第30章

The latter may easily be led by harping on a small number of strings, but in a homogeneous group like a club, whose sentiments and interests are identical, the leader must know how to humour them and is often himself led.

Part of the strength of homogeneous agglomerations resides in their anonymity.We know that during the Commune of 1871 a few anonymous orders sufficed to effect the burning of the finest monuments of Paris: the Hotel de Ville, the Tuileries, the Cour des Comptes, the buildings of the Legion of Honour, &c.Abrief order from the anonymous committees, ``Burn Finances, burn Tuileries,'' &c., was immediately executed.An unlooked-for chance only saved the Louvre and its collections.We know too what religious attention is in our days accorded to the most absurd injunctions of the anonymous leaders of the trades unions.

The clubs of Paris and the insurrectionary Commune were not less scrupulously obeyed at the time of the Revolution.An order emanating from these was sufficient to hurl upon the Assembly a popular army which dictated its wishes.

Summing up the history of the Convention in another chapter, we shall see how frequent were these irruptions, and with what servility the Assembly, which according to the legends was so powerful bowed itself before the most imperative injunctions of a handful of rioters.Instructed by experience, the Directory closed the clubs and put an end to the invasion of the populace by energetically shooting them down.

The Convention had early grasped the superiority of homogeneous groups over heterogeneous assemblies in matters of government, which is why it subdivided itself into committees composed each of a limited number of individuals.These committees--of Public Safety, of Finance, &c.--formed small sovereign assemblies in the midst of the larger Assembly.Their power was held in check only by that of the clubs.

The preceding considerations show the power of groups over the wills of the members composing them.If the group is homogeneous, this action is considerable; if it is heterogeneous, it is less considerable but may still become important, either because the more powerful groups of an assembly will dominate those whose cohesion is weaker or because certain contagious sentiments will often extend themselves to all the members of an assembly.

A memorable example of this influence of groups occurred at the time of the Revolution, when, on the night of the 4th of August, the nobles voted, on the proposition of one of their members, the abandonment of feudal privileges.Yet we know that the Revolution resulted in part from the refusal of the clergy and the nobles to renounce their privileges.Why did they refuse to renounce them at first? Simply because men in a crowd do not act as the same men singly.Individually no member of the nobility would ever have abandoned his rights.