Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The Declaration of the Rights of Man may seem to us today a commonplace document. The brave ideals of yesterday often enough become the commonplaces of today. But at the time it was proclaimed it sent a thrill through Europe, and it seemed to carry the fair promise of better times to all who suffered and were downtrodden. But the King did not like it; he was amazed at this blasphemy, and he refused to sanction it. He was still at Versailles. It was then that the Paris mob, led by the women, came to the Versailles palace and not only made the King sanction the Declaration, but forced him to go to Paris. It was this strange procession to which I referred at the end of my last letter.

  The Assembly brought about many other useful reforms. The vast property of the Church was confiscated by the State. A new division of France was made into eighty departments and this division, I believe, still exists. Better law-courts, to take the place of the old feudal courts, were set up. All, this was to the good, but it did not go far enough. It did not benefit much the peasantry who hungered for land or the common people in the towns who hungered for bread. The Revolution seemed to have been arrested. As I have told you, the masses, the peasantry and the common people of the towns were not represented in the Assembly at all. The Assembly was controlled by the middle classes, under the leadership of Mirabeau; and as soon as they felt that they had gained their objects, they tried their best to stop the Revolution. They even began to ally themselves to King Louis and to shoot down the peasantry in the provinces. Their leader, Mirabeau, actually became the secret adviser of the King. And the common people, who had stormed and captured the Bastille and thought that they had thereby cast aside their chains, wondered what had happened. Their freedom seemed to be as far off as ever, and the new National Assembly was keeping them down almost in the manner of the old lords.

  Foiled in the Assembly, the people of Paris, which was the heart of the Revolution, found another outlet for their revolutionary energy. This was the Commune or municipality of Paris. Not only the Commune, but each section of the city, which returned several members to the Commune, had a living organization, in direct touch with the masses. The Commune, and the sections especially, became the standard-bearers of the Revolution and the rivals of the moderate and middle-class Assembly.

  Meanwhile the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille came round, and the people of Paris held a great fete on July 14. The Fete of the Federation it was called; and the common people of Paris gave their labour freely to decorate the city, for they felt that the fete was theirs.

  So the Revolution stood in 1790 and 1791. The Assembly had lost all its revolutionary ardour and had had enough of changes; but the people of Paris were still simmering with revolutionary energy, the peasantry still looking hungrily at the land. Matters could not continue for long in this way; either the Revolution had to go ahead or to die down. Mirabeau, the moderate leader, died early in 1791. In spite of his secret intrigues with the King he was popular with the people and kept them in check. On June 21, 1791, an event took place which decided the fate of the Revolution. This was the flight of King Louis and Marie Antoinette in disguise. They almost managed to reach the frontier. But some peasants recognized them at Varennes, near Verdun, and they were stopped and brought back to Paris.

  This act of the King and Queen sealed their fate so far as the people of Paris were concerned. The idea of the republic now grew rapidly, and yet so moderate and so far removed from public sentiment were the Assembly and the government of the day, that they continued to shoot down people who demanded that Louis be dethroned. Marat, one of the great figures of the Revolution, was hunted by the authorities because he denounced the King, after his flight, as a traitor. He had to hide in the sewers of Paris and contracted a terrible skin disease there.

  Still, strange to say, Louis continued in theory as king for over a year more. In September 1791 the National Assembly finished its career and gave place to the Legislative Assembly. This was as moderate as the other, and was representative only of the upper classes. It did not represent the rising fever of France. This fever of revolution spread among the people, and the extreme republicans, the Jacobins, who came from the people, grew in strength.

  Meanwhile the Powers of Europe were watching these strange happenings with alarm. For a while Prussia and Austria and Russia were busy with booty elsewhere. They were putting an end to the old kingdom of Poland, but events in France were marching too far ahead, and claimed their attention. In 1792 France was at war with Austria and Prussia. Austria, I might inform you, was now in possession of the Belgian part of the Netherlands, and this had a common frontier with France. Foreign armies advanced into French territory and defeated the French troops. The King was supposed, not without reason, to be in league with them, and all royalists were suspected of treachery. As the dangers grew round them, the people of France became more and more inflamed and panicky. They saw spies and traitors everywhere. The revolutionary Commune of Paris took the lead at this crisis, hoisted the Red Flag to signify that the people had proclaimed martial law against the rebellion of the Court, and on August 10, 1792, ordered an attack on the King’s palace. The King had them shot down by his Swiss guards. But the victory lay with the people, and the Commune forced the Assembly to depose the King and imprison him.

  The Red Flag, as everybody knows, is now the flag of the workers everywhere, of socialism and communism. Formerly it used to be the official flag to proclaim martial law against the people. I imagine, but I am not sure, that the use of this flag by the Paris Commune was the first use of it on behalf of the people, and it was from this that it gradually developed into the workers’ flag.

