Elster Jon, Goldhammer Arthur. Tocqueville: The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution (ENG)
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
Book III
III. – How, Toward the Middle of the
Eighteenth Century, Men of Letters Became
the Country’s Leading Politicians, and the
Effects That Followed from This
I will now set aside the persistent and general facts that prepared the
way for the great revolution that it is my purpose to describe and turn
to the particular and more recent facts that determined its place, birth,
and character.
Of all the nations of Europe, France had long been the most literary. Yet
men of letters had never before exhibited a spirit of the sort that emerged
around the middle of the eighteenth century, nor had they previously
occupied the place in society that they assumed at that time. Nothing like
this had ever been seen in France or, I believe, anywhere else.
In France, men of letters did not regularly participate in affairs, as
they did in England. Indeed, they had never been so far removed from
the world of affairs. They were not invested with authority of any
kind and fullled no public function in a society already replete with
functionaries.
Yet unlike most of their German counterparts, they did not avoid
politics entirely or conne themselves to pure philosophy or belles let-
tres. They took a persistent interest in subjects related to government.
In truth, this was their dening occupation. They could be heard, when-
ever one wished, expounding the origins of society and primitive social
forms, the fundamental rights of citizens and prerogatives of author-
ity, the natural and articial relations among men, the mistakenness or
Book III
legitimacy of custom, and the essential principles of law. Delving daily
into the foundations of society as it was then constituted, they studied
its structure intently and criticized its overall plan. To be sure, not all of
them pondered these great problems in a thorough or profound manner.
Indeed, most touched on them only supercially, almost playfully. But all
considered them. Abstract and literary politics of this sort was to be found
in all the works of the period, though not to the same degree. None was
entirely exempt, from the weightiest treatise to the most frivolous song.
The political systems of these writers varied so widely that it would be
impossible to combine them all into a single theory of government.
Nevertheless, if we ignore details and look for fundamental ideas, we
soon nd that the authors of these various systems agreed on at least
one very general notion, which each of them seems to have conceived
on his own – a general notion that seems to have preexisted, and to be
the common source of, all the other, more specic ideas. However much
the authors of the time eventually diverged from one another, all started
from the same place: all believed that it was proper to replace the complex
traditional customs that governed the society in which they lived with
certain simple, elementary rules, which could be deduced from reason
and natural law.
Careful study reveals that what one might call the political philoso-
phy of the eighteenth century consists, strictly speaking, in this single
notion.
Such a thought was not new: for three thousand years it had peri-
odically gripped the human imagination, though never for long. How
was it that it now seized the minds of so many writers? Why, instead
of remaining conned within a few philosophical heads, as had always
been the case before, did it lter down to the masses and take on the
substance and warmth of a political passion, to the point where we nd
general and abstract theories about the nature of society becoming the
subject of daily conversation among those with nothing else to occupy
them and inaming the imaginations of even women and peasants?
How did men of letters without rank, honor, wealth, responsibility,
or power become, in fact, the leading politicians of the age – nay, the
only politicians, since, while others engaged in government, they alone
wielded authority? I would like to explain this briey and show what
extraordinarily powerful inuence these facts, which seem to belong to
the history of our literature, had on the Revolution and continued to
have down to the present time.
III.1 Men of Letters as Leading Politicians
It was no accident that the philosophers of the eighteenth century all
conceived of notions so incompatible with those that still served as the
basis of their society. The new ideas were prompted, in a natural way,
by the sight of that very society, which lay before their eyes. The sight
of so many abusive and ridiculous privileges, whose oppressiveness was
increasingly felt yet whose grounds were less and less apparent, induced,
or, rather, compelled, many thinkers to embrace the idea of a natural
equality of conditions. Confronted with so many bizarre and haphazard
institutions – relics of another era that no one attempted to reconcile with
one another or accommodate to new needs, and which, despite having
lost their virtue, seemed bound nevertheless to endure – these philoso-
phers quickly became disgusted with ancient things and traditions and
naturally wanted to rebuild society according to an entirely new plan,
which each of them elaborated by the light of reason alone.
