs followed that militant lead. “ W hat!” w rote members o f the club o f Bédarieux to the National Convention on 14 Fruc­ tidor, "Citizen Representatives: w ill you allow a government to be a t­ tacked just because a scoundrel abused that same type o f government to oppress patriots? W ill you give as much weight to liberty and to vile in­ triguers?” 53 Sim ilarly, the Jacobins o f Saint-Étienne urged that "death strike pitilessly all enemies o f the people and liberty.” 54 In the late summer o f 179 4 this last provincial and dedicated Jacobin pha­ lanx, ensconced in the clubs o f Chambéry, Dijon, M acon, and M arseilles, advocated continuing the w ar against selfish aristocratie. Encouraged by this provincial response, relayed by the Jacobin press, Collot d’Herbois, in Paris in the fall o f 179 4 , made a famous speech on the Convention floor to urge the remaining Jacobins to vigilance and energy. M any o f these small-town Ja ­ cobins reasserted their claim to represent popular sovereignty, an argument endorsed by some subsisting Parisian popular societies. Inexorably, however, left Jacobinism was rejected by both the popular movement and the possessing elite. It lost one political battle after another. Prominent radicals were shunted aside. M any Jacobins o f 179 4 were de­ ported. In Paris the Convention and the courts unanimously condemned Carrier, the most notorious Jacobin Cordelier terrorist o f all. In the provinces, where the police w as indifferent to their fate, many former Ja ­ cobins were murdered by the friends and relations of their executed ene­ mies, as happened openly in the streets o f Lyons from mid-February 17 9 $ onward. A list o f Lyonese Jacobins together with their addresses was pub­ lished in Switzerland to make sure that no one would be overlooked. A few days after these outrages, the unscrupulous Thermidorian Joseph Rovère, a former Jacobin and a genuine scoundrel, dared to justify the lynchings o f his erstwhile friends: " If you yourself do not punish these men, then every Frenchman w ill have the right to do so.” 55

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

63

A turning point was reached in April and M ay 17 9 5 when a handful o f Jacobin Conventionnels responded sympathetically to the last and failed sans-culotte insurrections in Paris. After a show o f m ilitary force, the popu­ lar revolutionaries surrendered and the few Jacobins who had supported them were arrested. Tried and condemned some months later, these Plutarchians—Gilbert Romme, Pierre Soubrany (a marquess), and Jean Goujon, often known as the Prairial martyrs—stabbed themselves in the dock hoping to make o f their suicidal death an example for a wayward nation. Squeezed between the far right and the far left, the Jacobin clubs went into eclipse. At first, Sieyès's mainstream Thermidorians, still unsure o f themselves, allowed the clubs to subsist. If Sieyès worried that the clubs might again become a fulcrum for left opponents o f the regime, he also feared the royalist right. He knew how useful the clubs had been as a means o f government in 17 9 3-9 4 . On balance, however, the governmental, middle-of-the-road neoJacobins soon deemed it wiser to shut the clubs down. On zz Brumaire, Year III (November iz , 179 4) the Convention ordered the Paris club dis­ solved, on the grounds, not altogether unfair, that it w as not truly a "pop­ ular” society. On October 16 , 17 9 4 , clubs were ordered to submit their membership lists. They were forbidden to affiliate or correspond with one another. M any clubs dropped out o f sight altogether. Within the clubs, at­ tendance plummeted yet further. Club committees ceased to meet, except for special commissions designed to hound former terrorists. M any club archives suddenly vanished. In many places the clubbistes took care to bum them. In late August 17 9 5 , on 6 Fructidor, Year III, the remaining ex­ tant provincial societies were shut down—some o f them on charges o f con­ tinuing terrorism, and others because they were said to be royalist. The theoretical, politico-sociological argument most commonly used to justify these closures was hardly new. It had been bruited in 17 9 1. The clubs were decried as particularist institutions, as corporations that had no place in the Republican system, where no institution could interpose itself between the citizen and the state. Within a month o f Robespierre’s fall, Jean-Jacques Cambacérès, who would become second consul after the coup o f 18 Brumaire, which made Bonaparte first consul, had made clear the need for an unmediated, unfettered, and centralized government: no particular authority, no assembly outside the state could claim to represent the nation. The National Convention, he went on, "alone deserved the confidence o f the people.” To gain the people’s trust, it would have to

64

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

“ push aside everything which weakens its authority, and reduce as much as can be done the intermediaries which might find themselves between it and the people.” 56 But even after the suppression o f the clubs and the death o f the P rairial m artyrs, Jacobinism did not vanish all at once. Every tolerated resurgence o f the left, which the Directory allowed whenever it worried about rightist insurrections, led to renewed and intense networking on the lines o f w h at had existed before 179 4 . In 1798 at least three hundred Constitutional C ir­ cles and three hundred other political societies came once more to life. (Some think that the true figure is four times as large.) These groups a c­ tively propagandized. They relied heavily on the press, attacked royalists, managed elections, and tried to act in concert. The most famous o f them was the Parisian Manège, which met in the former royal palace o f the Tuileries as had the Jacobin-dominated Conven­ tion o f 17 9 3 -9 4 . The club enjoyed brief success. It soon counted three thousand members, two hundred and fifty o f them deputies and many o f them former prominent Montagnards o f 179 3-9 4 . But it did not last long. Sieyès, who for a while had thought o f encourag­ ing these neo-Jacobins, soon changed his mind. On 26 Thermidor, Y ear V II, Fouché, now minister of police, ordered the Manège closed. The club had lasted a mere thirty-eight days. A map o f Jacobin clubs under the Directory recalls the spontaneous es­ tablishment o f clubs in 17 9 1 rather than the state-imposed pattern o f 17 9 3 -9 4 . It also foreshadows the sites o f late-nineteenth-century French Republican liberalism, a geographical continuity that links revolutionary Jacobinism to the liberal principles o f the Third Republic. Unencumbered by left and right (or so they wished themselves to be) the mainstream Jacobins around Sieyès developed their modest program. Their first task was political: never again would the threat o f terror be used against them. They were not adverse to using force against their enemies, especially against the church. But they were extremely legalistic and bu­ reaucratically inclined in their dealings with one another. Individual rights would not ordinarily be waved. The laws o f 22 Prairial (June 10 , 179 4), which had legalized the Great Terror o f June and Ju ly 17 9 4 , were immedi­ ately repealed, as was the law o f suspects a few months later. Eventually, surviving Girondins were readmitted to the Convention. The state was at once shrunk and protected from political infection from below: the election o f bureaucrats that had been decreed in 178 9 was suspended, as was the election o f officers in the army that had been common in 17 9 3 .

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

65

The second goal o f Sieyès and his group was to reduce the state’s control o f the economy. Production in state-owned arsenals dropped o ff rapidly. Coal mines that had been nationalized because their owners had collabo­ rated with the Austrians were reprivatized. The dream o f compulsory and free prim ary education was abandoned, as w as the practice o f price sup­ ports. On December 24, 17 9 4 , the Convention abolished the maximum. Paper money became nearly worthless. The assignats—which urban arti­ sans ordinarily received as payment—had remained more or less at par for about a year; but in 17 9 z their worth fell abruptly. By January 17 9 3 they fetched only one-half o f their face value; and in M ay 17 9 5 , no more than 8 percent o f par. The condition o f the poor deteriorated correspondingly, fa 1:795-96 Paris counted ten thousand more deaths than births. M any people froze or starved to death. Suicide rates went up. In tandem with this disengagement o f the state from the economy came the further circumscription o f the sans-culottes. On August 14 , 17 9 4 , Ja ­ cobin deputies voted to end the compensatory fee that had been paid to the poor for attending the (infrequent) meetings o f the sections. In Germinal and Prairial (April 179 5 ), as has been said, the army suppressed the last and fitful sans-culotte insurrections, which, as would become common in nineteenth-century Parisian revolutions, opposed a quite clearly bourgeois and conservative west Paris to a popular and insurrectionary east Paris. In these same months the neo-Jacobin regime likewise turned against the more extreme Babouvists, the group named after Gracchus Babeuf (17 6 0 -17 9 7 ), whose communist conspiracy o f 179 6 was also a striking premonition o f nineteenth-century European politics. The sans-culottes had wanted bread. Babeuf went much further. He abandoned their dream o f state-controlled bread prices and argued instead for the wholesale abolition o f private property. His coup had some m ilitary support, but it was easily suppressed, if only because the third-ranking Babouvist leader w as a police spy. A ll o f this is not to say that the Directorial neo-Jacobins around Sieyès suddenly and massively turned their back on either the Revolution or the Enlightenment. On the contrary, many French institutions o f higher learn­ ing—a number o f them extant today—were created at this time. The neoEnlightenment Ideologues who argued for the relevance o f Enlightenment universalism were held in high esteem by the regime.57 M any o f them held prominent offices. Indeed, the D irectorial consolidated many o f the Revolution's most durable achievements. Administration was improved. The judicial system

66

*

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

and the jury system acquired greater consistency.58 Paper money, w holly worthless by this point, w as finally given up. France gradually returned to the gold standard, as contemporaries wanted and expected. The nation's debt was consolidated and its yearly deficit curtailed. Taxation was made more methodical and m ilitary conscription codified. The regime also en­ couraged the standardization o f weights and measures, the use o f which, explained the minister in charge, would further the development o f "public reason." Much was to be said for this watered-down but more efficient program. It was less civically oriented to be sure: unlike the suspended Constitution o f 17 9 3 , the Constitution o f 179 5 made no mention o f a right to insurrec­ tion; and unlike the Constitution o f 17 8 9 -17 9 1, it included a declaration o f duties and responsibilities as well as o f human rights. It was also more commercially minded. Still, its tone was recognizably Jacobin.59 In fact, Sieyès's actions can be read as a last-ditch effort to preserve as much o f Ja ­ cobinism’s principles and achievements as the French nation could accept after having suffered from the Jacobins’ terrorist excesses. And there is no doubt that his compromising stance was much preferable to what would soon prevail from 179 9 to 1 8 1 4 - 1 5 , with Bonaparte’s endless warmonger­ ing, dictatorship, and pointless and reactionary policies. (In 18 0 2 the first consul, uncoerced, restored slavery in the French colonies and, at home, once again recognized the privileged position o f papalist Catholicism.) But in order to secure his more or less enlightened and Jacobin program, Sieyès and his friends would have had to make o f Jacobinism a modem and parliamentary party. They would have had to step back from Jacobin­ ism’s moralizing judgments and its fears o f conspiracy. They would have had to accept the idea that other political families had a right to exist and to rule. M ore practically, the Jacobins would have had to accept the verdict o f the polls and decide conclusively that popular sovereignty was incarnate in the results o f free elections. In the late 179 0 s, however, the fearful exJacobins—though resolutely antiterrorist—could not bring themselves to accept that consensual vision. Unable to take that extra step, unwilling and afraid to give up power, Sieyès and his former Jacobins chose instead to steer a middle course be­ tween parliamentary rule and the darker sides o f Jacobin principle. Anti­ clericalism rose to fever pitch. M ore priests were deported in 179 8 than in any other year o f the Revolution. In late 17 9 7 Sieyès also arranged to pass a law depriving all the noble-bom o f French citizenship, regardless o f their

A N arrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

67

opinions, a tangentially racist statement with unpleasant connotations. The use o f the revolutionary calendar was made compulsory, as w as addressing strangers in official correspondence with the pronoun tu. Deputies and judges were dressed up in ridiculous pseudo-Roman, Republican costume, designed as it happens by the painter David. The regime also encouraged the quasi-religious civic cult o f the Theophilanthropists. (A former G i­ rondin Jacobin, Louis-M arie La Revellière-Lépeaux, played a particularly important role in this cult.) Some, like Germaine de Staël, even toyed with the idea o f staging a conversion o f the French to Protestantism, more than two centuries after the death o f Calvin! All o f this activity enabled Sieyès’s system to stumble forward for some months and years. In western France and Paris émigrés and royalists were successfully repressed, as the Parisian sans-culottes and Babouvists had been in 179 5 -9 6 . But nothing could make up for the political sterility o f the regime, not even the ever more complicated constitutional provisions Sieyès brought forw ard from time to time. (In 17 9 5 , the Conventionnels had already passed a law—instantly and universally decried—which required that twothirds o f the deputies returned to the new assembly be drawn from the dis­ credited Convention.) Inevitably, from year to year, the prospects o f the Directory worsened steadily. W ars o f aggression—consciously provoked after 179 6 espe­ cially—were, when lost, destabilizing. So were victories, which lessened po­ litical tensions but made repression o f the right and the left harder to jus­ tify. The peace o f Campo-Formio between France and Austria, which Bonaparte negotiated in October 17 9 7 after a string o f stunning victories in the spring, allowed domestic quarrels to revive and increased the pres­ tige o f the generals at the expense o f the regime. A first step to political self-destruction came when the D irectorial con­ cluded that they had no choice but to stage a coup against their legally elected opponents. In September 17 9 7 Catholic or socially conservative Re­ publicans like Carnot were purged, arrested, or deported to Guyana, where many died a tropical, slow death known as the "d ry guillotine.” Then, in M ay 179 8 , Sieyès’s allies forced out the legally elected parliamentary left consisting o f about one hundred and twenty neo-Jacobin deputies. By 179 9 the situation o f the regime w as rather like that o f Robespierre in early Ju ly 179 4 , with few allies on either left or right and not that many followers in the center either, the difference being that Robespierre had de-

68

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

cided to carry through to the end and died for his beliefs, whereas Sieyès was far more cautious. (Robespierre once described him as the mole o f the Revolution.) On 18 Brumaire (November 9, 179 9 ), after some initial shufflings, the D i­ rectory was easily toppled in a bloodless m ilitary coup orchestrated by Lu­ cien Bonaparte (once a Jacobin and soon to be a prince); by Sieyès (once a Ja ­ cobin more or less and soon to be a count and very rich); and by General "Buonaparte” (who had been imprisoned in August 179 4 as a Robespierrist Jacobin and who would soon crown himself emperor o f the French). As the Corsican pithily explained in his first proclamation as first consul, “ the Revolution was over.”

The Politics of Covert Sensibility: An Individualist and Universalist Dérapage For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour O f thoughtless youth; but hearing sometimes The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. William Wordsworth, “ Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintem Abbey”

Conceptually, the histoire événementielle o f the Revolution is initially dis­ concerting. For many puzzled readers, the first ostensible message o f a nar­ rative account o f revolutionary politics is that a confusing number o f fac­ tors contributed to Jacobinism ’s unraveling catastrophe. Contingency, w ar, the economy, bad luck, bad judgment, incoherent private purpose: all o f these do loom large. It is striking also that a chronological account o f politics does not even tell us when the Terror actually began. Was it when Bam ave excused the murder o f Foulon and Bertier on Ju ly 23, 1789 ? when Lafayette ordered his soldiers to fire on peaceful Republicans in Ju ly 17 9 1? after the fall o f the Tuileries Palace in August 17 9 z , when the Parisian crowds murdered hundreds o f defenseless Swiss guards? Or did it begin with the kangaroo courts o f the September massacres one month later? Was the death o f the

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

69

king in January 179 3 the point o f no return? Or did that come with the ex­ ecution o f the Girondins in October 179 3? Henry Ford’s unfriendly verdict on the merits o f Clio’s craft readily comes to mind. Upon reflection, however, there is much to be learned from a narrative o f Revolutionary politics. For one thing, it highlights the con­ tradictory nature o f Jacobin goals. In the name o f universalistic values (citi­ zenship, the nation) the Jacobins drifted to brutal excess in 17 9 3 -9 4 . (This is the collectivist and celebrated dérapage o f the Revolution.) But their in­ dividuating zeal in 17 8 9 -17 9 1 was as w ild as their universalist tyranny w as to be in 179 4 . (At stake here are the skewed Declaration of the Rights o f Man o f 178 9 unaccompanied by a declaration o f responsibilities; and the Le Chapelier law o f 17 9 1.) Jacobin terrorism o f the Year II was without historical precedent. Yet, no society before or since w as ever so radical in asserting the unalloyed rights o f individuals as the Jacobin-dom inated, Bam avian France o f 17 8 9 -17 9 1. As for the later years o f Jacobin domination, namely 179 3 and 17 9 4 , though other bourgeois owners o f property in other climes and times have also straightforwardly defended their material rights, no other national Parliament has ever decreed the death penalty for the mere discus­ sion o f agrarian communism, as did the Convention o f 17 9 3 , dominated by High Jacobins like Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, and Danton. In short, a narrative o f events reminds us there was not one dérapage o f the Revolution but two, individualist and communitarian, a telling duality at the heart o f Jacobin principle. Another and equally important lesson embedded in the narrative is that the Jacobins were nearly always under terrific pressure. In the thirty-odd weeks that ran from M arch to October 17 9 3 , when the Terror came fully into its own, they faced problems that must have seemed insuperable. They endured no less than four civil wars (in the west against royalist, Vendéen peasants; against assorted Republicans at Lyons; against the Girondins in Norm andy; and against fellow Jacobins in M arseilles). In addition, they experienced uncontrolled inflation; a dislocated economy; a losing w ar against nearly all o f Europe; the defection o f the French commander in chief, Dumouriez; and the murder o f M arat, their most notorious leader. As Robespierre put it in February 179 4 : “ we have to admit that we were more guided by the love o f the public good [l’amour du bien] and by our feeling for the needs o f the Fatherland [les besoins de la Patrie], than by an

70

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

exact theory or by precise rules o f conduct, which w e did not have the time even to envisage.” 60 This cascade o f catastrophes tells us that, o f necessity, Jacobins had to deal with unforeseen situations from instinct. They did not have time to debate and experim ent. And their instincts (carried forw ard from prerevolutionary times) were deeply illiberal, as a narrative clearly shows time and time again. In principle, Jacobins tolerated dissent, but only in the sense that they were w illing to w ait a short while for it to abate. They could not see that honest men o f good faith might consider a political problem in different w ays. They were suspicious o f their own best and form er friends and as­ sumed every enemy w as an aristocrate, an im m oral conspirator w ho should not be just overcom e but punished. G enerally,

conservative

historians— including

Tocqueville

am ong

them— have (wrongly) tried to connect Jacobin intolerance to prerevolu­ tionary inexperience or incompetence. Jacobins, in this view , drifted to au­ thoritarianism because their private backgrounds were inadequate. But this is much too personal a view . The link o f past to present w as strong, but it w orked on a different, deeper plane. In the 17 8 0 s, because o f their libertarian and religious past, revolution­ ary Am ericans managed to elaborate a social and political system that durably blended the private and the public, and reconciled (however lam ely) individuated capitalism with a Republican, universalist sense o f com m only held responsibility. In the 1 790s, by contrast, the French—prisoners o f a thousand years o f m onarchic and religious habits— failed in that same quest. Behind the Ja ­ cobins’ w illfulness stand both a regal sense o f the public sphere and a regal disdain for the rights o f those who might be in the w ay. In 17 8 9 it certainly seemed that the idea o f absolutist m onarchy had died in all hearts. But the quasi-m ystic loyalty that the French had once felt fo r their father-king had m erely transm ogrified into a new, quasi-m ystical en­ tity, the People. It is revealing that so m any o f the sym bols the Jacobins used to represent and explain their cause and principles were fam iliar royal im ages, like the m onarchic Hercules and the ludovician sun. The mechanics o f Saint-Just's politics, for exam ple, have clear links to the hallowed principles o f absolutist m onarchy. In the older m onarchic perspec­ tive, every subject had a perfect right to communicate vertically and frankly w ith the sun king at Versailles, whose decisions regulated the entire state m a­ chine. But ño subject could communicate horizontally w ith any other sub­

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

71

ject. For the Robespierrist Jacobins o f 17 9 4 , in much the same w ay, every club had the obligation to communicate with Paris, but citizens had no right to come together outside the clubs to form distinct centers o f opinion. For the Jacobins, in the end, the nation could speak but with a single voice, their own. On Jan uary z i , 17 9 3 , when they chose to execute Louis X V I on the Place de la Révolution—heretofore the Place Louis X V and known today as the Place de la Concorde— in front o f the statue o f Liberty that had re­ placed the equestrian statue o f Louis’s grandfather, the Jacobins attempted to underscore the destruction o f the old m onarchy by the new republic. But w hat w e also see in this ritual m urder on one o f the great royal squares is a continuity o f m ajestic public purpose that links the Jacobins o f 17 9 3 to an ancient political system they genuinely detested. C lerical legacies, both good and bad, were also relevant. Perspicaciously, Baudot, a friend o f Danton, once rem arked that Jacobins "w anted to apply to politics that same equality which the Gospels grant to all Christians, but this does not mean that w e also wanted to share property or land, because nowhere does the Gospel say that you must share your goods w ith your neighbors, though it does everywhere say that you must help him in his need.” 61 H ow appropriate and sym bolic the rem ark o f some civic-minded (and coached?) seven-year-olds, in the Beauce, near Paris, w ho having received their first communion proclaim ed in 17 9 0 that they had just become "m em bers o f the august body o f Christian citizens.” 62 Paul’s epistle to the G alatians likew ise has "unearthbound” w ords that could easily be amended to express the Jacobin s' collective sense o f their ostensibly earth-bound and areligious m ission: [BJefore faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which afterwards should be revealed . . . But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster . . . There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are one in Christ Jesus. Substituting "N atio n ” and "R evolution” for "C h rist” underscores the sim­ ilarity o f the Jacobin s' universalist message to the religious message it sought first to supplant and later to destroy.63 A ll historians o f Jacobinism have speculated— as they should— on the extent o f the Jacobins’ knowledge o f Rousseau. But when it comes to gaug-

7z

♦

A Narrative front a Jacobin Perspective

ing the roots o f Jacobin sensibility for both good and evil, it is useful to re­ member that m any more o f them had read the Gospels than the Social

Contract. Jacques Brival, a Jacobin Conventionnel at Tulle, reminded his audience that Rousseau had been the first w riter to use the w ord "sublim e” to describe the Scriptures.64 Augustin Cochin (who w rote before the First W orld W ar and propheti­ cally criticized m odem totalitarianism even before it existed) linked the T error not to religion at all but to antireligious fervor, that is, to the En­ lightenment. Jacobinism , he argued, w as about Voltaire and Rousseau; and the politically excluding method o f the Jacobins after 17 8 9 related socio­ logically to the literally intolerant tactic o f the prerevolutionary phi­ losophes. The revolutionary guillotine, he suggested, excluded radically, and so had the prerevolutionary philosophes done their best to crowd out and exclude their intellectual opponents. "Before the bloody Terror o f 17 9 3 , there w as in the Republic o f Letters a dry terror, with the Encyclope­ dia project as the Committee o f Public Safety, and d’Alem bert as Robes­ pierre.” 65 But Cochin’s argument becomes more interesting if pushed further back in time. For the prerevolutionary intolerance o f the philosophes w as itself a copy o f earlier modes o f thought. Consciously, the philosophes and the Jacobins abominated intolerant re­ ligiosity. "T he religious sp irit,” w rote H olbach, "w as and alw ays w ill be incom patible w ith m oderation, sweetness and hum anity. Thus religious m orality can never serve to render m ortals more sociable.” 66 Regardless o f such disclaim ers, we can nonetheless see that both groups argued with a suspiciously religious fervor. In its uncompromising intransigence, Robes­ pierre’s anticlerical Jacobinism bears a disturbing likeness to the H igh Catholic and absolutist intolerance o f Bishop Bossuet in the reign o f the sun king.67 In the past the church had been sacred. O nly it had a right to public exis­ tence. The church did not claim the right to force the conscience o f individ­ uals, but other form s o f public w orship were anathema. For the Jacobins as w ell, intolerance in the name o f truth w as no sin. The Convention w as the Jacobins’ holy temple. The nation’s salvation w as their alpha and omega. "M a y the people rise u p!” w rote Cam ille Desm oulins derisively in his libertarian attack against Robespierre's defense o f terror in M arch 17 9 4 , "w hen the Dom inicans in Spain bum some unfortunate heretic, they never fail to sing ‘Excurgat Deus, m ay G od the Father rise up.’ ” 68 The joke o f a

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

73

form er priest w ho had become a Jacobin and w ho proposed at Poitiers to light an “ auto-da-fé” o f all theological books on the "a lta r o f Philosophy” w as likew ise less funny than he thought.69 Inherited w ays o f church and state m arked the Jacobins’ w ay o f thinking, as did more broadly diffused, socially dom inant assum ptions. Even Jacobin individualism w as not just m ilitarized but aristocratically selfassertive. H ow curious that at Lille a heroic soldier should have received from the club a sw ord suitably inscribed w ith Bayard’s fam ous sixteenthcentury knightly m otto: "w ithout fear and w ithout reproach.” 70 In their conscious theorizing, for exam ple, Jacobins accepted fully the Enlightenment idea that crime and punishment were individuated prob­ lems. They too believed, in the celebrated w ords o f Jerem y Bentham, that the punishment should be made to fit the crim e. Victim s o f revolutionary "ju stice” were tried and sent to the guillotine one by one. We should also note that the Jacobins did not ordinarily stoop to torture or desecrate their victim s’ bodies.71 And yet, the blind practice o f Jacobin purges shows us that liberal thought ultim ately mattered less to the Jacobins than age-old punitive in­ tent. Their true purpose, as that o f prem odem justice—w e cannot forbear from thinking—w as not to apportion individuated blame but to punish by exam ple. The public execution o f the Old Regim e had been "a cerem onial by which a m om entarily injured sovereign (was) reconstituted,” 72 and much the same can be said o f the ritual o f the supposedly more m odem Ja ­ cobins. The Jacobins could not, o f course, explicitly approve o f the revolution­ ary crow d's brutality during the September m assacres o f 17 9 z. But neither could they condemn this spontaneous upsurge o f popular indignation, which aimed to restore the wholeness o f a revolutionary people through blood sacrifice. Jacobins were much less free o f their private and public pasts than they thought. Benjam in Constant (17 6 7 -18 3 0 ) put his finger on this theme in 1 8 1 5 . The revolutionaries o f 17 8 9 , he w rote, "saw in the his­ tory [o f the Old Regime] a sm all number o f people, or a single person, en­ dowed with great pow er, who caused great harm ; but their anger w as di­ rected against the wielders o f that pow er rather than against their pow er as such. They were more interested in displacing than in destroying it.” 73 H abits o f dem ocratic tolerance do not come naturally or quickly. Indeed, this view o f deep, dark cultural and social continuities pertains to m any levels, from high m onarchic and clerical principles to specific as­

74

♦

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective

pects o f daily life. Far few er Jacobins than is often supposed were em bit­ tered men for whom the universalism o f the Revolution w as no more than a pretext to settle old scores. But nationwide, personal anim osities did sat­ urate the daily life o f subjects under the Old Regim e, who lived on top o f one another figuratively and literally, in crowded cities, in compacted vil­ lages, and in closed guilds where one person's advancement often came at the expense o f another’s. The O ld Regime w as an unusually litigious society, an especially anxi­ ety-provoking situation since law s were extrem ely com plicated and the lim its o f jurisdictions unclear and conflicting. The course o f any law suit w as unpredictable and potentially disastrous. Denunciations o f neighbors or rivals to the authorities were quite com m onplace.74 In 17 8 9 m any old scores— both private and semipublic—were w aiting to be settled. In the Ariège, for exam ple, at Pam iers, the Conventionnel M arc Vadier managed to have his old enemy D arm aing, who had become a judge, arrested and executed, only to be pursued after the fall o f Robes­ pierre by Darm aing’s son.75 In revolutionary Geneva, which closely fo l­ lowed French politics and w as annexed by the French in 17 9 8 , nearly all o f the four hundred people convicted by its Revolutionary Tribunal in Ju ly and August 17 9 4 (thirty-seven o f whom were sentenced to death) had been prominent in repressing a patriotic insurrection o f 17 8 2 . Thus local ties bound universalist-m inded Jacobins not just to civil soci­ ety but to uncivil hatreds. M any a purge or denunciation w as little more than an opportunity for getting even. In premodem Paris, before the inven­ tion o f the elevator, rich and poor lived side by side or, more precisely, floor by floor, w ith indigents on the less accessible higher levels; and m any a politicized accusation in 17 9 3 had less to do with the events o f the day than w ith the poor’s embittered memory o f ostentatious and prerevolution­ ary display by their richer neighbors.76 A t Lagny one clubbiste sensibly com plained, “ m ost o f the time, we deal w ith personal problem s, which wastes precious tim e.” 77 T w o Conventionnels en mission, Claude Laurent and Florent-Guiot, concurred: “ Generally speaking, the system o f denunci­ ation is too established in the [clubs], which busy themselves exclusively w ith recrim inations that m ask personal hatreds.” 78 Jacobin terrorism w as not o f a piece. W ithout its ideological justifica­ tions, w ithout guidance from Paris, local terror could never have arisen. And yet, the background o f m any a punitive local act w as strikingly banal and nonideological. Even visiting Conventionnels like Claude Javogues79

A Narrative from a Jacobin Perspective ♦

75

might use their newly found, Jacobin-inspired pow er to come home and w ork out their own private sadistic im pulses, especially since these were sanctioned in m any minds by the age-old instinct o f exem plary and re­ demptive punishment. A lain Corbin has portrayed 1792. as a "w atershed year,” which m arked the point when an ancient "sacrificial system ” began to break down, at least for those w ho had been touched by the Enlightenment.80 This judg­ ment no doubt holds true for m ost Jacobins m ost o f the tim e; but m any o f them , obviously, did not understand, or in any instance accept, the idea that ideological rivalries might be sublim ated rather than sum m arily and brutally resolved. W hat w eighty problem s! A narrative o f events cannot do justice to all o f Jacobinism ’s cultural and ideological com plexities. But it does outline the contours o f its contradictory components. And it helps us to gauge the weight o f a rejected past in its descent tow ard terrorist abuse.

2 The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty Daylight is not more pure than the depths o f my heart. Racine, Phèdre

C 7i / nd so began the m ost noble Revolution that has ever honored hu­ m anity,” w rote Robespierre after the fall o f the m onarchy in August 17 9 2 . “ O r better yet,” he went on, “ the only Revolution whose purpose is w or­ thy o f man him self, because it finally rests political societies on the immor­ tal principles o f equality, justice, and reason.” 1 T o create a free society that w as also rational, just, and fraternal w as the Jacobins’ great desire. In the w orld as it might become, all things great and sm all would remind man o f his free, harm onious, integrated, and in­ dependent self. A ll o f life should and— they earnestly thought—w ould eventually revolve around the rights o f free individuals, whether economic or m atrim onial, legal or educational, religious or secular. Every human being—regardless o f age, class, race, or gender—w ould realize his or her innermost being: “ man everywhere has the same rights; these rights are the legitim ate exercise o f his faculties.” 2 In his message to the club at Poitiers, to which he had offered his m anuals o f civility, Pierre Lavrault reminded the clubbistes that “ we must teach men to love and respect one another because it is by respecting others that you get others to respect yo u .” 3 For the Jacobins o f 17 8 9 -9 0 , who w ould soon become the unwit­

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

♦

77

ting architects o f blind terror, a moralized polity—a republic, in a w ord— could not exist if a single innocent citizen were unjustly punished or op­ pressed. “ The arrest and punishment o f an innocent person,” explained the Jacobin Conventionnel Brival to fellow Jacobins from the neighboring city o f T ulle, “ is a calam ity which can only increase the enemies o f the R evolution.” 4 “ Happiness is a new idea in Europe,” said the arch-Jacobin Saint-Just, w ho could easily have added that in the Jacobin scheme o f things, individ­ ual well-being, self-respect, and freedom were coterm inous. In that view the defense o f the public good made for both “ common happiness in gen­ eral and for the happiness o f every private person.” 5 Jacobins thrilled at stories that described the sudden ecstasy o f men and women liberated from m ind-forged or earth-bound m anacles, like the freed prisoners o f the Bastille or the Sw iss soldiers o f Chateauvieux condemned to hard labor and later released. They found particular satisfaction in hearing o f priests and nuns who had liberated themselves from inhuman vow s and were now able to find m arital bliss in each other's freely chosen com pany. Although nation building and the assertion o f class as a social category were perhaps the indirect and postrevolutionary consequence o f Jacobin­ ism ’s rise and fall, the Jacobin s' conscious desires were elsewhere. Freedom and the well-being o f m ankind were their first goals. Even in the difficult days o f 17 9 3 and 17 9 4 , the Jacobins remained convinced that individuals had rights because nature, reason, and God had meant for men and women to be free agents, or subjects and not objects. In a common trope o f revolu­ tionary parlance, the Revolution had not just created but had also returned to regenerated citizens the eternal rights that despotism had unjusdy sup­ pressed. Since the Jacobins considered self-expression a basic, natural human right, they were united in wishing to guarantee the right to free speech. W ell into the Revolution, after the death o f the king and on the eve o f ensuing terror (on M arch 3 ,17 9 3 ) , a Jacobin club that w as struggling to make sense o f its situation might still remind the public that the “ goal o f all patriotic societies has been to gather, develop, communicate, and spread all possible Enlight­ enment, all knowledge, ever further; to form a public spirit, to fortify i t . . . to instruct the people o f its rights, to teach it to respect its duties, to inspire it w ith a love o f the fatherland, to persuade it to submit to and obey the law .” 6 Robespierre put it pithily in M ay 1 7 9 1 : to speak and to communicate one's opinions is a natural right and “ a need o f the soul.” 7

78

♦

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

Thus the rules o f m any clubs were designed to make it possible for every member to have his say. A t M oret, not far from Paris, the club set up a spe­ cial committee at whose meetings members who feared to address a larger group might find the courage to speak up: "the only purpose o f this com ­ mittee . . . is to enable citizens to make those statements which they m ight otherwise not make because o f their tim idity or their inability to speak to a large audience.” 8 N o one could speak a second time until all those w ho had something to say had spoken. N ot allow ed to interrupt, members w ere enjoined to listen to all speakers, who were under an obligation to speak politely, to the point, and not too often. A t O zoir-la-Ferrière the clubbistes adopted a procedure guaranteeing access to the podium because "it is evi­ dent that w ithout this rule, it would not be possible for us to understand one another and for our society to reach the goal it has set for itself.” 9 T o ensure fluidity and free access to the podium , presidents o f clubs held office for one month only and, as a rule, were not eligible for immediate reelec­ tion. The Jacobins’ increasingly intolerant stand after August 17 9 z w as a definite break with their attitude in the first and more generous days o f the Revolution. In M ay 1 7 9 1 , when the N ational Assem bly sought to lim it the clubs’ right to correspond with one another, Robespierre w as asked to draw up an address on freedom o f the press. The Jacobins hailed individual becoming in all o f its m any form s. Indi­ vidualistic m eritocracy and w orldly success were proof for them o f talent and o f m oral w orth rather than o f self-seeking greed. Though o f different minds about the value o f experience, education, and native ability, all Ja ­ cobins believed that every man— and perhaps every wom an— had the right to compete fairly to secure the knowledge, property, and influence he de­ served, provided o f course that private achievements had been made com ­ patible w ith the public good. A ll for one and one for all. Jacobins loved to recount the feats o f cham pions, o f humble men w ho had striven and de­ servedly succeeded. They wanted to sing the praises o f such people loud and often. Jacobins carried over this principle o f beneficent individuation into m any dom ains. A s children o f the Enlightenment, they stridently opposed the idea that men were born w ith unequal rights. They despised distinctions and social ranking based on race or birth, inherited nobility being only the m ost obvious o f these nefarious barriers. R acial or at least genetic justifica­ tions o f exclusion— against the noble-bom , as it happens— were eventually invoked by the Jacobins but not until much later, in the fall o f 17 9 7 , when

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

♦

79

Jacobinism w as close to breaking down com pletely. In August 17 9 4 , by contrast, on the Convention floor, T allien, a form er Jacobin terrorist, asked rhetorically: "W hat does it m atter to me that a man be bom a noble if his behavior is good? W hat does it m atter to me that a man be bom a plebeian if he is a scoundrel?” 10 The issue o f individual rights w as w ell defined by Sieyès in his fam ous pam phlet, What Is the Third Estate? "T he final cause o f all the social w orld ,” he w rote, "should be individual liberty.” D oubtlessly, Sieyès’s text w as also— among m any other things— an unconscious préfiguration o f rev­ olutionary dictatorship because it postulated both the indivisible oneness o f the sovereign nation and the exclusion o f political dissidents. But his conscious and prim ary purpose, like that o f m ost true Jacobins, w as to wage an anti-absolutist defense o f private rights. A s lovers o f threatened freedom and o f a fragile human race, Jacobins were also keen students o f human nature. Individuals were ordinarily cre­ ated good, they knew, but in France as it then existed m any individuals had become quite bad. Some o f their contem poraries— transform ed by the Revolution— might become angelic: M arat, fo r exam ple, w as for those w ho loved him a saintly figure. D avid’s celebrated portrait o f the Am i du

peuple 11 presents him as a sacrificial, quasi-religious, feminized, Christ-like victim : “ M arat died for yo u .” But men were com plicated creatures whose individuality could easily be­ come tyrannical. "T h e best o f princes is nothing more than a crowned ban­ dit . . . We must never lose sight o f this verity, which rests on both experi­ ence and [our understanding of] human nature.” 12 "L es passions,” explained Robespierre in a debate on shortages and on the need to control food prices, "déclarent la guerre à l’humanité souffrante” (Passions declare w ar against suffering hum anity).13 Around every com er lurked the threat o f corruption, and Jacobins often expressed shock when some form er po­ litical ally suddenly became corrompu. It mattered politically therefore that every Jacobin be trained to read the actions, the m otives, and the faces o f every individual friend and foe, and o f themselves as w ell. In the middle decades o f the nineteenth century, Tur­ genev w rote that the heart o f the person closest to us is like a dark forest; today, as heirs o f modernism’s queries, we are more despondent yet. M an, for us, cannot read the wishes even o f his own heart. Jacobins thought the reverse. For those w ho had political discernment, the human condition— and the human face— were open books that any sincere person might learn

8o

♦

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

to read: "Ju st by looking at him ,” said a Paris Jacobin o f a man he had just denounced, UI w ould pronounce him guilty.” 14 Jacobins were confirmed individualists who reasoned from intimate con­ viction. Like Rousseau, they assumed that one’s heart and conscience— that is, the core o f one’s self—might remain pure though one’s actions might seem blam able to the ill-intentioned. (Rousseau, an intransigent m oralist, w rote o f his older, beloved, self-indulgent, and faintly prom iscuous com panion, M m e. de W arens, a one-time police spy, that she had made m istakes but that her heart w as pure.) Jacobins deftly distinguished action from intent, an echo also, perhaps, o f both Christian belief and Old Regime jurisprudence. For the judges o f ancient French common law , intent (the question intention­

nelle) had often mattered as much as the actuality o f crim inal action. H ad the accused w illfully wronged another? That had been a favored issue o f crim i­ nal legislation before 17 8 9 , and the Jacobins carried this w ay o f thinking (as they did much o f the traditionalist sensibility) into their modern life. Indeed, after Robespierre’s fall in Ju ly 17 9 4 , the chastened and newly anti-terrorist Therm idorian Jacobins seized on the issue o f confused intentionality (as op­ posed to w illful involvement in terrorist excess) to explain w hy they had heretofore gone along with the Terror in the first place. Terror, explained the anti-Robespierrists at Tulle, had obviously been the conspiratorial achieve­ ment o f wicked men with hidden m otives. Fortunately, provincial Jacobins like themselves could learn from their m istakes. N ow , to despise terrorist hypocrisy, it sufficed "to deepen our understanding o f both the conduct and the character o f those w ho still defend it.” 15 The Terror o f 17 9 4 , thought the Jacobins o f 17 9 5 , had not been a fated or structured event o f which they had been the unwitting architects. It had been instead the w ork o f m alevolent de­ ceivers and hypocrites like Robespierre (who had been punished) and o f his deceived follow ers (for whom bygones should be bygones.) They asked, not “ Did you commit such and such an act (in 17 9 4 )?” but rather, “ in com m it­ ting this barbarous act, were you acting from public necessity or private cru­ elty . . . Were you an accom plice or a passive victim o f Robespierrist tyranny?” 16 This approach, though opportunistic, also spoke to their w ay o f thinking about human nature. Jacobins studied their own actions closely, and as a rale these seemed to them to have been m orally laudable: " I shall open m y mind to yo u ,” said Saint-Just during the trial o f the king.17 Jacobins much preferred sincerity to grace: "L a politesse,” rem arked a Jacobin Conventionnel, "n ’est pas une vertu républicaine” (Politeness is not a Republican virtue).18 Jacobins, in their own opinion at least, were

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

♦

81

open, passionate, m odest, and above all truthful. In their questionnaires and public confessions, Jacobins emphasized not just externally visible acts but inner emotion and character. They did not ask, “ W hat did you do when you heard o f the death o f the king?” They wondered instead, “ H ow did you feel when you heard this new s?” and “ W ere you pleased to see that the nation had been restored to its rights when the goods o f the clergy had been confiscated?” 19 In large part because they valued individual intent so highly, these pacifistic and bourgeois engineers o f the heart hesitated for m any months, in 1 7 9 2 -9 3 , to condemn the repulsive violence that had become second na­ ture to some in the Parisian crow d. M ost Jacobins found it hard to com ­ plain on this score because they “ knew ” that the prorevolutionary sans­ culottes were childlike innocents. Popular actions might seem bad, but the poor (like themselves) were uncorrupted individuals w ho could not really err. In late September 17 9 2 Danton, who had just allow ed the murder o f hundreds o f prisoners, said o f the Parisian crow d, “ le peuple . . . en masse est toujours juste” (The people as a whole is alw ays just).20 Nevertheless some o f the Jacobins’ enemies were obviously bad. Ém igrés and royalists were visibly selfish, proud, and truly nasty (méchants). But other, more devious individuals had m otives that were harder to unmask. Especially trying were tw o-faced men (hommes doubles). As dedicated con­ noisseurs o f dissim ulation, Jacobins constantly ripped apart the “ veils o f duplicity.” 21 They carefully distinguished between left-w ing hypocrites du

patriotisme (the supposedly egalitarian leaders o f the sans-culotte move­ ment who claim ed to be more revolutionary than even the Jacobins) and right-wing hypocrites (the supposedly Christian but in reality, sanguinary, nonjuring Catholic clergy. A lso to be despised were “ arch-hypocrites,” for­ mer Jacobins w ho had gone over to the side o f immobilism. These included the pro-m onarchy Feuillants o f 1 7 9 1 , w ho claim ed to be revolutionaries but had now changed their view s about the king; and the Girondins o f 17 9 3 , w ho claim ed to be revolutionaries still but had become hostile to the Parisian sans-culottes and wanted to stop the Revolution. These were the mendacious tartuffes de la Révolution. In consequence, Jacobins made the baring o f the heart in publicly staged introspection an im portant aspect o f revolutionary ritual. In both the N a­ tional Assem blies and the clubs, the Jacobins were addicted to selfcriticism , and from time to time patriots were expected to provide long auto­ biographies to prove that their conduct had been blameless from the start.

8z

♦

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

Jacobins cherished these moments o f m oral self-exposure rem iniscent o f prerevolutionary Catholic confessions. They often availed themselves o f such occasions to recount their entire personal history, including that o f their prerevolutionary life, which became in these personalized narratives, the long prologue to the intense, third, and trium phal act o f revolutionary dram a. Jacobins keenly scrutinized their friends, their enemies, and themselves. Conscience w as for them, as it w as for Rousseau, truth's chosen censor. Its strong voice, they thought, vitiated the need for an interm ediary priestly caste o f learned men. The Rém ois Jacobins, for exam ple, found choosing deputies simple. They voted for those who could neither listen to “ private solicitations” nor “ lie to their conscience.” 22 For these neo-Protestants o f a kind, conscience— not priest or church or club— mediated between m an and God and nature. Jacobins yearned to make the mechanics o f social life obvious and ubiquitously transparent. M an, they posited, could become a better citizen by becoming the attentive listener to his own inner voice. Those who had been misled and repented deserved some forgiveness. Nevertheless, no one committed crimes inadvertently, including those w ho had sinned from weakness. Those men who really wished to hear their con­ science could alw ays do so. Jacobins believed in m oralized, individual selfassertion. They instinctively rejected negotiated consensus.

C 7I VwX / s unabashed adm irers o f the self, Jacobins also defended econom ic and professional individualism . They believed in the overall social useful­ ness o f entrepreneurialism . Jacobins generally disliked the constraining net­ w ork o f guilds that had regulated w ages and conditions o f w ork before 17 8 9 , often (though the Jacobins usually chose not to notice this) to the satisfaction o f w orking artisans. As individualists, Jacobins were adam ant partisans o f private property, which they imagined to be a guarantee o f liberty. They detested the very idea o f agrarian communism. Here and there, after 17 9 z especially, the populist proponents o f “ an agrarian law ,” modeled on that o f ancient Rom e, argued— or were said by the Jacobins to argue— for a m assive distri­ bution o f w ealth. But overwhelm ingly, Jacobins were hostile to this com ­ munistic vision. For them, in Danton’s w ords, m oral equality w as a neces­ sity, but m aterial equality w as an obvious im possibility. Jacques M onbrion

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

♦

83

(a left Jacobin in the radical city o f M arseilles) urged all revolutionaries to be on their toes: “ Every time that someone says ‘you should have h alf the property o f your neighbor’; shun that man! He is a veritable enemy o f the Constitution; he w ants you to m isinterpret equality so that he can slander the D eclaration o f the Rights o f M an .” 23 Although only one Frenchman sold wheat for every three who purchased it, Jacobins were convinced that the internal free trade o f grain w as in the general interest. Eventually, under the pressure o f politics and circum ­ stance, Jacobins did support price controls; but that w as certainly not part o f their original plan. Because such privatist endorsements are at the heart o f m odem capital­ ism , it is not inaccurate in some simple and prima facie sense to describe Jacobin s as (confused) “ precapitalist” actors. M any historians have indeed focused their entire interpretation o f Jacobinism on just that point. H ow ­ ever, it is im portant to remember that for the Jacobins, econom ic issues w ere less an end in themselves than the extension o f other principles—free­ dom especially. Jacobins interpreted w hat w ould seem to us to be eco­ nom ic measures o f exclusion through the screen o f their moralized and in­ dividuated sensibility. For exam ple, they m om entarily accepted the exclusion o f im poverished domestics from the franchise (and at times ex­ cluded them from their own clubs). Such a step strikes us necessarily as being intensely sectarian. But m any Jacobins tentatively reasoned in this m atter that they were excluding domestics for their own good, in part at least, because the very poor were easily coercible and were not capable o f being citizens. Likew ise, the Jacobins’ exclusion o f bankrupts from club membership, as proposed by the club at Bayonne,24 had less to do w ith a desire to pro­ tect property than w ith their value judgment o f such people as individually irresponsible. In the same w ay, when he spoke up in the Paris club against this provincial m easure, which had also figured in the Constitution o f 17 8 9 - 17 9 1, Robespierre referred not to money but to m oral w orth. Bank­ rupts, he reasoned, were usually innocent individuals w ho had fallen prey to moneyed interests. They were hapless people (perhaps like his absent and delinquent father) w ho had not been rich enough to pay their debts during troubled, revolutionary times and deserved a second chance.25 Tellingly, the Jacobins, though partisans o f economic individualism , had a m oralized, precapitalist, and Jeffersonian detestation o f credit, debt,

84

*

The Limitless Claims o f Individual Liberty

hoarding, stockjobbing, banks, and speculation, which they saw as so m any form s o f antisocial and antinational betrayal. In their view , these so­ phisticated instruments o f moneyed gain diminished human freedom. Indeed, Jacobins rejected these capitalist tools for the same reason that they accepted private property. Banks and usurers were in practice the sm all holder’s m ost confirmed enemy, just as sm all holdings were fo r them— as for the radical W higs o f England and Am erica— a guarantee o f freedom . Ends mattered to them more than means: at Pau, the Jacobins were pleased when someone offered to make cheap shoes for the arm y, but they paused when other shoemakers and tanners com plained about unfair com petition.26 Jacobins understood that they should not consider the price o f the soldiers’ shoes only. They also had to give thought to the livelihood o f struggling cobblers. The dictates o f intersecting supply and demand might be good but they might also be quite bad. The Jacobins’ suspicion o f capitalism taken as an end in its own right does not, however, mean that the Jacobins were economic prim itives w ho did not grasp the concept o f capitalism . “ D o you w ant to keep peasants from feeding grain to their pigs?” asked an experienced clubbiste, “ then re­ duce the price o f pork and lard .” 27 Girondins during the winter o f 17 9 2 -9 3 liked to point out that subsidizing state-run bakeries would m ake bread scarcer because it would drive other bakers out o f business. SaintJu st, one o f the loftiest and most radical o f all Jacobins, sim ilarly w arned in Novem ber 17 9 2 that the shortages inflation would necessarily engender might incite peasants to withhold their grain from the m arket. In his re­ sponse to a defense o f life insurance couched in strict economic terms by Étienne Clavière (a Geneva-born Girondin Jacobin who in 17 8 7 founded the first French life insurance com pany before the Revolution),28 Robes­ pierre did not point-blank deny the value o f insurance or o f the notion that money could be made that w ay. He merely expressed a preference for mu­ tual assistance as a more apt m anifestation o f the “ general sensibility that is one o f the bases o f hum anitarian service.” 29 Jacobins realized full w ell the com plex and technical effects o f capitalism and private property. But they were determined to find their place between the rejected extremes o f collectively held property and private greed. They understood that buying and selling could aggravate or generate social in­ equalities. But they also wanted to believe that some o f the mechanisms o f individualistic capitalism might be accommodated to civic republicanism . Join t stock com panies, for exam ple, did not have to be instruments o f self-

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

85

ish profit. A t Châtelleraut the Jacobin club considered floating shares to create a com pany that w ould m ake sabers, w ith the profits going to the poor, so that no shareholders could derive any personal gain.30 Capitalism and capitalistic tools were acceptable to the Jacobins when proved com pat­ ible w ith the m oral health o f Self and N ation. Although some Jacobins like Fouché (a form er priest and later under N apoleon duke o f Otranto) railed in 17 9 3 -9 4 against the riches égoïstes, m ost Jacobins accepted economic inequality because they—like Aristotle— reasoned that a man might be more generous if he were rich than if he were poor. In fact, a newly enriched man w ould be made more generous from remembering his earlier m isfortune. The Jacobins’ endorsement o f private property also depended on their sense that individuated economic form s were far better than w hat had been before. Jacobins defined economic individualism (capitalism) as a new al­ ternative to antique feudal, statist, and nonm onetary relations o f pow er, rather than as an alternative to some future collectivization o f economic life (though they did gradually do that as w ell, after 17 9 4 especially). They perceived a social choice between new, unfettered, and liberating monetized exchange on the one hand and, on the other, politicized (feudal or absolutist) state-directed relations, m any exam ples o f which existed al­ ready in an age o f enlightened despotism . W hich w as the freer, they w on­ dered, the w orker who sold his labor to the highest bidder, or the tenant forced by his "patriarch al” seigneur to use a banal oven to bake his daily bread? A s Jean-Pierre G ross explains in his insightful Fair Shares for A ll:

Jacobin Egalitarianism in Practice, like V oltaire, the Jacobins considered independence more im portant than equality.31 Jacobins despised not just traditional economic corporatism (in theory especially) but cartels and economic associations, which in their eyes de­ fended selfish and vested interests instead o f protecting the poor. A t D ijon, in 17 9 5 , the clubbistes denounced "an infam ous coalition o f tanners and o f the richest cobblers.” 32 In this same register, Jacobins disliked prim ogeniture because it made some rich and others poor while crippling the rights o f m any individuals. This custom—which had been the prerevolutionary rule in many provinces o f southern France especially—vitiated the right not just o f younger sons but o f women also, a category that, as M m e. Roland pointed out, might ironically include the suddenly dispossessed mother o f an ungrateful eldest son and heir.

86

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

In O ctober 17 9 3 the Jacobin-dom inated Convention likew ise opened the law courts to all citizens. Avocats and procureurs (of whom they had been suspicious since 17 9 0 , when the order o f barristers had been dissolved and law yers forbidden to w ear a distinctive costume) w ould no longer have a m onopoly on pleading before the courts. O rdinary people w ould have their say as w ell. For the Jacobins, to paraphrase the w ords o f C . L. R . Jam es, “ every [talented] cook could govern.” 33 In sum, then, as far as they could see, modern, sm all, and private p rop ­ erty w as basically a good thing. Jacobins, although eager to please deserv­ ing artisans or peasants, were nonetheless fierce and self-assured w hen faced w ith opposition to the idea o f private property, either from the com m unistically minded on the left or from the traditionalists on the right. Jacobins could easily turn a deaf ear to social com plaints when they felt that their— and society’s— basic interests were at stake. Aggressive or su rly w orkers who came to the clubs to com plain about their employers w ere often rebuffed. A fter the enactment o f price and w age controls, clubbistes were quick to remind w orkers that it might be illegal for them to dem and higher w ages. They severely reprimanded w orkers who refused to w ork long hours or who did not show up for w ork, especially if their labors w ere connected to the w ar economy (and in 17 9 3 -9 4 , even the harvest w as con­ sidered war-related w ork). W ith the advent o f a new calendar and ten-day week in the fall o f 17 9 3 , idling on Sundays became one more counterrevo­ lutionary offense. Slackness in the state-run armaments industry—know n fo r its harsh conditions and rife with com plaints— w as particularly cen­ sured. In the spring o f 17 9 4 the Committee o f Public Safety, keener on pro­ ductivity than on the w orkers’ w elfare, reconsidered pay scales in these es­ tablishments and switched from paying w orkers by the day to paying them for piecew ork.34 Though key w orkers might be exem pt from the draft, they were subject to heavy fines and arrest for misconduct on the shop floor. A l­ cohol w as not allow ed in these factories. W orkers who dared to com plain were told that they had no cause to do so because their representatives (the political leaders o f the sans-culotte movement) had acquiesced to the new w age scales. The Jacobin s' assumptions on the supposed overlap o f the national good and the private gain o f the propertied (themselves) extended quite far: the

Chronique du mois, a representative Girondin journal, suggested that its essays w ould surely be “ useful to bankers, financiers, and merchants w ho must know our internal and external state in order to establish in their

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

87

transactions com m ercial relations that assure our national fortune as they augment their own w ealth.” 35 In brief, then, Jacobins certainly believed in private property; but eco­ nomic individualism w as not predom inant in the Jacobin fram e o f mind. If Jacobinism transform ed tradition to make the w orld safer for capitalism ’s unfolding, that w as definitely not the conscious goal o f the clubbistes. It m akes more sense to remember instead that their attitude related to a long-held and characteristic French interest in private m otivation, which reached back to La Rochefoucauld in the seventeenth century and, in times closer to their ow n, to w riters like Vauvenargues and Cham fort (who w as, as it happens, driven by the Jacobins to suicide in 179 4 ). The Jacobins despised self-assertive insolence, arrogance, pride, and the display o f wealth or knowledge by the learned and the rich. They knew that w ealth had a social cost. Poverty for them gave a presum ption o f goodness; as riches did o f vice. Jacobins were not much attracted to the Physiocrats’ belief that greater profit regardless o f social cost w as good be­ cause it led to more investment and more growth.

