denied, was kept up for nearly two years by a compara- tively small but energetic minority in all the towns of France, Outside this minority (the Jacobins) there was a floating mass of inert sympathy with the objects of Sansculottism, and a belief in the necessity of drastic measures in view of the situation. Beyond this, again, was the vast mass of inert stupidity and indifference which was effectively cowed. The active enemies of the Revolution were, of course, reduced to silence.
It is significant, again, to notice that most of the great crises were connected with affairs on the frontiers. The ioth of August and the September massacres were the response to Brunswick’s manifesto, and the march of the enemy on the capital respectively, The 31st of May was directly brought about by the invasion of the new coali- tion and the disorganization of Dumouriez’s armies, con- sequent on his defcction. Finally, the 9th of Thermidor, and the abolition of the “ Terror,” followed on the disap- pearance of the last trace of danger from the foreigner consequent on the battle of Fleurus.
The extraordinary enthusiasm which we find, the reck- less readiness of all alike to inflict and to suffer death, might lead us to suppose the men of the time to have been a race of born heroes, or monsters, or both. The average of them were neither the one nor the other. They were the products of social forces beyond their control. The feeling of the all-importance of the public interest carried all before it. Prior to the Revolution, they were prob- ' ably neither more courageous nor more truculent than ourselves. The same courage and the same truculency might manifest itself in any man of character under like circumstances. Even Robespierre was, as Carlyle sug- gests, probably neither better nor worse than other attor- neys to start with, But in his case ambition ultimately assumed the mastery over his whole personality. This was partly owing to the fact that he was undeniably a man without a vice (in the ordinary sense of the word),
