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The historians who, from Michelet to M. Aulard, have represented the revolutionary crowd as having acted on its own initiative, without leaders, do not comprehend its psychology. Psychological Characteristics of the great Revolutionary Assemblies.
Within the last thirty years, thanks to M. Aulard and his collaborators, the history of the Revolution has been written anew, or rather for the first time. The gigantic figure of Danton stands forth to-day in its true light, as the saviour of France from the fate of Poland, and as a founder of the democratic idea.
Whatever one may think of the Revolution, an irreducible difference will always exist between historians of the school of Taine and those of the school of M. Aulard. The latter regards the sovereign people as admirable, while the former shows us that when abandoned to its instincts and liberated from all social restraint it relapses into primitive savagery.
See also Armand Brette, Recueil des documents relatifs a la convocation des etats generaux de 1789, 3 vols. There are several detailed bibliographies on the French Revolution; and since 1881 the veteran scholar Aulard has edited La revolution francaise, devoted exclusively to the subject.
When Aulard, in his illuminating criticism of Taine, writes that the journals are a very important source of the history of the French Revolution, provided they are revised and checked by one another, the statement seems in accordance with the canons of historical writing; and when he blames Taine for using two journals only and neglecting ten others which he names, the impression on the mind is the same as if Taine were charged with the neglect of evidence of another class.
M. Aulard himself understands very well the impossibilities of such a phenomenon, for he is careful, in speaking of the people, to say that he is speaking of groups, and that these groups may have been guided by leaders: ``And what, then, cemented the national unity? Who saved this nation, attacked by the king and rent by civil war? Was it Danton? Was it Robespierre? Was it Carnot?
Aulard has published an important history of the Revolution which is a good corrective to Taine's; the Ministry of Public Instruction helps the publication of the documents drawn up to guide the States-General, a vast undertaking that sheds a flood of light on the economic condition of France in 1789.
They also, according to M. Aulard, attempted to justify the massacres of September. The Terror must not be considered simply as a means of defence, but as the general process of destruction to which triumphant believers have always treated their detested enemies. Men who can put up with the greatest divergence of ideas cannot tolerate differences of belief.
Thiers, Mignet, Louis Blanc, Taine, and Lanfrey wrote on the Revolution or Napoleon. The most eminent of the newer school of scientific historians are Boissier, Sorel, Lavisse, Luchaire, and Aulard. Sainte-Beuve is only one of the foremost in the class of literary critics, in which are included Renan, Sarcey, Brunetiere, Lemaitre, Faguet, and others, themselves authors.
All this time spent in rectifying a few material errors which are not really significant has only resulted in the perpetration of the very same errors. Reviewing his work, M. A. Cochin shows that M. Aulard has at least on every other occasion been deceived by his quotations, whereas Taine erred far more rarely. The same historian shows also that we must not trust M. Aulard's sources.
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