7?

v - A - / u t w hy did only some hearts incline to goodness? In the Jacobins’ eyes, no one w as bom bad. Even nobles, even those w ho had been brought up to be vain and selfish, might become good Republicans. M oral regener­ ation through accession to virtuous citizenship w as one o f their m ost cher­ ished themes. Jacobins believed (at times) that even their w orst enemies were m orally vulnerable: "the traitors w ho threatened to cut the throats o f their fellow citizens are tom by burning remorse and are burdened by the shame o f appearing horrible in the eyes o f hum anity.” 36 T o understand w hy it w as that some men became patriotes while others inclined instead to m anifestly im m oral aristocratie, Jacobins often stressed the effect o f context. A negative environm ent, they knew, dulled the voice o f conscience. A s they reflected on A pril 9 ,17 9 2 , on the actions o f their en­ emies, the Jacobins o f Tulle understood that they should not hate the de­ ceived rank and file o f aristocratie: they had been carried aw ay "b y the rage that is a natural response to the crimes o f the factious . . . The blame for them lies squarely in the circumstances in which w e were through no fault o f our ow n.” 37 The boundary between the private and the public w as often porous, and Jacobins assumed as m atter o f course that public corrup­ tion could spill over into the souls o f the private persons who were exposed

88

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

to it, or vice versa. In a corrupted royal court or palace, for exam ple, no courtier could hope to rem ain pure. M onarchy spoiled everything it touched. But because men had free w ill— even at Versailles—Jacobins ultim ately insisted on assigning guilt and responsibility precisely and individually. In their view , although a wicked fam ily am biance might w ell lead to crim e, individuals could rise above their fam ilial circum stances as they could rise above any handicap. When quondam friends attempted to em barrass the M ontagnards by m ocking them for including in their ranks a close relative o f the king, Philippe Égalité, duc d’O rléans, w ho in his role as a Conven­ tionnel had voted for the death o f his royal cousin, the M ontagnard Ja ­ cobins responded that being born into a fam ily o f tyrants had nothing to do with the case. Jacobins rejected the Old Regim e idea o f collective fam il­ ial responsibility, which held that any personally innocent person m ight have to share the guilt and punishment o f others to whom he w as some­ how connected. (Robespierre’s first publication as a young man had been an impassioned statement against the Old Regime principle o f collective fa­ m ilial guilt.) After 17 9 2 w riting to relatives w ho had emigrated w as pun­ ishable by death but having such relatives w as not per se a legal offense, and the Jacobins who urged the imprisonment o f the émigrés’ relatives often claim ed to be doing so for the prisoners’ own good, as a protective measure. O nly in extreme cases and under great pressure did Jacobins agree to de­ prive their victim s o f all legal rights irrespective o f individual circum stance. British and H anoverian soldiers were indeed ordered shot upon capture. Relatives o f émigrés and royalist counterrevolutionaries were eventually detained as hostages. In early 17 9 4 all nobles, regardless o f their politics, were likew ise deemed m ilitarily dangerous and banned as a group from the capital and some maritime cities. But such collective interdicts were justified pragm atically and without reference to principle. Jacobins understood such steps to be tem porary and exceptional. Although the Jacobins did legislate the confiscation o f a dead victim ’s property and recrim inalize suicide (by arranging for the de facto punishment o f a victim ’s survivors), these penalties were intended to deter future crim inals rather than prove guilt by association. Like the Old Regim e, and unlike recent totalitarian governments that hid their death cam ps and gulags from open view , the Jacobins also believed in

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

89

public executions. But their theory o f public punishment, on the face o f it at least, differed from that o f the O ld Regime in one essential respect. The purpose o f prerevolutionary punishment had been to restore community norm s irrespective o f individuated concerns. The more brutal the punish­ ment (like breaking on the wheel), the better. By contrast, the rationale o f Jacobin punishment w as (ostensibly) to appease public opinion by carefully selecting culprits who had already been proven guilty in a court o f law . It w as essential for the Jacobins that crim inals first be judged one by one— even if they were also made to stand side by side in fournées (or batches)— and then, if convicted, be executed one by one. Ju st as Jacobins who joined a club took their oath o f loyalty separately, so were culprits executed singly. Plans for multiple guillotines were never implemented, though they were known to be technically feasible. A broad, in Germ any for exam ple, French guillotines were often represented as com plex machines w ith rotat­ ing razors that might decapitate hordes o f innocent victim s indiscrim i­ nately and collectively, but such machines were never built. Jacobins had great faith in m an's ability to choose to be a law-abiding citizen, and they also set great store by man’s virile w ill, that is, by every individual m ale's ability to weigh his m otives and act upon the w orld. “ We are arbiters o f our destiny," explained Robespierre after Louis's flight to Varennes. H ow else could kings be overthrow n?38 Jacobins com m only as­ sumed their enemies to be w eak, indecisive, and feminine. “ So ft" and “ pleasurable” were not for them com m endatory terms. In their speech, Ja ­ cobins often coupled “ fanatical and tim orous." They spoke the “ langage m âle de la vertu." They believed in a self that w as at once passionate and controlled. “ L ’Em pire,” w rote Saint-Just sententiously, “ est aux phlegmatiques” (dominance comes from self-control), which w as not to be con­ fused with passivity. “ Le calm e,” he also w rote, “ est l'âm e de la tyrannie, la passion est l’âme de la liberté” (Calmness is the soul o f tyranny, and pas­ sion the soul o f liberty). A true patriot, he thought, brought together “ la froideur de l’esprit, le feu d’un coeur ardent et pur” (a cool spirit and the fire o f a pure and ardent heart).39 W ill and its com panion, passion, were the perfect inversions o f m odera­ tion and hypocrisy, traits the Jacobins m ethodically attributed to their ene­ mies. A petition o f Jacobin artists made this point nicely. “ H ypocritical priests used to say: know how to defeat your passions—and they called that m orality. The active and warm -blooded Republican must say: leave

90

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

man his passions, but know how to direct them. Passions give men energy. A man w ithout passion is a federalist and a m oderate, or a hypocritical Feuillant, incapable o f great things.” 40 The Jacobins saw Hercules as the proper sym bol o f revolutionary might. Both male and female sym bols o f revolutionary principle and pow er were interchangeably monumental. For those regenerated men w ho did control their revolutionary selves, no mission could ever be im possible. Jacobins felt that the fate o f the w orld w as in their hands. They did not know the meaning o f boredom . They lived intensely. They knew they could reshape history. They felt pity m iti­ gated by contempt for foreign patriots w ho had failed to defend their ow n liberty. On October 2 3 , 17 9 2 , the Jacobins o f Toulon ordered the Polish flag, which had adorned their hall, rem oved: the Poles had not fought to the death. They had yielded and agreed to live under “ l’esclavage des tyrans” (the slavery o f tyrants).41 Some historians have inferred that the Enlightenment’s redefinition o f gender roles (men are public and heroic; wom en, private and chaste) en­ gendered widespread anxieties o f self-definition during the Revolution. This argument has considerable merit if set in a larger social context; but for their part the Jacobins were resolute political actors. They inclined to categorical and trenchant judgment. They had no trou­ ble distinguishing the healthy from the pathological, patriots from aristo­ crats, the m asculine from the fem inine, the heroic from the pusillanim ous, the general from the particular. Those that were not with them w ere against them. “ A ll the monuments o f history testify,” the abbé G régoire explained during the king’s trial, “ that royalty and liberty are like the prin­ ciples o f the M anichaeans, in eternal battle.” 42 The stock Jacobin por­ trait—as D avid’s o f M arat—sets clearly delineated features against a stark, contrasting, monochrome background. Jacobins were not interested in nu­ ance. They emphasized m an’s pow er over nature, as w ell as his autonom y and ability to forge his own destiny. The Jacobins were persistently per­ plexed by the presence o f the poor, the destitute, and the sick. They were even tempted to think that the desire to exercise one’s w ill also separated the helplessly mad from the sane and the vigorous. It w as hard for Jacobins to accept thé idea that any human being might not w ant to become the able-bodied, happy, healthy, and alert citizen o f a regener­ ated republic. “ If we are agreed that no portion o f humanity should suffer . . . let us put inscriptions above the gates o f our asylum s which declare that they w ill soon disappear. For if, when the Revolution has ended, we

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

91

still have some unfortunates am ong us, our revolutionary labors w ill have been in va in ."43 In the eyes o f the Jacobins, kindness and charity were civic obligations. M isfortune and accidents were part o f life. M oreover, the Jacobins did not expect the destitute to be humble or deferential to their betters as in the m ythology o f the Old Regim e. Nonetheless, in the Jacobins’ perspective, not all the poor deserved their help. A strong w ill distinguished the deserv­ ing w orker from those w ho had to beg and plead. M any Jacobins decried

l'aristocratie de la pauvreté, poor people w ho did not try to im prove their condition and w ho abusively claim ed a (selfish) right to live at the expense o f hard-working citizens. In (universalist) theory, Jacobins were sym pathetic to the urban poor. In (propertied) practice, they did not like to have their hand forced. They had a sharp eye for the “ audacious im portunity [of] clever and hypocritical beggars.” 44 They were keener than the m onarchy had been to remove beg­ gars from the streets. The Convention did not abolish the older dépôts de mendicité, now called maisons de répression, and this new nomenclature made Jacobin sense: in a republic, the presence o f able-bodied beggars w as an insult to hard-working, law-abiding citizens. In Jacobin legislation, indi­ gents were required to return to their home m unicipalities, as the English poor law s o f the time also decreed.

and their relationship to both men and nation likew ise occu­ pied the Jacobins. In M m e. de Staël's novel Delphine, w ritten in i8 o z but set in Paris in 17 9 0 -17 9 2 , Léonce, the unreform ed reactionary hero ex­ plains to Delphine, a quasi-Protestant m odernizer, that “ une femme ne sauroit avoir trop d'aristocratie” (a wom an cannot be too haughty or aloof.)45 Jacobins thought the reverse. T o be sure, m any other m atters (the safety o f the nation, conspiracies against liberty, the gap between poverty and wealth) mattered more to them than the question o f wom en’s social role. M en’s clubs outnumbered wom en’s clubs by about one hundred to one. Nonetheless, wom en’s issues were quite crucial. N o m ajor Jacobin fig­ ure remained silent on the wom an question, which every Jacobin club had to resolve for itself. In many w ays, the Jacobins revealed themselves to be less than progres­ sive on wom en’s issues. On O ctober 30 , 17 9 3 , for instance, the Jacobindominated government and courts ordered w om en's clubs shut down, just

92

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

as they decreed the execution o f the queen on O ctober 16 ; o f Olympe de Gouges (a fem inist publicist w ho had published a D eclaration o f the R ights o f Women in September 17 9 1) on Novem ber 4; and o f M m e. Roland on Novem ber 8. It is also true that Robespierre railed against women for sug­ gesting that only aristocrates believed in the sexual specificity o f talent and occupation. When women were invited to participate in Jacobin fêtes o r celebrations, it w as usually to serve the food or clean up. In Decem ber 17 9 3 at Chateauroux, the clubbistes endorsed the suggestion that “ the

citoyennes, our sisters, members o f this society should sweep the hall every five days [that is, twice in every decade] and that men not be charged w ith this task; the citizen-president o f the club consulted our sisters to find out if they were amenable to this proposition, which they unanim ously adopted.” 46 A number o f Jacobins made extrem e antifem inist statements. A t T ou l the Jacobins resolved that women who had entered the benches reserved for men should be arrested.47 Jacobins berated women for being untrust­ w orthy or lukewarm in their commitment to the Revolution. They accused women o f spreading defeatist rum ors and giving aid and com fort to their émigré relatives abroad and to the nonjuring, antirevolutionary Catholic clergy at home. A t Arles the club insisted that hesitant w ives commit them­ selves to revolutionary principle by spitting on consecrated hosts.48 A t M ouzeuil a local Jacobin reported with glee that his fellow revolutionaries had staged, in his own w ords, an unusual auto-da-fé with ecclesiastical o r­ naments that were set on fire on the body o f a female counterrevolutionary w ho had just been shot: “ w hat caused us the greatest pleasure,” he added, “ w as that all the women came to warm themselves by this fire w hilst hav­ ing a patriotic nip.” 49 M any clubs discussed the need to compel young women and w idow s to m arry veterans, or recognized sans-culottes, or men less rich than them­ selves. Jacobins were perhaps too (condescendingly) ready to w arm to the theme o f Republican motherhood, which relegated women to private life, al­ beit on new grounds. “ Enter w ithin,” exclaim ed the Jacobins o f Grenade, a sm all town near Toulouse, “ among your brothers, fathers, and spouses to find the principles whose first duty it w ill be to teach to your children.” 50 M oreover, in the Jacobin scheme o f things, women clearly belonged to a second sex whose first duty w as chastity. They were intent on preserving the sexual innocence o f young women especially. In Republican allegorical painting, women—when not fully clothed— bared shapes and breasts that

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

93

were more nurturing and m aternal than seductive and erotic. The unmar­ ried, virginal, and Republican Charlotte C orday, w ho had internalized this ethic, bristled when her judges implied that she had taken lovers and had had children by them. A favored technique o f revolutionary prosecutors w as to portray anti-Republican women—the queen especially—as prom is­ cuous, unnatural M essalinas or, w orse yet, as lesbians. (Accusations o f masculine hom osexuality were never used to justify punishment, not even by im plication.) A t the same time, m any Jacobins like Fabre d’Eglantine (who invented the name o f the months on the revolutionary calendar) or Am ar (who presented to the Convention the case for shutting down the women’s clubs) had sordid and exploitative sexual pasts. O verall, then, Jacobins perceived Republican fem ininity as conciliatory rather than participatory. They took it for granted that male and female gender roles, though com plem entary in both politics and nature, were o f necessity quite distinct. In a discussion o f adoption one aristocratic Jacobin w ho believed that children spontaneously im itated the parent o f their own sex, urged that w idow s and w idow ers be allow ed to adopt children o f their own gender only. Regardless o f its effects,51 the m otivation o f revolution­ ary legislation allow ing divorce probably had less to do with the Jacobins’ concern for women than with their interest in the abstract principle o f nat­ ural rights taken w ithout regard to gender.52 And so it w as that in this dom ain Jacobins often took back w ith one hand w hat they had given w ith the other. They both applauded women w ho cross-dressed as soldiers and congratulated them on returning to civil­ ian life when their identity had been revealed, like the citoyenne Brunei o f N ay, w ho had fought at the front on the avants-postes but had come home “ by the delicacy that w as inspired by her m odesty.” 53 True, Jacobin women could become more assertive: when a Jacobin ora­ tor at Vire suggested that rich women be made to pay the w ages o f N a­ tional Guardsm en, a fem ale spectator immediately responded that women would be quite glad to mount guard themselves once they had been adm it­ ted to membership in the clubs. Sim ilarly, at Eguilles, in the more radical V ar, the M arseillais Jacobin M onbrion organized an armed com pany o f women in the local N ational Guard. About one hundred women are thought to have joined the arm y under false identities. C ollot d’H erbois, a radical and populist Jacobin , hailed one o f them as a hero— an intrepid w arrior—w ho though fem ale by sex w as male by spirit.54 It w as suggested here and there that women form entire battalions in the N ational G uard.55

94

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

O rdinarily, how ever, Jacobin women were Jacobins first and women sec­ ond. Even the m ost m ilitant Parisian women tailored their radical requests to sexual roles acceptable to men. The members o f the radical female clu b , the Citoyennes Républicaines Révolutionnaires, believed, for exam ple, th at women should hunt down traitors at home while men fought with the arm y at the front. By and large, Jacobin women accepted— no doubt w ith reluctance in m any cases—the Jacobins’ Rousseauean naturalizing distinc­ tion between public man and private wom an, a great handicap, obviously, in the form ulation and assertion o f their claim s. A s a consequence, the Jacobin wom an tended to do her w ork outside the clubs. Women often aimed to raise the awareness o f other women by p ar­ ticipating in parades or, more prosaically, by presenting their own quotid­ ian and Republican exam ple. A t Reim s, for instance, the women members asked a visiting Conventionnel if he had brought his w ife along, as they wished to present her with a tricolor belt.56 M any Jacobin women saw the Revolution as an opportunity to widen the m oral scope o f their dom estic tasks, and some Jacobin men encouraged them to do this: "Sisters and friends,” explained a Jacobin at R uffec, “ you form opinion . . . It is before your tribunal that politics must submit its operations and the w arrior tri­ um phs.” 57 O verall, however, in historical perspective, the uncertainty o f the J a ­ cobins' commitment to the prom otion o f wom an as citizen is far less sur­ prising than the very fact o f their interest in the question. The m ost thoughtful Jacobins— especially when arguing from rationality rather than natural law — understood that equality o f the sexes follow ed from the logic o f their ideals. In Ju ly 17 9 0 Condorcet, the most lucid o f the Jacobin fem i­ nists, w rote that the distinctive characteristic o f humans w as that these "feeling creatures” were able to reason about their m oral rights, and that "w om en w ho have these same qualities, must necessarily have equal rights. Either no individual o f the human race has true rights, or all have them equally; and to vote against the rights o f others, on grounds o f religion, race, or sex, is to abjure one’s own rights.” 58 M ore m utedly, Sieyès likewise abstractly understood that a universalist definition o f citizenship implied that women w ould eventually become full-fledged members o f the political community. Jacobins were, in any case, already prepared to grant m any so­ cial rights to wom en, as witnessed, for exam ple, by a law o f June 1 0 ,1 7 9 3 , which gave women and men equal rights—and an equal say— in the distri­ bution o f common lands.59 It is o f critical im portance that Jacobins laid

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

95

the groundwork for wom en’s right to inherit property equally, surely their m ost im portant durable gain during the entire Revolution. Jacobins had some practical sense o f the difficult situation women faced in civil life. They were moved by the plight o f women w ho had fallen on hard times. Whether m arried or unm arried, the com panion o f a fallen sol­ dier w as in their view entitled not just to sym pathy but to m aterial help. Although the police o f O ld Regime Paris had routinely ignored such cases, Jacobins disliked instances o f domestic violence. A t C allas, in the V ar, the

clubbistes urged the local authorities to prosecute a man w ho w as a notori­ ous w ife beater.60 M any Jacobins understood the Revolution to have been made in no sm all part by and for women. The presence o f women as spectators in the clubs challenged m any (and for all we know , most) Jacobin societies. In the spring o f 17 9 2 many women began to attend the meetings ostentatiously, bringing w ith them knitting for soldiers at the front and bandages to be made for the wounded, thereby serving the republic tw ice, by their w ork and by their presence at a revolutionary gathering. A t Reim s on Jan uary 1 , 17 9 2 , the clubbistes voted to adm it wom en, w ith men sitting on one side o f the hall and women on the other. In February 17 9 2 the Paris Jacobins (whose lo­ cale w as also used by the Fraternal Society o f One and the Other Sex) also discussed the idea o f letting women deliberate on the floor o f the club as members o f visiting delegations.61 The presence o f women soon led to other proposals: that they be adm it­ ted as members plain and simple and, later, that they be involved in the governance o f the clubs. A fter the fall o f the radical Hébert in M arch 17 9 4 , when fem ale clubbistes at Reim s decided to boycott the society because o f disparaging rem arks by some members about citizenesses, the secretary o f the society noted that "every member has sharply felt this absolute isola­ tion o f a sex that is dear to all Jacobin s.” 62 Women also figured prom inently in the fêtes organized by both Jacobin clubs and Jacobin-dom inated m unicipal and other governm ental bodies. Because these celebrations attempted to represent the entire nation and the whole o f hum anity to itself, no parade could be staged without the partici­ pation o f both sexes in roughly equal roles. A t tim es, as at C astres, women refused to form clubs o f their ow n, pre­ ferring to belong to societies where membership w as open to citizens and citizenesses alike. In the end, how ever, about fifty Jacobin wom en’s clubs were created, m any o f them in southwestern France (as at A lais, where the

96

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

wom en’s club w as the first to be denounced by the conservative press, Bor­ deaux, and M ontpellier). The m ost fam ous were in D ijon (with four hun­ dred members) and in the populous city o f Lyons, where women from thirty-one different popular societies, w ith broad social origins,63 met peri­ odically in 17 9 1 and 17 9 a to coordinate their efforts.64 Women also played an im portant political role in the club at M arseilles. M any French women were drawn to Jacobinism , as were m any foreign wom en, am ong them M ary W ollstonecraft and Helen M ariah W illiam s, both close to the Girondin Jacobins and, it might be added, resolutely hostile to the Terror. T o be sure, Jacobinism ’s response to the wom en’s issue w as regionally as w ell as ideologically conditioned. Conspicuously, women’s clubs were un­ known in rural, M editerranean, and patriarchal Provence, where, by con­ trast, the network o f men’s clubs w as the densest in the whole o f France. Nonetheless, overall, Jacobin wom en’s clubs were highly visible, and women w orked hard—w ith only moderate success, it must be said— to es­ tablish national networks. In Paris a Dutch wom an, Etta Palm d’Aelders, hoped to create a wom en’s club in every one o f Paris’s forty-eight sections, all o f them connected to one another and to provincial counterparts.65 And in September 17 9 2 , female clubbistes from D ijon and Cusset met to con­ sider the possibility o f setting up a N ational Confederation o f Patriotic French Women.

< _ / he individuality o f children and young people w as yet another Jacobin concern. They deemed the reshaping o f young minds a priority, but they also believed that the creation o f a universal system o f prim ary education could unite the Revolution’s universal and individualist aspirations. If no “ true talent w as lost or neglected,” if every individual’s right to be him self or herself w as fostered in state-run schools, who could then object to the hierarchic differentiation o f rew ard and social function that prevailed in society at large? Clubs were eager to attract the young, and the society o f M agnac, in the Haute Vienne, took pride in its membership o f “ étudiants e t . . . patriotes de la ville.” 66 In N orm andy, at Saint-Gilles-de-la-Neuville, the members o f the local club (the Popular Society o f Perfect Unity) serially invited all o f the commune’s children in groups o f four to attend its meet­ ings.67 About fifty Jacobin youth clubs came into being, the m ost active o f them in Toulouse, often under the aegis o f Jacobin-m inded priests who had

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

97

accepted the C ivil Constitution o f the Clergy. The purpose o f these youth clubs w as not to amuse but to educate and to shape character; at Vitry-leFrançois children “ too young to benefit from its instruction” were ex­ cluded from membership.68 Sim ilarly, at Tonneins the clubbistes agreed to allow youths at the meetings but only after they had learned the D eclara­ tion o f the Rights o f M an by heart. By 17 9 3 -9 4 m ilitary training had also become a focus o f youth club life. Youth, education, and politics also came together in the revolutionary catechisms taught by government order in the schools, w orks that focused on the heroic actions o f soldiers, especially the adolescents François Bara and Joseph Agricol V íala, w ho had died more or less voluntarily on behalf o f the republic. Their exam ple w as w idely celebrated. A fête in their honor w as scheduled for 10 Therm idor (but w as abruptly canceled). The Jacobins’ concern about youth and education w as neither oppor­ tunistic nor calculating. It instead fit w ith their larger interest in the self­ development o f all citizens. It w as hardly fortuitous that Grenoble, for ex­ am ple, which had one o f the liveliest w om en's clubs, should have had a youth club also. Joseph Chalier, an adm ittedly eccentric Jacobin , argued that France did not need an arm y because it w as itself an arm y o f twentyfive m illion citizens. Women and children, he explained, also have a patri­ otic heart. Laclos, a conservative Jacobin , on the occasion o f the king’s flight in June 17 9 1 urged that the king’s fate be the object o f thousands o f petitions which might be signed by both active and passive citizens, wom en, and children, albeit on three different registers.69 In the Jacobins’ renewed universe, men could rise above themselves, and children like Bara and V íala could become im m ortal. As Robespierre boasted, France alone had thirteen-year-old heroes. T o Bara’s mother, a guest o f the Convention, a Jacobin explained that she had lost nothing: “ your son is not dead; he has received a new existence; he is bom to im­ m ortality.” 70 Indeed, a paradoxical sign o f the sincerity o f the Jacobins’ interest in youth w as the gradual disappearance o f the youth clubs as they generally merged w ith the clubs for adults, sometimes on order o f the authorities. Because the Jacobins believed that young people could achieve great things in a regenerated republic, the age lim it for joining a club w as gradually lowered from twenty-one to eighteen and, in some places, sixteen. (Young people also came to the clubs w ith their parents. A t Rabastens the club

98

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al Liberty

ruled that no one under the age o f twelve could attend.71 The rom antic w riter Charles N odier remembered having spoken to the Besançon club when he w as only eleven.)

nr

he concepts o f individualism and the natural right o f man to freedom also supported the Jacobins’ noblest decision, the abolition o f slavery on February 4, 17 9 4 .72 A s in the case for wom en, the record o f French Ja ­ cobins on this issue w as inconsistent, as w as the line follow ed by Jacobins residing in France’s distant colonies. Until 1 7 9 1 , not a single French club, for exam ple, took the trouble to correspond w ith the French abolitionist society, the Society o f the Friends o f Blacks, which modeled itself on the London Committee for the A bolition o f the Slave Trade. In the club at N antes, a trading seaport, the left Jacobin Fouché w as obliged in M arch 17 9 1 to disavow a public letter sympathetic to blacks that he had written to Brissot. The first cause o f the Jacobins’ hesitation w as obvious. Jacobins were men o f property w ho knew that French m anufacturing, to some extent, and French commerce, especially, depended on profits made from slavery, whether directly through the slave trade or indirectly through commerce with the sugar islands. Theoretically minded Jacobins also pointed out that the juxtaposition o f freedom for some and slavery for others (however puz­ zling it might seem at first glance) w as not unknown. H ad that not been true in ancient Athens, and w as that still not true in the newly founded United States?73 M oreover, with blacks in France numbering few er than five thousand in 17 8 9 , their presence at home w as not o f concern. A fter 17 9 2 another reason for the M ontagnard Jacobins’ reluctance to become involved w ith the question o f slavery developed: the Girondin Ja ­ cobins had been close to abolitionist circles in 17 8 9 -17 9 2 . Indeed, under the pseudonym o f M onsieur Schwartz (the Germ an w ord for “ black” ) the more or less Girondin Condorcet had denounced not just the slave trade but slavery itself as an unnatural crim e. Tactically, therefore, to abolish slavery w as to say, for the M ontagnards, that the Girondins had been right about something after all.74 Nonetheless, some Jacobins were from the first concerned w ith slavery. In 17 8 8 Brissot—who became in early 17 9 2 the m ost prominent radical Ja ­ cobin o f the day— had been a founding member o f the Society o f the

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al L iberty

♦

99

Friends o f Blacks. In February 17 9 0 he attacked the “ com m ercial spirit” that made o f slavery an exception to French liberty: “ Liberty for us, chains for others. And these people claim they are the friends o f L ib erty!” 75 M any Jacobins realized from the first days o f the Revolution that slavery and the D eclaration o f the Rights o f M an were utterly incom patible.7* In M ay 1 7 9 1 , after Robespierre had been elected president o f the Paris society, much w as made o f the sim ultaneous exclusion o f a slave owner and adm is­ sion o f a “ m ulatto.” In December 1 7 9 1 it w as precisely on the issue o f slavery that Brissot focused a victorious struggle inside the N ational A s­ sem bly against the more cautious Feuillant Jacobins w ho had lost control o f the clubs earlier that fall. M any revolutionary women w ho wished to inflect the Rights o f M an as the Rights o f M an and W oman naturally understood how Jacobin princi­ ple placed wom en, blacks, and Jew s on the same footing. So did— in re­ verse—the more conservative clubbistes: an anti-Sem itic Jacobin at Stras­ bourg openly linked his hostility tow ard Jew s to his sym pathy for the threatened prosperity o f slave traders.77 H owever, just as Jacobins eventually understood that it w as intellectu­ ally absurd to emancipate some Jew s and not others, so did they eventually grasp the connection between freedom at home and freedom in the colonies. The survival o f slavery, they knew, vitiated their claim to repre­ sent universalist hum anity. Peicam de Bressoles in his Fête Américaine, pre­ sented at the O péra Com ique in August 17 9 4 , included in his wide panoply o f sym bols a black m an; a white m an; a black baby; a white baby; busts o f M arat, Le Peletier, Bara, and V íala; and a Tree o f Liberty, all o f them cher­ ished sym bols o f Jacobin politics. G radually, momentum for the em ancipation o f slaves grew in both the Jacobin clubs and the press. The noble-bom Jacobin La Rochefoucauld first proposed it on the night o f August 4, 17 8 9 . By 17 9 1 m any Jacobins wished to grant civic rights to free blacks and to “ m ulattos” o f mixed A frican and European origins, m any o f whom were free already. Then, in M arch 17 9 z , the issue o f the rights o f black slaves also came to the fore. Progress w as slow , but m any clubs praised the assem bly for whatever fal­ tering steps it might be taking in that direction. In the spring o f 17 9 4 nearly three hundred Jacobin clubs congratulated the Convention on its abolition o f slavery. In short, the end o f slavery, like the defense o f individual rights in gen-

IOO

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f In dividu al Liberty

eral, w as an integral part o f Jacobins’ ideology, even if, as often happened, the full im plications o f their libertarian thinking developed only gradually. Ensconced as they were in France’s villages, towns, and cities, it w as hard for the Jacobins to see the logic o f their point o f view . But in the end, they did see it. We often think o f Jacobins as resolute collectivists, as terrorists w ho were w illing to pay any price to save their Revolution. But one must re­ member also that the Jacobins were first and forem ost confirmed apolo­ gists o f individualistic values.

3 W The Indisputable Claims o f Civil Society There is a natural, essential, and general order that encompasses the constituent and fundamental laws o f all societies, an order from which societies cannot depart without ceasing to be fully social. Pierre Iréné Dupont (de Nemours), De l9Origine et du progrès d ’une science nouvelle

lig h t s , but no rights: during the G reat T error o f 17 9 4 , Jacobinism foundered on this unresolvable aporia. Events challenged the assertion the Jacobins had begun w ith, nam ely, that every person had a right to be him­ self, whether noble-born or not, white or black, male or fem ale, rich or poor, young or old. Their view o f civil society also changed over time. In the beginning, they wished to leave it largely as it w as because they thought that society would bloom harm oniously and o f its own accord if the institutions o f public life were made more rational and natural. This modest stance sharply distinguishes the Jacobins from modern totalitarians (N ational Socialist, fascist, and communist), whose leaders in­ variably assumed that brutal and constraining social principles were essen­ tial to their future prospects, however mild their actual beginnings m ay have been. In these m odem and oppressive settings, the rights o f groups took precedence over the rights o f individuals from the first. Long before they seized pow er, H itler, Lenin, and M ussolini all assumed that man and society w ould have to be reshaped drastically, probably through terror.

10 2

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

But Jacobinism hardly did so. For these modem-minded secularists, civil society and the fam ily as w ell existed in their own right. They were not the adjunct o f Christian metaphysics or fortuitous politics.1 M oreover, the Ja ­ cobins’ eventual drift aw ay from their initial tolerant perspective w as never made theoretically complete— far from it! A t Thonon the clubbistes urged that overeager patriots remember the “ true sentiments o f the Republican w ho must both respect properties and scrupulously enforce the law that pro­ tects them .” 2 A t Ars-en-Ré the local Jacobins decided in O ctober 17 9 3 to bum some feudal documents but also took care to preserve those “ which jus­ tify real property.” 3 In Paris Robespierre once reminded the Conventionnels that the first objective o f the Revolution w as no more than “ the peaceful en­ joym ent o f liberty and eq u ality. . . We do not intend to cast the Republic in a Spartan m old.” 4 Saint-Just, a perfect sym bol o f Jacobin intransigence, made the same point more poetically on M arch 1 2 ,1 7 9 4 . In the ancient re­ publics o f Sparta and Athens, he explained, “ happiness in its finest day [was] . . . a plough, a field, a cottage protected from the state’s exchequer, and a fam ily protected from the lust o f b rigan ds. . . The people’s liberty,” he went on, “ is in its private life. D o not disturb it. The force o f the governm ent. . . should aim to protect that simple state against force itself.” 5 The Jacobins’ cautious endorsement o f limited change w as clearly stated and, it m ay be added, quite typical o f their age. In the north-Atlantic w orld o f the late eighteenth century, it w as com m only assumed that the individua­ tion o f social form s required some— but not much— supplemental economic engineering. Adam Ferguson and other members o f the Scottish school, though eager to assert the autonom y o f civil society and to describe its his­ tory,6 believed that economics and politics could not be w holly tom asunder. W hat w as to be made o f individuals w ho had no property at all? Were they really free? H ow could the nonpropertied be guaranteed access to property? And how could one answer these questions without throwing so­ ciety into chaos? The Jacobins cautiously understood such hopes and doubts—though few o f them had heard o f Ferguson— because all o f them, we can w ager, had heard o f Rousseau. In his view socially disabled private persons who did not participate in collective political life were not really free. Even the rich who lived in a m onarchy were spiritually chained and fettered. Like Rousseau, the Jacobins wondered how a society might be re­ form ed for the sake o f all w ithout brutalizing the few . They knew, as did their m aster, that the legislative role o f any state, however dem ocratic, ought alw ays to be constrained.

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

10 3

O ur own place in w orld history enables us im m ediately to grasp that the civic equality o f varyingly advantaged individuals is hardly to be achieved irrespective o f m aterial reality. It w as the Jacobins’ historical (mis)fortune to live at a time when that message had not yet been driven home by the long and painful sequence o f events that has shaped our own industrial and postindustrial understanding o f m odem history’s w eighty messages.

o ' he Jacobins’ prudent endorsement o f civil society presents a telling clue to another im portant theme in their history, nam ely, their place in French social hierarchies. In no sm all part, the Jacobins accepted society as they knew it because they were com fortably ensconced w ithin its folds. In the nineteenth century conservative historians believed the reverse to be true. H yppolite Taine (18 x 8 -18 9 3 ) f ° r exam ple, w ho combined in his w ritings the social and racial prejudices o f the northern French bourgeois tow ard southern plebeians, mocked the Jacobin club in the M editerranean seaport o f M arseilles as a rendez-vous for nomadic interlopers, vagabonds, persons without fixed callings, the lawless bullies, and blackguards, who, like uprooted, decay­ ing seaweed, drift from coast to coast, from the entire circle of the Mediterranean Sea; a veritable sink filled with the dregs of twenty corrupt and semi-barbarous civilizations. Marseilles belongs to the low class, 40,000 needy adventurers of which the Club is the leader.7 This biased— one is tempted to say, foolish— judgment reflected the ad­ versarial social and political clim ate o f the day. Taine despised Jacobinism , which he took to be the root cause o f the insurrectionary Paris Commune o f 1 8 7 1 , and whose violent denunciation o f bourgeois life he found ap­ palling. Taine then telescoped 17 9 3 and 1 8 7 1 , in order to conclude all too hastily that the revolutionaries o f 17 8 9 could not have been ordinary mem­ bers o f the middle classes because the m iddle-class people o f his day (he thought) were fated by H istory to be the victim s o f terrorism rather than the terrorists them selves.8 Crane Brinton, sixty years ago, and M ichael Kennedy, more recently, have studied the social antecedents o f the Jacobin clubbistes in great detail. Their w ork enables us to correct Taine’s prejudiced m isjudgment, even if

10 4

*

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

their findings are— o f necessity— based in large part on police listings that were drawn up after the fall o f Robespierre, when many Jacobins were covering their revolutionary tracks or dropping out o f sight com pletely. Jacobins were largely o f a m iddling, decent sort. M using back on his younger days, N apoleon him self owned to having been a Jacobin, at V a­ lence, in the Rhone valley. "There were some good Jacob in s,” explained the emperor. "It w as a time when any faintly noble soul had to be a Ja ­ cobin. I m yself w as one, like yourself, and like thousands o f other w ellmeaning people.” 9 He did not add that he had been the club’s librarian and secretary, and w as urged to be its president. Club profiles varied from region to region. The number o f priests and nobles w ho joined varied greatly, as did over time the number o f skilled ar­ tisans, from z6 percent to 3 1 percent, and peasants, from 8 percent to 1 1 percent. Exceptions did exist. A t Tulle, an arm s-m anufacturing center in central France, the first artisan joined the club in Novem ber 17 9 0 . By 17 9 1 4 1 percent o f the members were manual w orkers; by 17 9 4 , 58 percent were. Likew ise, in the north, near Rouen, and in southern France, in the Drôme and in Provence especially, Jacobinism had a large rural audience. In some rural, southeastern subdepartmental cantons, nearly every village had a club. N ationw ide, however, and from first to last, including the terrorist days o f 17 9 4 , Jacobinism w as basically a blend o f an urban m iddle-class or upper-class leadership with a middle- and lower-middleclass audience. M ost Jacobins were propertied, and some privileged, men o f substance whose cultural instincts and ideology—o r w ishful thinking— far more than envy, greed, or personal circumstance drove them to extremes. The average Jacobin w as a reasonably prosperous town dweller. Every French city with more than 4,000 inhabitants had a club, as did 97 percent o f those w ith over 3,000 and 87 percent w ith over a,000, a statistic whose full meaning registers if we recall that only 14 percent o f French m unicipal enti­ ties (most o f them rural, o f course) had a club at all. It is no coincidence that clubs were most common in eastern and southeastern France, where cities with a nucleated population o f 2,0 0 0 -5,0 0 0 were most common also.10 The Jacobins valued belonging to a community. They were em phatically not strangers to the towns whose clubs they joined. They were not mar­ ginal. In Toulon, for exam ple, members o f the local club’s key committees were required to be over thirty, to be natives o f the city, and to have lived there for four years, unless they displayed such obvious civisme as to make

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

10 5

these norms irrelevant.11 Conditions o f m orality were often imposed for membership and some clubs secretly investigated postulants.12 A t Le H avre, upon hearing that an “ honorable citizen” had found him self unable to pay o ff a sm all debt, the clubbistes raised the money on his behalf to save him “ from the shame and disgrace o f defaulting on his paym ents.” 13 They did so out o f a desire to meet the norms o f respectability as w ell as those o f fraternal solidarity. Even the m ost m ilitant and abstract-m inded Jacobins thought o f them­ selves as representatives o f their home communities, as defenders o f a lived, extant, and acceptable social order. They believed in unanim ity from below rather than in centralized government imposed from above. “ Re­ nounce the ancient m ania o f governments w ho wished to govern too m uch,” Robespierre urged on M ay 1 0 ,1 7 9 3 , “ leave to the communes the right to regulate their own affairs in everything that does not essentially af­ fect the general adm inistration o f the republic.” 14 M ilitant Jacobins existed not as single political actors but collectively, as members o f local clubs. M oreover, their associations, though obviously af­ fected by ongoing and changing political consciousness, had strong, prerev­ olutionary local roots. M ilitant Jacobinism evolved from established, pre­ revolutionary local sociability. A few clubs (though m any fewer than w as once thought)15 had their ori­ gin in the 1,8 0 0 M asonic lodges created in France since 17 7 0 . In 17 8 9 the Grand Orient M asonic order alone had 635 affiliated lodges in 395 French cities. Prerevolutionary M asonic societies also inform ed Jacobinism as “ laboratories where new values were produced.” 16 The M asonic ideals o f domestic virtue and philanthropy bore a strong resemblance to sim ilarly enlightened Jacobin preferences.17 (A fair number o f M asons were Protes­ tants like the N îm ois m inister Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne.) Lodges provided continuities in procedure, sociability, and outlook. In theory if not in fact members o f lodges before 17 8 9 and o f clubs after that related to one another dem ocratically, as friends and colleagues, without reference to social rank. Prerevolutionary M asons, like the Jacobins o f 17 9 3 -9 4 , felt they had a mission. M asons and Jacobins alike assumed that a small and self-defined but representative m inority (themselves) held the key to the well-being o f the larger community. Georges Couthon, a feared member o f the Committee o f Public Safety, w as the m ost prominent Ja ­ cobin to have been a M ason.18 Cam ille Desmoulins struck a chord in 17 9 0 when he used M asonry as a m etaphor for the clubs. The Paris society, he

io 6

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

w rote, w as the Grand O rient o f the Friends o f the Constitution in all o f the nation’s eighty-three departm ents.19 Other established form s o f local sociability were also relevant to the gen­ esis o f the clubs. A t Bergerac forty-tw o o f the fifty-eight members o f the Société Mesmérienne joined to create a club in 17 8 9 . In Grenoble m any early Jacobins were members o f a philanthropic society that had been founded by m unicipal notables to raise money for local hospitals. M any form er local parlementaires (that is, members o f the office-holding, neoaristocratic judiciary) had belonged to this d u b .20 Antecedents also in­ cluded m usical societies and “ m useums,” or private institutions o f learning focused on advanced prerevolutionary ideas (in Bordeaux the musée, founded in 17 8 2 , had as its m otto “ liberty, equality,” and as its emblem, an eagle breaking its chain). In Colm ar a sm oking club became a Jacobin society. A t Castres a club grew out o f a newspaper-reading society founded in 17 8 2 , which had then subscribed to the Gazette de France, the Mercure

historique, the Courier de l’Europe, and the Courier d ’Avignon.11 A t D ijon the wom en’s Jacobin club developed in part to take over social tasks from excluded Catholic religious orders.22 In other instances, the new clubs brought together individuals who had heretofore been more or less form ally in touch with one another about the arts or philosophy, as happened w ith the members o f the prerevolutionary French Linnaean Society, which counted am ong its postrevolutionary “ graduates” a number o f prominent Jacobins and other political figures: Louis Bose, Jacques Creuzé-Latouche, H enri G régoire, G ilbert Rom m e, Antoine Fourcroy, and Jean H assenfratz.23 It has likewise been suggested that the Breton club at V ersailles, which evolved in M ay 17 8 9 into the Ja ­ cobin club o f Paris, w as itself a distant offshoot o f the Patriotic Society o f Breton at Rennes, the site o f heated prerevolutionary electoral politics and patriotic opposition to the local nobility.24 Some Jacobin clubs had also mutated from local assem blies o f N ational Guardsm en. Am bulatory clubs without a fixed base did exist, in the Vendée, for exam ple, where Jacobins were few . But such associations were quite rare. M any clubbistes had known each other for years in varied capacities, es­ pecially in the sm aller towns where a club might have no more than twenty or thirty members. A t M arseilles m any o f the club’s founders were old grads from the Collège de l’O ratoire.25 Signatures o f members on founding charters were often grouped by neighborhoods, another telltale sign.

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

10 7

Significantly, Jacobin clubbistes felt strongly that towns should have but a single club. O f course, that monistic goal could not be managed in large cities. N antes, w ith 60,000 inhabitants, had three clubs. Bordeaux (the fourth-largest city in France, w ith about 110 ,0 0 0 inhabitants) had thirteen between Ju ly 17 8 9 and June 17 9 1 and five in 17 9 1- 9 2 . Beaucaire, fam ous in m edieval times and still a m eaningful trading tow n, had six. In Paris, when the Jacobin clubs and the assemblées sectionnaires were relabeled sociétés

populaires in 17 9 3 , the capital counted over twenty deliberating associations o f one kind or another. From start in 17 8 9 to finish in 17 9 5 , Paris spawned more than one hundred clubs and protoclubs within its city w alls. Still, in the whole o f France, only about tw o hundred communes count­ ed more than one club.26 By more than ten to one, single-club towns out­ numbered m ulticlub cities. O verall, Jacobins wanted to represent both a single ideological truth and the public opinion o f an entire community. It made no more sense to them to have tw o clubs in one town than to have tw o N ational Assem blies in one country. A t Reim s members o f one club were required to sw ear that “ they w ould never leave this club in order to join another club in the same city.” 27 A t Toulon the members o f an exist­ ing club asked the m unicipal government to forbid the creation o f a second club. (Their m otion failed, and six months later the rival clubbistes were involved in a fistfight.)28 The Paris club reinforced this drive to singleness by refusing affiliation to more than one club per town. The anom alous cohabitation o f tw o or more clubs in a single city usually resulted from long-standing feuds. In sm all towns and villages tension might run high between Jacobins w ho were vintners and Jacobins who grew wheat. One o f the tw o clubs created at Saverne, in Alsace, for exam ple, had a dis­ tinctly more rural membership than the other. Such relatively innocuous dis­ tinctions often became lethal in 17 9 3 -9 4 when anim osities were politicized and one group o f local revolutionaries secured the ear o f the centralized state representative in order to push aside or kill their age-old local rivals. A t Pertuis, a sm all city in the Vaucluse, a visiting Jacobin opined that the existence o f tw o rival societies w as due to “ their private interests and invet­ erate hatreds, m any o f which went back more than twenty years. Their supposed zeal for liberty and the Constitution m asks their mutual anim os­ i t y . . . They called their personal enemies the enemies o f the Revolution.” 29 By and large, how ever, a club represented an entire tow n, and club net­ w orks aimed to reflect regional sociability. From early 17 9 0 onw ard, clubs

io8

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

in large cities “ netw orked” (or, in the parlance o f the tim e, “ fraternized” ) w ith one another. They also spawned sm aller clubs in neighboring towns and villages. It often happened that the clubs o f neighboring villages re­ lated to each other only distantly through their vertical affiliation to some distant mother society. In the spring o f 17 9 0 the patriots o f Strasbourg in­ vited to their city the N ational Guardsm en from a large swathe o f eastern France, an exam ple copied all over France. In the Vaucluse and the Drôm e, where clubs were particularly numerous, thirteen such regional congresses were held between February 17 9 2 and June 17 9 3 .30 The lines that led from a parent club to its subsidiaries often follow ed es­ tablished social ties. In their request for affiliation w ith the regional capital, M ontpellier, the clubbistes o f Agde explained that w hat drew them to the larger city w as “ the links that already bind us, those o f the form er and ac­ tual adm inistration, the ties o f commerce, and above all the esteem we have for your society, based on the reports o f those o f our com patriots w ho have visited you.” 31 “ The tree o f liberty,” wrote the Jacobins o f Bourbourg o f themselves, “ is the social tree.” 32 These linked origins speak not just to the rooted nature o f Jacobinism but also to the determination o f individual Jacobins w ho used their older contacts to achieve their newly conceived political purpose. It is unreason­ able to think o f the Jacobins as a class-based party whose associative ex­ pressions emerged spontaneously from some determining, class-conscious, Paris-dom inated, and Hegelian bedrock o f “ dass-for-itself.” Jacobins were w illful and efficient organizers. Dedicated to the well-being o f their hom etowns, the Jacobins labored to make sure that the new judicial and educational institutions just created by the revolutionary N ational Assem bly would be located in their own towns, to the friendly detriment o f their neighbors. Com petition over this matter w as often fierce. N o stone or argument w as left unturned; and in one m ountainous region the citizens o f a downhill town argued for their site’s natural superiority over another town’s location higher up by reasoning that in order to come to them, their neighbors could w alk downhill, whereas they w ould be required to w alk uphill to meet their rivals! Clubs argued for special exem ptions from all kinds o f rules that might w ell apply to the larger nation but not to them. Strasbourg, for exam ple, sought to be made a free port. A t Bischw iller the Jacobins com plained about a law forbidding the export o f A lsatian hemp to the Frankfurt fairs.

