Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/124

110 there were 373 "unknown barristers and lawyers of a minor order, notaries, King's attorneys, court-roll commissioners, judges and recorders of the presidial bench, bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simple practitioners shut up since their youth within the narrow circle of a mediocre jurisdiction or the routine of continual scribbling, without any other escape than philosophical wanderings through imaginary spaces under the guidance of Rousseau or of Raynal." We have some difficulty nowadays in understanding the importance which lawyers possessed in ancient France; but a multitude of jurisdictions existed; property owners were extremely punctilious in going to law about questions which appear to us nowadays as of very minor importance, but which seemed of enormous importance to them on account of the dovetailing of feudal law with the law of property; functionaries of a judicial order were found everywhere, and they enjoyed the greatest prestige with the people.

This class brought to the Revolution a great deal of administrative capacity; it was owing to them that the country was able to pass easily through the crisis which shook it for ten years, and that Napoleon was able to reconstruct regular administrative services so rapidly; but this class also brought a mass of prejudices which caused those of its representatives who occupied high positions to commit grave errors. It is impossible to understand the character of Robespierre, for example, if we compare him to the politicians of to-day; we must always see in him the serious lawyer, taken up with his duties, anxious not to tarnish the professional honour of an orator of the bar; moreover, he had literary leanings and was a disciple of Rousseau. He had scruples about legality which astonish the historians of to-day; when he was obliged to come to supreme resolutions and to defend himself before the Convention, he showed a