The Aristocratic Resurgence 331
called democrat.... What has this revolution produced? What do the words aristo-
crat, liberty, equality have to offer except arrangements of syllables?”^2
Many “psychological” interpretations of the French Revolution have in fact
sounded somewhat like counterrevolutionary polemics. When Gustave Le Bon, a
founder of social psychology, wrote a book on the French Revolution, the result
was hardly distinguishable from the work of Taine. To expose the irrationality of
the revolutionaries, the disparity between word and deed, the conjunction of ideal-
ism with ruthlessness, or of sentimentality with self- interest, to dwell on supposed
contradictions (such as “forcing men to be free”), to convert one thing into an-
other, and to reduce a desire to transform the community into compulsions of an
unbalanced mind, as if revolutionaries were only unadjusted individuals, or victims
of some public mania or craze, have generally appealed both to persons with a
certain interest in psychology, and to those who for political reasons dislike the
French Revolution, or revolutions in general. The common feature, in these inter-
pretations, is to deny or minimize the need or reason for the behavior or the opin-
ions that are being examined.
Yet a serious psychology need not lead to this pitfall. A study made by three
social psychologists in the 1950’s is relevant to the present connection. It is a study
of the origin of political ideas, and of their relation to inner conditions of personal-
ity. The opinions of fifty selected adult male Americans on the subject of Soviet
Russia were used as the medium for this investigation. The men chosen were of
various psychological types, and their opinions on Russia were very diverse. The
authors concluded that opinion is the inseparable result of three factors: “reality
demands, social demands and inner psychological demands.”^3
This finding of social psychology may be constructively applied to the problem
of the French Revolution. An extraordinary number of people at that time devel-
oped very pronounced opinions on liberty, equality, the rights of the people, na-
tional sovereignty, the constitution, the royal veto, the aristocracy, the “aristocratic
conspiracy,” the “foreign conspiracy,” and much else. They showed strange mixtures
of suspiciousness, aggressiveness, naïveté, and simple faith. It might be shown,
though with difficulty, how these attitudes reflected “inner psychological de-
mands,” such as frustrations, anxieties, hostilities, and daydreams derived from
childhood or other private experience. It might be shown how they reflected “so-
cial demands,” for many people who shouted “aristocrat” or cried vive la nation did
so because of social pressure, because so many others were doing the same, or be-
cause not to show enthusiasm might be dangerous. It could also be shown how
these ideas met “reality demands.” Burke notwithstanding, it seems likely that they
grew out of actual circumstances, and had a direct relevancy to problems which
2 See A. Cobban, The Myth of the French Revolution: An Inaugural Lecture (London, 1955); J. F. La
Harpe, Du fanatisme dans la langue révolutionnaire (Paris, 1797); F. L. C. Montjoie, Histoire de la
Révolution française (Paris, 1797); Nouveau dictionnaire pour servir à l ’ intelligence des termes mis en vogue
par la Révolution (Paris, 1792); F. Brunot, Histoire de la langue française des origines à 1900, 12 vols.
(Paris, 1905–1953), IX, 652 and passim.
3 M. Brewster Smith, J. S. Bruner, and R. M. White, Opinions and Personality (New York, 1956),
275.