Adam Michnik

The Ultras of moral revolution Translated by Elzbieta Matynia Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021

We need a moral revolution!1 We need a moral revolution because Do we really need one? we are surrounded by ‘souls of mud’– But of course! Replied an ultrarevolu- reactionaries, hidden royalists, petty tionary, a Jacobin. individuals, one-day patriots–who are But of course! Replied an ultrareac- conspiring against our revolutionary tionary, a partisan of the Counterrevo- government. We need a moral revolu- lution. tion because vice is spreading. Reaction- Radicals, adherents of extreme solu- ary newspapers are sowing lies; so one tions, Ultras of all the colors of the rain- has to force them into silence. Corrup- bow, have a need for revolutionary up- tion is spreading; so we must look care- heavals, because only upheavals that fully at the rich. “I regard wealth,” said turn the world upside down allow them Robespierre, “not only as the price of to ful½ll their dream of a great cleansing. crimes, but as a punishment for them; I want to be poor, so as not to be unfortu- nate.” France is surrounded by traitors– I those poisonous insects sowing shame- lessness, deceit, meanness. It is they who The Jacobin, the revolutionary Ultra, caused the collapse of a state and socie- says: ty functioning according to one system of values, discovered in 1789, with rules Adam Michnik is editor-in-chief of “Gazeta that allowed us to maintain a dignity and Wyborcza,” Poland’s leading daily newspaper. a brotherhood founded upon the need to He founded the paper in 1989 to support the in- do good. We need a moral revolution to- dependent trade union Solidarity during the ½rst day, now that we have a chance to leave free elections in the history of the Communist the crisis of nonmemory and the curse bloc. Michnik has published numerous books, in- of a fresh start. We need a cleansing, a cluding “Letters from Prison and Other Essays” capacity to do good for the Revolution. (1985), “The Church and the Left” (1993), and It also means a recognition of one’s own “Letters from Freedom: Post–Cold War Realities errors–one’s fatal tolerance for ‘moder- and Perspectives” (1998). 1 For Professor Barbara Skarga, with a deep © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts bow. This article was ½rst published in Polish & Sciences in Gazeta Wyborcza, April 15, 2005.

Dædalus Winter 2007 67 Adam ates,’ for the forgiving and the temper- sadness and amazement. After all, those Michnik ate. who echo them ought to know where it on nonviolence The conservative, the reactionary Ul- all leads. & violence tra, says: Does history repeat itself? Karl Marx We need a moral revolution because once wrote, paraphrasing Hegel, that now, after the return of the Bourbons, each historical fact repeats itself twice the tide of revolution has receded. The –the original drama turns into farce. time has passed when vice ruled trium- Marx was wrong: history repeats itself phant over France; when regicide was much more frequently. The world is a law unto itself; when those responsi- still full of inquisitors and heretics, li- ble for regicide dictated their own laws; ars and those lied to, terrorists and the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 when virtue was humiliated, loyalty terrorized. There is still someone dying persecuted, and property con½scated. at Thermopylae, someone drinking a It’s true that a cruel despotism and the glass of hemlock, someone crossing the omnipotent guillotine, that revolution Rubicon, someone drawing up a pro- –this huge gutter of ½lth–polluted scription list. And nothing suggests that France. Nevertheless, France still has these things will stop repeating them- many virtues; so one can, wrote Joseph selves. de Maistre, “start the nation anew.” We like to reiterate that history is a France, washed clean from the dirt of teacher of life. If this is indeed true, we Jacobinism, restored to its monarchic listen very poorly to its lessons. That is and Catholic roots, will become a sym- why I am reflecting today on the Ultras bol of reconciliation between the King of the Revolution and the Ultras of the and his subjects. We need a moral revo- Counterrevolution, who dreamt about lution in order to restore the dream of a a Big Cleansing and a Moral Revolution state and society functioning according –not so that the language of that reign to one system of values, with rules that of terror may never repeat itself, but allow us to maintain the loyalty and dig- because I’m convinced it will inevitably nity be½tting royal subjects, always in- do so. clined to do good. We need a moral revo- lution because today everything is possi- ble, ‘even the resurrection of the dead,’ III not to mention the resurrection of ‘our After a victorious civil war, Lucius Cor- own moral subjectivity.’ One must avoid nelius Sulla, the Roman dictator, began at all costs a compromise with the bas- his rule by taking revenge on his oppo- tards of Jacobinism and Bonapartism, nents. He did it with an exacting meth- who want a constitutional monarchy, od, namely, by ordering the drawing up that is, a king without royal power–they of proscription lists, that is, lists of out- don’t understand that ‘every constitu- lawed enemies–and designating a re- tion is regicide.’ ward for their heads. “With nerve-rack- ing premeditation,” write historians II Max Cary and Howard Hayes Scullard, “Sulla prolonged the listing of new vic- What familiar voices despite such dif- tims, announcing from time to time ferent historical costumes. I hear them additional proscription lists. Terror continuously today–with mounting reigned. This modernized system of

68 Dædalus Winter 2007 mass murders was aimed with particu- Hegel later writes: The Ultras lar viciousness at those adversaries who of moral A government of some kind, however, revolution were wealthy. Their property was con- is always in existence. The question ½scated, and the cities of Italy became presents itself then, Whence did it ema- theaters of execution.”2 This was the nate? Theoretically, it proceeded from purpose of the proscription lists Sulla the people; really and truly, from the Na- announced: it was terrifying to ½nd tional Convention and its Committees. one’s name on such a list. The forces now dominant are the abstract For centuries the list of names has principles–Freedom, and, as it exists been an irremovable element of social