The situation of these writers fostered in them a taste for abstract,
general theories of government, theories in which they trusted blindly.
Living as they did almost totally removed from practical life, they had
no experience that might have tempered their natural passions. Nothing
warned them of the obstacles that existing realities might pose to even
the most desirable reforms. They had no idea of the perils that invari-
ably accompany even the most necessary revolutions. Indeed, they had
no premonition of them because the complete absence of political liberty
ensured that they not only failed to grasp the world of affairs but actually
failed to see it. They had nothing to do with that world and were incapa-
ble of recognizing what others did within it. Hence, they lacked even that
supercial instruction that the sight of a free society and word of what
is said by free men impart to those least involved in government. They
therefore grew bolder in their innovations, much more enamored of gen-
eral ideas and systems, much more contemptuous of ancient wisdom,
and much more condent of individual reason than one commonly sees
in authors who write speculative works about politics.
A similar ignorance led the crowd to lend them their ear and surrender
their heart to them. If the French had still participated in government
through the Estates General, as they had in the past, if they had even still
participated in the daily administration of the country through their pro-
vincial assemblies, it is safe to say that they would not have been inamed
by the ideas of these writers, as they were now. They would still have pos-
sessed a certain familiarity with government, and this would have alerted
them to the dangers of pure theory.
Book III
If, like the English, they had been able, without destroying their
ancient institutions, to change their spirit gradually, they might not have
been quite so ready to imagine entirely new ones. But each of them felt
hindered daily in his fortune, person, well-being, or pride by some old
law, some ancient political custom, some relic of the old powers, and he
saw no remedy ready to hand that he might apply to his particular woe. It
seemed that the constitution of the country had to be either tolerated in
its entirety or else entirely destroyed.
We had, however, preserved one liberty from the ruin of all the others.
We were able to philosophize almost without restraint about the origins
of society, the essential nature of government, and the primordial rights
of the human race.
All who were hindered by the daily practice of legislation soon became
enamored of literary politics. The taste for this sort of thing spread even
to people whose nature or situation would normally have kept them aloof
from abstract speculation. There was scarcely a taxpayer disadvantaged
by the unequal apportionment of the taille who did not warm to the idea
that all men should be equal. There was scarcely a small landowner whose
property had been devastated by the rabbits of his neighbor, the noble-
man, who was not pleased to hear that reason condemned all privileges
without exception. Thus, every public passion disguised itself as phi-
losophy. Political life was forcibly channeled into literature, and writers,
taking it upon themselves to direct public opinion, for a while took the
place that party leaders ordinarily occupy in free countries.
By this time, no one was in a position to challenge the writers’ role.
An aristocracy, when it is vigorous, does not merely take the lead
in public affairs. It also shapes opinions, sets the tone for writers, and
imparts authority to ideas. By the eighteenth century, the French nobility
had lost this portion of its dominion entirely. Its credibility had suffered
the same fate as its power. The place it had once occupied in the govern-
ment of the mind was vacant, and writers were free to assume this role to
the exclusion of all others.
What is more, the very aristocracy whose place the writers took
encouraged their enterprise. It had so completely forgotten how general
theories, once accepted, are inevitably transformed into political passions
and actions that it treated as mere ingenious intellectual games the doc-
trines most hostile to its privileges and even its existence as a class. To
pass the time, it took part in these games itself, tranquilly enjoying its
III.1 Men of Letters as Leading Politicians
immunities and privileges while serenely discussing the absurdity of all
established customs.