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

109

This ruling seemed to them part o f a “ treasonable plan” to wean citizens from the Revolution.33 Clubs lobbied for local industries. They defended the right o f m unicipalities to search incoming and (especially) outgoing carts that might be rem oving food from their hom etowns. The configura­ tion o f local passions might w ell determine local responses to some na­ tional trajectory.34 Jacobins often espoused ancient local grievances. A t Saint-Servan, in Brit­ tany, the Jacobins affiliated themselves w ith m any clubs near and far, in­ cluding the London Corresponding Society. But they studiously ignored the Jacobin club in the nearby rival seaport o f Saint-M alo, just across the bay. Jacobins boasted o f the entrepreneurial zeal they extended on behalf o f their communities. (The first title o f the Riom society w as the Society o f the Friends o f the Constitution and o f R ural Econom y.) The minutes o f the clubs teem w ith schemes for local improvements o f all kinds. Econom ic growth w as a common concern. In Bordeaux Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède tried to enlist Jacobin support for the creation o f an English-style textile factory. A t Tulle soap w as on the agenda. The M ontpellier club considered the shipment o f coal and the erection o f new windm ills to grind wheat. Other clubs had more fanciful public goals, w ith plans for the construc­ tion o f roads, road signs, harbors, and im probable canals from Poitiers and N iort to Châtellerault or from the Ranee to the V illaine; for draining swamps or grow ing hemp for ship’s riggings; for laying down pipes to sup­ ply w ater; for creating slaughter houses, street lighting, and m ail service; or for a cam paign to fam iliarize peasants w ith the potato.35 N o concern w as too mundane fo r the Jacobins. The improvement o f public health preoccupied them. A t Villecroze the

clubbistes asked for the appointm ent o f a “ communal physician because by this means, indigents w ill have their m aladies attended to as w ell as those who live in opulence.” 36 M any clubs did their best to keep heretofore reli­ giously run hospitals afloat. They discussed health insurance schemes and the distribution o f free m edicines. They proposed asylum s for the m entally ill. A t Cherbourg the local club demanded that employers compensate in­ jured w orkers. Finding food— alw ays a source o f concern, especially in revolutionary times— w as particularly im portant to the Jacobins. From 17 9 z onward, grain w as increasingly scarce. In 17 9 3 -9 4 peasants and bourgeois produc-

no

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

ers alike became reluctant to exchange a valuable com m odity for increas­ ingly valueless paper currency. W ith nearly one m illion men under arm s in 17 9 3 , the government exacerbated food shortages by m aking feeding the soldiers the nation’s first priority. Cities w ould som ehow have to manage w ith whatever w as left over. In the grain-exporting areas, clubs urged their fellow citizens to be generous. But elsewhere, clubbistes ranged far and wide either to find food for their hometowns or to convince national and departm ental officials w ho controlled food reserves to release some locally rather than sending all to the front or to distant cities. Even at the height o f the T error, clubs also went out o f their w ay to protect their fellow townspeople. Local Jacobins could struggle m ightily against their neighbors, w in, and then forget to forw ard the case o f their defeated opponents to the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris.37 A t Lagny, not too far from the capital, when the baron de M arguerittes w as arrested, the local society began by sending him a certificate o f patriotism . When that did not prove to be enough, they sent a delegation to Paris to secure a (tem­ porary) stay o f execution.38 Some clubs also com plained about m ilitary ex­ actions. Clubs did sing the praises o f national (and therefore distant) heroes like M arat and Le Peletier. But m any clubs also had local votive figures o f their ow n, regional m artyrs, or for that m atter purely local figures who had made good. Jacobins, alw ays forceful, in time grew relentlessly sectarian. But that change surprised even them. In their private lives they were often neigh­ borly, cultivated, and polite persons. In his early days at A rras, Robes­ pierre w rote neoclassical, m annerist love poetry o f a m ost laudable and stilted kind. The clubbistes were respected, respectable people who were so involved in the life o f their community that to be excluded from a club w as not just politically dangerous but socially disgraceful as w ell. A t Lagny the "com m ittee for purges” charged the club’s secretary to contact excluded members personally "so that they w ould not be exposed to receiving [news of] their exclusion publicly.” 39 M any clubs (Paris and D ijon am ong them) had défenseurs officieux whose task it w as to dispel the suspicions that weighed on every heart, o f includers and excluders alike. So strong w as the localist impulse o f the Jacobins’ sensibility that it took them some time to understand the im plications o f their more sustained and ever more ideological w orldview . Initially, in the period 17 8 9 - 17 9 1, the clubs acted as semisecret societies, often requiring from their members a

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

111

promise o f confidentiality regarding their proceedings. M em bers could in­ vite only one friend at a time. Registers o f visitors were closely kept. Im­ portant sessions were not open to nonmembers. O nly as the Revolution proceeded did clubs take on their role as agencies o f public and politicized knowledge, not just for themselves but for the en­ tire population o f their towns and cities. Étienne Clavière, a leading Ja ­ cobin financier, suggested countering the insinuations o f the émigrés by cir­ culating a petition to the people proving the sincerity o f the Jacobins’ m otives and by m aking the meetings o f the clubs public. By late 17 9 1 clubs eagerly welcom ed visitors to their now public debates.40 It mattered im­ mensely "th at all civic and Republican-m inded men not be kept aw ay from our society, regardless o f what their circumstances were or might now be.” 41 The Grenoblois Jacobins in A pril 17 9 0 were the first to hold public assem blies. The Strasbourg club soon follow ed, and the M arseillais went one step further by m aking o f their assem bly hall "a gathering place and refreshm ent center.” 42 Some clubs, as at Toulouse, slid into the public lim elight gradually, by having tw o kinds o f meetings, some open and some not, and then gradually dispensing w ith private sessions. The first public meeting o f the Paris Jacobins took place in m id-October 1 7 9 1 , and there­ after open sessions became the norm throughout France. Spectators who had once been excluded were now actively recruited. A t Liboum e a gallery collapsed under their weight.43 Jacobin club members soon came to see themselves as participating in the same galvanizing relationship to their hometowns as the Convention did to the Grande N ation, and they underlined this shared local and na­ tional identity by adopting the Convention's rules o f order as their own. But one type o f concern did not exclude the other. A t Courthézon, in the Vaucluse, in one afternoon the clubbistes decided in quite rapid succession to deal w ith the stray dogs that were dam aging the local vineyards and to bum sym bolically “ the red flag o f anarchy.” 44 A t Saint-Céré local Jacobins questioned, on lofty grounds indeed, the right o f Rousset to carve out his garden from common lands: "private and particularist interests,” they con­ cluded, "m ust yield to the public good and no sacrifice is too costly when the happiness o f the people is at stake.” 45

Ç

acobins had a lively sense o f social responsibility, and that apprehen­

sion spilled over into their handling o f social relations generally. W henever

uz

♦ The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

circumstances made it feasible, they perceived fellow urban w orkers as needy and deserving fellow citizens. A t V ire some clubbistes thought w ork­ ers should have the right to strike. But Jacobins strongly believed in hard and productive w ork as w ell. Jacobins held that man—whether rich or poor—realized his potential through w ork effected in fruitful cooperation w ith others and with nature, an encom passing view that aggregated m anual and mental w ork, artisanal and bourgeois status. The corporate structure o f the Old Regim e, they thought, vitiated honest effort. Before 17 8 9 w orkers had often been shiftless. In the nation’s central library, Roland explained, the idleness o f indolent runners during m onarchic times had been an insult to the “ impatience o f learned men and artists” eager to get their books.46 In A pril 17 9 3 Robes­ pierre did explain that the poor had a right to w ork. But he also assumed that this right w as an obligation. The Jacobins considered idleness a rep­ rehensible trait shared by nobles and the feckless poor. Saint-Just and m any others attributed the poor’s lost desire to w ork to the m oral clim ate set by the m onarchy. “ Y ou must force people to do something, to have a profession. . . In our hom eland, w hat are the rights o f those w ho do nothing there?” 47 W hereas buying and selling were socially unproductive, the productive, socially useful habit o f w ork, m anual w ork especially, w as much to be ad­ mired. A t Rom ans a m anufacturer who had set up a factory to provide local employment because he believed in the bien public and not his intérêt

particulier found a receptive audience when he explained to the club that the local youths had heretofore been culpably idle. Young people should be reminded that “ only w ork w ill ready men for virtue, idleness being the mother o f every vice.” 48 And thanks to the Revolution, they assumed, all citizens could now be­ come truly useful. A t Saint-M alo, when it w as pointed out to some ci­ toyennes w ho had offered to w ork benevolently for the fam ilies o f depart­ ing soldiers that m any poor women w ould like to do this but could not afford to do so, the club itself stepped into the breach and offered a sub­ sidy to make such employment feasible. Jacobins might be unsympathetic to m orally degenerate beggars, but they were by contrast extrem ely sym pathetic to the unemployed w ho sought w ork. “ If there are no useful w orks to be com m issioned,” explained the Conventionnel Louis Guyton-M orveau to the D ijon clubbistes, “ then we shall have to commandeer useless ones.” 49 A t A ix, in 1 7 9 1 , the club

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

113

asked for the creation o f a workhouse for the unemployed. A t Tonneins, a member who urged the clubbistes to find w ork for form er “ m anoeuvres de la m anufacture de tabac” (workers at the tobacco m anufactory) w as w arm ly applauded for his “ zèle charitable.” 50 Jacobins expressed hostility to em ployers w ho dism issed w orkers they might not need but could afford to keep. Needless to say, Jacobin attitudes to w orkers' com plaints varied a good deal. One o f the reasons the Jacobins endorsed paper money w as that local w orkers received it for pay; but at Boulogne, when exasperated artisans fi­ nally refused to accept paper after all, the local Jacobins turned around and rescinded their support o f this fiat currency. In that same spirit o f social friendship m any clubs went out o f their w ay to low er or w aive entrance fees, whose purpose w as not to be a barrier but, more mundanely, to raise needed cash for m ailing, heating, lighting, and printing costs. Jacobins did their best to further the concerns o f their local peasant neighbors, w ho were referred to in their “ politically correct” verbiage as

cultivateurs rather than paysans.51 Jacobins, o f course, strove to suppress feudal dues, and a few o f them also favored the sale o f confiscated émigré properties to peasants in sm all lots. They sim ilarly urged the dism issal o f ancient lawsuits relating to the peasantry.52 They extolled patriotic peas­ ants w ho had paid their taxes, sold their foodstuffs for paper m oney, and agreed to serve in the arm y. Jacobins gave peasants wise advice on choos­ ing crops and using fallow lands.53 They often defended traditional com­ munal rights. They concurred at A ix when a clubbiste reminded his col­ leagues that a feudal custom attached to the sale o f wine had been in the interest o f the rural poor and should be retained “ because the N ation has today taken the place o f the [Cathedral] Chapter.” 54 A t C allas, in the V ar, a region w ith strong individualistic traditions, Jacobins nonetheless de­ fended the m unicipality’s right to own common lands. They urged the city authorities to prosecute aggressive and selfish individuals w ho had appro­ priated and seeded tracts that were com m unally owned.55 The clubbistes worked hard to proselytize potential allies in the country­ side, and w ith some success, particularly after 17 9 1 . A t M arcillac, in the A veyron, local vintners proudly inform ed the regional club in Rodez that the members o f the Jacobin society they had form ed were nearly all “ culti­ vators.” A t Cugnauz, in the Haute Garonne, thirty-three o f the forty-nine sociétaires were agriculturists. A t A rpajon, in the C antal, a predom inantly

1 14

*

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

peasant Jacobin society w as used as a springboard by a local leftist, JeanBaptist M ilhaud, to capitalize on local rural radicalism .56 By 17 9 5 perhaps more than one Jacobin in ten w as a peasant. O f course, Jacobins also ex­ pected peasants to toe the m ark, pay taxes, serve in the arm y, speak French, and behave as citizens, all o f which— to say the least—were not the goals peasants had in mind when they rose up in m any parts o f France in 17 8 9 . But even those demands were for the peasants' good, according to the Jacobins. In both town and country, then, Jacobins espoused social life as they found it, and their aesthetics and intellectual principles placed them in the mainstream currents o f French cultural life. In coundess w ays, the Ja ­ cobins—w ith some conspicuous exceptions o f those hostile to higher learn­ ing—were the children o f the rationalist Enlightenment. A t Lagny the

sociétaires went so far as to distinguish between destructive and "reason­ able” anim als.57 They believed in individualism , government by discussion, statistics, m eliorism , and science. They valued debates and the freedom to choose (as in elections) because these allow ed the voice o f reason to emerge. Jacobins took pride in the Enlightenment’s scientific achievements. They were interested in lighter-than-air balloons, and the French arm y o f 17 9 z w as, as it w ere, the first m ilitary in history to rely on its air arm .58 Jacobins were also fascinated by the communicative possibilities o f electricity. They subsidized a visual telegraph. A fter 17 9 z they relied on new, standardized w ays o f m ass-producing weapons. M any Jacobins were intrigued by medi­ cine and surgery. The extended use o f the guillotine might be said to be a ghoulish by-product o f that interest. They com m only referred to aristocratism as a gangrenous disease, and to their purges as scalpels.59 Scientific figures like Benjam in Franklin were Jacobin heroes. Tom Paine, whose name represented practical common sense, w as made an honorary French citizen and invited to sit in the N ational Convention. (He narrow ly escaped execution in 179 4 .) Jacobins did not believe in dream s, omens, and superstitions. T o be told that they were unconsciously carrying for­ w ard in a secularized register m any o f religious and m onarchic France's an­ cient instincts o f intolerance w ould have distressed them greatly. Jacobins were no less representative o f their times in em bracing the nonscientific, nonrational force o f "n ature,” whose beneficent hand they saw at w ork in any number o f dom ains. Jacobins were strongly pulled by nat­

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

115

ural law , natural religion, and the countryside. Although they often used scientific m etaphors, they clearly preferred sym bols drawn from nature, like sheaves o f w heat, trees, and cornucopias. O rdinarily, their fêtes were staged outdoors in open rather than enclosed spaces. Indeed, the clubbistes sometimes met outdoors as w ell. A t “ Tonneins-la-M ontagne ” the ceiling o f their meeting room w as painted over to look like the sky: dark blue w ith stars.60 Kant’s aphorism on the starry heavens above and the m oral law within readily comes to mind. Unlike nineteenth-century bourgeois figures, Jacobins did not praise peasants as such or criticize urban w orkers as such. But they did prefer country to town. Lyons, w rote M m e. Roland, w ho w as city-bom and -bred, “ is a cloaca that gathers unto itself the m ost disgusting refuse ever produced by the old regim e.” 61 Jacobins had a strong prejudice for the beloved eighteenth-century fic­ tion o f the Republican yeom an farm er o f Jeffersonian fam e. Regardless o f their private situation as urban dw ellers, Jacobins saw the w orld through Rousseauean and ruralist lenses. Agriculture, w rote Saint-Just, w as “ the mother o f [good] m ores.” 62 A t ease as they were w ith their w orld socially and intellectually, Ja ­ cobins— at first—had no trouble getting along w ith local officials, w ho, they assumed, were equally m indful o f their neighbors’ stated needs. W hy else w ould they have been elected? Indeed, the Jacobins had organized themselves specifically for the purpose o f explaining to the people the sensi­ ble decisions that had just been taken for them by the nation’s new ly cho­ sen representatives. In the w ords o f a conservative Therm idorian w ho chastised them at Auch in 17 9 5 for having strayed from that purpose, their task w as to be in “ fraternal surveillance o f the authorities.” 63 In 17 9 0 their m ost controversial demand w as that public officials deliberate publicly so that their own task o f friendly, constructive criticism might be made more efficacious. H ad not Rousseau told the Poles that in a well-ordered repub­ lic, “ every citizen shall at every instant feel him self in the public eye” ?64 A s the Revolution progressed, how ever, this era o f good feelings soured. A s early as m id-17 9 0 , in a decision eventually overruled by the N ational Assem bly in Paris, the m unicipality o f D ax ordered the local club shut down. A fter the king’s flight to Varennes in June 1 7 9 1 , unpleasant in­ stances o f rivalry between club and elected officials became all too com ­ m on, and relations between Jacobins and local officials did not im prove

ii 6

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

until the triumph o f the M ontagnards in June 17 9 3 , at which point the

clubbistes themselves became the nation’s governing officials. During those intervening months, from m id-17 9 1 to m id-17 9 3, the clubs (which now represented active m inorities o f unusually engaged patriots) in­ creasingly bickered w ith the m ainstream , m iddle-of-the-road m unicipali­ ties, whose basic inspiration w as perhaps not much different from their own but whose sense o f urgency w as more muted. Even then, the stated Jacobin m otive for attacking local officials w as that they—the Jacobins— understood w hat w as best not just for themselves but for the entire community, including, o f course, its elected functionaries. Unlike the Bolsheviks, w ho alw ays saw themselves as a class-based party fated to struggle violently against another previously dominant social class, the Jacobins liked to believe that community-wide harm ony w as imminent. In any instance, after m id-17 9 3, when the Jacobins managed to capture municipal offices nationwide, the question o f Jacobin relations to local of­ ficials largely lapsed. A t Bourbourg, in the words o f Georges Lefebvre, the club treated the m unicipal officers as if they were “ a subordinate body.” 65 In Toulouse forty-tw o clubbistes held municipal office between 17 8 9 and 17 9 5 ; in Strasbourg, eighty-three did.66 In Jan uary 17 9 5 a Conventionnel on a visit to Tulle naively congratulated him self on the presence o f all o f the tow n's officials in the club that day. (For good measure he added that if he had been born at Tulle, he too w ould have become a clubbiste.)67 In m any towns the meetings o f the clubs were timed not to coincide w ith mu­ nicipal meetings so that the Jacobins could attend both venues. A sim ilar mechanism enabled Robespierre and Danton to make nearly the same speech first in the Paris club and then on the Convention floor.

(JJf

*~/JL U a n y social historians have worked hard to show that some Ja ­ cobins, specifically, the Girondins, were more prone to accept civil society as it then existed than were the M ontagnards. This view broaches a funda­ mental problem o f revolutionary politics. Can we say that by 17 9 2 distinct social classes already existed and that conflicting versions o f Jacobinism (Girondin or M ontagnard) corresponded to these new social rankings?68 In 17 9 3 the Girondins certainly seemed to be more accepting o f civil so­ ciety as it then functioned than did the M ontagnards. Since the late sum­ mer and fall o f 17 9 2 , the Girondins had become hostile to the Parisian

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

1 17

sans-culottes, who wanted to push forw ard a revolution that they, the Girondins, wished to direct and stab ilize/9 And as the Girondists lost pow er in early 17 9 3 , they did indeed m ake m any conservative statements on a wide range o f subjects including economic life and free enterprise. But these appearances are deceiving. Their more conservative w ords in 17 9 3 resulted from their realization, after m any hesitations, that a new approach w as required if they were to retain their influence and stop the Revolution w ith the help o f new allies to the right. In 17 9 1- 9 2 , during an earlier incarnation and when out o f pow er, these same Girondins had often argued the reverse o f w hat they chose to say in 17 9 3 . The latter-day Brissot, for exam ple, did indeed defend property, but in 1 7 9 1 , in his première manière, he spoke as a m ilitant abolitionist and presented him self as a victim o f planter capitalism . François X avier Lanthenas, another prominent Girondin, had struck a sim ilar leftist tone in Novem ber 1 7 9 1 , if in an altered register. "T he bourgeois,” he explained, "w ants to put him self in the place o f the noble, and not allow the artisan to take his. H ow ever, the artisan is the true defender, the sincere friend o f the Revolution. He alone form s the N ational G u a rd . . . He alone frequents the electoral assem blies. Finally, he alone is w orthy o f liberty, because he alone has good m orals.” 70 But by 17 9 3 Lanthenas had become one o f Brissot’s closest associates. Such gyrations were not isolated cases. In their earlier guise as leaders o f the leftist opposition, Girondins made hundreds o f progressive statements, on any number o f themes, all o f which are at least as m eaningful as the conservative statements they were to make in the spring o f 17 9 3 when struggling against the M ontagne, now increasingly prone to com m unitar­ ian statements that w ould please the Parisian crow d. In September 17 9 1 Brissot, then still a progressive clubbiste, denounced the attack o f Le Chapelier (an ex-Jacobin) on club affiliation. But after the September m assacres, in Novem ber 17 9 z , when the Revolution— he thought—had become too threatening, Brissot executed a volte-face and attacked Jacobin affiliation w ith much the same w ords he had used against Le Chapelier the year before. The Paris club had become a kind o f "H o ly See.” A ffiliation, Brissot decided, w as a non-Republican hierarchic humili­ ation o f sm aller club by larger club. Instead o f seeing the M ontagnards as representing the middle class and the Girondins as the party o f the grande bourgeoisie, we should note that all Ja -

118

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

cobins, once in pow er, were suddenly able to see how politically dangerous it w as to let the Revolution unfold tow ard an unfettered universalism . A truly useful com parison o f Girondin Jacobinism and M ontagnard Ja ­ cobinism w ould juxtapose statements made by the groups at hand when in sim ilar strategic and political situations. N ot too much im portance should be placed on the form al content o f such and such statement for or against property, for or against slavery, for or against the rule o f law , for or against concessions to the sans-culottes, or for or against the death o f king. Social origin w as not, o f course, w holly irrelevant to the debates between Girondins and Feuillants in 17 9 1 or between Girondins and M ontagnards in 17 9 2 -9 3 . A Jacobin ’s attitude tow ard the Revolution’s progress might depend on either his relationship to power (was he for personal reasons a client o f those who ruled?) or his antecedent social rank and w ealth (which often determined one’s choice o f friends). A Jacobin who changed his mind about the revolutionary movement and modulated his social discours ac­ cordingly might w ell give a thought to his personal wealth and status. But the effects o f m aterial interest on the opinions o f the w arring Ja ­ cobins were w eak and were mitigated by many other factors ranging from personal character,71 to private situation or office, to a tendency to m oral­ ize one’s own position and demonize one’s enemies. And in any case, some Girondins remained relatively daring to the end; consider Rabaut, again, a partisan o f civic fêtes, o f nationalism as a modern substitute for religion, and o f greater m aterial equality. Since it is rare, he w rote on Jan uary 19 , 17 9 3 , for the rich to give up their w ealth, they must be compelled to do so, “ by force or by law .” 72 M oreover, the cross-class Jacobin ethos w as so pow erful that dropping out o f Jacobinism usually meant falling into a po­ litically and ideologically debilitating void. Ex-Jacobins did not become royalists or traditionalists. Instead, they often retreated from public life. The alternative to Jacobinism for ex-Jacobins w as not reaction politics but political impotence. The basic conservatism o f all o f the Jacobins’ social thought generally did not escape contem porary observers. In the summer o f 17 9 3 the sans­ culottes, the Parisian enragés especially, accused even the m ost radical Ja ­ cobins o f being too tolerant o f greed and insufficiently universalist. From this far-left point o f view , all Jacobins were at fault because all o f them tol­ erated existing civil life and social structures. On the right, m any property owners mocked the Jacobins for speaking universalist w ords while rem aining quite bourgeois in their deeds. Conserv­

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

1 19

ative accusers focused on tw o points: that the Jacobins had purchased the

biens nationaux, and that they used their privileged role in the new regime to avoid the draft. The biens nationaux were in the main confiscated church property.73 A t tim es, Jacobins urged m unicipalities to buy these properties for the com ­ mon good. A t Castres, for exam ple, they proposed that the city buy a wheat-grinding m ill up fo r sale. M uch more frequently, how ever, the Ja ­ cobins purchased these properties themselves, another sign incidentally o f their wealth and status. A t A ix the clubbistes, w ho counted for 3 percent o f the population, bought 33 percent o f the biens nationaux. This exam ple could be m ultiplied a thousandfold. M any a nineteenth-century, C atholic, and bourgeois fam ily fortune w as founded on this financially sound but theologically uncertain and revolutionary base. Jacobins liked to think that they were w orking for the Revolution when they purchased these proper­ ties. Peasants should be grateful: w eren't Jacobin purchases reducing the national debt? "T h is is a relief [for peasants] because it is the only w ay to am ortize debts on which [they] have to pay hefty interest paym ents."74 Jacobins benefited in other m aterial w ays from the Revolution as w ell. A t Toulon the Jacobins armed a ship for privateering w ith, as it happens, a Jacobin crew . M any clubs suggested that confiscated noble estates be redis­ tributed, but only to patriots, that is, to themselves. A t Artonne, a sm all country town in central France, the local club demanded that a tax be levied on the rich and then decided that "the members o f this society w ill be exem pt from the ta x ."75 In the same vein, it m ay w ell be that m any o f the Catholic priests w ho opted in 17 9 0 for Jacobinism and the C ivil Con­ stitution o f the Clergy looked forw ard to the rapid acceleration o f their clerical career. N uns who had no institutional future in the new church were less prone than priests to Jacobinical conversion. M any Jacobins also managed to circum vent m ilitary conscription, the m ost painful burden imposed by the Revolution; its enactment in M arch 17 9 3 triggered open rebellion in the Vendée and sullenness in m any other parts o f France. The current form o f "L a M arseillaise” is in the declarative nom inative ("let us m arch” ), but the original text ran instead in a more im­ perative mode ("m arch!” ): marchez, not the m odem marchons. O f course, m any Jacobins were proud to serve. A t Strasbourg and Bor­ deaux members w ho did not volunteer were required to explain w hy. In some places volunteering for the arm y w as so widespread that it severely depleted the ranks o f local Jacobins. But m any others dodged conscription,

IZO

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

either by joining the N ational G uard, which, though often “ requisitioned,” w as ordinarily exempted from frontline service, or by hiring a replacement or w orking in an armaments factory. It has been suggested that the club-

bistes w ho were m ost patriotic were often older men beyond the reach o f the draft. Younger members were less fervent. In the club at Lons-leSaulnier stony silence met a suggestion that all the youthful members o f the society be asked to choose between expulsion from the club and joining the arm y.76 A t Bergerac a Jacobin asked his peers if it would be proper for him to hire a replacement. Although he w as eager to join the arm y and leave, his w ife w as desolated by this prospect. In the end, the club decided that “ he might be as useful to the public good at home as he w ould be on the nation’s border.” 77 M any contem poraries naturally took such discrepancies as proof o f the Jacobins’ hypocrisy— a telling accusation because the Jacobins themselves were so quick to accuse their enemies o f that same vice. But a more con­ vincing explanation also comes to mind. Jacobins were sincerely dedicated to organizing all o f society around the rights and needs o f individuals like themselves, m anly, young to m iddle-aged, propertied. It seemed selfevident to them that w hat w as good for Jacobinism w as necessarily good for the nation. When rural and especially urban discontent had made that view em pirically untenable, Jacobin social conservatism and institutional self-enhancement began to resemble self-preservation. By 17 9 4 the Ja ­ cobins’ universalist w ords resonated as false and hollow , first to others, and then to themselves. But this transform ation is not proof o f some earlier dissim ulation. The Jacobins o f 17 8 9 did not— and could not understand—that the de­ cline o f traditional corporatist social form s would soon feed the creation o f new and shattering relationships o f class. When class-consciousness and the desire to protect property at all cost appeared, Jacobin universalism fal­ tered. The interpretation o f Jacobinism by the Germ an philosopher Friedrich Hegel ( 17 7 0 - 18 3 1) centers on this issue.78 In his view the Ja ­ cobins failed because they m isread the reality o f everyday life and insisted instead on the false transcendence o f “ absolute freedom ,” by which he meant a false and abstract conception o f freedom that w as defined w ithout reference to the actual cultural needs and possibilities o f civil society. A s a mundane exam ple o f Hegel’s perspective, consider the revolutionar­ ies’ rational uniform ization o f weights and measures— from pounds and inches to kilogram s and centimeters. It succeeded because it made sense

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

121

culturally and econom ically, whereas their no less rational but overly ab­ stract restructuring o f time— dividing the day into twenty rather than tw enty-four hours— failed because it w as practically and culturally point­ less. The same could be said o f an unimplemented plan that aimed to di­ vide France adm inistratively into rational squares regardless o f history or geography. For Hegel, Jacobinism ’s central flaw w as its inability to transform soci­ ety so as to give meaning to its message o f social unity. When the Jacobins o f a sm all French town in southwestern France faced an anticlerical policy that few o f their fellow townspeople wanted to secure, they explained that "having destroyed despotism , it w as time for the people to rise to the level o f the Revolution.” 79 H egel’s point w as that the Jacobins ought instead to have brought the Revolution to the level o f the people. Rousseau, when he drew up constitutions for C orsica and Poland, remembered that societies are resistant to m assive change. Jacobins, unable or unwilling to transform civil society, Hegel went on to argue, inexorably drifted to terror, which w as for them a kind o f es­ capist fantasy.80 (Furet likewise writes that on 9 Therm idor an "alienated” society w as "restored to its form er self.” )81 In the spring o f 17 9 4 Robes­ pierre proposed that although terror w ithout virtue w ould be tyranny, virtue w ithout terror w as weakness. But a Hegelian w ould suggest that their recourse to terror w as instead proof o f weakness. H egel's reasoning, doubtlessly suggestive, needs to be amended (drasti­ cally) in different w ays. First, as a great philosopher but an uncritical histo­ rian, Hegel had no interest in the internal dynamic o f a divided Jacobin ide­ ology. He focused exclusively on Jacobinism as a w hole, and on its relation to social configurations, which in his scheme were also uncritically defined. Second, Hegel precipitously assumed that the cultural and social rift could be resolved only by terrorism . But not all political groups resolve their ideolog­ ical or political contradiction as brutally as happened in 17 9 3 -9 4 . Finally, the relevant historical evidence clearly shows— in contradistinction to H egel’s argument—that some Jacobins did try at least to bring greater equal­ ity to civil society than any o f them had thought feasible at first. Although a wholesale social restructuring w as the very thing they did

not w ant, m any Jacobins did w ant to do something. In M arch 17 9 3 Danton insisted that citizens could expect only an equality o f rights (l’égalité des droits) but in August o f 17 9 3 , Félix Le Peletier spoke o f the equality o f enjoyment (l’égalité des jouissances). From late 17 9 3 to early 17 9 4 , when

122

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

festivals routinely lionized ordinary men and wom en, the destitution o f the poor became for Jacobins a scandal that could no longer be allow ed. Initial Jacobin approaches to poverty in 17 9 0 had focused on charity o r self-help. M any Jacobins figured prom inently in the Committee o f M endic­ ity, set up by the N ational Assem bly in Jan uary 17 9 0 . G radually, how ever, Jacobins began to think about more interventionist practices, some o f them akin to "M edicare.” In M ay 17 9 4 , at Barère’s prom pting, the Convention also adopted a program o f pensions for the poorest 1 percent o f the popu­ lation. W ar victim s were especially favored. The issue o f economic change crystallized with the decrees o f Ventôse in the spring o f 17 9 4 , a proposed scheme to redistribute the property o f con­ victed "suspects.” "H o w could a sovereign state survive,” pondered SaintJu st, if civil relations have a logic that runs against the form of governm ent. . . Yes: the nature of things has perhaps led us to results we had not imag­ ined. M any of the enemies of the Revolution live in opulence; needs make the people dependent on their enemies . . . Half-hearted revolutionaries will find they have dug their own grave. The Revolution has brought us to recognize this one principle, namely, that whoever has been an enemy of his country cannot own property in that place. The nature o f government has been revolutionized; but civil society has not been affected. The prin­ ciple of our Government is liberty. The principle o f our civil society is ar­ istocracy.82 On M ay 1 1 , 17 9 4 (22 Floréal, Y ear II), Barère gave a report on the ex­ tirpation o f mendicity in the countryside. Suspects’ properties were to be seized, and lists o f suitable indigent recipients were to be drawn up. T o­ gether, these rolls w ould make up a "b o ok o f national w elfare.” In a more modest w ay, the Jacobins o f Toucy, in the Yonne, likewise proposed to outlaw extensive leaseholding, often used as a vehicle for modernizing eco­ nomic individualism in the countryside: "it w ould be w ise to set a lim it to the number o f farm s that any one might ow n.” 83 Progressive taxation w as yet another avenue. In 17 8 9 Sieyès had already tried to insert a clause in the D eclaration o f the Rights o f M an suggesting that state levies be used for income redistribution. Robespierre proposed something sim ilar in A pril 17 9 3 .84

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

♦

123

Jacobins hoped that civil society, w ith some sm all nudge, w ould reform itself. Partible inheritance and the division o f estates equally am ong m any heirs, they liked to think, w ould soon bring about the dem ocratization o f property that equal citizenship required. The argument w as attractive be­ cause it enhanced individual becom ing, but its more general effect on social structure w as also obvious to all Jacobins. A lready, in 17 8 9 Lanthenas had urged legislation on the issue. The ques­ tion w as w idely discussed in the fall o f 17 9 0 after the club at Toulouse looked into bastards’ rights to inherit as w ell.85 Later, in February 1 7 9 1 , the Parisian Jacobins responded w arm ly to a w idely circularized statement along these lines from the Carcassonne club. In December 17 9 0 a club-

biste, while advocating the rights o f children to inherit equally, asked: Whence this strange inequality, if not from the absurd laws that make it possible to doom to misery many legitimate heirs in order to benefit a sin­ gle person?. . . The closer we come to an equality o f wealth, the more we w ill tend toward that happiness whose highest point w ill be in an exact di­ vision o f property among the members o f society who, from then on, would be one vast fam ily.86 And yet, o f course, the Jacobins did not in the end transform French civil society. They sought to raise the poor to their level rather than to low er the rich to some draconian average. H egel’s message does highlight a basic ten­ sion w ith Jacobinism , even if we choose to disregard his hasty judgment on the autom aticity o f a link between ideological tension and the enactment o f political terrorism . Indeed, m any doubts have been raised about the sincerity o f their social engineering, especially as regards their planned sequestration and redistrib­ ution o f goods in Ventôse. The M arxist historian Albert Soboul, for exam ­ ple, thought the law w as not meant seriously and w as principally designed to appease veterans or the Parisian sans-culottes, w ho were at that moment being pushed aside.87 That judgment is too strong, but it is not w holly w rong, and it is certainly buttressed by the Convention’s decision o f M arch 1 8 ,1 7 9 3 , taken at Barère’s prom pting, to decree the death penalty against any one who might support the communistic and confiscatory redistribu­ tion o f land, a measure know n, from Rom an m odels, as the “ agrarian law .” It is striking also that on A pril 2 4 ,17 9 3 , w hile courting the Parisian

124

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f C ivil Society

poor, Robespierre dared nonetheless to say that “ the equality o f m aterial possessions” w as a "chim era.” 88 It w as pointless to speak o f peasants at all, decided the president o f the Guéret Jacobins in Novem ber o f 17 9 3 : "since there are no more seigneurs, there are no more peasants.” 89 W hat w as Jacobinism 's goal, asked Jeanbon Saint-André, the form er Protestant m inister who had become a strikingly upright M ontagnard Con­

ventionnel and a member o f the CPS: to reestablish "a proper balance among citizens without threatening property, contrary to the accusations leveled against us by absurd malice. Far from our mind, far from the mind o f any legislator, the horrible idea o f wanting to cement the happiness o f the people on a basis o f injustice.” 90 The Jacobin s' sincerity and their devotion to civil society are difficult to gauge given their drift to illiberalism and terror. It is no doubt sym bolic that on the same day, in February 17 9 3 , the club at Tulle rejected and the club at Laval accepted the idea that veterans be routinely assigned confis­ cated properties.91 For some historians, the answers lie in a broad sociological or philo­ sophical interpretation o f the epoch. Others w ill be satisfied only by the specific historical context o f individual events and o f every Jacobin’s thoughts and deeds. The unavailability o f relevant documents further com plicates the issue. The relationship o f the Jacobins to their immediate surroundings has al­ w ays been a neglected archival facet in the history o f the French Revolu­ tion. Although the public deliberations o f hundreds o f clubs have been ei­ ther reprinted in toto or described in detail, no correspondence o f any Jacobin society has ever been published in its entirety, though hundreds o f such collections exist, many o f them (at Poitiers or Reim s, for exam ple) ideally sited to become instances o f “ m icrohistory.” 92 On the basis o f published speeches and program m atic statements (much favored by the Jacobins, w ho as a rule were neither shy nor w ithdrawn), it is tempting to side with Hegel and to grant his argument on the origins o f Robespierre’s defense o f terror. But we might have an altered view o f the case if we had a better archival record o f the Jacobins’ involvement in civil society, taken town by town and person by person. Our image o f the Jacobins w ould be quite different if we were able to focus less on the speeches they made for national or pub­ lic consumption and more on their answers to the pleas o f the w eak and the destitute in their hometowns.

4 The Limitless Claims o f the Public Sphere I cannot reconcile myself to the idea o f an immoral patriot, or to that [separation] o f private from public virtue, which some think to be possible. Richard Price, A Discourse on the Love o f Our Country in

1788

^ /aco b in ism w as an unfolding projet, a politicized explanation o f the human condition. It wanted to make men and women happier by im prov­ ing the relations o f nature (which w as good), human nature (which w as am biguous), and society (which w as often bad). Jacobins were not meta­ physical, but neither were they superficial or introverted. Although ordi­ narily uninterested and sometimes blind to many tragic aspects o f m an's fate (the fear o f death and unhappiness, loneliness, anguish), they did re­ flect profoundly on the larger meaning o f m any fundam ental problems whose nature still puzzles us, specifically, the social context o f the self and the meaning o f “ nation” for that nation’s socially disadvantaged citizens. The Jacobins sought to balance private conscience and public good. The tw o had to be fused som ehow, into a twinned purpose that defined esprit

révolutionnaire, o f which Jacobinism w as the purest essence. The Jacobins envisioned a self that blossomed through a sym pathetic understanding o f the Other. They seized on public opinion and on the cult o f nation as the means tow ard this end.1 The Jacobins considered public opinion a kind o f collective conscience; Barère described it, in Novem ber 17 9 2 , as “ our guard o f h on or."2 Jacobin

n é

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

orators never spoke for themselves. They invariably claim ed to speak for some more general opinion, a term the Jacobins used ceaselessly and broadly. G régoire, for exam ple, invoked public opinion as he reminded mothers o f their obligation to breastfeed their newborns.3 “ O nly public opinion has the right to rule the nation,” explained Barère on the day o f Robespierre’s execution.4 In retrospect, o f course, eighteenth-century public opinion appears less self-determined than citizens supposed at the time. It could be arbitrarily defined and m anipulated. But for the Jacobins public opinion w as an im­ manent source o f truth that had been gathering momentum over time— since the fifteenth century, in fact, with Gutenberg’s invention o f the print­ ing press. Persecuted by “l’infâm e” and emasculated by the censorship o f church and state, public opinion in the past had necessarily been tentative and se­ cretive. But in their own times it had become, they thought, a clear force, openly arrived at. Its dictates, perhaps slow in com ing, were eventually ir­ resistible and irrefutable. "A nyone must be suspect w ho has public opinion against him .” 5 The Jacobins regarded public opinion as the voice not just o f the nation’s popular sovereignty but o f the nation’s general w ill as Rousseau might have defined it. "Experience has proved,” explained Robespierre on N o­ vem ber 5, 17 9 z , "in spite o f Louis X V I and his allies that the opinion o f the Jacobins and the popular societies were those o f the French nation. N o citizen created it or dominated it, and I did no more than to share it.” 6 Le­ gitim acy rested w ith those w ho were m orally right rather than with m ajori­ ties that might w ell be w rong, either in the nation at large or in the nation’s elected assem blies in the capital. Public opinion w as to the regenerated na­ tion as private conscience w as to upright individuals— not alw ays heeded, alas, but alw ays present.7 It w as the Incorruptible’s greatest crim e, ex­ plained his erstwhile colleagues after Ju ly 17 9 4 , that he had gradually be­ come "the dom inator o f public opinion.” 8 H ow could this national opinion be heard? By listening to m any voices, assumed the Jacobins at first. A ll citizens w ould be consulted and in­ form ed. And all instructed citizens, they presumed, w ould easily agree. In 17 9 0 -9 1 the Jacobins naturally assumed that all well-inform ed men and women o f good w ill w ould soon be o f one regenerated mind. Consequently, the Jacobins understood that it might at times prove to be their self-im posed duty to com ply—m om entarily—w ith erroneous but de-

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

127

m ocratically established opinion. In the summer o f 1 7 9 1 , for exam ple, after the nation’s representatives had decided to restore Louis to his throne, m any clubs (including those that had spoken against the king) outlawed further discussions o f republicanism . Public opinion, they decided at that point, had spoken through the agency o f the people’s elected deputies; pa­ triotism demanded com pliance. But when the enemies o f the Revolution steadfastly refused either to be inform ed or, though inform ed, to change their minds, the Jacobins came to question their first stance o f patient toleration. The flawed dictates o f m anipulated opinion, they reasoned, had to be scrutinized closely. When the ousted Girondins managed to rally some local support, Couthon con­ cluded on June 24, 17 9 3 , that Ma corrupt m ajority had corrupted opin­ io n ."9 The Jacobins gradually sharpened their understanding o f legitim ate opinion and began to speak instead o f a m oralized “ public sp irit." They also became more im patient. In 17 9 0 they had had the time to w ait for the uninitiated to see the light; by 17 9 3 these voluntarists no longer had any time to lose. Deviants w ho refused to mind opinion's voice as the Jacobins had defined it w ould henceforth be forced to listen. “ I understand the in­ jury done to the Convention," w rote a Jacobin from Besançon after the purge o f the Girondins, “ but I believe that in these circum stances, we have to forgive the despair o f a people that believed it w as being refused justice and that it had no other w ay o f saving the patrie.” 10 So it w as that by late 17 9 2 opinion had in fact become little more than the echo o f their own sectarian voice. A Jacobin Conventionnel o f 17 9 3 w ho had failed to convince his hearers com plained that in his district pub­ lic opinion w as as yet unform ed. In the same w ay, a Jacobin might write that the tax he had imposed on the rich and the aristocrates had “ given courage to public opinion and encouraged the p atrio ts."11 By 17 9 3 opinion had become for the Jacobins a collective political consciousness that only men o f truly good w ill (themselves) could readily understand.12 Jacobins did grasp one o f the tw o great political messages o f late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century politics. They understood that sover­ eignty came from the people. But unlike their British and especially their Am erican cousins— who had learned from a full century o f acrim onious politicking that representative institutions were the scenes o f bitter con­ flict—the Jacobins were not prepared by their past to see that honest men might differ on how popular sovereignty is best expressed.

128

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

A s they moved from polite recommendation and observation to forceful control and exertion o f themselves as ideologized agents o f the centralized state, the Jacobins slipped from a benign belief in the exchange o f varied opinions in 17 9 0 -9 1 to constraining censorship in 17 9 3 -9 4 . A s confirm ed individualists, the Jacobins initially preferred the idea o f tolerated dissent, both in the nation's assem blies and in their ow n clubs. Despite their eventual drift to terror, Jacobins understood com pletely that their zeal for hum anitarian goals im plied (Kantian) agreement and not (Rousseauean) coercion. A frank and open exchange o f views w as, they thought, self-evidently, desirable. But discussion soon lost its specificity and gradually became a mere first step tow ard com m unitarian decision m aking. A choice that had been set­ tled in the club or the nation had to be accepted by every citizen, without reservations. The "dem ocratic centralism ” o f modern Leninist and commu­ nist parties w as not w ithout precedent, even if its immediate antecedents were particular to itself. Jacobins had long since stumbled on this conclu­ sion: "w hen some resolution has been passed, every individual then present w ill be obliged to sign it once the m ajority w ill have spoken, even if its de­ cision went against the w ill o f the m inority.” 13 Although Jacobins often and astutely intrigued in the unofficial meetings that preceded official vot­ ing, they explicitly forbade disagreement in the public electoral assemblies whose task, they said, w as to choose— unanim ously if possible—men o f proven probity, reasonableness, and universal feeling. In M ay 17 9 1 Robespierre explained that the patriots faced a choice: "the end o f liberty” or the "infinite liberty o f the press” ; but in M arch 17 9 3 he warned that "the interest o f the Revolution m ay demand certain measures to repress a conspiracy founded on the freedom o f the press.” 14 A t the Paris Jacobin club in Novem ber 17 9 3 C habot, a defrocked and corrupt Ja ­ cobin, fram ed the issue nicely in his com parison o f the French and the British press: "In the com posite government o f England, as under our fo r­ mer royalist constitution, the freedom o f the press against the government is necessary to counterbalance despotism , to prevent governors from op­ pressing the governed. But under French Republican governm ent, I m ain­ tain th a t. . . the a u th o r. . . w ho curses dem ocracy should be crushed.” 15 The Jacobins never went so far as to ask for a government-directed press. They feared that the end o f a private press w ould soon lead to out­ right dictatorship.16 Nevertheless, nearly 10 percent o f counterrevolution­

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

129

ary offenses tried before the Revolutionary Tribunals were "délits d’opin­ ion,” 17 that is, offenses o f speech and not o f deed. In one w ay or another, m any full- or part-tim e journalists came to a violent end: Simon Linguet, Desm oulins, Brissot, C arra, Robespierre, H ébert, Babeuf, and M arat. Jacobin voting procedures reflected their am bivalent attitude to free speech. In the clubs, the Paris sections, and, at tim es, the Convention, the Jacobins preferred open voting, either by rising and standing or by voice vote. They questioned the need for secret ballots, partly because they did not like "factionalism ” and wanted to intim idate their opponents and partly because they sim ply did not see the point. They held that the con­ junction o f private w ills and a self-standing public good produced true opinion. Since public opinion could not err, w hat w as to be gained by al­ low ing dissenters to speak ill o f it?

n

v_>^ogether w ith public opinion, the legal and representative systems were im perative public fram ew orks for private action. Jacobins believed in w hat has since their rule become a hallowed French tradition, nam ely, that most disputes w ould lapse in a society governed by clear and rational law s.18 The Jacobins initially thought that good came from law , just as law came from man’s sense o f w hat w as good and just. In a representative episode described in a "plow m an’s m anual” o f the M arseillais Jacobins, a group o f Republican peasants has just caught some counterrevolutionary priests and prepares to lynch them on the spot. Anselme, the model Ja ­ cobin, rushes tow ard them, and shouts: "Stop ! Stop! There’s no justice w ithout form s. The law , the law : you swore to be faithful to it.” Anselm e’s voice, the narrative continues, "h is presence, the respect they all feel for him , suddenly appease the plowm en whom overwhelm ing indignation w as about to lead astray.” 19 A t the same time, however, Jacobins felt that practical necessity might require law s to be waived from time to time. Bad institutions, bad judges, and bad precedents could justify abrupt violence. Force w as part o f poli­ tics. H ad not the Revolution o f 17 8 9 been itself illegal by the (false) stan­ dards o f the previous (unnatural) and m onarchic order? The fall o f the Bastille in Ju ly 17 8 9 and the m urder soon after o f tw o highly unpopular royal officials— Foulon and Bertier— had been one such instance o f legal il­ legality.

130

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

The overthrow o f the m onarchy w as another illegal but m oral act. A l­ though the constitutional m onarchy at least had some revolutionary legiti­ m acy because it been created in 17 8 9 , by August 17 9 2 its violent over­ throw had come to seem necessary to Jacobins in and out o f the Con­ vention. The same acceptance o f necessity explains in part w hy the Jacobins responded passively to the September m assacres o f 17 9 2 and to the purge o f the legally elected Girondin deputies w ho were pushed out o f the Convention in M ay and June o f 17 9 3 . An ongoing suspicion o f impending conspiracies against liberty w as par­ ticularly relevant to their quasi-constitutional justification o f popular force. In Ju ly 17 8 9 , for exam ple, when a constitutional m onarchist deputy moved that the N ational Assem bly condemn all political violence, Robes­ pierre objected: “ is there anything more legitim ate,” he argued, “ than to rise up against a horrible conspiracy form ed to destroy the nation?” And Buzot, w ho w ould in late 17 9 2 become a leader o f the Gironde and an arch-enemy o f the Incorruptible, concurred fully at this point w ith his enemy-to-be: “ w ho w ill be the guarantor o f [despotism’s] complete de­ struction?” he asked. If despotism “ once again assembles its forces to bring us down, which citizens then w ill arm themselves in time to save the

patrie}” 20 Y et, it w ould be highly tendentious to describe the Jacobins as men o f the blood, driven by an anarchic or sadistic impulse that aimed to liberate some socially im prisoned human spirit. The purpose o f violence, according to the Jacobins, w as to institutionalize the principles and rules demanded by the public good and expressed through the voice o f opinion. They totally rejected gratuitous violence perpetrated for no ideological purpose. G ilbert Rom m e, for exam ple, a radical Jacobin and, later, a highly principled and suicidal Prairial m artyr, initially approved the lynch­ ing o f Bertier and Foulon, as Barnave had done in m id-July X789, only to change his mind three days later when he described the assassins as “ worse than N ero and C aligula.” 21 From one moment to the next, Romme’s over­ all view o f the relationship o f force to politics in revolutionary times re­ mained unaltered, but his appreciation o f relevant circumstances changed and led him to new conclusions. Even at the height o f the Revolution, Jacobin men o f violence were few . In a city o f 700,000, the September massacres o f 17 9 2 were the handiwork o f sm allish bands, m ost o f them not Jacobins. Indeed, a tolerance for direct

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

131

violence separated the Jacobins from the sans-culottes. Robespierre chose never to witness an execution.22 In a related vein, Jacobins despised dueling, for them the classic form o f violent self-indulgence. In early 17 9 0 a Jacobin named Grouvelle published a piece entitled Point de duel ou point de Constitution (Choose: Either D u­ eling or the Constitution). A t Vannes members had to sw ear to forsake the activity.23 Jacobins congratulated themselves on its disappearance from the armed forces, and they were shocked in 17 9 0 when tw o o f their leaders, Bam ave and Lam eth, were challenged by notorious noble rightists. When a crow d then ravaged the house o f Lam eth’s antagonist, the Paris Jacobins boasted on not having incited them to this act o f vengeful but deserved violence.24 Jacobins were ordinarily honest men o f order, often law yers, w ho had dedicated themselves to the application o f universal rules o f decency and common sense. They despised arbitrary acts, which they took to be the essence o f the m onarchic absolutism they had overthrown. Even their ille­ gality had to have a legal look. A fter the summer o f 17 9 3 , the Jacobins felt strongly that their tyrannical, anti-individualist, and illegal behavior should be retroactively sanctified by law . The law s o f Prairial on judicial proce­ dure during the G reat Terror o f the spring o f 17 9 4 can be read as a legal suspension o f the rule o f law . Likew ise, when indicted counterrevolutionaries took to killing them­ selves before their trial and legal condemnation so as to die while still technically innocent (thereby shielding their fam ilies from m aterial confis­ cations and destitution), the Jacobins did not respond by extralegal con­ fiscation. They decided instead to define legally the suicide o f an accused person as a tacit and punishable confession o f guilt. Revealingly, Robes­ pierre, on the night o f 9 Therm idor, after he had been rescued from the power o f the Convention, whose legality he never ceased to recognize, w as unable to react against this now hostile but still legal authority. Contem po­ raries quite appropriately thought it plausible that he had attempted sui­ cide physically, since he had already done so politically. In theory, then, the Jacobins never lost their respect for rules. From time to time, even in 17 9 3 , an accused person might escape on a technicality. Thus, a m ayor accused o f stealing grain w ho had replied that the law re­ quired he be caught flagrante delicto , which, he pointed out, had not been the case, w as let o ff.25

132

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

It w as the Jacobins’ sad privilege to invent the show trials o f political suspects, but they did so, as it were, on their own terms. Unlike twentiethcentury totalitarians, they did not aim to bam boozle public or w orld opinion. A fter tw o centuries o f principled and murderous politics, our modem impulse is to question the sincerity o f the Jacobins’ view s on m oralization o f public life through force. A fter 17 9 4 , the revolutionaries themselves raised such questions. Some were required to do so by the courts. Arguments on the banality o f evil spring to mind, but it is w holly im­ plausible to suppose that the Jacobins o f 17 9 4 did not think hard about the rights and wrongs o f executing their enemies by the cart load. Unlike mod­ em fascists and Bolsheviks, Jacobins, consciously at least, were driven more by frustrated love than by hate, envy, or indifference. In Hannah Arendt’s w ords, unforgiving rage is the proper response to modern horrors generally and to those o f the German N ational Socialists in particular; but that can seldom be our unalloyed response to Jacobin misdeeds, however horrible they seem and actually were. We remember Jacobins as ruthless politicians determined to carry out a revolutionary project regardless o f its costs or legality. Lenin in our own century adm ired them for that very reason. But we should remember also that, from day to day, at least until 17 9 3 — when they became the unbend­ ing quasi-functionaries o f the revolutionary state— the Jacobins strained not to force but to convince. The true Jacobin knew w hat public m orality and law should be, even when— from supposed necessity— he m ost egregiously violated its precepts. This pragm atic legalism , it m ay be added, deeply offended Immanuel Kant, who could easily accept that the Revolution should kill the king so that it might live, but not that the Jacobin deputies should act as both judge and jury, and use legal form s to carry out a gesture that w as quintessentially political. The Jacobins’ response to him in turn, had they been apprised o f his view s, w ould surely have been— in the w ords o f the poet Friedrich H ölder­ lin (17 7 0 -18 4 3 )— that Germ ans were rich in w ords but poor in deeds.

01.

(though the Jacobins hailed individualism , they realized that no one

existed in a void. They deemed the ideal Republican both disciplined and

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

133

engaged, m oral in his or her private life and involved in the m oralized, public life o f the polity. In any free state, explained Robespierre to his fel­ low Jacobins in M ay 1 7 9 1 , citizens were the sentinels o f liberty: “ Y ou to whom liberty, to whom patrie is dear, you alone are charged w ith the care o f saving it. The guarantee o f the rights [of citizens] must be placed in their own strength.” 26 Thus, Jacobins enthusiastically participated in elections and in civic ritu­ als. They read newspapers. They were eager to spread the w ord. They iden­ tified w ith the nation and tried to live model private and public lives. They supported the cause o f the Revolution abroad. They also believed in friend­ ship, charity, self-sacrifice, and goodness both within and outside the four w alls o f their homes. A Jacobin alw ays fought on tw o fronts, as a private achiever and as a custodian o f public m ores, careful to put community before private gain. A t her trial, M m e. Roland thought o f killing herself as a gesture o f defiance against a judgment she knew w as false. But on reflection, she decided not to challenge her jurors and resolved to accept her fate w ith resigned but ex­ em plary Republican dignity. M any Jacobins w ith a strong personal sense o f honor nonetheless thought it necessary to confess their errors publicly. In private m atters, Jacobins thought it noble to turn the other cheek: a visiting Conventionnel at Auch, w ho had had a brick thrown at him , re­ fused to respond because a personal insult, he explained, w as best left unanswered. But Jacobins were unforgiving when they dealt w ith the ene­ mies o f the common good. M ilitarism w as the extrem e form o f the Jacobins’ involvement in civic m atters. A s early as December 17 8 9 Edmond D ubois-Crancé reminded the N ational Assem bly that “ every citizen must be a soldier, and every soldier a citizen.” 27 Under the Old Regim e soldiers had often been despised by their aristocratic officers and by the self-absorbed civilian subjects o f the king. (In Britain, the duke o f W ellington’s contempt for his own drunken soldiery would soon be legendary.) But after 17 8 9 Jacobins w orked hard to change these ancient w ays. They proclaim ed m ilitary service to be the highest form o f the citizen’s involvement in the state. A t D ijon the club suggested in 17 9 3 that all balls be shut down and that young men learn m ilitary exercises instead o f dance.28 Indeed, the prestige o f m ilitarized and sacrificial involvement w as such that dozens o f women cross-dressed to take part in revolutionary soldiering. (M any decades later, N apoleon III

134

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

honored one such survivor with the cross o f the Legion o f H onor.) Local

clubbistes never hesitated to welcome visiting officers. Citizenship encompassed both private and public life. But w ho w as a cit­ izen? Instinctively, Jacobins w ould say “ everym an” and, in lesser measure, “ everyw om an,” though this view evolved only gradually (as w ith their atti­ tude tow ard slavery, which they did not abolish until February 179 4 ). In the fall o f 17 8 9 the deputies in Paris did not at first agree. They devel­ oped divergent definitions o f "p assive" and "active” citizens. They defined as active citizens those o f French nationality over the age o f twenty-five w ho had fulfilled certain requirements: they had taken a civic oath to main­ tain the Constitution at any cost; they had enrolled in the N ational G uard; and, m ost im portant, they had paid an annual tax that amounted to three times the daily local w age for unskilled labor, the effect o f the last measure being to exclude m any unpropertied laborers in the cities especially. In ad­ dition to these 4.3 m illion people, 40 percent o f adult men— another 3 mil­ lion—were designated passive citizens, a larger number than had been ex­ cluded from the elections to the Third Estate in 17 8 9 . The Jacobins did not com ply w ith this distinction for long. Citizenship for them could be no more rationed by wealth than by birth. In Paris Robespierre and Grégoire soon objected. Desmoulins likewise exclaim ed that the trust active citizens o f all were those who had stormed the Bastille. Élisée Loustalot denounced the rule o f the "pure aristocracy o f the rich.” 29 In Ju ly 17 9 0 the club at Béthune became the first to follow these Parisian exam ples. That fall im portant clubs at Lim oges, A ix, and M arseilles con­ curred. A t Brest the clubbistes suggested that excluding passive citizens from the N ational G uard w as particularly unfair. By the spring o f 17 9 1 this trickle o f com plaints had widened to a flood. In A pril and M ay o f 17 9 1 Robespierre, Pétion, and Brissot all attacked this cram ping measure. In June 17 9 1 the club o f Bourbourg admitted citizens w ithout regard to their categorization.30 A fter the Feuillant split, in the fall o f 1 7 9 1 , all orthodox left Jacobins rallied to the idea o f universal manhood suffrage; and to their approval and relief, the issue vanished when equal rights o f citizenship were ex­ tended on August i i , 17 9 z . (The voting age w as also lowered from twenty-five to twenty-one.) Jacobins, one might add, though eager to enfranchise the poor, were also insistent that everyone, including the very poor, should pay some taxes, be­

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

135

cause these were a proof o f civic involvement. Some clubs required evi­ dence o f tax payment as a requirement for membership. Before 17 8 9 taxes, they cheerfully adm itted, had been a tribute surrendered to a despotic state. But now paying them had become a civic obligation. A t Autun, where the

clubbistes aggressively pursued this issue, 10 9 taxpayers were obliged to contribute over 430,000 francs. A t Tulle the club sent messengers out to the countryside urging peasants to settle their accounts. M oney could not be a civic criterion for the Jacobin. But it w as harder for the Jacobins to make up their minds about the social frontiers o f citi­ zenship. Where did the rights o f civil society stop and the claim s o f citizen­ ship begin? H ow porous were the borders between private life and public life? Where did individualism cease and m oralized public life begin? For Adam Smith ( 17 13 - 17 9 0 ) , in some part at least, the common w eal emerged spontaneously from private gain and com petition. Thanks to the w orking o f an invisible hand, private motive and perhaps private vice might yield some public good. But w hat the Jacobins wanted instead w as to im prove politics so as to expand private autonom y, which in turn would enable regenerated citizens better to understand the beauty o f w ider public life. A s citizens, men w ould become better fathers and producers, which w ould in turn help them to become better citizens. For Kant, in these same years, virtue w as not essential to an im proved public realm . Intelligent demons, m indful o f the H obbesian need to main­ tain public order, might learn to live in peace and perhaps to w ork together and share. But Jacobins could never accept a relativist notion o f this kind. For them, as for Rousseau, private or public happiness without private and public m orality w as not possible. Citizens could not hope to behave as m oral human beings in civil life without some supportive public context. Robinson Crusoe— however productive and Christian in his isolation— w as an English, individualist fantasy that w as beyond, or beneath, the im agination o f the Jacobins. Individualism could thrive only in a univer­ sally shared context o f m oralized politics. Even wom en, whose first realm w as the home, were nonetheless expected to add a public dimension to their lives: "Republicans are frank in their speech and faithful to their prom ises,” explained a Jacobin at Ruffec. "Y o u [women] w ill not be co­ quettish w ith us . . . Y ou can continue the club in the heart o f your hom e.” 31 In this respect, at least, Jacobins were (unknowing) Kantians, prom oting universally acceptable behavior for every man and w om an.32 In­

13 6

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

dividual and com m unitarian values, like freedom and happiness, were as tw o sides o f a single coin. From 17 8 9 to 17 9 0 when nearly all o f France moved in unison (miracu­ lously!), it seemed that this synergy had already or nearly been achieved through the instantaneous regeneration o f civic life. D awn and rebirth were dom inant themes.33 “ Y ou breathed on remains that seemed inani­ m ate,” w rote M irabeau. "Suddenly, a constitution w as organized, and al­ ready, it is giving o ff an active force. The cadaver that has been touched by liberty has risen and received new life.” 34 Far from w orrying about the lim its o f the civil and the political, Jacobins in these early days insisted on how much had already been achieved to make social relations fair, with free justice, equitably apportioned taxes, and the end o f censorship. They celebrated the demise o f corporatist and feudal constraints. They hailed the destruction o f the hierarchies o f status and nobility, which, they sincerely believed, had made daily life so oppres­ sive under the Old Regim e. A ll these successes made it feasible to accept society as it w as: individ­ ual nobles w ho had acceded to the end o f the Old Regime were invariably given pride o f place in both the clubs and the N ational Assem bly. In these first months, Jacobins went out o f their w ay to defer to the church and the king. But as political consensus ebbed and then collapsed after the flight o f the king to Varennes in June 17 9 1 and the fall o f the m onarchy in August 17 9 z, Jacobins increasingly rethought the relationship between civil and political, and they did so in what proved to be the w orst w ay. They sharpened, m oralized, m asculinized, and made more abstract their definition o f public life. In so doing, they gradually lost sight o f the separa­ tion o f civil society and public m orality: “ to be an honnête homme,” ex­ plains the Frenchman to a citizen o f Philadelphia in a revolutionary pam­ phlet, “ one has to be a good son, a good husband, and a good father, and . . . bring together every private and public virtue . . . That is where you w ill find the true definition o f patriotism .” As fam iliar limits dissolved in 17 9 4 , the Jacobins’ entire purpose began to w aver. Unable to give up their demanding vision o f citizenship, unable also to transform French social life, the rem aining Jacobins, as Hegel ex­ plained, turned their attention to human nature itself. For Thucydides, human passions were unchanging. H istory’s annals revealed the constancy

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

137

o f human responses to the great and immutable problem s o f private and public Ufe. By contrast, Jacobin ideologues o f 17 9 4 make the case for the opposite conclusion. For them infinitely more than for us (or for Thucy­ dides, obviously) the changing life o f the spirit, the im provable essence o f

esprit public, mattered m ore than either human nature or its m aterial en­ velopes. Regenerated, Jacobin man, now more virtuous, could and w ould rise above him self. Am ong the threats to norm al, healthy lives, argued Gré­ goire in 17 9 4 , were "im m orality, ignorance, (and) imprudence” ; were these to be pushed back, he explained, Mw e might then reconstitute human nature [reconstituons la nature humaine],” 35 a view that w as not far from that o f the Girondin Jacobin La Revellière-Lépeaux, w ho w rote in 17 9 8 that it w as im portant, during the celebrations o f national holidays, "to em­ ploy every means that might, so to speak, m odify the substance o f m an, in order to have it overlap with [our] form o f government and in order to make the love o f Uberty the dominant passion o f m an.” 36

n

he Jacob in s' grow ing cult o f the revolutionary public good fed their

disdain for recent history, and especially for the history o f their own coun­ try as it had existed in its "unregenerated” prerevolutionary form . Jacobins might w ell choose to honor "o ld age” in the assem blies and the clubs, where they often chose the oldest member as honorary president. But they did so less from a respect for elderly wisdom as such than from a sense o f hum anity and a desire to m ix the aged w ith the young. If France and the w orld could be reshaped at w ill, w hat did it matter w hat the past had been? In a celebrated letter o f September 17 8 9 , which he w rote in Paris to Jam es M adison, Thom as Jefferson explained that uthe

earth belongs in usufruct to the living (an d ). . . the dead have neither pow ­ ers or rights over it.” Jacobins concurred. They had some use for history. Before the Revolution, the trajectory o f the newly created United States w as often cited in France as a possible precedent. Crom well w as also exem ­ plary. In M arch 17 9 4 the far-leftist Cordeliers labeled Robespierre and his fellow Jacobin C ollot cromwellistes on account o f their propertied denial o f popular goals. Likew ise, after his fall in Therm idor, Y ear II, when opin­ ion had become more conservative, Robespierre w as also said to have been unlike the Lord Protector, then portrayed as having saved rather than de­ stroyed the British Revolution.

