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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Paris and the Social Revolution A Study of the Revolutionary Elements in the Various Classes of Parisian Society Author: Alvan Francis Sanborn Illustrator: Vaughan Trowbridge Release Date: September 25, 2012 [EBook #40865] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARIS AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION *** Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Cover SELLERS OF CHANSONS SELLERS OF CHANSONS “They teach their motley audiences to sing the songs they have the wit to sell them.” TITLE The consequence is, being of no party, I shall offend all parties; Never mind! Lord Byron. I have no mockings or arguments I witness and wait. Walt Whitman. PARIS AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION A STUDY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ELEMENTS IN THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF PARISIAN SOCIETY BY ALVAN FRANCIS SANBORN With Illustrative Drawings By VAUGHAN TROWBRIDGE I PRINTER'S MARK BOSTON SMALL MAYNARD & COMPANY MCMV Copyright, 1905, by Small Maynard & Company Incorporated Entered at Stationers’ Hall Press of Geo. H. Ellis Co. Boston, U.S.A. TO THE PROLETARIAT OF AMERICA THIS BOOK IS REVERENTLY INSCRIBED PREFACE T was the author’s original intention to let this book make shift without the conventional preface, as befitted the unconventionality of its theme. But he has learned since it was begun—what it was very stupid of him not to have known at the outset—that in the matter of heresies, ethical, social, and political as well as theological, interest is bound to pass for approval, explanation for advocacy, and sympathy, be it ever so slight, for profound belief: as if a man who showed a curiosity about and appreciation of dogs should, by that very fact, become a dog; or as if (since there may seem to be an unfortunate implication of contempt in this illustration) a German who attempted to expound honestly English temperament, opinions, and traditions should, by that very fact, become an Englishman. Once for all, then, the author is not a revolutionist, though there are moments when he fancies he would like to be one, it appears such an eminently satisfying state. It takes faith to be a revolutionist; and he is, alas! mentally incapable of faith. He is not an anarchist, not a socialist, not a radical, not a “red republican,” nor a “mangeur de prêtres.” His affiliations have not been even Dreyfusard in France, nor even Bryanite in America. He is a conservative of the conservatives, only prevented from being a reactionary by the fact that reaction is but another form of revolution, and the most hopeless and faith-exacting of them all. So far from being a revolutionist, he is an evolutionist only under protest,—vi et armis, as it were. He favours things as they are, things as they were quite as often, while things as they might be contain for him no allure. He cherishes enormously this imperfect old world as it is, still more as it was; has not the slightest desire to reconstruct it after his own formula, and would not willingly exchange it for any hypothetical world which, up to the present hour, restless human ingenuity has devised. He is “naturally beforehand shy of novelties, new books, new faces, new years,” and is “sanguine only in the vii viii prospects of other [former] years.” He likes old cabinets, old comedies, old prints, old stuffs, old pipes, old wine, old ships, old trees, old shoes, old friends, old customs, old crotchets, and old ladies. He prefers infinitely—it is very wrong and foolish, perhaps, but he cannot help it—ancient hostelries to modern hotels, spontaneous neighbourliness to organised benevolence, fireplaces to furnace-heaters, and waving meadows to close-cropped lawns; a blooded aristocrat to a social struggler, a patriot to a cosmopolite, a brave drinker to a total abstinence apostle, an illiterate Breton peasant to the “smart” product of improved schools, a mediæval cloister to a free-thinker’s hall, and an easy-going priest to a nervous sceptic; beauty to utility, superstition to science, ritual to plain sense. A uniform appeals to him more than a business suit, a coquettish gown more than the most advanced hygienic bloomer, a solicitous mother and competent housewife more than a brilliant club woman. He finds more satisfaction in old-fashioned, comfortable ideas than in disquieting progressive ones. He would quite as soon be domineered over by a noble as by a parvenu or a pot-house politician, and is less shocked by the colossal pretensions of a pope than by the puerile bumptiousness of a small-minded clergyman. He deplores railways, trolleys, bicycles, automobiles, and compulsory education, because they all tend to destroy native dialects, customs, and costumes, obliterate all local colour, and so render lands far separated dully alike. He resents the presumptuousness of that Reason which is so seldom reasonable, and would not shed a tear nor distil a regret if telephones, telegraphs, and psychical research were swept off the face of the earth. He is well aware, therefore, that there is good to be said of time-honoured institutions: of the state; of the army, the church, and the courts of law, the props of the state; and of capitalists, the pets and protégés of the state. On occasion he could write a fervid defence of each and every one of these established things. But he is equally aware that there is good to be said of the conscientious opponents of the state, its props and its protégés. To say this good is his present business; and, if he seems to bend over backward sometimes in saying it, it should be borne in mind that they also have bent over backward—nay, turned double somersaults backward—who, prompted by terror, prejudice, intolerance, hatred, or contempt, have pronounced unqualified condemnation on the consecrated antagonists of things as they are; and it should at least be queried whether his indiscretions may not be excused (if not altogether justified) thereby. No, the author is not a revolutionist, but