Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism
Author | Abbé Augustin Barruel |
---|---|
Translator | Robert Clifford |
Country | England |
Language | English |
Publisher | Hudson & Goodwin |
Publication date | 1798–1799 |
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (French: Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Jacobinisme) is a book by Abbé
In the book, Barruel claims that the
Barruel's Memoirs are considered to be one of the founding documents of the right-wing interpretation of the French Revolution.[1] They became popular immediately after they were published and were read and commented on by most of the important literary and political journals of the day.[2] The four volumes of the text were published in a number of languages and created a debate about the role of the philosophes, their ideas, and the Enlightenment in the French Revolution. They remained in print well into the 20th century and contributed to the historical interpretation of the late 18th century in France. The success of Barruel's work is testimony to the anti-philosophical discourse that spread in the aftermath of the revolution. Barruel left behind a construction of the Enlightenment that was destined to influence subsequent interpretations. He wound accusations tightly around his foes and tied them into positions from which they could not escape.[3] The text created a link between the Enlightenment and the Revolution and this connection remains a topic of historical debate.
Background
Abbé Augustin Barruel (1741–1820) became a
Synopsis
This article is part of Conservatism in France |
Outline of the work
In his "Preliminary Discourse", Barruel defines the three forms of conspiracy as the "conspiracy of impiety" against God and Christianity, the "conspiracy of rebellion" against kings and monarchs, and "the conspiracy of anarchy" against society in general.[9] He sees the end of the 18th century as "one continuous chain of cunning, art, and seduction"[10] intended to bring about the "overthrow of the altar, the ruin of the throne, and the dissolution of all civil society".[11]
The first volume examines the anti-Christian conspiracy that was begun by
The second volume focuses on the anti-monarchical conspiracy that was led by
Barruel's third volume addresses the antisocial conspiracy that was the objective of the
For Barruel, the final designs of the coalition of the philosophes, the Freemasons and the Illuminati were achieved by the Jacobins. These clubs were formed by "the adepts of impiety, the adepts of rebellion, and the adepts of anarchy"[27] working together to implement their radical agenda. Their guiding philosophy and actions were the culmination of the conspiracy, as they directly wanted to end the monarchy and the church. Barruel believed that the only difference between the Jacobins and their precursors was that the Jacobins actually brought down the church and the throne and were able to institute their basic beliefs and goals, while their precursors only desired to do these things without much success.[28]
The Memoirs and the French Revolution
According to Barruel, the first major assault on the Enlightenment came during the
For Barruel, the Revolution was not a spontaneous popular uprising expressing a long-suppressed general will. It was instead the consequence of a united minority group who used force, subterfuge and terror to impose their will on an innocent and unsuspecting population.[31] Barruel believed that the Revolution was caused by Voltaire, Rousseau and the other philosophes who conspired with secret societies to destroy Catholicism and the monarchy in France. He argued that the writings of the philosophes had a great influence on those who would lead the Revolution and that Voltaire and his followers were responsible for the training of revolutionaries. It was from the followers of the philosophes "that the revolutionary ministers Necker and Turgot started up; from this class arose those grand revolutionary agents, the Mirabeaux, Sieyes, Laclos, Condorcets; these revolutionary trumps, the Brissots, Champforts, Garats, Cheniers; those revolutionary butchers, the Carras, Frerons, Marats".[32]
The Encyclopédie
Within the Memoirs, Barruel alleged that Diderot's Encyclopédie was a Masonic project. He believed that the written works of the philosophes penetrated all aspects of society and that this massive collection was of particular significance. The Encyclopédie was only the first step in philosophizing mankind and was necessary to spread the impious and anti-monarchical writings.[33] This created a mass movement against the church and society. Barruel believed that the conspirators attempt to "imbue the minds of the people with the spirit of insurrection and revolt"[34] and to promote radicalism within all members of society. This was believed to be the main reason behind the Encyclopédie as it was "a vast emporium of all the sophisms, errors, or calumnies which had ever been invented against religion".[35] It contained "the most profligate and impious productions of Voltaire, Diderot, Boulanger, La Mettrie, and of other Deists or Atheists of the age, and this under the specious pretence of enlightening ignorance".[36] Barruel believed the volumes of the Encyclopédie were valuable in controlling the minds of intellectuals and in creating a public opinion against Christianity and monarchy.
