The French Revolution A History Chapter 1.6.I. - Make the Constitution.
by Thomas Carlyle
Here perhaps is the place to fix, a little more precisely, what these two
words, French Revolution, shall mean; for, strictly considered, they may
have as many meanings as there are speakers of them. All things are in
revolution; in change from moment to moment, which becomes sensible from
epoch to epoch: in this Time-World of ours there is properly nothing else
but revolution and mutation, and even nothing else conceivable.
Revolution, you answer, means speedier change. Whereupon one has still to
ask: How speedy? At what degree of speed; in what particular points of
this variable course, which varies in velocity, but can never stop till
Time itself stops, does revolution begin and end; cease to be ordinary
mutation, and again become such? It is a thing that will depend on
definition more or less arbitrary.
For ourselves we answer that French Revolution means here the open violent
Rebellion, and Victory, of disimprisoned Anarchy against corrupt worn-out
Authority: how Anarchy breaks prison; bursts up from the infinite Deep,
and rages uncontrollable, immeasurable, enveloping a world; in phasis after
phasis of fever-frenzy;--'till the frenzy burning itself out, and what
elements of new Order it held (since all Force holds such) developing
themselves, the Uncontrollable be got, if not reimprisoned, yet harnessed,
and its mad forces made to work towards their object as sane regulated
ones. For as Hierarchies and Dynasties of all kinds, Theocracies,
Aristocracies, Autocracies, Strumpetocracies, have ruled over the world; so
it was appointed, in the decrees of Providence, that this same Victorious
Anarchy, Jacobinism, Sansculottism, French Revolution, Horrors of French
Revolution, or what else mortals name it, should have its turn. The
'destructive wrath' of Sansculottism: this is what we speak, having
unhappily no voice for singing.
Surely a great Phenomenon: nay it is a transcendental one, overstepping
all rules and experience; the crowning Phenomenon of our Modern Time. For
here again, most unexpectedly, comes antique Fanaticism in new and newest
vesture; miraculous, as all Fanaticism is. Call it the Fanaticism of
'making away with formulas, de humer les formulas.' The world of formulas,
the formed regulated world, which all habitable world is,--must needs hate
such Fanaticism like death; and be at deadly variance with it. The world
of formulas must conquer it; or failing that, must die execrating it,
anathematising it;--can nevertheless in nowise prevent its being and its
having been. The Anathemas are there, and the miraculous Thing is there.
Whence it cometh? Whither it goeth? These are questions! When the age of
Miracles lay faded into the distance as an incredible tradition, and even
the age of Conventionalities was now old; and Man's Existence had for long
generations rested on mere formulas which were grown hollow by course of
time; and it seemed as if no Reality any longer existed but only Phantasms
of realities, and God's Universe were the work of the Tailor and
Upholsterer mainly, and men were buckram masks that went about becking and
grimacing there,--on a sudden, the Earth yawns asunder, and amid Tartarean
smoke, and glare of fierce brightness, rises SANSCULOTTISM, many-headed,
fire-breathing, and asks: What think ye of me? Well may the buckram masks
start together, terror-struck; 'into expressive well-concerted groups!' It
is indeed, Friends, a most singular, most fatal thing. Let whosoever is
but buckram and a phantasm look to it: ill verily may it fare with him;
here methinks he cannot much longer be. Wo also to many a one who is not
wholly buckram, but partially real and human! The age of Miracles has come
back! 'Behold the World-Phoenix, in fire-consummation and fire-creation;
wide are her fanning wings; loud is her death-melody, of battle-thunders
and falling towns; skyward lashes the funeral flame, enveloping all things:
it is the Death-Birth of a World!'
Whereby, however, as we often say, shall one unspeakable blessing seem
attainable. This, namely: that Man and his Life rest no more on
hollowness and a Lie, but on solidity and some kind of Truth. Welcome, the
beggarliest truth, so it be one, in exchange for the royallest sham! Truth
of any kind breeds ever new and better truth; thus hard granite rock will
crumble down into soil, under the blessed skyey influences; and cover
itself with verdure, with fruitage and umbrage. But as for Falsehood,
which in like contrary manner, grows ever falser,--what can it, or what
should it do but decease, being ripe; decompose itself, gently or even
violently, and return to the Father of it,--too probably in flames of fire?
Sansculottism will burn much; but what is incombustible it will not burn.
Fear not Sansculottism; recognise it for what it is, the portentous,
inevitable end of much, the miraculous beginning of much. One other thing
thou mayest understand of it: that it too came from God; for has it not
been? From of old, as it is written, are His goings forth; in the great
Deep of things; fearful and wonderful now as in the beginning: in the
whirlwind also He speaks! and the wrath of men is made to praise Him.--But
to gauge and measure this immeasurable Thing, and what is called account
for it, and reduce it to a dead logic-formula, attempt not! Much less
shalt thou shriek thyself hoarse, cursing it; for that, to all needful
lengths, has been already done. As an actually existing Son of Time, look,
with unspeakable manifold interest, oftenest in silence, at what the Time
did bring: therewith edify, instruct, nourish thyself, or were it but to
amuse and gratify thyself, as it is given thee.