he is acquainted with plenty of good fellows who are. “He has eaten their bread and salt; he has drunk their water and wine.” He has taken pot-luck with them, witnessed their privations, and listened to the telling of their dreams. He thinks he comprehends them, he knows he loves them, and he would present them as he has found them to the world. This attitude will be understood by all who really believe in fair play, in giving every man his innings and the devil his due; who can admit merits equally in Christians and Pagans, Jesuits and Agnostics, Classicists and Romanticists, Greeks and Goths; who admire a beau geste alike in missionary and filibuster, condottiere and crusader, martyr and toreador, pirate and king,—in a Jeanne d’Arc and a Ravaillac, a Kitchener and a Joubert, a Sheridan and a Mosby, a Dewey and an Aguinaldo, a Hobson and a Cervera, a Makaroff and a Uryu, a Napoleon and a Musolino, a Richard Cœur de Lion and a Robin Hood, a Nelson and a Cambronne. It will be understood by all those who appreciate a joke, even when it turns against themselves; who recognise the nobility of straight thinking and bold speaking, the sublimity of high passion, the regenerating force of righteous resentment and stubborn resistance, and the holiness of self-sacrifice for an ideal; who have a faculty for putting themselves in other men’s places or have learned the hard lesson of calling no thing “common or unclean”; who love men because they are men, serve women because they are women, compassionate suffering because it is suffering, reverence him who hath much struggled to no apparent purpose, and pardon much, like the Christ, to him who hath much loved. That these persons are the few does not seriously matter. It is a great thing to be understood by a few. Alvan F. Sanborn. Paris, January, 1905. CONTENTS PAGE I. What the Anarchist Wants 5 Suggestions of the beginnings of anarchistic philosophy and of the history of the development of anarchy—The contemporary French Encyclopedists, Pierre Kropotkine, Elisée Reclus, and Jean Grave—The introductory chapter of Jean Grave’s L’Anarchie: son But, ses Moyens, selected as the best exposition of the French anarchistic doctrine—Current misconceptions of anarchy—The rational bases of anarchy—The reasons for its opposition to laws and to governments—The anarchistic ideal “l’individu libre dans l’humanité libre.”—Development of the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of the individual necessary to attain this ideal—Freedom to satisfy all physical, intellectual, and moral needs a necessity—The freedom of the soil the first prerequisite, after that the freedom of the domain of knowledge and art—Anarchy frankly international— Its demands for absolute liberty in the domain of thought as in that of deeds—Its utopianism denied. ix x xi II. The Oral Propaganda of Anarchy 25 The simplest, most natural form of propaganda, telling one’s faith to one’s neighbours—The group the unit of public oral propaganda—Characteristics of the group, its meetings, its statistics, its autonomy—Federations and congresses—Communication between groups—Union meetings of groups—Anarchist mass-meetings — Punchs-conférences and soupes-conférences—Ballades de propagande—Déjeuners végétariens—Amateur theatricals—The Maison du Peuple—Soirée familiale—The trimardeur—The chanson as a means of propaganda, with examples of revolutionary chansons. III. The Written Propaganda of Anarchy 61 The anarchist press, Le Journal du Peuple, Les Plébéiennes, Le Libertaire—Jean Grave and Les Temps Nouveaux—The press as a means of intercommunication between the camarades, the trimardeurs, and the groups—L’Education Libertaire—Amateur papers—Ephemeral character of the anarchist press—Le Père Peinard and its editors—Anarchist almanacks—Financial difficulties of the anarchist press and methods of raising funds—Difficulties encountered in publication and circulation—“Les Lois Scélérates”—Placards and fliers—Paul Robin and his system of éducation intégrale—Le College Libertaire—The study of the masters and of their forerunners and disciples—Popular editions of great writers who tend towards anarchy—Violent brochures. IV. The Propaganda of Anarchy by Example 91 Thoreau and Garrison as precursors of the anarchistic attitude—Tolstoy on the propaganda by example—Its importance—Practicable and impracticable acts of this form of propaganda—Octave Mirbeau on depopulation —Pierre Lavroff on propaganda by example—Anarchist experiment stations and reasons for their failure—The attitude of anarchists towards trade-unionism—La grève universelle—The attitude of anarchists towards co- operation—La pan-coopération. V. The Propaganda of Anarchy par le Fait 109 Lack of unanimity among French anarchists regarding this method of propaganda—The emergence into public prominence of the insurrectional idea—César de Paepe’s speech at the Geneva Peace Congress of 1867— Declaration of the Fédération Italienne—Insurrections at Letino and San Galo, Italy—Utterances at the Congresses of Fribourg and of the Fédération Jurasienne—Distinction between the individual overt act when directed against an official of the state and when directed against an individual member of the bourgeoisie —The latter acts disapproved by the majority of anarchists—Elisée Reclus on this subject—The attitude of Les Temps Nouveaux—Zo d’Axa on the overt acts of Ravachol—Statistics of the victims of anarchists—Reasons for the alarm excited by the propaganda par le fait—Some humorous features of the panic during the period of “The Terror”—Theft as a form of propaganda par le fait—Charles Malato and Jean Grave on this subject— Cases of Clément Duval and Pini—Extent of anarchist thefts—Counterfeiting—Case of L’Abruti. VI. The Causes of Propaganda par le Fait 131 Desire for vengeance the cause of the greater part of the overt acts of anarchists—The death of Watrin—Such acts proceed mainly from those who have suffered injustice either in their own person or in that of those near to them—The cases of Duval, Pini, Dardare, Decamp, Léveillé, Rulliers, Pedduzi, Ravachol, Lorion, Vaillant, Etievant, Salsou—Zo d’Axa on