CHAPTER IV
The Metamorphoses of the Revolutionary Process
As can be seen from the analysis in the preceding chapter, the revolutionary process is the development by stages of certain disorderly tendencies of Western and Christian man and of the errors to which they have given rise.
In each stage, these tendencies and errors have a particular characteristic. The Revolution, therefore, metamorphoses in the course of history.
The metamorphoses observed in the great general lines of the Revolution recur on a smaller scale within each of its great episodes.
Hence, the spirit of the French Revolution, in its first phase, used an aristocratic and even ecclesiastical mask and language. It frequented the court and sat at the table of the royal council. Later, it became bourgeois and worked for a bloodless abolition of the monarchy and nobility and for a veiled and pacific suppression of the Catholic Church. As soon as it could, it became Jacobin and inebriated itself with blood in the Terror.
Portrait of Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre
But the excesses committed by the Jacobin faction stirred up reactions. The Revolution turned back, going through the same stages in reverse. From Jacobin it became bourgeois in the Directory. With Napoleon, it extended its hand to the Church and opened its doors to the exiled nobility. Finally, it cheered the returning Bourbons. Although the French Revolution ended, the revolutionary process did not end. It erupted again with the fall of Charles X and the rise of Louis Philippe, and thus through successive metamorphoses, taking advantage of its successes and even its failures, it reached its present state of paroxysm.
The Revolution, then, uses its metamorphoses not only to advance but also to carry out the tactical retreats that have so frequently been necessary.
This movement, always alive, has at times feigned death. This is one of its most interesting metamorphoses. On the surface, the situation of a certain country looks entirely tranquil. The counter-revolutionary reaction slackens and dozes. But in the depths of the religious, cultural, social, or economic life, the revolutionary ferment is continuously spreading. Then, at the end of this apparent interval, there is an unexpected upheaval, often more severe than the previous ones.
CHAPTER V
The Three Depths of the Revolution: In the Tendencies, in the Ideas, and in the Facts
1. The Revolution in the Tendencies
As we have seen, this Revolution is a process made up of stages and has its ultimate origin in certain disorderly tendencies that serve as its soul and most intimate driving force.1
Accordingly, we can also distinguish in the Revolution three depths, which, chronologically speaking, overlap to a certain extent.
The first and deepest level consists of a crisis in the tendencies. These disorderly tendencies by their very nature struggle for realization. No longer conforming to a whole order of things contrary to them, they begin by modifying mentalities, ways of being, artistic expressions, and customs without immediately touching directly — at least habitually — ideas.
“On the contrary, man’s free will, aided by grace, can overcome any crisis, just as it can stop and overcome the Revolution itself.”
2. The Revolution in the Ideas
The crisis passes from these deep strata to the ideological terrain. Indeed, as Paul Bourget makes evident in his celebrated work Le Demon du Midi, “One must live as one thinks, under pain of sooner or later ending up thinking as one has lived.”2 Inspired by the disorder of these deep tendencies, new doctrines burst forth. In the beginning, they at times seek a modus vivendi with the old doctrines, expressing themselves in such a way as to maintain a semblance of harmony with them. Generally, however, this soon breaks out into open warfare.