within the limits of the Subjective Will Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 history: the lists of witches burned at –Virtue. This Virtue has now to con- the stake; the lists of heretics examined duct the government in opposition to by the Inquisition; the lists of Jesuits the Many, whom their corruption and condemned to exile; the lists of Masons; attachment to old interests, or a liberty the lists of Jews; the lists of Christians that has degenerated into license, and suspected of Jewish background; the the violence of their passions, render un- lists of Communists and those suspected faithful to virtue. Virtue here is a simple of having Communist sympathies; the abstract principle and distinguishes the lists of royalists and other enemies of citizens into two classes only–those who revolution; the lists of agents of Tsarist are favorably disposed and those who are Okhrana; the lists of hostages; and the not. But disposition can only be recog- lists of those beheaded by guillotine or nized and judged of by disposition. Suspi- axe, or those who were shot. cion therefore is in the ascendant; but vir- Executions were usually preceded by tue, as soon as it becomes liable to suspi- the lists of suspects–those suspected of cion, is already condemned. Suspicion revolutionary or subversive activities, of attained a terrible power and brought a sinful past or present, of betrayal. Sus- to the scaffold the Monarch, whose sub- picion marched ahead of accusation and jective will was in fact the religious con- execution. science of a Catholic. Robespierre set up the principle of Virtue as supreme, and IV it may be said that with this man Virtue was an earnest matter. Virtue and Terror The French Revolution overturned an were the order of the day; for Subjective absolute monarchy and established a Virtue, whose sway is based on disposi- constitutional monarchy. “This consti- tion only, brings with it the most fearful tution was also vitiated,” wrote Hegel, tyranny. It exercises its power without “by the existence of absolute mistrust; legal formalities, and the punishment it the dynasty lay under suspicion, because inflicts is very simple–Death. it had lost the power it formerly enjoyed . . . . Neither government nor constitution V could be maintained on this footing, and the ruin of both was the result.” And it had begun so beautifully. The Revolution began under a hopeful sign of Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood. 2 H. H. Scullard and M. Cary, Dzieje Rzymu The Bastille–a bastion and symbol of (Warszawa: n.p., 1992); translated from the tyranny–was captured. King Louis xvi Polish edition.

Dædalus Winter 2007 69 Adam chose a path of compromise with the Speaking on behalf of the supporters Michnik revolutionary camp; absolutism col- of the Restoration, Chateaubriand de- on nonviolence lapsed. It looked like ‘the King with the clared: “We want a monarchy based on & violence people, the people with the King.’ the principle of equal rights, the princi- Speaking parenthetically: in July of ple of morality, civic freedom, political 1789, the Bastille, where opponents of and religious tolerance.” the King had been imprisoned, had on- The Restoration did not end in words. ly seven prisoners–four counterfeiters, Louis xviii proclaimed a charter that two mentally ill, and one imprisoned was an act of reconciliation between the at the request of his father. Such was Restoration and the Revolution. It guar- this bastion of tyranny. Such a bastion; anteed the inviolability of property from Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 such a tyranny. It was already absolut- the Napoleonic period and maintained ism with broken teeth. the nobility of the status of the empire; In spite of that, an historic event but it also declared the equality of citi- took place, the event of an epoch: in zens and their fundamental freedoms. the Declaration of the Rights of Man And it even promised amnesty to those and Citizen it was proclaimed that peo- who were involved in regicide. ple are born and remain free and equal Louis xviii wanted to reassure under the law. The words of Marie Jo- Frenchmen that he did not want re- seph La Fayette were repeated: “People venge, as his enemies claimed. He de- become free as soon as they want to be clared that only “a system of modera- free.” And the revolutionaries repeated: tion could prevent France from tear- “It was different in England, where so ing itself apart with its own hands.” much blood was shed; our revolution triumphed almost without bloodshed.” And they repeated that the Revolution VII opened the gate through which France Every revolution has its own dynamic; advanced from tyranny to freedom. each is too slow, un½nished, betrayed. From within each revolution is a de- VI mand for acceleration, completion, protection against betrayal. The Restoration also began beautifully. On the very threshold of the French After a quarter century of revolution- Revolution the demand that the mon- ary and Napoleonic turmoil, there be- arch give in to the National Assembly gan–along with Louis xviii–a time was revolutionary. A compromise be- of gentle words and conciliatory ges- tween the Revolution and the monarch tures. François René de Chateaubriand, on behalf of constitutional rule and a the most distinguished Bourbon ideo- Declaration of the Rights of Man was logue, wrote in 1814 that Louis xviii is celebrated as a victory of the revolution- “a prince who is known for his enlight- aries. But soon this compromise, built ened mind, is unsusceptible to preju- on a dualism (the self-limitation of the dice, and is a stranger to vengeance.” monarch in his power and of the Revo- He quoted the words of Louis xvi: “I lution in its demands), turned out to forgive with all my heart those who for be fragile. The radical monarchists saw no reason from my side became my ene- in it the capitulation of the King; the mies, and I ask God to forgive them.” radical revolutionaries saw it as a betray-

70 Dædalus Winter 2007 al of their ideals. The Revolution ought the privileges of the aristocracy. And the The Ultras to be crushed by the army. The King Catholic Church has to guard against of moral revolution ought to be removed; long live the Re- “the scum of equality.” The Ultras clear- public, retorted the revolutionary Jac- ly had nothing against France tearing it- obins. self apart with its own hands. The Jacobins came out on top. Mon- archists escaped abroad, and the King was imprisoned, judged, and guillotined. IX Any voice against the dissolution of the There is no reason to question the good monarchy–the constitutional one–

intentions of the Jacobins, those Ultras Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 was called treason, as were voices that of the Revolution. They really wanted to demanded a normal judicial process save the Revolution from the royalists, or at least a renunciation of the death from foreign armies, from superstition, penalty. from treason and corruption. They, dili- The Revolution, begun in the name gent readers of the Encyclopedists and of freedom, transformed itself into an Jean-Jacques Rousseau, really wanted aspiration for a republican order against France to be ruled by virtue. the constitutional monarchy. It was not But in order to ½ght monarchists and about freedom anymore but about the émigré aristocrats, the Jacobins con½s- Republic, and any critic of this solution cated the aristocrats’ properties and was suspected of treason. And the con- closed their newspapers; to win the war, troversy over the Republic transformed they demanded unity around the revolu- itself into a ruthless ½ght for power in tionary government and punished any- the revolutionary camp. one who deviated. To remove supersti- tion, they demanded the loyalty of Cath- VIII olic priests and exiled those who refused to take an oath. To prevent treason and Every restoration has its own dynamic; corruption, they announced a ‘Great each is too slow, un½nished, betrayed. Vigilance’ with regard to traitors and Each restoration hides within itself the the corrupt. Moreover, they introduced guardians of the holy flame of past in- a law on suspects–each loyal citizen stitutions and customs–the Ultras. was obliged to denounce suspects. The The Ultras have to reject any compro- measure of revolutionary fervor was the mise between tradition and revolution, number of denunciations. Long lists of because the Revolution was for them an suspects were compiled, then long lists absolute evil, without a grain of good of those imprisoned for being suspect. –the height of absurdity and moral de- France was taken over by fear. The Reign cay. It is “a pure impurity,” said Joseph of Terror had begun. The theater of the de Maistre. “It is a wonder of decay, a revolutionary guillotine was launched. wonder of absurdity, and a wonder of The Jacobins saw in the guillotine an banditry.” instrument for the defense of the Revo- For an Ultra then, the Charter of Lou- lution. They believed that it was they is xviii was nonsense, an absurdity, “a who were the Revolution and that they work of madness and darkness.” One were the guarantors of the durability has to break with the chimera of the and continuity of the rule of Freedom Rights of Man, restore censorship and and Virtue. This is why they defended