Philosophism
Philosophism was a term used by Barruel within the Memoirs to refer to the pretend philosophy that the philosophes practiced. It was originally coined by Catholic opponents of the philosophes but was popularized by Barruel.[37] It referred to the principles that were shared by philosophes, Freemasons, and Illuminati. Barruel defined philosophism as "the error of every man who, judging of all things by the standard of his own reason, rejects in religious matters every authority that is not derived from the light of nature. It is the error of every man who denies the possibility of any mystery beyond the limits of reason if everyone who, discarding revelation in defence of the pretended rights of reason, Equality, and Liberty, seeks to subvert the whole fabric of the Christian religion".[38]
The term had a lasting influence as by the end of the 18th century it had become a popular term of abuse used by conservative journals to refer to supporters of the Revolution.[39] These journals accused those who practiced philosophism as having no principles or respect for authority. They were skeptics who failed to believe in the monarchy and the church and thus, had no principles. The use of the term became pervasive in the Anti-Jacobin Review and contributed to the belief in a connection between the Enlightenment and the Revolution and its supporters. Philosophism became a powerful tool of anti-revolutionary and anti-Jacobin rhetoric.
Members of the conspiracy
Barruel identified a number of individuals who he believed played direct roles in the Enlightenment and the conspiracy against Christianity and the state. He identified
According to Barruel, this group of influential leaders worked together with a number of adepts who supported the conspiracy. The most important adept that Barruel identifies is
Barruel's techniques of argumentation
As a Catholic apologist of the religious and political status quo, Barruel downplayed his own Catholicism and presented himself as a neutral party within the radicalized debate surrounding the Revolution. His tactic was to cite document after document with a commentary that effectively showed it was the truth. The reader of the Memoirs could have been any individual who doubted some of Barruel's inferences, but who would eventually be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of evidence against the Enlightenment and liberation movements. His fanatical hatred for revolutionary and enlightenment ideas is hidden behind a faux neutrality and casuistic slight of pen. By isolating single passages and quoting them out of context, Barruel presented what seemed to be a convincing case.[46] He made up for quality with quantity and persuaded a number of contemporaries to adopt his view. The Memoirs is constructed according to reason and Barruel attempts to use the Enlightenment's own tool to bring about its demise.
Reception
Barruel's work was influential and impossible to ignore. The Freemasons of France, Germany, and England angrily contested his assertions and a voluminous literature was the consequence. Even his critics were forced to take him seriously in their attempt to refute his arguments.[47] The Memoirs were written about and discussed at length by leading literary and philosophical figures.
Edmund Burke, an English political thinker and the Revolution's most known intellectual foe, was impressed by the work of Barruel in uncovering a connection between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Burke wrote a letter to Barruel and expressed his admiration. He wrote, "I cannot easily express to you how much I am instructed and delighted by the first volume of your History of Jacobinism." He praised "the whole of the wonderful narrative" for being supported by documents and proofs with "the most judicial regularity and exactness." At the end of the letter Burke added: "I forgot to say, that I have known myself, personally, five of your principal conspirators; and I can undertake to say from my own certain knowledge, that as far back as the year 1773, they were busy in the plot you have so well described, and in the manner, and on the principle you have so truly represented. To this I can speak as a witness."[48] Burke's own works were also filled with references to the philosophe sect and a dislike for their "fanaticism, atheism and perversion of public morals".
Others soon took up the arguments of Burke and Barruel. In England, the Scottish scientist John Robison published Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies.[49] The work, published in 1798, detailed a conspiracy that involved philosophes, Masons, and the Illuminati and their desire to "root out all the religious establishments and overturn all the existing governments of Europe".[50] Robinson's text has been characterized as being less detailed but more refined than Barruel's Memoirs. Even with these differences, Robinson's work supported the conspiracy that Barruel purported to have discovered. Barruel himself commented on the similarities, stating "Without knowing it, we have fought for the same cause with the same arms, and pursued the same course".[51] The two writers had many similarities in their arguments and conclusions and their books spawned an anti-Enlightenment and anti-revolution discussion that was constructed on the same theses.