the police rafle of April, 1892—Recent questionable repressive measures— Collusion of state officials and police to turn revolutionary disturbances to selfish ends—Legality often strained by the government in its repressive measures—Overt acts almost never the result of conspiracy—Belief in his “mission” of the propagandist par le fait—The stigmata of this vocation—Testimony of Björnson, Zola, and other writers—Stimulating effect of the executions of anarchists upon anarchist fanaticism—Sympathy of many who are not anarchists excited by overstraining of legal forms and undue severity in repressive measures —The apotheosis of Vaillant—Anarchist anniversaries—Why so many violent anarchists are Italians— England’s immunity from overt anarchist acts—The futility of repressing the free expression of violent ideas— The case of Laurent Tailhade. VII. The Character of the Propagandist par le Fait 155 The salient traits of the anarchist character—The average psychic type of the anarchist as indicated by A. Hamon—Personal character of Ravachol, Pini, Duval, Faugoux, Salsou—The anarchist’s abhorrence of cruelty to animals—The propagandist par le fait rarely a worthless fellow—Frugality and domestic virtues of prominent anarchist criminals—Personal courage of this type, with notable examples. VIII. Socialists and Other Revolutionists 167 Revolutionary and evolutionary socialists—Radical differences between theoretic socialism and anarchism— Practical aims common to both—Similarity in methods of propaganda—Union of anarchists and socialists against common enemies in troubled periods—Similarity in attitude of both towards trade-unionism and co- operation—Revolutionary tendencies of royalists, imperialists, anti-Semites, and nationalists—Déroulède’s proclamation to his electors—Anarchist approval of Jules Guérin’s defence of “Fort Chabrol.” IX. The Revolutionary Traditions of the Latin Quarter 177 The Sorbonne as a centre of epoch-making thought—Abélard—Richness of the Latin Quarter in souvenirs of intellectual and political revolution—Latin Quarter martyrs of revolutionary thinking—Periods of cringing on the part of the university the exception—The lawless student life of the Middle Ages—The students in the time of Louis XIV.—The cafés and cabarets as revolutionary agents—The conflict between Romanticists and Classicists at the beginning of the nineteenth century—The part played by the students in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848—The student protest against the coup d’état of the third Napoleon—The students as a revolutionary force under the Second Empire—Vallès, Gambetta, Vermesch, Blanqui, Rochefort—The students and the Commune—The relation of the Latin Quarter cafés and cabarets to the Commune—Love of laughter, love of liberty, and love of love the three characteristic traits of the spirit of the Latin Quarter. X. The Revolutionary Spirit in the Latin Quarter of To-day 189 The alleged decadence of the spirit of the Latin Quarter—The truth and the falsity of the charge—Differences in the present-day manifestation of the three characteristic traits of the spirit of the Quarter—The dress and manners of students of to-day—The contemporary grisette—The anniversary of Mürger—The real student cafés and cabarets—The student publications—The cénacles of the Quarter—The present hour primarily a period of transition, the student of to-day seeking his way—Revolutionary thought well represented in the university faculties—Student outbreaks during the last thirty years. XI. Bohemians of the Latin Quarter 207 xii xiii xiv Bohemians by choice—Those not attached to the university who inhabit the Latin Quarter for the sake of its advantages, from affection, or from force of habit—A typical example—Henri Pille, Maurice Bouchor, Jean Richepin, Paul Bourget—“Les Vivants”—Bohemians from necessity—Renegades from the Bohemianism of the Quarter—Clovis Hugues on the sacrifice of long hair—Two types of “moutons”—Ways and means of the Bohemians—Their hardships—The arrival of prosperity too late. XII. Those who Starve 221 Mürger’s Biographie d’un Inconnu—A brief recital of its story—The hero of the novel a permanent type—Saint Joseph de la Dèche——La misère en habit noir—The case of Dr. Laporte—The verdict of the judge. XIII. Those who Kill Themselves 231 “La littérature qui tue”—Picturesque suicide of a young Latin Quarter poet as narrated by Emile Goudeau— Suicide of René Leclerc—Other cases of suicide—Greater proportion of suicide among victims of la misère en habit noir. XIV. Freaks and Fumistes 239 The chevaliers d’industrie of the Quarter—Their detestation of the bourgeoisie—More comedy than tragedy in their lives—The types of Vallès’ Réfractaires—Fontan-Crusoe, Poupelin, and M. Chaque—Other vagabond types—Eugène Cochet, Amédée Cloux, Bibi-la-Purée, La Mère Casimir, Le Marquis de Soudin, the artist bard of Père Lunette’s, Achille Leroy, Gaillepand, La Mère Souris, Victor Sainbault, Coulet—Professional humourists and deliberate farceurs—Sapeck, Karl, Zo d’Axa—A novel candidate—Relation of starvation, suicide, freakishness, and fumisterie to the revolutionary spirit. XV. Montmartre and La Vache Enragée 257 The cavalcades of La Vache Enragée in 1896 and 1897—Origin of the phrase—Literary, artistic, and musical celebrities who have eaten of the Vache Enragée—The manner of living of the typical Montmartrois—His resourcefulness—His poses and so-called affectations often devices for cheap living—The restaurants, cafés, crèmeries, and cabarets of Montmartre—Their traditions and their esprit de corps—The Montmartre of the tourist—The real Montmartre—Its relation to Paris—Cost of living at Montmartre—Spring-time in Montmartre. XVI. Literary and Artistic Cabarets of Montmartre 281 The history of Montmartre—The exodus of the “Hydropathies” and the “Hirsutes” from the Latin Quarter—The Grand’ Pinte—Rodolphe Salis—The origin, career, and influence of the Chat Noir—Its successors and imitators—Closest existing counterparts of the Chat Noir—Le Conservatoire, Le Cabaret des Quat’z’ Arts, Le Cabaret des Arts, La Veine, La Boîte à Fursy, and Le Tréteau de Tabarin—Bohemian