138

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

But during Jacobinism 's higher moments, specific historical events, in­ cluding recent ones, seemed dubiously relevant. The painter D avid spoke o f "erasing from our chronology those m any centuries o f e rro r."37 C learly, the thousand-year history o f the French m onarchy had been an interrup­ tion more than a progression. Jacobins spoke about the wre-greening" o f French liberty. Jacobin references to French history were often ghoulish and ironical, as when the terrorist Stanislas Fréron puckishly suggested that the king be decapitated (as had been a common mode o f execution under the Old Regime) rather than guillotined, or that M arie Antoinette be dragged through Paris tied to the tail o f a galloping horse, as a Frank­ ish king had done to the captured queen Brunehilde in the seventh cen­ tury. The exam ples that seemed most germane to the Jacobins were draw n from the histories o f ancient Greece and Rom e.38 In a comment on the city o f Lyons, many o f whose rebellious inhabitants had been silk w eavers in­ volved in the luxury trade, Jeanbon Saint-André commented, for exam ple, that the Lyonese were notorious cow ards and that "Sybarites cannot be­ come Spartans." T o a provincial club Carnot described Jacobins as "the heroes o f Therm opylae. We shall be the Spartans o f the Revolution.” 39 And Louvet, in praise o f fellow G irondist Jacobin Roland, said that his threatening message to the court had been couched in a style "w orth y o f Rom e and Sparta.” 40 Jacobins felt em phatically that classical figures had prefigured the great men o f their own times. They took Socrates, Brutus, C ato, and the m ythi­ cal citizen soldiers o f ancient city-states as their m odels, and often named their children for such ancient w arriors. Some o f them even renamed them­ selves accordingly. Jean-Baptiste Clootz became Anacharsis Clootz, after an Enlightenment travelogue o f the 17 8 0 s that had ancient Greece as its theme; François N oël Babeuf metamorphosed into Gracchus Babeuf, after the populist Rom an tribune. (He had at first chosen Cam ille but decided to im prove on that choice.) N apoleon's brother, Lucien, an ardent Jacobin , is said to have called him self Brutus. It w as the good fortune o f Robespierre and his brother to have Rom anized names to begin w ith—Augustine and M axim ilian. Sym ptom atically, the Jacobins often rewrote history altogether, as did C ollot d’H erbois when staging Socrates' rescue from death by a revolution­ ary crow d. Sim ilarly, in a rem ake o f M olière’s Misanthrope, the misan-

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

139

thropic Alceste w as turned into a Jacobinical philanthropist instead.

m h . it came to aesthetics, Jacobins w ould have been decidedly hostile to theories o f art for art’s sake— had they been apprised o f them. Quite predictably, Jacobins often reacted passively to instances o f cul­ tural vandalism , a term now used in every language, and coined in Jan uary 17 9 4 by Grégoire (who opposed it: “ I coined the w ord,” he later ex­ plained, “ to kill the thing” ).41 They did not invariably condemn dism al and destructive acts like smashing statues, burning books, or defacing paintings and religious objects. In Strasbourg local Jacobins urged the destruction o f the cathedral's tow er, a “ pyram id erected in honor o f superstition.” 42 A t Fontainebleau the club organized the public burning o f royal portraits, some o f them by Leonardo da V inci, G iovanni R osso, and Philippe de Cham paigne. Statues o f saints and monarchs in Paris, Reim s, N ancy, M ontpellier,43 and m any other places were destroyed or melted down.44 A t Poitiers a registry o f the club’s membership w as carefully bound w ith parchment copies o f Gregorian chants.45 Jacobin artists like Antoine Chaudet and J . B. W icar argued for the wholesale destruction o f the books and m anuscripts confiscated from private or public enemies o f the Revolu­ tion like émigrés and m onks. In Novem ber 17 9 3 D avid ennobled this de­ structive yearning in a speech to his fellow deputies in the French Conven­ tion. Their task, he explained, w as to liberate “ the present, the future, and even the past, by planting liberty trees on the graves o f our forebears, and by im m olating in dedication to their souls the representations o f our op­ pressors.” 44 In Paris, in August 17 9 3 , François H anriot, the more or less sans-culotte commander o f the Paris N ational G uard went on record in favor o f burning down libraries!47 N ot all Jacobins concurred, however. A s men and women o f learning and taste, m any and perhaps m ost Jacobins privately found vandalism dis­ tasteful. In Jan uary 17 9 1 M irabeau warned against a “ revolution o f the Goths and the V andals,” and this point o f view persisted to some degree. Unlike the popular revolutionaries, especially those o f the armées révolu­ tionnaires, which destroyed religious w orks o f art, m any Jacobin clubs were more circum spect: at Rodez, Coutances, and Tréguier, local Jacobins did w hat they could to stop such depredations. M ost confiscated books w ere not burnt but distributed am ong libraries, especially in Paris.48

14 0

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

Sim ilarly, m any prominent Jacobins argued that it w ould make m ore sense to abhor pictorial representations o f the past than m erely to destroy them. Hence their decision on Ju ly 2 7 ,1 7 9 3 , to set up a fine arts museum in the Palace o f the Louvre, and their strategy o f exhibition also: the new ly created repository, they decided, w ould not be organized by artists o r schools o f paintings but politically, with collected representations o f aristo­ cratic selfishness, clerical hypocrisy, or m onarchic despotism . Room b y room , the new national museum would offer to the public an expurgated version o f French history.

n

he Jacobins* indifference to a French past, together w ith their ideolo­

gized espousal o f a new and inspiring collective and civic good, found ex­ pression in their efforts to restructure time and space. N early from the first, m any clubs inform ally dated their deliberations from an inform al reckoning that took 17 8 9 to be the “ first year o f liberty.” After Novem ber 17 9 3 they also eagerly adopted the newly voted revolu­ tionary calendar, which took as its starting point the proclam ation o f the republic on September 22, 17 9 2 ; that day by good fortune coincided w ith the fall equinox, when day and night sym bolically balance each other. The new revolutionary year w as divided into twelve equal months. Nam ed for phases o f the weather, each month had three “ decades” o f ten days, named for plants; five sans-culottides fell at the end o f the year; and every fourth year had a supplem entary jour de la révolution. Every cycle o f four years w as dubbed a franciade. Some revolutionary timepieces w ith a twentyhour day, much prized by collectors today, were also m anufactured. T o promote the new calendar, local Jacobins encouraged merchants to open on Sundays by holding their meetings on that day or by m aking it il­ legal for tavern keepers to sell wine to locals then.49 They staged “ fêtes dé­

cadaires as rival holidays.” 50 Space, too, w as reappropriated by the nation. As a result o f the great Festival o f the Federation o f Ju ly 14 , 17 9 0 , tens o f thousands o f ordinary French people— m any o f them Jacobins— crisscrossed France (now truly their own nation) on their w ay to and from Paris. Thousands o f French towns and cities were renamed: Grenoble became Grelibre and SaintDenis, La Franciade. M any o f these new Jacobin rites (marked by bonfires, parades, floats, or “ queen-for-a-day contests” ) m erely echoed local folklore. Nonetheless, Ja -

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

141

cobins made a conscious effort not just to rename but also to reclaim space for revolutionary consciousness. They quickly rehistoricized inhabited urban areas by celebrating revolutionary events on the very sites where they had occurred, and preferably on sites that had had an inverse signifi­ cance in form er and m onarchic times. In countless commemorations o f the captured Bastille, hundreds o f provincial m ockups were stormed by ardent Jacobins. The original for­ tress, however, w as destroyed stone by stone, m any o f them sold for profit by an enterprising Parisian named Pierre Palloy ( 17 5 5 - 18 3 5 ) , who con­ trary to revolutionary legend went bankrupt. Others were used to build a new and still extant bridge across the Seine between the Place de la Révolu­ tion and the Left Bank.

C~71 / s Jacobinism and its new custom s w axed, and as the prestige o f an autonom ous civil society contem poraneously declined, Jacobins also devel­ oped a more pronounced stand on the m erits o f luxury and frugality. Some prerevolutionary philosophes had suggested that luxury w as bad because it wasted scarce resources. W hy allow a rich man to eat expensive oysters if the same amount o f money could feed entire fam ilies? But others suggested that luxury w as both a stim ulant o f economic growth and a rem­ edy against banality and boredom. A fter 17 8 9 Jacobins eagerly joined in this debate. Here they found a field where they might defend private property (which w as necessary) w hile striking a progressive stance against (Parisian) superfluities. Some Jacobins renounced sugar and coffee to underscore their disapproval not just o f con­ spicuous consum ption but also o f colonial trade. Rom m e, when he discov­ ered that his w ife had bought goods on the black m arket, indignantly forced her to return her purchases. The Jacobin critique o f luxury w as or­ dinarily innocent enough, but at Lyons, where the livelihood o f the poor depended on the production o f expensive silk cloths, the Jacobins’ dislike o f inutile élégance had a highly deleterious effect.51 N o less destructive were the view s o f an extrem e, naturalizing, and prim ­ itivist Jacobin m inority that dared to deny, first, the usefulness o f industry and refinement and, second, that o f science. Jacobins generally approved o f scientific knowledge as an expression o f enlightened m odernity. Knowledge unlocked the underlying order o f the universe. N ew ton w as a significant figure for them, and one o f Robespierre's first briefs as a young law yer sup­

142

♦

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

ported a man w ho had been ordered to remove a lightning rod from his house. Likew ise, M arat w as an aspiring savant w ho had been asked to o r­ ganize an Academ y o f Sciences in M adrid. Indeed, Jacobins were ideologically committed to approve not just o f sci­ ence but o f industrialism as w ell. H ow could they reject ennobling, Pro­ methean assertions o f man’s ability to m aster nature through reason? M ain­ stream Jacobins were— in theory— practical and modem-minded men. Nevertheless, the Jacobin s' lack o f enthusiasm for applied science in m anufacturing w as quite plain. M ost Jacobins, regardless o f their w alk o f life, believed that agriculture, now individuated and made more rational, should remain the pivot o f social life. O nly the land could, nationwide, in­ culcate "science, experience, and diligence.” O nly agriculture w ould "m or­ alize commerce, obviate the need for luxurious and costly im ports, and wipe out m endicity.” 52 Agriculture w as a civic field. Industry w as not. The Jacobinical preference for nature over reason and for agriculture over industry had many causes. M ost sim ply, Jacobins had little personal contact w ith applied science and technology. But their skepticism tow ard m anufacturing also had a quasi-political m otivation. N ature and the coun­ tryside, in their idealized vision, brought men together, while cities, luxury, and m anufacturers divided them. In the long run, by destroying the anti­ individualist corporatist structures o f the Old Regim e, Jacobin economics paved the w ay for capitalism . But revolutionary upheaval initially cut in­ dustrial production by 18 0 0 to 60 percent o f prerevolutionary levels.

17 8 9 the Jacobins asserted their civic goals gently, basing their thought on individualism , civil society, and also goodness. "L a R é­ publique,” Roland explained in September 17 9 2 to the new ly arrived Con­ ventionnels, "est une seule et même chose que la fraternité” (the republic is the one and the same thing as fraternity).53 Although their basic w orldview did not change, by 17 9 3 -9 4 untoward circumstance and the weight o f the past had gradually brought out an ide­ ologized ferocity in the Jacobins’ character. A s m any historians from M ichelet’s time in the 18 4 0 s to our own have observed, the clubbistes, to their own amazement, became quite fierce in hunting down the enemies o f the nation. In the Jacobin view o f life, man w as not m ysterious to him self; and when the Jacobins concluded that the enemies o f the civic good w ould not change, they also decided that such foes were clearly evil and deserving

The Lim itless Claim s o f the Public Sphere

♦

143

o f no m ercy. In his novel o f the Revolution, 1793, V ictor H ugo rightly com pared the Jaco b in s' good conscience to “ the blind certitude o f the arrow that sees nothing but its target.” According to the M arxist critic W alter Benjam in, Klee’s Novus Angelus anticipated m an's eventual redemption as it might emerge from future and inevitable catastrophes. O ur own sensibility is even more lugubrious. For us, today’s catastrophe is little more than the preface to yet other catastrophes, accidental or de­ served. Convinced that all catastrophes were behind them, the Jacobins firm ly believed that the Angel o f H istory had borne them to the promised land.

The Indisputable Claims o f the Nation Clearly, the love o f homeland has engendered the most extraordinary feats of virtue: self-love, when furthered by this sentiment at once sharp and gentle, energizes our self-esteem without disfiguring it, and makes of it the most heroic o f all passions. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sur l ’Economie politique

JL Ithough individualistic-m inded and enamored o f private property, the Jacobins were also ardent universalists. For them, the quasi-sacred pub­ lic sphere deserved precedence over the pressing but profane claim s o f daily life. They lived in a w orld o f property; but their dreams were elsewhere, and their reverie w as often more real to them than the w orld o f things. Like the public sphere, the collective w ill o f the nation w as an ontologi­ cal absolute, an undeniable origin.1 Sovereignty w as in the people. The pa­ trie w as every Jacobin’s m other.2 The nation, which embodied the political w ill o f the patrie, w as the font o f sovereignty, politics, and truth. “ The love o f one’s p a t r i e w rote Grégoire on the occasion o f the fête for Simoneau, w as "alm ost innate.” The Jacobins had a com plex im agination o f the w orld. They often weighed hum anity’s oneness against the diversity o f continents, o f races, and o f the ages. Likew ise, as heirs o f French economic thinking and occasional— if critical— readers o f Adam Smith, m any o f them saw the inchoate events o f their daily financial and economic life as facets o f a single, invisible, but sys­ temic m arket. The law s o f supply and demand were palpable to them. But hum anity, econom ics, and the immanence o f civil society did not structure their thinking as profoundly as the idea o f N ation, their premier

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

145

mental m atrix. They often felt that everything else, including hum anity, should be made subservient to the fact o f nationhood. Slavery, for exam ­ ple, w as inadm issible because France w as a nation o f free men. Conversely, the Jacobins, over time ceased to treat foreign m ilitary prisoners w ith any humanity because as enemies o f the revolutionary Grande N ation, they de­ served no mercy. The “ nationalization” o f "m iddle-class” sensibility has been closely scru­ tinized in the history o f Britain, Germ any, and N orth Am erica. H istorians o f the eighteenth century have traced a grow ing concern for the imagined community o f nation in all o f these N orth Atlantic communities.3 But N a­ tion w as far more pronounced for the French Jacobins than for their neigh­ bors to the north, east, or west. M any Frenchmen, especially those living in border areas, m ay have been hard put to say w hat the nation w as and where it began or ended. But the Jacobins had no such problem . They were first and forem ost patriots. They were the citizens o f a great republic. C ivically and nationally oriented, they addressed one another in the clubs as Citizen Dupont rather than M on­ sieur Dupont, or by title as an inform al official o f Republican opinion, such as secretary, president, or "the previous speaker.” Their nationalized sensibility w as no doubt embedded in an essential "Frenchness,” in a shared and historicized sense o f w hat life should be like. But the politicization o f that Frenchness w as as im portant to them as the thing itself. Jacobins cared deeply about other entities ranging from their hometowns to the whole o f hum anity, and a favored oratorical device o f theirs w as to come forw ard as the (self-appointed) spokesman o f some larger group. They soon concluded, how ever, that other human groupings could only fully come into their own when they coincided with the interests o f the Grande N ation, o f the French Republic and its esprit public. G od, it ap­ peared, had created nations and peoples rather than mere individuals. Ja ­ cobins used expressions like "D ieu de la patrie” or "D ieu des Français.” "O déité de ma patrie,” ran François Gossec’s patriotic hymn o f 17 9 4 . Though not precisely divinely sanctioned, the Grande N ation certainly enjoyed di­ vine protection: "T h e God o f the French looked favorably on his beloved people and gave them the courage to struggle against its tyrants and to con­ quer its liberty.” 4 The w ill o f the Alm ighty, the fate o f the nation, and the po­ litical cause that w as theirs were like the many sides o f a single truth. In the political theory o f the Old Regim e, the French nation had realized it­ self in the king’s one body. Hence the m onarchic fiction that the king could

14 6

*

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

not die. But in a debate on the royal prérogative, Robespierre turned that tra ­ ditional image around com pletely. For him, the inviolability o f the king w as itself a legal fiction. O nly the people were im m ortal and inviolable because their legal rights were founded “ on the sacred right o f nature.” 5 The Jacobins felt the claim s o f the nation deserved precedence over the rights o f its many members. They evinced this view when discussing, in late 17 9 1 and early 17 9 a , the right o f private persons to leave the country. In both Enlightenment principle and in the law as it stood, these nostalgic o r, as a rule, fearful m onarchists had a clear legal right to leave. But Jacobin s denied them that advantage. The Jacobins did in principle accept every per­ son’s right to move about. That had been one o f the grounds for abolishing hated serfdom , which in 17 8 9 still existed vestigially in eastern France. And yet, in 17 9 1 irate Jacobins searched high and low fo r reasons to deny would-be émigrés that legal option. They reasoned, for exam ple, that by leaving their nation in the lurch, the émigrés had forfeited their rights o f nationality and, w ith that, their full hum anity. It w ould soon become legal to shoot them on sight, should they be apprehended upon returning. H ad the French form ed a nation under the monarchy? The Jacobins, as has been said, were not sure. The regenerating Revolution o f 17 8 9 had so transform ed the French that only then had they truly become themselves. Before 17 8 9 Frenchmen had had no patrie, according to the Jacobin s.6 Nineteenth-century nationalists (French, English, or German) embraced the various traditions o f their homelands. The Victorians had Crom well and the m artyred Charles I for legendary and inspiring heroes; M ichelet had Jo an o f A rc and the atheistic soldiers o f the Revolution. Indeed, M ichelet aimed to show that French and universalist values alw ays overlapped, and that in m odem historical times universalism had invariably traveled in the baggage train o f the French nation, be it m onarchic or Republican. But Jacobins were largely foreign to this rom antic, historicized, and nationalized view o f public life. The Jacobins did not see the antecedents o f nationhood in a m aterial context. They preferred to see their reborn nation as a new m oralized en­ tity, fashioned by “ la sainte Révolution” from the wreckage o f the Old Regim e, and they saw the effects o f that transform ation everywhere. They held up national borders, national sovereignty, and a national lan­ guage as truths (or even things) that were self-evidently fated to exist. They naturally assumed that the nation w as the proper m atrix for institutions o f

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

147

all kinds, from politics and legal codes to weights and measures, opinion

publique, currency, tariffs, trade, uniform s, a national m usical canon,7 ice cream ,8 decorations,9 and the prospective bride o f the king’s son, the newly styled “ prince ro yal.” M any Jacobin societies warm ed to the suggestions made by the club at Provins that the heir to the French throne (who w as bom in 17 8 5 and died in jail at the age o f ten) should not m arry a foreign princess. He should be required instead to choose a French-bom w ife: “ the kings o f Sparta did not find their w ives in Persia.” Saint-Just wrote that al­ though anim als existed in a state o f “ am icable coexistence,” 10 human so­ ciability depended on more structure, set as it w as w ithin the fram ew ork o f nations. Jacobins knew that the French nation w as not uniform . It w as common knowledge, for exam ple, that northerners were taller than southerners. Ja ­ cobins also assumed as a m atter o f course that northern Frenchmen were more phlegm atic than their com patriots in the midi. They sensed the m ix o f sentimental lethargy and vengeful ferocity that distinguished the M editerranean culture o f southeastern France. But they saw such variants either as gradations within a single national model or as o f no particular significance at all. They did not develop racialist theories o f regional politics.11 They did not like the idea o f free trade w ith other, rival nations. In 17 8 6 the French m onarchy, largely for reasons o f international expediency, had signed a treaty for freer trade w ith Britain; French wine exports to England were less heavily taxed, as were im ports o f English textiles in France. The clubbistes o f Bordeaux, a seaport, liked this treaty because it favored the sale o f their local claret. In France as a whole, however, and nearly from the first, Jacobins com plained about the accord, which a Strasbourg clubbiste described as the fruit o f “ the arrogant ineptitude o f the [king’s] minis­ ter.” 12 M any clubs argued for a change in the treaty or, if that could not be secured, for the voluntary boycott o f foreign (English) goods, as the Paris club did on June 3 ,17 9 0 . The Jacobins did not act m erely from fear o f com petition, as it appears from their immediate acceptance o f an internal national customs union. When France became a single trade zone in 17 8 9 , m any inefficacious local interests stood to lose, since they had been protected by internal custom s du­ ties from the com petition o f more efficient French producers. But not a single club protested about that national econom ic bond. W hat the bureaucracy o f

148

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

the French m onarchy had vainly labored to do since Colbert in the seven­ teenth century revolutionary national feeling effortlessly achieved. Com peti­ tion from other Frenchmen w as acceptable. Foreign rivalry w as not. Although solidly ensconced in regional civil society as landlords and as local notables, Jacobins were the diehard partisans o f national solutions everywhere. They rationalized their self-interests and invariably argued that their local demands coincided com pletely with the common good. A club might be reluctant to see its hometown give up surplus food but it w ould couch that refusal differently. T o export food, the local Jacobins might argue, w ould be to act as a cat’s-paw for local aristocrates because a food shortage w ould turn local crowds against the Revolution. The Ja ­ cobins o f Savem e fought the relocation o f the civil tribunal from their city to Haguenau on the grounds that Saverne w as a more patriotic city.13 When they proposed a new road, bridge, or canal, Jacobins liked to reason that such public w orks would clearly benefit the national economy. It is a tribute to the em otional force o f Jacobin principle in the years 17 9 2 -17 9 4 that this vision— one is tempted to say, political fantasy—actu­ ally transform ed perceptions o f local groups and events. Before 17 8 9 , the Jew s o f Bayonne, for exam ple, had practiced in their synagogue as toler­ ated foreigners whose relationship to the French king w as governed by re­ newable covenant.14 But once emancipated by the Revolution, although it had turned on their religion, these patriotic Jew s continued to meet, and in the same building, as regenerated citizens o f the new French nation.15 Their day-to-day existence may not have much been altered, but their perception o f themselves, and o f France as a nation, w as com pletely transform ed. H is­ torically, it is hard to say where the greater transform ation lay: in the belief o f Christian and heretofore uninterested or anti-Sem itic Frenchmen that re­ generated Jew s could be their fellow citizens, or in the Jew s o f Bayonne’s belief that they could and should com pletely Frenchify themselves. Jacobins were w holly unable to accept the pluricultural idea that nations are a kind o f collage, “ a civil association” o f communities entitled to selfexpression. For the Jacobins, national and political sentiments had to over­ lap com pletely. Every party must be crim inal, explained Saint-Just in M arch 17 9 4 , "because parties isolate the people and the popular societies and are independent o f the governm ent.” 16 Jacobins had no sym pathy for dissidents, whether political enemies (Girondins) or regionalist-m inded rebels (in southern France). They invariably linked their local and national political anim osities, in assum ing, for exam ple, that speakers o f particular-

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

149

ist dialects had o f necessity to have counterrevolutionary sym pathies, de­ spite evidence to the contrary. Like Randolph o f Roanoke, an eccentric Re­ publican senator from Virginia during Jeffersonian tim es, the Jacobins as­ sumed that the sovereignty o f the national state could no more be divided than the chastity o f a wom an. In an inverted but related m ode, Jacobins found it difficult to see that revolutionary principle could ever really run against national objectives. It never occurred to them, for instance, that the abolition o f slavery might lead to the definitive breakup o f the French colonial empire. They wished the slaves o f H aiti to be free, but they did not foresee that freed slaves might spurn association w ith a French homeland and prefer to form their own and independent H aitian R epublic.17 When the Revolution unfolded w ith its disharm onies and contradictions, nationalist-m inded Jacobins were deeply puzzled. Private quarrels were surely bad enough: at N ay, after some difficult confrontations, the club an­ nounced that all could now come home. "A ll the members w ho had left the Society because o f personal quarrels or misunderstandings w ill be able to rejoin the faithful members o f said society.” 18 But public quarrels that set Frenchman against Frenchman on grounds o f principle were w holly scandalous, so much so, that the end o f a dispute on any terms w as a hopeful sign. A t Besançon a resigned and disabused Ja ­ cobin journalist thus opined that the coup o f M ay 3 1 , 17 9 3 , against the Girondins might prove a blessing in disguise, regardless o f its rights and w rongs. It had at least ended an open quarrel: "its effect w ill be fortunate for the republic because it ends the struggle o f the tw o parties . . . and the constitution w ill be better m ade.” 19 The Carcassonne clubbistes in a letter to the Paris Jacobins sim ilarly expressed their indignation at seeing the di­ visions that racked the N ational Assem bly: "W ill this party o f the right and party o f the left forever subsist am ongst men whom we have brought to­ gether for the same goal and to the same end?” 20 In late 17 9 z the M arseil­ lais Jacobins argued that the assassins responsible for the September mas­ sacres should not be hunted down because an investigation w ould "fom ent dissension am ong Conventionnels and among the people.” 21 The fate o f the M ontagnard federalist movement in the fall o f 17 9 3 (which culminated in a meeting o f M ontagnard clubbistes from hundreds o f societies in M arseilles from O ctober 3 to Novem ber z i) exem plifies the Jacobins’ attitude to nationalist unity and divisive, pluralist politics. It w as no surprise that the M ontagnards o f 17 9 3 should have condemned the

150

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

provincial Girondins’ earlier recourse to federalist rhetoric. Everyone un­ derstood at that point that the purpose o f regional opposition w as only to create a political force outside the capital that the Gironde might use to counter the M ontagnards, w ho then dominated the N ational Convention w ith the help o f the Parisian poor. But the M ontagnards’ subsequent stance tow ard pro-M ontagnard regionalism w as more revealing. So keen were the Jacobins in Paris on national unity that they outlawed even those provincial political movements whose stated (and true) aim w as to support them without reservation. Jacobins perceived any regional political activ­ ity, however orthodox, as potentially factional. One is reminded o f the response o f an early-nineteenth-century Austrian emperor to the fulsome dedication o f a m onarchist m usician: MBut w ho

asked you to w rite these songs?” 0

7 /1 1 Jacobins saw the nation as the font and justification o f life, both social and political. But how could the nation’s w ill best be ascertained? W hat institutions might best embody it: the national assem blies in Paris? the prim ary assem blies that elected them in the provinces?22 a plebiscite?23 an uncensored press, which Brissot dubbed the agency o f "universal com­ m unication” ? the clubs? the so-called federated volunteers who marched to Paris in Ju ly 17 9 2 and helped overthrow the m onarchy? the crowd? These awesome questions the Jacobins never answered clearly. Indeed, as François Furet has perspicaciously observed, precisely because he w as able to meet m any varied tests o f representativity (in the Convention, the clubs, and the popular sections o f Paris) Robespierre succeeded in becom­ ing the incarnation o f w hat w ould otherwise have been an im possibly fluid revolutionary political sovereignty.24 The state should serve the nation. But what did the people w ant and how should the state be structured? Although the Jacobins gave ever more convoluted answers to these ques­ tions, they initially and sensibly proposed that both the Jacobin clubs and the state’s political agencies (ranging from m unicipal adm inistrations to the N ational Convention) should sim ply listen to the people. A t first, Jacobins considered the claim s o f any popular movement, including violent ones, w orth pondering. They thought it norm al that spectators should be al­ lowed to comment noisily and sometimes aggressively on the decisions the nation’s deputies might be deliberating at that very moment.25 They set

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

1 51

great importance on w hatever petitions might be sent to them; and the clubs themselves often chose to petition elected or appointed authorities. Delegations were frequently invited to their halls. For some minutes and, at tim es, hours, self-sponsored em issaries w ould sit among delegates or club members so that all m ight deliberate together. On June 19 ,1 7 9 0 , in an un­ conscious parody o f this genre, the ex-Prussian baron von Clootz— now re­ named Anacharsis, w ho also called him self “ the orator o f m ankind” — led to the assem bly a delegation o f m ore or less disguised foreigners who were supposed to represent the m any but now Jacobinically united nations and races o f man. A t the same tim e, the Jacobins obviously listened to some pe­ titioners more than they did to others. A t Robespierre’s behest, they ex­ pelled Clootz from the Paris Jacobin club on December iz , 17 9 3 , and exe­ cuted him on M arch zz o f the follow ing year. The polls, Jacobin instinct suggested, were a place where the voice o f the assembled people might be heard. A nationwide election or referendum w as the sim plest and truest w ay to ascertain the w ill o f the sovereign na­ tion. O f course, the purpose o f the nation’s assem blies in Paris w as to act for the nation as a whole, but potentially, the people remained forever sov­ ereign. In Ju ly 1 7 9 1 , for exam ple, after the king’s flight to Varennes, the club at Clerm ont-Ferrand first asserted that a republic should be pro­ claim ed and the N ational Assem bly allow ed fifteen days to do so, and then decided—when they were disappointed in their hopes—that the assem bly should be dissolved and new elections held.26 The issue o f unscheduled popular consultation clim axed during the trial o f the king in Jan u ary 17 9 3 , when the Girondins, w ho wanted to stop the progression o f the Revolution, gradually lost control o f the Convention. Although they had been the first to call for its convening in Ju ly 1 7 9 1 , they now reasoned w ith equally impeccable Jacobin logic that the execution o f the king w as too great a m atter to be setded by the Conventionnels with­ out consulting the w hole o f the French nation. The people, said the Girondins, should decide this issue for themselves. But this dem ocratic pro­ posal w as rejected out o f hand by the more leftist M ontagnards, who sus­ pected (as the Girondins also did, o f course) that the likely outcome o f such a plebiscite w ould run against them. France, argued the leftist Ja ­ cobins in the club at M arseilles, w as a “ representative governm ent.” An appeal to the people w ould “ rip apart our unity and indivisibility.” Direct dem ocracy might be good in theory, but its effect w ould be to destabilize the Convention, which w as “ the center o f our sovereignty.” 27

i$ z

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

M oreover, arguing one side o f this question (on behalf o f the parliam en­ tarians’ right to judge, and against a popular appeal) did not preclude using an inverse argument when the need arose. Shortly after the death o f the king the Jacobins o f M arseilles on February 2 2, 17 9 3 , once again re­ versed themselves and asked that the Convention order the recall o f all the deputies w ho had voted against the king’s death. Sensibly enough, in this new context, the Brissotins responded by w rapping themselves in the man­ tle o f the parliam entary inviolability and suprem acy they had just denied. Even the Convention, they argued, could not rescind their m andates. They had received them from the people, and once that vote had been taken, nothing could supersede it. N o assem bly, not even one empowered to draft a constitution, could force them to resign. A sim ilar chassé croisé took place a few weeks later in A pril 17 9 3 when the M ontagnard Conventionnels rejected Condorcet’s radically dem ocratic constitution, which not only granted electoral rights to foreigners but in­ cluded also a Girondin-inspired provision for the citizen’s right to insurrec­ tion.28 The radicalizing M ontagnards— especially dependent on the sup­ port o f the Paris crowd— understood that to ratify that constitution w as ipso facto to vote for new elections, which they feared losing nationwide. The M ontagnards, though in practice the most radical wing o f the Jacobin club, then decided to reject the Girondin ultradem ocratic plan, which, in theory, should have appealed to them. Because a credible, Jacobinically correct argument could be mounted both for or against direct dem ocracy, w ays o f deciding w hat the nation’s w ill really w as had to be at once stable and unsteady. “ Am idst this univer­ sal agitation o f both hearts and spirits,” explained the far left A ixois Ja ­ cobins, “ civic feeling must learn to constrain itself, to w ithdraw from time to time so that the influence o f virtue [the scribe had w ritten in and then crossed out Vérité (truth) instead o f virtue!] w ill not be lost when it de­ fends the interests o f the fatherland.” 29 Ascertaining the nation’s true w ill w as a first (and difficult) step. Institu­ tionalizing this apprehension o f the nation’s w ill w as yet more difficult. A first and (momentarily) obvious answer seemed to be that the w ill o f the nation w as embodied in the Constitution, in the harmonized cooperation o f “ King, Law , and N ation” (Le roi, la loi, la nation). Jacobins— legalistic and eager, as w as often said, “ to conform to the law s” — fully expected that the successive revolutionary constitutions w ould become for the French w hat the Constitution had for Am ericans, a fetishist document through

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

153

which the w ill o f the nation w as visible at all tim es. The Jacobin clubs, we should remember, were first known as the “ Sociétés des am is de la consti­ tution” (Societies o f the Friends o f the Constitution). A t the moment o f its inception, therefore, m any o f them hailed the Con­ stitution o f September 3 , 1 7 9 1 , as a perfect national monument—indeed, as “ the m ost perfect m asterpiece that had ever been created by the hand o f m an.” 30 M olding this document had been a cathartic experience. “ From the sanctity o f this act” o f drafting the Constitution, explained a friend o f the publicist Bonneville, “ comes civil religion, this cult o f the law that up­ lifts the soul, advances thought, gives burning love for the fatherland, con­ serves and supports the superb edifice o f the state.” 31 The club at Bergerac, in Jan uary 17 9 2 , when revolutionaries were already much divided, decided that the clubbistes “ w ould rather die than change any part o f the Constitu­ tion.” 32 D iffident citizens w ould soon be won over, and the Jacobins o f Vitry-le-François expected that “ the Constitution w ould be better loved when it w as better know n.” 33 In the spring o f 17 9 3 , appalled by the con­ flict o f the M ontagne and the Gironde, m any clubs reminded their friends in Paris that constitutions were like a sacred ark. M uch later, the slogan “ Bread and the Constitution o f 17 9 3 ” also became a rallying cry for the far left, bespeaking some unspecified devotion to the idea if not the fact o f constitutionality. And yet, in practice, constitutionalism never acquired durable specificity for the Jacobins. In Am erica, by contrast, the debate between federalists and antifederalists w as w arm ly argued, and the public then ratified the Constitution (however lamely) at the polls. But in France constitution m ak­ ing w as protracted, and the definitive adoption o f the nation's charter oc­ curred anticlim actically in the fall o f 1 7 9 1 , when the revolutionary consen­ sus on the m onarch’s role had been sadly eroded by the king’s flight to Varennes earlier in the year. M oreover, the succession o f one constitutionmongering assem bly after another severely dam aged the prestige o f any basic text. A self-proclaim ed Constituent Assem bly, self-em powered to establish its own ground rules (though not form ed for that purpose), emerged from the Estates General on June 20, 17 8 9 . And this w as only the beginning o f a drawn-out pattern. Starting in August 1 7 9 1 , prominent Jacobins in and out o f the Jacobin club in Paris (Condorcet, Pétion, and Brissot) urged the election o f a Convention empowered to rewrite the nation's charter. They succeeded all too w ell: this assem bly, which sat from September 17 9 2 to

154

*

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

O ctober 17 9 5 , drew up not just one but tw o constitutions— a text in 17 9 3 , which w as never applied, and another constitution in 17 9 5 , which lasted until Bonaparte’s m ilitary coup o f 18 Brum aire (Novem ber 9 ,17 9 9 ) . The one national assem bly that did not have constitution-m aking pow ­ ers (the Legislative Assem bly, which sat from October 1 , 1 7 9 1 , to Septem­ ber zo, 17 9 z ) became discredited to the point o f powerlessness and proved unable to control either the executive branch o f the government before the fall o f the m onarchy or the Paris Commune afterw ard. A com parison o f legal innovation in the French and Am erican republics also reveals the feebleness o f the Jacobins’ respect for constitutionalism and accepted law . Am ericans not only accepted their new Constitution as a fact, they were also quite reluctant to change their older civil law s. In the recently constituted United States even the m ost adam ant revolutionaries (like Samuel Adams) unthinkingly accepted as legitim ate British common law traditions, which were to remain unchanged— and restraining—until w ell after 18 0 0 . By contrast, the Jacobin conception o f law (as o f the Constitution) w as far more abstract and easily swayed by theories o f jurisprudence. Before the French Revolution, modernizing but still conservative law yers had struggled to reshape rather than replace older and feudal habit into a cur­ rent, coherent, and abstractly acceptable code o f law , just as Lord M ans­ field had adapted English common law to com m ercial business needs a few decades before. But after 17 8 9 French national assem blies focused on m ak­ ing new law , both civil and crim inal, so as to fit a new jurisprudence into the changing spirit o f the Revolution. In the renewed debate o f August 17 9 1 on individual rights, m any Ja ­ cobins insisted once again that rights came first, and the law or the Consti­ tution second. “ The true constitution,” wrote Rousseau, uis not graven in bronze or m arble . . . It is in the habits, custom s, above all, opinion, that is in the heart o f all citizens.” 34 G radually, for the Jacobins, in 17 9 z and 17 9 3 , the fate o f revolutionary sovereignty became far more im portant than the scraps o f paper on which they had, at first, set much store. And some o f them did continue to see that “ a com ing together o f people is not the people” (un attroupem ent n’est pas le peuple).35 But more and more Jacobins habitually took to theo­ retical justifications o f illegality. From both Locke and Rousseau, as w ell as from the commonplaces o f Enlightenment rhetoric, Jacobins understood the idea o f a binding contract

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

155

between subject and king, or between citizen and constitution. Ultim ately, how ever, they treated written political com pacts as ad hoc arrangem ents that, in exceptional circum stances, true believers had the right to change at w ill for the sake o f a higher good, nam ely, the progress o f the R ev­ olution.36 Repentant and new ly conservative ex-Jacobins w ho had come to fear a revolution spinning out o f their control did o f course argue for the nation’s Constitution above all else. But their sudden espousal o f legalism m erely confirm ed the anticonstitutionalist suspicions o f orthodox, hard-core M on­ tagnards still intent on the progression o f the Revolution. A s the ranks o f disabused Jacobins grew w ith every revolutionary hiccup, the opposing Ja ­ cobin radicals became more and m ore casual in their defense o f written charters. A s their M arseilles opponents put it, orthodox Jacobins "alw ays spoke o f Revolutions, and never o f the C onstitution.” 37 For those determined Jacobins w ho wanted to carry the politics ever fur­ ther because they feared that Jacobinism w ould collapse if the Revolution faltered, w hat came to m atter w as the spirit not the letter o f the law . In his praise o f convulsive sexual creativity, the Jacobinical M arquis de Sade ( 17 4 0 - 18 14 ) touched a vital nerve when he exalted the "sages législateurs” o f antiquity who had understood, he said, that insurrection w as the perm a­ nent state o f a republic. Jefferson once suggested that a complete governm ental and legislative overhaul should be made in every generation. This theory w as not realized in Am erica, but it w as idealized by his French revolutionary counterparts, w ith a predictable effect on the prestige o f constitutions as the lim iting ex­ pressions o f the nation’s higher w ill. A s faith in the nation’s Constitution w aned, so did, a fortiori, its first practical embodiment—the belief in the sacrosanct attributes o f the na­ tional representative assem blies the Constitution authorized. In tim e, even those Jacobins who approved o f charters in principle came to question the legitim acy o f constitutionally mandated deliberative assem blies. Initially, Jacobins praised these bodies to the sky. In 17 8 9 and again in 17 9 z, the N ational Assem bly and the Convention enjoyed great prestige as the obvious counterweight to the discredited m onarchy. A t first, any criti­ cism o f the Constituent Assem bly seemed unthinkable, so unanim ously ac­ cepted w as the Third Estate’s decision to proclaim itself a constitution­ m aking body. In these early m onths, all Jacobins agreed that politics should function in a "representative” rather than a "dem ocratic” system.

15 6

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

In September 17 9 0 Bam ave explained to the club in Paris that it w ould be unseemly for the clubbistes to censure as erroneous a judgment which had been submitted to the assem bly and on which it had not yet ruled.38 In later years, after 17 9 2 , when the assem bly's m onarchic foil had vanished, even Robespierre acknowledged that Ma dem ocracy is not a state where the people alone settle all public business.” 39 In the typically glib w ording o f Barère, the republic w as indivisible, but its government w as representative. Assem blies could not be written o ff as ciphers. Electoral procedures were sacrosanct, and Jacobins as a rule did not criticize established methods o f indirect elections (voting for electors who elected delegates), which were used in 1 7 9 1 , and again after 17 9 4 , as they were also, o f course, in the Am erican system o f presidential choice. True Jacobins never seriously considered a dictatorial or m ilitary politi­ cal solution to their political problem s. T actically— because o f the struggle against the king—and theoretically also, given the Jacob in s' enlightened principles, the national assem blies from 17 8 9 to 17 9 2 garnered much good w ill. In the early months o f the Revolution some clubs (whose members had not quite understood the im plications o f the universalist Revolution) addressed their petitions to “ nos seigneurs [lordships] de l’Assemblée N a­ tionale.” 40 Jacobins in 17 8 9 and 17 9 0 w illingly entrusted the nation’s fate to the deputies’ sense o f “ public felicity.” Sieyès justified their autonom y in an ingenious w ay that brought together Adam Smith and Rousseau. In a large country, as in an econom ically efficient w orld, participation had to be specialized. Ju st as different w orkers made different parts o f a single nail, so w ould political men (deputies) represent the nation, which w ould not cease to be a single, larger, Rousseauean, and organic entity. Jacobins were confirm ed partisans o f a single assem bly. The idea o f sec­ ond house on the model o f the United States Senate w as discussed in Paris in September 17 8 9 and overwhelm ingly voted down. The specter o f the British House o f Lords and, more im portant, Rousseauean assum ptions about the indivisibility o f the national w ill, vitiated a solution o f this kind. “ Liberty, equality, but never tw o cham bers,” read a sign on the w alls o f the club at Argentan, expressing a concern for the nation’s single w ill that also made it im possible for Jacobins to accept the notion o f a thoroughly independent judicial system.41 In their speeches and in their law s, then, Jacobins paid lip service not just to these single assem blies but to the notion o f the separation o f pow ­ ers also, a concept which they equated, vaguely, with lim itations o f m onar­

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

157

chic pow er. Nonetheless, their craving fo r unity dram atically affected w hat they thought o f the rights and functions o f not just assem blies but o f bu­ reaucracies as w ell. In the high theory o f Jacobinism , pragm atically speak­ ing, the role o f any state institution w as o f necessity circum scribed. O f w hat practical use w as the state if all citizens lived sim ple and harm onious lives? In his speech o f M arch 1 3 , 17 9 4 , to the Convention, Saint-Just criticized a polity that had alm ost been “ unsurped by functionaries [la cité

est presque unsurpée]" w ho m onopolized state jobs and dominated " l’opinion dans les sociétés populaires." "L e Gouvernement est révolu­ tionnaire," he went on, "m ais les autorités ne le sont pas intrinsèque­ m ent."42 In the end, the Jacobins’ attitudes to both assem blies and bu­ reaucracies resembled their feelings about the Constitution: they were legitim ate only to the extent that they m anifested the people's true and united w ill. Indignant doubts about representatives’ indifference to the wishes o f the clubs soon rose to the surface. Especially galling w as the deputies’ decision to distinguish between fully enfranchised, active citizens and partially un­ enfranchised, passive citizens. M any Jacobins deemed this distinction so in­ vidious, and so contrary to the Rights o f M an, as to void the claim to rep­ resentation o f the assem bly that had approved it. Another w ave o f doubt about the assem bly’s right to rule assailed the clubbistes w ith the king’s flight to Varennes and calls for the creation o f a republic. In September 17 9 1 Jacobin anxieties arose again when the Con­ stituent Assem bly forbade the clubs to file collective petitions. By the early summer o f 17 9 z m ost clubs were overtly critical o f the (now Legislative) Assem bly. François C habot, in a fam ous speech o f June 28, 17 9 z , for the first time railed against the assem bly, pow erless, as he saw it, because "strangled by the [monarchic] Constitution.” And one month later (two weeks before the overthrow o f the m onarchy in August 17 9 z) a Parisian Jacobin explained that the people "m ight be forced to recapture its sover­ eignty." The gap between clubs and legislature yawned ever larger, and w as shut only in the summer o f 17 9 3 when M ontagnard Jacobins came to dom inate both the N ational Convention and the clubs. A fter 17 9 1 the many provincial Jacobins who wished to discredit the as­ sem bly fell back on various argum ents, some o f them anticonstitutional and populist (vox populi, vox dei), some o f them legalistic. Since the issues that had divided the nation flowed from decisions taken by the N ational Assem bly, did it not make sense, asked these Jacobins, that it should sub-

158

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

m it to a popular vote? H ow could the assem bly itself decide an issue where its ow n sovereignty had been questioned? That w ould have made it at once judge and jury, and that could not be (an argum ent, incidentally, the Ja ­ cobins vigorously rejected when in Jan uary 17 9 3 they found themselves having to prosecute the king and pass judgment on him). In stages o f disbelief, in late 17 9 1 Jacobins distanced themselves from the Constitution, from the national assem blies, and from the deputies that sat in them; m any Jacobins decided in early 17 9 2 , as one o f them phrased it, that ule titre de député ne désaristocratise pas les aristocrates” (the title o f deputy does not disaristocratize aristocrats). When m onarchic antiJacobin deputies became obdurately conservative after the flight to V arennes, m any Jacobin clubs denounced them as unfit to continue as mem­ bers o f the assem bly. In Robespierre's logic, the w ill o f deputies could not be denied when they "isolated themselves from their own w ork,” 43 but they lost that prerogative when they represented either sectarian interests or m erely themselves. In early August 17 9 2 he denounced "representative despotism .” 44 Clubs stripped o f membership deputies to the N ational A s­ sem bly w ho had voted the w rong w ay. A t Châtelleraut, on August 1 ,1 7 9 2 , a clubbiste suggested that the prim ary assem blies be convoked to elect new deputies w ho w ould help those already sitting so that the dow nfall o f the m onarchy might then be decreed.45 Robespierre decried the "conspiracy o f the deputies o f the people against the people.” Lists were published o f m onarchic deputies in the fall o f 1 7 9 1 , as were in 17 9 3 the names o f Con­ ventionnels who had voted for Louis’s death, holding up all to public dis­ grace. On June 1 6 ,1 7 9 3 , in the Paris club, Louis D ufoum y argued that he "d id not think that deputies can allow themselves to direct public opinion, because they themselves must be guided by it. Their task is to pass decrees and not to create the public spirit. T o do so w ould be to act aristocrati­ cally.” 44 It did not m atter that some constituents might agree w ith some deputies: in the theory o f Jacobinism , because the elected m andatories o f the nation represented a fraction o f the general w ill rather than some par­ ticular provincial place, a shift in the nation's (general) w ill implied that deputies should change their minds as w ell or be rem oved. Barbaroux, on O ctober 9, 17 9 2 , thus suggested that a new Convention be convened at Bourges, to be made up o f the suppléants o f the then sitting Convention­ nels, that is to say, o f the men w ho had been elected in September to re­ place Conventionnels who might die or resign.

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

159

Ju st as the Jacobins argued that public opinion (whenever it turned against them) had been corrupted, so did the leaders o f excluding groups w ithin the assem blies turn on excluded deputies, calling them corrupt, conspiratorial, hypocritical, and m alevolent. The Feuillants and the G i­ rondins, Bam ave in 1 7 9 1 , Brissot in 17 9 3 , and Robespierre in late 17 9 4 (all o f them leading Jacobins at one time or another) were damned by sur­ viving Jacobins w ith the same epithets they had once hurled against their predecessors.

G

n a political context where no law s or deputies could count on un­

swerving Jacobin loyalties, the situation o f the king w as clearly desperate. In June and Ju ly 17 8 9 Louis X V I, who had seemingly and selflessly ac­ cepted popular sovereignty, w as w ildly popular. A s Mthe restorer o f French liberties” he had generously placed the nation above his own pow ers. H e had shown that he understood his place not just in relation to the assem bly as the embodiment o f the nation’s w ill but in relation to revolutionary goodness as w ell. It thus made practical sense for soon-to-be Jacobins to w ant to associate the king w ith the business o f governm ent, and he w as as­ signed a suspensive veto on September 7 , 17 8 9 . This choice did not after all categorically deny the people’s w ill. In theory, it made the king the com­ mon denom inator o f the nation’s past, present, and future w ills. But even in 17 8 9 m any future Jacobins felt am bivalent about his role. Given their political principles, members o f the Constituent Assem bly could not assign to the king any true law-m aking pow ers. N o Jacobin could have accepted that. Even diplom acy and the ability to make w ar and peace were in essence removed from the king’s control. In the w ords o f the abbé G régoire, the king w as like a priest; his function (and that o f his bureaucracy) w as not to rule but to serve the nation. N or in the end w as there much room for the king in their cultural system . Any sans-culotte could be expected to be good and civic-m inded; but in the Jacobin scheme o f things, kings were inherently suspect. A s Saint-Just said on Novem ber 1 3 , 17 9 z , during the king’s trial, in a short speech that instantly made him fam ous, “ on ne peut régner innocemment” (no man can reign inno­ cently). Therefore, reasoned the Jacobins o f 1 7 9 1 and 17 9 z , the king's veto, if it ran against the m anifest and permanent w ill o f the nation, could not really

16 o

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

be applied. Though constitutional in the strict sense o f the w ord, the m onarch's veto seemed to them unconstitutional in the true sense o f the w ord. "N o w that the French have declared themselves to be the terror o f tyran ts," w rote a clubbiste at A pt, "it is incumbent on their king either to trem ble or to prove he is their father.” 47 In June 1 7 9 1 , when the king ran aw ay from the Revolution and thereby renounced the conciliatory view s that had been attributed to him in the late summer o f 1789, Jacobins all over France were shocked. They had sin­ cerely believed the king had accepted his new sym bolic role. They also sin­ cerely believed that it w as he and not they w ho had broken the consti­ tutional com pact o f 1789. Had they not remained steadfast in their acceptance o f law s they did not like, such as the distinction o f passive and active citizens? They had been docile, respectful, nonfactional, and apoliti­ cal. The Jacobins o f A ix, for exam ple, w ho were am ong the m ost radical and violent o f Jacobins, explicitly described themselves as apolitical, as "hom m es vrois [sic], justes, et utiles à la patrie” (true men, just, and useful to the fatherland). But in the summer o f 179 1, Jacobins concluded that the king and aristocrates were leading France to civil w ar. As the club o f Tulle put in a letter to the district's adm inistrators, the clubbistes had "perhaps respected law s too m uch.” 48 Between Louis's restoration in m id-July 17 9 1 and the fall o f the m onar­ chy on August 10 ,17 9 2 , the m onarch’s prestige decayed inexorably. Every one o f Louis's fitful assertions o f his presence, especially when he vetoed legislation, brought about a flood o f warnings from the clubs, reminding him to heed the nation's w ill. By February o f 1792, clubs were m aking overt Republican noises once again. Unable to accept the Constitution, the king, the assem blies, or the deputies as the unquestioned expressions o f the nation’s single purpose, the Jacobins gradually realized—and rather to their own surprise— that they themselves, assembled in their clubs, were the best spokespeople for the na­ tion’s elusive w ill. As a D ijon clubbiste wrote in an address to the Conven­ tion, "the popular society is nothing . . . but the nation itself.” 49 A t Beau­ vais, when joined by a delegation o f the sans-culotte m ilitia (the armée

révolutionnaire ), the clubbistes decided that they were now the people. The club, they explained, "h ad ceased to be a society and w ould now exercise the rights o f an assembled people in order to weigh judgment on the [re­ gion's] adm inistrators and their clerks.” 50 Jacobins had at first intended (in

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

16 1

17 9 0 -9 1) to be no more than the m irrors that made clear for every citizen the shape o f his or her own soul. But they gradually decided (in 17 9 1-9 2 ) that they should also be the nation’s lanterns and finally (in 17 9 3 -9 4 ) the republic’s unforgiving sw ord as w ell. Serving a representative function had not been part o f the Jacobins’ orig­ inal purpose at all. T o the contrary, as has been seen, in 17 8 9 and early 17 9 0 still, the clubbistes had set as their task the mere interpretation to the nation o f the expressions o f the nation’s w ill that had been form ulated by the N ational Assem bly and the king o f the French, as Louis X V I w as then styled. Institutionally, the idea that the clubs should have more than an ad­ visory function, and a lim ited one at that, w as at first denied by m any prominent Jacobins themselves. In a debate w ith Desm oulins, Brissot, w ho dominated the Paris club, argued that the Paris Jacobins could hardly claim to represent opinion, much less shape events, since the clubs were o f their nature elitist. H ow m any members have the opportunity to speak? he asked. And o f these, he went on, how m any o f them were passive citizens, that is to say, o f those plain people who had made the Revolution?51 In late June 17 9 z , when a Paris clubbiste suggested that Jacobins all over France should put pressure on the nation’s elected deputies, m ilitant Jacobins balked. “ W ithout a doubt,” replied an influential member, Pierre Robert, “ there should be an im pelling center, but I do not think that this center, this im pulsion, should be in our society.” 52 Nonetheless, the Jacobin s’ collective sense o f self grew ever stronger. A fter having seen themselves first as educators o f the nation, then as advis­ ers to the nation’s elected officials, and finally as m entors,53 the Jacobins imagined themselves to be the nation’s censors, as men empowered by opinion to confirm the right choices o f the deputies. In tim e, the Jacobins also came to see themselves as constitutionally sov­ ereign, or at least cosovereign, w ith the nation’s assem blies. W hen the early com prom ise between the king (the “ Premier fonctionnaire public” — or first public servant—as m any clubbistes liked to call him)54 and the N ational Assem bly broke down, many Jacobins felt as the clubbistes at M ontpellier did that “ w e w ould have to ask if it w as not a m istake to say that every­ thing should be given to the representatives and nothing held back for the people w ho must w ork together w ith the representatives.” 55 A fter the sum­ mer o f 17 9 3 , if asked w hat the nation’s opinion w as, m any Jacobins w ould have responded brutally: “ whatever is being thought in the clubs.” A t

1 6z

*

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

tim es, the clubbistes obliged the elected public authorities to take revolu­ tionary oaths in the clubs— in the w ords o f the Bourgoin clubbistes, aen face du peuple souverain” (face to face w ith the sovereign people).56 A t Lim oges the clubbistes suggested that only members o f the popular soci­ eties be allow ed to vote in com ing elections. When dissenting opinions and events proved more stubborn than ex­ pected, Jacobins could not help but think that they should act for the na­ tion directly. T o save the nation’s true w ill, they were prepared to struggle against its falsely institutionalized and m erely apparent w ill. On M arch iz , 17 9 3 , when the sans-culotte leader Jean V arlet urged the Jacobins to purge the Convention, he w as shouted down and told that the law -abiding Jacobin club w as not like the more radical and populist Cordelier club. But tw o months later, as V arlet had suggested, the Jacobins did purge the Convention. (Prudently, Barère, on behalf o f the Committee o f Public Safety, initially suggested that the deputies who had been re­ moved resign. A few actually did so to m aintain the fiction o f an unsullied national representation, even if it had been achieved at their personal ex­ pense.) Spurred by a new determination and anxiety, Jacobins w orked hard to shut down rival societies. Like soldiers who destroy villages to save them, Jacobins preserved liberty by silencing its enemies. In December 17 9 0 , at Aix-en-Provence, the Jacobins forced the m unicipality to shut down the So­ ciety o f the Friends o f Religion, o f Peace, and o f the King, a mere three weeks after its founding. M any other exam ples o f this prophylactic censor­ ship could be cited. Jacobins had no scruples about silencing their enemies and “ conspiring for liberty.” Ju st as diplom ats are honest men sent abroad to lie for their country, the Jacobins were honest men w ho were at times “ forced” to en­ gage in excesses or untruthfulness for the sake o f a higher message. They certainly believed that truth, eventually, w ould free all men; but they also knew that the “ M achiavellianism o f the people,” like censorship, w as fully justified, for some short time at least. N ot everyone, they thought, deserved all o f the truth all o f the time: in the w ords o f Condorcet (a rather gentle Jacobin) “ the w ord ‘revolutionary’ only applies to those revolutions whose object is liberty.” 57 T o assert their ideological and self-im posed purpose, the clubs soon took to purging them selves, just as they had purged other associations before.