Despite the initial popularity of the book, Barruel's opponents soon rejected his book.
Contribution and legacy
Barruel's version of the revolution, which blamed specific men and pointed out a single cause, has been rejected by the majority of scholars, as the concept of a "master conspiracy" lies on the fringes of historical analysis. Still, his Memoirs do retain historical significance. Amos Hofman has argued that Barruel's work "appears to be the first systematic attempt to discuss the role of conspiracy in a revolution".[55] The theory of conspiracy is a tool for Barruel that is used in an attempt to discredit "public politics", or politics based on the support of public opinion. Hofman shows how Barruel sought to prove that public politics, demanded by both the philosophes and the revolutionaries, could not in fact exist, as it was an illusion designed to create support for their private desire to control France.[56] Barruel's theory of conspiracy is important as a "reaction to a problem that was at the focus of the ideological struggle during the second half of the eighteenth century – the problem of the rise of public opinion as a political factor that had to be taken into account by the leaders of society".[57] According to this view, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism can be read as an attempt to understand the public appeal of the ideas of the Enlightenment and mass politics. Barruel's text is also important for its entrenchment of an understanding of conspiracy within modern politics. Conspiracy was seen as a motivating cause of revolution because it suggested conflict within the society. It viewed politics as a clash between opposing ideas which, because of substantial division, could not be solved by a compromise.[58] The society that Barruel creates was not divided by legitimate beliefs and divergent interests. Instead, it was a binary divide between the united and wholly patriotic group that included Barruel and the unholy alliance of traitors and criminals.[59] Barruel's theory of a master conspiracy and his understanding of the causes of political change still influence society.
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism has also been seen as a primary source that can be used to examine Freemasonry in Europe. Even though Freemasonry became a target in the paranoid literature that blamed the Revolution partly on the activities of Masons, the work still had some historical value in regard to the group. Margaret Jacob argues that Barruel's writings "offer a point of departure for understanding the relationship between the Continental Enlightenment, as it was lived in the clubs, societies, and lodges of the eighteenth century, and the outbreak of the democratic revolutions in the late 1780s in Amsterdam, Brussels, and most important, Paris."[60] She believes that if readers can look past the paranoia within the text, it can provide information about how Freemasons were treated during the Revolution. Jacob also sees value in the text because Barruel argued for a distinction between English Freemasonry and its Continental counterpart.[61] Barruel believed that his allegations against the Continental Freemasons did not apply to the respectable English Freemasons. The activities of the English Freemasons were not the cause for concern. He distinguishes between the circumstances of the French and the English and shows that the language used in each situation was important. He believes that the Masonic language about equality, liberty, and fraternity bears relation to the radical and democratic phase of the French Revolution and to Jacobin language.[62] From the book, Margaret Jacob salvages the realization that language is important and that it can have a social force all of its own.
Barruel's polemic is an important source for the understanding of the mentality of the opponents of the French Revolution and their understanding of the ideological origins of the Revolution. Furthermore, Barruel is seen as the father of modern conspiracy theory. The Memoirs contain all of the elements that continue to characterize conspiracy narratives today, including the argument that a hidden group is orchestrating world events behind the scenes, and an attempt to construct a direct lineage from the past to the present.[63] Barruel presents a thorough application of conspiracy theory methodology. As a result, he has had a lasting influence on following generations. Various 20th Century works attacking Communism and the Russian Revolution can be seen to follow his model.
See also
- Counter-Enlightenment
- Science in the Age of Enlightenment
- Philosophe
- Augustin Barruel
- Encyclopédie
- Frederick II of Prussia
- Conspiracy theory
- Freemasonry
- Illuminati
Notes
- ^ Amos Hofman, “Opinion, Illusion, and the Illusion of Opinion: Barruel’s Theory of Conspiracy,” Eighteenth Century Studies Vol. 27 No. 1 (1993), 28.
- ^ Hofman, 28.
- ^ Darrin M. McMahon, Enemies of the Enlightenment, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 192.