conclaves which have superseded the cabarets—The chanson as a moulder of public opinion—Revolutionary chansons in Montmartre cabarets—Jules Jouy, Maxime Lisbonne, Marcel Legay, Gaston Couté, Xavier Privas —Cabarets brutaux —Bruant’s Mirliton, Alexandre’s Cabaret Bruyant—Three poets of talent imbued with a revolutionary spirit, Bruant, Jehan Rictus, Maurice Boukay—The revolutionary traditions of Montmartre—Bourgeois fear of Montmartre—“Montmartre va descendre”—The relations between the workingmen, the littérateurs, and the artists at Montmartre—Their revolutionary spirit. XVII. The Revolutionary Spirit in Prose Literature and the Drama 313 The revolutionary attitude of Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Zola—Revolutionary influence of Anatole France and Octave Mirbeau—Lucien Descaves—Victor Barrucand and his campaign for free bread—Other novelists whose works have a revolutionary trend—Revolutionary psychology—Rosny’s Le Bilatéral—Other fiction writers who understand the gravity of the issue—The influence of “les auteurs gais”—Essayists, critics, and philosophers who are more or less militant iconoclasts or révoltés—The origin and influence of L’Endehors—The subsequent activity of the Endehors group—The group of L’Idée Nouvelle—Revues des jeunes—Other revues hospitable to revolutionary writings—Octave Mirbeau, Lucien Descaves, Maurice Donnay—Other playwrights whose pieces are frankly revolutionary—Playwrights whose works are revolutionary by implication—The Théâtre Libre and its successors—Variety theatres and concert halls—The trend of literature from socialism to anarchism—The testimony of Clovis Hugues and Fierens-Gevaert—The relation of the French libertaire literary movement to that in other European countries. XVIII. The Revolutionary Spirit in Poetry, Music, and Art 361 The anarchistic spirit more or less natural to the poet—Revolutionary singers in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century—Hégésippe Moreau, Victor Hugo, Eugène Vermesch—Living poets of revolt—Laurent Tailhade, Jean Richepin—Tailhade’s imprisonment—The socialist poets Clovis Hugues and Maurice Bouchor— The relations between freedom of expression and freedom of thought in poetry—More revolutionists among artists than in any other class engaged in liberal pursuits—Courbet, Cazin, Carrière—Impressionism and the revolutionary spirit—Luce and Signac—The Salon des Indépendants as a refuge for revolutionists—The import of the work of Rodin and Meunier—Jules Dalou—Painters who picture the Christ in a modern setting—The revolutionary leanings of the dessinateurs—Léandre, Forain, Hermann-Paul, Willette, Steinlen—L’Assiette au Beurre—The revolutionary attitude of the great body of contemporary French caricaturists towards the institutions of society—Bernard Shaw’s comment on the music of Wagner—Wagner as a revolutionist—The revolutionary spirit in the new school of French music—Alfred Bruneau and Gustave Charpentier—Louise —The evident connection between the anarchistic philosophy and polyphonic orchestration, vers libre, and impressionism in art. XIX. To What End? 391 The advice of Gamaliel, the Pharisee, on innovators in religion and the words of Montaigne concerning the strange and the incredible—The proper province of philosophic doubt —“La folie d’hier est la sagesse de demain”—The difficulty with which human nature realises the truth of the maxim—The attitude of public opinion to Barrucand’s scheme for free bread—Pertinent questions regarding the alleged unreasonableness of revolutionary theories—The theories of anarchism and socialism in comparison with the history of social evolution—The natural result of education of the masses—A successful social revolution no guarantee of a millennium—The essentials of happiness found in the eternal realities of life. Sellers of Chansons Frontispiece The Anarchist’s Dream Vignette Title-page Place Clichy (Vignette Section Title) Page 1 xv xvi xvii Jean Grave in his Workshop facing ” 10 La France Libre (Tailpiece) ” 22 Mauled to Death for shouting “Vive l’Armée” ” 35 A Contrast in Dances:— I. A Ball at the Maison du Peuple facing ” 38 II. Dancing at the Moulin Rouge ” 38 A Trimardeur disputing with Socialists ” 40 Evening in a Cabaret facing ” 42 A la Renommée des Pommes-de-terres Frites ” 52 “Enlevez l’homme tonneau” (Tailpiece) ” 57 Dormer-window of Jean Grave’s Workshop (Office of “Les Temps Nouveaux”) facing ” 62 Pierre Joseph Proudhon ” 74 Little Anarchists ” 75 A Revolutionary Poster (Tailpiece) ” 87 Charles Malato ” 112 Possible Revolutionists ” 121 A Raid by the Police (Tailpiece) ” 127 Salsou ” 135 A Street Riot (Place de la Concorde) facing ” 148 The Guillotine in Moonlight (Tailpiece) ” 152 Louise Michel ” 158 Anniversary Decorations, Mur des Fédérés (Tailpiece) ” 163 A Socialist Bookshelf ” 167 M. Vaillant ” 168 Léandre’s Caricature of Paul Déroulède facing ” 168 M. Brousse ” 169 M. Jaurès ” 170 M. Guesde ” 171 M. Allemane ” 171 Jules Guérin ” 172 “Montmartre va descendre” (Vignette Section Title) ” 173 Mégotiers of the Place Maubert ” 179 Notre Dame from Pont d’Austerlitz (Tailpiece) ” 185 A Caveau of the Latin Quarter ” 189 A Latin Quarter Type (Félix Gras’ Son) facing ” 198 The Panthéon (Tailpiece) ” 203 Jean Richepin ” 212 Taverne du Panthéon on Mardigras facing ” 216 The Institute (Tailpiece) ” 218 The Louvre (Tailpiece) ” 227 A Suicide of the Latin Quarter ” 233 The Pont du Carrousel (Tailpiece) ” 236 Site of the Château Rouge (rue Galande) facing ” 246 Zo d’Axa’s Novel Candidate ” 248 Second-hand Book Mart of the Latin Quarter (Tailpiece) ” 253 Grün’s Design for Float in Cavalcade of La Vache Enragée ” 258 xviii The Real Montmartre (I. La rue Mont-Cénis) facing ” 262 Montmartre Types ” 268 The Real Montmartre (II. La rue St. Vincent) facing ” 268 The Real Montmartre (III. La rue Mont-Cénis) ” 273 A Montmartre Carrousel (Tailpiece) ” 278 The Real Montmartre (IV. Cabaret du Lapin Agile) ” 281 At Aristide Bruant’s (Cabaret du Boulevard Rochechouart) facing ” 284 “Buffalo” ” 290 Alexandre ” 294 At Alexandre’s (Cabaret de la rue Pigalle) facing ” 296 Maurice Boukay ” 297 Maquereaux ” 300 