T he Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

♦

163

The clubbistes o f Courthézon, a sm all southern town» put it quite w ell: their aim w as not to exclude but to reinforce harm ony. If dissent could not be brought over to some right opinion, where a right opinion w as known to exist, then disenfranchisem ent w as the only solution at once sensible and dem ocratic. It w as time to consider, they concluded in the summer o f 17 9 4 , "w hether in our popular society there might be some members who were not in the spirit o f the Revolution or [not] in conform ity w ith the law s o f our Constitution [and whether] w e ought not to reject him from our society so as not to be in the situation o f daily disaccord w ith one another.” 58 The mechanisms o f self-purging varied. Sometimes, a visiting Conven­ tionnel w ould elim inate m ost or, for that m atter, all o f a club’s members. Sometimes, the clubbistes w ould entrust to the m ost pure o f their members the choice o f those w ho w ould rem ain. Inevitably, how ever, such bloodlettings fed tw o different but m utually reinforcing and destructive trends. Jacobins, as they became more trucu­ lent, also cut themselves o ff from the broader public. And as the Jacobins’ political base narrow ed, their ability to rule the nation by exam ple or con­ sent also shrank, a w holly unforeseen development that furthered their ex­ asperated determ ination to rule by all or any means. By the summer o f 17 9 4 the purges had drastically thinned Jacobinism ’s ranks. A fam ous cartoon o f late 17 9 4 portrayed Robespierre, standing am id a sea o f deserted guillotines, and about to execute the executioner. Another and more thoughtful rendition showed him surrounded by skulls and bones, about to guillotine him self! M any clubs urged members to attend— all citizens had an obligation to be involved— and then purged some o f the ones w ho had com plied. A t O r­ léans, o f 800 Jacobins, only 15 0 were left in the club by Ju ly 17 9 4 . Though the number o f clubs rose dram atically in the countryside in late 17 9 3 and 17 9 4 (on paper in any case), Jacobinism ’s hold over the nation became ever more tenuous. Some Jacobins did not mind being in a m inority because they assumed they w ould eventually become a m ajority, and then a community. They did not divide the political spectrum into a right, a left, and a center (although these terms were invented at the time). They saw instead a left (namely, them selves), which represented the nation's higher w ill; a corrupted aristo­

crate faction; and a plaine or marais (swamp) made up o f pusillanim ous

16 4

♦

The Indisputable Claim s o f the N ation

people who were as yet uncommitted to the Jacobins* view o f things. Cen­ trists were men o f good faith but sm all energy» timid people w ho cared about the nation but whose ideas had not yet gelled. When the m oderate but Jacobin-m inded Republican M arseilles sections rose up against the local left-H ébertist M arseillais Jacobins» some o f the m oderates’ sym pathizers in an outlying Provençal town neatly expressed the Jacobins* belief in the reality o f politically transform ative epiphany. A ll that had been needed w as for their partisans to rise» and ucet empire m a­ gique d’une m inorité sanguinaire fut détruit par leur réveil** (from their com ing awake» the m agical empire o f a bloody m inority w as destroyed).59 Jacobins were w ily in the pursuit o f their varied goals. Robespierre, fo r exam ple, w as an especially crafty leader, a fluid ideologue who managed over time to assert w ith unwavering aplom b contradictory opinions and, as M irabeau once quipped, believed everything he said. The plotters w ho overthrew Robespierre often congratulated themselves on having been par­ ticularly successful conspirators.60 For the sake o f a higher truth had they lied so successfully. It is the privilege o f the pure at heart that they can, in good conscience, be w holly devious.

6 Jacobins as the Free Citizens o f a One-Party State Although Abraham arouses my adm iration, he also appalls me. The person w ho denies him self and sacrifices him self because o f duty gives up the finite in order to grasp the infinite and is adequately assured — But the person who gives up the universal in order to grasp something even higher that is not the universal—w hat does he do? Is it possible that this can be anything but a spiritual trial? And if it is possible, but the individual m akes a m istake, w hat salvation is there for him? Seren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

the first one and a h alf years o f Revolution, from the summer o f 17 8 9 to the winter o f 17 9 0 , the Jacobins wished to be the devoted inter­ preters o f the revolutionary state and the free agents o f libertarian prin­ ciple. French men and wom en, regenerated by liberty, they thought, were bound to accept revolutionary citizenship as w ell as their settled place in daily life. The Jacobins did not see the need to use the state to make that happen. Sylvain M aréchal’s play o f O ctober 17 9 3 , L e Jugem ent dernier des

rois, prophétie en un acte en prose (The Last Judgm ent o f A ll Kings: A Prose Prophecy in One Act), often perform ed in both Paris and the provinces, depicted a desert island where liberated sans-culottes spoke a language o f transparent truth and where politics had ceased to exist.1 T o their tragic dism ay, the Jacobins found that m any people refused the Revolution’s definition o f their rights. Even w orse, when libertarian Ja ­ cobins continued to serve the revolutionary state long after it had become tyrannical, they did so to dreadful effect because not the least o f the many

1 66

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

historical ironies which bore down upon the Jacobins w as that their hopes o f libertarian reconciliation proved to be historically counterproductive. Jacobins wanted to promote citizenship and deny divisive lines o f class not just for France in their own time but for the entire w orld and forever. Y et, the long-range course o f their tyranny had the opposite effect. The “ bourgeoisie” did not make the French Revolution, but the R evolu­ tion did make a bourgeoisie. N o one in 17 8 9 even began to foresee the ex­ tent to which the events w ould give the lie to the Revolution’s civic vision o f classless harm ony. Jacobinism during the years 17 9 2 -17 9 4 can o f course be seen as a drive to pow er rather than a passage into progressive degeneracy from an earlier state o f historical innocence. Readers o f M ichel Foucault, for exam ple, whose w ork is associated w ith W estern culture’s relentless emphasis on dom ination, could certainly conclude that Jacobins were from the first ob­ sessed by discipline and self-discipline. Early conciliatory steps—like their endorsement o f existing civil society— can be read as calculating gestures. This view o f a Jacobin thirst for pow er has added plausibility today be­ cause it dovetails w ith current historiographical sensibilities. A broad liter­ ature on im perialism and sexual dom ination reinforces our postm odern sense that “ culture w ars” are not just about culture but about control. But Jacobins w ould have found such an explanation o f their actions dis­ concerting and bizarre, insulting even. They w ould have pointed out that their initial stance in the period 17 8 9 - 17 9 1 w as o f genuine tolerance, that in these early days, they had sincerely been the politically neutral agents o f universally accepted opinion and authority. W ere they not the Friends o f the Constitution, whose purpose w as merely to explain the national char­ ter to those o f their fellow citizens who did not understand it as w ell as they? The Jacobins saw themselves as ecumenical uniters, and not as a fac­ tional party at all.

7?

v_X ^-/ut not for long, o f course. In Jan uary and February o f 17 9 0 , for ex­ am ple, Jacobins did little electioneering despite the im portance o f m any o f the posts at stake. They assumed that their candidates w ould prevail be­ cause common sense alw ays did so. In the m unicipal elections o f Ju ly 17 9 0 and o f late 17 9 0 into 1 7 9 1 , how ever, their electoral involvement grew ex­ ponentially. Though the great turning points o f the Revolution did not

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

167

hinge on election results, these contests were im portant to Jacobins as p roof o f their dem ocratic w ays.2 M any prominent Jacobins were elected to local office, notably in M arseilles, Grenoble, and Toulon, all o f which w ould prove to be Jacobin strongholds throughout the Revolution. T o guide the electorate, Brissot in 17 9 0 organized a Society o f Patriotic Candi­ dates that w as w idely copied in 17 9 1 and 17 9 z . M any clubs drew up lists o f politically suitable candidates. In August 17 9 z R oland, the m inister o f the interior, actually used state funds to subsidize sectarian Girondin elec­ tioneering. Jacobins also influenced the prom otion o f Catholic clerics w ho had accepted the C ivil Constitution o f the Clergy. H ereafter passionate Jacobin involvement in all elections became and re­ mained the rule. (By contrast, nationwide, seldom did one person in five or so bother to go to the polls.) When some six thousand prim ary assemblies convened on August z 6 ,17 9 z, for the elections to the postm onarchic Con­ vention, the Jacobins tried to m onopolize the field. In 17 9 3 the Jacobins o f Grenoble and D raguignan made it their business to keep antipatriots aw ay from the polls.3 The staging o f elections w as only the m ost visible w ay in which Jacobins tried to influence the political system. They also acted more covertly to concert the action o f patriots w ithin legislative or adm inistrative bodies they did not yet dom inate. Indeed, the first im portant instance o f this pat­ tern came in 17 8 9 . In the Breton club o f Versailles future Jacobins carefully prepared the theatrical and ostensibly spontaneous renunciation o f feudal privileges that took place in the N ational Assem bly on the night o f August 4. Sim ilarly, in France as a w hole but especially in Paris, patriotic orators routinely used the clubs to rehearse the speeches they w ould make else­ where as officials and as deputies. The trending o f the Jacobins tow ard ever tighter methods can be traced in m any w ays. The elaboration o f ideological orthodoxy and the purging o f dissidents, as w ill be seen, mattered m ost; but Jacobins also paid close attention to mundane organizational strategy. A fter 17 9 1 they were eager to keep in touch w ith one another, and to proselytize. M uch energy w as spent finding suitable locales. O rdinarily, Jacobins rented their premises. Eventually, m any clubs chose to own a building o f their ow n, often a form er church or school. Seeing them com fortably en­ sconced in a confiscated clerical building that had been nationalized and put up for auction must have riled m any an anti-Jacobin.

1 68

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

M oney w as another constant w orry. Initially, the clubs charged fees, a s social organizations generally had to.4 Q uickly, how ever, their rationale w as altered. N o longer called club dues, the fees were cast as badly needed cash for good w orks, rent, light, heat, and postage. Costs were high. Som e clubs sponsored (unsuccessful) newspapers, which became another finan­ cial drain. Clubs delegated representatives and propagandists to the coun­ tryside, to other clubs, to Paris, or to regional meetings, all o f which re­ quired m oney, a difficult problem since m any clubs, especially in 17 9 3 -9 4 , lowered or w aived their fees altogether to attract a broader m em bership. Some societies suggested that clubbistes pay whatever they could affo rd . And unsurprisingly, being alw ays short o f m oney, the clubs tried to find the odd franc or livre. They urged members o f other clubs to buy th eir propaganda. They tried to send their club m ail through the good offices o f elected officials w ho enjoyed franking privileges. They pursued arrange­ ments w ith post office officials for bulk mail rates. Exasperated club trea­ surers sometimes threatened to haul delinquent members before the justices o f the peace. Rule m aking for the clubs sim ilarly shifted from loosely defined proce­ dures o f sociability to more deliberately organized political activities. A l­ though forceful personalities often dominated the clubs, in Paris especially, the Jacobins were com m unitarians who instinctively preferred direction by committee. The Paris club w as run by a twelve-member body that m anaged the club’s finances, a thirty-man committee that filtered applications, and a committee o f correspondence, which soon overshadowed the other tw o. When the time came to purge the clubs, exclusions were decided by specially convoked committees that had been appointed by yet other committees. (France itself, o f course, w as ruled by a Committee o f Public Safety delegated by the Convention to exercise executive pow er.) Presidents o f local clubs were elected m onthly; secretaries sat for longer terms, the aim o f these rotat­ ing arrangements being to guarantee dem ocratic fluidity. M eetings remained form al. The tone o f club life had to reflect the Repub­ lican dignity o f their proceedings. Clubs insisted on sobriety and excluded inebriated members, w ho alas were all too numerous: "this is a m isfortune common to many sans-culottes w ho are otherwise excellent patriots.” 5 It w as not enough to claim , as a member did in D ijon, "th at wine had never caused him to change his public character.” 4 A t Vitry-le-François inebriated members were suspended for one week; a third offense led to exclusion.7 The

clubbistes at Pau petitioned the Convention to penalize drinkers.8 When they

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

169

were able, Jacobins—much like priests w ho struggled against drinking dur­ ing services— ordered neighboring bars shut during their meeting tim es.9 D ogs were not allow ed on club grounds. Accounts o f debates underlined the occasionally “ indecent” behavior o f some members and their subse­ quent exclusion. The Jacobins o f Peyrolas decided to punish members w ho had relieved themselves in the passage w ays o f the club’s building. A first offense w ould lead to a reprim and; repeaters w ould be barred.10 Insulting language w as also grounds for disbarm ent. A t N ay a member asked that the society be “ preserved” from having to hear the w ords bougre (bugger) and foutre, which the “ traitor” Hébert had so consistently used.11 Jacobins had a strong sense o f mission and o f the dignity o f public life. They insisted on the maintenance o f decorum. Counterrevolutionary propaganda, after the fall o f Robespierre especially, portrayed Jacobins as illiterate drunkards and their meetings as chaotic braw ls. N othing could have been further from the truth. The tim ing o f club meetings w as at first haphazard, but this too w as standardized. Clubs that had begun as reading societies were sometimes open round the clock. M em bers might at any time drop in to read newspa­ pers, chat, or play billiards. But when the tempo o f events quickened, club meetings became more purposeful and intense. A t the Society o f M erck at Bordeaux, whose records have been studied in detail, members met every three or four days. A t Bem ay, in the Eure, for which complete records sur­ vive, the clubbistes met about ten times a month. The nature o f debates also changed as the logic o f Jacobinism became more clear. In October 17 9 3 ,12 clubs were required by law to make their sessions public. In 17 9 0 clubbistes had used passw ords and secret codes to communicate confidentially in public places, but when Jacobins revived that habit during the T error, it w as because they feared that aristocrates might try to use the clubs to forge false identities. In these m any w ays, the Jacobins inched tow ard becoming a modern, na­ tionwide political party (of a kind). In the eyes o f Albert Soboul, the clubs sim ultaneously became the arm ature o f one-party state (“ l’arm ature d’un parti unique” ).13 Jacobins organized cross-club political actions. They w rote letters, and their m ail, whose tone is far less form ulaic than the better-known accounts and orations o f the clubbistes, form s the larger part o f m any Jacobin archives today. They read and w rote newspaper articles. They feted visiting Jacobins. They circularized one another, as they also did

170

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

the public authorities. A t Tulle the club received letters from nineteen other clubs on the occasion o f the Feuillant split. A t Le H avre, in about five months during the spring and summer o f 17 9 4 , 1 1 3 guests from tw entynine other societies came to visit.14 N or did clubs hesitate to chastise one another when the need arose, as happened during the Feuillant-Jacobin split in the fall o f 17 9 1 and the Girondin-M ontagnard conflict o f the pe­ riod 17 9 2 -9 3 . Paris w as the heart o f Jacobinism 's ideological m ission, and m atriarchal terms naturally came to mind to provincial clubbistes when they conjured the image o f the Paris club. The president o f the club at Vitry-le-François, in his inaugural address, described the Parisian society as “ this m atrix c lu b ."15 A t Artonne the clubbistes referred to the Paris society as “ our common m other.” 16 In Novem ber 17 9 0 the club at Riom proposed that all clubs send m aterials to the Paris club, so that it could distribute a news sheet to the provinces conveying the feelings o f the network as a whole. In that same year the Jacobins o f Lille suggested that clubs from all over France delegate representatives to Paris, as if the club were a kind o f na­ tional revolutionary paraparliam ent. Desm oulins in the tenth issue o f his paper, the Révolutions de France et de Brabant, com pared the Paris club to a tree whose roots spread all over France;17 many provincial clubs were founded, as Lam eth claim ed in December 17 8 9 ,18 by visitors w ho had seen the Parisians at w ork. Strasbourg in Jan uary 17 9 0 and M ontpellier three weeks later were the first to affiliate themselves w ith the Paris club, which began in M arch to send out form al certificates o f affiliation. In August 17 9 0 ,9 0 societies were thus connected to the Paris club, a number that rose steadily to 200 in M arch 17 9 1,4 0 0 in Ju ly , and a peak o f about 800 in early 17 9 4 . In m any places (at Toulouse and M ontauban, for exam ple) provincial clubs sim ply took the Paris society's rules o f order as their ow n. When del­ egates o f southeastern clubs met in the course o f a short-lived pro-Parisian federation o f clubs held at M arseilles, their insignias were eloquently shaped: “ the members o f the societies are distinguished by having a card. Those from Paris have a large card.” 19 Paris w as the heart o f the republic, explained a Girondin w ho had been expelled from the capital, and “ wounds to the heart were alw ays fatal.” 20 O ver the years, m any observers— such as Arthur Young in 17 8 9 and Tocqueville in 18 5 6 — have rem arked on the passivity o f the revolutionized provinces in the face o f Parisian fiat. Indeed, for Louis de Cardenal in the

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

171

19 3 0 s, the ensuing and artificial com m onality o f local Jacobin options in different parts o f France w as proof o f Jacobinism ’s superficial hold. H ow could provincial Jacobins, he asked, w ho were so different in their unend­ ingly varied local situations, be sincere when they proclaim ed identical (Paris-based) principles? “ For m ost o f the members o f these assem blies,” he concluded (w rongly), “ the Revolution w as more a means than a goal.” 21 Some evidence, o f course, supports this view o f Jacobins as Parisdominated country bumpkins. M any provincial Jacobins (and in O ctober 17 9 2 m any newly elected Jacobin Conventionnels) were puzzled at first by the ideological quarrels that divided their Parisian brethren. In an injunc­ tion to their Parisian peers, w ho seemed bogged down in personal details, the confused and exasperated clubbistes o f Strasbourg exclaim ed about the G irondins' attack on M arat, “ Y ou have decreed his arrest, let him perish on the scaffold if he is a traitor. We don’t know either Brissot or M arat. The republic is w hat we know and it is the only thing w e w ant to kn ow .” 22 Nonetheless, we can conclude that m ost o f the provincial clubs, m ost o f the tim e, were neither coerced nor deluded. Provincial sociétaires were quite able to understand the issues debated in Paris, even if they found the ins and outs o f day-to-day politics hard to follow . Ideology mattered a great deal to them. M oreover, the flow o f influence w as often reciprocated. Parisian w ord and deed certainly drove provincials to become more bitter and unforgiving; but the mimetic adm iration o f the provinces likew ise steeled the Parisians’ resolve. François X avier Audouin, the secretary o f the Paris Jacobins, once w rote to the Jacobins o f Lim oges, “ W hy does the re­ public not see you? W hy are the Convention and the Committee o f Public Safety not inform ed o f your successes? Y ou do not realize how influential are the statements that are read to the Convention. They are like a signal­ ing light that everyone looks to, and whenever a good exam ple is presented there, it is close to being adopted.” 23 If Paris w as the heart o f the Revolu­ tion, the messages from the clubs were the “ regenerated blood” that kept the heart alive. Significantly, unlike m ost o f the regional Jacobin clubs, the Paris club never created local branches directly. Indeed, in parts o f France where social or political tensions were running at fever pitch, m any local clubs outstripped the “ commune centrale du globe” in their radical demands. The local clubs agitated for the distinction between active and passive citizens in 17 9 0 , for the enactment o f the m axi­

mum on prices in the summer o f 17 9 3 , and for the form ation o f Com m it­

172

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

tees o f Surveillance, derived from the societies' own “ committees o f re­ search," which had been designed to deal with the club’s confidential cor­ respondence. A t Pontarlier and Lim oges the clubs enforced procedures that antedated the law o f suspects o f September 1 4 ,1 7 9 3 . A t tim es, not just iso­ lated clubs but entire regional Jacobin associations developed a national purpose that preceded the hardening o f view s o f the capital: in Ju ly 1 7 9 1 the activist club o f Valence, the new chef-lieu or capital o f the radical Drôme department, convened a federation o f the clubs o f the entire depart­ ment in order to radicalize Jacobinism nationwide; and in the summer o f 17 9 3 the supposed need to officialize the use o f terror likewise flowed to Paris from below.

s^ ^ ieo lo gically and institutionally, provincial Jacobins found themselves traveling much further than they had ever dreamed possible in their early days. In 1790 they had begun as local worthies aim ing to elucidate the de­ cisions o f the N ational Assem bly to their fellow citizens: in Jan u ary 1791 Antonelle, a rich noble w ho had become the Jacobin m ayor o f Arles and who would later preside over the Paris Jacobins, explained that the newly created Jacobin club o f his city w ould soon become “ the eye and the arm o f this wise and gentle, firm and fraternal adm inistration that henceforth can only act in concert w ith the public’s w ill, which we must enlighten so that it can help us.” 24 In 17 9 z and early 17 9 3 they became the ideologized members o f a na­ tional “ quasi-party" o f opposition. And in a third m utation, in mid- and late 17 9 3 , they became the state. A number o f practical issues triggered the Jacobins’ move from tolerance to state service and repression. The ideological connection between Ja ­ cobinism and m ilitarism w as especially im portant, and this link found practical embodiment in the relationship o f the clubs to the N ational G uard, a shifting relationship that clearly facilitated their move from spec­ tator to participatory politics. Jacobins were deeply committed to civilian government. One o f Robes­ pierre’s prophetic m otives for opposing a French declaration o f w ar against A ustria in 17 9 2 w as his fear that m ilitary involvement w ould eventually lead to m ilitary rule.25 Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The creation o f a new and civilian arm y, the N ational G uard, spoke both to their cult o f m ilitarized citizenship and to their fear that an unre­

Jacobin s as the fr e e Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

173

pentant, royalist m ilitary might stifle the new revolutionary state. Launched on Ju ly 1 3 , 17 8 9 , the new institution had tw o advantages. It involved the citizen in the life o f the nation, and it short-circuited the regular arm y, w hich in the years 17 9 0 -17 9 2 w as still dominated by noble-born, often counterrevolutionary officers. The clubs w ere close to the guardsmen. In some tow ns, belonging to the N ational G uard w as a prerequisite for club membership.26 A t Vesoul the club itself had spun o ff from the guard.27 A t Lille the club combined its an­ tecedent Patriotic Union o f the C ity and Castle Bailiw ick o f Lille w ith the C lub o f Fabricators, M anufacturers, and Artists and the Salon o f the N a­ tional Guard. C lub meetings were often scheduled to enable members to participate in guard activities. Invitations were traded between the clubs and the guardsm en, w ho at times appeared en masse in the clubs w ith flags, fife, and drum. N ear M arseilles, which had a club o f guardsm en,

clubbistes and guardsmen proselytized together in the backcountry. M oreover, with the nation at w ar and the regular arm y becoming both m ore radical and more im portant, the Jacobin clubs increasingly partici­ pated in the Revolution's direct m ilitary effort, as patriotic onlookers at first and as governm ent official later on. A t first, in September 17 9 0 , the N ational Assem bly took umbrage at this politicization o f the regular arm y. It declared illegal the creation o f sol­ diers’ and sailors' clubs and specifically barred garrisoned officers and sol­ diers from attending club meetings. The clubs reacted vigorously to this in­ terdict. In Jan uary 1 7 9 1 the D unkirk clubbistes took it upon themselves to invite members o f the local garrison regardless, and on A pril 2 9 ,1 7 9 1 , the m inistry o f w ar rescinded its earlier order. W ithin w eeks, soldiers from m any regiments were attending meetings. A t N ice h alf o f the club members were m ilitary men, and in 17 9 3 some all-m ilitary clubs came into being. A t the other end o f France, in some parts o f Norm andy, soldiers w ho were guarding against a British invasion were am ong the region's m ost radical members.28 Clubs follow ed m ilitary matters closely and looked after the w elfare o f individual soldiers. A t Lille the club discussed w ays o f entertaining young recruits w ho were aw ay from home for the first tim e.29 The clubs regularly staged banquets in honor o f volunteers. Jacobins welcom ed returning sol­ diers, the wounded especially, whose mangled bodies became icons o f the republic. Traveling volunteers were sure to find not just praise but food, shelter, and a helping hand along their w ay. Letters from the front were

174

* Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

often read from the podium . Clubs also raised money for French prisoners abroad and visited wounded soldiers at home.30 Jacobins had an O rphic view o f death and rebirth. True patriots cou ld never really die because they lived in the memory o f a harm onious nation. The clubs strove to m em orialize the fallen soldiers o f the Revolution as e x ­ amples o f patriotic selflessness. A t M ontauban in A pril 1 7 9 1 , when church officials refused to officiate at the burial o f a guardsm an, the local clu b took the m atter in hand. Chabot, soon to be executed for corruption, then gave an oration that recalled the names o f all the region’s fallen victim s.31 A t Reim s, as in m any other places, the club had prom inently displayed a m em orial list o f heroes and then went one step further by aw arding th eir heroic names to selected members w ho had done "w o rks that were tran ­ scendent and genuinely Republican.” 32 Sym bolically, m any a club resolved to equip a cavalrym an (le cavalier Ja ­

cobin) on the nationally adopted model that had been launched in A ugust 17 9 z in Paris by the section o f the Arcis quarter. That exam ple w as soon taken up in the capital’s suburbs by the club o f La Franciade, form erly known as Saint-Denis. The club at M o rlaix boasted that its cavalrym an Pierre Bian w as in part o f A frican origin, a fact whose universalist m eaning did not escape its members.33 The Strasbourg club suggested that clubs a ll over the nation raise funds to launch a three-decker m an-of-war (the largest kind o f vessel then afloat) that w ould be called Le Jacobin; and a t the departm ental level, m any clubs joined together to pay fo r an entire vessel.34 The Jacobins made significant m aterial contributions to the w ar effort. In the first years o f the Revolution, Jacobins probably hastened the decom­ position o f the royal arm y,35 but in later years they did all they could to m aintain the m orale and equipment o f the nation’s armed forces on both land and sea. Between M ay and June 17 9 z alone, the N ational Assem bly received 650,000 livres from 1 1 4 clubs.36 By 17 9 4 the clubbistes had handed over to the arm y hundreds o f thousands o f shirts, trousers, and shoes. On A pril iz , 17 9 4 , the club at Lunéville reckoned that it alone had contributed 10 8 ,6 6 7 francs and 8 sous, 365 pairs o f shoes, 64 pairs o f boots, 39 7 pairs o f stockings, 1 8 1 pairs o f pants, 43 overcoats, 73 vests, Z5 coats, 6 7 1 shirts, 19 hats, 16 8 pairs o f gaiters, 3 crates o f bandages, 7 rifles, 1 7 sabers, 46 breastplates, 55 cartridge boxes, z saddles, 50 yards o f cloth, and 7 7 blankets.37 Women also participated in these m atters; in Be­ sançon the wom en’s Jacobin club (named the Friends o f Truth and Equal­

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

175

ity) started as an association o f women w ho had come together to sew clothes for soldiers. In 17 9 4 the clubs even took it upon themselves to designate the young men and future soldiers w ho w ould attend the new Ecole de M ars in Paris, a school intended to shape the m ilitarized cadres o f the young republic.

(~71 L nother concern that led the clubs from observation to adm inistra­ tive involvem ent and eventually to dictatorship w as their desire to support the national currency. The m onarchy's deficit had propelled it to its doom , and m any o f the revolutionary governm ent's day-to-day problem s had money as their prim ary cause. Because the revolutionaries respected property and because bondholders were, as it happens, close to m any o f the m ost prominent revolutionaries (like M irabeau, a Jacobin and a friend o f Parisian capitalists, as they were already called), the Revolution did not repudiate the prerevolutionary debts o f the French C row n. Besides, only a respected government—which paid its debts— could borrow . But when financial m atters went from bad to w orse, and when the assem bly voted to create paper money or assignats in December 17 8 9 , m any clubs w rote to Paris to congratulate the deputies on the inception o f this m onetary instrument, whose creation Desm oulins hailed as a trium ph for the Revolution. The Jacobins approached issues o f finance and currency both practically and from a m oral point o f view . They understood that the value o f the assignats depended not just on faith in the Revolution but—in part at least— on supply and demand, and also on the expectation o f where the curves o f supply and demand were likely to meet in the future. They used forced loans, for exam ple, to decrease the am ount o f circulating currency and low er price increases. Nonetheless, the Jacobins also wanted to believe in the connections be­ tween m oney, m orality, and politics. Saint-Just w as hostile to inflation be­ cause it weakened the citizen’s love o f w ork. Jacobins decried the selfish­ ness o f those w ho rejected revolutionary currency and preferred gold (in itself, they reminded their fellow citizens, a useless metal). The clubs often attributed higher prices and unexpected shortages to conspiratorial plot­ ting. Food w as costly, they argued, because it w as being shipped out o f France;38 and their fears sharpened w ith the declaration o f w ar in the

176

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

spring o f 1 79 2, when m any clubs suggested that national stocks should be built up w ith an eye to guaranteeing supplies and driving prices down. Jacobins were convinced— not w rongly, in the short run—that fo rce could be used to drive up the value o f paper m oney. (The assignats rose a bit in value in early 17 9 3 , as Jacobins came ever closer to wielding p ow er, and then rapidly became worthless after the fall o f Robespierre.) The clu b s did w hat they could to prop them up. Indeed, since paper money w as in i­ tially issued in large denom inations, they organized caisses patriotiques (patriotic banks), which issued sm aller bills backed by their own credit an d which in 17 9 z were taken over by the m unicipalities. They denounced speculators who tried to change paper money into gold, an exchange a l­ lowed by law until A pril 17 9 3 , when paper became the only legal tender. A t Saint-Jean-de-Luz, near Spain, the club asked the Convention to treat m etallic money as if it were counterfeit currency.39 Rather im probably, the

clubbistes o f Lorient pledged never to assign different prices in assignat and silver for the same object.40 The clubs also took seriously their role in supporting the maximum, a key element o f the revolutionary government’s plan for a guided w ar econ­ om y. Provincial Jacobins strongly approved o f the maximum, which m any provincial clubs had been enforcing de facto before the national law w as passed. In retrospect, w e can conclude that the law w as profoundly destructive. Although contem poraries did not see it in these terms, this coercive legisla­ tion sacrificed long-term economic stability to short-run advantage.41 Its principal if unintended momentary effect w as to enable the state to requisi­ tion goods at a fraction o f their real costs, a shift that Jacobins perceived in terms o f public m orality and social fairness rather than o f predictable m a­ terial consequence. Pressured by the need to act in order to secure popular support and feed the arm y, Jacobins chose to forget that economic individualism w as basic to their purpose. Instead, they reasoned (as others in France had for cen­ turies) that everyone w as entitled to eat and that the opponents o f the max­ imum were selfish. Clubbistes kept a sharp eye on the price o f goods, food, and rents.42 The clubs dealt w ith food shortages directly. A t home, they oversaw local bakers closely, m onitoring the quality o f the bread. A t M arseilles the club actually took over the business o f baking bread in the ovens o f the city's fortresses. A t Rennes the club asked the m unicipality to subsidize

jacob in s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

177

bakers who could not make ends meet if they were to abide by the rates o f the maximum.43 A t Bordeaux some bread w as sold for a quarter o f its m ar­ ket value. In a sim ilar and practical vein, other clubs sang the praises o f the potato, advocated the exterm ination o f pets, and urged an interdict on brewing beer (which used hops) or m aking hair powders that had a flour base. They supported the decree o f Novem ber 1 7 , 17 9 3 , which imposed the dilution o f w heat w ith oats, hops, or chestnuts, now declared to be the ingredients o f a new "R epublican bread.” T o secure these econom ic goals, the clubs at first used m oral pressure to resolve w hat they took to be an ethical issue. But the Jacobins soon decided to use more efficacious means. Clubs excluded members w ho overcharged. A fter the summer o f 17 9 3 they took public m atters into their own hands, by identifying merchants w ho were violating the law and by arranging for their immediate arrest. In the spring o f 17 9 3 the club at Bourbourg decided to meet daily until it ensured that the maximum w as everywhere respected. Jacobins carried out m any other police functions. They brought their en­ emies to the attention o f judges and prosecutors. They tracked down draft dodgers and "suspects,” a term that w as loosely defined in September 17 9 3 when the clubs were authorized to draw up lists o f such people. E arly in the summer o f 17 9 z m any clubs spontaneously form ed depart­ mental "central committees” to gather, in the w ords o f a club at Bordeaux, "intelligence, transm it it to other central committees, and recommend appropnate action. Inevitably, the clubs and the Revolutionary Tribunals, both in the provinces and in Paris, grew ever closer. In the spring o f 17 9 3 m any clubs pushed for the creation o f tribunals. The clubs frequently acted as inform al prelim inary bodies that might decide to forw ard cases to the official courts. A t Amiens the local Revolutionary Tribunal actually met on the club's premises. A t Lunéville a person w ho had been acquitted in Paris w as rein­ carcerated when he decided to come home. An im portant responsibility involved the certificat de civisme (certificate o f civic virtue), a kind o f political passport w ithout which life could be­ come not just nasty but quite short. (In September 17 9 3 , citizens unable to produce these certificates were declared subject to immediate arrest.) In m any places, Paris especially, the clubs, or popular societies as they were called after the summer o f 17 9 3 , arrogated the right to give out— or withhold—certificates. Initially, in late 17 9 z, this prerogative had been en­ trusted to the police, to elected authorities, and to the more or less self-

178

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

started but legally sanctioned Committees o f Surveillance, some o f w hich had their origin in the spontaneous creations o f local clubs the years be­ fore.45 A t V ervins, sym bolically, the city hall or maison commune also housed the club and the Committee o f Surveillance.44 But in tim e, particu­ larly after M arch 17 9 3 when the Convention decided that every m unici­ pality should have such a committee, individual Jacobins infiltrated the committees. This supervision o f police action gave great pow er to the clubbistes, to such a degree that in Jan uary 17 9 4 an anxious Convention ordered the so­ cieties to stop demanding that public officials be able to produce the certifi­ cates,47 whose use w as gradually abolished after the summer o f 17 9 4 . Jacobins also stepped up their control o f elected officials w ho were not Jacobins. In 17 9 0 they had begun by am icably criticizing local officials, but after 17 9 1 they increasingly aimed to supplant them. The problem , ex­ plained Brissot to the Paris club in A pril 17 9 z, w as not that some o fficials were Jacobins. It w as instead that all officials were not yet Jacobin s: "w ould it please heaven that everyone be a Jacobin , from the public ser­ vant w ho sits on the throne to the m ost humble clerk in the m inisterial o f­ fices!” 48 A fter June 17 9 3 , when Brissot had been excluded from the club, Jacobins did in fact take over countless im portant governm ental posts. O n September 1 3 ,1 7 9 3 , they were entrusted w ith the supervision o f local o ffi­ cials. In Novem ber 17 9 3 the Convention decided to circularize them rou­ tinely so that they might know w hat w as expected o f them by the state. O n Novem ber 13 clubs were authorized to filter candidates for office. T his change o f affairs made it difficult for them to go on as critics, a function the clubs never form ally abandoned, however. A s late as August 17 9 3 the Jacobins o f Breteuil, for exam ple, persisted in defining their task as surveil­ lance, not adm inistration.49 Jacobin clubbistes were now required to look for saltpeter, direct road repairs, pave streets, hunt down w ild anim als, set the time for local m ar­ kets, supervise prices, oversee harvesting and threshing, recommend suit­ able candidates for local office, inspect birth and death records, check m ail deliveries, and so on. In A pril 17 9 3 the w ar m inistry directly asked the clubs for opinions on the reliability o f arm y officers. They were used also to publicize law s and, if need be, to translate them into local dialect. In brief, Jacobins were very busy. N ot unjustly, at M arseilles in the sum­ mer o f 17 9 3 a conservative Republican faction that had briefly overthrow n

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

179

the more radical group which had previously taken over the local club la­ beled these left Jacobins as "intriguers and anarchists . . . (who) disposed o f everything, pronounced on everything, and arrogated to [themselves] universal pow er.” 50

n

he Jacob in s' fevered pace reminds us also o f the m akeshift nature o f

the revolutionary state. Conventionnels often accepted the clubs as part­ ners because they had no alternative. The First Republic had few officials, and fewer established routines. In a w ay, the revolutionary government’s reliance on terror, on m ilitary repression, and on the clubs as w ell all speak to the inadequate institutional development o f the French revolutionary state and to the relative inefficiency o f its police. H owever feared, the revo­ lutionary police w as far less efficient than the royal police had been before

1789 , or than N apoleon’s im perial police w ould be after 1800 . In any instance, the connection between the clubs and the national as­ semblies, kept purposefully loose at first, had tightened by m id -179 3. In 1 7 9 1 Jacobins had determined that the Legislative Assem bly could do no right. But in 17 9 3 the Convention could do no w rong. W hy were the Poles holding out against the Russians? Because, explained the Nouvelles poli­ tiques, the patriot Tadeusz Kosciusko had o f late stayed for some months in Paris and seen the nation’s deliberative assem bly at w ork. "It’s in the N ational Convention that he found this sacred fire o f liberty, this hatred o f tyranny and this love o f the people, w ithout which an insurrectionary chief is nothing but a tyrant.” 51 Before 17 8 9 publicists had argued that public opinion w as above the king. But in 17 9 3 Jacobins concluded that public opinion w as not above but w ithin the N ational Convention. True, adm it­ ted a Jacobin journalist at Besançon, the news o f Robespierre’s conspiracy in August 17 9 4 w as shocking, but his errors proved only that all should stick w ith the Convention through thick and thin: "L et us bless . . . the supreme being who has guided the hand o f our representatives . . . who has enlightened the people about their true interests, and w ho has rallied it around our national representatives.” 52 The Conventionnels en mission, who radiated out from Paris to the provinces, also had a close connection to the clubs. These deputies relied on the clubs and, to make them more secure, often purged their member­ ship. Their visits were trium phal and carefully orchestrated events with

i8o

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

firew orks, bells, banquets, bonnets, and trees o f liberty. Conventionnels like C arnot, who in Paris stayed aw ay from the club, attended and joined the provincial clubs when on tour. Particularly gratifying w as the appear­ ance o f a local hero w ho had made good and returned as a living expres­ sion o f national sovereignty.53 A fter June 17 9 3 the Jacobins’ devotion to whatever the Convention wanted rose to unprecedented heights. M ore than seven thousand congratulatory addresses were sent to the Convention by the clubs between August 17 9 3 and August 17 9 4 . Indeed, so reliable had the clubs become to the state that the state som e­ times took them for granted. In late 17 9 3 and early 17 9 4 , m indful o f this devotion, the Conventionnels and the arm y could and did bypass the clubs at w ill. M aure, on his mission to A uxerre, com plained in the early summer o f 17 9 4 that sm all clubs often got in his w ay: “ Y ou can hardly im agine, citizen colleagues, how the committees in the sm all communes and the societies that have been set up there recently annoy the constituted authori­ ties and obstruct the march o f governm ent. . . Their misdeeds must con­ stantly be set right.” 54 Likew ise, C arnot, in Paris, “ organized” the R evolu ­ tion’s m ilitary victory not prim arily through the clubs but through the state’s tentatively reconstituted system , which, ironically, had been seri­ ously disrupted by Jacobin purges o f lukewarm but experienced officials in the fall o f 17 9 3 , in western France especially, where it seemed from Paris that experienced civil servants had often been replaced by inefficient revo­ lutionaries. So it w as that Robespierre on 2 6 Ventôse, Y ear II, warned the clubs no longer to purge state employees at w ill. The governm ent would lose control o f the nation if they did, and the clubs would succumb to “ am bition and intrigue” if that pow er were granted to them.55 Agents o f the centralized state did not hesitate to threaten the clubs just as they threatened everyone: “ if you do not act on my request w ithin tw enty-four hours,” w rote an

agent national to the club at Carcassone, “ I w ill instruct the Committee o f Public Safety o f your silence.” 56 A t Bouzigues, near M ontpellier, an an­ noyed official w rote to the sociétaires that he w as surprised by their passiv­ ity. Z eal and patriotism should have pushed them along. “ Y ou r inter­ m inable delays force me to demand [your paym ent].” 57

rs

'^ 'o m e critics o f Jacobinism have explained its drift to repression and

bloodshed citing the perennial (and therefore ahistorical) urges o f men to

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

♦

18 1

kill their fathers, m arry their m others, and commit other sins. One can point, for exam ple, to the Jacobins’ supposedly O edipal desire to kill their father-king-priest in Jan uary 17 9 3 in order to possess or repossess their m other-nation.58 Arguments o f this psychiatric type have plausibility today, given our cur­ rent fram e o f m ind; and French Jacobins did use a psychiatrically curious, neoclassical language o f m artyrdom and sacrifice. But so did m any other eighteenth-century revolutionaries, from Boston to Geneva, w ith quite dif­ ferent effect. But in terms o f this book’s objectives, not much is to be gained from juxtaposing a political statement like Jacobinism to ahistorical generalities regarding m ankind’s psychiatric structures. Indeed, the me­ chanical application o f “ psychosocial” or Freudian analysis in the 19 9 0s is no more fruitful than were the mechanical applications o f crude M arxist analysis in the 19 5 0 s. A better point to be made about the Jacobins’ supposed blood lust is to remember, again, that m ost Jacobins as private persons disliked, or indeed despised, the Terror. Robespierre w as in principle opposed to the death penalty, which Grégoire described in Novem ber 17 9 a as a “ barbaric residue [ce reste de barbarie\.” 59 Jacobins grieved over the division o f their country and their clubs. Although purges were a necessity, they com pared the exclusion o f any Republican to a w ake.60 The guillotine seemed to them a horrifying object which w as restlessly shifted from place to place in Paris, as every chosen site unexpectedly proved to be inadequate or em bar­ rassing. The Jacob in s' instinctive reaction to the T error w as less apparent in Saint-Just (who him self eventually perceived its frozen uselessness) than in Cam ille Desm oulins, w ho in December 17 9 3 quoted M achiavelli on the subject: terror, he thought, w as the characteristic tool o f despots because, as the Italian had explained, it engendered an equality o f fear. H ow reveal­ ing w as the unknown Jacobin o f M etz w ho rose in his club in the spring o f 17 9 4 to say that “ if T error is the order o f the day for patriots as w ell, that w ould be the end o f liberty. Then the republic w ould have been a dream and despotism w ould have risen once again, more awesom e and hideous than ever.” 61 For the Jacobins, terror w as neither a ruse o f history, as m aterialist his­ torians have argued, nor an inevitable response to m aterially ascertainable dangers. N or w as it the realization o f innerm ost, sadistic desires, as some w ould have it today, or the w ork o f perverse men suddenly empowered by bizarre circum stance.

i8 z

♦

Jacobin s as the Free Citizens o f a O ne-Party State

Jacobins fell back on repression and terrorism less because o f their p rob­ lems and their principles (on sovereignty in particular) than because o f the inherited social atavism s that structured their sensibility and that ran d i­ rectly against the grain o f their Enlightenment ideas. "T erro r,” w rites A n ­ toine de Baecque, an exceptionally lucid historian o f this period, "[set] it­ self up as a last judgment and [became] politics taken as religion.” 62 H istoriographic opinions on Jacobin terrorism have differed and alw ays w ill differ broadly. For some, as in the judgment o f a contem porary and distinguished historian, consciously understood envy drove the Revolution to extrem es: "it w as from . . . visceral hatred, not from the refined abstrac­ tions o f the contented cultural elite, that the extrem e Jacobin revolution found its authentic voice.” 63 For others, excessively universalist, R ousseauean principles were at stake. In this second view , any program o f "c rit­ ical rationality” w ill evolve into statist abuse. Finally, the T error o f 17 9 3 -9 4 has been defended as a reasonable and Jacobin alternative, as a reaction o f “ coactive energy” galvanized by fo r­ eign and domestic threat, but it is equally unsatisfactory to see Jacobins as fated to tyrannous abuse. In these pages, the Terror is seen instead as a brutalized, backw ard­ looking gesture o f despair, as in this unwittingly com ic proposal o f some Jacobins in a sm all town not far from Paris: That on the days of our meetings and especially when they fall on a décadi . . . some of our members will betake themselves to the above mentioned drinking places, w ill study the mind of the drinkers, will make known to them the happiness and felicity which are felt by all the citizens o f a free government and the incalculable advantages promised to us by our holy Revolution. And if by chance, some citizens allowed themselves to speak too belittlingly of the Revolution, they would be ordered arrested with the most stringent rigor.64 The Jacobins’ decision to fall back on terror w as for them a bitter and hor­ rifying irony, as it must also seem to us today.

