It's a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with professor Timothy Tackett, from the University of California, Irvine. Tim Tackett is one of the great historians of the French Revolution and has produced a series of fundamentally important books on a range, of subjects, including the place of religion, the civil constitution of the clergy had it's impact during the French Revolution, a book on the flight of the king in, 1791 and a book about the revolutionary experience of the deputies of the National Assembly, and the way in which their interaction conditioned the course of the French Revolution. He's at present working on a new book on the origins of Terror during the French Revolution and that's what I'm going to take, advantage of in asking him questions about today. So Tim perhaps you could summarize to begin with, what are the key arguments in your new book about the origins of the Terror? >> I think part of the problem that, historians have with the terror, is the definition. I don't think they all agree on exactly what the terror is. For me, whats interesting, what I've been focusing on really, in recent years is the terror as repression- the terror of the revolutionary tribunal, the terror of the guillotine- why some 18,000 or 40,000 people were executed depending on the way you count them, Why did the revolutionaries begin killing one another? And we know, for example, that some 82 members of the National Convention were executed or died in prison or committed suicide in the two years of the terror of 1793 to 1794. So the problem for me is how did this happen? What's going on in their minds, what can we say about their mentalite, their psychology? And to, answer that problem, answer that question, I think one has to look at, their reason to understanding of their situation and of the circumstances to be sure, but I think one also has to look at the emotional lives of these people. And by emotions I'm not thinking simply of sentimentalism which is the definition many historians have given when they've tried to link emotion with terror. But rather on a whole range of specific emotions- on the one hand joy and enthusiasm and commitment to revolutionary ideals, and on the other hand, fear and anger and hatred. How does one come to understand this psychological life? In my view you have to look at the revolutionary process itself. This is fundamental for understanding how this came about, came about, it's not a simple process, it's a complex process. It involves precisely this extraordinary commitment of the revolutionaries to the goals of the revolution. A commitment that engendered enormous devotion, dedication, willingness to sacrifice their lives. The, famous dictum 'vivre libre ou mourir', to live free or to die, which was so important in the many oaths that were taken at this time. They were willing, the revolutionaries to some extent to attempt to win over their opponents, so that everyone would agree on the idea. But, if they did not agree and if they particularly began opposing, then they grew very impatient and even intolerant. And, the problem was that there were indeed many people, or, substantial number of people who were ready to die not to save the revolution to overturn revolution and this is the whole element of counter revolution, which has to be taken into account. Counter revolution which began very early- already in 1789 there are individuals who are demanding that this be stopped, that the revolutionary changes be pulled back and overturned. And this continues in the National Assembly. There were members of the National Assembly who were, you know, trying to overturn the revolution. This continues in the newspapers that were published at this time. Extreme right newspapers which were every bit as violent as some of the most rabid revolutionary newspapers, but demaing the overturn of the revolution. And, of courses later, were the immigrants, the emigres living abroad and with their own army and their own army and their own government in exile, threatening the revolution. It was very difficult to estimate how important this phenomenon was. And part of the reason was the veritable power vacuum that emerged. And this would be another factor that I would want to put in to this explanation. Very early in the revolution, there was, a veritable interregnum, a phenomenon of interregnum, as much of the old regime institutions, administration, judicial systems, police system virtually fell apart. By the end of 1789 about the only structures from the old regime that were still functioning, at least in many parts of the country was, where the municipalities and the municipal governments, but they were also in considerable turmoil as well. So part of it is an institutional factor, but there was also a power vacuum that I would call psychological. The very effects of liberty and the effort to find the limits of liberty, of freedom. Where does freedom end? Does it mean that now anyone is free to do whatever they want? Does it mean that soldiers and sailors no longer have to obey their commanders? Does it mean that slaves in the Caribbean can end slavery, overthrow their masters? Does it mean that workers don't have to listen to their employers? Does it mean that women no longer have to obey their husbands and their fathers? This situation of turmoil, the uncertainty of authority, create a situation which no one was quite sure who was in control of the country, and where the country was going and was only augmented the suspicions and the fear among people living through this situation. And then I would also want to include the impact of the working classes in Paris, the famous sans-culottes who indeed had a different set of values, a different interpretation of exactly what revolution meant, It's not the same. And perhaps more important, had a rather different emotional register. They were prone to rumour, they were prone, long before the revolution, to conspiracy fears. They were prone to violence in a way that is rather different, really quite different from the middle class, who had launched and initially led the revolution. The working classes, the sans-culottes were all the more important moreover in that a certain segment of the Parisian population who I would call the radical militants came to embrace this group as in a sense embodying the ideals of the Revolution. They came to believe that they had saved the Revolution several times, and in a sense they were the heart and soul of the whole movement. And so there was a kind of alliance between a certain number of middle class, militant radicals, and the working people of Paris. And it was this alliance that was to prove extremely powerful in organizing demonstrations and organizing movements in the street to change policy in the national assembly or the convention. All of this taken together created what I would call a culture of fear and mistrust. A culture of fear and mistrust, of suspicion that permeated much of the society throughout