Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution From the Rights of Man to Robespierre (43 page)

The mounting conflict between democratic republicans supporting Brissot, Condorcet, and Bonneville, on one side, and populist authoritarians adulating Marat and Robespierre, on the other, is usually presented by historians as one between “moderates” and radicals. This is mainly because for the most part, Marat’s and Robespierre’s supporters stemmed from lower social strata, especially shopkeepers and artisans, and used harsher and more uncompromising language than the republicans, more frequently demanding economic measures favoring the poor and punishing the rich. But in terms of the philosophique values of 1789, and eagerness to champion freedom of press, individual liberty, and racial and gender equality, it was the Brissotin Jacobins, not the Maratiste or Robespierre Jacobins, who were France’s democratic radicals and republicans. The populist factions, in fact, were not really republican or democratic at all but, rather, unrelentingly authoritarian, in Marat’s case expressly aiming at dictatorship and stringent censorship, a group not just ready to accept but actually demand abandonment of basic freedoms.
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This did not seem especially off-putting at first. In classical republicanism, and in Machiavelli—as well as Rousseau—“the dictator” is powerfully projected in much the same terms as the Roman Republic had envisaged, that is, the dictator is the all-powerful leader who steps in with the support of the plebs when dire peril threatens and the normal procedures of the republic need to be interrupted; he is a leader who is given emergency powers to be used only to restore the suspended Constitution. Dictatorship was not conceived of as replacing or overriding the Constitution. Insisting on the need for a dictator in 1791–92 did not therefore necessarily meet with the widespread revulsion and negative response it would elicit later and normally has in the West following the rise of full-blown fascism in the early twentieth century.

In book 4 of the
Social Contract
Rousseau admonishes that “only the greatest dangers can counterbalance the risk of disturbing the public order” and that one should “never suspend the sacred power of the laws
except when the salvation of the
patrie
is at stake,” warning that the “dictatorship” he expressly sanctions as a necessary tool in certain circumstances should be rigorously delimited by being instituted only for the briefest duration. However, Rousseau also firmly insisted that when dire peril looms, it is essential to embrace “dictatorship,” entrusting supreme power to the “worthiest person,” in order to save the patrie. Harping on Robespierre’s alleged “incorruptability” in 1791–92 was thus directly linked to Marat’s tireless reiteration that the gravest peril surrounded the nation. In this way, the cult of the supreme leader adroitly exploited the doctrine of dictatorship expounded by Rousseau, as well as the unawareness of the least educated.
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Authoritarian populists venerating Rousseau, unlike Left republicans, continually urged undivided unity, their goal being to eliminate dissent and repress political foes. Marat’s and Robespierre’s supporters, noted Royou in October, were increasingly refining what he saw as their favorite ploy—passing off their own opinions as “the will of the people” and the volonté générale by organizing street petitions and addresses backed by crowds carefully recruited and paid for the purpose. This “ridiculous charade,” instead of reflecting, proved a highly effective means of dragooning popular opinion in the capital.
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The growing weight of orchestrated, organized populism also left those to the Left voicing genuinely republican sentiments increasingly vulnerable to Robespierre’s charge that they were elitists disseminating ideas alien to ordinary folk.
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While the evidence of the provincial clubs and their factional splits does confirm that Marat’s admirers derived predominantly from a lower social stratum and tended to be less educated than Brissotins, it also shows that the sansculotte elements providing the populist campaign’s muscle formed a considerably narrower social base than the democratic Jacobins who were championing basic freedoms. Local splits between philosophique republicans and populist authoritarians in the provinces during late 1791 and 1792 reveal that the sansculottes, as a regularly active, politicized social segment, were actually a strikingly small minority. This was partly because the poorer, less literate classes were generally less interested in and able to follow politics than the more literate, and partly because only modest numbers could be mobilized by the dragooning organizational methods employed by the Robespierristes. In Bordeaux, the socially humbler Club National was undoubtedly staunch in supporting Marat’s and Robespierre’s cult of the leader throughout 1791–93, but was also much smaller than the Récollets, a club led by town notables but accommodating a wide spectrum of
Bordeaux society with a sizable membership, in December 1791, of 1,533.
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At Libourne, near Bordeaux, there were likewise two societies of Friends of the Constitution, the Club National, affiliated with the Bordeaux club of that name, fervently Maratiste but tiny, with just a score of active members in 1793, and Libourne’s principal club, led by men of standing, admittedly, but also more broadly based, numbering in the hundreds.
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Figure 5. (a) Robespierre, (b) Pétion, (c) Danton, (d) Marat. (a) Portrait of Maximilien de Robespierre. © Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet / The Image Works. (b) French school, portrait of Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, 18th century, pastel and charcoal. Musée Carnavalet, Paris. © Roger-Viollet / The Image Works. (c) Constance-Marie Charpentier (1767–1849),
Georges Danton (1759–1794)
, oil on canvas. Musée Carnavalet, Paris. © Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet / The Image Works. (d) Joseph Boze (1744–1826),
Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793), French Politician
, oil on canvas. © Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet / The Image Works.