7 Social Reconciliation: Fraternity The moral condition o f a nation results less from the absolute state of its members than from their relationships to each other. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Fragments politiques

¿ 7 acobin ideology strove for unity. Its starkly polarized constituent parts were intended to be reciprocative and com plem entary: civil society and the public good; public man and private wom an; nationalism and internation­ alism . The Jacobins hoped that the disciplined self and the nurturing na­ tion w ould soon be fitted together and rem ain so alw ays, tw o parts, as it w ere, o f a single doctrine o f "N ation al Individualism .” For the Jacobins, freedom w as both a promise o f becoming and a contract o f harm onious and accepted obligation. Consider the w ords o f

clubbistes at Louhans during a fête décadaire in honor o f Rousseau. From the top o f an artificial m ountain, they preached "the Rights o f M an, the sacrifice o f the Passions, and the Duties we have to one another . . . O! such a lovely m orality. Everyone cordially embraced his and her neigh­ b or.” 1 “ A ll citizens,” explained Barère on August 1 3 , 17 9 3 , “ are in the debt o f Liberty . . . M en, wom en, children, in the name o f liberty and equality . . . the M otherland calls you all to help the armies o f the R e­ public . . . Here we are united [nous somme tous solidaires] the m etal­ lurgist like the legislator, the physicist and the blacksm ith, the savant and the day w orker . . . the im poverished artisan and the rich landlords, the

18 4

*

Social Reconciliation

inhabitant o f the country and the city dweller. Everything is reunited. T h ey are all brothers. They are all useful. They w ill all be honored.” 2 A t A igues M ortes the local Jacobins (whose club w as officially named the Society o f the School o f Patriotism Established at Aigue Vives) basked in content­ ment when they observed young and old, sisters and brothers, m agistrates and soldiers, all dancing the farandole. Everything w as in harm ony, even the birds, Mw ho joining their song to those o f all these Frenchmen and wom en, filled the air with their m elodious sounds, and seemed to pay trib ­ ute to the regenerators o f liberty.” 3 Jacobins liked patriotic songs th at were sung in unison. They did not like bawdy tunes. They did not m ake clever, cruel jokes.4 A t Toul the club’s charter explicitly ruled out m ali­ cious pleasantries since these were “ hum iliating, embittering, gave birth to hatred, and destroyed the spirit o f fraternity that should rule in our m eet­ ings.” 5 In the w ords o f O ctavio Paz, humor creates am biguity, and the J a ­ cobins were unam biguously fraternal. They cherished harm ony. Patriotism , explained a Jacobin orator at M ontpellier, required “ l’union parfaite des corps adm inistratifs, m ilitaires, judiciaires, et religieux.” 6 Dissent not just in politics but in any significant cultural or civil dom ain w as prima facie unacceptable: “ it is not from the wom b o f discord and public disorder that happiness can be born.” 7 “ The common interest,” wrote Sieyès, “ is to consider and treat one another reci­ procally as the means, and not as the obstacles, to our happiness . . . The exercise o f force dislocates all social relationships and those o f hum anity.” 8 Jacobins opposed the death penalty for civil, nonpolitical crim es and cor­ poral punishment in schools. In their quest for more perfect unions, Jacobins looked forw ard to find operative instruments o f togetherness, and backw ard to postulate a unify­ ing view o f man. They adopted negative strategies— derived from age-old cultural atavism s— such as the pursuit o f common enemies and the artifices o f rhetoric. But they also had a positive sense o f the underlying unity o f so­ cial and m oral life. Central to the Jacobins’ unifying sensibility w as the classically enlight­ ened belief that all form s o f life made ordered, balanced sense. The cosm os, history, public life, and the duties o f the citizens form ed interlocking rings o f concentric truths. M ost Jacobins had probably not heard o f the high theories used to justify this view o f life, like the G reat Chain o f Being, which since ancient Greece w as said to unite the cosm os. N or did they know o f the Sw iss biologist-

Social Reconciliation

♦

18 5

philosopher Charles Bonnet (17 2 0 -17 9 3 ), w ho proved—to his own satisfac­ tion at least—that all m oral truths overlapped.9 But they shared Bonnet's sensibility. They were fascinated by the wholeness o f G od’s creation. "M i­ croscopic discoveries," w rote M irabeau’s philo-Jacobin doctor, Georges C a­ banis, "h ave taught us that life is everyw here. . . [In] the very organization o f our fibers, there m ay exist innumerable causes o f different form s o f life, whose correspondence and harm ony w ith the system taken as a whole . . . m akes up our s e lf. . . A ll form s o f life in order to be entire and whole must be set within the totality o f a single life endowed w ith every m ajor o rg an ."10 "N atu re," explained Saint-Just in his description o f the king as an antisocial being, "creates life from a union o f elem ents."11 "L ib erty,” said a Jacobin in a remote city o f central France, w as like "a great electric chain o f which the society at Tulle is the last ring and whose first link is in the hands Robes­ pierre, o f Pétion, o f G régoire, o f the im m ortal M irab eau ."12 N ation and political unity overlapped, o f course, but Jacobins did not stop there. A ny m anifestation o f social discontinuity— in the nation as a whole or in any private context— disconcerted them. In the next generation m any Rom antic w riters w ould hold to a truncated vision o f social life, which posited that some chosen private (and poetic) lives might thrive am id public ruinations. Jacobins denied that view . There w as, for exam ple, no room in their schemes o f togetherness for de­ viance, antisocial excess, or crim inality. They felt harsh tow ard civil as w ell as political crim inals. "It has to b e," explained Couthon in M ay 17 9 4 , "th at these domestic crim es [cohabitation out o f wedlock] should disap­ pear as public crimes w ill disappear; and for that to happen, [public] opin­ ion has to speak clearly, and crush in its execration all those w ho practice [them ].” 13 A t Coutances the club decreed a “ state o f permanent surveil­ lance o f m orality," a task it decided to entrust to the "sexe m odeste.” 14 Jacobins instinctively resisted conflict. In handling civil excesses and dis­ putes, they invariably inclined to reconciliation, arbitration, and juries. M arriage, they thought, should be a freely consensual, m utually binding contract. D ivorce, when they legislated it into being in September 17 9 2 , w as essentially arranged by mutual consent, especially when children were not involved. Their penal code provided for local "tribunals o f concilia­ tions” to settle petty quarrels. The theory o f the absolutist Old Regim e had assumed that only state and monarch stood between chaos and civil order. In the m onarchy’s Christian scheme o f things, man w as a fallen, predatory creature. By contrast, the Ja -

1 86

♦

Social Reconciliation

cobins believed in the underlying immanence o f community. The state served to allow the emergence o f natural, immanent harm onies, rather than to reshape civil society. Couthon, when organizing in early 17 9 4 a m onthly burning o f feudal documents in his home departm ent, explained that he aimed Kto bring back peace and concord” (“ ramener la p aix et la concorde” ).15 Significantly, he did not say that such a step w ould create harm ony. Social peace, in his mind, had existed latently all along. Jacobinism optim istically w ove together private and collective selfimprovement. For the Jacobins, the Revolution had made it possible to bring personal purpose into accord with political goals, and these in turn expanded the citizen's sense o f private space. The idea o f regeneration made this vision o f self and public responsibil­ ity more accessible. In the revolutionary w ords o f Choderlos de Laclos, the sometime adviser o f Philippe Égalité (the Jacobin cousin o f the king) and the author o f a scandalous novel entitled Liaisons dangereuses (a prerevo­ lutionary m anual o f sexual conquest and duplicitous m anipulation), the Revolution had “ regenerated the virtues and the happiness o f the people.” According to the Jacobin view , after m any centuries o f obscurantist dark­ ness, the French had blessedly recovered the proud character and the mas­ culine, vigorous, and conciliatory virtues that had prevailed in the coun­ try's sim pler past.16 Should a club exclude a man w ho had lied before he had joined the club but w ho had not lied since? Here w as a regenerative question the Jacobins o f Courthézon considered earnestly.17 Jacobins had a lively understanding o f the m any registers that modem W estern culture offers for self-construction, but they had a strong prefer­ ence for integrative values. Though certainly committed to self-becom ing, Jacobins despised the idea o f individualism taken as self-conscious, aestheticized, and solipsistic artifact. The Jacobin , for exam ple, w as clean and neatly dressed (unlike the sans-culotte) but he w as no self-displaying dandy. Jacobins did use clothing as a quasi-theatrical prop, but they looked less to the fashion o f the day than to historically or culturally sanc­ tioned signs o f civic virtue. Brissot, for exam ple, chose to dress in black like a Q uaker, a sartorial pose given credibility by a recent visit to Am ­ erica. Jacobins discounted visions o f the self defined by the acquisition o f ar­ cane learning, scholarship, or m anipulative Foucaldian control. “ The spec­ ulative sciences,” explained the M ontagnard Bouquier in December 17 9 3 , “ detach those w ho cultivate them from society.” The Jacobins considered

Social Reconciliation

♦

18 7

knowledge m erely the handmaiden o f reigning goodness. They adm ired Ja ­ cobin m athematicians and scientists (like Condorcet or the chemist H assenfratz) more for their politics than for their science. In a debate on the prom otion o f naval officers, Le Chapelier denied the usefulness o f com peti­ tive exam ination (which favored those who had had the time to acquire book learning) and stressed character and experience instead: “ I w ant to see brothers-in-arm s w ho can usefully serve the nation.” 18 They were also unimpressed by w ealth and acquisition as a standard o f self-assertion. They conditionally approved o f man as producer, but only if his econom ic strivings coincided w ith the public good. They saved their enthusiasm for selflessly and even suicidally heroic indi­ viduals. They idealized those m oral souls w ho chose or accepted a patriotic death that transform ed individualism into com m unitarian wholeness. Robespierre, in late 1 7 9 1 , explained that he w ould gladly sacrifice his life to the nation and the future. "Should I be the victim o f some m iserable cabal, I w ill at least die w ith a name that w ill be dear to posterity.” 19 Sociability in its m ost affective form s— that is, sacrificial fraternity and unbounded friendship— were critical themes for them. They agreed with Saint-John’s judgment, "G reater love hath no man th a n . . . [he should] lay down his life for his friends.” "Je t'aim e plus que jam ais et jusqu'à la m ort” (I love you more than ever, and unto death), Robespierre w rote to the w idow ed Danton in February o f 17 9 3 . In his Institutions républicaines, Saint-Just went so far as to suggest that Jacobins should periodically take it upon themselves to explain to their fellow citizens w hy they had broken with form er friends, if such had been their sad fate. This obligation the Ja ­ cobins never set into law (!), but friendship they valued till the end. (At Alençon the Girondin-dom inated club w as called the Society o f Assembled Friends.) The illness o f a fellow Jacobin alw ays caused concern. Clubs often delegated members to visit sick colleagues and bring them food and newspapers.20 They attended the funerals o f deceased colleagues and w ore mourning for them; on one particularly im portant occasion, the club at A ix bought four yards o f black ribbon to distribute. T o underscore their friend­ liness, the clubbistes took up age-old rituals o f sociability: a member at Auch reminded his peers that in olden tim es, when a "frère com pagnon” (a member o f the century-old guilds) had left the city, his friends would w alk with him a w ays, carrying his bag; Jacobins, he thought, should do the same with departing volunteers.21 In his lament on the death o f Chalier, who had been executed by anti-Jacobins at Lyons, C ollot d’H erbois ex­

1 88

♦

Social Reconciliation

plained that his friend's despair w as born not o f w eakness, or fear, but from the "cruel idea o f having been abandoned by the Jaco b in s."22 Friendship opened the private into the public. D om estically, friendship brought together individuals o f different age and gender. Publicly, am ity stood as a sign that m aterial differences o f w ealth and rank could be tran­ scended by men o f good w ill. In O ctober 17 9 3 Parisian Jacobins spear­ headed the use o f the revolutionary and inform al pronoun tu instead o f the more form al vous, just as they had also dropped the use o f the w ord M on­

sieur.23 Jacobins praised sacrificial m ilitary courage and were especially taken w ith courageous assertions o f defiant loyalty. Some clubs required that clubbistes in their speeches call each other "b ro th er." Jacobins continuously purged their ranks, but often for the sake o f fraternity. By elim inating unworthy brethren, orthodox Jacobins made brotherly affection more feasible for those w ho remained. Even sodom y, incest, rape, and other acts proposed by the M arquis de Sade were presented as fraternal (or sororal) gestures. It w as only by realiz­ ing all o f their varied sexual im pulses, explained this opportunistic Jacobin , that men— by their nature at w ar w ith themselves, with wom en, and w ith one another— could perceive their underlying and Republican sameness. Sade’s bizarre ideas were w holly unrepresentative; and yet, his Republic o f Evil w as a (grotesque) elaboration rather than a plain denial o f Robespierre’s tyrannical Republic o f V irtue, where applied goodness rather than tran­ scended evil enabled men to be at one w ith their fellow revolutionaries. The Jacobin ideal o f fraternity w as most clearly expressed in the joyful and participatory revolutionary fête. Both D iderot and Rousseau had criti­ cized the celebrations o f the O ld Regim e as too ritualized, artificial, and lacking in public grandeur. But the Revolution gave their heirs and disci­ ples a chance to transform these public holidays, after 17 9 2 especially. Revolutionaries took to commemorating the great moments o f the Revolu­ tion. The taking o f the Bastille w as a favorite landm ark. The celebrations o f such revolutionary holy days were coterm inous with the life o f the clubs. The fêtes were the “ cornerstones o f liberty” ; and the committee in charge o f preparing them often w as— after the Committees o f Correspondence— one o f the m ost im portant agencies o f the societies. A ll over France, clubs actively staged revolutionary fêtes, which were under­ stood to be both festive and political events. In Paris, fo r exam ple, D avid’s staging on A pril 1 5 , 17 9 2 , o f the rehabilitation o f the Sw iss guards o f Chateauvieux provided a radical Jacobin response to a conservative fête

Social Reconciliation

♦

18 9

that the N ational Assem bly had ordered to commemorate the death o f M ayor Simoneau. In 17 9 4 Robespierre proposed that the republic set up twenty-three universalist celebrations, the m ost fam ous o f which—the Fes­ tival o f the Supreme Being—took place on June 8, when tens o f thousands o f citizens assembled in Paris and all over France to celebrate this pastoral commemoration o f nature's productive goodness. The clubbistes placed constant emphasis on the unifying purpose o f the

fête and o f the revolutionary celebrations. In Paris, w rote a revolutionary journalist on the occasion o f M irabeau’s funeral, which w as attended by “ nearly all the deputies," it seemed that “ all o f the French People from the [nation's] eighty-three departm ents" were present there.24 “ Every estate, all ages, all sexes [sic]," w rote a Jacobin from M ontauban about a fête staged there in the summer o f 1 7 9 1 , “ form ed a ravishing spectacle. . . [it w as like] a charm that swept up even those who were m ost indifferent to this kind o f pleasure."25 T o underscore its holistic purpose, a fête might pair men and wom en; civilians and soldiers; mothers and daughters; soldiers and o ffi­ cers; boys and girls w ho were reciting alternate verses o f the D eclaration o f the Rights o f M an in contrapuntal rhythm ; the healthy and the sick or wounded; the youthful and the aged. Pregnant women (representing conti­ nuity) might carry sheaves o f w heat, bruits, vegetables. A t M etz the club in­ volved a com pany o f sexagenarians carrying pikes and preceded by a sign that read, “ a citizen is bom , lives, and dies for the fatherland."26 In “ Bourg-régénéré" (Bourg-en-Bresse) the local club's commemoration o f the abolition o f slavery w as particularly expressive: twenty youths dressed as w arriors surrounded by as m any women preceded a float w ith a young citizeness representing equality. On another float perched young white women breastfeeding black babies and young black women breastfeeding white babies. T w o more citizenesses on horseback, one representing virtue and the other liberty, accom panied liberty's chariot.27 Ideally, all o f the villagers w ould take part in their tow n’s celebration, and where that w as not possible, unity and transparency were expressed indi­ rectly. The w idely celebrated fêtes de la Victoire (like the ones held in Jan u ­ ary and February 17 9 4 to celebrate the victory o f Toulon) went one step fur­ ther by associating the cult o f the victorious dead to the cult o f living heroes. Though choirs and singers each had their role in the fêtes, the music o f these events subordinated orchestras to collective voices. H arm onic variety w as reduced to make the music o f these celebrations more accessible to all, and in the autumn o f 17 9 3 polyphonic music (which implied a divided so­

19 0

♦

Social Reconciliation

cial body) virtually disappeared, replaced by “ hom ophonie, choral w ritin g, predictable harm onies, and eminently singable m elodies,” 28 like “ La M a r­ seillaise.” A cross Europe, these revolutionary cantatas, with their “ m assed choruses and m artial airs,” later became im portant sources for nineteenthcentury opera, whose subjects were often political (persecuted H uguenots, Sicilian rebels, Rom an revolutionaries, and the like).29 O f necessity, the ostensible m otives for staging a fête changed radically as the Revolution progressed: the installation o f a bishop in 1 7 9 1 ; republi­ canism in the summer o f 17 9 3 ; and dechristianization in the fall o f 17 9 3 . (The club at Fontainebleau staged thirty-seven different kinds o f celebra­ tions.)30 But the need for Jacobinism to celebrate its existence as an inclu­ sive doctrine did not change. . The Jacobins favored charity as another theme o f reconciliation. A s p ri­ vate persons, they certainly did not disdain either respectability or prop­ erty, which they took to be a guarantee o f individualism and personal inde­ pendence, as it had also been for the R adical W higs and John Locke in both Britain and Am erica. On M arch 2 ,1 7 9 3 , for exam ple, in a report that dealt w ith the desirability o f selling confiscated property in large or sm all lots, the Conventionnel D elacroix, w ho wished to increase the number o f landowning peasants, assumed as a m atter o f course that it is “ above all else am ong those w ho own land that the homeland can hope to find that the courage which is needed to defend it is united to the love o f order and the respect for law s.” 31 But poverty had a certain aura for Jacobins nonetheless. Bad luck, thought these contented owners o f property, entitled the unfortunate to the solicitude o f the fortunate. Jacobins also sensed that in daily life, property w as just as likely to be a sign o f prideful vice as it w as o f virtuous generos­ ity, perhaps even more so. They were relieved when able to be kind, to in­ vite local indigents gratis to their fraternal banquets. For them, as fo r Rousseau, human nature w as defined by both self-assertion (amour-propre) and com passion (pitié). Robespierre spoke o f every m an’s right to subsist, and he praised “ that im perious impulse which attracted all Jacobin s” to­ w ard “ enfeebled m en.” In Paris, in M ay 17 9 4 , at Robespierre’s prom pting, the Convention provided fo r a fête du malheur, and at Périgueux the club-

bistes dedicated it to M arat.32 Jacobins felt an especially strong impulse to be charitable w ith fellow Jacobins and soldiers, their children, com panions, and w idow s. M any clubs had a Committee o f Benevolence,33 a counterpart to the better known Committees o f Surveillance. Jacobins adm ired a fellow

Social Reconciliation

♦

19 1

clubbiste who had selflessly and quietly disrobed in a corridor to give his shirt to a deserving person. They sympathized w ith the victim s o f any great m isfortune, however distant. When a m ajor fire at Lim oges made three thousand people homeless, the local clubbistes appealed to Jacobins all over France for help: uas human beings, as Frenchmen, as friends o f the constitution, we address ourselves to you, to beg you to come to the succor o f our dear and unfortunate fellow citizens.” 34 Jacobins raised funds for the civilian victim s o f the Austrians* bombardment o f Lille, and for the fam ilies o f volunteers from the department o f the G ard w ho had drowned in the Rhone. M any Jacobins understood the need for free legal advice, free medical care (many clubs had a Health Com m ittee), and old age homes or, as at Valognes, "asylum s” where the sick and elderly might find shelter and com pany.35 Jacobins apprehended that generosity, citizenship, and the sustained tol­ erance o f destitution were ultim ately incom patible. Although censorious o f w orkers who placed their pay before the needs o f the public good, Jacobins also took note o f "the dangers to which m isery might expose the Constitu­ tion” ;34 and any scheme that could increase the ranks o f owners o f prop­ erty w as welcome to them. They warm ed to the idea o f redistribution through confiscation, especially o f émigré properties; and in the spring o f 17 9 4 some o f them at least gave thought to generalizing these confiscatory practices. A Jacobin o f Loudun even mused in late 17 9 z that H arrington’s Oceana w as "un excellent plan pour la communauté des biens” (an excel­ lent plan for the community o f goods).37 Patriotism , in the w ords o f the president o f a Norm andy club in Jan uary 1 7 9 1 , w as not just about sacrificing one’s blood for the nation: "it is also about turning the enemies o f the Revolution into the zealous partisans o f our liberty.” Suppressing abuses, they knew, meant sacrifice and perhaps even coerced sacrifice; but their prim ordial goal, they also knew, w as to make brotherly proselytes, not m artyrs: "T h e intolerance o f priests nearly destroyed Catholicism . Let this great danger be an exam ple for the priests o f liberty.” 38 Jacobins believed in patience and com passion: "those men who are the enemies o f our principles need to be understood: because they are the victim s o f habit and prejudice, it is hard for them to accept ideas that are beyond their strength.” 39 M any clubs had Committees o f Concilia­ tion: at Toulon the committee worked "to dry up every source o f internal division.” 40 The club thought highly o f this institution and threatened to disenfranchise associated clubs that did not have one.

1 9 2.

♦

Social Reconciliation

Typical o f the Jacobins’ desire to please and to reconcile their fellow citi­ zens w as the decision o f the M arseilles club to send out three profession­ al arbitrators as com m issioners to the neighboring department o f the Vaucluse in 17 9 z . (One o f them, named M onbrion, charged one hundred livres a day for his w ork, and his yearly income o f 10 ,0 0 0 livres surpassed the dreams o f avaricious sans-culottes. He liked his w ork, which he had taken on, he said, because “ a lack o f instruction” lay behind all disagree­ ments.)41 A favorite time in the life o f the clubs and o f the N ational Assem blies w as those moments when members, heretofore divided by some quarrel, suddenly fell into each other’s arm s. The best-known such instance, the “ baiser de Lam ourette,” occurred in Paris on Ju ly 7, 17 9 z , when in re­ sponse to a call by a Girondin bishop o f that name, all deputies em braced. Lam ourette had sought to reconcile those who yearned for a second cham ber— which w as anathema to the left— and those w ho yearned for a republic, which w as anathema to the right. (Lam ourette, alas, w as executed shortly afterw ard.) Priests who abjured their vow s on the floor o f the clubs were ritually entitled to a public embrace. The Jacobins considered the ability to forgive as im portant as the ability to defend their principles. Jacobins were expected to be “ inflexibles et inex­ orables,” but they also thought o f themselves as “ justes et hum ains.” They deemed it appropriate to extend amnesties on the anniversaries o f great events. M any o f the fêtes the Jacobins orchestrated had reconciliation as a theme, forgiveness being the natural complement o f (lapsed) togetherness. A t Aigues Vives (form erly Aigues M ortes) the ceremonies inaugurating the club involved a contrapuntally perform ed Te Deum, w ith Catholics and Protestants singing alternating verses.42 Clubs were ashamed o f quarreling, and the Strasbourg Jacobins decided to leave blank pages in their minutes o f storm y meetings, until such time as peace had been restored.43 In June 1 7 9 1 , after the disputes occasioned by the king’s flight to Varennes, the ultraradical Jacobins o f A ix (who styled themselves the anti-politiques, since politics were necessarily divisive) promised to forget all private quar­ rels and to banish from their bosom anyone w ho made an allusion to the king’s flight. Even at the T error’s high point, the A ixois clubbistes argued that the Convention could not encourage anticlericalism because ensuing quarrels w ould be hum iliatingly derisory. The Revolution’s aim , they went on, w as “ to banish from the breasts o f men all causes o f grief, all seeds o f hate.” 44

Social Reconciliation

♦

19 3

The Feuillant schism in the fall o f 17 9 1 instituted exclusion, soon to be follow ed by execution in the fall o f 17 9 3 . But the initial response o f over tw o hundred shocked and provincial clubs w as to urge the Parisian Ja ­ cobins o f the right and o f the left to mend their w ays together. The club at Bergues reminded the friends o f Bam ave and Robespierre that they were but tw o parts o f a single "m other society.” 45 T w o years later, the response o f the A urillac club to the M ontagnard-Girondin schism w as sim ilarly ecu­ menical: "w e know nothing about a right side or a left side, or about mountains and valleys, or about any o f these labels, which w ould be both ridiculous and insignificant, if they were not dangerous . . . Here all patri­ ots are united to defend their liberty.” 46 In short, dissensions o f all kinds were unpleasant to the Jacobin s, even sm all and fam ilial ones, since they knew that great oaks o f public strife might grow from the sm all acorns o f private unhappiness. "Argum ents and discord, stirred on by fanaticism , are racking this city,” concluded the Ja ­ cobins o f Auch, in the Pyrénées. A private quarrel could at any moment be­ come the signal for civil w ar. “ R ivers o f blood might flow .” 47 Jacobin clubs liked to stage the forgiveness o f old quarrels, as at Lunéville, where a local noble burnt his letters o f nobility before his fellow clubbistes and forgave a

curé w ith whom he had been quarreling for h alf a decade.48

lith Schlanger has w ritten, rightly, that the "great, irreplaceable” ad­ vantage o f the body as an organic m etaphor is its sim ultaneous ability to describe and to make understandable.49 For the Jacobins, it w as the image o f the fam ily that played this all-im portant role. The Paris Jacobins were the "m other society.” M arseilles w as "the eldest son.” M any provincial centers w rote o f regional clubs as their children. Jacobins were com pletely devoted to the theme o f the nuclear fam ily, as a sym bol and as unifying fact in political and social life. Ideally, the Republican fam ily w as to be a perfect m icrocosm o f the larger nation, an instrument o f socialization that prepared the child to become a participating member in the political com ­ m unity. N ot surprisingly, clubs presented themselves sometimes as "the mothers o f all citizens” and as fam ilies, or "second fam ilies,” to their mem­ bers. In his com plaint o f m id-July 17 9 4 against populist assemblées sec­

tionnâmes, Couthon likened them to "denatured children w ho wanted to stifle their m other.” Clubbistes were brothers, fraternally united. One M ontagnard Jacobin , w hile railing against the Girondins in the Paris club,

19 4

♦

Social Reconciliation

explained that his enemies were like ungrateful children "tearing the bosom . . . o f their tender m other.” 50 Le Carpentier, a rather ferocious Conventionnel, w as welcom ed by the club at Saint-M alo to the popular song "W here Can One Be H appier Than in the Bosom o f One’s Own Fam ­ ily ?” a tune written by André G rétry and much praised by D iderot years before. One club turned aw ay a visitor so that it might deliberate "e n fam ille,” which even in a literal sense w as not untrue, since m any Jacob in s signed themselves onto membership roles w ith fam ilial tags, as in D upont

fils, or Durand père (junior, senior, uncle, nephew, and so on). A t Stras­ bourg the founding charter authorized fathers to bring their sons to the meetings. A t G aillac the city fathers readily granted a certificat de civism e to Jean-Antoine Courtaud because, inter alia, "he belongs to a fam ily that has alw ays provided proof o f pure and enlightened patriotism .” 51 The abbé Grégoire expressed relief at the thought that prosperous villagers, w h o used to m arry only w ithin their class (or, w hat w as even w orse, their ex­ tended and physiologically degenerate fam ilies), would now m arry beyond these lim its “ because w e have in France today only one fam ily.” 52 Fam ilial and political values overlapped, and the Grenoble Jacobins in the spring o f 17 9 4 looked forw ard to nurturing in the souls o f youthful cit­ izens “ the love o f the patrie, o f liberty, o f equality, and o f filial piety, the respect o f old age and m isfortune, the hatred o f tyrants.” 53 Jacobinism helped mothers and fathers to rethink even their most mundane fam ilial tasks: in the days o f the Old Regim e, swaddling had been enchainment; but now , these clothes, designed to conserve and strengthen the child, had be­ come so m any "tendres m aillots” (sweet swaddling clothes).54 An im por­ tant aspect o f revolutionary regeneration w as precisely that the O ld Regim e had fragmented French society, and that 17 8 9 had as it were "re fa ­ m iliarized” it: "after these Gothic institutions comes a simple legislation whose unity embraces an immense people, and creates a single and numer­ ous fam ily, inspired by the same feelings, concurring in the same view s.” 55 M arriage, like friendship, w as a great sym bol o f unity, a chance to bring together the private and the public, the real and the sym bolic. In V inay the club decided to stage yearly a wedding to unite "the m ost virtuous and pa­ triotic young wom an o f the district” and some "valorous soldier, distin­ guished by his Republican character and his m ilitary exploits.” 56 M any clubs provided dowries for poor and politically deserving brides. A (wid­ owed) Danton—though the perfect, hard-living, and sensual foil to driedup and, in C arlyle’s phrase, "sea-green” Robespierre (who probably died a

Social Reconciliation

♦

19 5

virgin)— took a w ife and not a mistress. Jacobins thought poorly o f celi­ bacy, which they considered a form o f egoism. In the Constitution o f 17 9 5 , membership in the Council o f Ancients w as restricted to m arried men and w idow ers. Like m arriage, divorce w as endorsed by the clubbistes in whose view the tw o institutions were not at all incom patible. The recognition o f m arital disunion did not license adultery but laid the groundwork for another, better-suited, and more productive union. (Jacobins liked large fam ilies and seemed oblivious to French society’s increasingly indulgent attitude to birth control.) The point o f divorce w as not m erely to separate unhappily yoked individuals. Its deeper purpose w as to enable them to recombine in new, different, and happier fam ilial units. Besides, like the fam ily, m arriage and divorce were not ends in themselves but means to higher and integra­ tive private and pubUc perm utations. When he suggested that childless cou­ ples be required to adopt a child, Saint-Just, as usual, went further than m ost Jacobins w ould dare to go; but in this m atter, at least, he did so along fam iliar lines. N o Jacobin , it m ay be added, ever endorsed abortion. Doctrinally, that stand w ould have made no sense to them. A s the moderate Ja ­ cobin Rabaut Saint-Étienne explained in the context o f the nation’s educa­ tional responsibilities, it w as the Jacobin state’s obligation to take the child in hand even in the cradle: "the unborn child already belongs to the na­ tion.” 57 Fam ily and citizenship went hand in hand. In a letter o f congratulation to the local juring bishop, w ho had just m arried a priest and a nun, the

clubbistes o f Périgueux rem arked that m any o f his now m arried priests were at last able to “ practice the m ost useful virtues . . . For a real patriot, the only good priest is the one w ho binds him self to the public good by the sweet ties o f m arriage and o f fatherhood.” 58 The curé o f Lavardens, w ho announced that he had m arried “ a shepherdess,” w as roundly cheered. Clubs censured priests w ho refused to m arry divorced people. “ Presbyterial celibacy” w as unnatural. Its practice w as a "sterile virtue” at best, and at w orst a breeding ground for vice. Jacobins did not hesitate to interfere in the fam ily life o f their fellow clubbistes. The Jacobins o f Nantes gravely considered the adm onitions o f their brethren from A lbi about an adolescent w ho had deserted "la m aison paternelle.” M any clubs sternly reminded members o f their fam ilial duties, o f the obligations o f the young to support aged and indigent parents espe­ cially.59 A t Béziers the club passed a judgment w orthy o f King Solom on in

19 6

♦

Social Réconciliation

a conflict involving a noble-bom young man named N attes, his beloved, and her father, Estagnol, w ho had invoked the exclusion o f the noble-bom Jacobin radical Le Peletier, brother o f the w ell-known m artyr, from the Paris Jacobins in order to reject the young noblem an's proposal o f m ar­ riage. The club vouched for this ci-devant (ex-noble): “ His republicanism has entirely purged him o f his birth stain: the sans-culottes have adopted him as a brother"; it m ied that N attes could m arry M ile. Estagnol at some later time, after she had turned twenty-one.60 H alf-jokingly, a Jacobin at Brive suggested that patriots who were celibate and wanted to divorce should have their pick o f aristocratic wom en.61 N oble women who had se­ cured a divorce from their émigré husbands and w ho were suspected o f hav­ ing done so to preserve fam ily properties were strongly urged to rem arry. Nevertheless, fam ilies were not alw ays an unmixed blessing, and Ja ­ cobins endorsed fam ilial life only insofar as it w as the means to larger R e­ publican togetherness. Jacobins were quite aw are that fam ilies might be­ come tyrannical or, even w orse, the instruments o f collective selfishness. They prized Brutus, w ho had murdered Caesar, his adopted father. The fam ily w as not an end in itself but— like the clubs and the Revolution— an institution that enabled individuals to become their true selves. Fam ilies taken as particular units—that is, fam ilies (like those o f the Parlem entaires under the O ld Regime) which served either to thw art individual members or to yoke their varied egoism s so as to thw art the public good— were not just bad but perverse and unnatural. In consequence, Jacobins took m any steps to deny nepotism in the management o f clubs. They did not tolerate fam ily intrigues, which had been the w arp and w oof o f life under the O ld Regim e. Arranged m arriages were not to their liking. They were uninter­ ested in the continuity o f fam ilies and o f fam ily patrim onies, and thus set the rights o f heirs, whether male or fem ale, above fam ilial prerogative. “ C hildren,” said Barère on June 1 ,1 7 9 4 , “ belong to the general fam ily, to the republic, before they belong to particular fam ilies. W ithout this princi­ ple, there can be no Republican education."62 Jacobins also favored adoption, another indication that w hile devoted to the theme o f fam ily, they had no interest in blood ties, or race, fam ilially o r collectively defined. On routinely hum anitarian grounds, the clubs sup­ ported the creation o f orphanages, but their interest in the parentless had deeper causes. Clubs acted as godparents to children, gave them Republi­ can names (C ato, Portia), and at times even adopted orphaned children di­ rectly. The clubs acted tow ard these children as the state did to the clubs,

Social Reconciliation

♦

19 7

and as the clubs did to one another: as members o f a single fam ily. A t N érac, the clubbistes urged the N ational Assem bly to advise m unicipalities all over France to adopt the children o f fallen soldiers: "b y more energeti­ cally electrifying the patriotism o f . . . fam ilies, [adoption] w ould perpetu­ ate from generation to generation a hotbed o f soldiers o f liberty and heroes o f the fatherland.” 63 Agree to be affiliated w ith us, w rote the society o f Agde to the Paris Jacobins: "w e w ould be pleased to be your adoptive children.” 64

V » / he inner peace and fam ilial harm ony Jacobins sought im plied a par­ ticular perception o f the se ifs relation to its own desires. Here again, Rousseau, w ho so eerily expressed Jacobin sensibility long before Jacobin­ ism existed, w as a model Jacobins could easily understand. A conscientious individual had to exercise extrem e self-control. By lim iting his am bitions and his needs, by requiring less, every citizen could give more and thereby secure greater spiritual fullness. A s one Jacobin put it, "to live frugally is to diminish our needs and to guarantee our independence.” 65 In Paris Louvet (who w as notoriously fond o f sweets) made the same point in a supporting speech at a Jacobin meeting on a motion to boycott the consum ption o f sugar: "the m ost dangerous enemies o f a people that wishes to be free,” he w arned, "are soft and effem inate habits: if you w ish to pulverize your ene­ mies, accustom yourself to dim inishing the sum o f your needs.” 66 Jacobins were not Rabelaisian. Their laughter w as m easured, communi­ tarian, and politically engaged.67 They could not accept even the balanced, skeptical traditions o f M ontaigne. For the Jacobins were closer in their sen­ sibility to the self-denying message o f Pascal, Racine, and Rousseau (an avid reader o f these tw o predecessors), that is, o f w riters w ho had been fas­ cinated (and horrified) by m an's propensity to selfish evil and who were obsessed by man’s need to compensate fo r his self-seeking turn o f mind. Jacobins tried to be puritanical in their daily life. A t Bergerac selfindulgent members did huddle around a stove in wintertim e, but the club­

bistes o f A vallon were closer to the m ark when they refused to heat their building. M ore heat w ould only serve to attract the w eak. Jacobins contem ptuously disapproved o f tippling and gluttony. Their banquets were frugal, fraternal exchanges: "It is our desire to come to­ gether that m akes for the great pleasure o f the table.” 68 A t the absolutist court, food had been ostentatiously displayed; in the next century, the

19 8

♦

Social Reconciliation

preparation, presentation, and consumption o f food w as to be for the rich an im portant weapon o f social exclusion in the bourgeoisie’s repertory o f class distinctions. By contrast, in 17 9 3 -9 4 , for the revolutionary poor, food w as a necessity. But for the Jacobin s, ideally, food— like sex—w as the occasion o f shared, fraternal, transcendence. The Jacobin s, who categori­ cally rejected the eighteenth century’s cultivation o f elegant self-indulgence in the form o f domestic com forts, stoves, and tubs, also disdained exotic food and drink, like chocolate and sugar. A t Beauvais they asked the mu­ nicipality to keep cafés from serving "bavaroises au la it.” 69 (Some o f them , however, did make an exception for coffee, which w as then associated w ith intellectual endeavor.) A t Thann the clubbistes organized a "fru gal and pa­ triotic” m eal, which ended with "fraternal em braces,” as did the Jacobin s o f Exm es, in the O m e, where a "prom enade civique” follow ed a "rep as frugal” accom panied by hym ns.70 In the neighboring town o f V ire, they or­ ganized a "banquet civique où règne la frugalité des Spartiates” (a civic banquet where Spartan sim plicity ruled). N o one could spend more than fifteen sous. Extra meat w as given to the poor.71 A t Besançon, where the men’s Jacobin club denounced "the scandalous scenes” that had taken place in the wom en’s club, the women retorted that the men had w asted funds collected on behalf o f volunteers to stage a patriotic banquet.72 Couthon, one o f the m ost pow erful men in France, w as happy to report in February 17 9 4 that, though quite sick, he received meat for bouillon only once a day: "il faut que les républicains soient sobres” (Republicans must be sober).73 H alf a century before, M ontesquieu had congratulated the French for having avoided the excesses o f both north and south: "w e often eat in com pany, and we do not drink to excess.” 74 Jacobins follow ed those tw o rules religiously. As they seized on brotherhood and abstemiousness as key virtues, they censured counterrevolutionary aristocratie, gluttony, and self-indulgent, abusive corpulence. (M uch w as made in Jacobin caricature o f the king’s appetite and excessive girth.) Jacobins expected o f themselves— as others expected o f them— a lean and hungry look. They did not think that living w ell w as the best revenge. Being intensely m indful o f community norm s, the Jacobins were—o r wished to be— intensely honest. They were shocked by evidence o f Danton’s corruption: it w as a sign o f Robespierre’s political acumen that he w as able to associate the fate o f the Dantonists with the peculation o f

Social Reconciliation

♦

19 9

Chabot and Fabre during the dissolution o f the French East India Com ­ pany. It w as also proof o f the Jacobins’ m oral collapse after 17 9 4 that m any o f them (Barras, T allien, Lecointre) took legal or illegal advantage o f their political prominence and grew quite rich. Jacobins rewarded officials w ho refused to be bribed. They criticized gam bling and especially lotteries, which they wished to make illegal. In M arch 17 9 3 , on behalf o f the Com ­ mittee o f Public Instruction, Jean D usaulx, a Parisian Jacobin , reminded his fellow Conventionnels o f C ato’s view that patriotism and games o f chance could not coexist. As soon as lotteries became popular in m odem Europe, he added, "virtue had become more rare, public spirit took on a different shape.” 75 Jacobins also had strong feelings about sexuality. Sensuality w as a nat­ ural quality. A s such, it could therefore be seen as proof o f the natural and m oralized com plem entarity o f the sexes, a thought which M m e. de Belle­ garde, the noble-bom , émigré mistress o f the noble-bom M ontagnard Con­ ventionnel H érault de Séchelles, am usingly derided when she puckishly ex­ plained that the more she made love, the more she loved the Revolution; and the m ore she loved the Revolution, the more she made love. (Hérault w as executed in early A pril 179 4 .) Jacobins, however, took a dim view o f the "p laisirs impurs (de) Priape.” Saint-Just did w rite in praise o f incest, but even this self-conscious and preposterous text can be read as paean to prim al harm ony refound. In a celebrated rem ark, Baudelaire wrote that the Revolution had been "faite par des voluptueux.” That w as not so. It w as doubly appropriate that the Semurois Jacobins should ask that male and fem ale prisoners be strictly kept apart. Aristocrates should be deprived o f pleasure and were in any case incapable o f trae union.76 Sex w as a relation o f sublim ation between a mundane thing (the human body) and an elevated principle (unity), a mode o f transcendental thinking that Jacobins, o f course, applied in m any dom ains, ranging from the pur­ pose o f the fam ily to the difference between naive patriotism and politi­ cized nationalism . M uch can be read in D avid’s celebrated if unfinished painting o f the androgynous youth Bara, w ho had given his life fo r his country, and whose sexless body, w ithout breasts or genitalia, neither m ale nor fem ale but both sim ultaneously, w as at once intensely sexual and ut­ terly devoid o f carnal im plication.77 Jacobins were not at all repelled by the specifics o f fem ale physicality. They w rote lyrically about breastfeeding. But bodies for them were no jok­

200

♦

Social Reconciliation

ing m atter. Arthur Young, who knew France w ell, claim ed that French atti­ tudes to bodily functions were generally less genteel than those o f his ow n com patriots. Y et at Besançon the club unanim ously voted to ask the agent

national to punish men guilty o f urinating in full view o f the public.78 A n aspect o f the M ontagne’s coup against the Gironde in June 17 9 3 that m ost distressed the journalist o f the Mercure universel w as that the encircled deputies had been unable to relieve themselves in private, a state o f affairs he described as a “ chose bien hum iliante.” 79 D avid did pen drawings a t once political and scatological, but these were out o f character and penned w ith an eye to attract the attention— or so we can presume— o f uneducated citizens. A reason given to justify a preference for French over local dialects w as its supposed purity.80 Jacobins rejected an apostate priest who used “ expressions that presented obscene ideas,” which they deemed particu­ larly offensive to the “ virtuous wom en” present in their hall. The Périgueux Jacobins understood the place o f revolutionary sex per­ fectly when they contrasted the “ liaisons légitim es” o f the m arried priests to the “ liaisons libidineuses” o f the unmarried clerics: if such “ a vile being” dared to make public his “ sensual and corrupted” w ays, he w ould be “ jeered, and driven from our bosom .” 81 For the errant M arquis de Sade, prostitutes were “ the children o f nature,” but Jacobins had a dark view o f such wom en, whom they perceived not as victim s o f hard times but as cor­ rupters o f the nation’s m orals. In m any places, prostitutes were denied entry to the clubs. M uch has recently been made o f the supposed hom osocial dimension o f the Jacobin s' emphasis on heroism , in Jacobin painting especially. And un­ deniably, D avid, like m any o f the young painters w ho were bound to him by close friendships, did have a fondness for vast canvases prom inently dis­ playing naked, entwined, and beautiful masculinized bodies (their private parts barely concealed by phallic objects o f all kinds: sw ords, sabers, lances, scabbards). In all likelihood, however, our impulse to see this hypothetical hom osex­ uality as a significant part o f the Jacob in s' thinking w ould have been dis­ tressing to them and should probably be discounted, even if our own mod­ em fram e o f mind m akes it difficult for us not to think o f them in this w ay. Jacobins, though they did not choose to crim inalize hom osexuality, nonetheless disapproved o f the practice when they bothered to think about it explicitly, which w as seldom. Pierre Chaum ette, a populist Jacobin sus­ pected o f having a hom osexual past, “ redeemed” him self by actively perse-

Social Reconciliation

♦

201

cuting Parisian prostitutes. Cam bacérès, the m ost prominent o f Jacobin ho­ m osexuals, did achieve high office, but definitely in spite o f his sexual pref­ erence rather than because o f it. Condorcet called hom osexuality “ a dis­ gusting vice.” 82 In a w ay, Jacobin definitions o f m orality and sexual norm alcy prefigured Victorian principles, the difference being that V ictorian gentlemen, how­ ever kind, considered the w orld through the cruel and exclusive lens o f reputation, w ealth, gender, nationality, class, education, speech, and race; whereas the Jacobins, however cruel and terroristic, passionately believed that their inclusive values o f self-respect, decency, sacrifice, and sexual virtue could, w ould, and above all else should become the birthright o f every man and wom an. These m ay be unexciting principles. And it cannot be denied that Jacobin prose often seems flat and even tiresom e, the expression o f an im pover­ ished view o f human nature; but that first im pression must be put aside. True enough, the Jacobins had little interest in the tw o great themes o f eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European prose, the psychological ar­ cana o f sexual relations and the intricacies o f social stratification. But that is because their minds were elsewhere, and in any case it is largely in the realm o f w ords that good repels and evil fascinates. Indeed, w hat holds our attention as readers often disgusts us as active participants in the business o f daily Ufe, which is w hat the Jacobins aimed to be.

( E n t r a n c e d by sublim e individuals who loved the nation com pletely, the Jacobins sought to commune w ith society through heroism. A t M ontpellier the clubbistes decided to erect on the city’s main promenade a colum n o f liberty, w ith a m arble plaque on which w ould be engraved, first, the Decla­ ration o f the Rights o f M an and, next to that, the names "o f great m en.” 83 This gesture reflected their view that great figures achieved the progress o f m ankind. In ancient Greece heroes had stood between heaven and earth, with parents both human and divine. Jacobin heroes, by contrast, were all too human, but they too were giants who bridged different w orlds: the pri­ vate and the public, the future and the present, the self and the community. (Counterrevolutionary, antiheroic aristocrates were by com parison often described as pygm ies.) For the Jacobins, heroic deeds towered over both past and present and, fittingly, it w as they who invented the w ar m em orial, to carry into the future the memory o f fallen and revolutionary w arriors.

20 2

«

Social Reconciliation

Jacobin heroes, it should be added, were definitely m asculine. A lthough women figured prominently— and anonym ously— in Jacobin iconography as nurturing goddesses o f reason, liberty, or justice, m ost o f the politicized women that Jacobins perceived by name were the quasi-dem onic enem ies o f their cause, like M arie Antoinette and Charlotte C orday.84 Jacobins sincerely believed in heroic passion. It w as only misguided zeal that threatened private and public harm onies. When properly politicized and reconstructed, heroic passion could nurture private love and public friendship. "H ypocritical priests say, know how to overcom e your p as­ sions, and they call that m orality,” w rote a sensitive Jacobin , "a hot and active Republican must say: let men be passionate, but know how to rule your passions. Passions give men energy. A passionless man is nothing but a federalist and a m oderate, or a hypocritical Feuillant, incapable o f great things.” 85 In W estern culture, heroism and dem ocracy have generally been dissoci­ ated. The modern hero— especially in his fascistic incarnations— defines him self against the m asses. In Jacobin culture, how ever, heroism and dem ocracy cohabited perfectly. The Rom an poet H orace (a favored w riter in prerevolutionary French secondary schools) had escaped from others so that he might find him self: the Jacobin hero did precisely the reverse. Indeed, heroism w as for the Jacobins com patible not just w ith sacrifice but w ith m ediocrity as w ell because those tw o conditions had one vast thing in common: a concern for others. Jacobins also found a place in their heart for the averageness and modesty o f ordinary men and women w ho from their essential and unexciting nature unthinkingly fitted their modest sense o f self into the social whole. "Is it not a dem onstrable fact,” asked a Jacobin at Semur, "th at great talents and sublime virtue are often the hand­ maidens o f m ediocrity and are often incom patible w ith opulence?” 86 In its description o f the fête for Bara and V iala, the Besançon club insisted that there had been nothing "supernatural” about the life and death o f these tw o young people. To the contrary, it w as precisely their transcended ordi­ nariness that struck the Jacobins’ im agination. The heroic fate o f these (banal) adolescents proved that the revolutionary spirit could enable even ordinary children to act like men, just as ordinary men might strive to be heroic. Jacobins warm ed to the fate o f plain men and women who had raised themselves to spiritual greatness by some unexpected gesture. W hen a clubbiste jumped in a river to rescue a drowning child, the club at T ulle asked that he be made a gendarm e, as a rew ard perhaps, but also, no

Social Reconciliation

♦

203

doubt, because those w ho had excelled in the private sphere could also be expected to excel in a public role.87 It follow s that the Jacobins were sim ultaneously attracted to and w ary o f extraordinary and charism atic leaders. Instinctively, they trusted lead­ ers w ho resembled themselves. Shared ideology mattered more to them than individual prowess. They identified m ost closely w ith Robespierre, a m oderately gifted and m odestly heroic sm all-town law yer. They were ill at ease w ith M irabeau, a talented, stentorian, extravagant, and incestuous aristocrat.88 Jacobins did assume that history w as about G reat M en, about G reat Legislators especially, but it w as clear to them that true genius lay in the ability to understand the unspoken, unform ulated needs o f the community as w hole. A legislator, w rote a M arseillais pam phleteer, uis a man whose talents and virtues have earned him the esteem and confidence o f his fel­ low citizens, w ho has been delegated by them to form the Constitution, and who is like one o f the Gods each time he gives a just law to his fatherland.” 89 Everyone valued selflessness, but this quality w as particularly relevant to the truly great. Lycurgus, for exam ple, had abdicated after giving Sparta the law s that it needed. On his return in 17 9 4 from the victory o f Fleuras, which he had trium phantly orchestrated, the young Saint-Just refused all praise: “ w e have to praise the victories and forget about our own se lve s. . . If everybody had been m odest and not been enviously eager to hear others being praised more than him self, we w ould be more at ease w ith one an­ other.” 90 H is friend Robespierre concurred: “ to be good [pour être bon], a m agistrate must im m olate him self for the people.” 91 The Jacobins saw modern politics as m arked by the appearance and dis­ appearance o f such heroes. M irabeau w as the first o f their great votive fig­ ures: “ his head, stronger than all the tyrants’ satellites, can overthrow every throne and break every scepter.” 92 Though deputies in Paris had been suspicious o f him while he lived, this liberal aristocrat had been popu­ lar in the provincial clubs; and his death marked the first m assive Jacobin outpouring for a fallen w arrior. The clubbistes at A ix made available a lachrym atory vase for his m ourners.93 A t Sens the local clubbistes attended a perform ance o f Bratus en m asse, because this w as the Rom an whom M irabeau m ost closely resembled. M any societies ordered his bust. A Jacobin o f Bordeaux explained that M irabeau w as greater even than Rousseau.94

204

♦

Social Reconciliation

M arat, though more beloved than M irabeau, also drew more criticism . Indeed, no prominent revolutionary had such a m ixed reputation. M a ra t's sym pathy for the poor w as w idely understood and adm ired. (D avid’ s painting o f the man is his only truly profound canvas.) In 1 7 9 1— alb eit m ainly for political reasons—M arat had denounced the abolition o f p ro ­ fessional guilds and corporations, which had afforded artisans a m easure o f protection. He also elicited the deep sym pathy o f fem ale Parisian patri­

otes. But M arat w as not kind. He w as perceived as the m ost sanguinary o f all the revolutionary leaders and w as only partly trusted, given his regard for the populist Parisian crow d. A t first, few clubs subscribed to his newspapers and m any o f them de­ manded his arrest. O rléans and Coutance in Novem ber 17 9 2 urged legal action against “ the infam ous sect and the monster w ho leads it ." 95 C h er­ bourg ordered the burning o f his newspaper, L ’Am i du peuple.96 In e arly 17 9 3 , after the February food riots in Paris (an apparent attack on prop­ erty that occurred before Robespierre and the Jacobin leadership decided to mobilize the poor against their Girondin enemies), a w ave o f an tiM aratism e swept the clubs. Pézenas inverted one o f M arat’s favored in vo­ cations to say that his head must fall to save tw o hundred thousand others. Cognac also wanted to do aw ay w ith the “ eternal provoker o f murder and pillage.” 97 But Charlotte C orday’s m urder o f M arat in the early afternoon o f Ju ly 1 3 ,1 7 9 3 , suddenly made o f him the premier Jacobin m artyr. A t Rouen the club wanted to replace the statue o f Jo an o f A rc w ith a bust o f M arat. A t M ontpellier, in the fall, the clubbistes read the “ apologia o f the incorrupt­ ible M a ra t. . . [This] reading excited the sensibility and applause o f the as­ sem bly.” A t their meetings a few weeks later there broke out the “ redou­ bled cries o f ‘Long Live M arat, long live the N ational Convention.’ ” 98 A t Courthézon the club made plans to assemble on a forthcom ing décadi, to­ gether w ith the local officials and N ational G uard, to weep at the m au­ soleum “ o f one o f the greatest defenders o f liberty, one o f the m ost tender friends o f the people, and the m ost intrepid enemy o f aristocratie, cruelly murdered by a fury sent forth by this same aristocratie and fanaticism .” 99 The seaport o f Le H avre became H avre M arat. The club o f Saint-Pierred’Autils renamed itself the Society o f the Friends o f M arat.100 A t Breteuilsur-H on, in the Eure, the rue Au Loup w as rather dubiously renamed in his honor.101

Social Reconciliation

♦

205

By the w inter o f 17 9 3 , Jacobins com m only invoked his memory along w ith Le Peletier’s and C halier’s. (O f the three, tw o o f them had been mur­ dered, and one executed.) A brisk trade for their varied busts developed, much as had happened in 17 8 9 w ith the stones o f the Bastille. The Courthézon clubbistes in early 17 9 4 considered purchasing a set o f busts at Avignon, at one hundred francs apiece. Upon reflection, how ever, buying prints o f the three men w as judged more sensible: one could find such por­ traits in Carpentras, they noted, “ at a reasonable price.” 102 The Jacobin s’ thirst for harm onizing sacrifice ran deep. Every citizen w as a potential hero, but every hero had to accept the idea that death might be the price o f victory. Grégoire in 18 0 0 reminded his fellow (defeated) Ja ­ cobins that “ great men, w ho have alm ost alw ays been persecuted, like to live in the future: their genius sets them ahead o f their tim es, and they carry their appeal to the tribunal o f posterity: the future, which has inherited their virtues, their talents, w ill acquit the debts o f the present. W ho could regret having been vilified, if that is the price to pay to spare the tears o f hum anity?” 103 M arat once threatened on the Convention floor to shoot him self if his w ords were not heeded. Ironically, his murderess, Charlotte C orday, a con­ firmed Plutarchian Republican, w as no less ready than he to give up her Ufe for the republic. Though noble-bom and convent-educated, this young wom an w as neither a royalist nor a Catholic, but a Girondin Jacobin , and in the summer o f 17 9 3 her sym pathies corresponded to the Jacobin think­ ing o f western and northwestern France. She wanted to kill M arat so as to reconcile all Republican Frenchmen, at the cost o f her own life. A s SaintJu st had explained, “ if Brutus does not kill his enemies, he w ill have to kill h im self. . . I have chosen my course.” 104 And C orday’s gesture w as under­ stood precisely in that sacrificial sense by another would-be suicide, Adam Lux. This young Germ an disciple o f Rousseau w as a friend o f the Girondins. Enraptured by C orday, whom he glimpsed on her w ay to the guillotine, L u x suicidaUy denounced her judges in a placard that he man­ aged to have printed and posted on the w alls o f the capital. Arrested, he then demanded the death penalty, so as to inspire aU true Republicans. Jacobins took fraternal liberty seriously. They ritually sw ore to kill the first o f their numbers to betray the cause, or to die w ith the Revolution if w orse came to w orst: “ I swore to live free or find my grave beneath the ru­ inations o f my fatherland.” 105 “ A ll o f our thoughts, our entire existence,”

2o 6

♦

Social Reconciliation

w rote C ollot d’H erbois from Lyons, which had been ravaged, “ are fixated on ruins, on graves, where death threatens to engulf us also. And yet, w e feel a secret satisfaction . . . It seems to us that hum anity has been avenged . . . and the fatherland, made more strong.” 106 So great w as the Jacobins’ thirst for com m unitarian sacrifice that in 17 9 2 -9 3 , m any Jacobins on the w ay up accepted suicide as a test o f their commitment, just as they welcom ed it as a w ay out in 17 9 4 -9 5 . Death w as an appropriate punishment for those w ho rejected Republi­ can fraternity, and self-inflicted death w as an answer for those w ho had failed to make fraternity attractive to the nation. In Paris Robespierre’s friend Philippe Lebas took his life on the night o f 9 Therm idor; and R obes­ pierre m ay have tried to shoot him self to avoid arrest. H is last speeches do far more than merely hint at suicide as a redemption o f failure: uLet them prepare the hemlock for me. I w ill aw ait them on these sacred seats. A t least, I w ill leave for my fatherland the exam ple o f my constant effort. T o the enemies o f hum anity, I w ill leave opprobrium and death.” 107 T hose who sought the public good had often perished: “ Phocion had had to drink hem lock. So had Socrates on the day o f whose death Athenians had crowned themselves w ith flow ers.” M any provincial Jacobins also chose suicide. On 19 Therm idor, during a discussion at the Jacobin club o f Nîm es o f Robespierre’s execution, one o f his local supporters suddenly pulled out a pistol, shouted “ I am dying fo r the fatherland,” and fired a bullet at him self.108 One o f the fourteen N îmois Jacobins arrested at the time— o f whom five were to be lynched in jail— killed him self. A t M arseilles, in these same days, when troops loyal to the Convention surrounded the radical Jacobin club o f the city, the clu b 's president jumped o ff the ro o f to his death.109 A t Rouen one o f Robes­ pierre's local allies, a surgeon and a m unicipal official named Guyet, killed him self on 1 2 Therm idor w ith a razor.110 “ Liberty or death” w as the m otto o f the heroic Jacobins in the years o f their trium ph. “ Fraternity or death” w as the theme o f their despair when their dreams o f unanim ity collapsed. Together with the cult o f sacrifice, education w as another key element in the construction o f Republican unanim ity. Exam ples o f the Jacobin s' con­ cern for education abound, from D avid’s didactic canvases and fêtes, to the opinions o f the sm allest clubs, as at Artonne in central France where p oliti­ cal education and “ philosophy” were assumed to be one and the sam e thing.111 A t Courthézon the clubbistes concluded that “ the people can

Social Reconciliation

♦

207

never be too instructed, because it is instruction that develops sentiments [and] renders them w orthy and capable o f being some day useful to the fa­ therland and to the nation.” 112 In Paris, D ucos, a leading Girondin Ja ­ cobin, expressed the same thought m ore grandly in a speech o f 18 Decem­ ber 17 9 2 to the Convention: “ It is the task o f public education to rectify erroneous notions, occasioned perhaps by habits bom o f oppression, and even from our resistance to it; education w ill soften our m ores, forestall their ferocity [and] sow in our souls those principles o f humanity . . . on which [all] popular governments w ill henceforth rest.” Education furthered rather than countered nature’s w ork: “ le peuple est bon,” thought the sociétaires o f Provins, “ m ais il a besoin d’instruction” (the people are good but need instruction).113 Education brought out the happier side o f the human condition. “ If the theory and practice o f education were carried to the point o f perfection o f which they are capable,” reasoned G ré­ goire, “ a crim inal code w ould be alm ost useless.” The clubs themselves, in the w ords o f Lanthenas, were like a branch o f public instruction,114 “ schools o f civic virtue.” 115 A t Louhans schoolchildren were required to come to the club every fortnight to show what progress they had made in their studies. At tim es, the clubbistes subsidized schoolteachers’ salaries from their own pocket.116 A t Bergerac, at the prom pting o f visiting Conventionnel Josephe Lakanal, a form er priest and schoolteacher, the club decided to levy a tax on the rich to create four local prim ary schools.117 M any Jacobins vacillated between defining education as neutral, apoliti­ cal instruction (a Voltairean view) and taking it as m oral guidance or a means to spiritual rebirth (a Rousseauean view). They understood that a state which w as m indful o f civil society’s autonom y ought to have a limited sense o f its task as educator. But they could not resist the tem ptation to w rest education from the hands o f the church and to make it a vehicle o f Republican unanim ity. Lanthenas, for exam ple, proposed a system o f cen­ tralized state education whose purpose w ould be to teach a “ universal m orality” that might serve as the basis o f the social com pact. Education in his scheme w ould be com pulsory for both girls and boys to the age o f thir­ teen. In deference to the sim ultaneously egalitarian and m eritocratic nature o f Jacobin ideology, particularly deserving students w ould receive scholar­ ships and go on to higher study. It w as a m istake, wrote G régoire, to think w ith “ D iderot and a few oth­ ers like him that nature creates w icked men. The effect o f this discouraging fatalism is to stifle em ulation, to cheapen virtue.” 118 Education corrected

2.08

«

Social Reconciliation

the vagaries o f nature and made people w hole, a critical advantage, argued Condorcet, in an age newly characterized by the division o f labor and the routinization o f labor for the poor. So keen were the Jacobins on education as a key to Republican m orality that some o f them lost sight o f instruction altogether. Because they focused on nature rather than reason, these left-w ing iconoclasts dared to attack all higher learning. A citizen w ho knew m any com plicated things, th ey thought, w as separated by his knowledge from his fellow men. H is strength w as a weakness. Some far-fetched Jacobins wanted to abolish not ju st academies and universities (all o f which were either terminated or com ­ pletely reshaped) but secondary schools as w ell. In December 17 9 3 B o u quier argued that “ aristocratic pedagogy” w as a threat to dem ocracy an d that the republic should allow only those scientific schools that were b asi­ cally vocational.119 But Rom m e, a m athem atician, rationalist, and confirm ed Jacobin , vio ­ lently (and representatively) disagreed with this obscurantist stand. It w a s, he asserted, a “ profoundly perfidious opinion” to insinuate that “ in a state founded on Equality, instruction might be useless; and philosophy, danger­ ous.” That had been the argument o f “ nobles and some priests.” O nly a system o f national education could “ regenerate our custom s, and give to the Constitution an unshakable foundation.” 120 Jacobins did rank good­ ness above knowledge, but in their overwhelm ing m ajority, they found it hard to imagine that these tw o values could really strain at each other. M any existing French institutions o f higher learning— the celebrated Grandes Écoles like the École N orm ale, the École Polytechnique, the École Centrale, and the Conservatoire de M usique— were created by Jacobin s and neo-Jacobins between 17 9 5 and 17 9 9 , as w as the modern Institut de France, which replaced the academ ies, especially the Académ ie Française, which had been suppressed in August 17 9 3 . The redirection o f individual self-love tow ard the public and communi­ tarian Republican good, w as the Jacobins’ fondest hope: “ see how [Le Peletier’s] features are serene,” w rote D avid o f the portrait he had just painted o f this sacrificial victim . “ The man w ho dies for one’s country has nothing to reproach him self.” 121 Anyone w ho doubted that the tw o goals could coincide com pletely ceased ipso facto to be a patriot and lapsed into

aristocratie. Jacobin exegesis even distinguished genuine (and truly com ­ m unitarian) heroes from the false courtiers o f facile popularity who seemed selfless but were in fact intensely selfish.

