The French Revolution - Volume 3
Text Transcriber's Note : The numbering of Volumes, Books, Chapters and Sections are as in the French not the American edition. Annotations by the transcriber are initialled SR. Svend Rom, April 2000.
HTML Producer's Note : Footnote numbering has been changed to include as a prefix to the original footnote number, the book and chapter numbers. A table of contents has been added with active links. David Widger, June 2008
Please note that all references to earlier Volumes of the Origines of Contemporary France are to the American edition. Since there are no fixed page numbers in the Gutenberg edition these page numbers are only approximate. (SR).
We need not visit Egypt or go so far back in history to encounter crocodile worship, as this can be readily found in France at the end of the last century.—Unfortunately, a hundred years is too long an interval, too far away, for an imaginative retrospect of the past. At the present time, standing where we do and regarding the horizon behind us, we see only forms which the intervening atmosphere embellishes, shimmering contours which each spectator may interpret in his own fashion; no distinct, animated figure, but merely a mass of moving points, forming and dissolving in the midst of picturesque architecture. I was anxious to take a closer view of these vague points, and, accordingly, deported myself back to the last half of the eighteenth century. I have now been living with them for twelve years, and, like Clement of Alexandria, examined, first, the temple, and next the god. A passing glance at these is not sufficient; it was also necessary to understand the theology on which this cult is founded. This one, explained by a very specious theology, like most others, is composed of dogmas called the principles of 1789; they were proclaimed, indeed, at that date, having been previously formulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
The well known sovereignty of the people.
The rights of Man.
The social contract.
Hippolyte Taine
THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 4
PREFACE.
BOOK FIRST. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I. JACOBIN GOVERNMENT
I. The despotic creed and instincts of the Jacobin.
II. Jacobin Dissimulation.
III. Primary Assemblies
IV. The Delegates reach Paris
V. Fête of August 10th
VI. The Mountain.
VII. Extent and Manifesto of the departmental insurrection
VIII. The Reasons for the Terror.
IX. Destruction of Rebel Cities
X. Destruction of the Girondin party
XI. Institutions of the Revolutionary Government
BOOK SECOND. THE JACOBIN PROGRAM.
CHAPTER I. THE JACOBIN PARTY
I. The Doctrine.
II. A Communist State.
III. The object of the State is the regeneration of man.
IV. Two distortions of the natural man.
V. Equality and Inequality.
VI. Conditions requisite for making a citizen.
VII. Socialist projects.
VIII. Indoctrination of mind and intellect.
CHAPTER II. REACTIONARY CONCEPT OF THE STATE.
I. Reactionary concept of the State.
II. Changed minds.
III. Origin and nature of the modern State.
IV. The state is tempted to encroach.
V. Direct common interest.
VI. Indirect common interest.
VII. Fabrication of social instruments.
VIII. Comparison between despotisms.
BOOK THIRD. THE MEN IN POWER.
CHAPTER I. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JACOBIN LEADERS.
I. Marat.
II. Danton.
III. Robespierre.
CHAPTER II. THE RULERS OF THE COUNTRY.
I. The Convention.
II. Its participation in crime.
III. The Committee of Public Safety.
IV. The Statesmen.
V. Official Jacobin organs.
VI. Commissars of the Revolution.
VII. Brutal Instincts.
IX. Vice.
CHAPTER III. THE RULERS. (continued).
I. The Central Government Administration.
II. Subaltern Jacobins.
III. A Revolutionary Committee.
IV. Provincial Administration.
V. Jacobins sent to the Provinces.
VI. Quality of staff thus formed.
VII. The Armed Forces.
BOOK FOURTH. THE GOVERNED.
CHAPTER I. THE OPPRESSED.
I. Revolutionary Destruction.
II. The Value of Notables in Society.
III. The three classes of Notables.
IV. The Clergy.
V. The Bourgeoisie.
VI. The Demi-notables.
VII. Principle of socialist Equality.
VIII. Rigor against the Upper Classes.
IX. The Jacobin Citizen Robot.
X. The Governors and the Governed.
CHAPTER II. FOOD AND PROVISIONS.
I. Economical Complexity of Food Chain.
II. Conditions in 1793. A Lesson in Market Economics.
III. Privation.
IV. Hunger.
V. Revolutionary Remedies.
VI. Relaxation.
VII. Misery at Paris.
BOOK FIFTH. THE END OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I. THE CONVENTION.
I. The Convention.
II. Re-election of the Two-thirds.
III. A Directory of Regicides.
IV. Public Opinon.
VI. The Directory.
VII. Enforcement of Pure Jacobinism.
VIII. Propaganda and Foreign Conquests.
IX. National Disgust.
X. Contrast between Civil and Military France.