Dædalus Winter 2007 71 Adam their power without scruples, and why X Michnik any critic was branded a traitor to the on nonviolence Revolution. In any revolution the dialectics of mod- & violence xvi It all began with the trial of Louis . eration and radicalism takes place. At Nobody cared to collect any evidence each revolutionary turn, yesterday’s rad- of guilt or observe normal judicial pro- ical person turns out to be today’s mod- cedures. The King was guilty because erate. If he is lucky, he is accused of cow- he was King. He had to be guillotined; ardly opportunism; if he is not lucky, of the people had sentenced him through treason and participation in counterrev- their representatives. A motion was olutionary conspiracy. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 made to ask French citizens whether Vladimir Lenin, quite fluent in revolu- they supported the carrying out of the tions, wrote this about the Girondistes death penalty. Antoine Louis de Saint- (moderates): “They wanted to deal with Just, a Jacobin Ultra, retorted passion- autocracy gently, in a reformative way, ately: “This appeal aims at creating a without hurting the aristocracy, the gen- conflict between the people and the try, the court–without destroying any- Legislature, and therefore a weakening thing.” But the Jacobins–according to of the people. This intrigue is a way to Lenin–wanted people “to deal with the bring back the tyrant to his palace.” monarchy and the aristocracy ‘in a ple- The crime has wings, argued Saint-Just. beian way,’ mercilessly exterminating It will spread. This intrigue to save the the enemies of freedom, strangling by King through “votes bought by foreign force their resistance, without making gold” will win the ear of the people. But any concessions on behalf of the ac- the monarchy is an eternal crime, and cursed legacy of subjection.” the monarch is a barbarian, a tyrant, and This is how Lenin imagined the Jac- a foreigner. The public good requires the obin moral revolution, and this is how death of the King, and the only ones who –in a Bolshevik way–he implemented could think otherwise are either allies it personally. It is not dif½cult to under- of the tyrant or people who have been stand why he glori½ed Jacobin terror, bribed. calling it “plebeian.” It is more dif½cult After such arguments, which terror- to understand why the gentle and com- ized the National Assembly, the execu- promising path of the Girondistes de- tion of the King was a mere formality. served contempt; and why the Giron- Justice and the public good–as under- distes were still accused of moral rela- stood by the Jacobins–won out over tivism, of blurring the boundary be- the logic of mercy, forgiveness, and tween good and evil–why the aspira- conciliation. xvi tion to pluralism and compromise with Not only was Louis guillotined, opponents was taken as an abandon- but symbolically the old order was sen- ment of moral principles. tenced to death. The guillotine for the The Jacobins perceived their adver- King de½ned the norms of the new or- saries as conspirators against Freedom der. Freedom and Virtue entered into and Virtue. In these they believed fanat- a marriage with the guillotine. ically, but they understood them in a pe- culiar way. The symbol of Freedom was the capture of the Bastille, from which seven people were freed, while in the

72 Dædalus Winter 2007 prison of France ruled by the Jacobins, The conspirators were unmasked– The Ultras there were thousands. And Virtue? The some of them escaped, the rest were of moral revolution Reign of Terror, as Friedrich Engels, al- imprisoned. “Not all the imprisoned,” so interested in the topic of revolution, explained Saint-Just, “are guilty. The soberly wrote, was “a rule by people majority of them were just confused. who spread fear around them, and on But in the struggle with the conspiracy, the other hand it was a rule by people the salvation of the nation is the highest who were themselves full of fear.” Those law.” Then, it is very dif½cult to distin- were “cruelties committed by people guish an error from a crime, and one has who themselves were in fear,” and in to sacri½ce the freedom of a few in order this way they reassured themselves. to save all. A faction of the conspirators, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 Fear and denunciations, those were “secretive and politically sophisticated, the methods of Jacobin Virtue. seemingly caring about freedom and The Jacobins declared that they de- order, skillfully opposed freedom with fended Freedom against treason, against freedom, did not distinguish inertia enemy conspiracy, but conspiracy, sim- from order and peace, nor republican ply speaking, was opposition to Jacobin spirit from anarchy.” It walked with the rule and the methods of governance ap- people and freedom to direct them to- plied by the Ultras. Conspiracy, in the ward their goals–toward monarchy– opinion of Furet, an historian of the “by making current conditions and the Revolution, is an idea typical of the tra- horror of these days look repugnant.” ditional religious mentality, which is This is the language of Saint-Just, “accustomed to treating evil as a product whom Albert Camus considered a great of hidden forces.” It is also an idea char- man. Robespierre was also called ‘The acteristic of revolutionary conscious- Incorruptible,’ ‘The Spotless.’ Yet it is ness. Thanks to this idea, any obstacle they, Robespierre and Saint-Just, who could be explained as the result of ene- became symbols of the cruel Terror, the my actions–high prices, food short- monstrosity of informers, and the guil- ages, corruption scandals. The belief in lotine, which killed anybody who got in a conspiracy “reinforces the horror of the way. the crime because it cannot be admitted, It is worth remembering that behind and expresses the cleansing function the backs of those idealists of cruelty of its elimination; it frees one from hav- and apostles of terror hovered out-and- ing to point out the perpetrators of the out scoundrels, who used revolutionary crime and from revealing what their slogans and the guillotine to settle dirty plans were, because one cannot describe accounts, to blackmail, and to pursue perpetrators who are hidden and whose shady interests. The idealist fanatic is goals are abstract.” followed by thugs, scoundrels, and hyp- Saint-Just unmasked the Girondistes: ocrites. This is the fate of every revolu- he said that within the very body of tion. But the scoundrel is less interest- the National Convention conspirators ing–he appears wherever one can ½sh in aimed at the restoration of tyranny had murky waters, get rich by informing on built a nest. Their plans were “sinister” others, get promoted through intrigue, and their actions “re½ned.” They were get famous by kicking someone who is neither courageous nor open enemies of down. Freedom. They spoke its language; they More interesting is the idealist: this appeared to be its defenders. one is ready to give his life for his ideals,