Jehan Rictus (with fac-simile of manuscript) facing ” 300 “Les Corbeaux” (Tailpiece) ” 310 Emile Zola facing ” 314 Anatole France ” 317 A Pair of Army Officers ” 321 Octave Mirbeau ” 326 Xavier Privas delivering his Lecture “L’Argent contre l’Humanité” facing ” 342 La Comédie Française (Tailpiece) ” 358 Laurent Tailhade facing ” 368 Clovis Hugues ” 369 Paris from Montmartre (Tailpiece) ” 388 A Contrast in Funerals facing ” 394 The Eternal Realities (Endpiece) ” 399 Place Clichy xix 1 Place Clichy Part I THE PEOPLE “I think I hear a little bird who sings The people by and by will be the stronger: The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings So much into the raw as quite to wrong her Beyond the rules of posting,—and the mob At last fall sick of imitating Job.” Lord Byron. Chapter I WHAT THE ANARCHIST WANTS “Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire! To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,! Would we not shatter it to bits, and then! Remould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!” Rubáiyát of Omar Kháyyám. “Le moins de gouvernement possible.” Victor Hugo (Programme Politique). “The state is the curse of the individual.”—Ibsen. Manual labour, far from being an occasion for shame, honours man. What is shameful is to use man as a vile instrument of lucre, to esteem him only in proportion to the vigour of his arms.”—Encyclical of Leo XIII. Enough of these ambiguous formulas, such as ‘the right to work’ or ‘to each the integral product of his labour.’ What we proclaim is the right to a competency, to a competency for all.”—Kropotkine. And the savants will be troubled in their knowledge, and this knowledge will appear to them like a little black point when the sun of the intelligences shall rise.”—Lamennais. 2 3 4 “T HERE is nothing new under the sun,” and anarchism is no exception to the truth of this maxim. But the beginnings of anarchistic philosophy and the development of anarchism, however suggestive they may be, do not fall within the province of this volume. Therefore it is not necessary to expound the tenets or to trace the influence of the anarchist or semi-anarchist devotees through the ages: the Taoists of China (whose founder, Lao-Tse (600 B.C.), was a contemporary of Pythagoras and Confucius), the social prophets of Islam from Mazdak in the sixth century to the wonderful Bab in the first half of the nineteenth century, Saint Anthony of Padua and Jean Vicenza in the thirteenth century, Savonarola at the end of the fifteenth, the Anabaptists under Thomas Munzer, Mathiesen, and Jean de Leyde in the sixteenth, Razine the Cossack and the Scottish Covenanters in the seventeenth, Mandrin the brigand in the eighteenth, and the Jesuits of Paraguay in the last half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. I do not pretend to determine whether the Guelph-Ghibelline feud, which rent Europe for more than two hundred years, was or was not a struggle between despotism and religious democracy, or whether Gregory VII., Alexander III., Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Boniface VIII. were or were not revolutionary popes endeavouring to realise the social dreams of the Franciscans and Dominicans. I do not try to discover what there is of truth in the astonishing claims of certain exalted students of occultism, mysticism, and comparative religions, that anarchism found expression in the worship of the Indian Siva, the Persian Mithras, the Chaldean Baal-Moloch, and the Greek Bacchus; in the conspiracy of the Bacchanals (described by Livy) in the first half of the second century before Christ; in the colossal extravagances of the Cæsars; in the bizarreries of the Nicolaites, the Cainites, the Carpocratians, the Ophites, and other Gnostics of Egypt during the first five centuries of the Christian era; in the Consortia under Constantine; and in the fanaticisms of the Inquisitors, the Lollards, Flagellants, Bégards, Patarins, Templars, and Devil-worshippers during the Middle Ages. I do not dwell upon nor so much as collate the anarchistic tendencies and sanctions which anarchist scholars discern in the writings or sayings of Job and the Old Testament prophets, of Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Saint Francis of Assisi, Plato, Jesus, Rabelais, Bourdaloue, and Bossuet, and the pre-Revolutionary Encyclopedists (especially Diderot and Rousseau). I even pass by the far more pertinent teachings, systems, personalities, and careers of the admitted precursors of modern anarchism; of Max Stirner and Fourier, of Proudhon, the father of modern anarchist doctrine, and of “the mysterious Russian,” Bakounine, the father of the modern anarchist party. I also pass by the agrarian revolt of Gracchus Babœuf (guillotined by Barras in 1797); the emergence of the learned Russian Kropotkine, and of the Italians Cafiero and Malatesta; the relations between French anarchism and Russian nihilism; the struggle for Italian liberation; the founding of the Internationale and of the Fédération Jurasienne; the epic struggle for the control of the Internationale between Karl Marx, representing authoritative centralisation, and Bakounine, representing anti- authoritative federalism. I neglect, in a word, the more than interesting history of the slow evolution of modern anarchism, and coming directly, without further ado, to the France of to-day, attack the questions,—What is anarchy? What does the anarchist want? And how does he hope to get it? Of the contemporary French Encyclopedists who are preparing, or think they are preparing, the revolution of the twentieth century, three are eminently fitted by their learning, by their capacity for straight thinking and utterance, by their sense of historical perspective, their power of keen analysis and bold synthesis, by their breadth, their tolerance, their humanity, their integrity, and their consecration, to answer these questions. They are Pierre Kropotkine, Elisée Reclus, and Jean Grave. But Kropotkine, while the author of such epoch-making works as La Conquête du Pain, L’Anarchie: son Idéal, and Les Paroles d’un Révolté, is a Russian, not