CHAPTER XVII
THE REVOLUTIONIZING OF THE REVOLUTION
The arms of the French are all the more dangerous since the poison of their maxims
is diffused everywhere, and by preceding their armies contributes to their success.
The people imagine that their poverty will be relieved by such doctrines.... It is
above all worthy of remark, how even the lowest class of the people... now turn
their attention to the present war, and reason in their own way about the motives
that have brought it on.... The French Revolution is gradually bringing another
equally dangerous revolution in the universal way of thinking.
—DANIEL DOLFIN, VENETIAN AMBASSADOR
AT VIENNA, REPORTING TO THE
GOVERNMENT OF VENICE, 1793
In 1792 the Revolution became a thing in itself, an uncontrollable force that might
eventually spend itself but which no one could direct or guide. The governments
set up in Paris in the following years—the Convention, the Committee of Public
Safety, the Thermidorians, the Directory, however they might differ, whether “Ja-
cobin” or “anti- Jacobin” in their composition—all alike faced the problem of hold-
ing together against forces more revolutionary than themselves. Two such forces
may be distinguished for analytical purposes. There was a popular upheaval, an
upsurge from below, sans- culottisme. This occurred only in France; there were revo-
lutions outside of France, but they were not sans- culotte revolutions. Secondly,
there was the “international” revolutionary agitation, which was not international
in any strict sense, but only concurrent within the boundaries of various states as
then organized. From the French point of view these were the “foreign” revolution-
aries or sympathizers. The most radical of the “foreign” revolutionaries, whether we
think of those who congregated in Paris or those who in greater numbers remained
in their own countries, were seldom more than advanced political democrats.