书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
35302100000652

第652章

But, as she spoke, she turned pale and added, 'Your civism is beyond all question - but take your pumpkin.' 'Ah,' returned the beggar, 'what a good republican!'"[79] Ibid., XVIII., 320. (Meeting of Brumaire 11, year II. Report by Barère.) - Meillan, 17. Already, before the 31st May: "The tribune resounded with charges against monopoly, every man being a monopolist who was not reduced to living on daily wages or on alms."[80] Decrees of July 26, 1793, Sept. 11 and 29; Brumaire 11, and Vent?se 6, year II.

[81] Moniteur, XVIII., 359. "Brumaire 16, year II. Sentence of death of Pierre Gourdier, thirty-six years of age, stock-broker, resident in Paris, rue Bellefond, convicted of having monopolized and concealed in his house a large quantity of bread, in order to bread scarcity in the midst of abundance." He had gastritis and could eat nothing but panada made with toast, and the baker who furnished this gave him thirty pieces at a time (Wallon, II., 155).

[82] Journal of the debates of the Jacobin Club, No. 532, Brumaire 20, year II. (Plan of citizen Dupré, presented in the Convention by a deputation of the Arcis Club.) - Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p. 483 (a project similar to the former, presented to the Committee of Public Safety by the Jacobin Club of Montereau, Thermidor, year II.)[83] These proposals should come to haunt western civilization for a long time. (SR.)[84] Buchez et Roux, XXXV., 272. ("Institutions," by Saint-Just.)[85] These ideas were still powerful even before Taine wrote these words in 1882. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations cites a declaration made by 47 anarchists on trial after their uprising in Lyons in 1870: "We wish, in a word, equality - equality in fact as corollary, or rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs; that is what we wish sincerely and energetically."[86] Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 273, (Report by Robespierre, Pluvi?se17, year II. (7 Feb. 1794).

[87] Moniteur, XIX (Rapport by Barère, Vent?se 21, an II). "You should detect and combat federalism in all your institutions, as your natural enemy....A grand central establishment for all the work of the Republic is an effective means against federalism." - Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 351, et XXXII, 316 (Rapports by Saint-Just, Vent?se 23 et Germinal 26, year II). "Immorality is a federalism in the civil state...Civil federalism, by isolating all parts of the state, has dried up abundance."[88] Decree of Germinal 26-29, year II. Financial companies are and hereby remain suppressed. All bankers, commission merchants, and other persons, are forbidden to form any establishment of this order under any pretext or under any denomination."[89] " Memoires de Carnot," I., 278 (Report by Carnot). "That is not family life. If there are local privileges there will soon be individual privileges and local aristocracy will bring along in its train the aristocracy of inhabitants."[90] Moniteur, XIX., 683 (Rapport by Barère, Vent?se 21, year II). --This report should be read in full to comprehend the communistic and centralizing spirit of the Jacobins. (Undoubtedly Lenin, during his years in Paris, had read Taine's footnote and asked the national library for a copy of this rapport. SR.)[91] Fenet, "Travaux du Code civil," 105 (Rapports by Cambacérès, August 9, 1793 and September 9, 1794). - Decrees of September 20, 1793 and Floréal 4, year II (On divorce). - Cf. "Institutions," by Saint-Just (Buchez et Roux, XXXV, 302). "A man and woman who love each other are married; if they have no children they may keep their relationship secret."[92] This article of the Jacobin program, like the others, has its practical result. - "At Paris, in the twenty-seven months after the promulgation of the law of September, 1792, the courts granted five thousand nine hundred and ninety-four divorces, and in year VI, the number of divorces exceeded the marriages." (Glasson, le Mariage civil et le Divorce, 51.) - "The number of foundlings which, in 1790, in France, did not exceed twenty-three thousand, is now (year X.) more than sixty-three thousand. "Statistique de la Sarthe," by Auvray, prefect, year, X.) - In the Lot-et-Garonne (Statistique, by Peyre, préfet, year X ), more than fifteen hundred foundlings are counted:

"this extraordinary number increased during the Revolution through the too easy admission of foundlings into the asylums, through the temporary sojourning of soldiers in their homes, through the disturbance of every moral and religious principle." - "It is not rare to find children of thirteen and fourteen talking and acting in a way that would have formerly disgraced a young man of twenty." (Moselle, Analyse, by Ferrière.) - "The children of workmen are idle and insubordinate; some indulge in the most shameful conduct against their parents;" others try stealing and use the coarsest language."(Meurthe, Statistique, by Marquis, préfet.) - Cf. Anne Plumptre (ANarrative of three years' residence in France from 1802 to 1805, I.

436). "You would not believe it, Madame, said a gardener to her at Nimes, that during the Revolution we dared not scold our children for their faults. Those who called themselves patriots regarded it as against the fundamental principles of liberty to correct children.

This made them so unruly that, very often, when a parent presumed to scold its child the latter would tell him to mind his business, adding, 'we are free and equal, the Republic is our only father and mother ; if you are not satisfied, I am. Go where you like it better.' Children are still saucy. It will take a good many years to bring them back to minding.'