a Frenchman, by birth and breeding, and has been little in Paris of late; and Reclus1 (one of the most learned geographers of his time), though never far away from the anarchist movement, is, by reason of his devotion to his specialty, rarely in the thick of it. Besides, he has made his home in Belgium for many years. It is to Jean Grave, therefore, the youngest of the three, the present editor of the journal Les Temps Nouveaux and author of La Société Mourante, La Société Future, La Société au Lendemain de la Révolution, L’Individu et la Société, and L’Anarchie: son But, ses Moyens, that it seems best to confide the delicate task of presenting the French anarchistic idea and ideal; and, because I cannot trust myself to summarise without bias the credo of a sect to which I do not belong, I quote in full the comprehensive first chapter of his important doctrinal volume, L’Anarchie: son But, ses Moyens:— “In spite of the fact that the idea of anarchy has emerged from the obscurity in which men have attempted to stifle it, in spite of the fact that to-day (thanks to persecution, thanks to laws of exception such as are made in the worst monarchies) the words ‘anarchy’ and ‘anarchist’ are unfamiliar to none, there are not many who know exactly what anarchy is. “The intervention of the anarchists in the Dreyfus affair, where they were much in evidence, had the effect of bringing them into contact with bourgeois politicians, who knew absolutely nothing about them; but anarchy did not come out into a clearer light from this association. “Anarchy, in the eyes of some, is robbery, assassination, bombs, a return to savagery; anarchists are only house- breakers, loafers, who would divide all wealth in order to be able to amuse themselves with doing nothing. “In the eyes of others, anarchy is a sort of Utopia, of golden-age dream which they readily grant to be very beautiful, but a dream good at best to illustrate books of ethics or fantastic social schemes with. The most kindly disposed regard anarchy as a vague aspiration which they do not hesitate to recognise as desirable for humanity to attain, but as so completely inaccessible that there is no reason for making any decided effort to realise it, and consider the anarchist as a species of lunatic whom it is prudent to avoid, a pitiful illuminé who strays from the practicable paths 5 6 7 8 to lose himself in the vagueness of Utopia. “They are very few who know that anarchy is a theory resting on rational bases, that anarchists are men who, having collated the complaints of those who suffer from the actual social order, and having saturated themselves with human aspirations, have undertaken a critique of the institutions which control us, analysing them, weighing their worth, and estimating what they are capable of producing, and who, from the sum total of their observations, deduce logical natural laws for the organisation of a better society. “Of course, the anarchists do not pretend to have invented the critique of the social order. Others had done that before them. As soon as power began to exist, there were malcontents who made no bones of railing at its acts; and, if we possessed the legends which men handed down from generation to generation before writing was known, we should probably find therein satires against the chiefs. It is quite possible to criticise the existing order of things without being an anarchist, and there are those who have done this in a successful fashion which the anarchists will never surpass. “But what anarchists believe they have done more than the other critics, more than the existing socialistic schools or the socialistic schools which preceded them, is to have gotten their bearings in the midst of the confused mass of errors which spring from the complexity of social relations, to have remounted to the causes of misery, of exploitation, and finally to have laid bare the political error which made men place hope in good govern ments, good governors, good legislation, good dispensers of justice, as efficacious remedies for the ills from which humanity suffers. “Anarchy, studying man in his nature, in his evolution, demonstrates that there cannot be good laws or good governments or faithful appliers of the laws. “Every human law is necessarily arbitrary; for, however just it may be, and whatever may be the breadth of view of those who make it, it represents only a part of human development, only an infinitesimal fragment of the aspirations of all. Every law formulated by a parliament, far from being the product of a great conception, is, on the contrary, only the mean of public opinion, since parliament itself, by its very manner of recruitment, represents only a very mediocre mean. “Applied to all in the same fashion, the law becomes thus, by the very force of things, arbitrary and unjust for those who are on this side or on that side of the mean. “A law, then, not being able to represent the aspirations of all, can be made effective on those who would infringe it only by fear of punishment. Its application involves the existence of a judicial and repressive apparatus, and it becomes thus the more odious as its coercive force is the more sure. “The law unjust to start with, because, conception of minority or majority, it wishes to impose itself on the whole, becomes still more unjust because applied by men who, having the defects and the passions, the prejudices and the personal errors, of appreciation of men, cannot act, whatever be their probity, except under the influence of these prejudices and errors. “There can be no good laws, nor good judges, nor, consequently, good government, since the existence of these implies a single rule of conduct for all, while it is diversity which characterises individuals.” “No society based on human laws, then,—and this is the case of all societies past and present,—can fully satisfy the ideal of every one. “The minority of idlers alone who, by ruse and by force, have managed to seize the power, and who use, to their own profit, the forces of the collectivity,—this minority alone, I say, can find their account in this order of