Dædalus Winter 2007 73 Adam but more willingly he puts others to France ruled by the Jacobins was tak- Michnik on death on behalf of those ideals. Before en over by the madness of searching for nonviolence he puts them to death by guillotine, enemies and traitors. Informers, revo- & violence though, he puts them to death with lutionary tribunals, guillotines–every- words. A fanatic idealist, he reaches for body was suspect. Denunciations tri- mud before he reaches for his sword. umphed along with meanness and fear Before he exterminates his enemy, he –all in the name of Virtue. has to dehumanize him, de½le him. If In trying to describe the people of the absolutism of Jacobin Virtue was hatred, Skarga writes about those who to justify absolute terror, then their en- have a dispersed identity, about people emies–the victims of terror–had also who are “weak” and “susceptible to in- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 to be absolutely evil, the embodiments fluence,” “ambition-driven,” “pathet- of total treason and perfect degradation. ic” people. Indeed, there were plenty Among the Jacobins–including the of those in Jacobin clubs and revolution- leaders–were plenty of corrupt people ary tribunals. But more fascinating are hungry for power, privilege, and money; the strong people, the honest ones, the people guilty of corruption and theft; idealistic, who are blinded by the drug people with many complexes; ne’er-do- of revolution and transformed into skill- wells; incurable schemers; careerists at ful manipulators, cynics of the political the service of any government. For ide- game, demagogues of fluent speech and alists, it could not have been very pleas- dried-up heart–people of a religious ant. But, as they say in Polish, when you sect transformed into a gang of bandits. chop wood, the chips fly. If an informer The idealist fanatic, the Jacobin Ultra, served Virtue, his very contribution believed that one could build a better eliminated all character flaws. If the in- world according to the ideals of Rous- triguer hurt the enemies of Virtue, the seau and through revolutionary meth- intrigue became the servant of the Revo- ods, by excluding from public life the lution. The service of Virtue manifested people of the ancien régime, which had itself in only one way: hatred of the ene- been based on the oppression of subjects mies of Virtue. Hatred–as Barbara Skar- by the mighty of the world. Rousseau ga has recently reminded us–is a feeling said, “I hate subjection because it is the that does not know how to look at the source of all evil.” The Ultra Jacobin be- world other than from the perspective of lieved that the revolution would help to negation. Even in what to others seems end all evil. This is why the Jacobin nev- valuable and important, it notices exclu- er spoke in his own name; but in the sively trickery and deceit. Because, for name of the Revolution and the Nation, one who hates, this is the natural state in the name of Freedom and Virtue, in of the human condition. Hatred does the name of those humiliated by subor- not aim at improving. Quite to the con- dination, he sent to the guillotine people trary, it favors the existing situation and suspected of vice. Virtue is possible and with satisfaction cites every error and fascinating only when surrounded by unsuccessful endeavor, con½rming the vice. This is why the ‘just and spotless’ correctness of its attitude. But above all, need popular injustice and all-embracing with such an orientation, it wants to poi- sin. son everybody around. And it begins to The Jacobin “glori½es the poor,” ooze out until it embraces the whole so- observes Hannah Arendt, so that “his ciety. praise of suffering as the spring of Vir-

74 Dædalus Winter 2007 tue” becomes dangerous, usually serving There is in Danton a certain feature which The Ultras as a “mere pretext for lust for power.”3 reveals a thankless and petty soul: he of moral revolution Was the Jacobin sincere in declaring his praised the recent productions of Des- compassion for the poor and the suffer- moulins, at the Jacobins he dared to de- ing? We have no reason to doubt it. On mand for them freedom of the press, the other hand, it was not a compassion when I suggested to them the privilege of for any speci½c, individual persons. The burning. [ . . . ] When I showed him the Jacobin identi½ed with the “boundless system of calumny of the Girondistes, suffering of the masses,” the suffering he answered, ‘What does that matter to of millions. “By the same token,” wrote me? Public opinion is a whore, posterity Arendt, “Robespierre lost the capacity to is nonsense!’ The word Virtue made Dan- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 establish and hold fast to rapports with ton laugh: ‘There is no more reliable vir- persons in their singularity; the ocean of tue,’ he said laughingly, ‘than that which suffering around him”4 drowned all par- I cultivate every night with my wife.’ How ticular reasons–reasons of friendship, could this man, to whom any moral idea truthfulness, loyalty to principles. The was alien, be a defender of Freedom? An- Revolution in the name of Virtue and other maxim of Danton’s was that one Freedom turned into a dictatorship of ought to use rascals; that is why he was sacrilegious liars–the Jacobins in pow- surrounded by the dirtiest intrigants. He er became perfectly indifferent to the believed in a tolerance for vice, which was fate of individuals who had been victim- to ensure him as many supporters as there ized or humiliated. Such people could are corrupted people in this world. [ . . . ] already be sacri½ced without scruples At every time of crisis Danton took a vaca- in the name of Revolutionary Cleansing. tion. The cleansing became a purge–a purge When the Jacobins were cursed, that was meant to wash the dirt of hy- pocrisy and duplicity from the clean face he remained silent. When he was attacked of revolutionary Virtue. himself, he forgave. All the time he ap- “The Revolution,” wrote Arendt, “be- peared to the Girondistes as a tolerant fore it proceeded to devour its own chil- mediator, he bragged publicly that he had dren, unmasked them.” In the end, “No never denounced any enemy of freedom, one is left among the chief actors who he constantly reached out to them with does not stand accused, or at least sus- an olive branch. [ . . . ] He did not want the pected, of corruption, duplicity, betray- death of the tyrant; he wanted people to al, conspiracy with the court, and ac- be satis½ed with his exile. [ . . . ] He desired cepting money and instructions from amnesty for all of the guilty; therefore he London or Vienna.”5 wanted counter-revolution. Preparing the accusation of Danton, This is an accounting of Danton’s Robespierre wrote in his notebook: crimes drafted by Robespierre. And a close friend of Danton said to the Jac- obins: if you kill the Girondistes, the 3 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: next ones will do the same with you. Viking Press, 1963), 89. And that is what happened. The day before his execution Danton was to 4 Ibid. say: “In revolutions power remains at the end with the biggest scoundrels.” 5 Ibid., 98.