this period. The turmoil of the revolution itself, the uncertainty from day to day of what was going to happen next. And also a whole series of terrible betrayals that, of high profile individuals. Of the king to begin with in 1791 who had tried to flee the country, or at least, certainly, tried to flee to the frontier. But there was also Lafayette in 1792, who went over to the Austrians, there was Mirabeau who had turned out, letters were discovered, turned out he'd been in cahoots with the king from very early in the revolution, there was a General Dumouriez who also like Lafayette six months earlier went over to the Austrians. When Mirabeau and Lafayette betrayed the country, how can you trust anyone? How can you ever know whom you can trust? How do you know that these are not patriots or individuals wearing a mask, of patriotism, but who were really hiding, counter revolutionary or treacherous goals? And this terrible uncertainty this paranoia, to some extent, at least let's say a paranoid of style, of politics, to use the phrase, that's been used before, came to characterize much of the political activity during this period, and you find the factions deeply mistrustful of one another. Jacobins and Feuillants, Montagnards and Girodins- Many of the leaders are convinced without a doubt that their rivals are not just wrong, but they're evil, That they're hiding counter-revolutionary intentions or intentions for personal power, or are in the pay of foreign governments. All of this situation, I think, helps us explain what happened in 1793-94 and I don't think there is a simple monocausal explanation for the terror. >> So, certainly, one implication of your argument is that the old for, force of circumstance argument that the terrors is the result of necessity in terms of responding to military invasion and military crisis that simply won't do that you need to go back to this atmosphere of fear and mistrust that emerges very early in the Revolution, and as you say, there's always enough conspiracy to actually fuel the fires of mistrust and belief in, in conspiracy. If I can ask you a very difficult question then, and its slightly hypothetical, are you suggesting that if the terror is not the result of the war and armed counter revolution, that something like the terror would have emerged anyway? That such was the atmosphere of optimism, of elation on one hand and mistrust on the other from the outset, that the revolution was likely to become riven by violent conflict and division whether or not there'd been a war? >> I think that violent conflict and division was potentially there. But, I do think, and I would not deny that the circumstances of the war and perhaps even more important the counter revolution, the fear of counter revolution inside the country being stabbed in the back while you were trying to fight the war on the military front I think those are extremely important. But I guess that I would argue that they are not what would we say, necessary and sufficient to have caused the terror. So I think we do have to look both at the circumstances and the psychology. Not only what was happening but how did the people who were living through those times confront, react to, understand, interpret what was happening. >> To go back to your earlier book on the flight of the king It really, does underscore, doesn't it, the importance of that, moment when the king, as the head of state in so many meanings, is seen to be a perjurer. >> That's right. >> If you cannot trust the king. >> That's right. >> How can you trust anybody? And, it's a key theme of that book of yours, isn't it, that maybe the only way that a violent conflict could have been avoided would have been if there'd been a different type of king, who was able to exercise a different type of leadership for the revolution. >> It's great. >> But that's hypothetical. >> It's great fun to try to counter factual history, and think about that who knows, I mean who knows. But, it is clear that, what was perceived as the betrayal of the king, the perjury of the king, The lies told by the king, had an incredible impact on the whole population. And the language people used at that time to describe what the king has done is extraordinary harsh. The caricatures portraying the king are also portraying him as an animal, as a beast, and so on. And it marks a striking transformation. He was, generally seen as a hero of the revolution prior to that, so that, those key moments of course can make a great difference and did make a great difference in how the revolution developed. >> And finally Tim, I'm struck by the way in which you, like Marissa Linton, put so much emphasis on concepts such as integrity and virtue, transparency, authenticity, the measures if you like, of how patriotic you are in your devotion to the cause. And I guess that in a way stems, as you were saying, from this expectation in 1789 that this is going to be a regeneration of an entire society. And that anybody who stands in the way of that must therefore be malevolent, in some way. >> I think that developed over time. I don't think that was intrinsic, implicit, in the psychology the mentality of, let's say, 1786 or just on the eve of the revolution. I don't accept the contention that, for example, the Enlightenment, or the ideas of Rousseau, or the ideas of natural law engendered, automatically, created a plot which was to develop into a revolution and develop into Terror, no. And, I think it is important to look more carefully at what the enlightenment actually meant, what these ideas actually meant, the ideas of virtue too for that matter what they meant to people on the eve of revolution. If you look at the books future revolutionaries were reading, or at least had in their libraries, if you look at their correspondence, it's very difficult to find a set ideology or a set coherent and dominant ideology before the revolution. I think this developed after the fact. I think the enlightenment represented an enormous range of ideas, of interest, of curiosity of all kinds. I think the enlightenment did bring a kind of diffuse humanism into the generation that would make the revolution. But, I don't think there was a coherent ideology, and I think that people like Francois Furet and Jonathan Israel, who would maintain the importance of Rousseau or the importance of the radical enlightenment have a very naive understanding, of the nature of the link between ideas, and political action, between books and revolution. We can talk more about that and has been discussed in great detail, but it's very complicated. And our understanding of reception, how people actually read, what does reading mean, that turns out to be a lot more complicated than a simple cause and effect, looking at Rousseau and becoming a revolutionary. >> That's right. If only there hadn't read Rousseau, everything would have been all right. Tim, thank you for those insights. It's been a pleasure. >> Thank you. Thank you for your conversation.