In Nantes, one of France’s foremost commercial centers, with a population of some sixty thousand, there were again two clubs, a dominant Club Mirabeau, which included all the “enlightened” men of the city, and a more plebeian but also much narrower society. The Club Mirabeau’s leaders, significantly, were professionals, not merchants, Nantes merchants, like those elsewhere, evincing scant enthusiasm for the Revolution or its principles. Although at Nantes the old mercantile elite were not swept aside to the same extent as at Saint-Malo, business remained politically inactive, preferring to defend commercial interests by avoiding association with political and social reformers.
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The top hundred or so great merchants and slave-dealers, and leading civic office-holders, many of whom were ennobled under the ancien régime during 1788–90, had in fact identified with France’s “aristocracy” rather than the bourgeoisie proper. During 1791–92, they remained neutral as far as possible while also fiercely resisting Brissot’s and Condorcet’s endeavors on behalf of black emancipation.

Angers likewise featured two societies of Friends of the Constitution, an “eastern” and a “western,” with a clear division along class lines, the western club comprising mainly artisans and shopkeepers. The eastern Jacobin club was more affluent and educated, yet also larger and more diverse, until after June 1793 when the western club became the organ of the militant sansculottes and the eastern club was suppressed. At Aix-en-Provence, formerly the capital of Provence, the situation was similar, only here the influence of Marseille, chief focus of populism in the Midi, registered strongly, and the originally larger club eventually disintegrated, its remnants absorbed into the popular club, the Anti-politiques. The Marseille club gained special importance owing to its ability to dominate lesser clubs over a large region. Unlike other main centers, Marseille featured only one revolutionary club throughout, but this fragmented early on and was captured in stages during 1792–93 by a minority group resembling those dominating the artisan clubs elsewhere. Like Lyon and Toulon, Marseille was the scene of growing class tensions during 1792–93 and a deliberate whipping up of resentment
of the affluent among the poor by certain club leaders. At Rennes, a single revolutionary club suffered a triangular split in the summer of 1791 between Feuillants controlling the club until 1793, vigorously championing modérantisme while battling rival Brissotin and Montagnard factions, but, as elsewhere, the Brissotins were the larger of these two, and, during 1792, the more important bloc.

The fact that some clubs drew their membership predominantly from the lower classes during the Revolution does not mean, then, that they were left-leaning or reflected the opinion of a large slice of society; it usually signified, rather, that they were given to an aggressive cult of the leader of an emphatically authoritarian kind. Everywhere in France the most plebeian and least literate were the readiest to support both counterenlightenment ultraroyalism and the (in some ways not dissimilar) antilibertarian collective consensus political culture of Marat and Robespierre. Uncompromising stress on unity and the ordinary man’s sentiments, chauvinism and anti-intellectualism, became devices for crushing dissent and building dictatorship; Montagnard populism resembled less a libertarian, emancipating movement than an early form of modern fascism. However, during late 1791 and early 1792, this tendency within the Revolution was not yet sufficiently powerful to bid for dominance. The political weakness of plebeian Jacobinism was reflected for the moment in both its limited popular support and the equally conspicuous fact that no major editors, pamphleteers, and journalists of the kind supporting the Revolution’s core values would align with them.

Barnave and his colleagues relied especially on a harmonious working relationship with the king, his ministry, and the court, continually urging Louis to publicly display loyalty to the Constitution. With much of the old aristocracy gone, the Feuillants needed the newly arisen wealthy landowners and property-owners, and those with privileged status as “active citizens,” to rally on behalf of moderation, money, and monarchy. But despite being held under a restricted suffrage of which they were the sole champions, in the autumn national elections for the new legislature, the Feuillants performed relatively poorly, swaying few beyond the affluent bourgeoisie. When the new legislature convened in October 1791, moderates were dismayed to find they lacked sufficient votes to dominate the legislature effectively. Barnave, Bailly, and the Lameths themselves were excluded from the new body as ex-constituants, owing to a self-denying ordinance of the previous legislature. They now wielded their dwindling influence largely indirectly through the Feuillant Club and secret contacts with the court,
especially the queen. During early 1792, well-founded suspicion that the Feuillant leadership was actually in league with the court, and conspiring against the Revolution, scheming to revive aristocracy (to an extent criticized even by Lafayette), further discredited the Feuillants in the public’s eyes.
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Overall, the September 1791 elections greatly strengthened the republican Left in the legislature and sharply polarized the Assembly into Left and Right factions, to the horrified indignation of others beside the Feuillants. The new Assembly shocked all sensible people, protested
L’Ami du Roi
, revealing a disgusting “enthusiasme” for philosophy. Among the new Assembly, hardly anyone of genuine social rank remained. How could a legislature with no dukes, bishops, or parlementaires, and scarcely any high bourgeoisie, genuinely uphold monarchy, position, and wealth? The reality, observed
L’Ami du Roi
, was that France was now utterly divided by the Revolution into two separate warring parts: on one side stood all the solid bourgeois, traditionalists, nobility, clergy, royalists, and lovers of order and peace who wanted monarchy, religion, and the old order and broadly boycotted the Feuillants; on the other, still more hostile to the Feuillants, surged what Royou termed the
horde philosophique—
“all the men of letters, bankrupts, criminals, atheists, deists and Protestants.”
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To ultraroyalists, the Feuillants were reprehensible but those principally responsible for the country’s appalling plight were indubitably the vile “impostors deceiving the people with the hope of a happy future”—the democrats.