Dædalus Winter 2007 75 Adam Led to the square where the guillotine sistently repeated the pathetic refrain Michnik loomed, he was to shout, “Robespierre! of Socrates: “They want to force me to on nonviolence You will be following me!” And that is drink hemlock . . . and I know that I will & violence what happened four months later. Lou- drink it.” A magni½cent pretext for serv- is Auguste Blanqui, an icon of French ing it to his opponents. revolutionaries in the nineteenth centu- For Robespierre, the end justi½ed the ry, imprisoned in 1848, prepared a ruth- means, even the most vicious means, lessly honest portrait of Robespierre, when the real goal, wrote Blanqui, was whom he called “a would-be Napoleon.” “the desire for power.” He wrote: “No other personality was as destructive as he was; when he de- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 manded that others give up their per- XI sonal dreams, it was only so that they But every restoration also swings from could put them onto the altar of his own moderation to radicalism. Every restora- pride.” The National Convention, the tion is un½nished, inconsistent; it does highest revolutionary power, “was like not ful½ll the expectations of its support- a herd speechless from fear, standing ers. at the gate to the slaughterhouse. All After initial declarations on behalf of tongues were frozen, all eyes were moderation, conciliation, and accord glazed, all gestures were petri½ed in hor- comes a moment when the Ultras of ror.” restoration–also known as White Jac- Robespierre declared: “We need to in- obins–feel disappointed. In France, still in each person a religious respect for after a short honeymoon, Napoleon man, this deep sense of obligation that returned to power for a hundred days; constitutes the only guarantee for intro- after those hundred days, the Ultras re- ducing a state of social happiness.” Blan- taliated against the thankless French. If qui commented: the symbol of the beginning of restora- It was apparently in order to instill reli- tion were the appeals to forget about the gious respect of man for man that Robes- hatred dividing France, now the Ultras pierre sent to the guillotine all his rivals, declared that conciliatory Louis xviii including the least dangerous opponents. was a “Jacobin with a lily.” They called A furtive glance was enough to send his to stop the appeals for reconciliation best friend to the guillotine. Camille Des- because there can be no reconciliation moulins, a friend from youth and a com- between the party of the hangmen and rade in the struggle and an admirer, was the party of the victims. The time of do- executed because he dared to say ‘Burn- ing justice had begun–in the name, of ing is not an answer.’ course, of the Great Cleansing of France from this hellish dirt of both the Revo- All of those godlike warriors were lution and the empire. Because–the Ul- cruel people, hungry for power, armed tra argued–revolution was the child of with hypocrisy and their blessed stilet- haughtiness and madness, which fed up- tos. Robespierre, mercilessly beheading on corpses; it was a monster enjoying all those who opposed his ambitions or looting, arson, and butchering. Now one awakened distrust, constantly present- ought to bring back the old prerevolu- ed himself as a victim. On the heaps of tionary laws, customs, and privileges for corpses murdered by his hand, he con- the gentry, aristocracy, and the Church–

76 Dædalus Winter 2007 as well as discipline and censorship. His Majesty, where were his accusers The Ultras “The freedom to print and freedom of when Ney was ½ghting on so many bat- of moral revolution the press,” said the Ultra, “are the most tle½elds? Can France forget about a he- horrible plague of our unfortunate ro of the Bersina battle? Am I to put to times.” death someone who has saved so many And he was sincere in these confes- French lives? I know that I am arousing sions: he believed that the return to the the hatred of the courtiers, but stand- prerevolutionary golden age is neces- ing near my grave, I can say, like one of sary and realistic, but he warned that your distinguished ancestors: ‘All lost the revolutionary forces are still power- but honor.’ I will die satis½ed.” For these ful, that the majority of the positions in words de Moncey was thrown out of the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 the administration are still occupied by Chamber of Peers and locked up in a for- Jacobins and Bonapartists. This is why tress. a Great Cleansing is needed. “The time The witness for the defense was Mar- for handling with kid gloves is over!” shal Louis Nicolas Davout, who defend- And indeed it was over. The White ed Ney to the very end. Unfortunately, Terror flooded France with blood; para- other marshals were short on honor military units of royalist guerillas intro- and courage. So Ney was sentenced and duced a climate of vengeance, inquisi- shot. In the name of the restoration of tion, and repression aimed at all sus- knightly virtues, people were used as pects; and anybody could be suspected marshals who had behaved despicably, of Jacobinism, of Bonapartism, of any- choosing obsequiousness, cowardice, thing. In Avignon, the Napoleonic Mar- and betrayal. shal Brune was murdered. His body was The violence that was to guarantee dragged down the street and thrown in- Virtue became an instrument of vil- to the Rhône. lainy. The moderate and the lenient in The royal government released pro- the camp of restoration were losing; scription lists of enemies; censorship the Ultras were winning. Their restor- was restored. A ban was announced on ation was to be the Grand Counterrev- “provocative shouting and subversive olution, that is, revolution–also moral journals.” The newly created lists of –with a minus sign. All changes intro- suspects were kept secret. After the ½rst duced by the Revolution were to be trials, the ½rst heads rolled. The acts of erased; all the chimeras of the philoso- the executioner brought order and calm. phers of the Enlightenment concerning “There is a need for chains, hangmen, the state of nature, the social contract, torturers, death; let the heads of the Jac- the constitution, the rights of man and obins roll; there is the need for a fear the citizen, and parliamentary repre- that redeems.” sentation were to be abandoned. The Among those the Chamber of Peers absolute monarchy was to be restored, judged was a famous Napoleonic Mar- as this was the only way to return to shal, Michel Ney. The per½dy of this tri- God’s order guarded by the Catholic al was that those who were to sentence Church. him were his comrades-in-arms. And Tradition provided an easy model: the it was to be chaired by Marshal Jeannot Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition, de Moncey. Distressed by the situation, argued the Ultra, understood that one de Moncey sent a letter to Louis xviii needs to beat to death any serious as- in which he wrote: “Allow me to ask sassination of religion. Nobody has the

