The French Revolution A History Chapter 3.3.I. - Cause and Effect.
by Thomas Carlyle
This huge Insurrectionary Movement, which we liken to a breaking out of
Tophet and the Abyss, has swept away Royalty, Aristocracy, and a King's
life. The question is, What will it next do; how will it henceforth shape
itself? Settle down into a reign of Law and Liberty; according as the
habits, persuasions and endeavours of the educated, monied, respectable
class prescribe? That is to say: the volcanic lava-flood, bursting up in
the manner described, will explode and flow according to Girondin Formula
and pre-established rule of Philosophy? If so, for our Girondin friends it
will be well.
Meanwhile were not the prophecy rather that as no external force, Royal or
other, now remains which could control this Movement, the Movement will
follow a course of its own; probably a very original one? Further, that
whatsoever man or men can best interpret the inward tendencies it has, and
give them voice and activity, will obtain the lead of it? For the rest,
that as a thing without order, a thing proceeding from beyond and beneath
the region of order, it must work and welter, not as a Regularity but as a
Chaos; destructive and self-destructive; always till something that has
order arise, strong enough to bind it into subjection again? Which
something, we may further conjecture, will not be a Formula, with
philosophical propositions and forensic eloquence; but a Reality, probably
with a sword in its hand!
As for the Girondin Formula, of a respectable Republic for the Middle
Classes, all manner of Aristocracies being now sufficiently demolished,
there seems little reason to expect that the business will stop there.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, these are the words; enunciative and
prophetic. Republic for the respectable washed Middle Classes, how can
that be the fulfilment thereof? Hunger and nakedness, and nightmare
oppression lying heavy on Twenty-five million hearts; this, not the wounded
vanities or contradicted philosophies of philosophical Advocates, rich
Shopkeepers, rural Noblesse, was the prime mover in the French Revolution;
as the like will be in all such Revolutions, in all countries. Feudal
Fleur-de-lys had become an insupportably bad marching banner, and needed to
be torn and trampled: but Moneybag of Mammon (for that, in these times, is
what the respectable Republic for the Middle Classes will signify) is a
still worse, while it lasts. Properly, indeed, it is the worst and basest
of all banners, and symbols of dominion among men; and indeed is possible
only in a time of general Atheism, and Unbelief in any thing save in brute
Force and Sensualism; pride of birth, pride of office, any known kind of
pride being a degree better than purse-pride. Freedom, Equality,
Brotherhood: not in the Moneybag, but far elsewhere, will Sansculottism
seek these things.
We say therefore that an Insurrectionary France, loose of control from
without, destitute of supreme order from within, will form one of the most
tumultuous Activities ever seen on this Earth; such as no Girondin Formula
can regulate. An immeasurable force, made up of forces manifold,
heterogeneous, compatible and incompatible. In plainer words, this France
must needs split into Parties; each of which seeking to make itself good,
contradiction, exasperation will arise; and Parties on Parties find that
they cannot work together, cannot exist together.
As for the number of Parties, there will, strictly counting, be as many
Parties as there are Opinions. According to which rule, in this National
Convention itself, to say nothing of France generally, the number of
Parties ought to be Seven Hundred and Forty-Nine; for every unit entertains
his opinion. But now as every unit has at once an individual nature, or
necessity to follow his own road, and a gregarious nature or necessity to
see himself travelling by the side of others,--what can there be but
dissolutions, precipitations, endless turbulence of attracting and
repelling; till once the master-element get evolved, and this wild alchemy
arrange itself again?
To the length of Seven Hundred and Forty-nine Parties, however, no Nation
was ever yet seen to go. Nor indeed much beyond the length of Two Parties;
two at a time;--so invincible is man's tendency to unite, with all the
invincible divisiveness he has! Two Parties, we say, are the usual number
at one time: let these two fight it out, all minor shades of party
rallying under the shade likest them; when the one has fought down the
other, then it, in its turn, may divide, self-destructive; and so the
process continue, as far as needful. This is the way of Revolutions, which
spring up as the French one has done; when the so-called Bonds of Society
snap asunder; and all Laws that are not Laws of Nature become naught and
Formulas merely.