Many people have expressed astonishment at the peculiar blindness
of the upper classes of the Ancien Régime, when they thus assisted in
their own destruction. But who could have taught them otherwise? Free
institutions are just as essential to the leading citizens of a country, in
order to instruct them about the perils they face, as they are to the low-
est of citizens, in order to secure their rights. For more than a century
after the last traces of public life had disappeared in France, the people
with the most direct interest in maintaining the old constitution received
no warning, felt no jolt, heard no creak, that might have indicated that
the ancient edice was on the verge of collapse. In the absence of any
outward change, they imagined that everything remained precisely the
same. They continued to see things as their fathers had seen them. In the
grievance books of , the nobility seems to have been as preoccupied
with the encroachments of royal power as it had been in the fteenth cen-
tury. Meanwhile, as Burke rightly notes, the unfortunate Louis XVI still
saw the aristocracy as the principal rival of royal power right up to the
moment he died in the eruption of democracy. He remained as wary of
the aristocracy as if he had still been living in the time of the Fronde. And
like his forebears, he saw the bourgeoisie and the people as the staunchest
supporters of the monarchy.
To us, who have before our eyes the debris of so many revolutions,
what may seem even stranger, however, is that the very notion of a violent
revolution was absent from our ancestors’ minds. It was not discussed;
it had not been conceived. The small tremors that political liberty con-
stantly imparts to the most rmly established societies serve as a daily
reminder of the possibility of upheaval, which fosters a state of watchful
public prudence. But in France in the eighteenth century, as society tee-
tered on the brink of an abyss, there was still no warning of the precari-
ousness of the situation.
I carefully read the grievance books prepared by the three orders
before they met in . When I say the three orders, I mean the nobility
and the clergy as well as the Third Estate. Here I found that someone
asked that a law be changed, there a custom, and I took note. When I
came to the end of this vast collection of texts and put all these specic
requests together, I was horried to realize that what they were asking
for was the simultaneous and systematic abolition of all the laws and
Book III
customs in force throughout the country. I saw at once that this would
lead to one of the most extensive and dangerous revolutions that had
ever occurred anywhere in the world. But those who would become the
victims of that revolution were totally unaware of this. They believed that
the total and sudden transformation of such an old and complex society
could be achieved without disruption, with the aid of reason and by its
force alone. Poor fools! They even forgot the maxim that their forefathers
had expressed four hundred years earlier in the simple, vigorous French
of the time: “Ask for an excess of freedom and liberty and what you get
is an excess of slavery.”
It is not surprising that the nobility and bourgeoisie, which had been
excluded from public life for so long, displayed such striking inexperi-
ence. What is more astonishing, however, is that the very men in charge
of affairs – ministers, magistrates, and intendants – exhibited little more
foresight. Yet any number of them were very able practitioners of their
professions. They possessed thorough knowledge of the details of public
administration. But when it came to the great science of government,
which teaches one to understand the general direction of society, to
judge what is going on in the minds of the masses, and to anticipate what
will come of it, they were quite as untutored as the people themselves.
Indeed, statesmen can learn that aspect of their art – the principal part –
only from the operation of free institutions.
This can be seen quite clearly in a report that Turgot submitted to
the king in 5, in which, among other things, he advised the monarch
to allow the nation as a whole to elect a representative assembly, which
would then meet in the king’s presence for six weeks every year, but
not to grant that assembly any real power. It would concern itself solely
with administration and never with government, and offer its opinions
rather than express its will. In fact, its sole mission would be to discuss
laws rather than make them. “In this way, royal power would be enlight-
ened but not hobbled,” Turgot said, “and public opinion would be sat-
ised without danger because these assemblies would have no authority
to oppose essential operations, and if by some remote chance they were
reluctant to comply, Your Majesty would still have the upper hand.” It
would be impossible to be more mistaken about the implications of a
measure or the spirit of one’s time. To be sure, it has often been possible
to act with impunity in the way Turgot suggested, to grant the shadow of
liberty without the substance. Augustus tried it and succeeded. A nation
tired of endless debate may willingly consent to be duped, as long as it is
III.1 Men of Letters as Leading Politicians
granted calm, and history teaches that in such cases it is enough to recruit
a certain number of obscure or subservient men from across the country
and pay them to play the role of a political assembly before the nation.