things and interest themselves in its prolongation. But they can only make it last with the help of the ignorance of individuals regarding their own personalities, their possibilities, and their capacities. “But however great the ignorance of the people may be, when the pressure is too strong, they revolt. This is why our society is so unstable, why the laws are repeatedly violated by those who make them or by those who are charged to apply them, when their interest points that way; for, power being based on force, it is to force that all those resort who are in power and wish to maintain themselves there, as well as all those who are in pursuit of power. “Made to be applied to all and to content everybody, the laws derange more or less every individual, who wishes, while he is under them, to abolish or relax them, but who wishes them more vigorous when it is his turn to apply them. “Nevertheless, new aspirations do arise; and, when the antagonism becomes too great between these aspirations and the political laws, the door opens wide to disorders and to revolution. “And it will always be the same so long as no other way is found to repair the harm done by a law recognised as bad than the application of a new law. This ignorance on the part of men makes human institutions, once established, resist changes. The names vary, but the things remain. “Men, not having yet been able to arrive at a social conception other than that of authority, are condemned to turn in the same circle, and will be condemned to turn in the same circle so long as they shall not have altered their conception. Royalty, empire, dictatorship, republic, centralisation, federalism, communalism,—these are all at bottom so many phases of authority. Whether in the name of a single person or in the deceitful name of the majority, always the will of some is imposed on all. 9 10 JEAN GRAVE IN HIS WORKSHOP JEAN GRAVE IN HIS WORKSHOP “There is no more intimate or engaging business interior in Paris.” “Furthermore, if the individual increases his knowledge in a continuous fashion, it is only in a very slow fashion. Still he has arrived to-day at the point where, to develop himself in his integrity, it is necessary that his autonomy be complete, that his aspirations express themselves freely, that he be permitted to cultivate them in all their breadth, that nothing fetter his free initiative and his evolution. “And so it is that now, at last, anarchists draw from their study of the existing social organisation this important lesson: that human laws ought to disappear, carrying with them the legislative, executive, judicial, and repressive systems which impede human evolution by causing murderous crises in which many thousands of human beings perish, by delaying all humanity in its forward march, and, sometimes, even by dragging it backward.” “While the politicians have not got beyond this formula, which they believe the ne plus ultra of liberty,—‘l’individu libre dans la commune, la commune libre dans l’état,’—we know that these political forms are incompatible with liberty, since they tend always to submit a number of men to the same rule; and we formulate our device, ‘l’individu libre dans l’humanité libre,’—the individual, left free to attach himself according to his tendencies, his affinities, free to seek out those with whom his liberty and his aptitudes can accord, unfettered by the political organisations which are determined by geographical or territorial considerations. “For man to develop himself freely in his physical, intellectual, and moral nature, for him to reveal all his capacities, it is necessary that each individual be able to satisfy all his physical, intellectual, and moral needs. And this satisfaction can only be assured to all if the soil, which is the creation of no one, is placed at the free disposition of whoever is capable of tilling it, and if the existing equipment, product of the labour of preceding generations, ceases to belong to a minority of parasites who exact a large tithe upon the resultant of its activity and the activity of those who work it. “The earth too much cut up, on the one hand, to permit the small land-holders to employ the powerful machinery which would effectively second their efforts, appropriated in immense lots, on the other hand, by a class of idlers who secure, without work, an income from the production of those to whom they consent to rent,2—the earth nourishes its existing population with difficulty. And I have not counted the ignorance which is fostered by a defective education and which causes the greater part of the cultivators to cling to the traditional processes of cultivation,—processes which demand far too much work and effort for the results. “Yet, in spite of these sources of waste, the earth would still manage to nourish, after a fashion, every living being if the middlemen were not there to warehouse the products and to speculate and gamble upon them, in such a way that the majority of persons are never in a condition to buy what they need. The fault, then, if all have not enough to eat, lies with the defective social organisation, and is not due to lack of production. A better distribution of products would alone be sufficient to give every one enough to eat, while a better management of the soil and a better use of the instruments of production would bring about abundance for all. “A clearer comprehension of things will bring the peasant to understand that his interest, properly understood, is to unite his parcel of land with the parcels of his neighbours, to associate his efforts with their efforts, in order to diminish his toil and increase his production. “And as no one has the right to sterilise, for his sole pleasure, the slightest parcel of land, so long as there is a single being who has not plenty to eat, the coming revolution will have for one of its objects to put the soil into the hands of those who shall wish to cultivate it and the farm machines into the hands of those who shall wish to operate them. “All this, anarchy seeks to demonstrate to the peasant, explaining to him that the masters who impose upon him exploit likewise the workman of the towns, trying to make him comprehend that, far from considering the town workman as an enemy, he should stretch out his hand to him, to the end that they may aid each other in the struggle for life, and arrive thus at disembarrassing themselves of their common parasites. 