The Psychology of Revolution

by Gustave Le Bon

Thanks to them, the work of the Convention was not purely destructive. They drafted many very useful measures, creating important colleges, establishing the metric system, &c. The majority of the members of the Assembly, as we have already seen, took refuge in these committees in order to evade the political conflict which would have endangered their heads.

Above the business committees, which had nothing to do with politics, was the Committee of Public Safety, instituted in April, 1793, and composed of nine members. Directed at first by Danton, and in the July of the same year by Robespierre, it gradually absorbed all the powers of government, including that of giving orders to ministers and generals. Carnot directed the operations of the war, Cambon the finances, and Saint-Just and Collot-d'Herbois the general policy.

Although the laws voted by the technical committees were often very wise, and constituted the lasting work of the Convention, those which the Assembly voted in a body under the threats of the delegations which invaded it were manifestly ridiculous.

Among these laws, which were not greatly in the interests of the public or of the Convention itself, were the law of the maximum, voted in September, 1793, which pretended to fix the price of provisions, and which merely established a continual dearth; the destruction of the royal tombs at Saint-Denis; the trial of the queen, the systematic devastation of the Vendee by fire, the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal, &c.

The Terror was the chief means of government during the Convention. Commencing in September, 1793, it reigned for six months—that is, until the death of Robespierre. Vainly did certain Jacobins— Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Herault de Sechelles, &c.—propose that clemency should be given a trial. The only result of this proposition was that its authors were sent to the scaffold. It was merely the lassitude of the public that finally put an end to this shameful period.

The successive struggles of the various parties in the Convention and its tendency towards extremes eliminated one by one the men of importance who had once played their part therein. Finally it fell under the exclusive domination of Robespierre. While the Convention was disorganising and ravaging France, the armies were winning brilliant victories. They had seized the left bank of the Rhine, Belgium, and Holland. The treaty of Basle ratified these conquests.

We have already mentioned, and we shall return to the matter again, that the work of the armies must be considered absolutely apart from that of the Convention. Contemporaries understood this perfectly, but to-day it is often forgotten.

When the Convention was dissolved, in 1795, after lasting for three years, it was regarded with universal distrust. The perpetual plaything of popular caprice, it had not succeeded in pacifying France, but had plunged her into anarchy. The general opinion respecting the Convention is well summed up in a letter written in July, 1799, by the Swedish charge d'affaires, Baron Drinkmann: ``I venture to hope that no people will ever be governed by the will of more cruel and imbecile scoundrels than those that have ruled France since the beginning of her new liberty.''

3. The End of the Convention. The Beginnings of the Directory.

At the end of its existence, the Convention, always trusting to the power of formulae, drafted a new Constitution, that of the year III., intended to replace that of 1793, which had never been put into execution. The legislative power was to be shared by a so-called Council of Ancients composed of 150 members, and a council of deputies numbering 500. The executive power was confided to a Directory of five members, who were appointed by the Ancients upon nomination by the Five Hundred, and renewed every year by the election of one of their number. It was specified that two-thirds of the members of the new Assembly should be chosen from among the deputies of the Convention. This prudent measure was not very efficacious, as only ten departments remained faithful to the Jacobins.