- ^ Peter Knight, Conspiracy Theories in American History, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003), 115.
- ^ Graeme Garrard, Counter Enlightenments: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 37.
- ^ Jasper Ridley, The Freemasons, (London: Constable and Company Limited, 2003), 142.
- ^ Will Kaufman, Britain and the Americas, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005), 488.
- ^ McMahon, 113.
- ^ Abbé Augustin Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, (Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799), Vol. 1, vii.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, 363.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, Preliminary Discourse, xiii.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, chap. 3, 48.
- ^ McMahon, 101.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 4, chap. 12, 399.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 5, chap. 14, 561.
- ^ Barruel, Vol.4, Conclusion, 561.
- ^ Garrard, 45.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 2, chap. 4, 138.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 2, chap. 4, 136–137.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, chap. 2. 36.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 4, Conclusion, 584.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 2, chap. 14, 461-462.
- ^ David Chandler, “Abbé Barruel, SJ, William Taylor, and the Pelican Business,” The Allen Review Issue No. 19, (1998), 1.
- ^ Ridley, 143.
- ^ Hofman, 38.
- ^ Hofman, 34.
- ^ Garrard, 48.
- ^ Garrard, 48
- ^ Garrard, 36.
- ^ Garrard, 36.
- ^ Garrard, 45.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 4, conclusion, 562.
- ^ Hofman, 40.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 2, chap. 5, 159.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, chap. 4, 57.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 4, chap. 13, 547-548.
- ^ James Schmidt, “Inventing the Enlightenment Anti-Jacobins, British Hegelians and the Oxford English Dictionary,” Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 64 No. 3, July 2003, 431.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, chap. 1, 4.
- ^ Schmidt, 432.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, chap. 1, 2.
- ^ Garrard, 44.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 1, chap. 5, 79.
- ^ Garrard, 45.
- ^ Barruel, Vol. 2, chap. 4, 132.
- ^ Garrard, 45.
- ^ McMahon, 101.
- ^ Knight, 116.
- ^ Edmund Burke to Abbé Barruel, May 1, 1797, in Thomas W. Copeland, ed., The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 10 Vols. (Chicago and Cambridge, 1958–1978), 9: 319–320.
- ^ McMahon, 113.
- ^ McMahon, 113–114.
- ^ McMahon, 114.
- ^ Mournier, Jean Joseph. On the Influence Attributed to Philosophers, Free-masons, and to the Illuminati, on the Revolution of France, W. and C. Spilsbury, 1801.
- ^ Hofman, 31.
- ^ Hofman, 31.
- ^ Garrard, 32.
- ^ Garrard, 32.
- ^ Garrard, 32.
- ^ Hofman, 60.
- ^ Robert Tombs, France 1814–1914, (New York: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1996), 80.
- ^ Margaret C. Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 11.
- ^ Jacob, 11.
- ^ Jacob, 11.
- ^ Knight, 115.
Bibliography
- Barruel, Abbé Augustin. Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism. Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799.
- Chandler, David. "Abbé Barruel, SJ, William Taylor, and the Pelican Business." The Allen Review Issue No. 19, 1998.
- Edmund Burke to Abbé Barruel, May 1, 1797. In Thomas W. Copeland, ed.. The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 10 Vols.. Chicago and Cambridge, 1958–1978.
- Garrard, Graeme. Counter Enlightenments: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
- Hofman, Amos. "Opinion, Illusion, and the Illusion of Opinion: Barruel's Theory of Conspiracy." Eighteenth Century Studies Vol. 27 No. 1 (1993). 27–60.
- Jacob, Margaret C.. Living the Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
- Kaufman, Will. Britain and the Americas. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005.
- Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Theories in American History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003.
- McMahon, Darrin M.. Enemies of the Enlightenment. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
- Ridley, Jasper. The Freemasons. London: Constable and Company Limited, 2003.
- Schmidt, James. "Inventing the Enlightenment Anti-Jacobins, British Hegelians and the Oxford English Dictionary." Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 64 No. 3, July 2003. 421–443.
- Tombs, Robert. France 1814–1914. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1996.
External links
- Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism: