Revolutionizing of the Revolution 401
Repeatedly, however, from 1792 to 1799, these two forces tended to converge
into one force of révolution à outrance. Between the French popular revolutionism
and international revolutionism there was an affinity. In France, the vanguard in
1792 meant the Jacobins; in 1794 it meant what Robespierre called the Ultras; in
the following years it was what the Thermidorians and the Directory called the
“anarchists,” among whom the Babouvists of 1796 may be especially distinguished,
though few in number; in 1799 it was the neo- Jacobins or “true republicans.” In
each case there was some kind of sympathetic relationship between French ex-
tremists and non- French revolutionary leaders. Révolution à outrance had two
meanings: destruction of the Old Regime anywhere and everywhere, and, in
France, attack on a merely, middle- or upper- class revolution.
The two repeatedly came together in common opposition to the French govern-
ment of the moment, because every group among the French revolutionary leader-
ship, as soon as it felt itself to be established in a position of government, resisted
the more vehement demands both for popular revolution and for international
revolution. Or, at the most, in certain conjunctures, as in the latter part of 1792, or
at times in later years, the men trying to govern France might use the language of
social or international revolutionism as a means to an end, to protect themselves
and the specifically French Revolution, as they understood it, at moments when
Counter- Revolution seemed the more imminent danger.
The “Second” French Revolution
How we judge the “second” revolution in France depends entirely on our judgment
of the strength and chances, in 1792, of a Counter- Revolution aiming at integral
restoration, with accompanying repression and punishment of those implicated in
subversion of the Old Order. Since the event did not happen, historians must re-
main as uncertain as contemporaries were on its likelihood. It is a fact, however,
that the Counter- Revolutionary leaders expected an early success in the summer
of 1792.
At Mainz, a few days after the coronation at Frankfurt, there was a grand con-
fabulation on the political steps with which the military intervention should be
accompanied. No significant resistance was anticipated. The two crowned heads of
Prussia and Austria, the various French princes, the Fersens, the Esterhazys, the
Metternichs, and the Maurys were in a mood of confidence. France, in their opin-
ion, was in the hands of a few adventurers from whom all decent people wished to
be liberated. It was decided to issue a manifesto. Mallet du Pan, expressing the
preference of Louis XVI, submitted the draft of a relatively moderate text. It was
rejected. Another was adopted; coming by way of an intermediary named Limon,
and Count Axel de Fersen, it expressed the views of Marie Antoinette. The queen,
increasingly desperate in Paris, wounded and frightened by a series of popular in-
sults, too proud to let herself be “saved” by Lafayette (he was too “revolutionary”),
and at her wits’ end when both blandishments and actual bribery of Revolutionary
leaders produced no results, had concluded that the only salvation for herself, her