Dædalus Winter 2007 77 Adam right to criticize the kings of Spain. They tyrs. The Ultras won. Because they Michnik know their enemies, and under the law believed that only the use of similarly on nonviolence they can punish them. Nobody ought forceful means could prevent huge po- & violence to feel sorry for evildoers, who deserve litical defeats and push back particular- the punishment for questioning Span- ly forceful attacks on the state. And the ish dogmas. Those who spread heresies most effective of those means was vio- ought to be put among the worst crimi- lence; it is violence that creates order, nals. After all, heresy led Europe to the “that stops the hand of man, and threat- Thirty Years’ War. ens with chains, with the sword, with If there had been an active Inquisition the knout, and with the guillotine.” in France, the Revolution would never Against rebels one ought to send “sol- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 have happened. Therefore, the ruler who diers and executioners.” does without the stakes of the Inquisi- The executioner is the guarantor of or- tion deals a deadly blow to humanity. der who struggles with chaos, dirt, and “The Inquisition on its own,” argued de rebellion. The executioner is a man who Maistre, the perfect Ultra, “is a blessed metes out punishment. institution that provides Spain with an De Maistre asked: extraordinary service which a sectarian Who is this inexplicable being, who, when and philosophical fanaticism has derid- there are so many agreeable, lucrative, ed, and shamelessly.” honest and even honourable professions The direct consequence of such rea- to choose among, in which a man can ex- soning was a law on sacrilege that the ercise his skill or his powers, has chosen Ultras introduced during the Restora- that of torturing or killing his own kind? tion. It stated that “sacrilege is recog- This head, this heart, are they made like nized as any active insult to religion our own? Is there not something in them made consciously and out of hatred. that is peculiar, and alien to our nature; The profanation of Church vessels is Myself, I have no doubt about this. He is subject to the death penalty. The prof- made like us externally. He is born like all anation of consecrated bread calls for of us. But he is an extraordinary being, the same punishment as parricide.” and it needs a special decree to bring him We should add that those guilty of par- into existence as a member of the human ricide ½rst have their hand cut off and family–a ½at of the creative power. He is then their head. The Ultra argued eager- created like a law unto himself. ly that “as far as someone guilty of sacri- Consider what he is in the opinion of lege is concerned, in sentencing him to mankind, and try to conceive, if you can, death one is after all simply sending him how he can manage to ignore or defy this to face his natural judge.” The author opinion. Hardly has he been assigned to of those words, Louis Gabriel Bonald, a his proper dwelling-place, hardly has he philosopher of the Ultra camp, certainly taken possession of it, when others re- believed that it would serve the Cleans- move their homes elsewhere whence they ing and the Moral Revolution. can no longer see him. In the midst of this Chateaubriand–an unquestioned le- desolation, in this sort of vacuum formed gitimist–tried unsuccessfully to argue round him, he lives alone with his mate that the principle of religion is mercy, and his young, who acquaint him with the and if it needs the guillotine it is only a sound of the human voice: without them triumph for their [the Church’s] mar- he would hear nothing but groans.

78 Dædalus Winter 2007 The gloomy signal is given; an abject earth upon these two poles: ‘For Jehovah The Ultras servitor of justice knocks on his door to is master of the twin poles and upon them of moral revolution tell him that he is wanted; he goes; he he maketh turn the world’ . . . . 6 arrives in a public square covered by a “Translating this apology of the exe- dense, trembling mob. A poisoner, a cutioner,” the modernist writer Boleslaw parricide, a man who has committed Micinski wrote in an essay, On Hatred, sacrilege is tossed to him: he seizes him, Cruelty, and Abstraction, “I had the im- stretches him, ties him to a horizontal pression that my ½ngers were stained cross, he raises his arm; there is a hor- with blood.” rible silence; there is no sound but that One must analyze the style of this ex- of bones cracking under the bars, and Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 cerpt to notice,” wrote Micinski, “that the shrieks of the victim. He unties him. the source of this spirit is sadism. From He puts him on the wheel; the shattered behind the mask of the defender of con- limbs are entangled in the spokes; the servative principles, “the face of a sadist head hangs down; the hair stands up, appears.” And also the conviction arises and the mouth gaping open like a fur- that “man is evil and must therefore be nace from time to time emits only a few ruled with an iron truncheon.” bloodstained words to beg for death. He So much for Micinski. Isaiah Berlin, has ½nished. His heart is beating, but it after reading The Saint Petersburg Dia- is with joy: he congratulates himself, he logues, observed that de Maistre is sin- says in his heart, ‘Nobody quarters as cerely convinced that “men can only well as I.’ He steps down. He holds out be saved by being hemmed in by the his bloodstained hand; the justice throws terror of the authorities [ . . . ] must be him–from a distance–a few pieces of purged by perpetual suffering, must be gold, which he catches through a double humbled by being made conscious of row of human beings standing back in their stupidity, malice, and helplessness horror. He sits down to table, and he eats. at every turn. [ . . . ] Their appointed mas- Then he goes to bed and sleeps. And on ters must do the duty laid upon them by the next day, when he wakes, he thinks of their maker who has made nature a hier- something totally different from what he archical order by the ruthless imposition did the day before. Is he a man? Yes. God of the rules–not sparing themselves– receives him in his shrines, and allows and equally ruthless extermination of him to pray. He is not a criminal. Never- the enemy.”7 All in the name of Moral theless no tongue dares declare that he Counterrevolution and Cleansing. is virtuous, that he is an honest man, that he is estimable. No moral praise seems appropriate to him, for everyone else is assumed to have relations with human beings: he has none. And yet all greatness, all power, all sub- 6 Joseph De Maistre, http://www.newphilsoc. ordination rest on the executioner. He is org.uk/Freedom/berlinday/a_great_and_virtu- the terror and the bond of human associa- ous_man.htm; St. Petersburg Dialogues, quoted tion. Remove this mysterious agent from in Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Human- the world, and in an instant order yields ity (New York: Knopf, 1991), 116–117; also in http://maistre.ath.cx:8000/st_petersburg. to chaos: thrones fall, society disappears. html, quoted in ibid. God, who has created sovereignty, has also made punishment; he has ½xed the 7 Ibid., 118–119.

