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Jean Jacques Rousseau
Author's Preface
The following sketch of the course of the French Revolution was originally published during 1889 in serial form in "Justice," the weekly organ of the Social Democratic Federation. It has been revised, corrected, and, in some parts, added to, for the present re-issue. It need scarcely be said that it in no way pretends to be a complete history of the great political, social, and intellectual movement it describes. The present volume is designed primarily as a guide to those who, not having the time to study larger works on the subject, yet wish during these centennial years to have in a small compass a connected description of the main events of the French Revolution, more especially from the point of view of modern Socialism. It is undeniable that there are many Englishmen who would indignantly repudiate any aspersions on their education for whom the French Revolution means little more than the destruction of one institution called the Bastille, the erection of another institution called the Guillotine, and the establishment of the Napoleonic Empire on the ruins of both. They have no idea of the complex forces, economical, speculative, and political, which manifested themselves in the succession of crises (scarcely, indeed, of the existence of the crises themselves) which took place between the assembling of the States-General in 1789, and the suppression of the Babœuf conspiracy in 1796.
For such as these, and for many others to whom the above remarks will not altogether apply, a condensed statement of the facts of the French Revolution cannot but be desirable, and although there exist summaries galore, the writer ventures to think that the present little work differs from them in two respects: firstly, in the point of view from which the Revolution is viewed, and secondly, in the endeavor to throw the principal events into as strong relief as possible by the omission of all detail which is unessential to the understanding of them. Brevity has also been a distinct aim, and for this, as for the former reason, much that is in itself interesting has been left out. The foregoing especially applies to biographical details respecting the chief actors. These have been uniformly omitted throughout, as tending to expand the sketch indefinitely, and to draw off attention from its main purpose. The circumstances of the time and the events made the personalities what they were, and there is not one of them who, in so far as public life is concerned, can be regarded otherwise than as the embodiment of some more or less wide-spread contemporary tendency. The actors, therefore, merely cross the stage in connection with the principal events in which they played a role. Yet, though they may have suddenly become especially prominent, it must be understood that, in almost all cases, they were already familiar to the population of Paris, and, in many cases, of the whole of France, as club-orators, parliamentary politicians, or as journalists. It is not too much to say that in the French Revolution journalism first became a power in the world’s history.
Those who seek further details both of the Revolution itself and of the life of its leading figures may be referred to the larger histories. The admirable history of Mr. Morse Stephen now in progress represents by far the best work that has as vet been done in English (both as regards exhaustiveness and impartiality) in connection with the subject. Mr. Stephen's excellent articles in the ninth edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" may also be consulted with profit. The French literature of the subject would, of course, fill libraries. Works such as Bougeart's "Marat," Avenel's "Anacharsis Clootz," are monuments of industry in research. In spite of the efforts of French scholars, however, there is much room left for original investigation. The British Museum alone contains, I believe, upwards of 100,000 newspapers, pamphlets, manifestoes, and other documents, many of them as yet unarranged and uncatalogued. The amount of material in Paris, and in France generally, which has not yet been worked is probably incalculable.
Offense has been given in some quarters at the view taken of Robespierre in the following pages. The writer can only say that he cannot regard the mere negative qualification that Robespierre has been in general attacked by the Reaction in conjunction with other leaders as of itself entitling him to the esteem of modern Democrats or Socialists in the teeth of the undeniable facts of the case. The treacherous surrender of the Dantonists, the judicial murder of the Hébertists, the law of Prairial, are these things not written in history? The fact is, Robespierre was a petit bourgeois, a Philistine to the backbone, who desired a Republic of petit bourgeois virtues, with himself at the head, and was prepared to wade through a sea of blood for the accomplishment of his end. Napoleon had a truer sense of the case than other Reactionists, when, as is reported, he was inclined to hail Robespierre as an unsuccessful predecessor in the work of "restoring order" and "saving society" — in the interest, of course, of the middle-classes. With these few words of preface the volume is left to the consideration of the reader, in the hope that it may afford him at least some light on the general bearings of the history of the French Revolution.