But quitting these somewhat abstract considerations, let History note this
concrete reality which the streets of Paris exhibit, on Monday the 25th of
February 1793. Long before daylight that morning, these streets are noisy
and angry. Petitioning enough there has been; a Convention often
solicited. It was but yesterday there came a Deputation of Washerwomen
with Petition; complaining that not so much as soap could be had; to say
nothing of bread, and condiments of bread. The cry of women, round the
Salle de Manege, was heard plaintive: "Du pain et du savon, Bread and
Soap." (Moniteur &c. (Hist. Parl. xxiv. 332-348.)
And now from six o'clock, this Monday morning, one perceives the Baker's
Queues unusually expanded, angrily agitating themselves. Not the Baker
alone, but two Section Commissioners to help him, manage with difficulty
the daily distribution of loaves. Soft-spoken assiduous, in the early
candle-light, are Baker and Commissioners: and yet the pale chill February
sunrise discloses an unpromising scene. Indignant Female Patriots, partly
supplied with bread, rush now to the shops, declaring that they will have
groceries. Groceries enough: sugar-barrels rolled forth into the street,
Patriot Citoyennes weighing it out at a just rate of eleven-pence a pound;
likewise coffee-chests, soap-chests, nay cinnamon and cloves-chests, with
aquavitae and other forms of alcohol,--at a just rate, which some do not
pay; the pale-faced Grocer silently wringing his hands! What help? The
distributive Citoyennes are of violent speech and gesture, their long
Eumenides' hair hanging out of curl; nay in their girdles pistols are seen
sticking: some, it is even said, have beards,--male Patriots in petticoats
and mob-cap. Thus, in the streets of Lombards, in the street of Five-
Diamonds, street of Pullies, in most streets of Paris does it effervesce,
the livelong day; no Municipality, no Mayor Pache, though he was War-
Minister lately, sends military against it, or aught against it but
persuasive-eloquence, till seven at night, or later.
On Monday gone five weeks, which was the twenty-first of January, we saw
Paris, beheading its King, stand silent, like a petrified City of
Enchantment: and now on this Monday it is so noisy, selling sugar!
Cities, especially Cities in Revolution, are subject to these alternations;
the secret courses of civic business and existence effervescing and
efflorescing, in this manner, as a concrete Phenomenon to the eye. Of
which Phenomenon, when secret existence becoming public effloresces on the
street, the philosophical cause-and-effect is not so easy to find. What,
for example, may be the accurate philosophical meaning, and meanings, of
this sale of sugar? These things that have become visible in the street of
Pullies and over Paris, whence are they, we say; and whither?--
That Pitt has a hand in it, the gold of Pitt: so much, to all reasonable
Patriot men, may seem clear. But then, through what agents of Pitt?
Varlet, Apostle of Liberty, was discerned again of late, with his pike and
his red nightcap. Deputy Marat published in his journal, this very day,
complaining of the bitter scarcity, and sufferings of the people, till he
seemed to get wroth: 'If your Rights of Man were anything but a piece of
written paper, the plunder of a few shops, and a forestaller or two hung up
at the door-lintels, would put an end to such things.' (Hist. Parl. xxiv.
353-356.) Are not these, say the Girondins, pregnant indications? Pitt
has bribed the Anarchists; Marat is the agent of Pitt: hence this sale of
sugar. To the Mother Society, again, it is clear that the scarcity is
factitious; is the work of Girondins, and such like; a set of men sold
partly to Pitt; sold wholly to their own ambitions, and hard-hearted
pedantries; who will not fix the grain-prices, but prate pedantically of
free-trade; wishing to starve Paris into violence, and embroil it with the
Departments: hence this sale of sugar.