Dædalus Winter 2007 79 Adam XII “It is time,” appealed Saint-Just, “for Michnik everybody to return to moral principles, on nonviolence Who is the enemy poisoning the order and for terror to be used against the en- & violence of Freedom and Virtue during the Rev- emies. It is time to declare war against olution? Who is the enemy destroying wild corruption, and to require every- God’s order on earth and the established body to lead modest and frugal lives and hierarchy with Christ’s envoy at the top? to observe civic virtues, and to wipe out The Red Ultra will answer the same way the enemies of the people who favor as the White Jacobin: this enemy is a crime and the passions of the depraved.” sect. There exists in France a political In this way Saint-Just declared war on Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 sect, argued Saint-Just. This sect that the sect and announced a Great Cleans- poisons public life is made out of mon- ing and Moral Revolution. archists both open and hidden, who And what was ‘the sect’ for de Mai- wanted to remove Louis xvi but did not stre? They are those who try to corrupt want to end the monarchy. Today the people or overthrow the existing order. members of this sect demand modera- “They are the disturbers and subverts,” tion and leniency, amnesty for the ene- wrote Berlin. “To the Protestants and mies, and reconciliation with the ene- Jansenists he now adds Deists and Athe- mies of Virtue. Those people are crimi- ists, Freemasons and Jews, Scientists nal and arrogant; they are émigrés and and Democrats, Jacobins, Liberals, Utili- British agents. They are corrupted and tarians, Anti-clericals, Egalitarians, Per- depraved, thieves, bribe-takers, and fectibilians, Materialists, Idealists, Law- dishonest speculators; people who are yers, Journalists, Secular Reformers, and weak and vain, malcontents and sowers intellectuals of every breed; all those of disagreement, hypocrites and fruit- who appeal to abstract principles, who less shouters. put faith in individual reason or individ- Public life is entangled in the web of ual conscience; believers in individual this sect. Should not such a society–in liberty or the rational organization of which self-interest and envy are the hid- society; reformers and revolutionaries: den springs of many enemies and crimi- these are the enemy of the settled order nals who through bribery want to escape and must be rooted out at all costs. This is ‘la secte,’ and it never sleeps; it is forev- justice–launch the greatest possible ef- 8 fort to cleanse itself? And those who try er boring from within.” to stop this cleansing, are they not trying This sect ought to be annihilated by to corrupt society? And those who want force, ½rmly and mercilessly, in the to corrupt it, are they not trying to de- name of the divine order. De Maistre– stroy it? like any conservative–was convinced “There is no hope of prosperity,” ex- that those who launch revolutions in plained Saint-Just, “if the last enemy of the name of freedom end up as tyrants. Freedom would breathe; you ought to Summarizing the Jacobins’ doctrine, he punish not only traitors but also those remarked sarcastically what people hear who are neutral; you ought to punish from their leaders: “You think that you everyone in the Republic who is passive do not want this law, but we want to as- and does not do anything for it.” The sure you that in fact you really desire it. flame of Freedom would cleanse us just If you dare to reject it, we will punish as liquid crude iron throws off any dirt. 8 Ibid., 119.

80 Dædalus Winter 2007 you by shooting you for not wanting imate daughter. Both the stake and the The Ultras what you want.” And that is what they guillotine were to serve the Cleansing, of moral revolution do, concluded de Maistre. Moral Revolution, but they have always One ought to agree with this ‘White served the arbitrary claims of the au- Jacobin,’ the most distinguished of the thorities, convinced that they have Ab- Ultras. This is exactly how the Jacobins, solute Virtue at their disposal. the Red Ultras, acted. They proclaimed And such thinking has always ended themselves the emancipation of Free- badly. dom and Virtue; they privatized the Revolution in order to privatize the na- tion. The guillotine caused all the French XIII Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 people to become the property of the The Red Ultras, whether Robespierre or Revolution. But the White Ultras priva- Saint-Just, have legions of defenders. So tized God and proclaimed themselves does the White Jacobin de Maistre. the emancipation of the evangelical The defenders emphasize that Robes- teachings, while undertaking, intellectu- pierre was spotless, incorruptible, in- ally and practically, an effort to convert domitable; that Saint-Just, a fascinating the French using the executioner’s axe. dreamer, was a good and pure man; that Blanqui accused Robespierre of send- de Maistre was famous for his personal ing to the guillotine spokesmen of athe- charm and kindness toward people, and ism in order to win back the favor of the that his apology for the executioner was Church. This is why he presented as an the result of his horror at the Jacobin ter- offering to Catholic priests the head of ror, a kind of revenge, as he saw in the Chaumette, a preacher of atheism. Blan- victim of the executioner either Robes- qui wrote: “What a pleasant surprise it pierre or Saint-Just, not just an ordinary was for the sons and heirs of the Inqui- mortal. sition to see that God had again found I gladly agree with the advocates of Himself under the care of the guillotine. the Red Ultras and the White Jacobins. The beautiful times of the mightiness But in the rhetoric and mentality of the of the divine spirit could be reborn as Red Ultras we can recognize, after all, heads rolled to honor the immortality the early outlines of the rhetoric and of the soul.” Heretics were made depen- mentality of the Bolsheviks; in the icon dent upon the supreme ruler of the tor- of Robespierre we can see Lenin and turer. The guillotine had replaced the Stalin; and in the terror of the Jacobin stake. guillotine we can see a preview of the Let us set aside the tone of anticlerical- platoons of CheKa death squads.9 ism typical of French revolutionary cir- On the other hand, in the catalog of cles, here carried ad absurdum, because opponents of the Divine Order prepared it is absurd to think that Catholic priests by de Maistre we see the same people appreciated the cult of the Supreme Be- twentieth-century Fascism added to ing created by Robespierre. Let us em- their enemy list. phasize, rather, the well-captured inti- “De Maistre’s violent hatred of free mate relationship between the guillotine traf½c in ideas,” wrote Isaiah Berlin, and the stake. The guillotine of the Jac- obins was the natural daughter of the 9 VeCheKa, known better as CheKa, stands for Inquisition’s stake. And it doesn’t really Vserossykaya Chrezvychainaya Komissiya (All- matter at this point that it was an illegit- Russian Extraordinary Commission).