  The deposition and imprisonment of the King were not enough. The people of Paris, inflamed at the action of the Swiss guards in shooting and killing many of them, and full of fear and anger at traitors and spies, went about arresting the people whom they suspected and filling the prisons with them. Many of those arrested were no doubt guilty, but many innocent persons were also arrested and imprisoned. Some days later another fierce wave of passion came over the people, and they brought out their prisoners from the prisons and, after a mock trial, killed most of them. Over 1000 persons were killed in these “September massacres”, as they are called. This was the first taste of blood on a large scale which the Paris mob got. Much more blood was to flow before the thirst for it was satiated.

  In September also occurred the first victory of the French troops over the invading Austrians and Prussians. This was at the little battle of Valmy, small in itself but with big results, for it saved the Revolution.

  On September 21, 1792, the National Convention met. This was a new body taking the place of the Assembly. It was more advanced than the two Assemblies that had gone before it, but it still lagged behind the Commune. The first thing that the Convention did was to proclaim a republic. The trial of Louis XVI came soon after; he was condemned to death, and on January 21, 1793, he had to pay with his head for the sins of the monarchy. He was guillotined—that is, beheaded by the guillotine. The people of France had now burned their boats behind them. They had taken the final step and defied the kings and emperors of Europe. There was no going back for them, and from the very steps of the guillotine, which was still covered with a king’s blood, Danton, a great leader of the Revolution, addressed the assembled crowds and hurled his challenge at these other kings. “The kings of Europe would challenge us,” he cried; “we throw them the head of a king!”

  102

  Revolution and Counter-revolution

  October 13, 1932

  King Louis was gone. But even before his death France had undergone an amazing change. The blood of her people was afire with the fever of revolution; their veins tingled and a flaming enthusiasm took possession of them. Republican France was at bay; the rest of Europe, kingly Europe, was against her. Republican France would show these effete kings and princes how patriots warmed by the sun of liberty could fight. They would fight not only for their own newly won freedom, but for th
e freedom of all others who were oppressed by kings and nobles. To the nations of Europe the French people sent their message, calling upon them to rise against their rulers, and declaring themselves the friends of all peoples and the enemies of all kingly governments. France, la patrie, became the mother of freedom, at whose altar it was a joy to sacrifice. And in this hour of fierce enthusiasm there came to them a wonderful song, in tune with their flaming mood, making them rush forward singing to the battle-front and leap over all obstacles, reckless of the odds. This was Rouget de Lisle’s war-song for the army of the Rhine, known since then as the Marseillaise, and even now the national song of the French.

  Allons, enfants de la patrie,

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

  Contre nous de la tyrannie

  L’étendard sanglant est levé.

  Entendez-vous dans les campagnes,

  Mugir ces féroces soldats?

  Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras,

  Égorger nos fils, nos compagnes!

  Aux armes, citoyens! formez vos bataillons!

  Marchons, marchons, qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!

  They did not sing futile songs about long life to kings. Instead they sang of the sacred love of the motherland, and of liberty, beloved liberty.

  Amour sacré de la patrie,

  Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs! Liberté, liberté chérie,

  Combats avec tes defenseurs!

  There were terrible privations. There was not food enough or clothing, or boots or shoes, or even arms. In many places the citizens were asked to give up their boots and shoes for the army; patriots gave up many kinds of food which were scarce and were needed by the army; some even fasted frequently. Leather and kitchen utensils and frying-pans and buckets and many other household articles were requisitioned. And in the streets of Paris there was a hammering at many a forge for the common people, all the citoyens and citoyennes, were helping even in the manufacture of arms. There were great privations; but what did it matter when France, la patrie, beautiful France in her rags but with the crown of freedom on her head, was in danger, and the enemy was at her gate? So the youth of France rushed to her rescue and, careless of hunger or thirst, marched to victory. “Seldom,” says Carlyle, “do we find that a whole people can be said to have any Faith at all; except in things that it can eat and handle. Whensoever it gets any Faith, its history becomes spirit-stirring, noteworthy.” This faith in a great cause came to the men and women of the Revolution, and the history they made in those memorable days, and the sacrifices they endured, have still the power of stirring us and quickening our pulse.

  These revolutionary armies of new recruits, half-trained as they were, drove out all foreign troops from French soil and then freed the lower Netherlands (Belgium, etc.) from the Austrians. For the last time the Hapsburgs left the Netherlands, to return no more. The trained professional armies of Europe could not face these revolutionary recruits. The trained soldier fought for pay and fought cautiously; the revolutionary recruit fought for an ideal and was prepared to take great risks to win. The former moved slowly with a mountain of baggage, the latter had little to carry and moved rapidly. The revolutionary armies were thus a new type in war, and they fought with a new technique. They changed the old methods of warfare and became, to some extent, the models for the armies of the next 100 years in Europe. But the real strength of these armies lay in their enthusiasm and their audacity. For their motto, and indeed for the motto of the Revolution itself at this stage, we can give Danton’s famous phrase: “Pour vaincre les ennemis de la patrie il nous faut de l’audace, encore de l’audace el toujours de l’audace.”