Several examples of this can be cited. But at the beginning of a revolution
such measures always fail and merely iname the people without satis-
fying them. The least citizen of a free country knows as much; Turgot,
though a great administrator, did not.
Remember now that the same French nation that was so alienated from
its own affairs and so deprived of experience, so hobbled by its institu-
tions and so powerless to change them, was also the most literate of all
nations as well as the most enamored of wit, and you will readily under-
stand how writers became a political force in the country and ended up
the most important political force of all.
In England, those who wrote about government mingled with those
who governed, so that the latter introduced new ideas in practice while
the former revised and pared down theories with the help of facts, but in
France, the political world remained divided, as it were, into two sepa-
rate provinces with no commerce between them. One administered while
the other established the abstract principles that should have formed
the basis of all administration. One took specic measures, as routine
required; the other proclaimed general laws without ever thinking about
the means to apply them. One took charge of public affairs, the other of
people’s minds.
On top of the real society, whose constitution remained traditional,
confused, and haphazard, and in which laws were still diverse and contra-
dictory, ranks clearly dened, conditions xed, and tax burdens unequal,
an imaginary society was constructed piece by piece, in which everything
seemed simple and coherent, uniform, equitable, and shaped by reason.
Gradually, the imagination of the multitude deserted the former and
retreated into the latter. People lost interest in what was in order to dream
about what might be, and in their minds they lived in the ideal city that
the writers had constructed.
Many have attributed our Revolution to the American one. The latter
did in fact exert great inuence on the French Revolution, but the
Revolution in France owed less to what was done in the United States
than to what people thought at the time in France. Whereas in the rest
of Europe the American Revolution was still merely a novel and singular
occurrence, in France it only made what people thought they already knew
more palpable and striking. Elsewhere it astonished; here it persuaded.
Book III
The Americans seemed merely to have carried out what our writers had
envisioned. They gave the substance of reality to what we were already
dreaming. It was as if Fénelon were suddenly to have found himself
in Salentum.
This most unusual historical situation – in which the entire political
education of a great nation was carried out by men of letters – may have
contributed more than anything else to the distinctive character of the
French Revolution and to what we see today as its result.
Writers not only supplied the people who made the Revolution with
ideas but also imparted something of their own temperament and
disposition. Under their lengthy discipline, in the absence of other lead-
ers, and given the profound ignorance of practice from which all suffered,
the nation read their works and acquired the instincts, the cast of mind,
the tastes, and even the peculiarities of those who wrote. So that when
the nation nally had to act, it carried over into politics all the habits of
literature.
When one studies the history of our Revolution, one nds that the
spirit that guided it was precisely the same spirit that gave rise to so many
abstract books on government: The same fondness for general theories,
complete systems of legislation, and exact symmetry in the law; the same
contempt for existing facts; the same condence in theory; the same taste
for the original, ingenious, and novel in institutions; the same urge to
remake the entire constitution in accordance with the rules of logic and
a coherent plan, rather than seek to amend its faulty parts. A terrifying
spectacle! For what is meritorious in a writer is sometimes a aw in a
statesman, and the same qualities that have often issued in great literature
can also give rise to great revolutions.
The language of politics itself took on some of the character of the
language spoken by authors, replete with general expressions, abstract
terms, pretentious words, and literary turns of phrase. This style, abet-
ted by the political passions that employed it, penetrated all classes of
society, ltering down with remarkable ease to the lowest among them.
Well before the Revolution, the edicts of Louis XVI frequently spoke of
natural law and the rights of man. I found peasants who, in their peti-
tions, referred to their neighbors as fellow citizens, to the intendant as a
respectable magistrate, to the parish priest as minister of the altars, and to
God as the Supreme Being. All they needed to become rather mediocre
writers was a knowledge of spelling.