Social Reconciliation

♦

209

In his trium ph, Robespierre had been hailed as virtue incarnate, a perfect exam ple o f sacrifice. But after his fall, the terms o f the equation were nec­ essarily inverted; it w as now his complete indifference to or even detesta­ tion o f the public w eal that w as often mentioned. According to the club-

bistes o f M ayenne after 9 Therm idor, Robespierre “ had borrow ed the w ords o f justice and probity in order to make him self popular, though his heart w as full o f vices.” 122 Four days after the death o f the Incorruptible, the Vedette de Besançon likew ise denounced him as “ a hateful conspirator who needed to sacrifice everything to appease his pride and am bition,” the proof being that he had even tried “ to dom inate public opinion.” 123 A true hero had to be truly representative and fraternal.

s ~w Spreading the Word: Rhetorics o f Harmony Who summons each one to common dedication where each will sound in masterly accord? Who makes the storms become like passions? Who weaves pointless green leaves into honored laurels o f every kind? Who guards Olympus and unites the Gods? M an’s power in the poet incarnate. Goethe, Faust

/ / acobins had a truth, and since they hoped everyone would accept their message, they were born to propagandize. As disciples o f Rousseau, the Ja ­ cobins could neither understand nor accept faction and division; but as dis­ ciples o f Voltaire as w ell, they did not w ant to coerce. They wanted to con­ vince; and to do this, they w orked in every aesthetic register, from elegant allegory to scatological print and song. This political stance up to a point implied a certain conventionality o f style. Fascist and Soviet artists o f the 1 920s w orked to find the new aesthetic tropes that would underscore the political novelty o f their times. But Jacobin artists, who wanted to convince plain people more than they wished to dazzle their peers or superiors, gen­ erally made themselves w ork w ithin established styles and genres. Still, w hat Jacobins lacked in creativity they more than made up for by the re­ lentlessness o f their search to represent their goal o f togetherness. T o that unifying end, the clubs soon moved from excluding visitors to including as m any o f them as they could. Then, to attract w ider audiences yet, the clubs diversified their appeal. They gave public readings. A t Hon-

Spreading the W ord

♦

2 11

fleur the clubbistes had a different subject every day: on Sunday, the “ du­ ties o f a Republican” ; on Saturday, “ readings from the best passages o f an­ cient and m odem history, especially the crim es o f French K ings.” 1 Some clubs also organized lectures on such im portant subjects as “ M an’s nature and his duties to his fellow men” (at Riom ); “ Signs that distinguish false patriots” (at Saint-Flour); or “ Virtues are the order o f the d ay” (at Agen).2 Thoughtful revolutionaries w ho understood that the pow er o f the church depended heavily on its social role in society instinctively responded by turning the clubs into rival social centers. In Burgundy one deputy even suggested club dances as a remedy for counterrevolutionary idolatry.3 A t Reim s a card-m aking Jacobin offered seven thousand cards to the club. M any clubs seriously considered a proposal made by the Poitiers clubbistes to launch a balloon designed to scatter over foreign soil thousands o f copies “ o f the French constitution, the catechism o f the Rights o f M an, and the best w orks relating to liberty.” So that im portant French aeronautical secrets w ould not fall into enemy hands, they planned to m ake the aerial machine self-destruct at the end o f its m ission.4 M ore im portant perhaps to the Jacobin s’ propaganda efforts w as the Parisian Bureau d’Esprit Public, set up by Roland and the Girondins in late 17 9 z to system atize the diffu­ sion o f Jacobin principles through print. Condorcet argued that thought, w ord, and debate were inextricably bound to print: “ it is through the printing process alone that discussion am ong a great people can truly be one.” 5 Rousseau’s ideal citizens met to think and act. France, alas, w as no sm all Swiss canton where all citizens might know one another. Nevertheless, all French citizens could meet m etaphorically by reading the daily or w eekly press. The clubbistes at Pau reasoned that “ it is only from knowing the whole news that truth can be found.” 6 Barère urged his readers to read the British press so as to know w hat the infam ous Pitt w as thinking.7 O f course, long before 17 8 9 , newspapers had already become a fixture o f social life in France.8 But the French Revolution gave a vast and democ­ ratic push to that trend. Jacobins were obsessed by the pow er o f this par­ ticular form o f the printed w ord. Louvet declared a journal that could be sent through the m ail to be “ the easiest, m ost prom pt, and least costly w ay to spread the truth.” 9 Brissot, w ho had had a long prerevolutionary career as a publicist, deemed newspapers even more im portant than the clubs.10 A t Vitry-le-François Jacobins identified three sources o f inform ation: the decrees o f the N ational Assem blies, instructions sent by the “ mother club”

2 12

♦

Spreading the W ord

in Paris, and the collective reading o f papiers politiques on the club’s prem ises.11 Sensibly enough, some clubs then demanded— unsuccessfully— free franking privileges. For the Jacobins—as in the enlightened, "fem inized” salons o f eigh­ teenth-century France— reading, speaking, and thinking were cum ulative rather than com peting activities. Listeners w ho had heard a w riter read his subversive w ork aloud to the m ixed audience o f a prerevolutionary salon w ould have been at home in a revolutionary club. M any clubs tried to create a newspaper o f their own: in Grenoble in De­ cember 17 8 9 ; in Angers, V ersailles, A rras, and A urillac in 1 7 9 1 ; in Castres, N ancy, and Caen in the first h alf o f 17 9 z. A few more were launched in 17 9 z, by the Paris club especially, with another handful in 17 9 4 at Reim s, M arseilles, Sedan, Chalons-sur-M am e, and Bordeaux.12 The societies’ assembled members made decisions about the term s, size, and contents o f posters. They also promoted alm anacs: in September 1 7 9 1 the Paris Jacobins awarded a prize to C ollot for having assembled w ith the

Almanach du Père Gérard the text "best adapted to explain to the people the spirit and principles o f the French C onstitution.” They hoped that it w ould provide “ instructive parts” on the history o f the Revolution, on the history o f kings, and on the themes o f duty, Rom e, and Sparta. A number o f clubs took it upon themselves to reprint this text for local consum ption. The Conventionnel Jacques Coupé urged the clubs to distribute it to the peasantry, as part o f a five-part program that included newspapers, dance, song, and theatricals. Printing costs were often a club’s m ajor expense. Clubs routinely subscribed to newspapers (as m any as twenty at a time). Their favorite in 17 9 Z -9 3 w as the relatively inexpensive Annales patrio­ tiques et littéraires de la France o f M ercier and C arra, which tended to dow nplay social conflict: three hundred clubs subscribed to this sheet. Later, after C arra had opted for Girondism (and w as executed in O ctober 17 9 3 ), m any clubs fell back on the Journal de la Montagne, which w as the Paris club’s official journal from June z, 17 9 3 , to Novem ber 1 8 , 1 7 9 4 . It had nearly six thousand subscribers— m ost o f them Jacobin appa­ ratchiks— and it received a large governm ental subsidy.13 N ew spapers were a critical weapon in the Jacobins’ arm ory, whether directed against their avowed enemies or one another: the Paris M ontagnard Jacobins did not get around to launching their newspaper until the summer o f 1 7 9 3 , when they began their battle w ith the Girondin Jacobins for control o f the provincial d u b s.14

Spreading the W ord

♦

213

Journalists like Louis K eralio in the spring o f 17 9 0 , and Barère and C arra afterw ard, circularized the clubs to secure subscribers;15 to attract an audience, Laclos, in his Journal des amis de la Constitution, founded in 17 9 0 , had a special rubric entitled "Correspondance hebdom adaire” (W eekly Correspondence) to describe the goings-on o f the provincial clubs. Cleverly, C arra went one step further and inserted eulogistic references in his columns to this club or that, to secure more paying readers. In fact, we only know o f the existence o f some wom en’s Jacobin clubs around D ijon because o f their being mentioned in the press. Clubs traded their own newspaper w ith other clubs in order to keep in touch. Private letters carry­ ing public news reinforced a current fed by the newspapermen w ho pub­ lished and solicited letters from their public. Newspapers were read singly and collectively. The literate subscribers o f the Feuille villageoise were specifically urged to read the paper aloud to their less learned fellow citizens.16 In m any clubs the rules o f order specified that newspapers w ould be read aloud if a number o f members requested it. H ours o f opening were often set by the arrival o f the stagecoach w ith the latest newspapers (papiers publics or papiers nouvelles) from Paris. M any club sec­ retaries com plained that members took the newspapers home. A t M oret m any members left "a s soon as the news sheet had been read, a considerable number o f members left even before the session’s end.” 17 We read newspapers desultorily, if at all, bombarded as w e are by infor­ m ation o f all kinds; but Jacobins read them carefully. The form at o f their newspapers w as plain, sm all and, in a w ord, unattractive to the eye. But that did not m atter to them. One can easily conjure some clubbistes, hud­ dled and enthused over a sheet like a group o f Parisian washerwom en whose husbands were aw ay at the front, w ho met periodically to read Bourdon’s L e Créole Patriote and ended one such reading w ith enthusiastic cries o f "L on g live the Convention! Long live the Jaco b in s!” 18 C learly, then, Jacobins were fascinated by the presentation, consump­ tion, and m anufacture o f news: journalists, for the Jacobins, were like the poets o f Rom anticism , the self-proclaim ed "hierophants” o f m odernity. Y et, in the end, Jacobin newspapers were a failure. True enough, some Jacobin-inspired newspapers did quite w ell. (To suc­ ceed financially, a newspaper had to secure about 500 subscribers.) Readers were o f course more numerous, though w e have no w ay o f as­ certaining precise figures. During the Revolution the Feuille villageoise, which from September 17 9 0 onward aimed to find a peasant audience,19

214

*

Spreading the W ord

had a readership o f 15 ,0 0 0 . Brissot’s Le Patriote français had 8,000 sub­ scribers and w as at times printed in runs o f 20,000. By com parison, the m ost fam ous o f the prerevolutionary French-language newspapers, the

Gazette de Leyde, had between 4,000 and 9,000 readers. G enerally, how ever, the Jacobins were unable to make their press durable. O f all the newspapers they founded between 17 8 9 and 17 9 2 , only ten proved truly viable and only tw o survived beyond Ju ly 17 9 4 . M ost did not last for more than a few months. Six hundred clubs subscribed to the Parisian Journal de la Montagne after June 17 9 3 , but only because they were more or less required to do so. In the Seine-et-M arne, only 13 o f the department’s 79 clubs signed on.20 The Journal patriotique o f the Angers Jacobins had a mere 12 9 subscribers. New spapers inspired by a single brilliant figure like M arat, who w rote his paper from start to finish, including the letters to the editor, did suc­ ceed. But many provincial club newspapers were collectively and boringly directed. Clubs created form ulaic and tiresom ely repetitious sheets: “ im ­ passioned, dull-droning, Patriotic eloquence; im placable, unfertile,” w rote C arlyle o f the revolutionary press in one o f his most insightful pages.21 From the spring o f 17 9 0 on long-winded speeches began to crow d out plain news, which w as in any case reported unrealistically and quite pre­ dictably, reverses being invariably presented as unforeseen but ultim ately useful steps in the eventual unfolding o f final victory. As both readers and publicists, the Jacobins were unfruitfully entranced by the echoes o f their own voices and disputes. Revealingly, clubs took only the papers that shared their doctrinal angle and ordinarily dropped their subscription to them when opinions diverged. Besides, newspapers were not cheap: a yearly subscription to the Feuille villageoise cost nine livres, about four times a w orker’s daily wage. New spapers and club meetings were the Jacobins’ principal propagan­ d ists efforts, but because the Jacobins, like the early Christians, believed it their obligation to carry forth the w ord everywhere and in person (a quasi­ religious duty often mentioned in their founding charters), their desire to convert and preach spread to other realm s as w ell. As the political horizon darkened, as enemies arose, propaganda became more and more im portant to the Jacobins, after late 17 9 1 especially. In October 17 9 2 the Savoyard Jacobins at Cham béry, whose club had come into being only three weeks before, decided to send one hundred o f their twelve hundred members “ armed with the torch o f Liberty and R eason” to both town and country.

Spreading the W ord

♦

215

Their mission w as to instruct their com patriots (whose province had just been annexed to France) about regeneration and the “ recovery o f their in­ alienable rights.” 22 Regional centers, w ith close ties to neighboring areas, were especially active in this respect, in the southeast particularly. A t Lourm arin a Jacobin w ho described him self as a “ m issionnaire du patriotism e” single-handedly created a number o f clubs in the Vaucluse, as did Isoard from M arseilles in the Basses A lpes.23 Constitutional priests, or priests who had abjured their vow s, were often chosen by the clubs as the messengers o f the new w ord, perhaps because o f their “ hands-on” experience. The Jacobins propagandized the arm y for m oral as w ell as political rea­ sons. They wanted to secure the arm y’s loyalty but also to encourage sol­ diers to be heroic citizens. From December 17 9 2 onward m any Jacobin— or near-Jacobin—newspapers (those o f M arat and Hébert especially) were assigned governm ent subsidies, ostensibly so that they might reach the na­ tion’s soldiery. Ironically, since officers frequently disapproved, m any o f the papers went unread. C arrying the w ord, winning friends, and influencing people were critical aspects o f Jacobin life. But as to which “ w ord” and how it should be spo­ ken Jacobins were o f tw o minds. A s practical men, rooted in their commu­ nities, they wanted to speak plainly. But as confirmed idealists, they often preferred abstraction, allegory, m etaphor, and im agination to mere de­ scription or factual narration. Jacobins cared more about fam ily than they did about homes. Robespierre in early 17 9 3 disdained the “ chétives m archandises” (flim sy merchandise) that mattered so much to the poor. Ja ­ cobins loved w ords, particularly lofty w ords. An accused person might m iraculously be let o ff (even by the perpetrators o f the September m as­ sacres) if he or she found the right thoughts or gestures to sw ay a jury or a crow d. Jacobins were im aginative people. Tim e and again, one feels, the mind o f these successful, practical, highly efficient, and down-to-earth adm inistra­ tors, soldiers, and officials w as elsewhere. Their few jokes tended to play on the inconsequentiality o f the concrete: “ Everything is fine,” wrote Bailie (who w ould later kill himself) from Toulon. “ There's no bread.” 24 From their enemies’ point o f view , however, Jacobins were unusually prone to (self-serving) “ double-thinking.” O f course, m any Jacobin goals, such as the abolition o f feudal dues, a more just apportionm ent o f taxation, and equality before the law , were substantive issues that everyone understood. But even then, a wide gap sep­

z i6

♦

Spreading the W ord

arated the abolition o f feudal dues as it w as understood by peasants and by Jacobins. For the latter, the night o f August 4 represented an end to an in­ tolerable system o f contem pt. (Robespierre characterized the Old Regime as a "cascade o f disdain.” ) Dues mattered in their own right, but the image mattered just as much as the thing itself. Peasants saw things differently. Even those Jacobins w ho favored w orking hand in hand w ith the poor were m arching to a different and more distant drum. Jacobins managed sim ultaneously to live reality and interpret it as they wished it to be. They saw one thing and thought another, a discrepancy that spilled into m any o f Jacobinism ’s seemingly inexplicable contradic­ tions. They could terrorize their neighbors in the name o f universal love, or w ant to make the individual the first pivot o f m odem social life while con­ tinuing to live in the day-to-day context o f inherited, fam ilial, dientelistic, and traditionally gendered manners set by regulated custom and corpora­ tized econom ics. Robespierre once voted against the death penalty; and one o f the last acts o f this innovating individualist in his hometown o f A rras w as to draft a statement on behalf o f a local, tradition-bound craft guild. François Furet has eloquently described this abstracted side o f Jacobin w ays o f thinking: the French Revolution, he w rites, w as a burst o f ideas "w hose meaning society w as hard put to keep within b oun ds. . . (The R ev­ olution] fuelled the com petition for pow er through an ever escalating egali­ tarian rhetoric . . . Revolutionary ideology (became) the arena par excel­

lence o f the struggle for power am ong groups.” 25 N ot surprisingly, the Jacobins pondered not just which w ords should be spoken but "the sublime art o f speaking” itself. They searched high and low to find the signs and sym bols that their audience could accept. M ore particularly, they hesitated between rational and em otional strate­ gies. Unknowing pre-Rom antics, Jacobins thrived on that melodic em otivity which the French Enlightenment had associated w ith prim itive, prelinguistic, "ossianic” tim es.26 Isnard, a Girondin Jacobin from M arseilles, once reproved his colleague for not having "respected his enthusiasm .” Em otion w as a sacred and positive value, which the Jacobins underscored by great sweeping gestures, ably pictorialized by D avid in his painting The Oath o f the Tennis Court, where members o f the Third Estate are shown baring their breasts in poses that strike us as hopelessly artificial but that these theatergoers found lyrically appropriate. A t Lyons the "m artyred” Chalier gesticulated, w ept, rolled his eyes, and leapt onto tables. Jacobins were

Spreading the W ord

♦

217

known for "givin g w ay to the impetuous movements o f their heart.” At Courthézon the abrupt appearance in the club o f a "défenseur de la Patrie” caused "a sudden moment o f ecstasy, adm iration, and tenderness” to sweep through the assembled townspeople.27 In a stylistic burst, Cam ille Desm oulins w rote that to render "the human race free and happy is a sub­ lime experience.” 28 The Jacobins o f V aulry celebrated the feast o f Reason w ith "a ll the fire and zeal that such an im portant m atter dem anded.” 29 T o paraphrase C arlyle, Jacobin orators did not disdain the finely hewn obelisk; but oftentim es, their instinctive preference w as for the subUme Alpine peak. Jacobin oratory depended on energy and exaggeration. Its practitioners alw ays depicted the nation as on the edge o f a precipice or on the verge o f doom. Aristocrates were intolerably villainous; patriotes, dazzlingly cour­ ageous. M arat, alternatively praised to the heavens or sincerely loathed, w as him self a perfervid author o f novelistic and hyperbolic prose, all o f which is hardly surprising if w e remember that Jacobins lived in an age that saw the birth o f literary genres like the Gothic novel, the roman noir, and the new ly invented m elodram a.30 The Jacobins o f V ersailles, when they described the king during his trial as a "tiger athirst for blood” and his courtiers as "satellites who lit and stoked his rage,” 31 were speaking as m any Frenchmen did at the tim e, on the stage at least and perhaps in real life. Jacobin orators relied on a m ix o f sublim e and natural im ages, at once fascinating and frightening. The abbé Grégoire urged the Paris Jacobins to be "lik e im m obile cliffs, at whose foot the ocean’s w aves bellow and are shattered.” 32 Crises were com pared to storm s, and the Convention's edicts to bolts o f thunder. D orfeuille, the actor, described the m ass executions o f Lyonese rebels as the "fire o f a thunderbolt.” 33 Jacobin orators were fond o f such naturalist m etaphors: at Abbeville a clubbiste likened the eradica­ tion o f the Catholic Church to the "extirpation by the roots o f a poisoned tree that shaded the entire universe.” 34 The abbé Grégoire said the heredi­ tary nobility w as to a well-m anaged state w hat "m oss w as to vegetables and rust to m etals.” 35 Jacobins loved lapidary and m elodram atic form ulas: "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity or death” ; "L yon s w arred on Liberty, Lyons no longer ex­ ists” ; “ virtue w ithout terror is w eakness” ; “ death is an eternal sleep” (a slogan Robespierre did not like); and so on. These aphorism s, w e can once again surm ise, came naturally to men w ho saw life abstractly and in black and white.

2 i8

♦

Spreading the W ord

Jacobins liked to reason a fortiori. They did not argue by building slow ly and deliberately from the ground up. They began instead by establishing a hyperbolic, em otionally valid truth and then proceeded to make their m ore mundane argum ent, as a footnote to their larger point. Jacobin orators were careful observers o f pantomime. (David gave thought to staging the events o f the Revolution in this genre for a fête.) They were fascinated by sign language because this silent speech w as— or so they thought— not m erely pure but preverbal also, and as such a natural tool o f regeneration.36 Jacobins consulted actors on both declam ation and gesture,37 and m any people connected w ith the stage worked closely w ith the clubs: Talm a, who revolutionized the stage by playing Rom ans in Rom an costum es, had ties to both D avid and the Girondins. D orfeuille traveled from club to club w ith his set speeches. Other Jacobins (C ollot d’H erbois, Fabre, and the more populist Hébert) had eked out their prerev­ olutionary living near the stage as authors and im presarios. A t the same tim e, how ever, m indful perhaps o f a sustained tradition that had been fed by Rousseau—w ho had criticized conversation, salons, and the abus des mots— the Jacobins favored a com pletely different, unemo­ tional, cold, and rational oratory. Robespierre, a lackluster speaker w ith a squeaky voice, whose style w as quite precise, despised theatricality; and his charism a depended w holly on his audience’s sense that he could speak nothing but the truth. "L et us be calm ,” he advocated, "let us deploy rea­ son in all o f its m ajesty.” 38 Saint-Just, after com plaining that the mass o f paper produced by the bureaucracy w as proof o f its tendency to inertia, concluded that "it is im possible to govern without being laconic.” 39 C on­ dorcet went one step further by emphasizing silent reflection as the means to rise from the private sphere to the universal w orld o f shared ideas.40 Jacobins knew full w ell that the prerevolutionary Parisian art o f conver­ sation had too often been the vehicle o f dissim ulation and insincerity. Plain speech (the preferred mode o f m any Jansenist linguists) seemed to them su­ perior to embellished prose, especially when aimed at simple people. Cam bon, in charge o f the nation’s finances in early 17 9 4 , w as often praised for his "briefness and patriotic force.” "D o not look for eloquence in my speech,” w rote a Jacobin geometer o f Loudun to his friends at Poitiers, "I only care about self-evident truths that can w ard o ff the evils and dangers w ith which fanaticism and ignorance forever surround u s.” 41 A fter the king’s flight to Varennes, Brissot, one o f the first avowed Republicans and a man who liked to eat and dress sim ply, explained w ith condescension

Spreading the W ord

♦

219

that he w as w eary o f listening to vague and therefore m iserable prom onarchic objections. He looked forw ard instead, in both the clubs and the press, to a “ cold” discussion—cold but im passioned, no doubt. Ja ­ cobins distinguished between their calm but energized deliberation and the M achiavellian coldness so characteristic o f the icily evil (or ragingly de­ spairing) aristocrates. Jacobins also favored scientific m etaphors. An orator at Vitry-leFrançois condemned aristocrates w ho vainly used specious arguments to “ divert this colum n o f philosophic fluid, o f this vegetable m ilk o f liberty, which is fo r them w hat w ater is to hydrophobes.” 42 The Girondin Jacobin journalist C arra announced that he had geom etric, m athem atical, and geo­ graphic proof o f the queen’s treachery.43 In one o f the m ost fam ous im ages o f the day, Grégoire said o f kings “ that they were in the m oral order w hat monsters were in the physical order o f things.” 44 Antoine M om oro, a Cordelier, spoke o f a “ m oral saltpeter whose explosions have already so often served the cause o f liberty and equality.” 45 Electric images were highly prized: in his musings on the function o f the clubs, a citizen o f A ix reflected that the “ friction o f ideas [had] electrified the souls o f Republi­ cans.” 44 In Paris a deputy-physicist suggested that the mother society “ had electrified the ardent friends o f the Revolution” in the capital, w ho w ould in turn electrify the provinces.47 A Jacobin from Caen urged his Parisian brethren to “ electrify yourselves . . . We bring you back the sacred fire that you have sent u s.” 48 M any orators likened the Constitution or even society as a whole to a m achine, man-made or celestial. Billaud-Varennes com ­ pared governm ent to m echanics: features that had not been combined “ w ith precision, both as regards their numbers and their size, w ill yield un­ even m otions, and w ill occasion endless breakage.” 49 The Paris society w as the sun to the province’s moons and planets. And the guillotine, o f course, w as the m ost notorious machine o f its time. In short, Jacobins left no oratorical avenue unexplored in order to con­ vince. They evinced an eloquence at once “ laconic and paroxysm al.” 50 Every rhetorical device that brought men together w as worthwhile. A t A ix a visitor w as welcom ed by the club’s president “ w ith that frankness, that eloquence, and that firmness which alone can serve to propagate the patri­ otism that inspires them ,” to which the visitor responded, we are told, “ w ith much vehemence.” 51 Thibaudeau bluntly explained that Jacobin speakers should avoid tw o shoals: giving dry lists o f “ unconnected, iso­ lated facts, w ith no connection to one another, w ithout chronology,” that

220

♦

Spreading the W ord

w ould not hold the listeners’ attention, elevate the soul, or produce grand effects” ; and drowning "heroic actions in a w ealth o f w ords, in irrelevant reflections, or gigantic phrase [whereby] one saw the historian’s tale rather than the hero.” 52 Em otivity, hyperbole, science, m etaphors, and fine w ords were accept­ able, because all o f them, singly and together, could become useful paths to a shared truth. "It is very hard to be united by opinions,” a Jacobin gram ­ m arian explained in a speech to the Robespierrist Paris Commune, "w hen you are separated by language . . . As children o f the same fam ily, we m ust have the same thought and be moved by the same sentim ent.” 53 Although m any o f their m yths, sym bols, and principles were in fact am biguously charged (Lucius-Junius Brutus might be seen as an unnatural father or a dedicated patriot; denunciators could be seen as either duplicitous or civicminded), they abhorred obfuscation.54 C learly, the clubs’ place w as to pub­ licize the assem bly’s decrees, but how should it be done? asked the club-

bistes o f Castres. By giving "clear and easy explanations,” they replied. The eagerness o f Jacobins to carry their message to the nation gives a particular tw ist to their grow ing hostility to rural and regional dialects, which were spoken by nearly h alf o f France’s inhabitants— Bretons in the w est, Basques, A lsatians, Flemings in the north, and speakers o f "langue d’oc” patois in the south.55 It w as a truism o f the late eighteenth century that national languages were profoundly expressive o f national character; and French— the lan­ guage o f a regenerated, free people— deserved the national and interna­ tional place o f honor it enjoyed. Some o f its prestige came from the exis­ tence o f the exiled diaspora o f French Protestants, themselves victim s o f m onarchist tyranny. C learly, other systems o f com m unication (like the sign language o f the deaf) also had their universalist appeal. But as a rule, Jacobins considered French the m ost universal o f all spoken languages. Accordingly, for their own good, peasants w ho did not speak the language o f Rousseau should be made to learn it. H ow else could they become the self-governing citizens o f a universalist republic? Barère, in a speech o f Jan uary 2 7 ,17 9 4 (8 Pluviôse, Y ear II), associated all regional form s o f speech w ith counterrevolution, and the Convention voted to send French language teachers to its border areas. "T h e tw o sciences that are the m ost neglected and the m ost useful to m an,” stated the abbé G régoire, a correspondent o f Jefferson w ho had

Spreading the W ord

♦

zu

lived in France for m any years but had not learned the language, “ are the cultivation o f man and the cultivation o f the land. N o one has better un­ derstood this than our brothers in Am erica, where everyone knows how to read, w rite, and speak his national language.” 56 Though basically committed to the use o f French, the Jacobins at first (in 179 0 ) tolerated the local idiom s, which were spoken by plain people and which m any linguists thought to be more em otionally expressive than French. M any clubs went out o f their w ay to accom m odate non-French speakers: they held some o f their meetings in dialect, used it for some o f their publications, and allowed those who knew no French to speak as they w ould. In 17 9 3 , however, when they set as their goal the enforcement o f their universalist point o f view , they rejected dialects. On June 4 ,17 9 4 , Grégoire spoke o f the “ needs and means to w ipe [dialects] out.” “ France has re­ ceived from A m erica,” w rote Antoine Tournon, a Jacobin gram m arian, “ the exam ple o f legislative regeneration. Let us give to all nations the ex­ ample o f linguistic regeneration.” 59 T o that end, Jacobin linguists brought forth schemes to make French more accessible by sim plifying French gram m ar and m aking French spelling more phonetic. In 17 9 1 Jacobins o f all hues, from Condorcet and Brissot to Anacharsis Clootz and Robespierre, supported a Society o f Am a­ teurs o f the French Language. Persecution o f dialect speakers w as a sim pler path, and by 17 9 4 , SaintJu st had come to entertain visions o f linguistic if not ethnic cleansing. Ger­ man speakers from Alsace w ould be resettled in central France, w hile A l­ sace w ould be Frenchified. Alsatian villages should be renamed for soldiers w ho had died at the front, he proposed. In part this approach reflected the exasperation o f Frenchmen in the cap­ ital w ith the hostility o f southern fédérés in Provence and the frustration o f royalist peasants in the w est as w ell. But the evolution o f the Jacobins’ thinking on language follow ed the overall trajectory o f their political and linguistic situation. A t first, the Jacobins’ innovative use o f language and o f themes, their “ discourse,” gave real substance to their new thoughts. In this phase, ideas and social context, politics and culture, w ords and things, all reinforced one another. For exam ple, by presenting the attackers o f the Bastille not as a rebellious mob but as inspired citizens overthrow ing despotism , journal­

zz z

♦

Spreading the W ord

ists who dealt w ith the event made it w hat it has been ever since: a land­ m ark in historical tim e, the precise moment at which the thousand-yearold O ld Regim e ceased to be.58 Stylistically innovative, Jacobin journalists used direct prose, often o f the “ you-are-there” variety. The Jacobin jou r­ nalist w as him self a transform ing hero whose personal descriptions tran­ scended his immediate concerns. H is choice o f w ords and syntax under­ scored the universality o f the events he described and m arked their relevance to the lives o f his regenerated readers. The subject o f these early Jacobin sentences might indifferently be the individualistic “ I ” o f the jou r­ nalist or the collective “ w e” o f the readers. But this enriching exchange o f w ords, things, and events soon ceased. In 17 8 9 new or renewed w ords o f citizenship and popular sovereignty had enabled Jacobins to form ulate their project o f universalist fraternity. B y 17 9 3 these same w ords had lost their libertarian meaning. They became in­ stead a weapon o f politics, a kind o f thought control that enabled the few to exclude and tyrannize the m any. A s the young Benjamin Constant w as to w rite in 17 9 7 , “ the perfidious friend, the faithless debtor, the obscure denouncer, the mendacious judge all found ready-m ade excuses in a set language [dans la langue convenue]. Patriotism ,” he went on, “ became the banal and expected excuse for every misdeed. G reat sacrifices, selfless acts, and the victories o f an austere republicanism bom o f antiquity became the pretext for the unleashing o f selfish passions.” 59 In brief, by 17 9 3 , Jacobin rhetoric had become self-referential, stilted, and falsely enthusiastic.60 M any com mentators rem arked on the wooden­ ness o f late Jacobin oratory. Their “ politically correct” circum locutions became ever more numerous and artificial: nuns were “ jeunes anacho­ rètes,” soldiers were “ guerriers intrépides,” bishops were “ bipèdes mitrophores,” nobles were the “ ci-devant aristocratie équestre,” and so on. As Thom as C row has acutely observed o f D avid, “ the more coercive and con­ form ist the political moment, the more abstractly beatific [his] images had to be.” 61 This trend calls to mind, once again, H egel's notion o f absolute freedom. In the first months o f the Revolution (and o f the prerevolution, in 17 8 8 -8 9 ) the Jacobins’ use o f new w ords (nation, civisme, citizenship) w as vital and socially creative: new w ords created new w ays o f feeling. Sensi­ bly, Jacobins at this point were hostile to representations o f fêtes on the stage (Plato’s mimesis o f mimesis) because they wanted fêtes to be associ­ ated in the public mind w ith spontaneity and transparency rather than

Spreading the W ord

♦

223

thespian artifice. Going further Barère even urged revolutionaries to “ reform spectacles where people go for m oney” and asked that they be com pletely transform ed and “ turned into fêtes that are given for the peo­ p le.” " But as the Jacobins moved tow ard abstraction, and lost touch w ith French society, their fêtes became dryly and artificially allegorical and their w ords calcified. When the French Revolution became “ a discursive event”

only, rather than a cultural and social revolution that shaped and w as shaped by new w ords and concepts, its days were numbered. M ichelet first commented on this critical shift, which also gives visual ex­ pression to H egel’s notion o f “ absolute freedom ,” defined as a flight to­ w ard abstraction that w as bom o f an inability to give citizenship true meaning in a society unexpectedly divided by nascent class divisions.

sw ay their fellow citizens, Jacobins relied principally on the spoken and the w ritten w ord. Instinctively, Jacobin authors adapted the telling o f their revolutionary story to the requirements o f the literary genres that were popular at the tim e, just as contem poraneous M ethodists used popu­ lar tunes to express a renewed religious spirituality. In 17 8 9 alone, more than a hundred texts adapted politics to either English romances or French

contes, the likes o f which V oltaire had made so p o p u la r." But Jacobins were vitally interested in other mediums also. Singing w as an especially im portant part o f Jacobin ritual, as appears from the testim o­ nial o f the Conventionnel en mission Pierre Dubouchet, w ho w rote that “ nothing is more suitable than hymns and patriotic songs to electrify R e­ publican souls. I have witnessed their prodigious effect during my m ission in the departments. We alw ays ended the meetings o f both clubs and o ffi­ cial sessions by singing hymns, and their invariable effect w as the enthusi­ asm o f members and spectators.” 64 It w as the Jacobins’ role in the diffu­ sion o f “ La M arseillaise” as a revolutionary anthem in 17 9 2 that ensured its success. (At M etz a revolutionary Jew ish enthusiast penned a H ebrew version o f the hymn.) In the south especially, public dancing o f the faran­ dole w as a ritualized part o f the Jacobin fête, a pan-artistic, cross-class happening, w ith dance, costum es, statuary, instrumental m usic, song, and declam ation. “ We ended by dancing and singing the Carm agnole,” w rote the clubbistes o f Laval, “ w ith a m usical accom panim ent; in a w ord, w e had an opera, a ballet, and an orchestra, and above all else, a frank gaiety that

224

♦

Spreading the W ord

left the most delicious sensations in the souls o f the spectators.” 65 Indeed, singing w as so much o f a good thing that at Provins, the abstemious, selfdenying clubbistes decided to allow it only on the decadi. Unlike Rousseau, in this respect at least—since Jean-Jacques had been a confirm ed enemy o f the corrupting Genevan stage— the Jacobins encour­ aged every art form , provided that it be politicized: seldom has any group o f people been so m assively adverse to Kant’s description o f high art as purposiveness w ithout a purpose. “ I consider artists to be very fortunate,” w rote a Jacobin poet at Rouen, "w hen they dedicate their genius to the public spirit, to the benefit o f their brothers, in a w ord, to the republic.” 66 In Paris, on M arch io , 17 9 4 , the Committee o f Public Safety opened a new Théâtre du Peuple to further the regeneration o f the dram atic arts. In Paris and the provinces, Jacobins attended plays and sponsored benefit perfor­ mances for the arm y and for w ar victim s. They thought it right that actors donate their time as Jacobins had donated their zeal. The highlight o f any show came when, on both sides o f the stage, enthralled spectators and ac­ tors joined in singing or recitation, a conjunction o f purposes which proved that the artificial stage w as a true representation o f current politics, and therefore no artifice at all. Jacobins, one must add, also censored plays. François de Neufchâteau, once blessed by Voltaire and him self an erstwhile Jacobin , w as imprisoned for his staging o f Richardson’s Pamela. So w as Gingené, the editor in the spring o f 17 9 4 o f a publication which had m ildly suggested that apolitical, creative artists might also have a place in the Revolution.67 Nevertheless, Jacobins were intent patrons o f the arts. In many w ays, m oreover, they were themselves everyday artists who created or revived in­ numerable sym bols and allegories. They assumed that art’s first function w as to represent m im etically, but they also understood the captivating value o f sym bols like the tricolor flag; the revolutionary pike, a (masculine and Freudian?) symbol o f direct action; and the living and fruitful trees o f lib­ erty, "le signe chéri des français” (the dearest sign o f the French, a distant echo o f festive m aypoles and pre-Christian folk custom s).68 In June 17 9 2 the Jacobins o f M azargues, a village next to Périgueux, proudly offered to their urban brethren a "crow n o f pines” borne by their own tree. They chose their sym bols with care: at M ontignac the clubbistes hesitated; elms did grow more quickly, but oaks were a more forceful sym bol. They se­ lected the oak.69

Spreading the W ord

♦

225

In fact, Jacobins obsessed about signs. Ju st as Condillac had thought that w ords could express essences, so Jacobins believed that signs might perfectly express “ the signified,” as did, for exam ple, the physical appear­ ance o f their foes. The true Jacobin w ore his heart on his sleeve and could be im m ediately recognized as virtuous by his fellow Jacobin s, just as aristo­

crates could be judged by their conspiratorial physiognom y. Baroque obfuscation w as com pletely foreign to the Jacob in s' w ay o f thinking. They prized immediate com prehensibility and created or appro­ priated m any images o f light, transparence, and all-seeing (M asonic) eyes. Bernard Poyet, w ho described him self as an “ architecte Jaco b in ,” de­ spaired at being denounced as a counterrevolutionary because the classical m otifs he had set on a canon foundry o f his design were m isunderstood and taken (wrongly) to represent m onarchic crow ns. W iser than he, many Jacobin architects relied on architecture parlante, in which the shape o f a building or its architectural details spoke quite literally to its functions (chains on a prison gate, flow ing w ater on a fountain, and so on). Indeed, even before the Revolution, the architect Claude-N icolas Ledoux— no Ja ­ cobin, to be sure; but an artist whose style expressed the feelings o f the age— had proposed a bordello in the shape o f an erect phallus. This type o f thinking w as often replicated after 17 8 9 , if only in the sense that a plain style w as meant to express plain feelings. M any Jacobin monuments that employed classical or Christian m otifs (Cato or H ercules; m artyrs or griev­ ing mothers) came complete w ith an explicative legend, written emphati­ cally not in Latin but in French. Jacobins in charge o f staging parades weighed the advantages o f live models for dead heroes rather than plaster statues. W hich w ould be the m ore convincing—an exact look-alike or a more suggestive im age?70 They preferred song to orchestral m usic, whose message they found too general.71 O f course, when pressed, Jacobins agreed that external signs might w ell be irrelevant: “ remember above all else,” said the president o f the club at Vitry-le-François, “ that you can judge men only by their habitual actions. The feelings they display externally when confronted by circum stances they did not expect are nearly alw ays the image o f their innermost senti­ m ents.” 72 W hy should Jacobins not be forced to w ear a phrygian bonnet? Because, as a spokesman for the Jacobin m ajority explained, clothes are nei­ ther here nor there: “ It is by his actions that a patriot is judged.” 73 In Paris Saint-Just concurred: “ Let us not alw ays judge men by their speech and ap­

zz6

♦

Spreading the W ord

pearance. Those w ho today say and act differently from the w ay they spoke and acted yesterday are guilty, in our eyes, o f dissim ulation.” 74 Still, on balance, it w as only for the enemies o f the Revolution that out­ w ard sign might be no proof o f inner grace. One Conventionnel surm ised that the enem y's heart had renounced w hat his hand w as signing, som e­ thing that could never have happened to this Conventionnel since his ow n heart, w ord, and pen were alw ays in complete accord. Jacobins pitied fellow Jacobins w ho had been deceived. A ny honest m an, after all, might be duped once. In fact, to have been fooled by the false sign o f a hypocritical aristocrate w as roundabout proof o f one’s own honesty. A t the same time, o f course, as Billaud threateningly said to Danton upon the arrest o f his crooked friend Fabre, one must not be too misguided fo r too long. In this context o f overlapping signs and sym bols, conform ing to the es­ tablished rituals o f the Revolution w as an acid test o f political rectitude. Clubs festooned their meeting halls w ith a rich variety o f sym bols that as­ serted their revolutionary commitments: busts o f votive figures; models o f the Bastille; French, Am erican, English, and Polish flags; portraits; honor rolls; allegories o f virtue; tablets o f the Rights o f M an; and revolutionary m ottoes, the m ost common o f them being "L ib erty, equality, fraternity, or death.” 75 A t meetings members were careful to stick tell-tale cards into their hats. Needless to say, given the tempo o f revolutionary politics, m any charts, banners, and busts appeared and then suddenly disappeared. The remains o f M irabeau, which had been placed in the Pantheon, were removed there­ from in Novem ber 17 9 3 . Likew ise, M arat’s corpse, though eulogized in Ju ly 17 9 3 , w as “ de-Pantheonized” in Novem ber 179 s» und his ashes thrown into the public sew er.76 Initially, the Paris Jacobins were pleased to own the bust o f the m aterialist philosopher H elvetius, a hero o f antiCatholicism ; but Robespierre, who sponsored the cult o f the Supreme Being and did not like the "atheistic” Encylopedists, arranged for its re­ m oval.77 The rise and fall o f revolutionary sym bols serves as an excellent barom eter o f revolutionary politics. Clothing also became a sym bol to the Jacobins: rare w as the bourgeois Jacobin (like Thibaudeau, a notorious opportunist) w ho dared to imitate the dress o f the Parisian sans-culottes. Jacobins ordinarily recognized that people were free to dress as they pleased. On O ctober 29, 17 9 3 , the Con­ vention had form ally confirm ed that right. But they expected citizens,

Spreading the W ord

♦

227

women especially, to dress respectably and in a civic manner. A t Reim s a drummer w as reprimanded for w earing "unconstitutional clothing.” G od­ desses o f liberty or nature might in print and painting display their nurtur­ ing breasts (a statue erected in 17 9 3 had ninety-three o f them, one for each department), but ordinary citizenesses were expected to be more chaste. M uch w as expected also o f priests or form er priests. Should Jacobins w ear hats, bonnets, or no headgear whatever? Should Alsatians be allow ed to w ear Germ anic folk costumes? Should members w ear their hair short ("a la républicaine” ) or long?78 Com plicated arrangem ents were w orked out from place to place and time to time. A t Bénévent the rule w as that hair could be no longer than eight inches. In the Paris sections, w earing the red Phrygian cap (which had been associated w ith convicts) w as made m anda­ tory in December 17 9 1 .79 The Jacobins o f Reim s decided that the presi­ dent, irrespective o f his w ishes, w ould be required to w ear the now popular red phrygian cap and that ordinary members might do so if they wished. A t M ontaigut, however, the ctubbistes ordered six bonnets "to decorate the [club’s] president, secretaries, and censors when carrying out their duties.” 80 W earing the national (blue, w hite, and red) cockade became an affair o f state. Some clubs required it; the club at M ontauban decided to expel from the city all strangers w ho did not w ear it. But others wanted to deny sus­ pects and nobles the right to w ear this re vo lu tio n a ry ennobling sign. In any instance, on Ju ly 8 ,1 7 9 2 , men were required by national law to w ear it, as were women on September 2 1 , 17 9 3 . A t Carcassone the clubbistes urged that this law be "vigorously enforced.” 81 Robespierre him self w as al­ w ays im peccably dressed and peruked in the manner o f prerevolutionary times. Thus, the Jacobins made conflicting fashion statements, but all spoke to a fund o f shared concerns. M ore expressive than clothes were the very bodies o f the Jacobins, both male and fem ale, and o f their enemies as w ell.82 N aked Jacobin masculine bodies expressed the myth o f the w arrior citizen, and were the nation’s own. The nurturing bodies o f wom en, by contrast, belonged both to their children, who had a natural right to breastfeed, and to their w arriorhusbands. When intact, Republican bodies represented trium phant nature: al­ though D avid’s private portraits were intensely realistic— consider his selfportrait w ith a prom inently displayed facial disfigurement—his official likenesses o f revolutionary heroes like M arat or Robespierre were either

z iS

♦

Spreading the W ord

plainly inaccurate or highly stylized. D avid’s Jacobin bodies betokened a perfect, transcendental truth. Even injured or im paired masculine bodies had value as representa­ tions o f the sacrificial commitment to the Grande N ation: M arat’s corpse, though decomposing rapidly in the summer heat, w ith one arm stitched to its trunk, w as trium phantly paraded through Paris. It w as a common prac­ tice o f visiting soldiers in the clubs to bare their wounded bodies so as to underscore their spoken w ords. One can also read the m orbid appeal o f the guillotine as an inverted sign: there the body o f the anti-Jacobin w as deprived not merely o f life but o f wholeness. W hereas Jacobins were heroes fated to im m ortality, the re­ jected, guillotined, disjointed bodies o f anti-Jacobin conspirators and aris­

tocrates were bloody proof o f their m oral as w ell as physical annihilation. For good m easure, Louis’s and M arie Antoinette’s royal and decapitated remains were thrown into a lime pit. The executions o f the Old Regim e had contrapuntally opposed the bru­ tally disjointed bodies o f crim inals to the wholeness o f the king’s body: the gruesome dismemberment in 17 5 7 o f the failed regicide Dam iens, who had struck the king’s sacred body with a knife, w as an eloquent reminder o f that bond. In im itative contradistinction to these hallowed precedents, rev­ olutionary punishment inverted this rite. As the bodies o f counterrevolu­ tionaries were mauled and severed publicly, the revolutionary’s body be­ came im m ortal.

Ç

¿ y acobins loved to sing the praises o f selfless men and heroes, but they needed also to deride the profane meanness o f their enemies. Punishment involved shaming. Clubs kept not just rolls o f honor but rolls o f dishonor as w ell. A constitutional bishop suggested that the aristocrat François, m arquis de Bouillé, w ho w as to have helped Louis X V I on his flight to Varennes, should have his name written up in red letters, so that passersby might disdain it; and the names o f right-wing deputies were indeed put up in such colors on a black background at the club in M ontpellier. A t Largentière the club considered issuing yellow cartridges to cow ardly N a­ tional G uards.83 The club at T ulle, where the pursued Girondin Bernard Lidon had killed him self, placed his ashes in “ an um o f sham e.” 84 A some­ w hat deranged Conventionnel named Jean D ebry even proposed that dissi­ dent priests found guilty o f organizing resistance to the Revolution be branded.

Spreading the W ord

♦

2 29

Jacobins believed in the close fit between fact and sym bol and fetishistically inverted them in terms o f cause and effect. Destroying the sign w ould help som ehow to solve the problem expressed in the sign: General Dum ouriez, for exam ple, w ho had betrayed the nation in A pril 17 9 3 , w as often burnt in effigy, as w as Buzot in his hom etown. A t M arseilles M irabeau’s bust w as veiled. A t Chartres the bust o f Petion w as decapi­ tated. M any clubs organized the burning o f m edieval parchm ents, papal bulls, feudal records, and university diplom as. A t Lauris the Jacobins de­ cided to erect and set on fire a tree o f feudalism w ith documents pinned to it in lieu o f leaves.85 When supporters o f the king circulated a petition in June 17 9 2 to protest the action o f the Parisian crow d that had broken into the royal palace, the club at Lons-le-Saulnier ordered it burnt on the public square. The practical result o f these auto-da-fés w as, o f course, to make im possible some future recourse to the courts; but the more im portant and quasi-m agical effect w as to annihilate a m onarchic past or an obnoxious present. The clubbistes o f Savem e wished to bum some rem aining royal portraits "so that the fact o f their existence w ould be com pletely destroyed in the m em ory o f right-thinking people.” 86 Vandalism (already discussed in the context o f the Jacobins’ indifference to the past) w as not by any means common to all Jacobins. But it did exist and have obvious relevance to the Jacobins’ desire to give their own sym bols a freer field o f play. An absurd version o f the Jacobins’ attention to hostile signs came w ith the execution at Bordeaux in early 17 9 4 o f the actor Arouch, w ho w as found guilty o f having too strongly declaim ed, while on the stage, "L o n g live our noble K in g!” In vain did he exclaim at his trial and on the w ay to the guillotine: “ But it w as in my p art!” 87 Jacobins took pains to destroy rival signs and to enforce the Conven­ tion's decree on the destruction o f coats o f arm s and royal fleurs-de-lis. The secretary o f the club o f Carcassonne ripped a cross from a wom an’s neck because she should have been w earing “ un coeur de M arat.” 88 Alternative sym bols were not just destroyed but transm ogrified or displaced by a new, revolutionary version. A republic, explained Saint-Just in 17 9 3 , is consti­ tuted by the "com plete destruction o f its opposite” ; on the day o f Bailly’s execution in late 17 9 3 , the guillotine w as moved to the Cham p de M ars, the site o f the m assacre he had ordered in Ju ly 1 7 9 1 . A t M ontpellier, in September 17 9 3 , the club decided that on a com ing Sunday the British flag together w ith a mannequin o f the "infâm e Pitt” w ould be burnt on the city’s main square, and that a liberty tree w ould be planted on that square, "a t the very spot where had stood the statue o f the tyrant,” Louis X IV in

230

♦

Spreading the W ord

this instance.89 A t A ix the club distributed food on Christm as D ay, an ob­ viously preemptive step. The Jacobins o f Courthézon put a red bonnet on the statue o f Saint-John. The M ontaigut Jacobins staged a fête where the tricolor flag overthrew the m onarchy’s white standard. A t Louhans, M irabeau’s bust w as smashed on the occasion o f a countervailing fête in honor o f M arat.90 In February 17 9 3 a Parisian Jacobin said o f Claude De­ seine (a deaf sculptor) that he had “ used his chisel to reproduce the traits o f the m ost im m oral o f men” (a reference to M irabeau, w ho had died in 17 9 1) , but that he w ould soon “ purify that chisel by m aking the bust o f M ichel Peletier.” 91 A t Auch, the Jacobins decried the use o f black cloth in funerals: a tricolor cloth w ould be more appropriate, they thought.92 The Parisian Jacobins agreed. A report to the Paris Commune on 2 1 N ivôse, Y ear II, called for the edging o f cloths in various hues: white for those who died prem aturely (with the legend “ They were grow ing for the fatherland” ); red for adults (“ They were living for the patrie” ); and blue for the aged (“ They lived for the patrie” ). A t G aillac the clubbistes instructed the m unicipal councillors to participate in new funerary rites. It w as necessary, they explained, “ to carry out for citizens those duties which hum anity dem ands,” and since Catholic rituals had been abolished, a new ceremony should be elaborated. Councillors w ould be involved sequentially in this “ fonction im portante,” w earing the signs o f liberty.93 The General Council o f the town concurred, though it also chose to remind the clubbistes that the estates o f dead private persons should continue to pay for these new rites. Fragments or ruins o f older sym bols were often recycled as part o f new monuments. The painter D avid urged that some statues o f the O ld Regim e be melted down so that “ posterity might learn that the republic’s fir s t . . . monuments were built w ith the debris o f the last five m onarchs’ lu xu ry.” 94 Renam ing towns and streets w as an easy w ay to achieve this goal o f signal­ ized rebirth as when a “ rue Duchesse” became “ Benevolent Street.” In the Bourbonnais, som ewhat bizarrely, the town o f Lurcy-Lévis (named after a great noble fam ily) became Lurcy-le-Sauvage. The paths o f Jacobin fêtes were carefully planned to include form er clerical or m onarchic sites (like the Tuileries Palace or the Church o f Sainte Geneviève— now the Pan­ theon— so that royal or ancient buildings might acquire a new and revolu­ tionary image. Jacobins did at times keep some older sym bols, but only to degrade them m orally. D o not destroy the house o f Dum ouriez, said the Jacobins at

Spreading the W ord

♦

231

T oul. It w ould be much better to preserve Dum ouriez’s childhood home as a “ monument to infam y.” 95 Let us keep Richelieu’s tom b, proposed G ré­ goire: “ seeing such monuments reinforces our hatred o f tyrants by doom ­ ing them . . . to be perpetually pilloried.” 96 Logically enough, Jacobins were exasperated by the destruction o f their own signs: they were shocked when spectators ripped up their posters or ignored the anniversaries o f such great revolutionary events as the execu­ tion o f the m onarch and the fall o f the Bastille, which all regenerated citi­ zens knew as “ the time o f their birth.” 97 Jacobins were aghast when their enemies desecrated or chopped down liberty trees, those ubiquitous and ar­ boreal sym bols. And inevitably, after 9 Therm idor, the Jacobins turned upon m any o f their ow n, now discarded signs w ith as much vigor as their enemies had done. A t Courthézon the clubbistes w aited for the arrival o f a visiting Con­ ventionnel to stage a parade through town ending at the foot o f the tree o f liberty, where they burned the effigy o f M arat w aiting on “ the tail o f Robespierre” (an obscene pun that referred to die-hard M ontagnards). For good and exculpating m easure, they also threw into the blaze their own so­ ciety’s diplom a inscribed “ T error is the order o f the d ay.” 98

^ /a c o b in aesthetics were com plex. Although they used plain and immedi­ ately comprehensible signs, Jacobin artists also relied heavily on allegory (perhaps showing an angel blowing in a trum pet that represented fam e, or truth as an unveiled wom an). This allegorical concern w as in some sense surprising because tropes o f this kind had been decried before 17 8 9 by en­ lightened art critics, then more intent (as the Jacobins also were) on spon­ taneity and unspoiled nature. But from a Jacobin point o f view , allegory, which the Jacobin architect Quatremère de Q uincy described as “ an im i­ tation that is to some extent non-im itative,” had its merits nonetheless because it too could help to clarify and dignify the more com plicated mechanisms o f mundane social life. A llegory reminded Jacobins that reality w as to be transcended, that society should be transparent, that man should rise above him self, that w hat w as seen could stand for w hat w as as yet un­ seen. The entire range o f Jacobin aesthetics, sym bol, and oratory came to­ gether in the decor and speeches o f the civic fete. Rem iniscent in their pur­

232

♦

Spreading the W ord

pose and their method o f ancient Greek and civic theater, the fêtes w ere com plex com m unitarian perform ances. T o bring their message home, the organizers o f these public feasts (whose political purpose has already been described) m obilized every possible aesthetic avenue, suitably revolution­ ized. O ften staged outdoors and in commemoration o f fallen m artyrs, the fête ritually moved as a procession from one hallowed historical site to another or, in sm all towns where no such sites existed, from one public square to another. The Old Regim e fêtes had been spectacles where the faithful observed more than participated. In the Rom an service, m oreover, officiants in their robes resembled actors in disguise. The Jacobin fête inverted these relation­ ships com pletely, or tried to do so. When Jacobin participants w ore alle­ gorical costum es, they assumed natural, unaffected sym bols, as w hen Robespierre carried a sheaf o f wheat at the celebration o f the cult o f the Supreme Being in M ay 17 9 4 , or young women dressed in white as god­ desses o f Reason in O ctober 1 7 9 3 ." Like the im position o f French over di­ alects, the style o f the fêtes evolved in w ays that paralleled the overall evo­ lution o f Jacobinism ’s purpose. M any o f the earlier fêtes o f the Revolution had been spontaneous and quite w ild, in the late fall o f 17 9 3 especially. B y contrast, the late Jacobin fête w as highly structured. The Festival o f the Supreme Being in the spring o f 17 9 4 , for exam ple, w as pacific and orderly, in striking opposition to previous festivals, like the fêtes de la raison that had been celebrated in the previous winter and had involved ribald and feminized scenes o f sym bolic destruction.100 Because it focused on the de­ struction o f the O ld Regim e and on placating the popular movement, Ja ­ cobinism had at first gravitated tow ard theatrical and even operatic rituals o f cathartic violence. But later festivals were more transcendental in their purpose. M ichelet w as not w rong to see in that stylistic shift a sign o f the Jacobins’ rem oval from the cordial unanim ity o f 17 9 0 to the sectarian ide­ ology o f Robespierrism . Jacobin poetics and ritual, as Crane Brinton insightfully understood h alf a century ago, bring to the fore another critical element o f Jacobinism , nam ely, its connection to religion. W as Jacobinism truly an expression o f Enlightenment ideas? O r should we see it instead as a religion, as H egel and even Tocqueville did? “ The French Revolution,” w rote Tocqueville, “ is a political revolution which worked like and then took on the appear­ ance o f a religious revolution.” 101 The archreactionary Louis de Bonald,

Spreading the W ord

♦

233

who likened Jacobins to M oham m edans, argued that both groups despised the one true religion. Bonald also pointed out that these “ sects” sought to destroy the fam ily, the one through divorce, the other through poly­ gam y!102 Jacobins resolutely denied that theirs w as a religion at all. Jacobinism , they thought, w as a secular ideology and set o f attendant practices— a sym ­ bolically rich but earthbound “ political culture” in today’s parlance—that could fruitfully coexist w ith and perhaps complement any existing religion. When a Jacobin at Castres suggested that both Protestant and Catholic women be invited to participate in the celebration o f Bastille D ay in 1 7 9 1 , a fellow member rem arked that “ there could be no question o f religion when patriotism w as at stake.” 103 The idea, he went on, w as to invite not these or those persons but “ everyone in general.” Specific form s o f worship did not m atter to them: Protestant children, explained a Jacobin at N iort, should be admitted to the local Catholic secondary school, where they might learn “ this universal m oral sense, which m akes for w orthy men and good citizens regardless o f the nature o f the cult they w orship.” 104 Peace, declared the Patriote français in February 17 9 0 , can only reign where all cults cherish and interweave one another, as w as true in Philadelphia, where seventeen different religions cohabitated peacefully. For m any months, the clubs m aintained close ties to the dom inant C atholic Church. Six percent o f all Jacobins whose profession is known to us were priests (who accounted for a mere 0.5 percent o f the French popu­ lation, so that priests m ay w ell have been the m ost overrepresented profes­ sion in the clubs). Even Dorn Gerle—whose (defeated) motion o f A pril 17 9 0 aimed to make Catholicism the religion o f the state, w as a member o f the Paris club. A t Ligny-en-Barrois in the M euse, twenty-nine o f the ninetytw o founding members were priests.105 The warm th Jacobins might feel tow ard religion in general came out in September and O ctober 17 9 0 , when the clubs enthusiastically accepted the C ivil Constitution o f the Clergy. In early 17 9 1 m any clubs were heavily in­ volved in the choices o f the new priests and bishops. The abbé Fauchet, for exam ple, w as elected president o f the Paris Jacobins in Novem ber 17 9 1 . In 17 8 9 , he had taken part in the attack on the Bastille; and in A pril 1 7 9 1 , thanks to the clubbistes, he had been elected constitutional bishop o f the C alvados department. According to the Jacobin s, the constitutional church and the clubs were destined to agree. A fter all, were they not both “ noninstitutions” o f a kind,

Z34

♦

Spreading the W ord

since neither juring priests nor Jacobins had any selfish goals? “ Qu’est-ce que l'Église? c’est la réunion des fidèles" (W hat is the church? the com ing together o f the faithful).106 The same definition applied to the clubs, which assembled citizens w ho spoke not for themselves but for the entire nation. “ If the principles o f the purest, m ost unadulterated Christianity were ever forgotten," explained a nonconstitutional and episcopal vicar to the Ja ­ cobins o f Lauris, whose first president had been a priest, “ we could recover them painlessly. The French Constitution itself finds in [those Christian principles] its strength and a renewed vigor. It is by m arrying religious and civic duties," he w rote, “ that men can be made religious w ithout being uncivic, and patriotic w ithout being irreligiou s."107 “ It is not God w ho needs religion, it is m an,” w rote Cam ille Desm oulins. “ God has no need for in­ cense, professions, and prayers; but w e need to have hope, consolation, and a rew arder.” 108 A s late as 17 9 3 m any Jacobins pointed to the early Christians' cult o f equality as a living model. Jesus had been “ the first sans­ culotte." In A pril 17 9 4 G obel, the more or less H ébertist constitutional archbishop o f Paris, w as charged w ith atheism as w ell as conspiracy. But despite their quasi-m etaphysical affinities, Jacobins and Catholics rapidly parted w ays as the nonconstitutional, orthodox, and papal church moved ever further from the Revolution. Religion and “ refractory” priests— clerics who had refused to accept the C ivil Constitution— became a m ajor subject o f club discussion in the spring o f 17 9 1 and 17 9 z . When hundreds o f priests renounced their vow s, the clubs welcomed these apostates, particularly when the new members evinced a desire to m arry. Some o f their conversions were announced on club floors; others took place in churches where a priest m ight enter a confessional in his cler­ ical robes and emerge, regenerated (like Superman from his phone booth!), in the uniform o f a N ational Guardsm an. Eventually, m any clubs asked that nonjuring priests be rounded up. In A pril 17 9 z the Jacobins o f Nantes discussed having them arrested or deported; and on August z 6 ,17 9 z , tw o weeks after the fall o f the m onarchy, their expulsion w as indeed decided. Religious m atters quickly went from bad to w orse. The influence o f re­ fractory priests on women w as a particularly sore point for m any Jacobins. The priests were said to be the “ secret perturbators o f fam ilial tranquility; they cause women to distance themselves from their husbands, which runs counter to the unambiguous w ords o f C hrist, who never ceased to urge women to rem ain united to their spouses."109 Soon, even the prorevolu­ tionary juring priests w ho had accepted the C ivil Constitution o f the

Spreading the W ord

♦

135

C lergy lost favor w ith the Jacobins. The club at A ix— clearly a radical soci­ ety— had begun to side against them as early as M ay 1 7 9 1 . By late 17 9 1 a number o f southern clubs were physically hum iliating them. In A pril 17 9 z» when the N ational Assem bly decided in principle that priests should be fo r­ bidden to w ear clerical garb in public, only one club protested; and in early June 17 9 3 , at the height o f the struggle w ith the Gironde, Chabot, him self a defrocked priest, argued (absurdly) that the constitutional clergy were the Jacob in s' w orst enemies. T o be sure, in 17 9 3 , M ontagnard Jacobins disliked the constitutional clergy more than the Girondin Jacobins did, though some o f these “ Brissotins” (like Isnard) were fanatically anticlerical as w ell.110 But the sup­ posed connection o f the Gironde to the constitutional clergy, sym bolized by the abbé Fauchet (who w as executed in late O ctober 17 9 3 ), did neither the Girondins nor the juring priests much good. Eventually, m ost constitu­ tional priests were pushed out o f the clubs, though some o f them were readm itted after the fall o f Robespierre in the w inter o f 17 9 4 . Revolutionary anticlericalism clim axed in the fall o f 17 9 3 w ith dechristianization, which w as m arked by the shutting o f churches, the taking down o f church bells, the confiscation o f valuable ritual objects, and the forced conversions o f priests. True enough, this movement w as not as a rule initiated by the clubs: it w as m ore often the tool o f deputies from Paris (like A lbitte, Fouché, and Javogues and his assistant Dorfeuille) and o f the sans-culotte m ilitias (the armées révolutionnaires) that radiated out o f Paris and some provincial cities. Nonetheless, m any clubs were involved not just in the staging o f anticlerical revolutionary fêtes, but in the hum iliation o f priests and in their forced conversion and m arriage. Jacobinism 's relationship to Protestantism and Judaism also moved from tolerance to rivalry and persecution. In the south especially, Protestants were am ong the warm est supporters o f the Revolution, and some Calvinist m inisters, like Jeanbon Saint-André and the Rabaut brothers, not only joined the clubs but became national political figures o f the first rank. (One o f the Rabauts w as executed, but Jeanbon Saint-André survived and later became a N apoleonic prefect.) A t M ontauban, a southern city on the T am river whose population w as heavily Catholic, m ost o f the clubbistes were Protestants,111 and the driving force o f anti-jacobinism in m any parts o f the southern Languedoc region w as anti-Protestantism in disguise, al­ though Protestant Jacobins were careful to present their own revolutionary involvement as a nonreligious, secular, and universalist preference.

