French Directory between Extremes 561
Revolution, he said, “is only the beginning of a universal dissolution which the sect
has in mind.”^38
Though in the last analysis a phantasmagoria, Barruel’s work is not without
important merits. For one thing, while talking of sects and conspiracies, he devel-
ops the framework for a kind of history of ideas, in which schools and styles of
thought are seen as more than individual persons, and as having a certain logic,
interconnectedness, or development of their own. As he puts it, he is not con-
cerned to tell of Marats and Robespierres, but to describe the systems of thought
“which prepare new Marats and Robespierres for every people.”^39 He sees three
stages. First came the conspiracy against the Christian religion, which he associ-
ates with the philosophes. Then came the conspiracy against thrones—the Freema-
sons in their secret lodges. Then, deriving from both, came the Illuminati, “a con-
spiracy of sophists of impiety and anarchy against all religion and all government,
even republics—against all civil society and all property of whatever kind.” This
was a wild exaggeration of facts relating to the real Illuminati, who had been a
handful of enthuasiasts suppressed by the Bavarian government in 1786. Accord-
ing to Barruel, one form of audacity led to another: “Condorcet refused to obey
God, Brissot refused to obey kings, and Babeuf refused to obey the Republic, or
any magistrates or governing officers whatever. And where do all these men come
from? From the same cavernous den of the Jacobins... all have Voltaire and Jean-
Jacques for their fathers.”^40 So again the extremes of Right and Left join hands,
agreeing that everything in the Enlightenment must lead as a natural consequence
to Gracchus Babeuf.
It is another merit of Barruel, if it be allowed as one, that he named by name
various “adepts” who were in fact revolutionaries of one sort or another. His lists
were fragmentary and peculiar. Since his purpose was to be full and specific, it is
reasonable to construe his silences as ignorance, and such a construction leads to
some curious observations. Of the Babeuf group he knew only what the Directory
made public. He apparently had never heard of Buonarroti or any Italian revolu-
tionaries. He knew nothing of Wolfe Tone and the Irish, and among English Jaco-
bins, aside from Thomas Paine, he named only Watt and one other, with acknowl-
edgments to Robison. Among the Belgians he listed Van der Noot, the darling of
the Belgian Catholics in their revolt against Austria, but he had never heard of
Vonck, who was more truly revolutionary and in fact more conspiratorial. Of the
Dutch he named no one but Paulus, knowing nothing of the really secret Batavian
revolutionaries of 1794. Among the Swiss he named Peter Ochs and a few others,
and he knew also of two Frenchmen, Mangourit and Mengaud, who took part in
the revolutionizing of Switzerland. Among the Swedes, he considered the noble
Ankerstrom, the assassin of Gustavus III, and the regent of Sweden, the Duke of
38 Mémoires pour servir à l ’ histoire du jacobinisme (Hamburg, 1798–1799), I, iv–xviii. On the
conspiratorial theory of the Revolution see also pp. 560–63 above on the fabricated idea of a Society
of Propaganda in 1790–1791, and p. 627, below, on the campaign against secret societies in
Germany.
39 Ibid., I, xx.
40 Ibid., V, 181.