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Updated: June 20, 2025
Equality, education, deliverance from poverty and from burdensome toil, have been the blessings sought. Since the French Revolution of 1848, these particular attempts of philanthropic socialism have passed out of notice. Shortly after the Reign of Terror, Babeuf attempted to overthrow the authorities in Paris, and to bring to pass an equal division of property.
Conspiracy was a striking feature of the period that followed the fall of Robespierre; in fact, for the ten years that follow it may be said that all internal politics revolve about conspiracies. One of the most noteworthy was the one that came to a head in the spring of 1796, under the lead of Babeuf. Babeuf was a revolutionist of extreme views, but views rather social than political.
He did not propose any radical methods for dealing with these difficulties, which he thought would diminish in time, without, however, entirely disappearing. He was too deeply imbued with the views of the Economists to be seduced by the theories of Rousseau, Mably, Babeuf, and others, into advocating communism or the abolition of private property.
He shows that vice is indispensable and useful in present-day society. This, however, was no justification for present-day society. The doctrines of French materialism form the starting-point of Fourier. The followers of Babeuf were crude, uncivilized materialists, but even fully-developed communism derived directly from French materialism.
He received a grant of £1200, and was elected to the Convention in the following year. Taken prisoner by the Prussians, he impressed Goethe by his coolness in adversity. The Austrians took him at the siege of Maubeuge, and he was exchanged for the king's daughter. In the communistic conspiracy of Babeuf he nearly lost his life, and for a time he lived in a cavern, underground.
It is not a product of modern conditions. Rather it harks back to the earlier conspiratory Socialism of Blanqui, with its traditions inherited from Robespierre and Babeuf. So far as its advocates are concerned, Marx and the whole modern Socialist movement might as well never have existed at all.
Shortly afterwards the high court of Vendome tried Babeuf and his accomplices, among whom were Amar, Vadier, and Darthe, formerly secretary to Joseph Lebon. They none of them belied themselves; they spoke as men who feared neither to avow their object, nor to die for their cause. At the beginning and the end of each sitting, they sang the Marseillaise.
Must I send Citizen Portalis to Sinnamari, and Citizen Devaisne to Madagascar, and then must I make for myself a Babeuf council? No, no, Citizen Truguet, you won't get me to make any change; there are none to fear except the Septembrisers. They would not spare even you yourself, and it would be in vain for you to tell them that you defended them at the Council of State.
Eulogies are here pronounced on Robespierre and on Babeuf himself; they demand the levy en masse and the disarming of "suspects." Jourdan exclaims in a toast, "Here's to the resurrection of pikes! May they in the people's hands crush out all its enemies!"
The high court condemned Babeuf and Darthe to death: as they heard their sentence they both stabbed themselves with a poignard. Babeuf was the last leader of the old commune and the committee of public safety, which had separated previous to Thermidor, and which afterwards united again. This party decreased daily. Its dispersal and isolation more especially date from this period.
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