  The war spread. England became a powerful enemy because of her navy. Republican France had built up a great land army, but on the sea she was weak. England started a blockade of all French ports. From England also the French émigrés poured into France millions of false assignats or currency notes of the French Republic. In this way they tried to ruin French currency and finances.

  The foreign war dominated everything, and all the energy of the nation went into it. Such wars are dangerous for revolutions, for they turn attention from social problems to fighting the foreign enemy, and thus the real object of the revolution is defeated. War fever takes the place of the fever of revolution. So it happened in France and, as we shall see, the last stage of France was the dictatorship of a great military commander.

  There was trouble also at home. In the Vendée, in the west of France, a great peasant revolt broke out, partly because of the refusal of the peasantry there to join the new armies, and partly because of the efforts of the royalist leaders and émigrés. The Revolution was really being controlled and directed by the city people of Paris; the peasantry could not understand or appreciate the swift changes in the capital, and they lagged behind. The Vendée revolt was suppressed with great cruelty. During war, and especially civil war, the worst passions are aroused and pity becomes a homeless wanderer. In Lyons there was a counter-revolutionary rising. It was put down and a proposal was made that the great city of Lyons be destroyed as a punishment! “Lyons made war against liberty—Lyons exists no more!” Fortunately this proposal was not accepted, but Lyons was made to suffer a great deal.

  Meanwhile what was happening in Paris? Who was in control there? A newly elected Commune and its sections still dominated the life of the city. In the National Convention there was a struggle for power between the various groups, chief amongst which were the Girondins or the moderate republicans and the Jacobins or the extreme republicans. The Jacobins won, and at the beginning of June 1793 most of the Girondin deputies were excluded from the Convention. The Convention now took the final step to abolish feudal rights, and lands which had belonged to the feudal lords were restored to the local communes or municipalities—that is, these lands became common property.

  The Convention, dominated by the Jacobins now, appointed two committees—the Committees of Public Welfare and Public Safety — and gave them wide powers. These committees, and especially the one on Public Safety, soon became very powerful and dreaded. They drove the Convention on from step to step till the Revolution tumbled into the abyss of the Terror. Fear still cast its shadow over everybody: fear of the foreign enemies who surrounded them, of spies and traitors, and there were many of these. Fear blinds and makes desperate, and the Convention, urged on by this ever-haunting fear, passed a terrible law in September 1793—the Law of Suspects. No one who was suspected was safe, and who could be free from being suspected? A month later twenty-two Girondin deputies of the Convention were tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal and rapidly sentenced to death.

  Thus began the Terror. Daily there were journeys to the guillotine of those who were condemned; daily the carts—tumbrils they were called— carrying these victims, creaked and rumbled over the cobble-stones of the Paris streets, and the people jeered at the unhappy persons. To speak even in the Convention against the ruling clique was dangerous, for that led to suspicion, and suspicion led to trial and the guillotine. The Convention was controlled by the Committees of Public Welfare and Public Safety. These Committees, with all the power of life and death in their hands, did not like to share it with others. They objected to the Commune of Paris; indeed, they objected to everyone who did not agree with them. Power has an extraordinary way of corrupting people. So these Committees set about to crush the Commune, which, with its sections, had been the backbone of the Revolution. They crushed the sections first, and, having lopped off its supports, they crushed the Commune. Thus does revolution often eat itself up. The sections in each part of Paris were the links which joined the populace with the people on top; they were the veins through which ran the red blood of the Revolution, which gave it strength and life. The crushing of the sections and the Commune early in 1794 meant the cutting off of this lifeblood. Henceforth the Convention and the Committees were organs of government on top, not in living touch with the people, trying, like all those in authority, to impose their
will on others by means of the Terror. This was the beginning of the end of the real revolutionary period. For another six months the Terror was to continue and the Revolution drag on. But the end was in sight.

  Who were the leaders of Paris and France during these days of storm and stress? Many names stand out. Camille Desmoulins, the man who led the attack on the Bastille in 1789, and played a notable part on many another occasion. Pleading for a policy of clemency during the Terror, he himself fell a victim to the guillotine, to be followed only a few days later by his young wife, Lucille, who preferred death to living without him. Fabre d’Eglantine, the poet, Fouquier-Tinville, the dreaded public prosecutor. Marat, perhaps the greatest and ablest of the men of the Revolution, stabbed to death by a young girl, Charlotte Corday. Danton, whom I have twice quoted already, brave and leonine, a great and popular orator, but nonetheless to end on the guillotine. And Robespierre, the best known of all, the leader of the Jacobins and practically the dictator of the Convention during the days of the Terror. He has become almost the embodiment of the Terror, and many people think of him with a shudder. Yet of this man’s honesty and patriotism there is no question; he was known as the “incorruptible”. But simple as he was in his life, he was inordinately self-centred, and he seemed to think that everyone who differed from him was a traitor to the Republic and the Revolution. Many of the great men of the Revolution, who had been his colleagues, were sent to the guillotine at his instance; till at last the Convention which had been following him so meekly turned upon him. They called him a tyrant and a despot, and put an end to him and his despotism.