Page:Voices of Revolt - Volume 1.djvu/18

 14 may be evolved from the modes of thought of Rousseau, whose books were then the rage. For Robespierre, no less than for Rousseau, the basis of democracy is a self-governing community. Maximilien says: the legislator must be bound; likewise, his personal will must be joined to the will of the masses; he must himself again return to the people, become a simple citizen. Elections and re-elections must take place again and again.

Robespierre is not so much of a dogmatist as bourgeois historians would make of him. "The Convention," says Robespierre, "is not a writer of books, not a deviser of metaphysical systems; it is a political body, commissioned to safeguard the rights of the French people." He permitted his system to be corrected by the facts. If we may speak of fanaticism, Maximilien is fanatical only in the sense that he never doubted the outcome of the Revolution. "To despair," he says in one of his speeches, "is equivalent to treason."

The arsenal of Maximilien’s power was the Club of the Jacobins. The clubs were then the equivalent of our present political parties; they were formed in various parts of the city; the earliest ones arose at the period of the first session of the Constituent Assembly.

Their destiny reflects the entire history of the French Revolution. At first the clubs were called the "Association of Friends of the Constitution"