236

♦

Spreading the W ord

In the m id-1 790s Catholic polem icists liked to present Jacobinism as the historical successor to the Reform ation, which m ay not be untrue metahistorically but w as certainly not so in the shorter run: the Jacobin-dom inated Convention just as intently shut down Protestant temples as it closed the churches o f the Catholics. (In the G ard fifty-one out o f seventy Protestant ministers resigned their post.) Protestants w ho were Jacobins did not com ­ plain. W hat w as fair for the Catholic clergy had to be acceptable all around. The situation o f France’s forty thousand Jew s, though not dissim ilar, w as more com plicated. In 17 8 9 -9 9 the underlying Frenchness o f Protes­ tants w as never questioned, even by those w ho deplored their foreign ties. But in prerevolutionary years, even the m ost vocal defenders o f Jew s like the abbé Grégoire imagined Jew s as quasi-foreigners. The em ancipation o f Jew s w as im portant but only as a step tow ard their Frenchification and eventual conversion. Jew s sim ply were not yet French. A fter 17 8 9 , how ever, m any regenerated Jacobins came to understand the logic o f including Jew s as citizens; and hundreds o f Jew s responded by be­ com ing enthusiastic Jacobins. Though many Alsatians (like Jean-François Reubell) were notorious anti-Sem ites, the Jacobins o f Strasbourg, when asked in Jan uary 17 9 0 by their Parisian brethren w hat they thought about the granting o f citizenship to southern Jew s, responded that A lsatian Jew s should be citizens as w ell. “ The Jew ish sect,” w rote a clubbiste at Nîm es o f Jew s w ho had voluntarily contributed to the w ar effort, “ has been w orthy o f our revolutionary circum stances; it is the first sect o f the department to offer to us its ritual vessels.” 112 A t Carpentras Jew ish Jacobins, after trans­ form ing their synagogue into a Tem ple o f Reason, went one step further in February 17 9 4 and made it the site o f a Jacobin club. As individuals, Jew s joined Jacobin societies at Avignon, Bordeaux, and N îm es, poorer Jew s tending to be more radical than the richer ones. By 17 9 4 Jacobin opinion on Jew s w as split. A political Jew s were an ob­ ject o f derision and persecution. T allien, a Jacobin terrorist who ruled at Bordeaux, lumped together Old Regim e judges and Jew ish merchants as “ more than suspect.” Baudot, a friend o f Danton, disliked all Jew s: they more than anyone, he w rote, should have welcomed the Revolution since they had been “ beasts o f burden” under the Old Regim e. But in every tow n, he w rote, “ they set their cupidity higher than their love o f the fatherland, and keep to their ridiculous superstitions in the place o f reason. I wonder if it wouldn’t be w orthw hile to think about regenerating them

Spreading the W ord

♦

237

through the guillotine,” a joking reference, perhaps, to Grégoire’s prerevo­ lutionary plan for the regeneration o f Jew s through freedom . M any Ja ­ cobins in eastern France gave Jew s a hard tim e, denying them certificats de

civisme, expelling them from the N ational G uard, and trying to exclude them from the clubs. A t Thann all Jew s were placed under surveillance, and the club at Toul wanted to deport “ suspect Jew s.” 113 A s a rule, Jacobin thinking on Jew s and Jew ishness developed along one o f tw o lines. A t tim es, Judaism w as condemned along w ith other faiths. Synagogues were shut down. A t D ijon the club demanded that the ritual Jew ish slaughter o f anim als be suspended. “ A ll citizens w ithout distinc­ tion” should eat the same m eat.114 A t Besançon a Jacobin denounced Jew s for their particularist desire “ to make [their] people distinct from a gener­ ous nation that has sundered their shackles.” 115 But more often Jew s were considered as members o f this or that political faction rather than as Jew s per se. Conventionnels promoted Jew s who w ere politically reliable. Conversely, at Nîm es after Therm idor, victorious rightists purged all Jew s from the club. O verall, tw o Jew s were executed there, one as a Jacobin moderate and the other as a Jacobin extrem ist. W ithout exception, those Jew s who were prosecuted either by Jacobins or by anti-Jacobins at Lyons, N îm es, or Paris were put to death for their poli­ tics and not for their religion or supposed race. The Paris Jacobins were doctrinally on target in their view o f the problem when they concluded that Jew ishness w as a nonissue: “ The republic does not know the meaning o f the w ord Je w ,” explained a clubbiste on 6 Brum aire, Y ear II (October 27, 17 9 3 ), “ because this term no longer refers to a people but to a sect. The re­ public has no interests in sects and deports its votaries only when they dis­ turb the social order.” 116 Jacobinism ’s anguished relationship o f rivalry to all religious institutions including the constitutional clergy, which w as its own creation, brings us back to Tocqueville's view o f Jacobinism as religion. In m any aspects, ranging from ritual to theology or principle, Jacobinism , as it moved from sensibility to ideology, w as—or rather, became— a kind o f religion that necessarily competed w ith other religions for the loyalty o f men’s minds and feelings. Some roots o f Jacobinism ’s neoreligious intolerance have already been described. Num erous other links can be made between Jacobinism and reli­ gious passion, especially as regards rites and sym bols.117 Jacobins did not precisely pray to the Lord as Louis X V I’s subjects had prayed to their

238

♦

Spreading the W ord

Christian G od; but they did “ im plore” their “ deity” to look favorably on the designs o f the Grande N ation. M oreover, m any Jacobin w ays, w ords, and means were clearly borrowed from Rom an C atholic ritual. Contem po­ raries took notice when, in late Ju ly 17 8 9 , processions o f white-robed peni­ tents marched religiously from one end o f Paris to the other in thanks fo r the Revolution’s “ deliverance” tw o weeks before. Likew ise, in September 17 8 9 , a religious parade featured a wooden replica o f the Bastille in the place o f the H oly Sacram ent.118 The rapport between speakers and audi­ ence in the clubs w as reminiscent o f responsive reading in a church. The revolutionary themes o f regeneration and adoption119 had clear religious antecedents. N or is it coincidence that the cam paign for linguistic unity after 17 9 1 m ost occupied pro-Jacobin priests and form er priests w ho had been keenly interested in dialect long before the Revolution. Before, it had m attered to them that the gospel should come to the people. N ow they wanted to make universalism accessible to all citizens, including those w ho did not yet speak the language o f the Grande N ation.120 Club meetings recalled the Rom an mass. Parallels could be draw n as w ell between hymn singing and the ritual intonation o f “ La M arseillaise,” or between reading from the latest Jacobin newspapers and readings from the Bible. Jacobin rhetoric (often spoken from purchased or confiscated pulpits) clearly derived from Christian rhetoric. The luminous tone o f revo­ lutionary ceremonies can be read as neoreligious statements. Another point o f sim ilarity w as the “ civic baptism s” invented by the

clubbistes o f Strasbourg in June 17 9 0 , which became com m onplace in 17 9 3 -9 4 , when thousands o f children were renamed for heroes o f antiq­ uity, for m artyrs o f the Revolution, or from dates taken from the revolu­ tionary calendar. (One policem an is on record as having had his child bap­ tized as Robespierre, and changing it on 1 2 Therm idor.) Like the Catholic Church, Jacobinism had its saints (M arat, C halier, Le Peletier) and its relics. W hen Cam bon (vainly) proposed in Novem ber 17 9 2 to disestablish all churches, the tone o f the one club that supported his idea w as revealing. “ A good farm er,” w rote the Jacobins o f La Souter­ raine, “ a brave soldier, a virtuous citizen, these are the saints whose memo­ ries w e w ill honor.” 121 Sym bolically, m any clubs met in form er churches, and the vandalistic destructions were sometimes im agined as form s o f pu­ rification and expiation that w ould appease the shades o f fallen revolution­ ary heroes.122 The inauguration o f a club or its move from one locale to another w as a quasi-religious occasion, w ith processions and the display o f

Spreading the W ord

♦

239

busts and banners. M any clubs collected donations for the poor. Delegates o f the clubs went around as apostles or "civic m issionaries” to teach "the catechism o f the Revolution” or the "catechism o f liberty.” The D eclara­ tion o f the Rights o f M an w as "a gospel.” A t Bar-le-duc local Jacobins praised the "m ission apostolique” o f the Paris d u b .123 A t Saint-Flour all meetings began w ith a reading o f the "R evolutionary Commandments o f the M ountain” and the "R epublican D ecalogue.” The Convention w as "le Sinaï des Français.” Lafayette, said Robespierre, w as the Cain o f the R evo­ lution. In m any w ays, Jacobin "theology” differed sharply from Christian be­ lief. Jacobins had no explicit sym pathy for dark Augustinian or Calvinist view s o f predestination, or even for the doctrine o f original sin. Religiously inclined observers w ill also note that the response o f these revolutionary technicians to the m isery o f life’s victim s— m any o f whom , o f course, were the victim s o f their own frenzy—w as all too often an im patient or even m ocking silence. Indeed, some might suppose that Jacobinism could not be sustained in 17 9 4 precisely because it w as only m im etically religious. Jacobin art and politics, though obviously thoughtful and reflective, did not provide coherent answers to man’s deepest anxieties, whose weight on the human spirit the Jacobins were in any case reluctant to recognize. Their greatest artist, D avid, is a less profound painter than his pre-Rom antic con­ tem poraries, Turner ( 17 7 5 - 18 5 1) and G oya (17 4 5 -18 2 0 ) especially. Ja ­ cobinism ’s concerns were too w orldly; its solutions, too rational. Jacobin ­ ism , though it yearned for transcendence, w as too "unm etaphysical.” But Jacobinism ’s failure to become a religion has a silver lining. If Ja ­ cobinism had m erely been a modern version o f traditionalist religion, it w ould now be less relevant to our own m odem or postm odern lives. Ja ­ cobinism continues to hold our attention because its aim w as to mold citi­ zens, not angels. Secular-m inded adm irers o f Jacobin principle w ill also note w ith relief that Jacobinism w as at its m ost sterile when closest in its spirit to institu­ tionalized religion.

9

W Unifying Enmities at Home and Abroad To feel pity for the wicked is a great cruelty toward men. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

s y acobins yearned for togetherness. W ith universalist goals and the rhetoric o f truthful friendship, they took politicized fraternity as their lode­ star. A t first, Jacobins expected easily to bridge the antitheses o f their think­ ing. Their descent into terror w as perhaps a fated historical tragedy, but it w as some months before Jacobins suspected that they might either fail or fail to convince. In the sm all Norm and village o f C any, in the summer o f 17 9 4 , a few weeks before the fall o f Robespierre, the clubbistes still voted to disseminate a proclam ation on the iniquities o f religion because "en ­ lightening and guiding the sim plicity o f agricultural citizens is only a m at­ ter o f more o f us spreading [knowledge] in the countryside.” 1 Initially, Jacobins had such confidence in their self-evident message that they did not believe they could have durable enemies. A s Desm oulins put it to the assem bly’s deputies in the first issue o f his newspaper, in Novem ber 17 8 9 : "a s o f now , you have no more enemies . . . all that is left for you to do is to govern France, to make her happy.” 2 Jacobins were intensely puzzled by the spectacle o f "fanaticism forever struck down but forever reborn.” 3 They were convinced that the next ex­ clusion— or the next—w ould be the last. “ Lafayette alone has divided u s,”

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

241

w rote Robespierre in early Ju ly 17 9 2 . "A h ! punish Lafayette and the first bonds o f our union w ill once more be tightened. A new federation w ill bring us back to our first sentim ents.” 4 “ The agony o f aristocracy has begun,” explained Leclerc on June 1 , 17 9 3 , to the Paris Jacobins as the crow d prepared to purge the Convention o f its Girondin deputies, “ the people are going to the Convention. Y ou are o f the people. Y ou must be there.” 5 And yet, despite—or perhaps because o f—these expectations o f total success, seldom has any political group been so steadfast and so acrim o­ nious in denouncing its assembled enemies, nationwide and in the clubs. The dark side o f human nature m ay be less than dark than m ost o f us like to think, but the m oralizing Jacobins insisted, first, that they had no dark side at all and, second, that their enemies were very dark indeed. Like m any sincere people, the Jacobins, in their heart o f hearts, were suspicious o f men and women w ho did not see the w orld as they did. W hat clubbiste did not know that the souls o f refractory priests were the breeding grounds fo r “ les serpens de l’envie, les fureurs de l'intérêt personnel” (the snakes o f envy, the furors o f personal interest)?6 Jacobins could not resist labeling everyone as either m anifestly good or bad. And this m oralizing drive, when conjoined to their inherited inability to distinguish heresy from dissent, propelled them to the detestation and dehum anization o f their enemies, to the m urder o f the prisoners their arm ies had captured in the field, and, in a w ord, to T error. A saddening sim ilarity links the Jacobin description o f the noble-bom during the R evo­ lution to the image o f the Jew in N ational Socialist propaganda: incapable o f hard w ork, Jew s (in 19 3 3 ) and nobles (in 179 4 ) were parasitical, over­ sexed

and unm anly, cow ardly

and

prone

to

political extrem es—

royalist/capitalist for the form er; enragé/communist, selfish, and cos­ m opolitan for the latter: “ L ’Égoiste . . . n'a point de patrie” (A selfish person has no hom eland), declared the Jacobins o f Semur.7 In the debate within W estern culture on the nature o f the Other, the Ja ­ cobins’ view o f life corresponds quite w ell to Freud's description o f other­ ness as not truly foreign, but as a projection outw ard o f a repressed and m irrored self. Aristocrates were the darkness Jacobins feared to find in themselves. Contem porary historians find it difficult to define w hat “ coun­ terrevolution” w as because the French Revolution w as itself volatile and changing.8 But Jacobins had no such problem . A ristocrats inverted the val­ ues o f Jacobinism . They were selfish, covert, m ean, and dishonest. W hat is

242

*

U nifying Enm ities at H om e an d A broad

an aristocrate} a model deaf-mute student w as asked in sign language. H e responded, “ An aristocrate is someone w ho does not like good law s and w ho desires to be a sovereign m aster, and to be very rich. M y nam e is M assieu.” 9 In brief, everyone w as potentially aristocratic, and m any w ere soon labeled as such. In the long run, this pattern o f accum ulated enm ities and denunciations w as fatal to the fortunes o f the Jacobin ideal. But in the short run, purges did unite those Jacobins w ho had remained faithful to the cause. A s Brissot once explained, the Revolution needed to be betrayed. Their enemies, the aristocrates, were lurking all about. N o deed w as too dark for them, from rape and rapine to their inexplicably successful prayers for rain on the occasion o f some revolutionary fete.10 Edm ond D ubois-Crancé said o f Pitt, the British prim e m inister, that he w as like “ an evil deity, invisible to us. Pitt is everyw here.” The specifics o f these betray­ als were sometimes hard to secure, but it w as a cardinal principle o f J a ­ cobin thinking that although they w orked in plain daylight (had they not opened the doors o f their clubs to the public?), their aristocrate enemies conspired against them, ceaselessly, in the dark. Themes o f light, daw n, flares, and darkness permeated Jacobin rituals. The trajectory o f revolu­ tionary fêtes favored broad vistas where even distant spectators might see clearly. Their funeral rites required that the face o f the deceased not be covered during the attendant civic ceremonies. In a letter to the ciubbistes o f Villecroze, M inister o f the Interior Roland declared that “ one more pop­ ular society in the republic is a torch that is lit to dissipate the shadows o f ignorance and superstition.” 11 Jacobins were figuratively and literally en­ lightened. Aristocrates, by contrast, liked to meet at night, calling up im ­ ages o f a w itches’ sabbat. The guilt o f the Revolution’s enemies w as less to be proved than to be inferred. Rousseau, a paranoiac genius, had com plained to Hume— as m any a Jacobin prosecutor w as to argue in 17 9 4 — that it w as in the nature o f intelligent conspirators not to leave inculpating evidence behind. T he absence o f proof w as, he thought, p roof m ost eloquent. A s Desm oulins e x ­ plained in M ay 17 9 3 , “ as regards conspiracies, it is absurd to ask for posi­ tive facts; violent indications must suffice.” 12 Even calum ny might be use­ ful evidence because experience showed false accusations to be invariably inefficacious “ if directed against individuals w hose conduct offers d aily proofs o f civic-mindedness and probity.” 13 Revealingly, in 17 9 4 , Jacobins were especially concerned w ith the con­ spiratorial plans o f people already in jail, a preposterous idea to us, but

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

243

one that made great sense in the context o f Jacobin thinking on the nature o f guilt and on the relationship o f signs to truth. Incarceration in itself w as cause for suspicion, they reasoned, since the prisoner had to have trans­ gressed some public m ores to begin w ith. M oreover, once in jail, convicted conspirators had nothing further to lose, and m ight therefore be assumed to be conspiring yet again. From a Jacobin point o f view the only differ­ ence between their im prisoned conspirators and free suspects w as that those in jail w ere likely to be even more desperate and dangerous. Every sharp-eyed Jacobin w as on the lookout fo r enemies o f the cause, and ever more so as the Revolution progressed. Even in 1 7 9 1 , at the time o f the king’s flight to Varennes, when feelings overall were still relatively tranquil, the Jacobins were convinced (quite w rongly) that w ar, at best, and a blood­ bath (their own especially), at w orst, w ould surely have occurred had the king succeeded in escaping. A fter his fall, Robespierre him self w as suddenly revealed to have been an unusually successful plotter. Retrospectively, the Jacobins o f Tulle grudgingly adm ired “ the great skill w ith which all the dif­ ferent parts o f [his] horrid system were bound together.” 14 W ith so m any conspiratorial enemies, the ever more alert and strident Jacobins turned to denunciation o f their foes. O riginally, that term had meant bringing cases o f glaring and abusive injustice to the attention o f public opinion. A s such, it w as endorsed by the m unicipal law o f December 17 8 9 , which explained how active citizens could “ denounce” bad m unici­ pal adm inistrators. In the fall o f 17 8 9 , Desm oulins likew ise hailed “ l'inno­ vation hardie de la délation” (the bold innovation o f denunciation),15 which M irabeau had also praised by this tim e.14 But the idea o f denunciation soon took on an even darker, more punitive m eaning, which Brissot praised in September 1 7 9 1 . In Novem ber o f that year M arat presented this dark practice as a civic obligation,17 and after his death in 17 9 3 , Hébert prided him self on the centrality o f denunciation to the Revolution’s new purpose. The Paris club, and in turn nearly all the provincial clubs, came to require a “ serment de délation” (an oath o f de­ nunciation), which at Artonne became a “ duty.” The club at Toul urged all patriots to denounce violators o f the new econom ic law s to “ public opin­ ion and to the police” ;18 and in February 17 9 3 the Convention made this duty into a lucrative occupation by offering a rew ard o f one hundred livres to anyone w ho turned in either an émigré or a draft dodger. The Jacobin s’ obsessive desire to ferret out enemies from under every bed w as so characteristic that it w as often satirized, at least until it became

244

♦

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

fatal for anti-Jacobins to make fun o f their successful rivals. One w itty counterrevolutionary polem icist imagined a Jacobite sabbat whose gyratin g members hurled absurd denunciations o f all kinds: Je dénonce l’Allem agne Le Portugal et l’Espagne Le M exique et la Champagne La Lim agne et le Pérou. Je dénonce l'Italie L ’Afrique et la Barbarie L ’Angleterre et la Russie Sans même excepter M oscou.19 Ironically, this Jacobin habit w as so pervasive that even anti-Jacobin R e ­ publicans w ho had accused Jacobins o f being tyrannical lapsed into a mimetic and denunciatory mode whenever fortune favored their o w n cause. “ Y ou have to understand,” explained a Lyonese non-Jacobin revo ­ lutionary as he denounced the denouncing Jacobins, “ that a denunciator is the m ost honorable o f men if our homeland is in danger.” 20 Denunciation, it should be added, w as not a covert, anonym ous, or co w ­ ardly act. “ Dénonciations particulières” (private denunciations) were still seen as shameful and m any clubs struggled to discredit them.21 Indeed, some troubled clubbistes debated the wisdom o f denouncing not just pub­ lic officials but politically unreliable private persons as w ell. A few clubs refused to read unsigned letters, even if others, like the Venetian Senate, had a box where members might let drop unsigned accusations. Individual Jacobins were expected to sign their denunciations, which took a great deal o f courage since public accusations invited revenge, as m any a pursued— and murdered—Jacobin w as to discover after Therm idor.22 M ilitant revo ­ lutionaries w ho had been denounced by other Jacobins indignantly rejected accusations they knew to be false, unless these accusations related to an opinion that had suddenly become incorrect: “ I thank my Jacobin brothers for their surveillance,” said Chabot in Novem ber 17 9 3 , “ and should I fa il [again], I w ould thank them for denouncing me to the Convention, and fo r sending me to the scaffold.” (Chabot w as executed in A pril o f the next year).23 Along w ith this drive to denounce, hunt, and destroy came a tendency to dehumanize, a drift o f thought that, in the historical perspective o f our own inhuman century, m ay w ell be Jacobinism ’s m ost dism al legacy. T he

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

24 5

Jacobins saw anti-Jacobins as lacking hum anity’s essential m oral character­ istic, the ability to tell right from w rong. But were their enemies unable to act m orally from choice or from their intrinsic nature? Answ ers varied from time to tim e, but it w as clear to the Jacobins that their enemies knew themselves to be perverse: a M ontagnard Conventionnel thus reasoned that “ we must destroy the evil-m inded ones w ho in any case expect to be the victim s o f their evil im pulses.” 24

Aristocrates were associated w ith dirt,25 disease, and madness. For some weeks in late 17 9 1 Louis X V I w as rum ored to have gone mad and to be roam ing about the Tuileries smashing the palace furniture. In Ju ly 17 9 2 a number o f clubs26 suggested that the assem bly set up a regency and depose the king on grounds o f insanity, a politically advantageous move that w ould have had the added advantage o f being thoroughly constitutional. A t M arseilles, in M ay 1 7 9 1 , after the abbé R aynal ( 17 13 - 17 9 6 ) had re­ tracted the enlightened anticolonial principles o f the prerevolutionary w orks he had w ritten in collaboration w ith D iderot, the clubbistes sol­ emnly escorted his bust to the lunatic asylum . Aristocrates were shown grinding their teeth, raging, throw ing up, excreting, and foam ing at the mouth. For Saint-Just, sw eat w as to the body w hat aristocratie w as to the body politic. In a circular o f late 17 9 2 , threatening to break with Paris over its tolerance o f M arat, the club at Angers denounced the self-styled Am i du peuple as the source o f a “ pestilential m iasm a.” 27 N onjuring priests were com pared to lepers, fit to be quarantined in some faraw ay place, in papal Rom e perhaps. Accusations o f cannibalism were a favored trope: aristocrates were called “ antropophages royalistes.” The English, declared Barère, were a “ peuple cannibale.” 28 The king, said the Conventionnel Bouquier, w as a “ carnivorous m onster.” 29 D ynasties, explained Grégoire at the king’s trial, “ have alw ays been voracious breeds that live o ff human flesh.” “ A ll the monuments o f history,” he concluded in Novem ber 17 9 2 , “ testify that this class o f purulent beings w as alw ays the leprosy o f governments and the scum o f hum anity.” 30 Jacobins also associated aristocrates w ith impure fem ininity, idleness, petulance, irresponsibility, and pessimism .31 By contrast, the Jacobins saw themselves as optim istic, responsible, pure, and virile.32 Charlotte C orday, M arat’s murderess, w as im m ediately and universally decried as an unnat­ ural harpy. The queen w as another common target. By dwelling on her physicality— at times in the m ost explicit manner—Jacobins killed many

246

♦

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

birds w ith a single stone. They emphasized the weakness and sexual incom­ petence o f her husband. They reminded their audience o f the foreign-bom queen’s supposedly unnatural and oversexed character. They reasserted the antithetical m asculinity o f the regenerated nation’s public space. And they devalued m onarchic rule by reasserting their own claim s to m oral hegemony.33 Jacobin caricature relied heavily on anim al im agery. Enemies were pre­ sented as vam pires and hyenas, m onstrous apparitions who savored the blood o f the patriotes: theirs were “ the claw s o f a harpy, the tongue o f a bloodsucker, the heart o f a vulture, and the cruelty o f a tiger.” 34 A t Lyons a king dressed in a tiger’s skin received the homages o f a w olf-noble and a fox-priest. Louis X V I w as often portrayed as a pig, M arie Antoinette as a panther or a tigress.35 The royal fam ily w as shown scurrying ratlike through the sewers.36 Jacobins seldom took up the vocabulary o f race as such. Indeed, they or­ dinarily struggled against it. A fricans were black, explained the clubbistes o f Alençon, not because o f their race but because o f “ the clim ate o f the country they inhabited.” In the Jacobin perspective, nobles were not bom w icked, even if they alm ost invariably became so in the end. Jacobin the­ atricals often depicted the adoption o f a noble baby by w orthy non-noble sans-culottes. Nonetheless, the Jacobin s’ hatreds were so strongly felt that at times they did come close to spilling into racist theory, and in the fall o f 17 9 3 all no­ bles, in virtue o f their birth alone and regardless o f their opinions, were ex­ cluded from the clubs. The D ijon society had proposed such a step in the early spring o f 17 9 3 , and the exclusion o f the noble-bom (which ran against the basic Jacobin principle o f individual equality regardless o f birth and race) w as taken up by the Paris society w ith the approval o f Robes­ pierre. On 28 Germ inal, Y ear II, all nobles were barred from joining both the clubs and the Com m ittees o f surveillance. M any sincerely Jacobin no­ bles (like the m arquis de Soubrany and the brother o f the m artyred Le Peletier) were seriously disconcerted by this m ove, as were m any clubs. The Jacobin s’ penchant for exclusion and w ild accusation w as o f course noticed at the tim e, and anti-Jacobins at Lyons were able to predict w ith rem arkable accuracy w hat Jacobins w ould say about them: "they w ill tell you that w e are a trium phant aristocracy, they w ill tell you that the sans­ culottes have been murdered by the rich . . . that the rich o f Lyons are Bris-

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

247

sotins, Rolandins, m oderates and aristocrates, counterrevolutionaries, that the white cockade o f royalism is their emblem; they w ill tell you that [we] w ant the return o f tyranny, o f feudalism , o f despotism .” 37 Unfortunately, this insight did them little good.

Ç

¿ y acobins had tw o kinds o f foes— their form er friends and their ancient enemies. O f these, the less im portant were the few die-hard counterrevolu­ tionaries w ho rejected the message o f 17 8 9 in toto and from the start. W hy Jacobins initially had so few enemies on the right is easily under­ stood. The Old Regim e w as not overthrown in 17 8 9 . It collapsed instead. Its demise, still unthinkable when the Estates General opened on M ay 5, 17 8 9 , w as in essence consummated six weeks later, on June 1 7 ; and by the late summer o f 17 8 9 , m ost nobles were probably resigned to the more basic principles o f the Revolution, nam ely, equality before the law and in­ dividuated social form s. Hundreds o f noble-bom aristocrats joined the clubs, and m any more bought up confiscated religious property, a clear if muted endorsement o f the new order o f things. In tim e, m any nobles even became Republicans, like the king’s cousin, the duc d’O rléans, and his son, the future king Louis-Philippe d’O rléans, w ho reigned from 18 3 0 to 18 4 8 and w as a Republican general in 17 9 2 and early 17 9 3 . Fear and not a de­ sire to conspire drove m ost émigrés to leave. Popular Catholicism w as adm ittedly much stronger in 17 8 9 than the Ja ­ cobins suspected. But pre-Rom antic, Catholic, and reactionary organicism , though already consciously articulated in Germ any and England, w as un­ known in France at the time. In 17 8 9 the only organized group that argued in France for inequality and hierarchy from anti-Enlightenm ent premises w as the short-lived Club o f M assiac, form ed by Paris-based, slave-owning planters. Even after Therm idor, between 17 9 5 and 17 9 9 , anti-Jacobin roy­ alist newspapers made reference not to traditionalist C atholic principles o f fam ily, authority, and hierarchy, but to M ontesquieu’s far more m oderate idea o f interm ediary bodies and lim ited governm ent. Once abroad, m any émigrés did gradually become politically reactionary and, at tim es, sincerely Christian. (The future Charles X , youngest brother o f the king, a political émigré in Ju ly 17 8 9 , converted to Catholic rigorism at the deathbed o f his lifelong m istress, M m e. de Polastron, in 18 0 4 .) Nonetheless, even Vendéen peasants, at first, had specifically m aterial and

248

♦

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

nonideological grievances, like the m ilitary draft or being shut out from the apportionm ent o f the lands that had been confiscated from the church. It w as because the Revolution unfolded in such an excluding w ay, and not because they believed in some counterrevolutionary principle, that these peasants moved into active opposition. Thus, the Jacobins’ m ost hated enemies were not noble or counterrevo­ lutionary outsiders at all, but form er Jacobin s, people w ho had once been sym pathetic to Jacobinism ’s larger goals but had recoiled from its conse­ quences or evolution for one reason or another. As one M arseilles section put it, the seemingly Republican “ intrigants” (or intriguers) were much w orse than the counterrevolutionary aristocrates, who were more easily detected and whose absurd, outdated ideas made them politically insigni­ ficant. The first revolutionaries to drop out o f the Revolution and to incur the enduring w rath o f the Jacobins were the M onarchiens—m ost o f them members o f the Third Estate, some o f them liberal nobles. The m ixed and neo-aristocratic constitutionalism o f M ontesquieu w as dearer to their hearts than w as the general w ill o f the Jacobin s’ Rousseau. Indeed, M ousnier, their spokesm an, w as at loggerheads w ith the Jacobin club in his hom etown, Grenoble, as early as the spring o f 17 9 0 . In some key respects M ousnier’s sensibility remained close to that o f m ainstream Jacobins (he too believed in popular sovereignty), but even the early institutionalization o f Jacobinical ideas often offended him. The as­ sertion o f man’s natural rights in the D eclaration o f the Rights o f M an in early August 17 8 9 seemed to him dangerous; the disestablishm ent o f Catholicism , unadvisable; the dim inution o f the m onarch’s rights, exces­ sive. The popular insurrections o f the countryside in Ju ly 17 8 9 , and in Paris on O ctober 5 and 6, struck him as om inous. By his defense o f the king’s right to veto legislation in the fall o f 17 8 9 , M ousnier and the M onarchiens pushed themselves out o f the parti patriote, now honing its intellectual arm ory in the Paris club. A s the M onarchiens were the first partisans o f the Revolution to give up on its progression and to em igrate, they were ironically, o f all Jacobinism ’s enemies, the ones that m ost often survived. Like his three m ain associ­ ates— Gérard de Lally-Tollendal, N icolas Bergasse, and Pierre M alouet (who w as also a friend o f Necker)— M ousnier m anaged to flee abroad. H e later secured employment under N apoleon. H ad he remained in France, M ousnier w ould surely have shared the fate o f V irieu and Stanislas de

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

249

Clerm ont-Tonnerre, tw o o f his political friends, who were shot after the siege o f Lyons in 17 9 3 . The next tw o w aves o f aristocrate form er revolutionaries involved the Feuillants in 17 9 1- 9 2

(as already discussed) and the Girondins in

17 9 2 -9 3 . Girondism , though more difficult to define historically, w as w onderfully easy to m anipulate as an accusation. The hopelessly imprecise doctrinal line that divided Girondin suspects from other Jacobins allow ed any Jacobin whom other, dom inant Jacobins did not like for whatever rea­ son to be plausibly arrested for having som ehow been a Girondin all along. Since m ost provincial Jacobins had sided w ith the Girondins in early 17 9 3 , it w as not practical to accuse them all in 17 9 4 . T o have done so w ould have reduced m any clubs to nothing. But henceforth, thousands o f Jacobins lived in the shadow o f this accusation, and w ith it, o f the guillo­ tine. In June and Ju ly o f 17 9 4 , to come to the notice o f the authorities in any w ay w as to invite a deadly fate, as happened in Ju ly 17 9 4 to the im­ prisoned poet André Chénier, once a close friend o f the painter D avid. Know ing him to be innocent, his father foolishly brought his son’s case to the attention o f Barère, w ho obligingly arranged for the poet to come to trial, w ith the result that Chénier, w ho w ould otherwise surely have sur­ vived, died w ithin a few days o f the T error’s end for no particular reason. The last great ex-Jacobin to become an enemy o f the rem aining Jacobins w as none other than Robespierre, whose reputation com pletely changed in the space o f days, even hours. From early 1 7 9 1 onw ard, the star o f the Incorruptible One had risen irre­ sistibly. A t Chartres the club put up his statue. The Jacobins o f Strasbourg sent him a civic crow n as evidence o f their "undying affection.” But in late Ju ly and early August 17 9 4 , time and time again, accounts o f Robespierre’s fall elicited spontaneous cheers in the provincial clubs. A fter D anton's fall, 17 0 societies had sent form ulaic congratulations to the Committee o f Public Safety for having unmasked this traitor. But 3 6 1 addresses— more genuine in their tone— were sent by the clubs to Paris after Robespierre’s death, albeit fewer o f them from the south than the north. Eager not just to end but in a w ay to forget the T error, the Jacobins in late 17 9 4 turned against the m em ory o f Robespierre all o f the psychologi­ cal and rhetorical weapons that had been theirs since 1 7 9 1 and that, o f course, Robespierre had also employed in his day. The clubbistes at M ayenne wondered if he had purposefully encouraged the royalist Chouan guerrillas.38 It w as also said that he had intended to m arry the king’s

2 50

♦

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

daughter and become king him self. C ollot d’H erbois, a left Jaco b in , e x ­ plained on 1 2 Vendém iaire that “ to understand his m otives, one w ou ld have had to be as he w as. T o compute the depth and atrocity o f his perfidiousness, one's soul w ould have had to be as perfidious, as atrocious as his had been."39 Robespierre and his closest friends, some opined, had o b vi­ ously conspired against the Revolution and were probably in the p ay o f foreign governments. The tyrant’s guilt proved his accusers’ innocence: be­ cause they were not just blameless but w holly w ithout guile he had m an­ aged to dupe them for so long. Beset w ith enemies at home, the Jacobins also had enemies abroad. In i­ tially, the Jacobins were filled w ith good w ill for France’s neighbors. T h ey believed in a politics o f virtue at home, and in virtuous international p o li­ tics as w ell. For these patriotic votaries o f a universalist Enlightenm ent w ho had taken a vow o f perpetual peace, nation and internationalism overlapped: “ Let us be united to one another as Frenchm en,” w rote the leading Girondin Jacobin Lanthenas in early M arch 17 9 2 , “ and w e w ill have taken a great step tow ard our union with other peoples.” 40 In 17 9 0 -9 1 Jacobins were overwhelm ingly antim ilitaristic and pacifistic. The Lim oges club contacted the London Corresponding Society to “ estab­ lish in concert w ith it the means to realize that sublime plan o f a perpetual peace that has been for so long considered chim erical.” 41 Ju st as dom estic injustice had its root cause in the absolutist state’s m onopoly o f public life , so did the Jacobins assume that w ar had heretofore been the natural desire o f corrupted m onarchies. Peoples were not enemies; their rulers were. G od intended nations to coexist harm oniously. In a préfiguration o f the young Europe o f the 18 3 0 s and 18 4 0 s, Jacobins envisaged a humanity united b y m oralized, national consciousness: “ O ! God o f all nations! Bring together all the inhabitants [of the w orld], let them be united by the sacred links o f liberty and equality: m ay hospitality be like a religion, m ay succor and e x ­ change chain them as if they were a nation o f brothers, a single fam ily! L et envy, hatred, and discord, and the very w ords o f w ar and politics seem meaningless to them .” 42 They hoped for peace at any cost. “ T od ay,” wrote a Jacobin at A ix in O ctober 17 9 1, “ the torch o f philosophy has lit up the w orld . . . N othing w ould be more w orthy o f France than to . . . invoke peace w ith the sam e ardor w ith which others seek w ar. Let us instruct peoples! . . . Appeal to them as brothers . . . Let us renounce w a r!” 43 On Jan uary 20, 1792, the

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

251

abbé Fauchet, a prominent Girondin Jacobin , suggested that France sym­ bolically give up its embassies and am bassadors. Ju st as Jacobins w ished for dom estic public life to be transparent, and unimpeded by bureaucratic regulation, $0 did they think that the citizens o f different nations ought not to be cleft asunder by the am oral states hem­ ming them in. Jacobins w ere careful to distinguish between foreign leaders (whose hostility w as no surprise) and their duped follow ers, secretly sym­ pathetic to the Revolution. In Ju ly 17 9 2 the M anuel du laboureur et de

l’artisan ran an article in which Anselme the Jacobin gathered rural w ork­ ers to explain the Constitution and the rights o f man. A wom an asks: “ Are these rights fo r us too?” Anselme replies: "Y e s. They are for all in general, and even for foreigners.” 44 Jacobins especially warm ed to foreign nationals w ho hoped to regener­ ate their ow n country in im itation o f the French. They assumed that the principles o f the new French Constitution, perfect and universal, w ould sooner or later be taken up everywhere. The sm allest evidence o f proFrench leanings anywhere w as celebrated as a portent. It w as encouraging, w rote the M arseillais Jacobins on M arch 2 3 , 17 9 3 , that the sultan o f Turkey, “ as a sign o f alliance, adorns him self w ith our colors and considers w ith interest the sacred tree o f liberty.” 45 Some Jacobin s in 17 9 2 actually expected that Britain w ould intervene m ilitarily on their side. Later, news o f an uprising by London sans-culottes w as eagerly aw aited. The M ontpazier Jacobins in February 17 9 4 , for exam ple, still thought that m ost Eng­ lishmen were covert Francophiles, eager, like them, to execute King George and Pitt. T w o hundred thousand Frenchmen should conquer Britain so as to “ fraternally embrace Charles Jam es Fox and all the friends o f liberty,” they suggested.44 But the Jacobin s’ avuncular m oralization o f international relations, like their tolerance o f dissenting opinion at home, soon eroded. When Catholics in France refused to join the constitutional church, Jacobins passed rapidly from tolerance to blame and, then, to ideological persecu­ tion. A sim ilar pattern o f grow ing intolerance structured their understand­ ing o f France's place in the w orld. Should Jacobins agree to live in peace w ith unregenerated foreign rulers, or should they interfere in their neighbors’ politics to overthrow unworthy foreign monarchs? The Jacobins declared peace to the peasants' huts but w ar on lordly castles. On Novem ber 5, 17 9 2 , Chaum ette concluded that

252.

♦

U nifying Enm ities at H om e an d A broad

the whole o f Europe should be “Jacobinized” ; and in A pril 17 9 3 Robes­ pierre argued that “ different peoples must come to one another's assistance according to their ability, like the citizens o f the same State. He who op­ presses a single nation declares him self the enemy o f a ll.” 47 Jacobins were particularly eager to help the Belgians and the Dutch, w ho had tried to emancipate themselves even before 17 8 9 . Poland (“ the France o f the N orth” ) w as another favorite. They also (selectively) praised foreign re­ publics. M any clubs flew the flags o f both the United States and Geneva. The inauguration o f a display o f French, British, and Am erican flags in the Paris Jacobin club in Novem ber 17 9 0 w as the occasion o f one o f its biggest

fêtes, and w as echoed in many parts o f France. By contrast, Venice and G enoa, two ancient but aristocratic republics, were never mentioned. In­ deed, in M ay 17 9 2 , a Jacobin o f Semur objected to the planting o f an Ital­ ian poplar in lieu o f a French oak.48 The next turn o f the screw made the Revolution a servant o f French na­ tionalism , an im perialist shift softened by ideological and neophilosophical flummery since France w as said m erely to be reaching for its “ natural” frontiers. External political surrogates made up for ideological bankruptcy at home. By m id-17 9 3 only the Bostoniens and the Philadelphes were left as friends o f the French Republic. N ecessarily, the shifts o f Jacobin policy tow ard exploitation plain and simple did not endear the French Revolution even to its most progressive neighbors. Initially, French arm ies had found supporters in every country. But in 17 9 3 -9 4 the French also found much resistance. A t Aachen, in the conquered Rhineland, only 2 6 o f the city’s 23,00 0 inhabitants agreed to join the newly founded Jacobin club. The Jacobin s’ anguished relationship to England best exem plified the Ja ­ cobins’ trajectory from cosm opolitan openness to nationalist hatred. By 17 8 9 the French and the English had interm ittently been at w ar for a cen­ tury. Nonetheless, w hat the Jacobins chose to remember w as the adm ira­ tion o f the philosophes for British politics and culture (quite tepid in Rousseau, but exuberant in M ontesquieu and V oltaire). Brissot had stayed in Britain and had then thought o f London as the capital o f w orld freedom . Danton read English quite w ell. Jean-Paul M arat had lived for m any years in England and his Chains o f Slavery w as first published in England, in English, in 17 7 4 . It w as in an English translation that Desm oulins, in M arch 17 9 4 , found the quotations from Tacitus that he used in his attack on Robespierrist terror; and his newspaper, Les Révolutions de France et

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

253

de Brabant, w as replete w ith references to H arrington, Sidney, Toland, G ordon, and Trenchard.49 From 17 8 9 to 1 7 9 1 , when focused on opposing the resurgence o f the Old Regim e, the Jacobins had genuinely adm ired British w ays, like habeas corpus. They were impressed by the weight o f an elected Parliam ent in the machine o f British governm ent. Jacobins also follow ed the Anglo-Am erican R adical W hig tradition, whose m ost fam ous apologist the w orld over, Tom Paine, arrived in Paris in Novem ber 17 8 9 . (He w as elected to the Convention in September 17 9 2 , arrested in the fall o f 17 9 3 , and nearly guillotined in Ju ly 179 4 .) Jacobin personal contacts w ith English radicals found their first public embodiment when the London Corresponding Society and the Paris Ja ­ cobins exchanged messages in the fall o f 17 8 9 . In London Richard Price proposed a Franco-British-D utch alliance, H olland being com m only thought at the time to be the w orld's m ost advanced society socially and econom ically. A t Nantes the clubbistes directed not one but tw o delega­ tions to London, the second one arriving in time on Novem ber 4 ,17 9 0 , to celebrate the anniversary o f the G lorious Revolution. Dozens o f other clubs follow ed suit. The visit o f Pétion, the future m ayor o f the French cap­ ital, to the English capital in Novem ber 17 9 1 w as w idely hailed in France. In their eulogy o f the London Society o f Constitutional W higs, which had praised the French Constitution, the clubbistes o f Brest hailed “ the w orthy descendants o f those intrepid W higs o f the seventeenth century w ho had defended the rights o f man and to whom the English o f today owe their econom ic prosperity and political stability.” 50 But as the Jacobins veered to the assertion o f virtue and community at the expense o f individual rights, their view o f Britain changed com pletely. They thought less about Parliam ent and m ore about w ho it really repre­ sented. In 17 8 9 the M onarchiens had often been known as the anglomanes, but this more or less am iable nickname w as soon perceived as vio­ lently insulting. W here they had interpreted the rigid borders protecting British civil soci­ ety from the state as a defense o f free individuals against encroaching m onarchic abuse, they came to see instead a selfish, acquisitive society that an even more selfish m onarchic state made no effort to reform . By 17 9 4 England had become for the Jacobins a shorthand notation for the rejec­ tion o f universalist values and the defense o f particularist selfishness. Quatrem ère de Q uincy, an architect and art historian, com pared the French national museum, which made great art accessible to all, w ith the

254

♦

Unifying Enmities at Home and Abroad

w ays o f Britain, where great paintings were tucked aw ay in the private country homes o f the rural rich. By 17 9 3 British liberties, no longer an ap­ parent guarantee o f freedom , were seen as the bulw ark o f social egoism and even cruelty. Saint-Just defended the T error by pointing to the hun­ dreds o f death sentences that the British assizes routinely decreed. On Oc­ tober 9, 17 9 3 , the sale o f British-m ade goods w as forbidden (a préfigura­ tion o f N apoleon’s Continental blockade), and the next day English civilians residing in France were ordered arrested, a break w ith interna­ tional law as it w as then known. Clubs furled their British flags. Foreigners w ho had once been welcom ed in the clubs were expelled or interned. In M ay 17 9 2 Robespierre had still been conditionally praising the Eng­ lish in com parison to the French; but in m id-January 17 9 4 , at the Jacobin club, he initiated in Paris a long debate on the wickedness o f British w ays. In the last days o f Jan uary he denounced the "crim es” o f the English cabi­ net, crimes that all too m any ordinary Englishmen were w illing to accept. A s a representative o f the French nation, he explained, " I proclaim that I hate the English as a people.” 51 Jacobin dislike o f Britain ran wide and deep: in the spring o f 17 9 4 , the Jacobins o f Luxeuil urged that London be conquered so that slavery could be abolished from the city that w as its spiritual center: "L egislators,” it concluded, "ord er that London be de­ stroyed.” 52 Richard Cobb has reminded us o f a Jacobin at Lille w ho sug­ gested that w olves be set loose in Britain where they had long since been extinct. "M ay our victorious battalions carry onto territories where kings rule death and devastation,” w rote the clubbistes at Bergerac. "M ay slave peoples learn by counting our victories how great is the m ight o f a people that fights for liberty.” 53 In short, Jacobins’ perceptions o f England m ir­ rored their evolution at home from the praise o f individualist liberty to the acceptance o f universalist dictatorship. "W e w ould be horrified at a Prince w ho w ould order his prisoners m as­ sacred” :54 so w rote Rousseau in the 17 5 0 s, a sign that w arring states w ere expected to pay some attention at least to those rules o f decency being in­ creasingly applied in civil life. But on O ctober 10 , 17 9 2 , the president o f the Rouen club advised local volunteers to show no m ercy for tyrants and to spare only women and children w ho were the ignorant "instrum ents o f despotism .” And on M ay 26, 17 9 4 , the Jacobin-dom inated Convention voted that British and H anoverian prisoners w ould henceforth be executed on capture. Then, on Ju ly 4, 17 9 4 , it resolved that all foreign soldiers cap­ tured on French soil w ho had refused to surrender w ould be executed.

U nifying Enm ities at H om e and A broad

♦

255

M any clubs went out o f their w ay to praise this decision. On Ju ly 26, the day before his fall, Robespierre called for just such executions. True enough, these law s were seldom applied, although the crew o f a captured British vessel is on record as having been shot or made to w alk the plank.55 But captured French émigrés, w ho had likew ise been doomed by a ruling o f the Convention on O ctober 9, 17 9 2 , were routinely put to death as traitors. Jacobins loved to love their fellow human beings, but they also loved to hate their foes. "C itizen s,” said Barère on M arch 7 , 17 9 3 , "one more enemy for France is one more trium ph for the cause o f lib erty!” The life o f the republic and the death o f its enemies, especially if they had once been friends, were exaltedly and sacrificially entwined. C ollot d’H erbois mused after the m assacres at Lyons that "b y killing all these scoundrels, we guar­ antee the life o f m any generations o f free m en.” 56 The m ost personally de­ cent Jacobins found it hard to condemn terrorists like C arrier or sadists like Lebon who murdered in their name. Even (utterly egregious) instances o f cannibalism could find some Jacobin apologist.57