Another question which at every new turn will rise on us, requiring ever
new reply is this: Where the French Revolution specially is? In the
King's Palace, in his Majesty's or her Majesty's managements, and
maltreatments, cabals, imbecilities and woes, answer some few:--whom we do
not answer. In the National Assembly, answer a large mixed multitude: who
accordingly seat themselves in the Reporter's Chair; and therefrom noting
what Proclamations, Acts, Reports, passages of logic-fence, bursts of
parliamentary eloquence seem notable within doors, and what tumults and
rumours of tumult become audible from without,--produce volume on volume;
and, naming it History of the French Revolution, contentedly publish the
same. To do the like, to almost any extent, with so many Filed Newspapers,
Choix des Rapports, Histoires Parlementaires as there are, amounting to
many horseloads, were easy for us. Easy but unprofitable. The National
Assembly, named now Constituent Assembly, goes its course; making the
Constitution; but the French Revolution also goes its course.
In general, may we not say that the French Revolution lies in the heart and
head of every violent-speaking, of every violent-thinking French Man? How
the Twenty-five Millions of such, in their perplexed combination, acting
and counter-acting may give birth to events; which event successively is
the cardinal one; and from what point of vision it may best be surveyed:
this is a problem. Which problem the best insight, seeking light from all
possible sources, shifting its point of vision whithersoever vision or
glimpse of vision can be had, may employ itself in solving; and be well
content to solve in some tolerably approximate way.
As to the National Assembly, in so far as it still towers eminent over
France, after the manner of a car-borne Carroccio, though now no longer in
the van; and rings signals for retreat or for advance,--it is and continues
a reality among other realities. But in so far as it sits making the
Constitution, on the other hand, it is a fatuity and chimera mainly. Alas,
in the never so heroic building of Montesquieu-Mably card-castles, though
shouted over by the world, what interest is there? Occupied in that way,
an august National Assembly becomes for us little other than a Sanhedrim of
pedants, not of the gerund-grinding, yet of no fruitfuller sort; and its
loud debatings and recriminations about Rights of Man, Right of Peace and
War, Veto suspensif, Veto absolu, what are they but so many Pedant's-
curses, 'May God confound you for your Theory of Irregular Verbs!'
A Constitution can be built, Constitutions enough a la Sieyes: but the
frightful difficulty is that of getting men to come and live in them!
Could Sieyes have drawn thunder and lightning out of Heaven to sanction his
Constitution, it had been well: but without any thunder? Nay, strictly
considered, is it not still true that without some such celestial sanction,
given visibly in thunder or invisibly otherwise, no Constitution can in the
long run be worth much more than the waste-paper it is written on? The
Constitution, the set of Laws, or prescribed Habits of Acting, that men
will live under, is the one which images their Convictions,--their Faith as
to this wondrous Universe, and what rights, duties, capabilities they have
there; which stands sanctioned therefore, by Necessity itself, if not by a
seen Deity, then by an unseen one. Other laws, whereof there are always
enough ready-made, are usurpations; which men do not obey, but rebel
against, and abolish, by their earliest convenience.
The question of questions accordingly were, Who is it that especially for
rebellers and abolishers, can make a Constitution? He that can image forth
the general Belief when there is one; that can impart one when, as here,
there is none. A most rare man; ever as of old a god-missioned man! Here,
however, in defect of such transcendent supreme man, Time with its infinite
succession of merely superior men, each yielding his little contribution,
does much. Force likewise (for, as Antiquarian Philosophers teach, the
royal Sceptre was from the first something of a Hammer, to crack such heads
as could not be convinced) will all along find somewhat to do. And thus in
perpetual abolition and reparation, rending and mending, with struggle and
strife, with present evil and the hope and effort towards future good, must
the Constitution, as all human things do, build itself forward; or unbuild
itself, and sink, as it can and may. O Sieyes, and ye other Committeemen,
and Twelve Hundred miscellaneous individuals from all parts of France!
What is the Belief of France, and yours, if ye knew it? Properly that
there shall be no Belief; that all formulas be swallowed. The Constitution
which will suit that? Alas, too clearly, a No-Constitution, an Anarchy;--
which also, in due season, shall be vouchsafed you.
But, after all, what can an unfortunate National Assembly do? Consider
only this, that there are Twelve Hundred miscellaneous individuals; not a
unit of whom but has his own thinking-apparatus, his own speaking-
apparatus! In every unit of them is some belief and wish, different for
each, both that France should be regenerated, and also that he individually
should do it. Twelve Hundred separate Forces, yoked miscellaneously to any
object, miscellaneously to all sides of it; and bid pull for life!
Or is it the nature of National Assemblies generally to do, with endless
labour and clangour, Nothing? Are Representative Governments mostly at
bottom Tyrannies too! Shall we say, the Tyrants, the ambitious contentious
Persons, from all corners of the country do, in this manner, get gathered
into one place; and there, with motion and counter-motion, with jargon and
hubbub, cancel one another, like the fabulous Kilkenny Cats; and produce,
for net-result, zero;--the country meanwhile governing or guiding itself,
by such wisdom, recognised or for most part unrecognised, as may exist in
individual heads here and there?--Nay, even that were a great improvement:
for, of old, with their Guelf Factions and Ghibelline Factions, with their
Red Roses and White Roses, they were wont to cancel the whole country as
well. Besides they do it now in a much narrower cockpit; within the four
walls of their Assembly House, and here and there an outpost of Hustings
and Barrel-heads; do it with tongues too, not with swords:--all which
improvements, in the art of producing zero, are they not great? Nay, best
of all, some happy Continents (as the Western one, with its Savannahs,
where whosoever has four willing limbs finds food under his feet, and an
infinite sky over his head) can do without governing.--What Sphinx-
questions; which the distracted world, in these very generations, must
answer or die!