The French Revolution, vol 2 | Page 7

garrets, bohemians in lodgings,
physicians without patients and lawyers without clients in lonely
offices, so many Brissots, Dantons, Marats, Robespierres, and St. Justs
in embryo; only, for lack of air and sunshine, they never come to
maturity. At twenty, on entering society, a young man's judgment and
pride are extremely sensitive. - - Firstly, let his society be what it will,
it is for him a scandal to pure reason: for it was not organized by a
legislative philosopher in accordance with a sound principle, but is the
work of one generation after another, according to manifold and
changing necessities. It is not a product of logic, but of history, and the
new-fledged thinker shrugs his shoulders as he looks up and sees what
the ancient tenement is, the foundations of which are arbitrary, its
architecture confused, and its many repairs plainly visible. -- In the
second place, whatever degree of perfection preceding institutions,
laws, and customs have reached, these have not received his approval;
others, his predecessors, have chosen for him, he is being subjected
beforehand to moral, political, and social forms which pleased them.
Whether they please him or not is of no consequence. Like a horse

trotting along between the poles of a wagon in the harness that happens
to have been put on his back, he has to make best of it. -- Besides,
whatever its organization, as it is essentially a hierarchy, he is nearly
always subaltern in it, and must ever remain so, either soldier, corporal
or sergeant. Even under the most liberal system, that in which the
highest grades are accessible to all, for every five or six men who take
the lead or command others, one hundred thousand must follow or be
commanded. This makes it vain to tell every conscript that he carriers a
marshal's baton in his sack, when, nine hundred and ninety-nine times
out of a thousand, he discovers too late, on rummaging his sack, that
the baton is not there. - - It is not surprising that he is tempted to kick
against social barriers within which, willing or not, he is enrolled, and
which predestine him to subordination. It is not surprising that on
emerging from traditional influences he should accept a theory, which
subjects these arrangements to his judgment and gives him authority
over his superiors. And all the more because there is no doctrine more
simple and better adapted to his inexperience, it is the only one he can
comprehend and manage off-hand. Hence it is that young men on
leaving college, especially those who have their way to make in the
world, are more or less Jacobin, - it is a disorder of growing up.[9] -- In
well organized communities this ailment is beneficial, and soon cured.
The public establishment being substantial and carefully guarded,
malcontents soon discover that they have not enough strength to pull it
down, and that on contending with its guardians they gain nothing but
blows. After some grumbling, they too enter at one or the other of its
doors, find a place for themselves, and enjoy its advantages or become
reconciled to their lot. Finally, either through imitation, or habit, or
calculation, they willingly form part of that garrison which, in
protecting public interests, protects their own private interests as well.
Generally, after ten years have gone by, the young man has obtained
his rank in the file, where he advances step by step in his own
compartment, which he no longer thinks of tearing to pieces, and under
the eye of a policeman who he no longer thinks of condemning. He
even sometimes thinks that policeman and compartment are useful to
him. Should he consider the millions of individuals who are trying to
mount the social ladder, each striving to get ahead of the other, it may
dawn upon him that the worst of calamities would be a lack of barriers

and of guardians.
Here the worm-eaten barriers have cracked all at once, their easy-
going, timid, incapable guardians having allowed things to take their
course. Society, accordingly, disintegrated and a pell-mell, is turned
into a turbulent, shouting crowd, each pushing and being pushed, all
alike over-excited and congratulating each other on having finally
obtained elbow-room, and all demanding the new barriers shall be as
fragile and the new guardians as feeble, as defenseless, and as inert as
possible. This is what has been done. As a natural consequence, those
who were foremost in the rank have been relegated to the last; many
have been struck down in the fray, while in this permanent state of
disorder, which goes under the name of lasting order, elegant footwear
continue to be stamped upon by hobnailed boots and wooden shoes. -
The fanatic and the intemperate egoists can now let themselves go.