书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
5010600000860

第860章

Barras is of the same opinion, and taking time by the forelock, turns around and promises Louis XVIII. his co-operation in restoring the legitimate monarchy in exchange he receives letters patent granting him full pardon, exemption from all future prosecution and a promise of twelve millions. -Siéyès, more sagacious, seeks force where it exists, in the army; he prepares Joubert, sounds Moreati, thinks of Jourdan, of Bernadotte and of Macdonald, before surrendering himself to Bonaparte; "he requires a sword." Boulay de la Meurthe, comparing in a pamphlet the English revolution with the French revolution, announces and brings on the establishment of a military protectorate.

- "The Constitution of the year III. will not work," said Baudin, one of the Five Hundred, to Cornet, one of the Ancients, "only I do not see where to find the executive arm." The Jacobin republic still lives, and its servants, its doctors, already speak aloud of its interment the same as strangers and heirs in the room of a dying man who has become unconscious, like Tiberius when sinking in his palace at Misene.[144] - If the expiring man does not go fast enough some one will help him. The old monster, borne down with crimes and rotten with vices, rattles in his throat on his purple cushions; his eyes are closed, his pulse is feeble, and he gasps for breath. Here and there, around is bed, stand groups of those who minister to his debauches at Capri and his murders at Rome, his minions and executioners who publicly take part in the new reign; the old one is finished; one need no longer be circumspect and mute before corpse. Suddenly the dying man opens his eyes, speaks and asks for food. The military tribune, "the executive arm," boldly clears the apartment; he throws a pile of bedclothes over the old man's head and quickens the last sigh. Such is the final blow; an hour later and breathing stops.

X.Contrast between Civil and Military France.

Anti-social character of the sect and the faction. - Contrast between civil and military France. - Elements of reorganization in institutions, habits, and in military sentiments. - Character of the régime instituted on the 18th of Brumaire, year VIII.

If the Jacobin Republic dies, it is not merely on account of decay, nor because of its murders, but, and above all, because it is not born viable: at the outset it harbored within itself a principle of dissolution an innate mortal poison, not alone for others but for itself. - That which maintains a political society is the mutual respect of its members, especially the respect of the governed for its rulers and of the rulers for the governed, and, therefore, habits of mutual trust and confidence. On the part of the governed, a well-grounded certainty that the rulers will not attack private rights, and, on the part of the rulers, a well-founded certainty that the governed will not attack public powers; both inwardly recognizing that these rights, more or less broad or restricted, are inviolable; that these powers, more or less ample or limited, are legitimate. Finally, each being convinced that, in case of conflict, the trial will be conducted according to forms which law or custom provide; that pending the discussion, the strongest will not abuse his strength, and that, when the discussion is over, the successful party will not wholly sacrifice the loser. Only on this condition can there be harmony between governors and the governed, participation of all in the common work, internal tranquility, and, accordingly, stability, security, well-being and force. Without this deep and persistent disposition of minds and hearts, the bond of union among men is absent. It constitutes the brightest of social sentiments; it may be said that this is the soul of which the State is the body. - Now, in the Jacobin State, this soul has perished; it has not died out through unforeseen accidents, but through a forced result of the system, through a practical effect of the speculative theory, which, converting each man into an absolute sovereign, sets every man warring against other men, and which, under the pretence of regenerating the human species, lets loose, authorizes and consecrates the worst instincts of human nature, all the lusts of license, tyranny and domination. - In the name of a non-existent ideal people whom it declares sovereign, the Jacobins have violently usurped all public powers, brutally abolished all private rights, regarding the actual living people as a beast of burden, and yet worse, as a robot, subjecting their human machine to the cruelest restraints in order to mechanically maintain it in the unnatural, rigid posture, which, according to principles, they inflict upon it. Thenceforth, all ties are sundered between them and the nation; to prey upon, bleed and starve this nation, to re-conquer it after it bad escaped them, to repeatedly enchain and gag it - all this they could well do; but to reconcile it to their government, never! - Between them, and for the same reason, through another consequence of the same theory, and another effect of the same lusts, no bond between them would hold.