466 Chapter XIX
As for Poland, the French had no contact with it, military or diplomatic. They
would of course welcome Kosciuszko’s rebellion as a diversion against the Coali-
tion. But they neither would nor could do anything about it. In May 1794 a Ger-
man Protestant pastor, Karl Held, appeared in Paris, sent by a secret “Jacobin”
group in Vienna, which had contacts with the insurgent Poles. The Committee of
Public Safety rebuffed his approaches and put him under arrest.^31
The mood of 1794 was realistic, ruthless, disengaged from cosmopolitan ideo-
logical sympathies, military in motive, revolutionary in the sense of securing the
Revolution in France. It is a question how different it had really been in 1792.
Even then, at the time of the so- called Propaganda Decrees, there had been, as was
seen in the last chapter, a good deal of realistic consideration of similar problems.
It has been customary for historians to see three phases in the spread of revolution
during the wars of the 1790’s: a “Girondist” phase of supposedly eager and indis-
criminate idealistic crusading in 1792, a sterner “Jacobin” phase of triumphant re-
publicanism in 1794, and a cynical phase under the Directory from 1795 to 1799,
characterized by manipulation of satellite republics. It is doubtful whether these
phases ever really existed, with enough distinctness to aid in an understanding of
what happened. The problems throughout were much the same. Since the prob-
lems were difficult, recurrent, and real, answers naturally varied from person to
person and from time to time.
The Moral Republic
The purpose of the Revolutionary Government was not merely to defend the state
but to found it, not only to win a war but to introduce a new and better society.
That was what made it a revolutionary and not merely an emergency regime. In its
vivid sense of a new world coming, its “eschatology,” the Revolution became a kind
of religion. The substance of things hoped for, or new world as now desired, was
one in which human dignity would rest on a foundation of fellow citizenship,
freedom, and equality of status and respect. The picture had been drawn eloquently
by Rousseau. It occupied the minds of many. Consider these statements by two
“founders”:
A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the
people, and inspires them with a conscious dignity becoming free men; a general
emulation takes place, which causes good humor, sociability and good manners
to be general. That elevation of sentiment inspired by such a government makes
the common people brave and enterprising. That ambition which is inspired by
it makes them sober, industrious and frugal. You will find among them some
elegance, perhaps, but more solidity; a little pleasure, but a great deal of busi-Carnot, “Vues proposées au Comité de salut public... ,” July 16, 1794, in Correspondance generale de
Carnot (Paris, 1907), 496–502; Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken, I, 336–37.
31 France: Commission des archives diplomatiques, Instructions données aux ambassadeurs: Pologne
(Paris, 1888), II, 328–30. On Held’s mission see below, p. 500.