Dædalus Winter 2007 81 Adam “and his contempt for all intellectuals, wish to understand that revolution has Michnik are not mere conservatism, . . . but some- its rights. on nonviolence thing at once much older and much Jacobins and Ultras always reply the & violence newer–something that at once echoes same way. After all, to be a Jacobin is to the fanatical voices of the Inquisition, transcend limits. It means to attack the and sounds what is perhaps the earliest constitution in the name of utopia, and note of the militant anti-rational Fas- the republic in the name of a perfect re- cism of modern times.”10 public. It means to criticize the guillo- You will say that those are just words, tine for being too gentle to enemies; to just ideas, written down on paper. But label the partisans of moderation trai- words are not innocent. They have a life tors of the revolution; to be redder than Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 of their own. Words create a system of the Reds, more plebeian than the plebe- ethical and intellectual interpretation of ians, more ‘mad’ than the extreme radi- the world, an interpretation that allows cals, more vigilant than the tribunals of one to see in the guillotine a gate to Free- vigilantism, more suspicious than the dom and Virtue and in the executioner’s lieutenants of suspicion. To be oppo- axe a path to God. The history of the Jac- nents of the death penalty while order- obins and Ultras, Red or White, teaches ing new executions daily; to be such a us that there is a need for ethical knowl- relentless hound of the ‘tolerant’ left edge, that there are no honest values that that one ½nds oneself to the left of com- would justify reaching for such peculiar- mon sense; to be such an enthusiastic ly dishonest means and methods. This is defender of the Revolution that one why one cannot put people down in the sends other revolutionaries to the guillo- name of lifting them up; this is why one tine. cannot spread the poison of fear in the “To be ultra,” wrote Victor Hugo, name of Virtue and Moral Revolution; is to go beyond. It is to attack the scepter this is why one cannot push the drug in the name of the throne, and the mitre of suspicion in the name of Truth and in the name of the attar; it is to ill-treat Cleansing. This is why one cannot for- the thing which one is dragging; it is to get that God did not give any person kick over the traces; it is to cavil at the power over any other person; that no fagot on the score of the amount of cook- one should give up caring about one’s ing received by heretics; it is to reproach own salvation in caring about someone the idol with its small amount of idolatry; else’s salvation; that one cannot force it is to insult through excess of respect; anyone into faith either through force it is to discover that the Pope is not suf½- or blackmail; and that the cross is the ciently papish, that the King is not suf½- symbol of the Lord’s suffering, not a ciently royal, and that the night has too baseball bat for clubbing adversaries. much light; it is to be discontented with alabaster, with snow, with the swan and XIV the lily in the name of whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of be- I already hear the ironic commentaries: coming their enemy; it is to be so strong- those are the nauseating platitudes of an ly for, as to be against.11 aesthete, empty moralizing that does not 11 Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, ch. 3, http:// www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_ 10 Berlin, The Crooked Timber, 150. miserables/170/.

82 Dædalus Winter 2007 The Jacobin and the Ultra will agree science, and others “a necessary com- The Ultras on one thing: when one chops the wood, promise with error.”13 That compromise of moral revolution chips fly. Well, I am such a chip. And be- ended “continuous and mass sufferings, fore I am treated like such a chip by mor- hatreds and wrongs.” al revolutionaries in the name of Virtue “After a thousand years,” concluded and Freedom, in the name of the Divine Trevelyan, “religion was at length re- Order and Revealed Truth, allow me to leased from the obligation to practice say, “Without me, ladies and gentlemen. cruelty on principle, by the admission I have already learned this lesson.” Then that it is the incorrigible nature of man you will ask me, “Do you know, you to hold different opinions on specula- Malcontent from the sect of the eternal- tive subjects.”14 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 ly dissatis½ed and afraid, any revolution The Toleration Act will be called by that would be different?” And I would this historian “a curious patchwork of answer, “Well, there have been different compromise, illogicality, and political revolutions . . . . ” good sense.”15 Wise Britons, wise Ma- The English Revolution of 1689 was cauley Trevelyan. called the Glorious Revolution, and not because of heroic acts and victorious battles, nor even because of a victory XV over a stupid monarch. “The true glory We, the Malcontents from the sects of the British revolution,” wrote George of the eternally unsatis½ed and afraid, Macaulay Trevelyan, “lay in the fact that dream of something similar. We do not it was bloodless, that there was no civil want further moral revolutions; a tight- war, no massacre, no proscription, and ening of the reins; special commissions above all that a settlement by consent to track down the enemies of Virtue or was reached of the religious and politi- the Divine Order; the proscription list cal differences.” This settlement stood of enemies, those who are suspected of the test of time; it stabilized freedom in animosity. We the Malcontents dream political life and practical compromise of just such a patchwork of compromise in the world of religious passions. and good sense. We the Malcontents do “The men of 1689 were not heroes. not want further revolutions in a coun- Few of them were even honest men. But try that has not yet recovered from the they were very clever men, and, taught last several . . . . by bitter experience, they behaved at this supreme crisis as very clever men do not always behave, with sense and mod- eration.”12 This dangerous situation compelled the bickering Whigs and Tories to make a compromise known as the Revolution Settlement. This was accompanied by the Toleration Act, in which some saw the right to live according to one’s con- 13 Ibid., 474.

12 G. Macaulay Trevelyan, History of England 14 Ibid., 476. (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1926), 473. 15 Ibid.

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