



Produced by Svend Rom





THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 4

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 3.

by Hippolyte A. Taine



     Please note that all references to earlier Volumes of the
     Origines of Contemporary France are to the American edition.
     Since there are no fixed page numbers in the Gutenberg
     edition these page numbers are only approximate. (SR).


     THE FRENCH REVOLUTION VOLUME III.

     PREFACE.
     BOOK FIRST. The Establishment of the Revolutionary Government.
     CHAPTER I.
     BOOK SECOND. The Jacobin Program.
     CHAPTER I.
     CHAPTER II.
     BOOK THIRD. The Governors.
     CHAPTER I. Psychology of the Jacobin Leaders.
     CHAPTER II. The Rulers of the Country.
     CHAPTER III. The Rulers. (continued).
     BOOK FOURTH. The Governed.
     CHAPTER I. The Oppressed.
     CHAPTER II. Food and Provisions.
     BOOK FIFTH. The End of the Revolutionary Government.
     CHAPTER I.




PREFACE.

"In Egypt," says Clement of Alexandria,[1101] "the sanctuaries of the
temples are shaded by curtains of golden tissue. But on going further
into the interior in quest of the statue, a priest of grave aspect,
advancing to meet you and chanting a hymn in the Egyptian tongue,
slightly raises a veil to show you the god. And what do you behold? A
crocodile, or some indigenous serpent, or other dangerous animal, the
Egyptian god being a beast sprawling on a purple carpet."

We need not visit Egypt or go so far back in history to encounter
crocodile worship, as this can be readily found in France at the end
of the last century.--Unfortunately, a hundred years is too long an
interval, too far away, for an imaginative retrospect of the past. At
the present time, standing where we do and regarding the horizon behind
us, we see only forms which the intervening atmosphere embellishes,
shimmering contours which each spectator may interpret in his own
fashion; no distinct, animated figure, but merely a mass of moving
points, forming and dissolving in the midst of picturesque architecture.
I was anxious to take a closer view of these vague points, and,
accordingly, deported myself back to the last half of the eighteenth
century. I have now been living with them for twelve years, and, like
Clement of Alexandria, examined, first, the temple, and next the god.
A passing glance at these is not sufficient; it was also necessary
to understand the theology on which this cult is founded. This one,
explained by a very specious theology, like most others, is composed of
dogmas called the principles of 1789; they were proclaimed, indeed, at
that date, having been previously formulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

* The well known sovereignty of the people.

* The rights of Man.

* The social contract.

Once adopted, their practical results unfolded themselves naturally. In
three years these dogmas installed the crocodile on the purple carpet
insides the sanctuary behind the golden veil. He was selected for the
place on account of the energy of his jaws and the capacity of his
stomach; he became a god through his qualities as a destructive brute
and man-eater.--Comprehending this, the rites which consecrate him and
the pomp which surrounds him need not give us any further concern.--We
can observe him, like any ordinary animal, and study his various
attitudes, as he lies in wait for his prey, springs upon it, tears it to
pieces, swallows it, and digests it. I have studied the details of his
structure, the play of his organs, his habits, his mode of living, his
instincts, his faculties, and his appetites.--Specimens abounded. I have
handled thousands of them, and have dissected hundreds of every species
and variety, always preserving the most valuable and characteristic
examples, but for lack of room I have been compelled to let many of them
go because my collections was too large. Those that I was able to
bring back with me will be found here, and, among others, about twenty
individuals of different dimensions, which--a difficult undertaking--I
have kept alive with great pains. At all events, they are intact and
perfect, and particularly the three largest. These seem to me, of their
kind, truly remarkable, and those in which the divinity of the day might
well incarnate himself.--Authentic and rather well kept cookbooks inform
us about the cost of the cult: We can more or less estimate how much the
sacred crocodiles consumed in ten years; we know their bills of daily
fare, their favorite morsels. Naturally, the god selected the fattest
victims, but his voracity was so great that he likewise bolted down,
and blindly, the lean ones, and in much greater number than the fattest.
Moreover, by virtue of his instincts,