And, alas, if to these two notabilities, of a Phenomenon and such Theories
of a Phenomenon, we add this third notability, That the French Nation has
believed, for several years now, in the possibility, nay certainty and near
advent, of a universal Millennium, or reign of Freedom, Equality,
Fraternity, wherein man should be the brother of man, and sorrow and sin
flee away? Not bread to eat, nor soap to wish with; and the reign of
perfect Felicity ready to arrive, due always since the Bastille fell! How
did our hearts burn within us, at that Feast of Pikes, when brother flung
himself on brother's bosom; and in sunny jubilee, Twenty-five millions
burst forth into sound and cannon-smoke! Bright was our Hope then, as
sunlight; red-angry is our Hope grown now, as consuming fire. But, O
Heavens, what enchantment is it, or devilish legerdemain, of such effect,
that Perfect Felicity, always within arm's length, could never be laid hold
of, but only in her stead Controversy and Scarcity? This set of traitors
after that set! Tremble, ye traitors; dread a People which calls itself
patient, long-suffering; but which cannot always submit to have its pocket
picked, in this way,--of a Millennium!
Yes, Reader, here is a miracle. Out of that putrescent rubbish of
Scepticism, Sensualism, Sentimentalism, hollow Machiavelism, such a Faith
has verily risen; flaming in the heart of a People. A whole People,
awakening as it were to consciousness in deep misery, believes that it is
within reach of a Fraternal Heaven-on-Earth. With longing arms, it
struggles to embrace the Unspeakable; cannot embrace it, owing to certain
causes.--Seldom do we find that a whole People can be said to have any
Faith at all; except in things which it can eat and handle. Whensoever it
gets any Faith, its history becomes spirit-stirring, note-worthy. But
since the time when steel Europe shook itself simultaneously, at the word
of Hermit Peter, and rushed towards the Sepulchre where God had lain, there
was no universal impulse of Faith that one could note. Since Protestantism
went silent, no Luther's voice, no Zisca's drum any longer proclaiming that
God's Truth was not the Devil's Lie; and the last of the Cameronians
(Renwick was the name of him; honour to the name of the brave!) sank, shot,
on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, there was no partial impulse of Faith
among Nations. Till now, behold, once more this French Nation believes!
Herein, we say, in that astonishing Faith of theirs, lies the miracle. It
is a Faith undoubtedly of the more prodigious sort, even among Faiths; and
will embody itself in prodigies. It is the soul of that world-prodigy
named French Revolution; whereat the world still gazes and shudders.
But, for the rest, let no man ask History to explain by cause-and-effect
how the business proceeded henceforth. This battle of Mountain and
Gironde, and what follows, is the battle of Fanaticisms and Miracles;
unsuitable for cause-and-effect. The sound of it, to the mind, is as a
hubbub of voices in distraction; little of articulate is to be gathered by
long listening and studying; only battle-tumult, shouts of triumph, shrieks
of despair. The Mountain has left no Memoirs; the Girondins have left
Memoirs, which are too often little other than long-drawn Interjections, of
Woe is me and Cursed be ye. So soon as History can philosophically
delineate the conflagration of a kindled Fireship, she may try this other
task. Here lay the bitumen-stratum, there the brimstone one; so ran the
vein of gunpowder, of nitre, terebinth and foul grease: this, were she
inquisitive enough, History might partly know. But how they acted and
reacted below decks, one fire-stratum playing into the other, by its nature
and the art of man, now when all hands ran raging, and the flames lashed
high over shrouds and topmast: this let not History attempt.
The Fireship is old France, the old French Form of Life; her creed a
Generation of men. Wild are their cries and their ragings there, like
spirits tormented in that flame. But, on the whole, are they not gone, O
Reader? Their Fireship and they, frightening the world, have sailed away;
its flames and its thunders quite away, into the Deep of Time. One thing
therefore History will do: pity them all; for it went hard with them all.
Not even the seagreen Incorruptible but shall have some pity, some human
love, though it takes an effort. And now, so much once thoroughly
attained, the rest will become easier. To the eye of equal brotherly pity,
innumerable perversions dissipate themselves; exaggerations and execrations
fall off, of their own accord. Standing wistfully on the safe shore, we
will look, and see, what is of interest to us, what is adapted to us.