11 12 13 “To the workman, anarchy demonstrates that he must not expect his enfranchisement to come from providential saviours, nor from the palliatives with which the puppets of politics, who wish to control his vote and so dominate him, try to dazzle him; that the emancipation of the individual can be brought about only by the individual’s own action, can result only from his own energy and his own efforts when, knowing how to act, he shall use his liberty in place of demanding it.” “It is not alone to those who are dying of want that anarchy addresses itself. To satisfy one’s hunger is a primordial right which takes precedence over all other rights and stands at the head of the claims of a human being. But anarchy embraces all the aspirations and neglects no need. The list of its demands includes all the demands of humanity. “Mirbeau, in his Mauvais Bergers, makes one of the characters proclaim to workmen on a strike their right to beauty. And, indeed, every being has a right not only to what sustains life, but also to whatever renders it easy, enlivens it, and embellishes it. They are rare, alas! in our social state, who can live their lives amply. “Some there are whose physical needs are satisfied, but who are retarded in their evolution by a social organisation which is conditioned by the narrowness of conception of the average intellect,—artists, littérateurs, savants, all who think, suffer morally, if not physically, from the present order of things. “Daily they are wounded by the pettinesses of current existence, and disheartened by the mediocrity of the public to whom they address themselves, and whom they must consider if they wish to sell their works,—a situation which conducts those who would not die of hunger to compromise, to vulgar and mediocre art. “Their education has led many of them to believe that they are of an essence superior to the peasant, to the manual worker, from whom, for the matter of that, they are for the most part descended. They have been persuaded that it is necessary, if their ‘talent’ is to develop and their imagination is to have full swing, that the ‘vile multitude’ take upon its shoulders the heavy tasks, devote itself to serving them, and wear itself out in making, by its labour, life easy for them; that they must have, if their genius is to attain its complete fruition, the same atmosphere of luxury and of idleness as the aristocratic classes. “A healthy conception of things teaches that a human being, to be complete, must exercise his limbs as well as his brain, that labour is degrading only because it has been made a sign of servitude, and that a man truly worthy of the name does not need to impose the cares of his existence on others. “One man is as good as another: that there are degrees of development is due to causes of which we are ignorant, but such or such an illiterate may have moral qualities superior to the moral qualities of those who are more learned than he. In any case, intelligence, if it blesses him who possesses it, does not confer on him the right to exploit or govern others. These differences of development merely imply differences of desires, of aspirations, of ideals; and it is for the individual himself who is so favoured to realise what responds best to his conception of happiness. “Besides, these differences of development only appear to us as great as they do because education, ill understood and ill distributed, perpetuates prejudices and errors. Imagination, invention, observation, judgment, if they vary somewhat in intensity in different individuals, do not differ in essence. They are simple faculties of our brain which do not lose their quality for being employed to construct a machine or a house, solder a kettle, or make a shirt, rather than to write a romance or a treatise on anatomy. “Greedy of hierarchy, we humans have divided into high and low occupations the diverse employment of our forces. The parasites who have made themselves our masters, all in proclaiming themselves superior, have established that there is nothing truly noble but idleness, that there is nothing truly beautiful but force exerted to destroy; that force expended to produce, to draw out of the earth and out of industry whatever is necessary to sustain life, is of a vile, inferior quality, and that its use should be reserved to the servile classes. “On this basis we continue to declare certain occupations low, forgetting that they are such only because one class is forced to pursue them in the service of another class, to submit to its orders and caprices, to abdicate its liberty; but there can be nothing base in no matter what work which consists in ministering to our own needs. “The artist and the littérateur belong to the masses. They cannot isolate themselves, and inevitably feel the effects of the surrounding mediocrity. It is vain for them to intrench themselves behind the privileges of the ruling classes, to attempt to withdraw into their ‘tour d’ivoire’: if there is debasement for him who is reduced to performing the vilest tasks to satisfy his hunger, the morality of those who condemn him to it is not superior to his own; if obedience degrades, command, far from exalting character, degrades it also. “To live their dream, realise their aspirations, they, too, must work—for the moral and intellectual elevation of the masses. They, too, must understand that their own development is made up of the intellectuality of all; that, whatever the heights they believe they have attained, they belong to the multitude. If they strain to rise above the multitude, a thousand bonds hold them to it, fetter their action and their thought, preventing them forever from reaching the summits they have glimpsed. A society normally constituted does not admit slaves, but a mutual exchange of services...